Izzy, Willy-Nilly

by Cynthia Voigt

  I watched him leave the room and listened to his footsteps hurrying down the hall. I could feel the smile lingering on my face. Then I got ready to go myself. That was when I noticed that Tony had forgotten my crutches, that they stood leaning against the far wall, down the whole length of the room.

  I was glad I was alone as I stood up on my one leg and started hopping over to where the crutches were. When I had them under my arms, I suddenly realized—

  Tony Marcel had forgotten my crutches.

  Inside my head, the little Izzy gathered herself up and did an impossible back flip, and then another and another. I knew how she felt.

  After exams, everyone seemed to settle down again. The seniors, especially, relaxed. For better or worse, the first semester was finished, and now they just had to get through the rest of the year until graduation. The newspaper was running smoothly again. Although Deborah was still strung up high with excitement, Tony was serene, contented, and he managed to spread that mood around the newspaper room.

  Life was going along and I was going along through it—on crutches now, but Adelia had started me in the swimming pool and Dr. Epstein said I was ready to be fitted for an artificial leg, if I was ready. I was about ready, I thought. I had learned how to make myself change into a bathing suit and get into the hospital pool: It was a matter of concentration on the task at hand, which was not that easy, since I had to swim awkwardly to keep myself from going around in circles. Then, I would concentrate on other things as well, irrelevant things, like the idea of getting Rosamunde over for regular swimming, once our pool was built. She needed exercise, but she lacked the kind of physical discipline that would enable her to do that herself. With just the two of us in the pool, I was pretty sure I could get her swimming laps. She trusted me—in a way, more than she trusted herself. Thinking of those things, I could stand up on the crutches, with my amputated leg hanging down naked, and move over the distance between the changing room and the pool.

  In time, I thought, I would be able to do something about the slides into depression. I thought maybe. In time, I would outgrow the stupid, hopeless longing for the things I had lost—for dancing to soft music—and all those things. It was only at nighttime, alone, that I wasted my time wishing, or dreaming. During the days, I moved around home and school on crutches, doing all right.

  One mid-February day I was moving down the hallway to my locker to get my books for the afternoon classes, when I saw Marco Griggers talking with Georgie Lowe. I slowed down, and people moved around me, but I only saw the two of them. Marco sort of leaned toward Georgie, who was looking up at him through her lashes, her cheeks a little pink. Marco grinned at her.

  He was asking her out, and she was flirting at him, pleased to be asked out by a senior.

  And I was angry.

  Marco had always pretended he didn’t notice me, whenever we came anywhere near each other, which wasn’t often; and I had pretended he didn’t exist; so he was surprised to see me come up to the two of them.

  “Izzy,” he said. He looked furious and nervous.

  “Hi, Georgie. Hey, Marco,” I answered. I leaned on my crutches and smiled at them, a big fake smile. “I don’t mean to interrupt anything,” I said, repressing the anger I could feel burning up from my stomach.

  “Yeah, well,” he muttered, his eyes going to Georgie to make an I-don’t-know-what’s-with-her expression.

  I didn’t let him finish. “So. Are you going to go out with him?” I asked Georgie. “I only went out with him once, but it was quite an experience.” I kept on smiling.

  Georgie was looking at the two of us, back and forth. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I knew what I hoped she was thinking about. I was glad I was wearing jeans that day.

  “You have to look out for Marco,” I told Georgie, as if I was making a joke. “You know his reputation.” After a long minute, I added, “Marco’s such a flirt, everybody knows that.”

  Marco had stopped wavering between being furious and nervous. He was just furious. He glanced at me, so mad that his nostrils flared, and I had to bite my lip to keep from giggling. I had taken over all the nervous.

  When he could finally speak, he just had one thing to say to me. The bell rang and the corridor emptied quickly, and he glared at me: “Bitch.”

  Then he walked away.

  Georgie didn’t know what to say. She felt sorry for me, although she quickly disguised that, and she was puzzled at my interference. “You’ll be late to class,” I reminded her.

  “Oh—you’re right,” she said. “I’ve got to run.”

  Run she did. I watched her sprint down the empty hallway and up the stairs—it was lovely the way she moved, the way her body worked, it was so perfect, she was. With the long lines the bones gave and the curves of flesh over it. I had never realized.

  Georgie turned at the landing to look back and wave, smiling.

  I watched the places where she had been, after she had disappeared from sight. I envied her her perfection and her gladness. Envy ran through my stomach like an ice-cold sword. I didn’t think I could breathe in, because my whole body was curled up around that envy’s edge.

  I could breathe, though, because I breathed in all of what I had seen, all I had just done. I breathed in as if I’d never breathed before. That’s what it tasted like, that breath. It was like one of the old movies, where the homely girl in glasses is made over and looks at her new self in the mirror for the first time. She just stares at herself, not saying anything. If she were to say anything, all she could say would be, “Oh,” I stared at myself, thinking, “Oh. Oh my. Oh, wow.”

  I had seen Marco and Georgie talking and understood what was happening. I had done something, which nobody at that party had done for me. I knew that however much Marco’s intention was to hurt me, you wouldn’t call someone a bitch if you just dismissed her as crippled. I knew also that I could never before—and maybe not for years, under ordinary circumstances—have seen how perfect Georgie was, I could never have understood that: how lovely it was when someone was young and perfect. And I knew that I would weep that night, alone in my room. I would weep, but that was all right too. I couldn’t help but wish. I couldn’t expect myself not to.

  “Oh, wow,” I thought. It was the richness of it, the richness in me; there was so much more than before. Better too, I had to admit it, although if I could have gone back and changed things I wouldn’t have hesitated for one minute to do that.

  I didn’t know what to think, but I wanted to stand there, for another minute or five, just being myself. Inside my head I saw the little Izzy. She was standing alone, without crutches. She wore her black velvet skirt and a silky white blouse. Her hair was feathered gold all around her head. Her arms were spread out slightly. She looked like she was about to dance, but really her arms were out for balance. I knew, because it was true even though it didn’t show, that underneath the long skirt one of the legs was flesh and the other was a fake. The little Izzy balanced there briefly and then took a hesitant step forward—ready to fall, ready not to fall.