Now I'll Tell You Everything (Alice) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

he passed the bag over.
    I smiled and took a handful. Nobody had referred to me as skinny since second grade, and I was grateful for the candy bar someone gave me too.
    But lunch hour is never a full hour on a construction gang. A half hour, at most, and then we were back on the job. SLOW . . . STOP . . . SLOW . . . STOP . . . My arms were hot to the touch from the sun. Even taking off the cotton shirt barely made a difference.
    By three o’clock I had to pee again—I’d downed two cups of water from the big cooler on the back of the pickup and could have drunk more. The Porta-John had been in the sun all afternoon, and just lifting the metal latch burned my fingers.
    I considered leaving the door open for a moment, but it faced the men and the road, so I didn’t. Sweat rolled down my face.
    The stench from the toilet was overwhelming, and the toilet paper was gone.
    Trying not to retch, I got it over with as soon as possible, pulled up my jeans, and wished for the fifteenth time that I’d worn shorts, then fumbled for the door latch.
    It wouldn’t turn.
    No! I gave it a hard jiggle. Nothing. I was stuck! I was sweltering! I was being cremated alive!
    I bore down with all my strength, but I couldn’t even see the latch through all my sweat. The guys must have been playing a trick on me—just waiting till I got inside. This wasn’t funny! I’d die!
    In a panic I banged on the walls of the Porta-John, and finally I heard a man’s voice say, “Alice? Turn the handle.”
    “I am !”
    “The other way,” he instructed, and suddenly the door flew open, and I almost fell out, gasping for air. I’d been in such a hurry to leave that I’d been turning the latch the wrong way.
    “You all right?” asked the burly man in the bandana.
    I smiled sheepishly. “I am now,” I said, and wiped my arm across my forehead.
    “Easy does it,” he said. “Only thirty more minutes to go.”
    At three thirty we put the safety cones and the tools in the truck and finished off the water.
    “Thanks for helping out,” Ed told me. “I see they’ve got you down for the bulldozer tomorrow. Come a little early and Lou will show you how to drive it.”
    My mouth fell open.
    “I thought she was going to run the jackhammer,” said Shorty, and then I knew they were joking again. I thanked them for putting up with me and couldn’t wait to get back in Dad’s car and turn on the air-conditioning.
    Note to self: On construction jobs bring water, bring ice, bring toilet paper.

4
PLANNING AHEAD
    I sat hugging my knees, my forehead pressed against them, feeling vaguely sick to my stomach. The letter was crumpled between my chest and the anthropology book on my lap, and a gust of October wind rustled the crisp leaves that had blown up the steps of McKeldin Library, where I’d been for the last ten minutes.
    Was I relieved that Patrick had written me first? Would I have written him? It wasn’t a phone call. Wasn’t an e-mail. It was one and a half pages long, handwritten, one of the few letters I’d received from him in my life.
    How long had I known him? Seven, eight years? Ever since sixth grade. We’d broken up once but had gotten back together, and when he went to college, a year ahead of me, itwas understood we could go out with other people. But the understanding was a sort of veneer over the feeling that he and I were really special to each other. Now I wondered if I was the only one who had felt that way.
    I turned my head sideways and stared up at the bare branches that were dancing in the wind.
    I’ve been putting this letter off because I wasn’t sure how I felt, and I’m writing to say that I’m still not sure. . . .
    How had I known what the rest of the lines would say before I’d even read them? But the deeper question was one I was afraid to ask myself: Was I possibly feeling the same way?
    Patrick found that he was around women he liked very much, and wanted the freedom to get even closer. Maybe it