Izzy, Willy-Nilly

by Cynthia Voigt

  “—with practice, you’ll be surprised.”

  I didn’t say anything. She waited. “Okay,” I said, agreeing with whatever she wanted me to agree with.

  “Our time’s up,” she said. “It’s more than up. But don’t be too hard on yourself, Isobel. Would you like me to come tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” I reminded her.

  “If you’d like me to, I could come in. You have a seven-day-a-week disability, I don’t see why I need my weekends off.”

  I’d never thought about it that way. I didn’t want to think about it that way. “No, thanks,” I said. “But thanks.”

  “If you feel like—like exploding, though, the nurses outside know where to find me.”

  If I felt like exploding, I thought, I’d rather be left alone to do it. But I nodded politely.

  I felt the same kind of politeness on my face when I asked Dr. Epstein if I could watch when he changed the bandages on my leg that afternoon. He hesitated. “Well, if you want to. It’s not pretty,” he said.

  “But Mrs. Hughes-Pincke said—”

  Dr. Epstein sat down on my bed. “Dr. Carstairs did a beautiful job, don’t you worry about that. But your flesh has had a severe shock. You know about shock? It’s not just mental. It’ll take a while to heal, your flesh will. And—I’m not sure it’s a good time; you’re so pale already and you’re not eating well. You look like Dora—I keep thinking that.”

  “Who’s Dora?” I asked him, because I didn’t want to think about what he’d been saying.

  “In Dickens, David Copperfield. It’s mostly because your eyes look so big. You always did that, you know, especially when you were little and you had a fever. We could always tell, your parents and I, because you got this big-eyed look to you. I guess, though, if you want to watch—”

  I nodded, because … because I thought I ought to.

  Dr. Epstein just got to work, then. He didn’t say anything to me, and he didn’t look at me to see how I was reacting. He just took off the adhesive and lifted off the stained bandages. My knee and part of the way up my thigh was red and swollen and stained yellow. I couldn’t see the underside, but I could see—when he lifted my leg to wrap fresh bandages underneath and then set it down—that my leg stopped. Cut off. I closed my eyes then and put my head back against the pillow. Inside my head that stupid little Izzy in her leotard still did back flips, but it was hard and heavy going for her and I felt like reaching my hand into my imagination and knocking her over.

  I felt Dr. Epstein pull up the blanket, and then his hand on my shoulder, big and strong and squeezing just a little. But he didn’t say anything except, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  After supper, my parents both came. Francie was spending the night with a friend, so they spent the whole visiting time with me. We played gin rummy. That helped the time pass. My father had a member-guest golf tournament that weekend, and he’d invited some clients to play in it with him, so he wasn’t going to be around. I told him I hoped he’d do well and he said he hoped he’d play well enough to keep the account, because a lot of men seemed to feel that anybody who couldn’t play golf wasn’t capable of managing money. My mother said she’d be back in the morning, and she thought she ought to bring some flowers, because the room was looking pretty bare. I told her I didn’t know, that it seemed wasteful because the flowers just got thrown out. “I know what you mean,” she said.

  I slept, too tired even to wake up and be depressed. Saturday dragged by, after my mother had taken me out for a wheelchair ride and then washed my hair. Then she tried saying something cheerful. “It’s been two weeks, there’s only four more to go before the cast comes off.”

  “When can I go home?” I asked.

  “Saul says maybe the end of next week.”

  “This coming next week or next week next week?”

  “Oh, this one. Would you like that?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You’re being so good about it, Lamb.”

  “Thanks,” I said. But I wished I didn’t have to wait through all those days.

  “Think about what you’d like to have for your welcome home dinner,” her voice said.

  The afternoon and evening went on by. I listened to the radio some. I took out the needlepoint kit and read the directions. There was nothing else to do so I started on it. I watched some TV. Afternoon snack came. Supper came. Late snack came. In the hall outside my room I could hear people moving and talking, all day long and all evening long. Then the hospital settled into sleep.

  I woke up early Sunday, before the sky was even light beyond the window. I went to the bathroom and then climbed back into bed, looking down the long, empty day. Trying to cheer myself up, I put on the pink bed jacket. I sat up waiting in my bed for breakfast to come and go, for the day to come and go. I might go home at the end of the week, I reminded myself.

  Early in the morning, an orderly brought in some flowers. As soon as I saw the big pot of chrysanthemums I knew they were from my mother. He put it in the middle of the windowsill, where the blooms shone white against the flat gray sky. I wondered what the temperature was, outside, for my father’s golf game. They had said they would try to stop by after the awards dinner. I didn’t think they’d be able to, because the dinner would probably end after visiting hours were over.

  When the phone rang right after lunch, I was so surprised I almost didn’t answer it. I knew that my mother and Francie were watching my father play part of his final round, and I had talked to Joel in the middle of the week. It was Suzy, asking me how I felt, and I wondered if she was going to come visit. She didn’t say anything about that, though, just told me her mom said to say hello, and so did Bethy, and asked me when I was going home, and then I did ask her: “Are you going to come by?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t. We’re going to the movies; it’s all arranged.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said. “Who’s we?”

  She hesitated, and then said quickly, “Lisa and Lauren and a couple of other people.” I could hear that she was lying.

  “And then we’re going to grab supper at McDonald’s.” Suzy heard what she’d said and added quickly, “If we can find anyone to bum a ride with, if anybody who goes has a car. If not maybe we’ll walk around to see you. So maybe I’ll see you later, okay?” She hung up, and I could almost see the relief on her face as she dropped the phone back into its cradle. Her mother would have been standing behind her, listening and checking to be sure Suzy had done what Ms. Wilkes was making her do. Probably, Ms. Wilkes had refused to give her money for the movie, or something, until she’d called me.

  I started on the one o’clock show, an old Roy Rogers cowboy movie. I was sort of curious about Roy Rogers, and all I knew about him was his chain of fast-food restaurants. I’d heard his voice, advertising on the radio, and I’d seen big pictures on the walls of the restaurants, with his cowboy hat and all. Roy Rogers was pretty cute, as it turns out; I could see why he had been such a big star, whenever that was. He didn’t look much older in the ads I’d seen, but that was probably because of makeup, because I thought he must be pretty old by now. My mother often said that she thought movie stars were taking an awfully big part in our lives, and it was a sign of the times, a bad sign. She was thinking of Reagan, of course. My father, who’s a Republican anyway, said that he thought people tended to underestimate what it took to become a movie star. I thought about that, because there was nothing else to think about, while I watched the story begin, with a little western town run by a big, bad, rich rancher. When the phone rang, I answered it without turning the sound down.

  “Hey, little sister,” Jack’s voice said.

  “Jack? Wait, let me turn off the TV.”

  “What are you watching?”

  “Nothing, now. How are you?” It was good to hear his voice.

  “I’m okay. I haven’t flunked out yet.”

  “Dad’ll be pleased.”

  “Yeah.”


  There was a brief silence.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Where am I? At school. I’m in a pretty dingy pay phone, but some of the phone numbers on the wall sound interesting.”

  “Yeah?” He sounded like himself, to me.

  “But I thought I’d call you up first.”

  “Before the interesting calls?” I joked.

  There was another silence. I wished he was there where I could see him. I couldn’t tell if he really was all right. It wasn’t like Jack to let silences happen.

  “Are you all right, Jack?”

  “I told you, fine. I’m fine.” But his voice was gloomy.

  At that moment, Rosamunde Webber appeared in my doorway, dragging a shopping cart with a big carton on it. She sort of looked at me, just enough to make eye contact, then she pulled her carrier on into the room.

  “I’m just fine, nothing wrong with me,” Jack said.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No. Sober. Listen, Izzy, I guess I shouldn’t have called.”

  I tried to think across the silence. I knew what was wrong with him, but I couldn’t think of anything to say because what was wrong with Jack was what was wrong with me.

  “I guess you agree about that.” He sounded angry now. “I told Joel.”

  I grabbed at that topic of conversation. “Where is he?”

  “In the library, getting smarter, getting better grades. As if—” He stopped. I could hear words choking up against his throat and I didn’t know what to say, but I knew I had to say something. My mouth flapped a little, and I could feel words choking up against my throat.

  Rosamunde stood watching. It couldn’t have lasted as long as it felt like it was lasting.

  “I told him,” Jack finally started, “I told him, you know me, that we’re alike and you—” He stopped again. I just clutched the phone against my ear, trying to think of something to say to him.

  Rosamunde grabbed the phone away from me. “Who is this?” she demanded.

  “What are you doing? That’s my phone.” How, I wondered, could anyone be so rude?

  “Jack? Jack who? Jackass if you ask me,” she said into the phone. “Calling Izzy up and I don’t know what you were saying, but whatever it was it wasn’t any too smart, but she’s too nice to say—” Then Rosamunde stopped speaking. I could hear Jack’s angry voice, and it almost made me giggle to see the surprise on Rosamunde’s face.

  “Oh,” she said, when he’d finished. For just that one word, she seemed about to apologize. “Yeah, I remember you … No, not unless you promise not to talk about whatever you were talking about…. It couldn’t have been nothing,” she insisted. Jack’s voice got louder. “Then you’d better hang up, hadn’t you?”

  Rosamunde looked at me and made swirling motions with her forefinger at her right temple.

  “Make a list, ten topics of conversation. Then call. No, I won’t give you Izzy back. You can go somewhere and cool off and call later…. Yes, I’ll be gone by then…. Who am I?” She grinned at me. “I’m nobody, who are you? Are you nobody too?”

  I almost laughed. I’d heard that poem in school more than once. I guessed Jack must have too, and I knew how he felt about poetry. Rosamunde held the phone away from her ear.

  “He hung up,” she said.

  I was mixed between being angry at her for grabbing the phone and amused at the way she talked Jack down and grateful to her for getting me out of a situation I couldn’t seem to handle.

  “That’s my brother,” I told her.

  “Then he should know better.”

  “Honestly,” I started. She was standing there, lumpy in her overalls and her PAL windbreaker that was sizes too big and her thick hair just sloppy and loose, with a hairband not doing any good. Strands of hair were almost sticking in her mouth.

  “Well, he should,” she insisted. Then she seemed to run out of steam. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I really did butt in. I did it again, didn’t I? No, don’t tell me.”

  “Okay, I won’t,” I told her.

  “But you looked like you were about to cry,” she said, apologizing in her deep voice. “And you never do, and—I thought it might be some crank caller, or something—”

  I wondered how she could think I never cried. “Just my brother. Although he was acting sort of strange.”

  “Sort of? He sounded certifiable. He sounded like he was about to rip the whole phone off the wall.”

  “That’s what Jack does. When he’s angry. When he’s really upset he gets angry. It’s the first time I’ve talked to him,” I told her.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh. He must be really upset. He was yelling.”

  “Yelling’s better than when he doesn’t say anything, because when he doesn’t say anything you don’t know what he’ll do. He wasn’t saying anything, then, when you—”

  “Weird,” she said, thinking.

  “He had a friend who died of cancer, the twins both did, and Joel was scared and sad, but Jack—Jack took a bat and broke every single one of the models he’d ever made. It was the day of the funeral, and they didn’t go—I remember—but they knew. They must have been eight or nine. Jack spent all afternoon smashing the things. Even my father said we’d better leave him be.”

  Rosamunde stood there, her eyes kind of glazed.

  “I guess maybe I better do something to apologize, like write a note?”

  “No. You can’t do that. He’d be furious. He doesn’t like anyone to know he has—feelings.”

  “Boy, does he sound like a terrific guy,” she said, sarcastic. Before I could tell her what I thought of that, she went on. “But he does have my sympathy. I hope maybe he does take the phone off the wall. Then he can call you back when he’s calmed down and doesn’t make you look like—somebody’s sticking needles under your nails. Listen, do you want me to go? I know, I’ve sort of pushed in, and you might rather have me go away. So I’ll go now, I think, but I’ll leave you the carton. There’s some stuff—I better take the carrier with me, I borrowed it from our neighbor and she’s not too keen about lending stuff to teenagers. I’m sorry, Izzy. I guess I’m always apologizing. But I’ll go now and—see you sometime, okay?”

  9

  Rosamunde meant what she was saying. She had turned her back to me and was lifting the carton off of the carrier. She didn’t say she was going just so I’d ask her please to stay. I guessed that was part of her problem, what made her uncomfortable to be with; she didn’t talk like other people. She just said what she meant.

  “Most of this is just on loan. I don’t know if that’s rude to say, but it’s true, so you’ll have to give it back.” She put the carton on the floor and then looked at it. She looked at me. “I should put it on your table, do you think? Because you can’t reach it and—can you get out of bed? You can’t, can you? You’d fall over or something.”

  Then she turned pink. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

  “Why don’t you stay anyway?” I said. Actually, I mumbled it, because I knew it was what I should say, and I sort of wanted her to stay, but I also wanted her to go.

  “No, listen, it’s okay, I understand,” she said. “I mean, I know I always say these stupid things, but I’m pretty smart.” She sort of smiled and jammed her hands into the pockets of her windbreaker. “I can understand that you want me to go, and you’re too nice to say so, but it’s okay, really, it doesn’t really bother me—”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” I interrupted her, because she was rattling on like Suzy. “It can’t hurt, can it?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Yes, it could. That’s what worries me, about hurting your feelings, or something. Inadvertently.”

  I didn’t know what to answer.

  “And besides—” She hesitated.

  “I’d like you to,” I said. “At least, I think I would, if you want the exact truth. If you want the exact truth, it gets pretty depressing, sometimes.”

  “Really? Boy, I’m glad to hear that.” Rosamun
de took off her jacket and draped it on the visitor’s chair. She folded up the carrier and rested it against the wall. “I don’t know why she’s so fussy about that, it couldn’t have cost her more than a dollar-fifty at a yard sale, the way it’s rusted up. Because I was afraid you were some sort of supergirl, you know? Or, maybe, you were being brave and everything, and you’d probably go crazy if you were making those impossible demands on yourself. Or, I guess you could be too stupid to figure out how bad it is.”

  I just sat there in the hospital bed. You didn’t say things like that. Rosamunde looked at my face and then put her hand up over her eyes. I guessed she knew all right that you didn’t say things like that, only she never knew it until after she’d said them.

  On the other hand, I guessed what she said was true.

  “You know,” I admitted, “I think it’s a little bit of all three of those.”

  Rosamunde uncovered her eyes. “I knew I wasn’t wrong. About you.” Her low voice rang, almost like music. “I wasn’t sure, but I knew it. Okay, here we go. Presents—well, some of them are presents but remember—”

  “I know, some of them are on loan.”

  “Do you mind that? I can’t just go out and—buy things.”

  I shook my head, because I didn’t mind.

  “You need a haircut, Izzy.”

  “So do you,” I answered quickly.

  “Yeah, but I always do, and you always look well kempt. Or made up, or something.”

  “My doctor told me I looked like somebody in a book,” I told her shoulders. She was ripping tape off the top of the carton and not watching me.

  “Yeah? Who?”

  “Someone named Dora, in—”

  “David Copperfield.” Rosamunde looked up. She was crouching behind the box. All I could see in it was piles of crumpled newspaper. “Have you read it?”

  “No.”

  “She dies,” Rosamunde said.

  “That’s good news.”

  “He didn’t mean that.” I watched her big hands, with chewed nails, tossing out newspaper balls. Her hair wasn’t a bad color, but it was a terrible texture, wiry-curly, and too thick. She pulled out a piece of cloth, bright reds and blues and yellows. When she unfolded it, I could see greens, too, in the batik. Rosamunde had brought a roll of masking tape, and she used that to hang the cloth on the wall beside the window. “It’s not elegant, but it’ll hold, I think.”