Beautiful People: Alice Cassandra Rochester

"Patsy, you know better than to scream in the kitchen.  If you want to scream, go down cellar where you won’t bother anyone."

~Alice Rochester

I've decided to make this week a Get to Know the Rochesters Better week, as I'm in the last throes of finishing the story (WE HOPE) and instead of apologizing and excuse-ing and going off on irrelevant tangerines that you're not interested in, I'm doing a series of Beautiful People, one each day.  We're starting with Alice and going down the line in age order.

~What is her biggest accomplishment?

Becoming a fourth-grade teacher, definitely.  And marrying her fiance would probably go on the list too, except that at the start of the story it hasn't happened yet.

~What is one of her strongest childhood memories?

Reading everything she could get her hands on and being read to by her father.  Her mother read to her, too, but she and her father had a special book routine every night before bed (a practice that's continued on with all the other kids in the family).

~What is her favorite food?

Uhhhhh... pumpkin pie.

~Does she believe in love at first sight?

Nope, she believes in being friends with someone through high school and liking them from the start and then falling in love with them a little bit more each day until one day you both realize that you were meant for each other and you get engaged and then you get married.  This is because she's had experience in that regard.

~What kind of home does she live in?

A loud, noisy, hilarious, exuberant, close-knit, old-fashioned one.

~What does she like to wear?

Alice isn't as clothes-conscious as, say, Francie is-- she likes to look nice but she's not too picky about what she has on.  A sweater (long or short-sleeved, depending on the weather) and a skirt in solid colors or maybe a flowered print is her go-to attire.

~What would she do if she discovered she was dying?

Tell her family she loved them and make out Patsy and Timmy's bath schedule for the next twenty years to avoid bickering when she's not around.

~What kind of holidays, or traditions do they celebrate?

Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, Father's Day, and The Day We Got Pumblechook (which is February 26th, 1950 in case anyone was wondering).

~What do your other characters have to say about them?

This is a great question. :D

“What kind of games do you play?” asked Sylvia, choosing to sedately attend to the cutlery drawer.  

“Oh, all kinds.  Sometimes board games, sometimes party games.  Mark almost always picks Monopoly and Francie picks charades. Nobody likes it when it’s Timmy’s turn because he always picks Uncle Wiggily, which gets old really fast, and Alice has a reputation for picking Find The Grammatical Error In This Sentence.”

Sylvia snorted.

“No, I’m not kidding.  We really did play that one time.  Mark and I did a pretty good job of faking snores by the fourth round.  I don’t think we fooled Daddy, but Alice gave up and chose What’s My Line instead.”

~If they could change one thing in their world, what would it be?

I'm not sure Alice would want to change anything in her world.  She likes it just the way it is.  I mean, I'm sure she'd love to see poverty and war and ungodliness eradicated from the planet, but as far as her own little domain in Cedar Lake... I think she'd tell you that it's got its own particular brand of perfection.