“I’m sure you’re busy,” Polly says.
“No,” Laurel says. “The most important thing I have to do today is buy cat food.”
“You have a cat?” Amanda asks, as if this were the most fascinating piece of information she’d ever heard.
“Grandma and Grandpa are coming over,” Polly says weakly.
“Not for a while,” Amanda says. She looks very small, and younger than her age. “Oh, please!”
Polly and Laurel Smith look at each other.
“All right,” Polly says.
Amanda runs off to get a brush and some rubber bands.
“Why are you doing this?” Polly says, suspiciously. She figures she has a right to be suspicious when a woman who communes with spirits wants to brush her daughter’s hair.
“She’ll look pretty with her hair braided,” Laurel Smith says. “Don’t you think so?”
Amanda and Laurel go out onto the porch. Through the window, Polly can see Laurel, sitting behind Amanda, brushing her hair. Polly should tell Laurel Smith to leave; they don’t need any help from strangers. If one of their friends or neighbors had offered them anything at all, Polly would have taken the pie from Laurel Smith, then shut the door and put the pie in the refrigerator, behind the cartons of orange juice and milk. Instead, she watches through the window and cries.
“How long did it take you to grow your hair that long?” Amanda asks Laurel.
“The last time I cut it I was fourteen,” Laurel says. Then she adds, “I can tell you use conditioner. You don’t have any knots.”
Amanda smiles. She’s usually shy around adults, but Laurel Smith doesn’t seem very much older than she is. It’s as if they were both teenagers, and Amanda’s glad she’s not wearing her stupid Smurf T-shirt.
“Have you ever been in love with anybody?” Amanda asks Laurel.
“Not yet,” Laurel Smith admits.
“Me either,” Amanda says.
“I’ve been in like,” Laurel Smith adds.
“I don’t think that’s the same,” Amanda says.
“No,” Laurel says. “You’re right, it’s not.”
Laurel reaches into her pocketbook for a mirror. “Take a look,” she tells Amanda.
Amanda stares at herself and smiles broadly, forgetting to keep her mouth shut so her braces won’t show.
“I love it,” Amanda says.
“Maybe someday you can visit me at my house,” Laurel Smith says. “I know you’d like it. It’s right on the marsh.”
“Are you just saying that because you think I’ll die before I can come over?” Amanda says.
Laurel can feel bumps rise along her arms and legs.
“That was a horrible thing for me to say,” Amanda says. “I’m horrible.”
Laurel and Amanda are sitting side by side now, their legs swung over the broken step.
“Sometimes I make chocolate mousse tarts with chocolate chips,” Laurel Smith says. “If you want me to, I can teach you how to make them.”
“All right,” Amanda says. “That sounds great.”
Amanda practices making French braids all weekend, and on Monday she stops in the girls’ room after school to admire herself. She looks older, twelve or thirteen at least. With her comb, she catches a few stray strands above her temples and forces them back against her scalp. Two girls Amanda sincerely hates, not just because they’re popular, but because they’re snobs who won’t speak to anyone who doesn’t wear a bra and have pierced ears, come in as Amanda’s fixing her hair. Everybody at Cheshire knows their names, Mindy Griffon and Lori Walker. Mindy, who’s on the gymnastics team, has better leotards than anyone else, really neat ones that her grandmother sends her from Los Angeles. When Mindy sees Amanda, she grabs onto Lori’s arm.
“Oh, God, it’s her,” Amanda hears Mindy say.
Amanda gets her gym bag and unzips it so she can put her comb away.
“Hi, Amanda,” Lori says, with so much fake pity in her voice it makes Amanda want to throw up.
Amanda slings her bookbag over her shoulder, and when she turns from the mirror and begins to head for the door, Mindy and Lori both back away. Amanda knows why immediately: they’re scared of her. Amanda walks to the door and goes out without looking back, but she can hear Mindy’s loud whisper: “Do you think she sat on one of the toilets? I’ll never, ever use them again.”
Amanda walks quickly down the empty hallway. School’s out, but the hallway still smells like today’s lunch, pizza on English muffins. Amanda couldn’t eat lunch today, and now she feels like crying. They hate her, she knows. She doesn’t even blame them; she hates herself too, not all of her, just this thing that’s inside her. At first, she didn’t really believe it because when she looked at herself in the mirror, she looked exactly the same, just thinner. She used to tell herself all she had to do was wait and they’d find some shot or pill they could give her. Now, every night before she goes to sleep she tells herself that she’s going to die. She repeats it to herself, calmly, carefully, rolling the words on her tongue.
She is never going to be one of Bela’s students. She will never go to college or drive a car. She wonders if it will feel blue and watery, the way things felt when she was knocked down by a huge wave at Crane’s Beach two summers ago. Sound overtaken by soundlessness. Heat replaced by cold pressure.
Amanda runs her tongue along the silver band over her teeth. “Dumbbell,” she tells herself. “Dope.”
She wants to make it to the last meet in June. That is all. She thinks no further than that. Practice is hard for her now. She feels sick afterward; once, she had to leave the gym so she could lock herself into one of the toilet cubicles and throw up. At least her floor exercise hasn’t suffered; she’s got a great routine. Evelyn Crowley told her it’s as good as anything she’s seen on a music video.
“Wait up,” somebody calls, but Amanda is too busy thinking about practice to hear, and she just keeps walking.
Jessie runs down the hallway to catch up with her.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Jessie asks. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Amanda slows her pace to match Jessie’s.
“My father is kicking four girls off the team,” Jessie whispers.
“Oh, no, God! No!” Amanda says, excited and all ears.
“He told my mother. I wasn’t supposed to hear.” Jessie grins. “One of them’s missed too many practices, and the others are so bad my father’s afraid they’ll hurt themselves. Can you believe it?”
Amanda is suddenly rigid. “Am I one of them?”
“Are you crazy?” Jessie says. “Just don’t ask me for any names, because I can’t tell you.”
“Please!” Amanda says. She knows she can get it out of Jessie.
Jessie giggles and shakes her head no. Amanda can’t tell if Jessie knows she’s dying. She doesn’t act as if she knows, she’s never said anything, but she doesn’t spend much time with her other friends anymore. Neither of them does. If they could, they’d spend all their time together, although Amanda has begun to wonder what would happen to Jessie if Amanda suddenly disappeared. The girls who are avoiding Amanda and whispering when her back is turned are also avoiding Jessie, telling each other they never much liked her anyway.
“My father would kill me if he found out I eavesdropped. He’d murder me on the spot,” Jessie says.
“Just tell me one name,” Amanda says.
“Helen Gates and Joyce Gorman,” Jessie blurts.
“That’s two!” Amanda chortles. “You might as well tell me the others.”
Jessie pulls Amanda over to the wall, and they both look over their shoulders to make sure no one’s around.
“Sally Tremont and Mindy Griffon.”
Amanda lets out a squeal. “Oh, my God,” she says.
“Mindy thinks she’s so great,” Jessie whispers. “Now she’ll get hers. Couldn’t you just die?”
Amanda looks away.
“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Jessi
e says quickly. “I really didn’t.”
“That’s okay,” Amanda says.
They begin to walk slowly to the gym.
“You’ll always be my best friend,” Jessie says.
“Thanks,” Amanda says.
“I really mean it,” Jessie tells her. She looks closely at Amanda. “What did you do to your hair?”
“A friend of mine taught me how to do it. She’s almost thirty,” Amanda says nonchalantly.
“Thirty,” Jessie says, impressed. “She must know a lot about hairstyles.”
“Oh, tons,” Amanda says. “She’s not a friend like you’re a friend,” Amanda adds. “She’s not a best friend, or anything.”
Jessie smiles and, as they near the gym, she takes off her charm bracelet.
“My father hates Madonna. He told my mother that if it was anybody but you using her music, he’d confiscate the tape. He says your floor exercise is so good you could be on a high school team.”
“Really?” Amanda says, delighted.
“Swear to God,” Jessie says. “Play it really loud today. It will drive him crazy.”
Amanda laughs and pushes open the door of the locker room, refusing to think about the ocean, about the wave that knocked her down, the silence that takes the place of sound.
Linda Gleason is still in her office when gymnastics practice is long over. She has a constant dull headache somewhere near the base of her skull. Only the initial five children have been withdrawn from school, which is not as bad as it could have been, but there are still meetings nearly every night at which Linda is supposed to calm the hysteria, which is fiercer than ever.
Linda has always been something of a workaholic, she’s often still at school at suppertime, and she usually takes work home with her. She has never looked forward to the weekend more than she does now. On Saturday Martin calls her sleepyhead and brings her coffee in bed, but she’s not sleeping late, she’s just savoring her time alone, time when there are no visits from the superintendent of schools or from parents, panicked by the wrong-headed idea that AIDS can be spread by mosquitoes or fleas.
When she’s out of bed and dressed, Linda starts right in on cleaning out the kids’ closets, which are so booby-trapped a whisper can start an avalanche of clothes and toys. The job turns out to be a pleasure. Cleaning the closets allows Linda to take control of something she can really fix, unlike her little sixth-grader. Linda knows some of the teachers and parents would love to see her right now, surrounded by junk, sweating, sorting out sweaters, roller skates, and boots. It’s tough for her kids to be the children of the principal sometimes, especially for her daughter, Kristy. Teachers either favor her or expect too much. Linda herself doesn’t have the patience she might have if she didn’t work so hard; she spends so much time being authoritative, she tends to act that way at home, too. Right now Kristy prefers her father so obviously that it would be laughable if Linda didn’t feel so left out. Linda tells herself it’s because Martin, who teaches English at a junior college in Beverly, has an easier schedule than she does and can spend more time with the children; he’s free to make cookies and play softball, while Linda is embroiled in budget problems or a search for a new music teacher.
He’s out there with the kids, painting the fence in the front yard white, as Linda arranges what she finds in her daughter’s closet into piles of garbage, laundry to be washed, and toys to be put away. After Linda fills two green plastic garbage bags, she finds a Valentine Kristy made for her years ago. A doily cut into the shape of a heart. I LOVE YOU is printed carefully, followed by a shaky exclamation point.
Linda Gleason saves the Valentine, rehangs some clothes, then goes downstairs. It’s almost noon and she takes out some ham and cheese for sandwiches. She goes to the back door to call everyone in for lunch and sees that only Martin and their little boy, Sam, are painting now. Kristy is sitting on the porch steps, hunched over, her elbows on her knees. Linda goes outside and sits next to her. For the past few months she and Kristy have not had conversations; they’ve had accusations and interrogations.
“I did your closet,” Linda says.
“Big deal,” Kristy says.
“It wouldn’t be a big deal if you ever put anything away,” Linda snaps.
“I hate you,” Kristy says. “Everybody hates you.”
“Such as?” Linda Gleason says archly.
“Such as everybody in school. Dorie Kiley says it’s your fault if we all die!”
“Kristy!” Linda says.
“We’ll all get AIDS. No one uses the bathroom. We hold it in until we can’t stand it. Dorie pees in the bushes at recess.”
“Listen to me,” Linda says. “You cannot get AIDS from a toilet.”
She grabs Kristy and pulls her close. Kristy, still furious, struggles, but then gives up and sits slumped beside her mother. Linda realizes now how little Kristy understands, how little all the children at school understand.
“Amanda Farrell got AIDS through a blood transfusion before blood banks were screened. You can get it only two ways now, through using needles that someone with AIDS has used, or through sex with someone who has the virus.”
“So you can get it from hugging,” Kristy says.
“No,” Linda says. “You can’t.”
“You said sex!” Kristy says. “That’s sex.”
Martin and Sam are still working; they both have white paint in their hair. Two young women are running their Newfoundlands, who lumber past like huge, black bears. Linda can feel her daughter’s thin shoulder blades through her T-shirt. She probably thinks sex means holding hands. She’s a child who keeps her fears to herself, and this must be pretty bad for her to blurt it out. Linda imagines all the fourth-grade girls afraid to use the toilet, whispering as they duck behind the bushes on the playing field, rushing to pull down their underpants, afraid a teacher will catch them. It’s not just Kristy who needs to know more about sex, it’s all of them. Linda has always intended to tell her children the facts of life slowly, explaining first how cows and horses conceive and give birth, waiting at least until they were in junior high before she told them any details about human sexuality. It’s not that she’s a prude, she just thought there was plenty of time to learn those details. But that was before, before little girls began to equate holding hands and using public toilets with death.
She will call an assembly. She’ll invite Ed Reardon to come; she’ll find a speaker from an AIDS organization who specializes in education. She will not put this issue up for the school board to debate; their discussion of the assembly might drag on for weeks and her students need to know now what AIDS is and how they can and cannot be exposed. She will not let another week go by with those little girls too afraid to use the toilet. She will not think about whether or not the school has a right to call children into an auditorium and tell them about sex a little too soon. A little too soon is better than a little too late. And if someone calls her on the carpet and tells her she has no right to make this decision, she will simply tell them that, in this instance, they are all her children.
The letters go out on September 15. Addressed to three hundred eighty households, the letter is brief, belying the many long hours Linda Gleason has slaved over it, searching for words that will not seem threatening. Included with the letter is a permission slip each child is to deliver to his or her teacher. Some of the letters reach their destination overnight; Linda Gleason knows this because by two the following day the calls begin, and by two-thirty both secretaries in Linda’s office are in tears. Linda takes the phone for a moment and feels paralyzed by the hate coming out of the receiver, something about the fiery hand of God, something about sinners and those who deserve to die. Linda hangs up the phone and wipes the palm of her hand on her skirt.
“If they’re rude, hang up on them,” Linda Gleason tells both secretaries.
Linda Gleason has already refused calls from the Morrow Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Now she goes into her office and locks the doo
r so she can hastily type up a statement for the newspapers. She wonders if she has made a bad situation worse, if she has let herself in for it. She stops typing and lights a cigarette. She’s shocked by the reaction to the coming assembly. This is not some rural school district where battles over sex education have been impassioned and vicious. This is Morrow, she can see the town common from her window. She can see the coffee shop where Martin takes the kids for breakfast on Sunday so she can get some extra sleep. She can also see several of her teachers in the parking lot, standing in a close circle, heads down. Linda leaves her half-written statement in the typewriter and puts out her cigarette in a coffee cup.
In the parking lot, six teachers argue. It is an awful situation, on this they can all agree. They tell each other that Linda Gleason doesn’t even seem like the same person anymore. Two of them are elected to write the petition asking for Linda’s resignation, and they will begin to circulate it in the morning. Linda grabs her jacket and tells the secretaries she’s going over to the stationery store to buy manila envelopes. The secretaries nod, even though there’s a boxful of envelopes in the supply closet.
Linda walks to the town green. At this time of day it is nearly deserted, except for a few mothers and toddlers. The old basset hound that belongs to Jack Larson, who owns the little market, is patrolling the pathways, stopping every few feet and plunking himself down so that strollers have to step over him. The broad elms that used to line the common all fell to Dutch elm disease, but the maples that have taken their place are so tall now they meet and their limbs entwine.
Linda sits down on a bench, reaches into her jacket pocket, and pulls out rubber bands, a spider ring that belongs to her son, and her cigarettes. She’s going to quit today; she doesn’t even enjoy it anymore, it’s just a bad habit. She lights one last cigarette and smokes it slowly, then crushes it on the path and starts to walk back to school. It’s easier for her to breathe now, her face doesn’t feel quite so hot. She doesn’t think about betrayals or cruelty, she thinks about ordering next month’s lunch supplies from the food service; she considers hot dogs and beans, English-muffin pizzas, Jell-O with fruit.
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