Alicia McBride
Age 7 - October 1937, South Bend, Indiana
It was Wrong to tell a lie. Alicia knew that. But it was wrong for Mike to abandon her, and completely forget their Satrday morning routine, just because he liked some stupid girl from his stupid middle school, too, wasn't it? So if she had to tell a lie, or two, or, well, a lot of them so she could follow him, that wasn't so bad, was it?
She told her mother she was going to play over at Rebecca Maitland's house, three blocks over. Alicia knew that her mother didn't know Mrs. Maitland very well, and she probably wouldn't call over there to check, so she'd never know that Alicia wasn't there. She told the bus driver that she had to ride the bus alone to go downtown and pick up the medicine for her mother, who was sick, and it had to be her because her father and brother were up at the stadium watching the Irish play. She told the usher at the movie theater that her father was outside waiting in the car, and she just had to run in for a minute to fetch her brother so could she please go in without a ticket. And she told the stupid girl her brother liked (waiting until she was alone, when Mike had gone to get popcorn for them) that she knew that Mike really liked another girl in his class, and he was only going with the stupid girl on a dare from one of his friends.
When Mike got back to the seat, and saw that the stupid girl was gone, Alicia didn't tell a lie at all; she told the absolute truth, that she had missed him, and took the bus downtown all by herself just to spend Saturday with him like they always did. Mike wondered for five minutes where the stupid girl had gone, but then he forgot about her, and Alicia had him all to herself.
And, thinking about her big adventure, and how it had all turned out so well, Alicia decided that, maybe, telling lies wasn't so Wrong after all.
Age 14 - December, 1944, South Bend, Indiana
The only thing missing from the day was her brother. Her parents were in the audience, and all her friends, and most of her neighbors. She'd been disappointed, at first, that she hadn't won the role she originally auditioned for, the Katharine Hepburn role. But she had to admit that the Ruth Hussey role ("Miss Imbrie! I told you, call me Miss Imbrie! It helps me get into character!") suited her better. Sneaking and lying her way into a big society wedding was much more her style than playing the big society matron. Besides, while in real life she would have picked Cary Grant over Jimmy Stewart any day of the week, the boy playing the Grant role was nowhere near as handsome as the one playing Stewart's role...
...two hours later, the South Bend Central High School production of "The Philadelphia Story" was over, an unqualified success. Alicia was, according to everyone, the big star, and modesty didn't prevent her from agreeing. She clearly outshone poor Grace Campbell, who tried really hard but couldn't pull off a convincing Tracy Lord. But Alicia just disappeared into the role, and that's exactly how it had felt to her. For those two hours, she really was Elizabeth Imbrie, and there wasn't a single person in the audience who could disagree.
Age 14 - March, 1945, South Bend, Indiana
She’d had to read the letter over three times before she understood everything. Mike had done a good job, writing between the lines, concealing what he was really trying to communicate from any eyes less alert than his sister’s. And then it had taken Alicia a further two hours to explain to her parents, in wearying detail, precisely what their son – their heroic son! – had been involved in, over there in Germany.
Thanks in large part to her brother, a pair of senior German rocket scientists were on their way to America instead of Russia. The only disappointing thing about it all was that instead of earning Mike a reward, maybe a couple of weeks’ leave or even a trip back home escorting the scientists, it had won him a full-time job in the OSS, so he could do something even more dangerous next time.
Rereading the letter yet again, Alicia imagined herself over there with her brother, working in secret, doing the most important jobs that simply no one else could handle…
Age 18 - October, 1948, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The trick to getting people to do what you wanted, Alicia knew, was really very simple. What you had to do was to arrange matters so that other people saw the thing you wanted to do as something they wanted, even needed to do. Ideally, you arranged things carefully enough that they thought it was their idea in the first place.
It wasn’t difficult at all, really. It did take careful observation, a solid understanding of human behavior, and patience, but, then, those were all things that Alicia excelled at.
In this case, the goal was to get into the Alpha Phi sorority. That seemed to Alicia the best route for getting access to the people who could help her secure a place in the CIA when she graduated. Having a brother already inside wouldn’t be enough. She’d need more help than that. Help that the wealthy and well-connected families of her fellow students – and their Harvard boyfriends – could provide. Joining an elite sorority would put her directly into their world.
But how would a middle-class girl from Indiana on partial scholarship and with no “proper” family connections ever get into an elite sorority? A little research provided the roadmap. Cassandra Morgan, the sorority’s president, would normally never consider someone like Alicia. But Cassandra, Alicia learned, was desperate to go to medical school, and with less-than-stellar grades, she needed an especially strong faculty recommendation. The faculty member best placed to provide it was Professor Stendhall, a woman who had very strong views on social class and greatly disapproved of the way that the sororities excluded girls who were “less fortunate”.
Coincidentally, Professor Stendhall was also Alicia’s freshman academic advisor. Alicia made a point of telling the professor how much she’d enjoyed going to the sorority events, and how welcoming they’d all been, especially the Alpha Phis, and most especially their president. She confessed to the professor how dearly she wished to be invited to join.
It came as no surprise to Alicia a few weeks later when she’d been extended an invitation to join Alpha Phi, and she was equally not surprised that Cassandra personally took Alicia under her wing as her “special project”, picking out clothes, advising her on etiquette, introducing her to all the “right” people. Alicia, for her part, did everything Cassandra said, and by the end of freshman year, she’d been elected vice president of the sorority.
Her roommate, poor Vanessa Kingbridge from Indianapolis, did not receive an invitation. Vanessa ignored Alicia’s advice, and loudly bemoaned her fate. Clearly, Alicia decided, not everyone had the knack of getting results…
Age 19 - September, 1949, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Sophomore year. Alicia’s freshman roommate Vanessa still wanted to join the Alpha Phi sorority. Alicia promised to get her in. “But it’ll only work if you do exactly what I say, act exactly how I say, dress exactly how I say. Trust me, and I’ll get it done. But it won’t work unless you do everything the way I tell you.”
Vanessa didn’t. She apparently wasn’t capable of following instructions, and it only took two days before it was clear to Alicia that the project was a lost cause. Out of kindness, she gave Vanessa a week, but it was no good. She had to cut the girl loose, before her own reputation was affected.
She felt bad, for a little while, but ultimately, it was Vanessa’s own fault. She’d done her best but she wouldn’t – couldn’t – let someone else drag her down.
Age 21 - November 1951, Dover, Delaware
The last time she'd talked to Mike - it took all Alicia's self-control to hold back tears at the thought that it was the last time - he had told her about the turf wars between the CIA and the occupation brass in Berlin. He was afraid, he'd said, that the infighting would cause a real problem, that it might get someone killed.
And so it had. She knew that the way he was coming home, here at Dover where soldiers killed in action came back, was a message; to who, or from whom, she wasn't sure. But she didn't care; she was just grateful that he was being honored as he deserved.
Later, once his body had been put into the hearse for the drive down to Arlington National Cemetary, she'd had the talk with her parents as they followed their son's body down the highway. They weren't surprised at her intention to follow in Mike's footsteps; they barely even tried to talk her out of it, realizing how pointless that would have been. But they did have a surprise for her; she knew she had been adopted, but she'd never questioned what she'd been told about that. During the two hour drive, though, she learned that it had all been a lie...
