Billie Standish Was Here

by Nancy Crocker

I   had never understood people who were afraid to go to the doctor because they thought something terrible might be wrong with them. As though not knowing made it less real. It just didn’t make sense.

  Until that Tuesday morning.

  Dr. Matassa had told Miss Lydia to call for test results then and all the relief I’d felt with the appointment behind me disappeared in the dread of that phone call. If I was pregnant, knowing it wasn’t going to make me any more so, but the knot in my belly gave me a whole new appreciation for those “hear no evil, see no evil” monkeys.

  Monday was bad enough—Miss Lydia and I sat at noon and pushed food around on our plates, so distracted we were answering questions the other hadn’t asked and asking questions the other had just answered.

  Finally she’d said, “Let’s go see what’s on TV.” And we sat in her living room until six o’clock staring at the screen. I could have been threatened at knifepoint later and still wouldn’t have been able to recite one line of dialogue from a show or commercial that day. And I’d bet Miss Lydia would have done no better.

  Tuesday morning I woke up at gray dawn and tried to hypnotize myself back to sleep watching the second hand jerk its way around the face of my bedside clock. 6:36, 6:37, 6:38—I agonized sixty times a minute all the way until 8:11. Then I must have fallen back to sleep because, when I looked again, it was 11:51. I jumped up, threw on some clothes, and ran out the door without even brushing my hair or my teeth.

  Jewel Wilkerson was standing at the service window of the post office chewing some subject to death with Lewis McEntire, and I thanked God Miss Lydia had given me the combination to her box way back when she and I owned the town. I twirled the dial on hers, then ours, and ran out of there with an armload of mail so fast those other two probably wondered at the breeze that ruffled their hair.

  I didn’t stop by home—I just ran to Miss Lydia’s with my arms full and made it through her back door using an elbow and a knee. She was standing at the stove and I announced myself by saying, “WELL?” a whole lot louder than I meant to.

  She jumped like I’d fired a starting pistol and turned around with eyes wide and a hand on her heart. “Lands, child!” she said, and I mumbled some apology.

  “Well?” I tried again, much softer.

  She stood blinking. “I haven’t called yet,” she said. “I thought I’d wait until after we ate.”

  I stood and stared for so long she wilted and gave me a resigned little nod. She turned the burners off under the pans on the stove and fumbled with her purse and her glasses. I wanted to scream at her to hurry, old woman! but then I saw how her hands were shaking and felt like a heel.

  Twice she misdialed and had to start over, and I thought I might faint until I remembered to breathe. When Miss Lydia snapped to attention I knew someone had answered on the other end, and I concentrated on in, out, deep and slow, while she identified herself and nodded into the receiver.

  Then she put her hand over the mouthpiece and stage-whispered, “They’re transferring me.” In, out, slow and deep.

  She told her name again and mentioned a Lucy Jenkins I finally remembered was me. Then she was nodding again and saying “Uh-huh, I see” and “That’s good” and “I’m so glad to hear that.”

  I was about to let out a whoop when Miss Lydia’s brows folded in on one another and a cloud came across her face. “But—but—” she said, and my knees started to wobble. “But how could that happen?” she was asking the phone. I felt behind me for a chair. “But we—I don’t know how—yes, I see, but—” Her elbows were on the counter and she leaned her weight on them.

  My heart felt like a fist in my chest. Miss Lydia waited, then sighed and said, “Well, I’ll have to talk to . . . my granddaughter and get back to you. Uh-huh. Yes, I know.” She hung up, held her face in her hands for a couple of seconds and turned to me with the worst fake smile I’d ever seen. I wanted to die.

  She crumpled into a chair facing me and took my hands in hers. “There’s good news,” she said, and I was not about to buy a syllable of that. “All of the blood tests came back fine,” she went on. “None of the . . . diseases they tested for were positive.”

  Yeah, well, pregnancy might end my life as I knew it but it didn’t qualify as a disease, and I knew she was holding out. “What else?” I accused her.

  She caught her bottom lip in her teeth and shook her head. “They’re saying they . . . mislocated the urine sample and need another one in order to run the pregnancy test.”

  “They LOST IT?” I almost knocked my chair over backward—Miss Lydia pulled me back upright.

  “That’s what they’re saying.” Her face looked like a wreck and I knew it was a mirror of mine. “I . . . just don’t know whether to believe them or not.”

  The gears in my head were grinding. “You think they know whether or not I’m pregnant and won’t tell us?” I asked her. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do that?”

  “No. . . .” I saw a fleck of fear behind her glasses. “It doesn’t make sense. But that doctor was awfully keen on notifying the authorities, if you recall, and most doctors I’ve ever known think they’re close enough to God that they don’t like to be told ‘no.’ ”

  I turned this over a few times. “They want me to come back.”

  Miss Lydia nodded.

  “And this time they’ll have somebody there waiting for me.”

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t surprise me. I just don’t know.”

  I clenched and unclenched my fists. “So, what do we do now?” I asked.

  “I guess we wait,” Miss Lydia said and she found a spot to study on the floor. I gave it my attention too.

  Neither of us drove a car and we could hardly go back to the city without Mama suspecting something. So it wasn’t like we could go to a different doctor. I looked up at Miss Lydia and she nodded like she was reading my thoughts. “Nothing else to do,” she said. I just swallowed, hard.

  But the sun went down that night and came up the next morning just the same as it would if we already knew what was going to happen to me. Miss Lydia and I went on doing our best to live as close to normal as we could. It was all we could do. Besides wait.

  Chapter Eighteen

  T  he following Monday was Labor Day. Miss Lydia made a special lunch, chicken fricassee, trying to jolly me up about going back to school the next day, but I was having none of that. I had always hated going back to school before—and this year I was going back in a woman’s body with God knows what going on inside it. To me it felt more like I was headed to the gallows.

  My moping finally got to Miss Lydia enough that she got cross. “Land, child, I don’t know what to do with you. You got a life to live, you know, no matter what else happens, and school will at least give you something else to think about. Other people to look at and talk to besides me. Why, I used to get almost as excited about first day of school as I did about Christmas.”

  “You had friends.” That sounded pathetic even to my own ears.

  She let out a spew of exasperation. “Well, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to try.”

  I gave her my best basset-hound look. “You’re trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?” All I needed was violin music.

  “Billie Marie.” She stared over my shoulder with her mouth set, like she was making herself count to ten. “You still have your ruby heart?”

  Of course I did. I smiled and her face settled into familiar creases. As long as I had her, I’d manage. Somehow.

  Tuesday morning I changed outfits three times and still couldn’t decide which one showed my figure least. When I got to school, Karen and Debbie, the other two girls going into sixth grade, were sitting together inside on the steps, same as every day I could remember. I smiled and said hi, then ducked into the classroom before they could not answer me.

  This year was my return trip to the fifth- and sixth-grade room and the only joy in that was already being used to Miss Wilson. The even-numb
ered grades are a drag. Half the classroom is kids a year younger and dorkier than you and, unless you’re one of the slow ones, you’ve seen all the coming attractions the year before.

  If you’re not stupid, the only challenge in an even-numbered grade is if you have a new teacher. And only then if it’s an especially serious nutcase.

  Most of the teachers Cumberland attracts are like most of the priests who come to Milton. They’re either starry-eyed new recruits who believe they can change the world if only they can get everybody to pull together! and be enthusiastic! and they last about a year. Or they’re at the end of a career that doesn’t beg too much close examination.

  I was in for a boring year, but at least Miss Wilson was a predictable bore.

  She’s a vague woman, soft-spoken and more than a little nervous. She smells like cigarettes and always gives the impression her mind is somewhere else. I imagine she’ll be at Cumberland Consolidated until she retires, being pretty short in the gumption department. I know she was married for a while but it’s hard to picture. There just doesn’t seem to be enough person there to account for half of a couple.

  Most of the fifth-grade boys were milling around the classroom that morning showing off whatever their new big deal was. One had a new watch, the kind scuba divers wear. That was going to come in handy in the middle of Missouri. One had a new scar and another had a bigger scar. When Joe Kloppinger started unbuckling his belt, I quit watching.

  Nobody from my class was there just then, although several of the desks on the sixth-grade side had already been claim-staked with jackets or notebooks. I was glad to see my first choice still up for grabs.

  I like a window seat as a hedge against boredom and I like the last row so I don’t always feel like somebody is staring at the back of my head. I sat down and took a quick look at everything carved into my new desk by previous squatters. Then I took a look around the room, like Miss Lydia had told me to. Like I had promised.

  There were four girls in the class a year behind me and at the moment they were huddled in the back of the room. Carol Dobbs was holding forth with the other three listening. Cheryl Schroeder had a rhythm going between digging in her nose and wiping her skirt. Linda Hines looked like a mechanical robot set to bite each fingernail and spit it to the side. Bite. Spit. Bite. Spit. Sherry Day had a hank of hair twisted so tight around her index finger I could see the little bald spot she had come by over the years.

  Then the fifth-grade boys started a shoulder-punching contest, yelling, “You flinched!” “Did not!” “Did too!” I wished Miss Lydia could see it with her own eyes so she wouldn’t think I was exaggerating later.

  The bell rang and kids started filing in. There were five boys in my class, and none of them appeared to have changed over the summer—not a solitary whit. It didn’t seem possible, but not a one of them looked so much as one millimeter taller. In fact, I calculated I was probably as tall now as Paul Harding. He had always towered over everybody our age.

  Then Karen and Debbie came in and I realized how dim the hallway light had been. They were wearing the same skirt and blouse set in only slightly different color schemes. Both wore iridescent blue eye shadow, navy-blue mascara, and so much foundation it looked like they’d spray-painted their faces bubble-gum pink. They were in full bloom. I had to open my desk and pretend to look for something to hide my grin.

  Miss Wilson materialized at the front of the room and rapped on her desk with a ruler before launching into her “welcome back, here’s what to expect, now let’s get down to work” speech. She might have blinked a few times when she got a load of Karen and Debbie, but it’s hard to say. She seemed to be concentrating on something she wasn’t saying. I tuned out when a robin landed in the open windowsill not three feet from me. He and I started turning our heads side to side in a mirrored dance.

  The word “teams” got my attention. “. . . and so the principal has decided to get a running start at it, if you will, by starting the Constitution in sixth grade and using seventh to really polish that knowledge before taking the state test.”

  I hadn’t caught the part that explained the “teams” idea, but it was clear the class was pairing off. Karen and Debbie exchanged a knowing glance. The Johnson twins punched each other in the arm. Paul Harding and Rick Waters shook hands across the aisle.

  That left only Harlan Willits and me—and when that fact dawned on him he turned around and gaped at me with as much horror as I felt. Karen and Debbie twittered like parakeets. I felt the heat climb my neck and continue up to my scalp.

  “Twice a week we’ll set aside time for teams to find a spot outside the classroom to discuss the week’s chapters without disrupting others. . . .” Outside the classroom. Twice a week. I didn’t hear anything else until the bell rang for recess.

  At least this would be my last year to suffer recess. I shuffled out the back door and sat down on the step with a book, same as I’d done twice a day for years. Most of the boys were already on the baseball diamond and the girls were split up into their usual coveys. There was yelling and laughing and the occasional indignant shriek. Every recess sounded exactly the same, every day, every year.

  A pair of Keds appeared in front of me. I looked up from my book and found Harlan Willits pounding a fist into the pocket of his baseball glove.

  “Hey, come help us out,” he said. “We need one more to make teams.”

  I was too astonished to speak. I looked past him and saw the other boys standing in two groups, looking our way like they expected something.

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, c’mon. You gonna sit here all by yourself and keep us from being able to play?”

  I said, “Girls don’t . . . you know.” Fourth grade, like punching a time clock, girls stopped using the playground equipment and playing baseball. Everybody knew that.

  “We’re not asking girls. Just you. And it’s not like it’s a law.”

  “But I haven’t played since—”

  “You’ll still be better than the runts.”

  “I don’t have a glove.”

  “There’s plenty to go around.”

  “I’m left-handed.”

  “So’s Bobby Johnson. We’ll put you on opposite teams.”

  I had run out of arguments. I marked my page and started following Harlan out to the field. The other boys would protest. They would come up with a better idea. I wouldn’t have to play.

  Then something really awful occurred to me. “Hey, Harlan,” I yelled toward his back. “Just because we have to study together, you know, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  He spun around and walked backward, wearing a look that could wilt jimson weed. He said, “Gee, I’ll try to wait till after Christmas to ask you to marry me.” Then he spun forward and left me to blush at his back.

  “Did you have fun?” That was the first thing Miss Lydia asked that afternoon when the day started tumbling out of me.

  “Well, yeah . . . yeah, I did.” It was still a wonder. Once the game was underway, I was just one of them. I had done pretty well, too—got on base every time I batted and even tagged Bobby Johnson out at second with his own glove.

  But that wasn’t the point. I was trying to explain to Miss Lydia the utter horror of this team-studying business and she just wasn’t getting it. I tried another tack. “But to be the only boy-girl study team—people will think we’re some kind of freaks.”

  “What people?”

  “The other girls.”

  “The other two in your class? Did they ask the teacher to make an exception and put you with them?”

  “Well, no. . . .”

  “Well, then, they know you had no choice in the matter. Why do you care what they think, anyway?”

  Because there are two of them and one of me, I thought. They have the strength of the majority. And the power to ridicule is a mighty thing.

  But I knew Miss Lydia would say that was rubbish. She was good at turning an old idea inside out to reveal its st
upidity. So I kept quiet. She might be right, but it still felt wrong. She had forgotten what it was like.

  “Sounds like you might have some fun studying, anyway. This Harlan sounds like a character.”

  “Huh?” Harlan Willits was white paint. A clean chalkboard. Solid color wallpaper. Nothing.

  Miss Lydia chuckled. “Well, you have to admit, that crack about asking you to marry him was a pretty good comeback.”

  It was, when I reconsidered. Where did I get off anyway, afraid Harlan meant something by asking me to fill out the baseball field? In class he had looked mortified to be teamed up with me. I wasn’t sure whether that should come as a relief or an embarrassment.

  “Give it a chance, anyway, Billie Marie,” Miss Lydia was saying. “You’re only young once—don’t forget to have some fun.”

  Right. I faked a smile, gathered her trash, and said good-bye. I didn’t feel like telling her just then about walking into the lunchroom that day. My first time in it since I had run out of it bleeding.

  How the smell of the room brought it all back. How my mouth suddenly tasted like stale cigarettes and coffee. How I had to sit with my head between my knees all through lunch period because I felt like I was either going to pass out or throw up.

  Nor did I feel like telling her about my last exchange of the day with Harlan. Walking back toward the schoolhouse after second recess, he had fallen into step beside me and said, “Hey, you got a stomachache or something?”

  And I’d said, “Oh, no. I just wasn’t hungry at lunch, that’s all.”

  And he’d said, “That’s not what I meant. I just wondered why you keep poking at your stomach like you do.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A   week later I was sick to death of school and told Miss Lydia so. I had studied the Constitution with Harlan a couple of times, if you could call it that when the two of us sat in opposite corners of the room with our noses in our books. But otherwise, every day felt like a rerun all day long. The end of May was at least ten years away.