"The regular high school," I repeat.
There's a trick to first days, days when you're the new girl and you've got to let everyone know where you'll fit into things. Blow it, and you might as well quit trying, because nobody's going to give you another chance.
I'd had it down, always wore my good-luck T-shirt and amber skirt, my hair in a single braid pinned up like I took ballet or ran track. I'd pause at the classroom doorway, flash a confident smile, make eye contact with the kids who looked like they ran things. I wanted them to know I was there.
Of course, I'd had a lot of practice with first days. Mom and I were forever moving ahead of a rent check coming due. Or behind Mom losing her job. Or with some story Mom had read about how life's better in West Virginia, or cheaper in Arizona because you don't have heating bills, or healthier in the mountains or on the desert or by the ocean.
Over the years Mom and I moved south to get religion, north to get away from it, west to escape from some creep who stalked Mom the time we tried Philadelphia.
Yeah, I've had a lot of practice with first days.
Except I've never done one blind before. And I don't have my amber skirt. It's gone, along with all the other clothes the child services woman didn't approve of.
That evening I ask, "Aunt Emma?"
"Yes, Mandy?"
"Do I have any money?"
"Money!"
"Well, left from my mother. Insurance...?"
"Don't worry about it. We've got enough."
"I mean, my own money. That I can spend how I want."
I guess the answer's no, although Emma doesn't exactly say that, but later on Uncle Gabriel gives me some folded bills. "I hear you need an allowance," he says. "Why don't you plan on fifteen dollars a week?"
"You're just giving it to me?" I ask. "What do you expect me to do with it?"
I don't mean to be rude, but I know from Gabriel's answer that's how I've sounded.
"I expect, Mandy, that you'll use it to buy what you need, that you'll save some, that you'll pay your way when you do things with friends." His voice lightens up. "Pitch in gas money, maybe, if you go somewhere."
Is this man for real? What friends does he imagine?
I want to tell Uncle Gabriel I don't need his allowance, but I keep my mouth shut. A person doesn't turn down money.
Two days later we all drive to town so I can get some clothes to start school in.
The uncles drop Aunt Emma and me off at the department store end of a mall, saying they're going to check on some motor repairs and will pick us up when we're done. "What do you want?" Gabriel asks. "Half an hour or so?"
"A couple of hours at least," Aunt Emma says. "And bring the checkbook back. Why don't you meet us about noon in the coat department?"
She's laughing as we go in. "Half an hour! Isn't that just like a man, Mandy?"
She steers me across an echoing, perfume-smelling place and into an elevator, where a woman greets her by name.
"Anne, this is my grandniece, Mandy," Emma says.
I don't have any idea if I'm being introduced to a clerk or a friend or what. I say hi and someplace inside hear the voices of a dozen teachers saying, "Speak up, Mandy."
I expect Emma to say, "Speak up, Mandy," but she doesn't. Instead, she tells how we're going to the junior department. She makes it sound like the most exciting thing she's ever done.
Then we're getting out of the elevator, which hasn't stopped quite flush with the floor. I stumble, and this woman, Anne, grabs my arm. She says, "Let me help," and she's pulling me forward before I can get my bearings again. When I try to shake off her hand, she grips me harder.
"I don't need your help," I say. "Let me go." I can hear that I'm too loud.
There's a moment of embarrassed silence, a tiny "Well..." from the woman, not angry exactly but uncertain. Then she's saying good-bye, and good shopping, and telling Emma she'll talk to her later. I bet.
I expect Emma to scold me for being rude, but she just says, "This way."
We seem to be the only ones shopping in juniors, I suppose because it's a school morning. Aunt Emma asks what kind of things I like, but I've hardly started to tell her when a clerk comes up and takes over.
"This is my niece," Aunt Emma says, "my grandniece," like it matters who I am. "We're here for school clothes."
"What size is she?" asks the clerk.
"I'm an eight," I say.
"Does she like pants or skirts?"
"Ask me," I say. "I'm the one who will wear them."
And then, to my horror, tears well up.
"Want to get a cola and try this later?" Aunt Emma asks.
"No," I say, "now."
"Look," says the clerk, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." and then Aunt Emma's smoothing things over and pretty soon I'm in a dressing room.
I stand there while the clerk brings in things and holds them up to me. She says, "See how this fits," or "Navy's not your color."
There's so much I want to know.... I mean, clothes matter. I feel the tops of collars, try to picture how a neckline is. Where a hem is hitting my legs. Everything seems long, and I say so.
"I can call in the seamstress, but of course that's an extra charge," says the clerk.
"We can take them up at home," Aunt Emma says.
I'm happiest with the jeans—jeans fit or they don't, and you don't need eyes to tell. And with one blouse, the material feels like air between my fingers and I hear Aunt Emma catch her breath when she sees it on me. Or maybe she's gasping at the price tag. Nobody talks about what anything costs, but the blouse feels expensive.
Shopping does take until noon, between the junior department and shoes. I'm picking out a jacket when my uncles arrive.
Uncle Gabriel pays for it all, and I wonder if I should offer to give back the money he gave me, but I can't find a moment when it feels right to ask. This is the first time in my life I have bought more than one thing at a time.
Emma and the uncles are ready to go out to lunch, but suddenly I'm so tired I can hardly stand up. "Please," I say, "can we go home?"
The next thing I know, Emma is shaking my shoulder and Abe is saying, "We're here, Mandy."
It takes all of us to carry everything up to my room. We pile it on my bed, and Aunt Emma says she'll help me take off tags and hang stuff up.
"No," I say, "I'll do it, if you'll tell me where to find scissors."
I can feel Emma's disappointment. A twinge of guilt shoots through me, but I can't take more help, not today.
Alone, I empty a sack, find underwear. I start with a pair of underpants, spread them flat, and run my hand all over one side, all over the other, inside the waistband. Only one tag, pinned in, and I take that off.
Emma comes back up and puts something metal in my hand. She's gone again before I identify the nail clippers she's given me instead of scissors.
The skirt and jeans and tops, they're harder to deal with than the pants were. The price tags are all attached by those stiff plastic strings, the kind that end in Ts. The clippers work on most, but there's one tag that's caught in a seam and I finally give it a yank that makes something tear.
I'm doing the last pair of jeans when I stab my finger on a pin. I suck a bit of blood and wait and wait, lick my finger clean and wait some more. What if I get blood on my new clothes and don't know?
And then I put it all away, the underwear folded in a dresser drawer, the other things on hangers. The clothes feel right, but I wish I could see them, could be sure they're OK.
I wish I knew what sort of Mandy the lads are going to see.
I've got the window open because the attic was stuffy when we got back from shopping. Now cold wind hits me and I go over to close it.
The curtains billow up, and I duck under.
I reach for the window, again hear a child's thin voice calling.
I lean out.
"Gwen, Gwen, GWEN."
"Who's down there?" I call.
"Gwen, where are you?"
The boy sounds closer now, and I lean out farther.
Wind gusts and the next instant a curtain panel blows around me. For an instant I imagine I'm in the hospital again, waking up inside bandages. Then the house smells bring me back, bleach and dust from the windowsill.
My fingers scrabble with the curtain, searching for the edges.
And then I hear my own voice but not mine, my voice with somebody else's accent....
"Abe, go away," the voice says.
Chapter 3
THE WIND GUSTS again, and I'm moving with it, spiraling from November to summer, from dark to light, tumbling until I'm really seeing, watching another girl. She hangs by her knees from a tree limb, one hand holding up her skirt, the other dragging in the dirt. She looks about my age.
A little boy is with her, in the shade under the big tree, and I can hear him talking....
"Gwen, you better come down out of that tree. Mama's looking for you everywhere."
"Go away, Abe."
"Mama will get you, Gwen. You know she said you're too big to be climbing trees. I can see your underpants."
"And you're too little to matter." Gwen pulled herself up, then dropped back to hang from her knees so fast that bark scraped her legs and the little boy sucked in his breath. "Tell Mama I'll be along in a bit."
She stretched down both hands and dragged the tips of her fingers in the summer dust.
I stand back from the window, touch its frame.
What has happened?
My question is smothered in an answer that wells up, scary and impossible and, especially, exciting. Can I have seen into another time?
Mandy, I tell myself, you're losing it. Imagination plus.
But the sharp detail of leg and cotton dress is bright inside my eyelids, and the Texas accents echo in my ears. They're so real, and that moment of being able to see again so clear in my mind, that I feel disoriented.
I go to the closet and find my new clothes. Count the four pair of jeans.
Go to the door.
"Uncle Abe?" I call.
"Yes?" he calls back, his voice full and deep and ragged, a grown man's voice. "You need something, Mandy?"
"No," I call back. "No, it's nothing."
So I am where I think I am. But...
I go back to the window, let the chilled air blow over me. I could pull the window shut, could close out the wind. But instead, I lean out, strain to hear the voices again. Hear them, and see the people again....
"I'm not going without you, Gwen," Abe said, his face puckering. "Mama'll get mad. Please come down, before she comes out and sees you."
"And tells me I'm a disgrace, at fifteen I should know better?"
"Please, Gwenny?"
A motor sounded on the road. A car, an ancient black one, turned in, making dust cloud up from the drive. Gwen grabbed the tree limb and somersaulted down.
A boy was looking out the driver's window. "Nice," he said to Gwen, as he stopped the car close by her. His smile was just fresh enough to bring uncertainty to Gwen's face. "Your mother home?"
Then he was getting out of the car, pulling out a black case, and setting it on the running board. "I've got some good brushes, made by the blind, good prices."
"You're a salesman?" Gwen asked. "You don't look old enough."
"Old enough for what, sugar?" he asked, his smile wider and teasing.
"I'll get my mother."
Why did he think he could talk to her that way? Maybe her mother was right, maybe she did behave in a way that asked for trouble.
"Mandeeeeee."
Emma's calling wakes me up. I'm on my bed, and someone has closed the window and pulled one side of the quilt over me. I stay still, sorting out sounds and smells. A television commercial. Rolls and something sweet baking.
Lunch, I think, and then realize it feels too late for that. Aunt Emma must be fixing dinner. I ought to be starving, but I'm not. I'm too mixed up to want to eat.
At the window I press my face against a cold pane and try to see through my darkness into the darkness outside. I didn't imagine you, Gwen, did I? But who are you? And when are you?
I gather one of the curtains, feel its rough lace pattern. How can Aunt Emma say there's no one outside this window?
Monday, the day I start school, comes quickly and goes wrong before I've even left home.
I'm in the kitchen, about to ask Aunt Emma if my hair's OK, when she says, "Oh, Mandy, let me get that tag off your jeans for you." She snips threads from the corners of a sewn-on label, and I worry about what else I've missed.
My nervousness makes me extra awkward getting in the car, and my stomach hurts so bad I wonder if I'm going to be sick.
Uncle Gabriel drives and Emma sits in the front seat. "Aren't you coming, Abe?" she asks through the window.
"No, Mandy doesn't need a parade," Abe says. He's so right. I certainly don't need a bigger production than this is going to be anyway.
I've gone to the school once already, on Friday, and met the principal and the aide who runs the resource room where I'll go in the afternoons, at least for a while. There's not a regular teacher there all the time, but just specialized ones who come in for individual kids.
When we went in on Friday, though, classes were going on and we walked through silent halls. I don't think any kids saw me.
Today, this is for real.
It's late, 12:30, but Ms. Zeisloff—she's the aide—said that maybe for the first few days coming after lunch would be best. She's waiting for us in front of the school.
She tells my aunt and uncle, "We'll take good care of Mandy."
There's a pause, and I realize Emma and Gabriel had thought they'd come in and get me settled.
"Well, I ... Mandy?" my aunt says. Then, when I don't answer, she says, "Well, call if you need anything. We'll be back for you at three."
"You have quarters?" Gabriel asks. "For the phone?"
And suddenly it's all I can do not to say, Please don't go, don't leave me here. Their footsteps click away, down the pavement.
A door opens behind me, and Ms. Zeisloff says, "Oh, Hannah, here you are."
"Locker disaster, everything crashed out. Hi."
"Mandy," says Ms. Zeisloff, "this is Hannah Welsh."
"Hi," the girl says again, "I'm taking you around for a few days. You scared?"
I can't believe she's asked me that. What right does she have to ask how I feel? That's private and I don't even know her.
"Thank you," I say, "I will appreciate your help."
And then, like I've leaned in to invite it, this Hannah girl hugs me. Where does she get off, thinking just because I'm blind I can be hugged?
The three of us go into the school together, Ms. Zeisloff doing a running commentary about where we are.
"This is the main hall," she says. "To get to my room we turn right and go through the outside doors at the end."
Hannah's by my side. "What's the best thing for me to do?"
"I'll take your elbow," I say, grateful she asked instead of just taking hold of my arm.
We pass a room with an open door and I hear a man talking about simultaneous equations. Some kind of blower keeps coming on and off up above us, and far away a phone is ringing.
I don't know what to do with my cane and I wish I wasn't carrying it. It screams what I am.
I try tucking it under my arm, but I realize how dumb that must look.
Sooner or later, Mandy, I tell myself, you're going to have to use this thing here. May as well be now.
I stretch the cane out in front, begin the side-to-side sweeping that's still hard for me to do, that makes my wrist and whole forearm ache. Sweep it side to side and back along the hard, smooth floor. Drag it along the wall that I'm going to have to remember.
We reach the end of the hall.
"This door pushes out, Mandy," Ms. Zeisloff says, and I think she's going to make me try it right then, but Hannah opens and holds it for me.
The resour
ce room is at the other side of a courtyard, in a building by itself. "It's a temporary," Hannah says, "but it's been here as long as I can remember."
Then she's saying, "This is where I leave you, but I'll come back before school lets out."
Ms. Zeisloff and I go in together, into a room of electronic clicks and whirs, of electric smells, a room just a little bit too cold.
"Everybody," Ms. Zeisloff says, rapping on something tinny-sounding for attention. Most of the clicking noises stop. I wish I knew how many people were in the room.
I wait for Ms. Zeisloff to say, "This is Mandy," but instead a boy breaks in.
"Welcome to the land of the blind, deaf, lame, maimed, outraged, and outrageous," the guy says, his voice not far from my ear. "You anything besides blind?"
"Ted, sit down!" Ms. Zeisloff seems exasperated but not angry.
"All right, Ms. Z., all right," says the boy. "Just welcoming the new inmate."
"Don't mind him," a girl says. "In my opinion, Ted's got some functional psychological behavioral disorder. Besides not being able to hear, of course."
It's like being in the middle of circling madness, and I want to make it hold still so I can get a clear look. I grab on to the one thing that seems a solid lie.
"If Ted's deaf, how did he hear Ms. Zeisloff?" I ask.
"Not really deaf," the girl says, "hearing impaired. Also, he reads lips. Also, he can be a real jerk."
"But, Stace," says Ted, "now we know our new inmate talks as well as walks. And she's not stupid, folks. There's a questioning brain behind those sightless eyes."
Talk about first days.
Chapter 4
EVERYONE'S WAITING for me when school lets out.
I try to do the introductions right. "Hannah, this is my great-aunt Emma and my great-uncle Gabriel and my great-uncle Abe." I hear how awkward it sounds, those rolling greats, and I wonder why I've bothered with them.
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