“You know I hope so. Don’t you want to know who was on the phone?” She slides the mirror under her pillow.
“More than anything.”
“It was the hospital.”
“That’s not funny.” I sit up.
“No, really, it was.” Baby Teeth stands. “Daddy’s awake!” Her hands rise above her in victory, then she jumps on top of me. “Really awake! Sitting-up-and-eating awake!”
I can’t even breathe, but I don’t care. My arms grab the roses as the thrill rushes through me, and I hold on.
| | | | | |
I usually walk to school, but since today is already a special event—he’s really awake!—I decide to take the bus. I’ll see my dad later, of course. He’ll be sitting—he’ll make sense when he talks. I’m going to meet Edward and Baby Teeth at home, after school. Baby Teeth has chorus today, so she’ll be late.
It’s really spring. The air’s still dewy, but there’s a crisp edge to it as I cross the lawn on the way to the bus stop. The grass is a lush, deep, unmowed green. Nothing will ruin this day. Even the bus is on time.
| | |
I climb the two steps, and the first thing I see is the cloud of Eileen’s hair in the back of the bus. Oh, delight. But wait, no hat. It’s a positive sign—maybe things can be the same. I decide to sit next to her, bump my way down the aisle, and even smile as I approach. My best friend’s eyes jump wide as they see me, then shoot to the window. Oh, please.
I sink into the thick black seat. “How’s it going?” I say in a regular voice. I decide to ignore that she’s been ignoring me. How long has it been? Two weeks almost.
“Pretty good.” Her hands grab the pile of books from her lap, and she holds them in front of her, some kind of barricade.
She’s wearing a bracelet I’ve never seen, silver with turquoise stones.
“Nice piece,” I say. I lean over and drop my books to the floor. I step on them so they stay in place.
“Yeah, thanks.” She laughs like I don’t know her.
What’s your problem, I want to say. When did your new life that doesn’t include me actually start? Maybe she’s waiting to see if I’m mad at her. She must know what an idiot she was for telling everyone about my dad. Well, I won’t let it ruin this day. My dad’s awake. Change the subject, my mind says. What can I say? Well, every sophomore in school is reading it. Go ahead. “So what do you think of Romeo and Juliet?” I say.
“No big surprise—it’s too sad for words.”
So are you, my mind says. Guess I’m still mad.
Eileen is looking out the window as she speaks. “And it’s not easy to read, with all those wherefores and what fors; I have to stop at every line and try to figure out what they’re saying.”
“What’s so sad about it?” I ask, trying to be nice as I speak to the side of her head.
“You’re kidding. Aside from the fact that Romeo gets banished and Juliet is tossing down poison and all these other people are getting killed . . . they both die.”
So she can actually say the croak word. I’m impressed.
“They die? I guess your class is further along than we are.” I play dumb. I just want her to look at me, something she hasn’t done since I sat down.
“Everybody knows the story, Virginia. It’s famous, so I guess you’re just being an idiot.” She looks at her watch, not at me.
“We’re only up to Romeo getting banished, in Sanders’ class.” I still play innocent, though I’d like to kill her for that. When did she get so mean? Do people just wake up vicious one day? It’s like I’m the one being banished.
“Oh.”
There it is again. Oh. Okay, my friend, we can both play. In the story, Romeo is only trying to stop a fight between a band of Montagues and Capulets, and a Montague is murdered. Romeo gets attacked by the murderer, who he murders—that’s why he gets banished.
“Yeah. So their death is the sad part?” Maybe if I just rub it in, the tears will leave my eyes. Maybe I’ll feel better.
But Eileen doesn’t get it; she just looks at her watch again. “It was so drawn out and fatiguing, what could be worse?”
Your hat, I think, that stupid, filthy, dust-covered rag. I am stone.
The bus jolts to a stop. Kids pile on. Oh, great, there’s Sullivan. Eileen seems to sway next to me. Have I been missing something here? The Romantics are the swaying types. Don’t even think it. Is there something going on between Eileen and Grant? I glance at her, but she has turned to the window again, so I get a good view of the back of her head.
Sullivan ignores us and takes a seat several rows in front. I watch the back of his head, waiting, I guess, for some kind of sign. Sullivan and I never speak to each other anyway. It’s an unspoken rule. Well, I don’t know about this day anymore. Let the wind in, I think—maybe as it blows past, I’ll realize this moment will too. Baby Teeth knows what she’s talking about.
| | | | | |
I’m disturbed. Now there’s an understatement. No, really. I feel like I’m floating. Ever since I got off the bus. It’s not anxiety. It’s some whatever trying to surface inside me, and I just can’t grasp it. It’s like attempting to climb the gym rope, but my hands keep slipping. It’s not even a feeling; it’s deeper than that. It’s something I know. Except, only a part of me knows it, not all of me, so it doesn’t connect to the rest of my thoughts yet.
I’m sitting in math trying to concentrate. I’m watching Mr. Giamano’s big math head as he scribbles algebra problems on the blackboard. I’m trying to concentrate, but it’s hopeless. Algebra is nonsense. There is no emotional meaning to math at all. It occurs to me that I would never say this aloud, even though I think it.
That’s it. I wonder when I stopped saying what I thought. I’m suddenly aware that I seem to have stopped talking. I mean, I didn’t say what I really thought on the bus this morning with Eileen. That I was hurt and angry and why was she avoiding me, and by the way, only fools wear hats. I know we used to talk; all we did was talk. Now I feel I’m getting somewhere. I’m climbing to the knowing. What is it?
I must be staring because I hear my name. “Virginia.”
It’s Giamano.
“Yes?”
“Have you finished the problems?”
“No,” I say, looking at the yellow scrawl on the blackboard. “I haven’t even started.” Then I smile at Giamano’s dark math eyes, because I have actually just learned something.
He looks at me blankly. He must think I’m the one who isn’t making any sense. But I am. It was the day of the hit-and-run, back there when life was cruel, in April, when I stopped talking.
| | | | | |
I’m standing in front of school watching everyone stampede toward the buses, deciding whether I will walk home or not. I have time before Edward and Baby Teeth get there. Jane appears by the door. “Want to walk?” she says.
“Sure,” I say. I’ll try again to be myself, the one I was before all these questions started hounding me, I think. “Let’s go the back way. It’s nicer.”
“So did you grow up here?” she says as we walk past the redbrick side of D wing.
“You could call it that.” Stop it, I think. Be straight. “I was born two towns away. We moved here when I was three.” That’s better.
“I’ll show you the woods. Have you been there yet?” I ask. We are behind the school now. I look into the English class windows because I can’t look at Jane. I don’t know why. Stop asking.
“Uh-uh, not yet. This girl, Loretta somebody, was telling me about it in the bathroom the other day. You go?” Jane is subtle. I’m impressed. “Not really . . .” Just say what you mean, V. “Only on my way to somewhere else—I don’t hang out there.”
Jane nods in that easy way. “One look at Loretta was enough to keep me out of there.”
We laugh.
We reach the dirt path and start down the hill. The trees are green and full again; the air is fresh. It really is spring—there is nothing cruel in the
air. I love the way the dust tumbles when my feet hit the ground.
“Do you like sports?” Jane is behind me.
“Some.” That’s true. The only thing I hate is gymnastics.
“I’ve noticed you’re pretty good,” she calls.
“Years of slavery, you know?” Am I good? At the bottom of the hill I stop. “How about you?”
“I want to faint when I see a field hockey stick,” she says.
| | |
The smile doesn’t leave my face. “I like your jacket.”
“Oh, thanks. But I see you have natural ability, good coordination. It’s obvious in basketball, anyway.”
“Well, I don’t know.” That’s true too. My face starts to burn. Why? Because she’s been watching me?
“Yeah, it’s great down here. It smells so good.” The leather of her jacket crunches in the nicest way as she spreads her arms open. “I just want to take it all home with me, you know?”
I look around the clearing at the bottom of the hill. There are some branches on a few dogwoods that still hold their pale buds, but otherwise the open flowers rise from the branches like small clouds. “Me too. We can sit down for a while, if you want. You can tell me, I don’t know, what you think of the neighborhood, or whatever,” I say.
She looks like she belongs in the woods, like some kind of olive animal. The green of her eyes matches the leaves of the maple trees.
“I can tell you one thing.” She looks directly at me with those eyes as she wraps her arms around a big old maple. Anxiety replaces my breath. What is wrong with me?
Maybe I’m not ready. “Please,” I say. What do I mean?
“I think about you all the time.”
In addition to my face, the rest of me is now surrounded by flames. Why does this girl make me feel like this? I can’t believe words can actually come out of my mouth at this moment, but I manage to tell the stream-so-bright Jane I’ll take her to the pond, one of my favorite spots.
It’s strange to think Shakespeare must’ve meant her when he wrote that line, since he’s been dead for about four hundred years, but that’s what passes through my mind. Something is happening to me. At least I’ll cool off at the pond.
Bigger Than Both My Hands
My father’s flesh is the color of fire trucks, but the flames must be coming from inside his body, because he is out of his mind. As we walk into room 524N, my dad is bolt upright on the bed. His pajama shirt is nowhere in sight, and his back is as stiff as a ladder. It looks like the blankets and sheets, scattered in twisted clumps on the floor, have been thrown from the bed. The air in the room is like electricity and sends a charge surging down my spine, so I feel I’m plugged in through my feet.
Before his head has even turned to us, he’s talking. We might be across the street, his voice is so loud. Like a siren. Can his voice be on fire too?
“So glad you could make it. Everyone yes, and the snow is deep. It’s almost time but I didn’t tell. Yes, yes, the curtain is up, my grandmother is there, the baseballs and everyone. It’s here, but not with the shoes, sit down. And you . . .” And how his voice changes as he points to me and my siblings in the doorway, like his chest is full of mud . . . “you, you . . .”—his big red hand is pointing and he’s yelling, “Go to Schwab’s. Go to Schwab’s.”
My mother, who has been standing before the sink in the corner of the room, whirls when she hears him. “Daniel, Daniel!” She’s at the bed. “It’s the kids. Daniel, stop!” and reaches for his face with her hands.
The water is still running in the big stainless steel sink. “Help me,” she calls to us. “Hand me washcloths—make them cold.” I hear her kiss my father. Only then can I move. I see my brother’s mouth hanging open and I grab Baby Teeth’s hand and we are at the sink. Did we walk? There is a buzzing in my ears. I can’t tell if it comes from inside me or somewhere else. As if I’m watching myself, I lean over the sink and grab some damp white washcloths lying in a heap, and let the cold water soak them.
Baby Teeth is at my side, her hands hanging on to the back pocket of my jeans. And my brother is there. Without a word, we become an assembly line as I hand each chilled cloth to Baby Teeth, who hands it to Edward, who gives it to my mother, who presses some piece of my father’s bony red chest with it.
“Where are they?” my brother says. “Where are the nurses?”
And my mother doesn’t even turn around as she answers, “A bad drug they gave him. It’s a fever—it’ll break. Hurry.”
“When my grandmother comes, everyone must rise,” my father says. He’s all curled up on the bed. I glance over, but I’m too afraid to even look at his face. My dad’s head is cradled in my mother’s arms. I look back at the rushing water.
Nobody says anything. The air smells like it’s on fire. The cold water soon freezes my hands so bad I can’t feel the washcloths anymore. My fingers are red and numb and I begin to drop the wet cloths before they get to Baby Teeth’s hands. I can’t keep a grip, and fury and frustration surface, like mist blurring my eyes. A puddle starts on the floor and my feet begin slipping. Baby Teeth slips. Edward tosses the blanket into the puddle and at least we don’t fall down. My father starts to sigh. “I’m so tired, just so tired all the time.” It’s his regular voice.
“I know, honey. Don’t worry, I know,” my mother says.
“What’s this?” he asks, and we all turn from our places to look at him, but in his eyes is something I’ve never seen. Those aren’t my father’s eyes. They’re so red, it looks like they’re full of blood. “Who’s here?” he calls, like he’s some kid lost somewhere, and the lonely sound of it fills my throat with a swelling lump. What does he see?
My mother is patting his hair, caressing his gaunt face, and he falls forward with a choking, stuttering groan that becomes so light and simple it finally stops. Nobody moves.
A nurse appears in the doorway. From the comer of the room I can see that she’s frowning. She tugs at the collar of a peach-colored sweater that she wears over her uniform and walks briskly to the empty side of the bed, where my mother is not standing. “Let’s get him back to bed now, all right?” she says. She and my mother grip him by each scrawny bicep, and he leans back like maybe there’s not a bone in his shrunken body. The nurse is careful not to knock the tube in his arm.
“I’m taking your temperature now,” the nurse calls to my dad, even though she’s beside him. He’s staring at the ceiling, and she slips a thermometer into his mouth. The thermometer is attached by an elastic cord to a plastic box fixed to the belt at her waist. My dad’s chest is heaving, and he spits into the air.
The burning fire of the air is smoldering now. As if through a cloud, I see the pink flesh of my dad’s chest and neck, the blue in the pulsing veins, and the most pale skin on the underside of his arms, so that his flesh looks transparent. Almost like the wax paper we used to press on top of leaves in art class. Tape smudges and purple bruises from the syringes cover his forearms. His arms open and rise into the air, palms up, and he reminds me of somebody else. It’s the Cadillac driver, Mr. Utley—the way his arms went up at the vet’s—like he was surrendering.
“It’s a hundred and three,” the nurse says as she removes the thermometer from my dad’s crumpled lips and glances from the blue plastic square to my mother. “That’s better than it was an hour ago. The doctor’s making rounds—he’ll be here soon.” Her voice is gentle, her eyes soft.
My mother nods. She’s breathing hard, as if she has been running, and the nurse looks at us. “Great job, everyone.” Baby Teeth sputters.
The nurse quietly finds my dad’s pajama shirt in a heap of sheets at the bottom of the bed and hands it to my mother. “The antidote should make a difference soon,” she says. My mother holds the shirt as the nurse fiddles with the IV beside the bed, nods to us, and asks, “Do you want me to help with the bed?”
My mother shakes her head. “I’ll do it, thank you.” Her words sound pushed out, forced off a gangplank.
Before the nurse leaves, she says, “I’m sorry no one came sooner. It’s difficult when the shift changes.”
My brother is standing beside my mother, and Baby Teeth has not moved. Her hand is in her mouth. “What anecdote?” my brother says. My hands find Baby Teeth’s shoulders and we walk over, close to the foot of the bed.
My dad’s eyes are closed now. He opens them. “Hey,” he says when he sees us. Those are his eyes, but they’re still red. “Hi, guys.”
“Daddy!” Baby Teeth calls, and springs to his side.
“Have I been asleep all day, huh?” He looks at my mother. Her face is drained. She tries to smile, her hands fumbling with the bed sheets. Edward finds another blanket in the closet. This one is green.
“Getting chilly again, oohh . . . where’s my pillow?” he says, and looks blankly around him. My mother says, “We’re just straightening up.” And they manage to get his pajama top back on. It’s the blue plaid, the same one he left the house in. When was that? A long time ago.
| | | | | |
When they are scared, box turtles tuck their heads between their upper and lower shells, then bend the shell closed over the remaining gap. But someone observing them wouldn’t know they were scared. The turtles simply appear shut, as if they never had any legs or heads to start with. Considering that hiding is the only defense they have, their performance is a good trick.
When I was ten years old, I found a box turtle by the fence in our backyard. I used to climb the fence, stomping the wide white plank at the top so my banging heels echoed in the woods. I would feel so powerful, so connected to the world. When I picked the turtle up that day, its legs jutted out and grabbed at the air. I was surprised at how strong it was. It actually pulled me forward, and I almost dropped it. The shell was bigger than both my hands. I was running before I knew it and didn’t stop until the turtle lay inside an empty cage in the basement. Before boxes, I collected cages.
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