Positive

by Paige Rawl

  “They wanted a comment,” she said. “About the lawsuit.”

  I let that news sink in.

  “It’s going to be in the newspaper?”

  My mom was still standing there, phone in her hand. She nodded. “I guess so.”

  I shook my head. “That can’t be right. It’s supposed to be confidential. I thought that because I’m just a kid, it was supposed to be confidential.”

  My mom shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s out. Oh, God, Paige, now everyone is going to know.” Her face was panicked.

  I sat down and thought about this. It almost struck me as funny: I had told just one person about my HIV—my best friend, then a sixth grader. Soon, the whole school knew. And now, all of Indianapolis was about to know, as well.

  I wondered if Yasmine could have ever guessed her own power. I thought about her at age eleven, and wondered if she could possibly have ever imagined that she was capable of setting into place a chain reaction, one that would affect what a city of close to a million people would know about one of its residents.

  I remembered that very first glimpse I had of her—how she’d struck me as strong and intense, the unusual confidence she seemed to radiate as she hushed those kids laughing in the auditorium. I could never have guessed. I could never have guessed then how everything would unfold. And yet now, as I waited for the news of my HIV to explode like a bomb across my hometown, the whole thing struck me as almost inevitable, like it had been preordained from that first sighting.

  Mom stood up. “I’m going to call Heather’s family,” she said. “I don’t want them to find out about all of this by reading it in the paper.”

  “The lawsuit?”

  “All of it. The lawsuit, the fact that you have HIV.”

  “You do, too, you know.”

  “Yes, Paige. That, too. They’ve been good to us. They should hear it from us.”

  She picked up her phone and dialed. I walked into my room, shaking a little.

  “Hi, it’s Sandy,” I could hear my mother saying. “Yeah. Mmm-hmm. Yeah, everything’s good. I just wanted to—well, there’s going to be something in the paper tomorrow, and I just wanted to tell you about it.”

  I closed the door to my room.

  A little while later, my mom knocked. “Paige,” she said. “Heather is on the phone for you.”

  I took the phone. “Hello?”

  “Paige,” said Heather. Her voice was completely calm. “You know what? You’re the very best. And I love you.”

  The story appeared online late that night; my mom and I read it out loud to each other a few different times. I listened to my own experiences discussed in the third person, and it felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, like on some level the story had ceased to be about me at all.

  By morning, the print version of the Star hit doorsteps all over the city. I was right there on the front page. We were front page news—“front Paige news,” my mom and I joked, laughing louder than we should have about the pun.

  I imagined Clarkstown families reading the stories—Michael Jepson’s parents, for example. Or Devin Holt’s. Or the kid who told Ethan not to kiss me. I knew none of the parents would ever connect the story they were reading to their own child; they would never stop to wonder if their own sons and daughters were among the name-callers. They would assume it was other kids. I felt sure of that.

  Everyone, I knew by now, always assumed it was someone else’s kid.

  On television, news reporters were interviewing my classmates and their parents. In the television shot, we could see a news van parked in front of the school, exactly where I’d walked so many times. My mom and I spent the morning peeking out from behind our curtains, wondering if a news van would descend upon our house the way they had on Ryan White’s. They never came.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” my mom said.

  “So maybe things are getting better for people with HIV?” I suggested.

  My mom settled into our sofa and sighed. “I hope so, pumpkin.”

  Within a day, the story had been picked up by national papers: the Boston Globe, the Huffington Post, MSNBC, even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s me they’re talking about, I would think as I saw the headlines. They’re talking about me in Boston. In Washington, DC.

  Some of the stories had comments attached, most of them expressing outrage at how I’d been treated.

  Goddamnit. This is something the teachers should know could happen, and should run interference on. I’m a teacher—this is one of the terrible possibilities we must always be on the alert for. . . . Those students in that middle school need to be shown the consequences of expressing such hatred.

  Strangers, at least, were rooting for me, rooting for a world that was a little kinder than it was.

  A thought began to form in my mind, a feeling that I couldn’t quite articulate. It had to do with how large the world seemed, and how small, all at once, and what my role in it might be. I couldn’t quite put it into words at the time; I just knew it made me feel restless, like there was something important I needed to be doing.

  It was only later, much later, that I would begin to recognize those moments for what they were: a dawning awareness of my own influence, the idea that I could make a difference.

  PART THREE

  Falling

  Community

  I heard the thudding bass drumbeat before I heard the rest of the band. Already I could see red balloons, red T-shirts, red shorts, all varieties of red streaming toward the downtown War Museum.

  We were headed to the Indiana AIDS Walk—me, my mom, Erin, and Amber.

  The woman who coordinated my medical care had encouraged me to come.

  “It’s a three-mile walk,” she had explained at one of my appointments. “It raises money for AIDS services and research. But it’s so much more than that.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  She smiled. “You’ll understand when you see it.”

  She leaned in to me then. “Paige,” she said, looking me right in the eye. “I really do think you should see it.”

  I’d been lonely. Since leaving Clarkstown, I’d been sitting inside. I did my schoolwork quietly at the dining room table, all the while imagining what was happening back at school.

  Now they are in social studies, I would think.

  Now they are in gym class.

  The clock ticked. Cars passed on the street outside my house. On the radio, Taylor Swift’s voice gave way to Kid Rock.

  Now everyone is getting ready for cheerleading practice. Now choir.

  Then I would finish my homework and wonder, Now what?

  Ethan still texted me from time to time, which made me feel happy and sad, all at once. Erin and Mariah and Amber called me, too; I’d talk to them on the phone about American Idol, about the latest Nickelback song. I’d laugh with Mariah about her overweight cat, Fat Louie. But we rarely talked much about school. A few others checked in from time to time, but it was hard to know what to talk to them about.

  They were in one place. I was in another place entirely.

  In the place where I was, emptiness could squeeze the breath right out of you. In the place where I was, every day was a steady, dank gray drizzle.

  Which was why, walking toward the AIDS Walk now, I had to struggle to make sense of it all—the clear deep blue above our heads, the unseasonably warm air, the bands playing in the distance, the festive mood that seemed to surround us.

  Until this moment, having HIV had brought me nothing but isolation, nothing but sadness. It had made me feel alone, without any sort of community to call my own.

  So who were all of these people? And why did they seem so upbeat?

  Walking toward the registration desk, I paused for a moment. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to take another step toward that noisy, cheerful crowd.

  My mom put her hand gently on my back. “Come on, pumpkin,” she said.

 
I took a deep breath.

  In front of me, Amber and Erin stood waiting. Amber caught my eye and grinned. She began shaking her hips in time with the drumbeat. Then Erin did the same.

  A man and a woman dressed all in red walked past me with two small children. The kids, one small boy and one small girl, wore rainbow tutus. They bounced as they walked. They were happy.

  Watching those kids, watching my friends dancing in front of me, I thought I could almost remember what happy felt like.

  I took a deep breath.

  Okay, I thought. Let’s do this.

  Amber, Erin, and me at the Indiana AIDS Walk in 2008. We were so surprised at how fun the day was, and having my friends with me gave me courage to meet new people.

  As my mom turned in our registration forms, Erin and Amber and I strolled past the information booths that had been set up by service organizations. Every one handed out gifts of some kind. One had a bowl of shiny red Mardi Gras beads. I stuck my hand into the bowl, feeling the beads on my fingers.

  “Ooh,” said Erin. “I want some.”

  A man behind the booth said, “Take some.” I took one for each of us. The man said. “Aw, you can take more than that.” He grabbed a handful for us, and we draped them around our necks. In other booths we snagged different gifts, too: temporary tattoos in the shape of red ribbons, rainbow stickers, red plastic sunglasses, and little red tote bags. We picked up keychains and stress balls, pencils and pens, and refrigerator magnets. We stopped in front of a booth with Hershey’s Kisses wrapped in red foil. They were already melty from the eighty-degree heat, but I didn’t care—I unwrapped a couple of them and popped them in my mouth at the same time.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Erin said, taking a couple for herself.

  Amber picked up the bowl and pretended she was going to sneak off with the whole thing. Then, a few steps away from the booth, turned around. “All right, all right,” she said to no one in particular. “I won’t take more than my share. . . .” She unwrapped a single Hershey’s Kiss and popped it in her mouth, grinning.

  Someone handed me a fact sheet, and I scanned, my mouth still filled with chocolate: nearly ten thousand residents of Indiana infected with HIV or AIDS. Every county affected. Nationally, more than a million people infected. And every month, nearly a thousand teens and young people newly affected in the United States alone.

  Whoa. Did I read that right? I re-read it, and there it was in black and white: Every month. Nearly a thousand teens newly infected.

  That’s when I had this thought: Someone should really talk about that.

  We stepped up to the booth of an organization called Women in Motion. A lady in a red T-shirt and baseball cap greeted us.

  “What brings you girls to the walk?” she asked, smiling at me warmly.

  I hesitated for a moment. Already I’d learned a hard lesson about what happens when you tell someone about having HIV. But still: if there was any place on earth where I could tell someone without being rejected, it was probably here.

  So I told her. Just like that, I said it: “I have HIV.”

  She didn’t widen her eyes, or show any kind of shock. She just looked me in the eye and nodded knowingly. “How are you doing?” she asked.

  Her voice was so genuine, so kind, it felt like my heart cracked open. My words came tumbling out. I told her my whole story—what a terrible time I’d had at school. How I had chosen homeschooling over the notes and name-calling. How I was fine physically, I guessed, but was just kind of—well, really very—alone.

  “They all get to go on with their lives like nothing happened. And I’m in solitary confinement,” I finished. Then I shook my head. “The whole thing stinks.”

  The woman, whose name—I could see her name tag now—was Marie, placed her hand, ever so gently, on mine. “You know, we do many events and we are always looking for speakers. Would you ever consider telling your story at one?”

  “Well . . . maybe . . .” I said.

  I must not have sounded terribly convincing, because she grinned at me. “Just do me a favor,” she said. “Think about it.”

  “Okay,” I told her. “I’ll think about it.” I dropped her business card in my bag.

  That’s when my mom appeared. “Girls, come with me. I want you to see something.”

  I could still feel Marie’s touch on my hand as my mom led us toward the steps of the War Memorial. There, large swatches of fabric were draped over the stairs.

  The AIDS Quilt. A memorial to people who died of AIDS.

  “What is this?” Erin asked.

  My mom tried to explain. “Before you guys were born, there had been so much stigma, so much shame about HIV/AIDS, that sometimes people’s family members wouldn’t acknowledge their deaths. Other times, funeral homes refused to handle the person’s body out of fear that they might catch the disease. There was no way to properly remember the victims. So friends and loved ones found a different way to honor them. They started sewing quilt panels—one for each person who lost their life to the disease. The AIDS Quilt is now the largest community folk art project in human history. This is just one small piece of it.”

  So each piece, every one, was a memory of someone gone.

  I tried to take in every single panel. One featured about a hundred mallard ducks. I wondered if the person it represented had been a hunter. Another was made from sports shirts—Pacers, Colts, the Indianapolis Ice, WrestleMania. Yet another showed a man in a top hat dancing on piano keys. The most somber panel had just five letters—BRUCE—appliquéd over a black background.

  But they weren’t just sad. They were colorful, too. Many of them featured rainbows. A shooting star leaving a rainbow trail. A sailboat with rainbow flags billowing behind it. A kite tethered to rainbow ribbons. A can of paint spilled into a rainbow road, with the words Peter, Peter Painter Man. See you on the flip side.

  I squinted at the quilt panels and tried to imagine the people—the real individuals whom each panel honored. I imagined that each was seated on the steps of the memorial, and each of them was smiling. No longer in pain. No longer sick. No longer hated or scorned or feared.

  I closed my eyes and whispered a silent prayer for them.

  I wished them peace.

  When I opened my eyes again, only cloth remained.

  My mother put her arm around me, and we stood there for a moment together. Neither of us said it out loud, but I knew we were both thinking about my dad.

  A fresh round of marching music drifted to us from the bandstand.

  “Come on,” I said after a while. “They’re going to start the walk soon.”

  Near the starting line, Amber stopped short.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  I followed her gaze. Near us stood two figures. They were tall—wearing clingy, flashy clothes, and they were super curvy. They looked like women, but both were broader and more imposing than any woman I’d ever seen.

  “Drag queens!” Amber whispered. Her eyes sparkled with delight.

  I smiled at her. Yep, she was right. Men dressed as women—something I’d seen only on television at that point. They seemed larger than life somehow. Glamorous and confident. Each wore a sash, just like a beauty pageant winner. One had on formfitting silver sparkle pants and a black feather boa. The other wore a bright red tracksuit, her hair swept back into a gorgeous blond updo. Both wore heels, so much makeup it was almost hard to see their eyes, and sparkly tiaras that glittered in the sun.

  I read their sashes: The ribbon on the one in the track suit said MISS GAY INDIANA. The one in the boa read MISS GAY MUNCIE, INDIANA.

  I couldn’t help but feel in awe of them—standing there chatting, so comfortable with themselves, when who they were was so different. I wished I had just a tiny little piece of their confidence—that sense of pride.

  My mom must have seen the admiring look on my face. “Paige!” she exclaimed. “Go get a picture with them!”

  “Oh, Mom, they wouldn’t want .
. .”

  But before I could get further, my mom was already waving to them. “Hey, my daughter’s a pageant winner, too!”

  “Mom,” I hissed. I was mortified.

  But they came over right away, smiling and laughing. They asked me about which pageants I’d been in, and they congratulated me on my wins. While we talked, my mom lifted her camera. “Smile, everyone!” she cried.

  Without missing a beat, they draped their arms around me. The top of my head barely reached Miss Gay Indiana’s chest. But standing between them made me feel safe in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Safer than I could remember feeling in a long, long time. I laughed out loud as my mom snapped a few photos.

  When we said good-bye, all of us waving happily, I realized something: I was better having met them than I had been before. All of us seemed better—more at ease—uplifted. There is something enormously freeing, I realized, about spending time with people who are totally unafraid to be themselves.

  The walk itself wasn’t long. We headed south on Meridian Street, onto the east side of the canal, then we looped back again, back toward the Memorial and the booths and the quilt panels. People clapped and cheered and whistled for us the whole way along. It was five kilometers, about three miles.

  My memories of those miles are mostly fragmented images: a young man wearing a T-shirt—Living and loving life. An older woman with white hair pulled back in a bun who carried a sign that said simply, Miss you every day. An older man standing at the side, high-fiving us as we passed. Dogs in red sweaters that trotted alongside the walkers.

  I remember my mom pink-cheeked and breathing hard in the hot sun. Erin and Amber laughing, like this was all normal. Erin with a red ribbon tattoo stuck on her cheek.

  What I remember most of all, though, isn’t so much an image. It’s a feeling. A feeling of waking up. It was, I realized, as if I’d been in a kind of slumber, and now my eyes were opening.

  So many people judged me for this thing—this virus that lived inside me through no fault of my own. Yet here, in this crazy crowd of men dressed like women, pets in rainbow tutus, people remembering, people celebrating, people with broken hearts, and people determined to fight, nobody had a problem with me. If they noticed me at all, they seemed to accept me—for exactly who I was.