At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  “You hate me,” Amanda says to her parents.

  She has a terrible look on her face. She pushes the plate of cake away from her, hard. The plate skitters across the table and crashes on the floor.

  “We love you,” Polly says. She holds herself back from crouching down and cleaning up the cake. She holds herself hack all the time.

  “Oh, yeah,” Amanda says. “Sure. That’s what you say. You have to say that.”

  “This is not up for discussion,” Ivan says. “You can go to the party, but you can’t sleep over.”

  “Just embarrass me in front of everybody,” Amanda cries. “My life is ruined anyway.”

  Her words fall across the table like splinters of glass. They should be eating chocolate cake, instead they are bleeding from their souls. Ivan closes his eyes and immediately wishes he could talk to Brian; the thought startles him and then he thinks, Of course. He wants to telephone a hotline and speak to a stranger because there is no one he can talk to in this house anymore, there aren’t even words to use. Amanda glares at her parents, defying them to try to comfort her.

  “Amanda,” Polly says. “Please.”

  “Please what?” Amanda fires back. “Please just die and get it over with?”

  Her parents don’t answer and Amanda feels the flush of triumph. She has had the last word and she’s not even being sent to her room. Amanda leans back in her chair and folds her arms across her thin chest. For no reason at all she thinks of a rabbit’s foot her grandpa gave her once. The rabbit’s foot was white and soft and you could keep it in your pocket like a secret. Amanda loved it and kept it in her coat or under her pillow until she realized that the only way to get a rabbit’s foot from a rabbit is to cut it off. She feels the same way now as she did when she hid the rabbit’s foot deep in the kitchen garbage can, underneath orange peels and wet tea bags. Her arms feel spongy and something as sharp as a pin seems to be lodged behind her eyes.

  Nobody tries to stop Amanda as she runs outside. The screen door slams behind her and her breathing is coming hard. It’s black outside with just the first few stars high above the trees. Amanda runs into the driveway and then in a zigzag across the lawn, but when she gets to the sidewalk she stops and starts to cry. Stupid, but it was only at the dinner table that she realized in order to die of a disease you really have to die and not come back. She stands on the sidewalk with her sneakers straddling the cracks in the cement and covers her eyes with her hands.

  Across the street, Laurel Smith grabs the sleeves of her cardigan and pulls the wool over her fingers. Amanda’s pale hair hangs limply, like unwound silver thread in the dark. She doesn’t make any noise when she cries, but her whole body shakes. After a while someone opens the back door.

  “Amanda?” Polly calls in a high, frightened voice. “Honey?”

  Laurel doesn’t move until Amanda turns around and walks back to the house. The trees on Chestnut Street are heavy with leaves and they move with the wind and make a low, throaty noise. When the screen door slams behind Amanda, Laurel gets on her bike, pushes off hard with her feet, then swoops along the sidewalk and into the street. She pedals so hard the old bike vibrates; the air is salty and cool, but she’s sweating enough that by the time she reaches the marsh her hair is wet and flattened to her head. Her sweater is damp. She lets the bike fall to the ground and goes to her deck, tripping over a lawn chair in the dark. Her breath is all jumpy, filled with strange little sobs that don’t quite come out and don’t stay inside either. She thinks of herself watching, peeking into other people’s lives through the dark, and she’s disgusted.

  When she goes inside she rifles through the kitchen cabinet, gets a can of tunafish and eats standing up, as though she’d been starved. Then she takes down a bag of flour and some brown sugar, and by midnight she has finished a perfect fluted crust for a pie. In the morning she gets into her car and goes back to Chestnut Street. The pie is wrapped in aluminum foil and Laurel has also brought a bunch of pink mallows, marsh flowers so huge they look as if they’ve been grown on another planet. The apple pie is still warm, the flowers only slightly wilted. As she waits for someone to answer the door, Laurel switches the strap of her canvas pocketbook from one shoulder to the other. Being here in the daylight, Laurel feels nervous, much the way her clients react to their first séance. As she walked up to the Farrells’ back door, things looked unbalanced and out of focus. She has never been at ease with people; when she was married she could never call her husband by his name, and he often complained that she never looked him full in the face but went out of her way to crouch down and greet stray cats.

  It’s a Saturday, so when Polly hears someone at the door, she assumes it’s her parents, earlier than expected. She gave them an inch and now they’re up every weekend. She has the feeling they start to watch the cluck on Friday nights, so they’ll be ready to jump into Al’s car at dawn on Saturday. Polly takes her time, wiping down a counter before she gets the door. When she sees Laurel, Polly feels something sharp along her back, as if she were an animal with her hackles raised. Across the street, Fran Crowley balances her groceries on the fender of her hatchback so she can get a good look at Laurel; she puts one hand over her eyes to shade them, and her mouth drops into an O.

  “I’m not working on the book anymore,” Polly says quickly.

  “Neither am I,” Laurel says.

  Polly hasn’t opened the screen door; she’s talking to Laurel through the mesh, as she would to a peddler.

  “I heard that your daughter was sick, so I came to visit her,” Laurel says. “I brought a pie.”

  “You should have waited,” Polly says. “She’s not dead yet.”

  Laurel steps backward, as if she’d been slapped. She catches the heel of her shoe on the step that needs fixing and winds up sprawled on her hands and knees. Polly quickly opens the screen door to help. She picks up the pie and lifts the foil; only one side of the crust has been bashed in. She folds the foil back over the pie tin.

  “You have to watch out for that step,” Polly says. “We’re all so used to it, we never trip.”

  “You don’t have to invite me inside if you don’t want to,” Laurel Smith says.

  “I don’t know why you’re here,” Polly says. “Why are you here?”

  “I just thought most kids liked apple pie,” Laurel says. “I always loved it.”

  The pie tin feels warm in Polly’s hands.

  “I’ll get Amanda,” Polly says.

  Laurel Smith follows Polly inside; she sets the flowers down on the table while Polly calls down to the basement for Amanda.

  “She’s practicing gymnastics,” Polly explains.

  For some reason Polly feels incidental, much the way she does when Jessie comes over; she’s just someone to be dealt with politely while waiting for Amanda. She has no idea where Ivan or Charlie are, only that they both left without having breakfast, each to his own private destination.

  “Amanda,” Polly calls again.

  “I’m practicing,” Amanda yells, and her voice breaks a little with the effort.

  “Come on up anyway,” Polly calls.

  Amanda is lying about practicing; for the past two hours all she’s been doing is sitting on a gray mat listening to her Madonna cassette. Today when she woke up she thought to herself, I’m not going to be in the finals, and as soon as she thought it she knew it was true. She doesn’t have the strength or the stamina. Her legs have been aching, simple moves she knows by heart leave her dizzy and short of breath. Amanda pulls her knees up and hugs them to her chest. She bends her head down, and when she breathes out she can feel her warm breath on her skin. Where, she wonders, does the breath go when you die?

  Laurel Smith is still standing when Amanda comes upstairs; she has not been invited to sit down. Amanda’s wearing a pink T-shirt and jeans; she knows her mother has a guest, but she doesn’t look at either woman. She leans up against the refrigerator and studies the floor.

  “This is Laurel,” Poll
y says. “The woman I’ve been photographing. She brought a pie.”

  Amanda looks up. “I don’t eat pie,” she says. “It’s fattening.”

  Amanda is so thin Laurel can see her bones, fragile as a bird’s.

  “Maybe you’d like these,” Laurel says. She holds out the flowers.

  “Are they real?” Amanda asks. And, before she can stop herself, she adds, “They’re beautiful.”

  “Pink is my favorite color,” Laurel says.

  “Mine, too,” Amanda says carefully as she appraises Laurel, staring mostly at Laurel’s hair, which hangs to her waist, except on each side where the hair is pulled back into an intricate French braid.

  “I could teach you to do your hair like this,” Laurel says.

  Polly narrows her eyes; she realizes that she has read Amanda’s mind just as easily as Laurel has.

  “Yeah?” Amanda says.

  “Would that be okay?” Laurel asks Polly.

  “I’m sure you’re busy,” Polly says.

  “No,” Laurel says. “The most important thing I have to do today is buy cat food.”

  “You have a cat?” Amanda asks, as if this were the most fascinating piece of information she’d ever heard.

  “Grandma and Grandpa are coming over,” Polly says weakly.

  “Not for a while,” Amanda says. She looks very small, and younger than her age. “Oh, please!”

  Polly and Laurel Smith look at each other.

  “All right,” Polly says.

  Amanda runs off to get a brush and some rubber bands.

  “Why are you doing this?” Polly says, suspiciously. She figures she has a right to be suspicious when a woman who communes with spirits wants to brush her daughter’s hair.

  “She’ll look pretty with her hair braided,” Laurel Smith says. “Don’t you think so?”

  Amanda and Laurel go out onto the porch. Through the window, Polly can see Laurel, sitting behind Amanda, brushing her hair. Polly should tell Laurel Smith to leave; they don’t need any help from strangers. If one of their friends or neighbors had offered them anything at all, Polly would have taken the pie from Laurel Smith, then shut the door and put the pie in the refrigerator, behind the cartons of orange juice and milk. Instead, she watches through the window and cries.

  “How long did it take you to grow your hair that long?” Amanda asks Laurel.

  “The last time I cut it I was fourteen,” Laurel says. Then she adds, “I can tell you use conditioner. You don’t have any knots.”

  Amanda smiles. She’s usually shy around adults, but Laurel Smith doesn’t seem very much older than she is. It’s as if they were both teenagers, and Amanda’s glad she’s not wearing her stupid Smurf T-shirt.

  “Have you ever been in love with anybody?” Amanda asks Laurel.

  “Not yet,” Laurel Smith admits.

  “Me either,” Amanda says.

  “I’ve been in like,” Laurel Smith adds.

  “I don’t think that’s the same,” Amanda says.

  “No,” Laurel says. “You’re right, it’s not.”

  Laurel reaches into her pocketbook for a mirror. “Take a look,” she tells Amanda.

  Amanda stares at herself and smiles broadly, forgetting to keep her mouth shut so her braces won’t show.

  “I love it,” Amanda says.

  “Maybe someday you can visit me at my house,” Laurel Smith says. “I know you’d like it. It’s right on the marsh.”

  “Are you just saying that because you think I’ll die before I can come over?” Amanda says.

  Laurel can feel bumps rise along her arms and legs.

  “That was a horrible thing for me to say,” Amanda says. “I’m horrible.”

  Laurel and Amanda are sitting side by side now, their legs swung over the broken step.

  “Sometimes I make chocolate mousse tarts with chocolate chips,” Laurel Smith says. “If you want me to, I can teach you how to make them.”

  “All right,” Amanda says. “That sounds great.”

  Amanda practices making French braids all weekend, and on Monday she stops in the girls’ room after school to admire herself. She looks older, twelve or thirteen at least. With her comb, she catches a few stray strands above her temples and forces them back against her scalp. Two girls Amanda sincerely hates, not just because they’re popular, but because they’re snobs who won’t speak to anyone who doesn’t wear a bra and have pierced ears, come in as Amanda’s fixing her hair. Everybody at Cheshire knows their names, Mindy Griffon and Lori Walker. Mindy, who’s on the gymnastics team, has better leotards than anyone else, really neat ones that her grandmother sends her from Los Angeles. When Mindy sees Amanda, she grabs onto Lori’s arm.

  “Oh, God, it’s her,” Amanda hears Mindy say.

  Amanda gets her gym bag and unzips it so she can put her comb away.

  “Hi, Amanda,” Lori says, with so much fake pity in her voice it makes Amanda want to throw up.

  Amanda slings her bookbag over her shoulder, and when she turns from the mirror and begins to head for the door, Mindy and Lori both back away. Amanda knows why immediately: they’re scared of her. Amanda walks to the door and goes out without looking back, but she can hear Mindy’s loud whisper: “Do you think she sat on one of the toilets? I’ll never, ever use them again.”

  Amanda walks quickly down the empty hallway. School’s out, but the hallway still smells like today’s lunch, pizza on English muffins. Amanda couldn’t eat lunch today, and now she feels like crying. They hate her, she knows. She doesn’t even blame them; she hates herself too, not all of her, just this thing that’s inside her. At first, she didn’t really believe it because when she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked exactly the same, just thinner. She used to tell herself all she had to do was wait and they’d find some shot or pill they could give her. Now, every night before she goes to sleep she tells herself that she’s going to die. She repeats it to herself, calmly, carefully, rolling the words on her tongue.

  She is never going to be one of Bela’s students. She will never go to college or drive a car. She wonders if it will feel blue and watery, the way things felt when she was knocked down by a huge wave at Crane’s Beach two summers ago. Sound overtaken by soundlessness. Heat replaced by cold pressure.

  Amanda runs her tongue along the silver band over her teeth. “Dumbbell,” she tells herself. “Dope.”

  She wants to make it to the last meet in June. That is all. She thinks no further than that. Practice is hard for her now. She feels sick afterward; once, she had to leave the gym so she could lock herself into one of the toilet cubicles and throw up. At least her floor exercise hasn’t suffered; she’s got a great routine. Evelyn Crowley told her it’s as good as anything she’s seen on a music video.

  “Wait up,” somebody calls, but Amanda is too busy thinking about practice to hear, and she just keeps walking.

  Jessie runs down the hallway to catch up with her.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Jessie asks. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Amanda slows her pace to match Jessie’s.

  “My father is kicking four girls off the team,” Jessie whispers.

  “Oh, no, God! No!” Amanda says, excited and all ears.

  “He told my mother. I wasn’t supposed to hear.” Jessie grins.

  “One of them’s missed too many practices, and the others are so bad my father’s afraid they’ll hurt themselves. Can you believe it?”

  Amanda is suddenly rigid. “Am I one of them?”

  “Are you crazy?” Jessie says. “Just don’t ask me for any names, because I can’t tell you.”

  “Please!” Amanda says. She knows she can get it out of Jessie.

  Jessie giggles and shakes her head no. Amanda can’t tell if Jessie knows she’s dying. She doesn’t act as if she knows, she’s never said anything, but she doesn’t spend much time with her other friends anymore. Neither of them does. If they could, they’d spend all their time together
, although Amanda has begun to wonder what would happen to Jessie if Amanda suddenly disappeared. The girls who are avoiding Amanda and whispering when her back is turned are also avoiding Jessie, telling each other they never much liked her anyway.

  “My father would kill me if he found out I eavesdropped. He’d murder me on the spot,” Jessie says.

  “Just tell me one name,” Amanda says.

  “Helen Gates and Joyce Gorman,” Jessie blurts.

  “That’s two!” Amanda chortles. “You might as well tell me the others.”

  Jessie pulls Amanda over to the wall, and they both look over their shoulders to make sure no one’s around.

  “Sally Tremont and Mindy Griffon.”

  Amanda lets out a squeal. “Oh, my God,” she says.

  “Mindy thinks she’s so great,” Jessie whispers. “Now she’ll get hers. Couldn’t you just die?”

  Amanda looks away.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Jessie says quickly. “I really didn’t.”

  “That’s okay,” Amanda says.

  They begin to walk slowly to the gym.

  “You’ll always be my best friend,” Jessie says.

  “Thanks,” Amanda says.

  “I really mean it,” Jessie tells her. She looks closely at Amanda. “What did you do to your hair?”

  “A friend of mine taught me how to do it. She’s almost thirty,” Amanda says nonchalantly.

  “Thirty,” Jessie says, impressed. “She must know a lot about hairstyles.”

  “Oh, tons,” Amanda says. “She’s not a friend like you’re a friend,” Amanda adds. “She’s not a best friend, or anything.”

  Jessie smiles and, as they near the gym, she takes off her charm bracelet.

  “My father hates Madonna. He told my mother that if it was anybody but you using her music, he’d confiscate the tape. He says your floor exercise is so good you could be on a high school team.”