Little Panic

by Amanda Stern

  This school is as hard as college. All the girls, even in the grade below me, know more than I do. When they talk about papers we have to write, and they reference their fancy, charted notes, they talk about thesis and evidence, college words I haven’t learned. At Little Red, I learned how to make a stool in shop, play piano, marbleize paper, paint scenery for school plays, and make papier-mâché. Capital letters still confuse me. Why do they have to go in some places and not others? And commas: They say put it where you would take a breath, but whenever I put it where my body breathes it’s always the wrong place. Am I breathing wrong?

  Don’t get me started on “parts of speech.” In “The dumb girl is thinking,” for instance, “girl” is a noun because it’s a person, but “girl” also describes what gender someone is, so why isn’t it also an adjective? A word never means only one thing, but no one seems to understand that but me.

  It’s getting harder to pretend. For the entire first semester, I’m required to attend every after-school lab, and when I return home there’s a tutor waiting. Soon I’m scheduled to leave school to see a tutor during the middle of the day, and while the teachers know, the other students don’t, and I sneak out when no one is looking. I don’t know what I’ll say if I’m caught. Just imagining it mortifies me.

  Then, in the middle of all this, I find myself spending four weekends in a row taking the same sorts of tests I took with Dr. Rivka in fifth grade. This time I go alone. I must have failed that test and that’s why I’m taking it again. Or maybe they’re hoping I’ve miraculously gotten smarter. Knowing I got it wrong the first time makes taking it a second time even more stressful. How am I supposed to know the right answers this time, when no one ever told me?

  But the questions she asks are harder, the timer has less sand because it always runs out before I can answer, and the first questions come: What is the Apocrypha? What is the main theme of the book of Genesis? Who wrote The Iliad? Who cares?

  I float inside an endless stretch of cloudy, white eternity and the not knowing turns into time itself, caught in the sticky fabric of the universe, like spider webbing to my body and face, making it hard for me to see and hear, swaddling my brain in a gauzy wrap. I worry that I’ll never hear anything again. I feel turned inside out. What is a catacomb? Name the two countries that border the United States. Here is a sentence whose words are all mixed up so that they don’t make any sense: For the started an we country early at hour to ask paper my teacher correct I my. Suppose you are going south, then turn left, then turn right. Suppose I planted a tree that was eight inches tall. Suppose she never lets me leave? Suppose I can’t be the things I want to be in my life because I’m so stupid?

  The world feels like an enchanted forest filled with hidden riddles, stairwells, and doorways through which my peers and siblings advance, while I just continue on, walking past secret passages I can’t see. I feel sorry for my mom because I’m this way. Kids are a reflection of their parents, and I don’t want to reflect badly on her. If I keep sitting in the back, don’t get called on, and figure out a way to never do things that are too hard for me, then maybe she won’t be embarrassed by me and no one will catch on that I’m an idiot. She has kept it a secret all this time; now I will, too.

  * * *

  The only place I feel comfortable and accepted in the whole school, in all of uptown, is the art room. Up there with Basi, the painting teacher, and Mr. Indresano, the ceramics teacher, I don’t feel stupid. I feel a belonging I don’t in the rest of the school. No one tests me or makes me do after-school labs. Mr. Indresano gets my sense of humor, lets me curse, and teaches me how to do magic tricks, which I’m good at—unlike Latin, history, and biology. Also, Basi thinks I’m special. She is impressed that I can name the artist of any image she shows me, even if I’ve never seen the painting before. I like having that magic.

  The air is different up here on the fifth floor. When I’m walking up from the fourth floor, the minor accelerations of my heart that mark the time of day begin to roll smoothly again. It’s cool and smells of clay and it’s like a private world just for me. Sometimes a few of the upper-school kids are here, but they are cool, with short spiky haircuts and lots of black plastic bracelets. I’m always the youngest, and Basi and Mr. I. give me attention and teach me things I can learn how to do like paint a still life, make a bowl, juggle, and describe a drawing so people can see it without looking. Plus, I have a crush on Mr. Indresano and I like that I always know where to find him. Mr. I. lives in the East Village; he and I are the only two people in the entire school who live below Fourteenth Street. The art room is like being in the Village while being uptown.

  The social scene confuses me almost as much as the academic one. Whenever I talk to one of my classmates I feel like I’m a weirdo. My hair is short and frizzy, my nose is too big, my lips barely close over my braces, and my ears don’t seem to stop growing. The other kids are perfect: all clean lines; no smudges. We have nothing in common, and I feel overwhelmed by how many of their references I don’t understand. What is Frost Valley; what are rope lifts, Vail, and the Jitney? I can’t be caught not knowing something.

  Everyone except me lives uptown. Their houses are sprawling and shiny, like someone is always cleaning. Madison Spencer wants to be my friend because I’m funny, even though her parents don’t like Jews, and she thinks Mr. Indresano is dirty. She even thought I was kidding when I met her joke’s punch line “Because he’s a kike!” with the words “I’m Jewish.” She’s the first popular chubby girl I’ve ever met. The first time I go over to her house, she shows me all the books her dad has about Nazis. I know not to bring up this information at home if I want to hang out with her again. Even though I feel out of step with myself at Madison’s house, split from who I am, like when I’m at my dad’s, and afraid if I’ll ever get home, I’ve discovered that one of my separated selves is a stronger version of me, and I use her as a shield. She knows what to say and how to say it in order to keep the attention off what I’m really feeling, to keep the defective me from being witnessed by people my age.

  Madison and I watch sitcoms and talk on the phone. I tell her about Adam Ant and David Bowie, but she thinks they’re weird. I don’t tell anyone else. Through Madison I make more friends, and soon I have an entire community of people who like me; finally I can breathe easy. But even though I now have a safe, home feeling at school, no one will actually visit me at home because Tory Fitzpatrick said downtown is where bums and poor people live, and everyone believes her because she’s related to a famous designer I’ve never heard of. I feel sorry for her that she thinks this, because the Village is amazing and I wouldn’t trade my bums or poor people for their lives, ever.

  * * *

  Seventh grade arrives, and we’re finally in skirts. I’m so little I have to roll mine over four times just to keep it from falling down. There are two new girls that Madison and I become friends with, Tatum and Amelia. While Madison is the only popular chubby person I’ve ever met, Tatum is the only beautiful nerd I’ve ever known. Amelia is Jewish like me, and buoyant, always up for adventure. They are unafraid of the world, ready to separate from their parents and explore the street side of life in a way I’m not. Even as I feel comfortable with them, I’m always hiding a part of myself, pretending I’m cool when I’m tortured by a constant, unrelenting anguish. I’m thirteen, I still have countdowns, and my body still trembles for days leading up to any separation from my mom. Even though people think I belong, I know I don’t. I thought my wrongness would go away—whatever it is—but it’s not. It’s getting worse.

  Amelia, Madison, and Tatum all have the straight, bouncy hair I’ve been craving all my life. They have boobs; they shave their legs. They aren’t afraid of growing older, of becoming women. They want boyfriends—they even think Eddie is cute—while I’m just pretending. I’m funny-looking: tiny, underdeveloped, with braces and hair like a clumpy mass of wool, and my features are too large for my face. I’m afraid of sex. I don’t wan
t anyone so close to me they might see who I really am. But we have dances with the nearby all-boys school Allen-Stevenson, and they all get dressed up and wear makeup and flirt and dance. There’s a boy with bright red hair named Josh I like. He’s the class clown, which is what I am becoming, and the odd one out in the bunch of blond kids. He lives in the Village also and he’s really cute. We dance together at all the dances. When we catch Tatum, Amelia, and Madison all making out with their dance partners, the two of us laugh and make fun of them. I want to kiss him, and I am terrified that he’ll kiss me.

  Sometimes, though, I catch Madison and Tatum off to the side whispering. What are they doing without Amelia and me? The uncomfortable feeling turns into a threatening flicker in my chest, tinting the window my eyes look out of with a feeling I can’t name. It’s not the same as when I leave my mom, but it’s related. Something about needing to be seen, something about being left.

  The only reason I want my period is because it seems like one of the only markers in life that will tell me I’m normal. Otherwise, I don’t want it, ever. I’m afraid of growing up. It seems that the older we get, the more the girls around me know, while I don’t know anything. I don’t know how to french-kiss, or what to do if a penis drops on my lap. Amelia, Madison, and Tatum know all about tampons and pads, but my mom hasn’t told me about any of that stuff. I just pretend I know and nod along. Now that there are boys involved, my nodding has taken on a life all its own.

  It is 1983, and the world is expanding and shrinking: We get a TV; my uncle Stanley dies, which makes me cry for days; we get an allowance; AIDS starts infecting the men in our neighborhood, though I don’t understand why it’s just here. Madison’s family gets cable and we all go over there to watch Duran Duran on a channel called MTV—it’s the greatest channel in the world. We dance to the endless music videos and watch ourselves in the mirror that hangs behind the couch in their TV room. Sterling, Madison’s older sister, joins us. At one point Sterling starts french-braiding Tatum’s hair. I’m surprised, but Tatum doesn’t even react, like they’ve done this millions of times.

  “Wait, hold the end,” Sterling says. “You left your scrunchie in Southampton. Let me run and find it.”

  Sterling scuttles out of the room, and Amelia and I look at each other. None of us have ever been to Madison’s family’s house in Southampton before. Or so we thought. Sterling returns and secures Tatum’s hair and she looks in the mirror and smiles.

  Sterling lies on the couch and Amelia and I sit on the arms of the leather club chair, feeling defeated and confused.

  Why does Tatum get in, but I don’t? Is it because she’s so pretty? All this time, while Amelia and I thought we were safe and secure in our friendship with Madison and Tatum, we were wrong. Now all I feel is secondhand embarrassment. The same kind I feel when I remember I’m dumb, and have been dumb all this time, starting from the beginning.

  “So, you guys went to Southampton together?” Amelia asks them, trying to sound casual.

  “Yeah, a few times,” Tatum says, like it’s no big deal.

  “I would have invited you guys, but I was only allowed to bring one friend,” Madison says. I’m jealous they did something without me, but my body is splashed by a nervous dread: I’d never have gone to Southampton, even if she’d asked. Have they seen who I really am, and is that why I wasn’t invited? Have they realized I’m not good enough?

  “That’s okay,” Amelia says fast, then looks at her Swatch. “I should go. I don’t like taking the bus at rush hour.”

  I look out the window and am caught off-guard by how dark it is. Normally I go to Madison’s only on the Fridays I stay at my dad’s, but tonight I have to get back to the Village. If I take the subway at this hour, I might get raped or killed. If I don’t, then there’s the long walk from the 6 train home, another place to get raped or killed. I imagine myself on the back of a milk carton, just the way they started doing with Etan Patz’s picture. Plus, I don’t have money for a cab. I can’t go to Amelia’s because she lives on the Upper West Side, and I’m definitely not taking the bus. I suppose I could always walk over to my dad’s house, but I don’t feel welcome to just stop in unannounced. Though I’d been fine just a minute ago, the news about Southampton, seeing that the sky died before I was home safe, and that I don’t know how to get home in order to get safe, builds swiftly inside me. My breathing goes heavy, and a spray of tingles warps through my body. My brain is overcrowding with words, and my heart is overcrowding with beats. My face flushes with sweat, while my fingers are freezing. When I look at my friends, their bodies are taking up more space than they had been moments before. There’s an emergency feeling telling me to get out of this room immediately. Something very bad is about to happen to me.

  “Just going to the bathroom,” I say, trying to walk across the room as casually as possible, afraid for some reason that Madison will block me, or Tatum and Sterling will tackle me and stuff me in a closet and never let me out. Nothing this weird has ever happened before. I speed walk to Madison’s bathroom, where I feel my body start to close down. I’m dizzy, then instantly hot, sweating hard by the time I throw up. I’m shaking and crying and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my heart will not slow down and I think I’m having a heart attack. I force my throat to swallow, because it doesn’t seem to be doing that on its own. I do not want to die on the bathroom floor of a Nazi’s Park Avenue apartment.

  There’s a knock on the door. Amelia is calling good-bye.

  “Bye, Am!” I manage before puking again. I am mortified and worried she heard me. My face is soaked with sweat, and I stand at the sink feeling my entire body shake as I splash water on my face and run a dollop of Madison’s toothpaste over my teeth and tongue with my finger. I look swollen, like Melissa. She had something wrong inside her, just like I do. I have a bad feeling. I try to block it out, but I can’t. It’s grabbing me and whispering in my ear things I don’t want to know: No one in the entire world has what you have. You are defective and stupid and something is wrong with you, a wrong that is so bizarre it’s never been discovered. You are going to be the person inside whose body they discover this medical weirdness. That is how you will be remembered. You are a shameful, ugly, little being.

  Not ever knowing what will trigger this bizarre reaction inside me fills me with dread. This thing is ruining my life. It’s always ruined my life, but now it’s branching out into my friendships. How can I ever be happy if even the smallest things, like not knowing how to get home, or learning my friends didn’t invite me somewhere, are so overwhelming I throw up and have heart attacks? I can’t live like this. It’s too hard.

  No one’s in Madison’s room when I come out of the bathroom, which is a relief. I hurry down the hall.

  “Bye, thanks for having me over,” I say from the doorframe as I feel my body get stick-pinned like a voodoo doll.

  “See ya!” Madison calls, waving without looking at me. I walk down the hall and pass Madison’s mom’s bedroom. Just like my mom, Mrs. Spencer is always in her bedroom. I pass it, thinking that moms are safe, and I backtrack and stick my head in.

  “Mrs. Spencer?” I ask.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a friend of Madison’s and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get home.”

  “What do you want me to do about it? Where’s your driver?”

  “I don’t have a driver.”

  “Hail a cab.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Call your mom, then,” she says, holding the phone out to me. When my mom answers, the ache I get right before I cry grows stronger in the back of my throat. I tell myself I can cry later; I can’t cry now.

  “Hi, Mom. I’m at Madison’s, but I don’t know how to get home.”

  “Can you put Mrs. Spencer on the phone?”

  I look at Mrs. Spencer, who is glaring at me. “My mom wants to talk to you.”

  “Hello? How much? And who will pay me back?
And when will that be? Are you kidding? I can’t trust Madison with my money. You really don’t have a driver?” Long pause. “Now that seems like a better plan.”

  She hands the phone back to me.

  “What a bitch,” my mom says. “Have the doorman get you a cab, that’s their job. When you get here, I’ll pay the driver.”

  When I hang up, Mrs. Spencer is aggrieved by my existence and exhales heavily. “Are we done?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Okay. Now, out, out, damned spot.” She waves me away with the back of her hand. I bolt out of the apartment. As soon as I’m in the back of the cab I worry. How will my mom know that the cab has arrived? There’s no way she can know unless I get out of the cab and tell her, but what if the cabdriver won’t let me out until I pay, and he traps me? I worry all the way home. I worry when he lets me out of the cab to ring the bell, I worry waiting for my mom to answer the door, I worry as she counts the money, and then, once the cabdriver is gone, my worries disappear because I’m safe at home with my warm, loving, opposite-from-Mrs.-Spencer-mom. Whatever else happens, even if my friends all abandon me, I know I’ll always have my mom.

  June 1981

  Dr. Rivka Golod

  Conclusion:

  While this evaluation finds Amanda’s cognitive abilities to be highly variable, it’s my opinion that emotionally based factors are making her under-achievement appear even more dramatic.