Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  Claire and Al are in the kitchen, rattled by the doctor’s presence.

  “What the hell is going on?” Al asks.

  “The flu,” Ed says. “You’re doing a great job out there. Want to come over and rake a few in my yard?”

  “Polly?” Claire says anxiously.

  “Everything’s fine,” Polly says. There are burned eggs in a frying pan on the stove. Untouched coffee and toast on the table. Polly puts her arm around her mother, and she’s surprised by how small Claire seems. “Really.”

  That night Charlie’s fever breaks, but Amanda is still allowed to spend the night at Laurel’s, and she’s thrilled. Laurel makes up a bed for her on the wicker loveseat and they have homemade pizza and real lemonade for dinner. Laurel doesn’t have a cassette player, so they sit in her car to hear Amanda’s new tapes.

  “This is how it would be if we were roommates,” Amanda says. “Our boyfriends would have just left.”

  “They would have given us diamond necklaces,” Laurel says.

  “And pink and yellow roses,” Amanda says.

  “They’d give us white sports cars,” Laurel adds. Her Datsun’s battery is wearing down just from using the cassette player. “Porsches.”

  When they see the first star they both make a wish.

  “Tell me what yours is,” Laurel says.

  “I can’t,” Amanda says. “It’s too stupid.”

  “I won’t laugh,” Laurel says. “I promise.”

  “I wished I could have my braces off,” Amanda says.

  “That’s not stupid,” Laurel Smith tells her.

  “It isn’t?” Amanda says.

  “It’s a great wish,” Laurel says. “Honest.”

  As they’re walking back to the house the phone rings. It’s Polly, for the third time, just checking on Amanda.

  “She worries all the time,” Amanda says when she gets off the phone.

  “She probably just wanted to say good night,” Laurel says.

  Amanda goes into the bathroom and gets undressed. She’s borrowing one of Laurel’s nightgowns, and even though it’s too big, it’s beautiful; it’s made out of soft pink flannel with a collar of lace. She’s been given her own towel and washcloth and a little soap in the shape of a seashell. When she comes back into the living room, Amanda is so tired her eyes are closing. Laurel tucks her in beneath a cotton quilt.

  “Wait till you hear the birds in the morning,” Laurel says as she lowers the shades behind the couch. “They’ll wake you up at dawn, so just go back to sleep.”

  “I’d rather get up and watch them,” Amanda says.

  “Then go to sleep now,” Laurel tells her.

  Laurel turns out the lights and starts for the bedroom, with the cat, Stella, dodging her steps.

  “Laurel?” Amanda calls.

  “Everything all right?” Laurel asks.

  “Oh, yeah,” Amanda says. “I was just wondering if you could leave a light on.”

  Laurel feels along the wall, then switches on the bright overhead light.

  “Wait a minute,” she says. She goes into the bedroom and unplugs her lamp with the pink silk shade. Then she puts it behind the wicker couch and plugs it in.

  “There,” Laurel says, pleased by the rose-colored cast of light from the lamp.

  “You’ll talk to me, won’t you?” Amanda asks.

  Laurel sits down on the edge of the coffee table. “Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?”

  “No,” Amanda says. “I mean afterward. When I’m dead.”

  “Honey, I can’t do that,” Laurel says evenly.

  “Yes, you can.” Amanda sits up and leans forward. “That’s what you do. You’re a medium.”

  “They were dreams,” Laurel says. She takes one of Amanda’s hands in her own. “That’s all they were.”

  Amanda pulls her hand away and studies Laurel. “Maybe you could. You could if you really wanted to.”

  It’s late now and there are night herons in the marsh, searching the shallow water.

  “No,” Laurel says. “Not even if I really want to.”

  “I thought you’d be able to talk to me,” Amanda whispers.

  Laurel swallows hard, then shakes her head no. Weak with disappointment, Amanda leans back, her head on the pillow.

  “I’ll dream about you,” Laurel tells her.

  “You will?” Amanda says.

  “Always,” Laurel says.

  “You don’t really have to stay with me until I fall asleep,” Amanda says.

  “That’s okay,” Laurel tells her. “I don’t mind.”

  Amanda keeps her eyes closed, and after a while she hears Laurel get up. Laurel pulls the quilt over Amanda’s shoulders, then goes into her bedroom and closes the door. But that’s all right, Amanda knows she’ll be able to sleep. She wishes she could stay here forever because she’s not as afraid as she usually is at night. As she falls asleep, Amanda is absolutely certain she’ll be the first one to wake up in the morning; she’ll be the first to hear the birds call.

  But Ed Reardon may be the first person awake in town; he’s up long before dawn. He took Charlie’s blood sample to the lab himself and told them to rush it so Polly wouldn’t have to wait till Monday for an answer. They’ve promised to call in the test results by ten today. Ed Reardon knows he can’t have fallen in love with Polly, but that’s what it feels like. He’s too raw; he’s showing things he shouldn’t. Mary wouldn’t talk to him when she and the kids got back from her sister’s, and Ed didn’t even try to approach her. Now she comes downstairs in the dark and finds him in the kitchen, having a cup of instant coffee. Mary goes to the stove and puts up a kettle for real coffee.

  “Is there something I should know about?” Mary says.

  “It’s a quarter to six,” Ed says. “I don’t want to fight.”

  Mary sits down across from him at the table. “Just tell me,” she says.

  She looks pretty with no makeup; she smells like sleep.

  “Just tell me now and I won’t ask you again,” Mary says.

  Ed knows that she means it. She doesn’t hold a grudge, she forgives easily, and she’s honest enough to expect other people to be equally honest. Ed knows that he’s married to her. Whether or not he wants to be at this moment doesn’t really matter.

  “There’s nothing you should know about,” he tells her.

  At a little after ten Ed calls Polly to let her know that Charlie’s test results are negative.

  “Thank God,” Polly says. “I was going crazy. I was crazy.”

  “If his fever’s broken and he’s not coughing you can have Amanda come home,” Ed says.

  “How did you get the lab to run this on the weekend?” Polly asks him.

  “I told them it was for you,” Ed says.

  They’re both silent then. Charlie has the TV turned up and Claire is running the water in the sink. Mary and the kids are getting dressed so they can drive out to a farm and choose their pumpkin for Halloween.

  “Well,” Polly says finally, “I guess I’d better go.”

  “Me too,” Ed Reardon says.

  He listens to her hang up the phone, then he hangs up. He takes his jacket from the hall closet, then gets the car keys and goes outside.

  “I don’t believe this,” Mary says when she comes outside and finds him in the car. “Get in,” she tells the kids. “Are you actually coming with us?” she asks Ed.

  He doesn’t know whether he is or not until he turns the key in the ignition.

  “Of course I am,” Ed says. “Where else would I go?”

  In Morrow, on Sunday, the market doesn’t open till noon, and that’s where Polly heads as soon as her parents leave to drive back to New York. Amanda will be back for dinner, and Polly wants everything to be special. God knows what Laurel Smith let her eat last night. God knows what they talked about.

  Polly pulls in and parks, then gets a cart someone’s left in the parking lot. She takes her shopping list out of her jack
et pocket as she walks toward the market.

  “It is you,” Betsy Stafford says. “I wasn’t sure from a distance.”

  Polly keeps walking, pushing her cart up the ramp to the sidewalk, headed toward the electronic swinging door.

  “Polly, we have to talk,” Betsy says.

  You bitch, Polly thinks. She rolls her cart faster. The wheels squeak.

  “I know you’re mad,” Betsy says.

  Polly stops, frozen. If she had a gun she would turn and shoot Betsy and think nothing of it. She would stay on to see the blood.

  “I panicked,” Betsy said. “I’m still panicking.”

  Polly turns then and looks at Betsy. Betsy’s cart is filled with bags of groceries. Polly can see a sack of oranges, a gallon of chocolate-chip ice cream, rolls of paper towels.

  “You would have done the same thing,” Betsy says.

  “I doubt it,” Polly says. “I’m not that stupid or cruel.”

  “You think it doesn’t kill me to keep the boys apart?”

  “You’re still breathing,” Polly says.

  “How do you think I feel when Sevrin won’t talk to me? When he slams the door in my face? You think I like to hear my son crying at night?”

  “Frankly, if you’re worried about contamination I’m with Amanda more than Charlie is. Aren’t you afraid I’ll infect you? What if the scientists are wrong?” Polly knows she sounds hysterical, but she can’t stop. “What if you use this shopping cart next time you’re at the market? What if you pick up my germs?”

  “This breaks my heart,” Betsy whispers.

  “No!” Polly tells her. “It makes you uncomfortable. It breaks my heart.”

  “Sevrin is all I have,” Betsy says. “You have Charlie. Sevrin is my only child. I just couldn’t take the risk.” Betsy’s face is crumpled; her eyes look swollen.

  “Betsy, please,” Polly says. She’s exhausted and she doesn’t want to think about any of this.

  “I want you to understand!” Betsy says.

  Polly closes her eyes and when she does she sees Charlie in bed with a fever of 102. She sees his head on the pillow and his pajama top open and damp with sweat. All this time when she thought she and Betsy were business partners she was wrong. Betsy was her friend.

  “I do understand,” Polly says. “Just don’t ask me to forgive you. I don’t know if Charlie and Sevrin ever will.”

  “I have a basementful of newts,” Betsy says. She tries to laugh, but it sounds as if she’s choking. “Some of the boys’ specimens must have escaped and I think they’re breeding down there.”

  “Your ice cream is melting,” Polly says.

  Betsy looks down at her cart and nods.

  “I’ve got to pick up something for dinner,” Polly says. “I want to make lamb chops for Amanda. I want to make baked potatoes and peas and chocolate pudding. Not that instant crap. The kind you have to stir.”

  “The instant can’t be good for you,” Betsy agrees. “It jells too fast.”

  Polly nods and walks away; she feels completely drained, powerless to do anything but cook meals no one wants, and to wait. But what is she waiting for? Nothing changes. Here is this man whom she loves, beside her in bed and she can’t touch him; here is her family, her house, the curtains she chose so carefully, the first photographs she was ever paid for taking, at Sevrin’s birthday party. The only way Polly can fall asleep is to count backward from a thousand. She used to do this when she was a little girl; she used to twirl her hair with one finger while she counted, and in the morning she would wake up with knots on one side of her head.

  Tonight she dreams that she has lost Amanda and cannot find her. She enters her dream through an alleyway made of stones. She can hear children crying, and the sound of shovels, methodically hitting against the earth. It’s raining and the ground is slippery; as she runs, mud splashes up and coats her legs, turning them the color of blood.

  This is what she knows: Someone has taken her daughter. Someone has put up a fence ringed with spikes. Someone is screaming in the distance. There are other children here, with no one to care for them, but Polly has no time for them. She runs faster. Her heart is pounding. She reaches the shelter she’s looking for, and when she goes inside all she can see is one bed after another. Rows and rows of iron beds made up with white sheets. This is the children’s house. This is the place where they’re given food and water every day, but there is still no one to hold them. As she walks through the shelter, children cry out to her, babies lift their arms, begging to be picked up. They all look the same to her, that is what’s horrible. They look like Amanda, but they’re not. Polly knows she will recognize her own daughter; she must. There she is, in a small bed pushed up against a wall. Amanda can no longer speak, but Polly can tell she recognizes her. She wraps her in a sheet, and after they leave the shelter, after they step outside, the sheet trails in the mud and makes a hissing sound.

  The alley she first entered by is the only way out, and, without seeing them, Polly knows there are guards. But all guards grow careless, they grow sleepy when their stomachs are full, when the screaming is in the distance and not right at their feet. So Polly crouches down low; it is dusk now, but that won’t last forever. They will wait until dark. When no one is looking, when their backs are turned, Polly will hoist Amanda over her shoulder and make her way back to the alley. The only thing they really have to fear is a full moon, because in this dream even moonlight is dangerous.

  CHAPTER 14

  There are some days when Amanda sleeps all day instead of going to school. There are days she’s so nauseated she can’t get off the bathroom floor. Her mother sits beside her on the tiles and runs a cool, wet washcloth along her forehead. They sit near the base of the toilet and her mother lifts her onto her lap and rocks back and forth and that makes her feel a little better. Things she used to love to eat she can’t even look at anymore because her throat is all bunched up. Her father makes her a sweet mixture of spring water and honey and liquid protein, and on her bad days she sips from a plastic cup. The drink makes her think of bees and hot weather; it makes her think of cool pond water that looks green in the shallows.

  On her good days she insists on going to school. Her parents have stopped trying to persuade her to stay home. Her mother packs a healthy lunch, which she never eats. Her father makes her take a vial of vitamins, which she always empties into a trash basket. On good days she goes to practice, and she always wears her leotard. She’s so skinny she knows she looks awful, but she just couldn’t stand to be in the gym without her leotard. She’s been wearing her good-luck necklace to practice and, in spite of his strict rule about no jewelry, the coach never says a word about it to her, although last Tuesday he caught her sneaking a Life Saver and he treated her just like everyone else.

  “Farrell,” he called across the gym, and Amanda still doesn’t know how he could possibly have spotted her from that distance. “Spit that out now!”

  Today the coach has been really rough on the girls, and there’s a wave of discontent on the bench. The next meet is against Clarkson, a school in a rich district; most of the girls on that team go to fancy gymnastics camps in the summer. The coach always goes crazy before a meet with Clarkson, and maybe that’s why he’s so hard on Jessie when she messes up her backflips.

  “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all,” the coach shouts. “Take it out of your routine.”

  Jessie walks back to the bench scowling and drenched with sweat. It’s awful for anybody when the coach yells at her, but much worse for Jessie, since she has to go home with him. Amanda watches as Jessie sits down beside Evelyn Crowley. They’ve been spending a lot of time together, and now they put their heads close and whisper. Amanda knows what the problem is. Jessie’s not tucking her legs in enough. Amanda could do a backflip in her sleep. She dreams about gymnastics moves, and in her dreams her body is strong, her legs don’t ache.

  Amanda waits until Evelyn Crowley goes to start her routine on th
e balance beam, then she goes over to where Jessie’s sitting. Amanda has a slight limp now, but she doesn’t think anyone can really notice. She sits down next to Jessie, but neither of them looks at the other.

  “He’s down on everybody today,” Amanda says as she watches Evelyn mount the beam.

  “He’s a bastard,” Jessie says. Anyone could tell how hard she’s trying not to cry.

  “He just wants you to be as good as you can be,” Amanda says. The coach himself has told them this a million times.

  “As good as you,” Jessie says. She glares at Amanda. “That’s what you mean.”

  “You forgot the ‘was,’” Amanda says.

  Jessie looks at her blankly.

  “As good as I was,” Amanda says.

  They look away from each other and stare at the coach. He has a clipboard and a scoring sheet and he’s rating every girl’s performance.

  “Coaches have to be mean,” Amanda says. “That’s their job.”

  “And obnoxious and fat and stupid,” Jessie adds.

  They both crack up over that.

  “Evelyn’s doing okay,” Amanda says.

  “Yeah,” Jessie says grudgingly. “She’s okay. She’ll never be as good as you.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda says. “Well, she might be.”

  As soon as they see the coach heading toward them they shut up, fast. The coach doesn’t go for conversations on the bench.

  “What the hell is this?” Jack Eagan says when he reaches them. “Get off your butt,” he tells Jessie. “You’re not leaving here until I see a perfect backflip.”

  Jessie shoots him a murderous look, then gets off the bench to practice.

  “She needs to tuck her legs in,” Jack Eagan says. He sits down next to Amanda, the clipboard between them. “Think we have a chance against Clarkson?”

  Amanda starts to shrug, but when she looks at him she realizes he’s serious. He wants her opinion.

  “Evelyn’s got a real good chance at scoring.”

  The coach nods, so Amanda goes on.