At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  “Sure,” he says. “Do your routine.”

  Polly and Ivan realize something is wrong when most of the girls on the Cheshire team have completed two or three events and Amanda is still on the bench.

  “Maybe she’s sick,” Polly whispers.

  “She looks fine,” Ivan says. “Eagan wouldn’t have her sitting there if she was sick.”

  Ivan stares across the gym to where Amanda sits on the bench. Something’s happened to him. He’s thinking about things differently. He can no longer think the way he must to do his work at the institute; questions no longer have answers, and yet he has more questions than ever. He often finds himself thinking about the afternoon light in Brian’s apartment, how it fell in bands across the polished black piano. Sometimes, for no reason at all, Ivan’s throat gets so thick he can’t talk. He wonders if he’ll ever work again, he just doesn’t seem to care, although at night he dreams of shooting stars and supernovas, and when he wakes in the morning he still sees their brilliant light.

  Out on the floor, Jessie Eagan is doing her free exercise, accompanied by her cassette of “Eleanor Rigby.” When she’s finished, there’s scattered applause. Laurel Smith doesn’t know what to watch first; there are girls from Cheshire and from Medfield on the balance beam, the uneven parallel bars, the horse. Gymnastics is like a circus, with rings of events that make it difficult to watch any one competitor. Laurel Smith is reminded of a book she loved as a child in which there was a picture of a thousand fairies, all in luminous dresses, flying this way and that over a field of wheat. This is how the girls look to her, aerial and small, managing to do what should be impossible for any human body.

  Amanda gets off the bench and goes to the mat. When the beat of “True Blue” echoes through the gym, Polly and Ivan lean forward. They’re both afraid that Amanda will push herself and get hurt, but they’re equally afraid of what failure or disappointment will do to her. Amanda stands on the edge of the gray exercise mat. Her hair is pulled back into a French braid, her arms reach into the sky. She stands there, immobile and pale. It seems that she’ll be poised on the edge forever and then, just before the ninth beat of the song, as Madonna calls out “Hey!” Amanda runs out onto the mat and does a roundoff, two back handsprings, and a full twisting back layout.

  Laurel Smith realizes that watching Amanda perform is like seeing a creature suddenly in the right element, like a fish who cannot move in your hand, suddenly set into a pool.

  “I’ve had other guys,” Madonna sings on the cassette. “I’ve looked into their eyes. But I never knew love before, till you walked through my door.”

  Amanda starts her next run with a standing backflip followed by a standing frontflip, then two perfect walkovers. When her routine is over, Amanda stands in the center of the mat and bows deeply. No one can tell that she’s shaking. For a moment there is silence, and then Jack Eagan starts to applaud. It’s startling to hear the echo of his hands clapping, even more so because he’s never applauded a girl on his team before. Jessie Eagan stands up from the bench and starts to clap, and every girl on the team follows and does the same. Amanda runs off the mat, and when she gets to Jack Eagan he hugs her, lifting her up from the floor. When he lets go of her, Amanda walks to the end of the bench to meet Jessie. Jessie throws her arms around her.

  “You did it!” Jessie says.

  Amanda grins, then sits down on the bench, her head down between her knees so she can catch her breath. She knows this is the closest she’ll ever get to a ten. From now on she’ll be sitting on this bench watching her teammates compete, instead of waiting for her turn. She’s had her turn. Her heart is still pounding. When Jessie gets up for her last event, Amanda sits up and wishes her good luck.

  “I’ll need it,” Jessie whispers back.

  Amanda watches Jessie leap onto the balance beam, then she looks past Jessie. High up, she can see her father and mother and Laurel Smith. Laurel pushes her sunglasses on top of her head and gives Amanda a thumbs-up sign. After the meet, Amanda is still being congratulated on her floor exercise by the other girls. She’s pleased, but she goes off to her locker and gets out her clothes. Jessie comes over and sits down next to her.

  “You’re still the greatest,” Jessie says.

  Amanda is too tired to take a shower. When she pulls off her leotard her arms and legs hurt.

  “My father said you could come over for dinner and stay really late,” Jessie tells her.

  Amanda has been thinking about Jessie a lot lately. She’s been thinking about the way the other girls look at her when they’re together.

  “I can’t,” she says now.

  “Why not?” Jessie says. “My mother will get us a video. I think I can talk her into renting us The Breakfast Club.”

  “I just can’t,” Amanda says.

  She’s already started spending less time with her mother. Now it’s time to do the same with Jessie.

  “Why not?” Jessie presses.

  “I don’t want to, all right!?” Amanda says. She can see how hurt Jessie looks, but she goes on. “Why don’t you ask Evelyn?”

  “Because I don’t want to. Because she’s a retard.”

  “Ask Sue Sherman,” Amanda says.

  “You don’t want to be friends with me anymore,” Jessie says hotly. “Now that you’re friends with someone who’s thirty, you don’t need me.”

  “Don’t make a big deal about it,” Amanda says. “Ask someone else over.”

  “Drop dead.” Jessie says.

  Jessie goes to her locker and throws it open.

  Amanda pulls on her sweater and follows Jessie. Her legs feel worse, so she sits down on the bench.

  “You should have other friends,” Amanda says.

  Jessie ignores her and gets dressed.

  “I won’t be around forever,” Amanda says. “You’ve got to start making other friends now.”

  Jessie stares into her open locker and starts to cry.

  “I hate everyone else,” Jessie says. “I only like you.”

  Amanda gets up and starts to walk toward the door.

  “I hate everyone,” Jessie screams after her, but Amanda keeps walking. Out in the foyer, her parents are waiting. Polly runs over and hugs her.

  “Are you all right?” Polly whispers.

  “Sure,” Amanda says.

  “That’s great,” Polly says. She looks over at Ivan.

  “Beautiful routine,” Ivan tells Amanda. “Unbelievable.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Amanda says. She hugs him, then backs away and grins. She can see Laurel Smith in her white dress waiting outside on the grass.

  “I want to see what Laurel thought,” Amanda says.

  Polly wants to call Amanda back, but she doesn’t. Amanda will always be her daughter, now and forever. That’s why she can stand and watch as Amanda runs outside so quickly you’d think she was weightless, you’d think she was flying straight into the sun.

  ELEVEN

  AMANDA HAS A FEVER AGAIN, and each day that it’s lasted, Ed Reardon has stopped at the Farrells’ in the morning and then again on his way home. This means he doesn’t get home until the children are ready for bed. He has to leave a half-hour earlier in the morning, but he doesn’t have to set his alarm. He’s usually up at dawn. Lately he can’t sleep, and when he does he wakes suddenly, out of nightmares he can’t remember, startled rather than comforted by his familiar bedroom, by Mary beside him, and the blue blanket on their bed.

  Mary has begun to ask about Amanda. When the lights are off and the children are fast asleep, she asks him if the girl’s temperature has gone down, if her glands are still as swollen. Ed Reardon never goes into detail, doesn’t mention, for instance, that he’s monitoring Amanda so carefully and sending her every other week to Children’s, where she’s given pentamidine because of the threat of pneumocystis. He has the uneasy sense of betrayal when he talks to Mary in bed; he feels the same way when she’s fixing coffee for him in the morning and he’s watching the clock, w
ith the knowledge that Polly’s already waiting for him. It’s as if Polly were his wife, not Mary, and he owed his allegiance to her. He has some idea of how a bigamist must feel, never in the right place at the right time.

  Last evening, when he examined Amanda, her lungs sounded less clear. He told Polly to call if there was any change at all, and ever since he’s been waiting for her call. It comes on Sunday morning while he’s drinking his coffee. He can hear the kids upstairs as he reaches for the phone, he can hear Mary cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. It’s Ivan who calls, and he tells Ed that Amanda is worse, she’s having difficulty breathing. Ed tells Ivan he’s on his way, and before he leaves he makes two calls. One to Henry Byden, a pediatrician in Ipswich who covers for him, to ask if he can take Ed’s emergencies today. The other call is to Children’s Hospital to make certain a room will be available. Just in case. He tells Mary he’ll be home late, and he leaves quickly before the children come downstairs and start to ask for things: buttons buttoned, toast buttered. He has to get out of there before the kids register their disappointment; he has too much disappointment inside him to take much more.

  When he gets to the Farrells’, Ivan and the grandparents are waiting for him in the kitchen. Charlie is sitting at the table, but he’s not eating breakfast. Ed does what he has to do: he smiles, he shakes hands, then he goes upstairs alone. Polly has heard him come in and she’s waiting for him in the upstairs hallway. Her face is blotchy and her hair hasn’t been combed. She walks toward Ed and takes his arm as soon as he reaches the top stair.

  “We’re going to get her through this one,” Ed says.

  Polly nods. She believes him. That is why Ed Reardon feels married to her. She believes him and only him, and in the face of this agony against which he is powerless, Ed momentarily believes in himself.

  The bedroom is airless and dark.

  “It’s all right,” Polly says to Amanda. “He’s here.”

  Ed sits on the edge of Amanda’s bed. He knows it’s Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia as soon as he sees her. Amanda tries to smile at him, but she has to struggle for each breath. Before he examines Amanda, Ed slips on a pair of surgical gloves.

  “For her protection,” he explains to Polly, and Polly nods, satisfied, even though what Ed’s told her is only partially true. He’s been advised to wear gloves when he examines AIDS patients, particularly when he thinks he may have abrasions on his hands.

  “Who’s that?” he asks of the poster above the bed as he slips the stethoscope under Amanda’s pajama top. “An escaped felon?”

  “Bruce Springsteen,” Amanda says. The words are liquid; it’s hard for her to get them out.

  “Bruce Springsteen!” Ed says. He looks at Polly, who is biting her lip, then looks back at Amanda. “Can’t he afford better clothes than that? The guy must be a millionaire and everything he has on is torn.”

  Amanda smiles faintly as she leans back on her pillow. Ed pats her leg.

  “We’re going to try and fix you up over at Children’s Hospital,” Ed says.

  Amanda nods, but Ed can see she doesn’t believe him the way Polly does. She’s smart, this girl, and she’s tired.

  Polly follows Ed out into the hallway.

  “I don’t want her admitted,” Polly says. She has this crazy feeling that if they take Amanda to the hospital, they may never see her again.

  “I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t absolutely necessary,” Ed says. “You believe that, don’t you?”

  Polly nods, and Ed goes downstairs to talk to Ivan and arrange to meet them at the hospital. The grandfather is gone now, to take the boy out and away from all this. The grandmother looks older than Ed had first thought. She puts a hand on Ivan’s shoulder when Ed tells him Amanda has to be admitted this morning, and she says, “Go ahead. We’ll be here with Charlie.”

  Ed Reardon gets to the hospital before they do. He meets with Ellen Shapiro, who helps get a room on the already crowded ward. All they can do here is monitor Amanda and try to keep her free of infection. When the Farrells arrive, Amanda is examined in the emergency room, then is taken up to the ward in a wheelchair, while Polly and Ivan are faced with the paperwork at the admitting desk. Ed has managed to get Amanda a private room, but Polly is shocked when she sees the sign on the door. BLOOD AND BODY FLUID PRECAUTIONS, it reads.

  “No one will be wearing gloves or masks unless they have to draw blood or insert Amanda’s IV,” Ed tells Polly.

  Polly and Ivan walk slowly, with leaden movements. When they go into her room, Amanda looks terrified. They can hear her breath rattling in her chest.

  “I don’t want to stay here!” Amanda says. She sits up with effort, she looks as if she might try to make a run for it, even though she’s hooked up to an IV.

  “I’m staying with you,” Polly says. “I’m not leaving until you leave.”

  This calms Amanda, and she leans back, exhausted. Ivan sits on the other side of the bed and asks Amanda for a list of what she might like brought from home. Amanda begins by telling him she wants her cassette player and her own pajamas. When she’s finished, Ivan repeats Amanda’s list so he’ll remember it: “True Blue,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Thriller.” Polly goes to the window and stands with Ed Reardon. They don’t talk to each other. They watch cars out in the parking lot, and after a while Ivan joins them.

  “She’s asleep,” Ivan says.

  When they go into the hallway, Ed Reardon says they can spend the night, although Amanda is so exhausted he suggests that they stay in the lounge rather than in Amanda’s room, as Polly did the last time Amanda was in the hospital.

  The last time was for appendicitis.

  “I told her I’d bring her cassette player tomorrow,” Ivan tells Ed.

  “You can bring whatever she wants from home,” Ed says. “We want her to be comfortable. Let’s get something to eat while she’s sleeping.”

  Ivan nods and he and Ed start to walk toward the elevator. Polly doesn’t follow them, so Ivan walks back to her. She refuses to leave, she says she’s not hungry, and she’s in the exact same place where they left her half an hour later, when they return with a sandwich and coffee, both of which she ignores. Late in the afternoon, Ed goes to call his office and then to check in with Ellen Shapiro. While he’s gone, Ivan gets a chair out of the lounge for Polly, but she won’t sit down. She’s on guard, she can’t afford to sit down.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Polly tells Ivan. Ivan’s been up all night and one of them should be there for Charlie. It’s a shock to suddenly think Charlie’s name; Polly hasn’t thought of him once all day.

  “I don’t want to leave you here alone,” Ivan says.

  “I’m not alone,” Polly says. “I’m with Amanda.”

  Not long after Ivan leaves, the resident who’s been monitoring Amanda comes out and tells Polly that Amanda has woken up and is asking for her. Amanda is breathing easier and she looks a little less scared. Polly sits on a hard-backed chair and reads from a gossip magazine the resident has brought them. Luckily, the magazine is filled with personal details about all of Amanda’s favorite singers, and Amanda listens quietly. As she reads, Polly could swear she smells a combination of blood and sugar, but maybe it’s just the scent of her own terror. No child should be as quiet as Amanda is, no little girl should look as pale. When the resident has to change Amanda’s IV she slips on surgical gloves.

  “I know I didn’t hurt you,” the resident says jokingly to Amanda. “I’m the best IV inserter in the hospital. I’m the Cyndi Lauper of IVs.”

  When Amanda starts to doze, the resident suggests that Polly get a pillow and blanket for herself at the desk. “There’s a couch in the lounge,” she tells Polly. “Go get it before someone else does. She’ll be out for the night.”

  Polly nods and goes out, but she’s already decided to spend the night in the hall outside Amanda’s room. She quickly goes to the lounge to get herself a cup of coffee, and while she’s at the machine she breaks into sobs. There
are several parents there, trying to get some sleep while they can, so Polly covers her mouth and takes her coffee back out into the hall. Ed Reardon is there, waiting for her.

  “I have to go home,” Ed says.

  “I know,” Polly tells him.

  “I don’t want to,” Ed says.

  He goes in to check on Amanda. When he comes out, Polly realizes she hasn’t called home. She doesn’t want to talk to Ivan or her parents or Charlie. She doesn’t have room for them.

  “Take a walk with me,” Ed Reardon says.

  Polly shakes her head.

  “She’s asleep,” Ed says. “Take a walk with me for ten minutes.”

  Polly can’t remember the last good night’s sleep she’s had. She can’t recall if she’s had anything to eat today or whether or not she’s peed in the last ten hours. She follows Ed Reardon down the hallway; she tries not to think that every step she takes is a step away from Amanda. When they go outside the fresh air is dizzying; there is a low cover of clouds, and tonight there won’t be a single star in the sky. Polly feels faint. As if he knew this, Ed Reardon puts his arm around her and guides her through the parking lot. When they get to his car, Ed opens the passenger door for Polly. As Ed gets in behind the wheel, she shifts away from him and leans her back against the door.

  “Sometimes you just have to get out,” Ed says.

  The car is an old Volvo station wagon. In the back there are two car seats for Ed’s youngest children; there is popcorn and sand on the carpet and in the cracks of the seats. Ed Reardon realizes that he should have taken their other car and left the station wagon with the children’s car seats for Mary. But he wasn’t thinking this morning. He’s not thinking now.

  “Arc you all right?” he asks Polly.

  “No,” Polly says.

  “I’ve been lying to you,” Ed Reardon says. “I’ve been letting you think there were possibilities, that this wasn’t terminal. I can’t lie to you anymore.”

  If Polly could close her ears the way she closes her eyes, she would. She is having trouble breathing. She leans toward Ed Reardon and holds out her arms to him. Ed pulls Polly onto his lap and wraps his arms around her. He feels incredibly warm to Polly; she can feel the heat from beneath the blue-and-white-striped shirt he wears. She leans her face against his neck and she feels like a vampire, desperate for what he has. They stay that way, holding each other, for a long time. Other cars leave the parking lot, and in a little while it begins to rain. When Ed Reardon strokes her hair, Polly feels safe. Their breath, which is fogging up the windows, is creating its own cocoon. A grid of rain crosses the windshield and the sky has grown so dark that it might as well be midnight. What they’re doing is more intimate than making love; they don’t exist without each other. Polly can no longer tell where Ed Reardon’s heat leaves off and hers begins. The way she feels makes Polly believe that things can be alive. She’s desperate to believe in something. She falls asleep in his arms, and when she wakes up, twenty minutes later, she’s panicked in the dark, she doesn’t know where she is until she feels Ed holding her tighter.