At Risk (19 page)

“If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t need to talk to me,” Laurel Smith says.

“Don’t say that,” Polly snaps. “Don’t you dare tell me what my daughter needs.”

“She’s afraid to tell you the things she’s thinking about,” Laurel says.

“How the hell do you know what she’s thinking about?” Polly says. “You don’t even know her.”

Polly’s not about to stand here and listen to this. She starts to walk across the gym, but Laurel Smith follows her.

“She’s thinking about death,” Laurel says. “That’s what we talk about. She doesn’t want to tell you because she’s afraid she’ll hurt you.”

Polly stops at the bottom of the home-team bleachers.

“I could never steal her away from you,” Laurel says. “She can’t be stolen. She’s yours.”

Polly can’t speak, but she nods her head.

“I don’t have to sit with you,” Laurel says.

“Sit with us,” Polly says. “Really,” she says. “I want you to.”

While Laurel follows Polly up the rows of bleachers to the seats Ivan has saved, Jack Eagan has to do the hardest thing he’s ever done. Harder than the decision he made in college not to go on for the Olympic tryouts because he knew he wasn’t good enough. There’s been a lot of talk about Amanda in school, but he hasn’t listened to any of it. He’s something of a loner, he doesn’t consider many of the teachers to be his colleagues, and he never has. The only one he really likes is Rose Traymore, the other P.E. teacher, who coaches basketball and runs the kindergarten through third-grade classes. When Linda Gleason came to his office yesterday, Jack Eagan was shocked. No one ever comes to his office, which is little more than a closet with two desks that he shares with Rose Traymore, right off the equipment room.

“You could use a coat of paint in this office,” Linda Gleason had said when she walked in.

“We could use an office,” Jack had told her. He was in the process of going over the new schedule for away meets and he didn’t want to be bothered.

When Linda Gleason told him she wanted to talk about Amanda Farrell, Jack pulled at his hair and said, “Not that again!” And now he has to tell Amanda what the principal told him. Jack Eagan never even thinks about the blisters on his girls’ hands; every gymnast has them, usually from working out on the uneven parallel bars. Because the parents of one of her teammates have a credible medical report that allows that there is a slight chance of infection to her teammates if her blisters bleed while she’s on the uneven parallel bars and another girl with open blisters immediately follows her onto that piece of equipment, Amanda can no longer compete in that event. Which, in effect, means she can’t compete at all, since a gymnast isn’t taken seriously unless she performs every event. The medical report is rotten, but even Jack Eagan realizes there are real fears of infection involved. Amanda can continue with all her other events, but, Jack Eagan wonders, what is the point?

Eagan feels like walking out on this meet. For two cents he would get into his Pontiac and drive to the beach and go surf fishing. Instead, he asks Rose Traymore to go into the locker room and bring Amanda to his office.

She’s already put chalk on her hands and she has that blank look good gymnasts have before a meet. But when the coach leans back in his chair, fumbling for words, Amanda’s face loses its color, as if she knows what he’s going to say before he says it.

“I’m not that sick!” she says. “I don’t even look sick!”

“I know,” Jack Eagan says. “I didn’t say this was going to be fair. People are so dead wrong about sports, they think sports are fair, but when you think about it there are more losers than winners.”

Amanda has her back to him and she’s crying.

“I ought to know about losing,” Eagan says. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she faints, or if she gets hysterical; maybe he should stop, but he doesn’t. “I did it enough when I was competing.”

Amanda wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and turns back to him.

“People think reading and math are so important, but it’s in a sport where you’ll really learn something. You don’t always win.”

“No,” Amanda says. Her voice is very small but she’s not as pale. “The bars were always my worst event,” Amanda says.

“You didn’t have a worst event,” Jack Eagan says.

“I don’t think I could have done it anyway,” Amanda admits. “I’m not strong enough. I just didn’t want to tell anybody.”

Jack Eagan knows that once you’re committed to sports it’s hard to he about your body. You have to use what is good about it, accept your limits and work around them.

“Would it be all right if I did my floor exercise anyway?” Amanda asks. “I asked a friend to come and see me.”

Jack Eagan thinks to himself that life stinks. It stinks because things are beautiful and then they’re taken away.

“Sure,” he says. “Do your routine.”

Polly and Ivan realize something is wrong when most of the girls on the Cheshire team have completed two or three events and Amanda is still on the bench.

“Maybe she’s sick,” Polly whispers.

“She looks fine,” Ivan says. “Eagan wouldn’t have her sitting there if she was sick.”

Ivan stares across the gym to where Amanda sits on the bench. Something’s happened to him. He’s thinking about things differently. He can no longer think the way he must to do his work at the institute; questions no longer have answers, and yet he has more questions than ever. He often finds himself thinking about the afternoon light in Brian’s apartment, how it fell in bands across the polished black piano. Sometimes, for no reason at all, Ivan’s throat gets so thick he can’t talk. He wonders if he’ll ever work again, he just doesn’t seem to care, although at night he dreams of shooting stars and supernovas, and when he wakes in the morning he still sees their brilliant light.

Out on the floor, Jessie Eagan is doing her free exercise, accompanied by her cassette of “Eleanor Rigby.” When she’s finished, there’s scattered applause. Laurel Smith doesn’t know what to watch first; there are girls from Cheshire and from Medfield on the balance beam, the uneven parallel bars, the horse. Gymnastics is like a circus, with rings of events that make it difficult to watch any one competitor. Laurel Smith is reminded of a book she loved as a child in which there was a picture of a thousand fairies, all in luminous dresses, flying this way and that over a field of wheat. This is how the girls look to her, aerial and small, managing to do what should be impossible for any human body.

Amanda gets off the bench and goes to the mat. When the beat of “True Blue” echoes through the gym, Polly and Ivan lean forward. They’re both afraid that Amanda will push herself and get hurt, but they’re equally afraid of what failure or disappointment will do to her. Amanda stands on the edge of the gray exercise mat. Her hair is pulled back into a French braid, her arms reach into the sky. She stands there, immobile and pale. It seems that she’ll be poised on the edge forever and then, just before the ninth beat of the song, as Madonna calls out “Hey!” Amanda runs out onto the mat and does a roundoff, two back handsprings, and a full twisting back layout.

Laurel Smith realizes that watching Amanda perform is like seeing a creature suddenly in the right element, like a fish who cannot move in your hand, suddenly set into a pool.

“I’ve had other guys,” Madonna sings on the cassette. “I’ve looked into their eyes. But I never knew love before, till you walked through my door.”

Amanda starts her next run with a standing backflip followed by a standing frontflip, then two perfect walkovers. When her routine is over, Amanda stands in the center of the mat and bows deeply. No one can tell that she’s shaking. For a moment there is silence, and then Jack Eagan starts to applaud. It’s startling to hear the echo of his hands clapping, even more so because he’s never applauded a girl on his team before. Jessie Eagan stands up from the bench and starts to clap, and every girl on the team follows and does the same. Amanda runs off the mat, and when she gets to Jack Eagan he hugs her, lifting her up from the floor. When he lets go of her, Amanda walks to the end of the bench to meet Jessie. Jessie throws her arms around her.

“You did it!” Jessie says.

Amanda grins, then sits down on the bench, her head down between her knees so she can catch her breath. She knows this is the closest she’ll ever get to a ten. From now on she’ll be sitting on this bench watching her teammates compete, instead of waiting for her turn. She’s had her turn. Her heart is still pounding. When Jessie gets up for her last event, Amanda sits up and wishes her good luck.

“I’ll need it,” Jessie whispers back.

Amanda watches Jessie leap onto the balance beam, then she looks past Jessie. High up, she can see her father and mother and Laurel Smith. Laurel pushes her sunglasses on top of her head and gives Amanda a thumbs-up sign. After the meet, Amanda is still being congratulated on her floor exercise by the other girls. She’s pleased, but she goes off to her locker and gets out her clothes. Jessie comes over and sits down next to her.

“You’re still the greatest,” Jessie says.

Amanda is too tired to take a shower. When she pulls off her leotard her arms and legs hurt.

“My father said you could come over for dinner and stay really late,” Jessie tells her.

Amanda has been thinking about Jessie a lot lately. She’s been thinking about the way the other girls look at her when they’re together.

“I can’t,” she says now.

“Why not?” Jessie says. “My mother will get us a video. I think I can talk her into renting us
The Breakfast Club
.”

“I just can’t,” Amanda says.

She’s already started spending less time with her mother. Now it’s time to do the same with Jessie.

“Why not?” Jessie presses.

“I don’t want to, all right!?” Amanda says. She can see how hurt Jessie looks, but she goes on. “Why don’t you ask Evelyn?”

“Because I don’t want to. Because she’s a retard.”

“Ask Sue Sherman,” Amanda says.

“You don’t want to be friends with me anymore,” Jessie says hotly. “Now that you’re friends with someone who’s thirty, you don’t need me.”

“Don’t make a big deal about it,” Amanda says. “Ask someone else over.”

“Drop dead.” Jessie says.

Jessie goes to her locker and throws it open.

Amanda pulls on her sweater and follows Jessie. Her legs feel worse, so she sits down on the bench.

“You should have other friends,” Amanda says.

Jessie ignores her and gets dressed.

“I won’t be around forever,” Amanda says. “You’ve got to start making other friends now.”

Jessie stares into her open locker and starts to cry.

“I hate everyone else,” Jessie says. “I only like you.”

Amanda gets up and starts to walk toward the door.

“I hate everyone,” Jessie screams after her, but Amanda keeps walking. Out in the foyer, her parents are waiting. Polly runs over and hugs her.

“Are you all right?” Polly whispers.

“Sure,” Amanda says.

“That’s great,” Polly says. She looks over at Ivan.

“Beautiful routine,” Ivan tells Amanda. “Unbelievable.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Amanda says. She hugs him, then backs away and grins. She can see Laurel Smith in her white dress waiting outside on the grass.

“I want to see what Laurel thought,” Amanda says.

Polly wants to call Amanda back, but she doesn’t. Amanda will always be her daughter, now and forever. That’s why she can stand and watch as Amanda runs outside so quickly you’d think she was weightless, you’d think she was flying straight into the sun.

AMANDA HAS A FEVER AGAIN, and each day that it’s lasted, Ed Reardon has stopped at the Farrells’ in the morning and then again on his way home. This means he doesn’t get home until the children are ready for bed. He has to leave a half-hour earlier in the morning, but he doesn’t have to set his alarm. He’s usually up at dawn. Lately he can’t sleep, and when he does he wakes suddenly, out of nightmares he can’t remember, startled rather than comforted by his familiar bedroom, by Mary beside him, and the blue blanket on their bed.

Mary has begun to ask about Amanda. When the lights are off and the children are fast asleep, she asks him if the girl’s temperature has gone down, if her glands are still as swollen. Ed Reardon never goes into detail, doesn’t mention, for instance, that he’s monitoring Amanda so carefully and sending her every other week to Children’s, where she’s given pentamidine because of the threat of pneumocystis. He has the uneasy sense of betrayal when he talks to Mary in bed; he feels the same way when she’s fixing coffee for him in the morning and he’s watching the clock, with the knowledge that Polly’s already waiting for him. It’s as if Polly were his wife, not Mary, and he owed his allegiance to her. He has some idea of how a bigamist must feel, never in the right place at the right time.