Izzy, Willy-Nilly

  She sounded like she wouldn’t want to come see me at home. As if, if I were at home, there wouldn’t be any reason to come see me.

  “You’ll have to get these books and things,” I reminded her.

  “I guess so. Well, maybe I’ll see you then.” It was sort of a question.

  “Okay,” I sort of answered, confused because I’d enjoyed the afternoon and I’d thought she had too, but now suddenly it was a question.

  “I meant that about nice,” she said. “I’m coming, right now,” she said away from the phone.

  I had had dinner and was looking through one of the cartoon books when the phone rang again. I thought it might be Jack. I hoped it would be.

  “Izzy?”

  “Oh, Rosamunde. No,” I corrected my tone of voice quickly. “I’ve been sort of expecting Jack to call.”

  “He should. Probably he will. I wanted to say, I should warn you, I always have second thoughts about things. I always get halfway away and have second thoughts. In case you hadn’t begun to suspect,” and she laughed.

  “I was beginning to.”

  “My mother says people think I’m crazy.”

  “Well,” I said, not disagreeing.

  “Anyway, I’ll see you next weekend. For sure. If that’s okay?”

  “It is. And thanks, for the food and the books and games and—and everything. I really appreciate it.”

  That time, I got the last word.

  When the phone rang again, before I had even decided what I wanted to watch, I was all ready to complain. Up to a point, it was funny, this calling back. But this was going too far.

  “Izzy? Who was that person?” Jack demanded.

  “Hey, Jack. Hi.”

  “Did you hear the way she talked to me?”

  “I was right here.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Her name’s Rosamunde Webber, she’s a tenth grader. They moved to Newton last year, just before the beginning of school. I know her from school.”

  “Rosamunde? I never met her, I guess.”

  I could figure out what he was thinking. “She’s not your type, Jack.”

  “What do you mean, not my type? I go out with lots of different girls.”

  “I mean she’s not good-looking: She has fuzzy hair, a big nose, and a bad figure, I think. She doesn’t dress to show off much of her figure. She’s intelligent, too.”

  “And aggressive, I guess,” his voice said. “She sounds more like Joel’s type.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Did you ever notice how Joel’s type always lasts longer than mine?”

  “Yes. Yes, I have noticed that.” Sometimes, Jack just made me smile. “How are the girls up there?”

  This was a topic he had a lot to say on. We must have talked for an hour, my brother Jack and I, about one thing and another. One of the last things we talked about was how angry he was, about me. I tried to tell him that it wouldn’t do any good to be angry.

  “You know, Izzy, sometimes you’re too nice for your own good,“ he said.

  I knew what he meant to say, but I didn’t want to talk about it to him on the phone. “Nice means fine,” I told him. “Like, a nice distinction.”

  “Don’t go getting smart on me, little sister, will you?”

  “No danger.”

  “And being angry won’t get your leg back, I know that,” he said. “That’s why Joel wouldn’t let me come down with him, you know?”

  “I didn’t know. But I think I’m glad he has good sense.”

  “Yeah, me too, I guess. But if I’d been home, this never would have happened. I’d never have let you go out with him. I’d like to kill that Marco.”

  “What a good idea. You can kill him and you’ll be in jail and I’ll come on visiting day with a file in a cake. Like some thirties movie. That’s a terrific idea, Jack. Good thinking.” He sputtered at me, from the other end of the phone.

  10

  Monday morning Dr. Epstein told me I could probably go home on Friday.

  “When on Friday?”

  “Afternoon. I want you to have the PT and to talk with Helen Hughes-Pincke, any last questions you might have for her.”

  I wasn’t going to quarrel with him about anything. If I could go home on Friday, I could last through the week.

  “You’ll have to come back for regular PT sessions for a long time,” he said.

  “Does Mom know?”

  “She knows. She’s made all the plans. You can’t go back to school until the cast comes off.”

  I nodded. That was three or four weeks away. I was only thinking as far as Friday. The first thing I’ll do, I thought, is … I wondered what I wanted most to do first.

  When I looked at the breakfast tray, I knew. The first thing I’d do would be to order in a pizza. With double cheese and sausage, green peppers and mushrooms.

  Then I had a practical thought: There’ll have to be someone else, to answer the door and all. But that was okay. If I could only be home, I wouldn’t mind being a little dependent on my family.

  All through the massage and the PT session, I kept remind-ing myself that when it was over there would only be four more sessions, and I got through all right, without feeling too depressed. Mrs. Hughes-Pincke asked me how I was feeling and how PT was, but she didn’t wait for my answer because her eye was caught by the wall hanging. I told her about it, and she stood in front of it, saying what a great thing that was for a child’s room. She wondered where she could get one. I told her I would ask, but I warned her that Mrs. Webber had become a potter, so she might not be doing batiks anymore. Then Mrs. Hughes-Pincke sat down for our talk. She asked me about Rosamunde, remembering that I’d never mentioned her before. I found myself answering her questions, trying to explain the nonfriendship we had, talking about Lisa and Suzy to show what the difficulties were. “What about the other good friend, you mentioned her earlier—Lauren?”

  “Oh. I don’t think—” I started to say, but I could feel my throat closing up and I didn’t want to talk about Lauren. “Why are you always asking me about my friends, anyway?”

  “You can tell a lot about a person by her friends,” she answered. “Don’t you know that?”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “And when something like this happens,” she said, “sometimes your friendships change, because there are a lot of changes, and that can be unsettling.”

  “I’m going home on Friday,” I told her.

  “I know. You’re glad?”

  “Yes.”

  “You look pretty cheerful today. It won’t be easy though, Isobel; have you thought about that?”

  “Not really, I guess. But I will.”

  I won’t be able to get upstairs to my room, I thought, thinking of what the hard things would be, after Mrs. Hughes-Pincke had left and before my lunch arrived. Not with this cast on too. I considered the ground floor of our house, with my parents’ bedroom and bath at one end, and the kitchen and family room at the other, with the living room, hallway, den, and dining room in between. The den was where the TV was, and there was a phone in there; it was close enough to the kitchen and had the powder room nearby. I’d better sleep in the den for a while, I decided.

  At lunchtime I was peeling apart a ham sandwich when my mother came in, her arms full of bags. She set a basket of fruit down on the night table, apples and bananas, oranges, green grapes and purple grapes, and three brown hairy things.

  “Oh good,” I said. “Thanks a lot, Mom.” I dropped the slice of ham back onto the plate. I reached over to take a banana. I was hungry enough, and bananas are the most filling fruit. I picked up one of the brown things. “What’s this?”

  “A kiwi. Don’t eat that banana yet.”

  My mother had brought me a lunch of my own: a thick roast beef sandwich made with butter and mayonnaise on a kaiser roll; a huge dill pickle. I salted and peppered the sandwich. She sat down to eat the container of tossed salad she’d gotten for herself.
br />   “This was really nice of you,” I said at the same time that she said, “You are hungry, aren’t you?”

  That was what she’d said last night, late, after the dinner dance, as we all shared the last of Rosamunde’s apple turnovers. I didn’t answer, just ate away, nodding my head.

  “What’s a kiwi? It sounds foreign, like a foreign bird.”

  “I’m sure it is.” My mother ate neatly, a napkin over the skirt of her tweed suit, a light blue jabot blouse neatly tied, her hair shining and in place, her face made up for daytime. For daytime wear she has low-heeled shoes. She looked altogether British that day, I thought. She showed me how to peel a kiwi and then slice off bites of the bright green fruit. She left a little penknife with me, to use on the rest. “Every lady should have a penknife.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “She certainly can cook,” my mother said, “your friend Rosamunde. She quite surprised us. I hope we weren’t rude.”

  “I don’t think so.” I remembered what Rosamunde had said about Charles and Di, which made me smile again. “I don’t think she thought so. She thought she might have been rude, I think.”

  “Well, my guess is she’s not an easy child, she’s not at all like Lisa and the rest. Is she? Probably she feels uncomfortable because of the way she looks.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “With that nose, and hair? And her figure?”

  “She’s never said anything about it,” I pointed out.

  “She wouldn’t, would she?”

  My mother had to go to a meeting of the committee for the hospital Christmas ball, a big fund-raiser. But she said she’d bring me lunch tomorrow, that she and my father would be having lunch with me all week. “I’ve never been in the hospital for so long. I hadn’t realized how unappetizing the food would be.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, yes, it does, if that’s why you’ve looked so peaked. I’m grateful to your friend for bringing it to our attention.”

  “Don’t you like her?”

  “I don’t know her at all, do I?” my mother answered, which was her way of avoiding the question.

  She had some time before her meeting, because most of the ladies ate lunch later than the hospital served it, so she helped me with the needlepoint kit she had brought. She had gotten it at the Treasure Trove and they had imported it from Denmark. The design was a basket full of flowers, done in shades of red, yellows, blues, and browns. It had a green leafy border and a white background. It was all the basic tent stitch, my mother said, showing me how to lock a piece of yarn under the first few stitches, advising me to start with the design and then work the background last, so the finished piece would hold its shape better. “I thought we might have it made into a pillow, when you’re done. I thought it would look nice in your room.”

  “I can come home Friday,” I told her.

  “Saul told us.”

  “After lunch.”

  “We’ll be here. Your father is taking the afternoon off. Do you know what you’d like for dinner?”

  “Pizza,” I told her.

  I’d better have a walker at home, I thought, at least until the cast comes off. I’ll have to use their bathroom for baths, and I’ll just be careful to hang my left leg out over the tub.

  I worked away on the needlepoint, which was kind of soothing and gave me something to do with my hands while the TV was on. Joel and Jack called the next night, both sounding a little frantic with papers and midterms. My parents brought me deli sandwiches for lunch and kept the fruit basket filled. The people who came regularly to my room worked on the basket of fruit. That is, Dr. Epstein and Mrs. Hughes-Pincke did, and my parents. The PT nurse just grunted when I asked if she’d like some.

  Except for the dark of nights, if I woke up, which I usually did, I felt all right. If I woke up then, and I usually did, I would get frightened and depressed—as if I couldn’t keep my mind from going down that slide thinking of all the things that I managed not to think about during the days. I didn’t turn on the light, because the night nurse might notice it and come in to find out what was wrong.

  On Wednesday afternoon, just as the cartoons were beginning, Rosamunde knocked at the door. She had her PAL jacket on, with a thick sweater underneath. She had a woman with her, a short dumpy woman in layers of rough-woven clothing, her long nubbly skirt a mix of grays and browns and hanging down over her boots. Her face was plump and her thick hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck into a long braid. She wore no makeup, not even lipstick. “This is my mother,” Rosamunde said.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Webber,” I said.

  She smiled at me, a good smile that made me want to smile back. Her eyes went to the batik and to the vase. I liked the way the most interesting thing in the room for her was her own work. Much more interesting than me, for example.

  “So you’re Izzy,” Mrs. Webber said. She didn’t know what to say. “Rosamunde’s told us about you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked at Rosamunde, who was standing between us. I looked back at Mrs. Webber.

  “Nothing too bad, I hope,” I said, the way you always do when somebody says they’ve heard about you.

  Mrs. Webber didn’t have any reply to that. She just stood there, wrapped around in heavy homespun shawls.

  “Rosamunde tells me you’re an artist.”

  “A craftsperson,” she corrected. “Not an artist.”

  I’d said the wrong thing. “Oh,” I said.

  “We got you something,” Rosamunde said. “Well, Mom did. Give it over, Mom.”

  Mrs. Webber passed me a brown paper bag. “I see you already know how to stitch.” She picked up the canvas I’d been working on. I’d finished a couple of flowers and a few long leaves.

  “This is my first. My mother gave it to me, to have something to do.”

  “Ummn,” she said. She studied the canvas. “You’ve got nice even stitches. She’s got a smoother temperament than you,” Mrs. Webber said to Rosamunde.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” Rosamunde asked, and her mother laughed.

  “I don’t know about this,” Mrs. Webber said, indicating the bag I held in my hands. She had packed in a blank needlepoint canvas, its sides bound off, and a pad of graph paper and two sharpened pencils.

  “It’s Mom’s version of a kit,” Rosamunde said.

  “I can design it myself?” I asked.

  “It’s more fun that way—challenging. At least, I’ve always thought so.” Mrs. Webber was thinking she’d done the wrong thing. I was thinking I’d said the wrong thing.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you,” I told her. “And you put in a needle too.”

  “Mom, don’t you have errands? I’ll be downstairs in an hour, I promise,” Rosamunde said, while I was trying to think up something to talk about, and Mrs. Webber was studying the way her vase looked in my window.

  “Yes, yes, I do. It was a pleasure to meet you, Izzy.” Mrs. Webber smiled again, and once again I wanted to smile back. However uncomfortable she might be, it felt okay; there was something in her smile and in the expression on her face that let me know that—however words might stumble and how-ever hard it is to meet somebody’s mother, especially if you’re in a hospital bed—she planned to like me.

  “I’m sorry,” Rosamunde said, right away. “But she insisted. I told her you’d just make her nervous.”

  I thought I knew what she meant, because crippled people do make other people nervous. At home, I’ll have to have a blanket to cover up my legs, I thought. “I can understand that,” I told Rosamunde.

  “Can you? She’s such a reverse snob—I kept trying to tell her, to warn her, to remember that you’re just a person like everyone else, but she gets all defensive about—oh, you know—and then she sort of puts on her artist act, the artists-are-better-than-ordinary-mortals one.”

  “She has a terrific smile,” I told Rosamunde firmly.

  Rosamunde relaxed. For a minut
e, she looked a little sheepish. “Yeah, okay. Parents,” she concluded.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” I asked.

  “Depends on how personal.”

  “Are you self-conscious, do you think?”

  “What made you think of that?”

  “My mother said she thought you were and I said I didn’t think so.”

  “It’s interesting.” Her face got thoughtful-looking. “What made your mother say that?”

  “Don’t say it that way.”

  “Okay I won’t.”

  I giggled. “Oh—” I realized I might offend her by telling her.

  “You’re in too deep to get out, Izzy.”

  “Why are you here, anyway? I thought you babysat in the afternoons.”

  “Dental appointment, and Mom had some errands. Some stuff to deliver to the Treasure Trove. Don’t change the subject.” But Rosamunde was grinning. “She didn’t happen to mention my—attire, did she?”

  I couldn’t help laughing.

  Rosamunde sat down in the chair, her legs looking thick in the overalls and her ankles thick in heavy socks. “Or maybe,” she continued, “it was just my looks.” She’d stopped smiling. “You know—there are things about the way you look …that would be the thing about being black—people see it right away, black skin.”

  “Hunh?” She was going too fast for me.

  “No.” She leaned forward, intense. “It means you have to face up to peoples’ preconceptions right away. Don’t you see? If you’re black, well, the first thing people see is your skin color. You can’t hide it. If you see what I mean.”

  “I see what you mean,” I said. I saw exactly what she meant. Because people were going to look at me and think amputee.

  Rosamunde’s expression changed, from thinking to embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say, because I was trying not to think about what I’d just figured out. For once she didn’t know what to say.

  “Izzy, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” I said quickly. “My psychological nurse wants to buy your batik,” I said.