Izzy, Willy-Nilly

  “And you forgot to return it?” I asked.

  “Sort of. You know how these things happen.”

  She knew that I knew exactly how they happened. No boy would forget his letter sweater. No girl would just take it home accidentally, since the wearing of a letter sweater was the way you said you were a couple.

  But I didn’t want to let this one go by, because I knew—although I hadn’t thought of it until just then—that if we had too many things we couldn’t talk about, we’d never manage to stay friends. They were deciding what those things were, as if I was too stupid to notice: me being crippled, Lauren, boys—that was the list so far.

  “You know,” I said, “you can talk about boys with me.” Lisa waited to hear what Suzy would say, since Suzy is the smartest.

  “No, really,” I said. I knew what they were thinking, that since I wouldn’t be having boyfriends anymore, it would be unkind. That was a word Lisa would use, unkind. I could almost hear her voice saying that to Suzy, before they came over. Suzy would agree, partly because Lisa knew best, but mostly because she liked making things complicated. She would like the idea of having a list of forbidden topics and working the conversation around them. Coming as close as she could. She’d rather do that than find out what really did bother me.

  What bothered me was figuring that out, that and having to go to the bathroom. I thought about just wheeling myself out of the room, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t break the illusion that we were all just like normal, which was possibly true as long as I didn’t roll away from the table. Sitting around the table you barely noticed that I was in a wheelchair. You couldn’t see that I was, so we were just like before—as long as I didn’t move.

  “Look at the time! We’re going to be late, we’re not going to get everything done, because we have our bikes—” Suzy explained, as if I couldn’t see that there was something else they had decided not to tell me.

  “We’ve got lots of time,” Lisa said. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if we’re a little late.”

  “Lisa.” Suzy’s voice was heavy with secrets.

  Lisa gave in. “You make a list of what boys you want to talk about,” she said to me, “and we’ll give you all the gossip.”

  “Good.” I smiled a bright smile, knowing that I would never do that. One of the ones I wanted to ask about was the one whose sweater Suzy was wearing, but I guessed I could figure out who that was without asking. Marco.

  I had a not-at-all-nice thought: They deserved each other. That thought made my smile genuine.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, I whipped out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. One thing about the hospital, I thought, you didn’t have to go a mile to get to a bathroom.

  My mother was surprised to find me alone. “What time will they be back? Do you want to ask them for dinner? I could do something like hamburgers and fries.”

  “I don’t think they are. Coming back. Don’t say it, Mom, okay? I know what you’re thinking.”

  “All right, Izzy, I won’t. Is there anything you’d like to do today?”

  There wasn’t anything.

  “I’d never realized before how much Suzy influences people,” I said.

  “She’s got a pretty strong personality,” my mother answered.

  “All right,” I told her. “I guess you’re right. I guess I do want to hear what you’re thinking.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m thinking. Except, how much nicer you are than any of your friends. Let’s go get your room straightened up, shall we?”

  While Francie was out of the house, I practiced some with the walker, up and down the hallway. I spent the afternoon in the den, with whoever was around. I got myself onto the sofa and covered up my legs with the blanket. I watched TV, did needlepoint, and talked on the phone to a few people who had heard I was home again. That wasn’t too bad. They would just say welcome home, when are you coming back to school? I felt a little better about things, with the phone not dead silent. Dr. Epstein dropped in to look at me and have a drink with my parents and say that it looked like I was surviving my first day out in the cold, cruel world. My mother made steak for dinner, and Francie started in complaining about how everything was done special for me. They pointed out that she had steak on her plate too, which left her with nothing to say, but didn’t stop her from thinking. I didn’t know why she was acting that way.

  It wasn’t until I was alone in my room again that I started to think over the day. All around me everything was quiet, and dark. I could hear an occasional car, or a dog barking. I wondered who was in the car, and where they’d been, and how I was going to stand it. I thought about all the boys I had danced with, and how nice kissing felt, and I knew all of that would never happen again, but I wished it would. I wished…

  I hobbled with the walker into the bathroom to get another handful of toilet paper. I almost missed the hospital, where they knew, at least, what I would need to have near me. Where you could always hear quiet noises of the nurses at work, all night long, where everybody had something wrong with them. Not just me. I almost wanted to go back to the hospital, which struck me as a little bit crazy. I wondered if I was going to go a little bit crazy with all the pretending I was going to have to do. I considered for a minute asking my mother to have that party. We’d invite everybody I knew and get it all over with at once. I could just see it: me in my wheelchair, in the hallway maybe, and all around me people moving and talking, dancing, staring.

  The twins called in the morning to say they were glad I was home. A couple of girls from school called to say hello. One of them was a cheerleader and she told me Georgie Lowe was taking my place. I sent Georgie a message to say good luck. I finished the needlepoint and my mother said she’d get me another, to keep my hands busy. She added that to her Monday list. Francie and my father raked leaves while I stayed in the kitchen with my mother, who was marinating chicken to broil. “I’m feeding you up,” she told me. “Just like a good mother should.”

  It was a nothing afternoon, I thought, bored but not badly bored, because it did feel good to be home. My mother talked on the phone and I played games of solitaire. It was odd not to have things to be doing, to be just sitting there on the edges, because I didn’t know how to be a person on the edges. But I didn’t want to go to my room, because I didn’t want to be alone in there. However peculiar it felt, being out with everyone and not knowing what to say or do, at least I wasn’t likely to think about things I didn’t want to think about.

  Francie and I were watching a space movie in the late afternoon when Rosamunde arrived. She wore her PAL windbreaker, with a long scarf hanging around her neck and a heavy sweater underneath. Her cheeks were bright pink, as if she’d been outside for a long time. “Did you ride a bike over, or what?” I asked. “Sit down.”

  Rosamunde shook her head. I was embarrassed then, because I realized that I had assumed she was going to stay and visit, but in fact she had just come by to pick up the things she’d loaned me for the hospital.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. She didn’t even undo her jacket, just stood there in the doorway with the noise of the TV making it hard to talk. I couldn’t get over to turn it down and Francie never thought of doing things like that. “I’ll get your stuff,” I told Rosamunde.

  Pretending it didn’t matter to me to be in the wheelchair, I maneuvered my way out of the den and into the hallway. Rosamunde stood back to give me room. I know it was unreasonable for me to feel ashamed, but I did, because I was in the wheelchair, and clumsy, because I hadn’t seen that she only wanted to collect her things and then get out of the house. I wasn’t used to being clumsy. I wasn’t used to not knowing what people were expecting. I’d thought she wanted to be friends, but I should have realized that if you don’t come over until late Sunday afternoon, you aren’t planning to visit long. I didn’t want Rosamunde to see that I had expected her to stay, because that would make her feel sorry for me, and it might make her stay, which she didn
’t want to.

  It was confusing, and I knew I couldn’t just ask her outright. I’d never realized how hard it is to talk to people when everybody you talk to has something they want to hide from you.

  “You better come with me,” I said over my shoulder. “It’ll be easier than me trying to load the stuff. My mom’s got it all in a box for you.”

  I was tired out, anyway. The little Izzy inside my head was draped over the bars of her walker, exhausted. I rolled into my room through the open door and parked myself beside the walker. There was no sense in trying to ignore it.

  It isn’t my fault, I thought, but nobody seemed to be thinking about that. They seemed to be thinking that I was getting what I wanted, sitting there in a wheelchair. With a walker. And crippled. It made me angry how stupid they were but I couldn’t show my anger because then—then I would have really changed.

  “It’s in the closet.” Rosamunde was kind of lurking like a lump. She slid the closet door open and looked in to find the box. I watched the square back and the baggy overalls. Her shoulders started shaking and she just stood there with her shoulders shaking. She didn’t get the carton or anything. After a couple of minutes of that, she started laughing out loud and turned around. Her eyes looked like they wanted to apologize for the rest of her face.

  “I’m sorry—it’s sick, really sick—I shouldn’t be laughing, Izzy—” She sort of gasped words out. Her voice didn’t sound as low and musical as usual, when she was laughing like that.

  I wiped all expression from my face.

  “It’s just—look at them. It’s so bad, it’s funny,” Rosamunde choked out.

  I looked at the line of shoes. They were all left feet. I didn’t see anything funny about it: one sneaker, one loafer, one red flat, one blue flat, one slipper, one sandal—all lined up in a row on the floor of the closet, with no spaces between for a match to the pair. There was something funny about it, it was like a “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” I didn’t want to, but I started to smile.

  “It is sick,” I agreed.

  “Horrible.” Rosamunde got her giggles under control.

  “I’d never noticed.” I started to really smile.

  “It’s like a cartoon, isn’t it? Your mother must have done that—”

  “Being thoughtful,” I pointed out.

  “But she wouldn’t have thrown the mates away, would she?”

  “I don’t know. I never asked. Why shouldn’t she get rid of them?”

  “You’ll get a wooden leg or something, won’t you? Plastic probably. Do they come with shoes painted on, like dolls’ shoes?”

  “My dolls’ shoes always came off.”

  “Yeah, well, on cheaper dolls they paint the shoes on. But you’ll need the mates, I’d think.”

  “Anyway, there’s the box,” I said.

  Rosamunde pulled it out and then slid the closet door shut. “I didn’t mean to laugh. Are you angry? I’d be angry.”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you want me to go now?”

  “I thought you wanted to.”

  “No, I could stay for a while, if you’d like. I’d like to. I’ve been so busy—I had a couple of babysitting jobs, and on Saturday mornings we always clean the house. I’d like to relax over here for a while.”

  “Take off your jacket then,” I suggested.

  She dropped it on the bed and sat beside it, looking around. “Did you like the books?”

  “I didn’t read them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I never did read much.”

  “I guess I can see that.” She kept looking around. “Some people do and some don’t. I sort of thought you didn’t.”

  “I’ll probably take it up, reading. Now.”

  “Anyway, is this your room?”

  “Actually it’s my parents’, but I can’t get upstairs.”

  Rosamunde got up and wandered around. “It’s nice.”

  “Mom made some changes for me.”

  She went down to open the bathroom door. “You’ve got your own bathroom. It’s almost worth it. We’ve got all of us using one bathroom at my house. This is very luxurious. I always wondered—I mean, here you are, the nice girl at home, in her natural habitat.”

  I wondered if she was trying to start a quarrel.

  “What about school?” She returned to the big bed and sat cross-legged on it. “When are you coming back? How about making up the work you’ve missed? You want me to get your assignments?”

  “Lisa’s going to do that. My mother’s picking them up tomorrow, but thanks anyway.”

  “If you get stuck, I could help,” Rosamunde offered.

  “Thank you.”

  “Because it’s going to be bad enough, going back, I bet. You don’t want to be behind or anything, on top of that.”

  “Yeah, I’m not looking forward to my return. But—I can ask you, is Suzy going with Marco these days?”

  “That she is. Can you beat it? Did you know she was that dumb?”

  “I thought so.”

  “I guess he’s got his car all fixed so he has a lot to offer a girl.”

  “She was trying to keep it a secret from me.”

  “That sounds like her.”

  “As if she thought—I’m not looking for any revenge,” I told Rosamunde. “It’s not as if I think nobody ought to talk to him ever again or anything.”

  “But you have to admit it’s tempting,” she answered, her voice rich with laughter.

  “Well…” I admitted.

  “What I really can’t figure out is—it’s not as if he’s learned his lesson, or anything. Unless he’s just boasting, to keep up his reputation as a drinking man, or showing everybody that he doesn’t feel guilty by not changing the way he acts. Unless he’s lying, he’s still driving around more drunk than he should be. And someone who can’t even learn from experience—even I would have thought Suzy would have better sense.”

  “You’re kidding.” She had shocked me. “Are you sure about him?”

  “Sure as I can be without going out with him myself. Which I have no desire to do. Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  “I can’t believe it.” But I found I could; it was the kind of person Marco was. I’d known that all along. He never even had the nerve, or the manners, to call me up, after. Not even to say he was sorry, if he was; some people thought if they said they were sorry then they lost face, or something. That sounded like Marco too. “I was such a jerk to go out with him.”

  “You were unlucky, that’s all, really,” Rosamunde said.

  “Do you realize that the only reason I said I’d go was because he was a senior?”

  “Yeah, but we all have to do stupid things. Everybody makes mistakes—just, most people aren’t as unlucky as you. If you see what I mean. I mean, you wouldn’t have gone out with him more than once, would you?”

  I thought about that—remembering how frightened I was as the car swerved down the dark road, how I had longed to be safely home. “I don’t think so.”

  “But Suzy is, going out with him. She must have an underdeveloped sense of survival.”

  “She said she felt sorry for him. When I talked to her, after.”

  “Marco’s no fool, he knows how to get around people like Suzy. At least everybody else is an awful lot more careful about driving under the influence—under the influence of anything. But that’s too grim to talk about.” She got up. “Except, of course, we’ve been thinking about it a lot, most of us. Even those of us who have no social life. Besides, I have to meet my father. He said he’d give me a ride. I didn’t mean to come here and upset you, Izzy.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You didn’t. Not that way, anyway. Nobody has talked to me at all about what people are thinking. So, I guess I sort of fret about it.”

  “Figuring that it’s too horrible to be told to you?”

  “Something like that.”

  Rosamunde put on her jacket. “Well, here’s my opinion, which could b
e wrong. There’s an awful lot of pity, lying out there, waiting to get you. I don’t know—I wouldn’t much like that, if it were me. And most people sort of say, ‘Whew, it wasn’t me,’ like when somebody dies. Along with the pity. That’s how they feel. Marco now—he doesn’t have too many friends anymore. Everybody’s sort of … waiting for him to kill Suzy off.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah, well, she doesn’t listen to anybody. And a lot of people who were at that party feel pretty guilty about you, from what I hear.”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to cope with it,” Rosamunde said, carefully doing the snaps on her jacket. “It’ll be hard getting back to being the nice girl, when everybody feels sorry for you and guilty. I mean, that’s not a very popularity-conducive role, the victim.”

  “Maybe I won’t go back.”

  “I can see why.” A horn sounded outside. “But there must be a way to show them—that you’re still yourself. Because you are, aren’t you?”

  I wasn’t sure. I was hoping she would have told me.

  “Anyway—call me if you want help with homework, or anything.”

  The horn sounded again, and I heard my mother open the front door. My mother would not be pleased to have somebody sitting outside our house, just leaning on the horn.

  “You’d better go. I’ll see you. My mother doesn’t like honking—I mean, she really doesn’t like it.”

  “Yeah, well, my father’s had a pretty long day. I don’t blame him.”

  I had kind of wanted her to stay for dinner, but there hadn’t been time to ask my mother. Then, also, I wasn’t sure how it would be, if Rosamunde stayed for dinner with us. The way my mother asked me, “Is her father a policeman?” gave me a clue about how the dinner might have gone. “Wasn’t he in a city police uniform?”

  The city police are lower on the respectability scale than the state police.

  “Mom,” I told her, from my place back at the kitchen table, “your class prejudices are showing.”