Deenie (14 page)

At noon Aunt Rae came over and drove us downtown to Dr. Nelson's office. His nurse told me to get undressed. She handed me a sheet to wrap around myself. Ma stayed in the room with me the whole time.

When Dr. Nelson came in I decided right away that I didn't like him. He wasn't friendly like Dr. Kliner. He didn't even say hello to me. He just turned on a bright light and held a magnifying glass to my creeping crud.

"I caught it from Barbara Curtis, this girl in my gym class," I told him.

"I don't think so," he said.

"She's the only one I know who's got it."

"What you have isn't contagious."

"It's not?"

Dr. Nelson didn't answer me. He touched my rash and looked at it some more. Then he sat down at his desk and wrote out some prescriptions which he handed to Ma.

"If it's not catching then what is it?" I asked

"An irritation from your brace. You shouldn't wear it next to your skin. You need a soft shirt under it."

"Not one of those things I saw in Dr. Kliner's office?" I said.

"I don't know what you saw but you'll have to wear an undershirt to protect your skin from now on."

"Oh no! I'm not wearing any undershirt!"

"Deenie … " Ma said. "You'll do whatever the doctor tells you."

"And that means a soft undershirt," Dr. Nelson said again. "I'm also prescribing a cortisone cream to rub in three times a day and a solution to put into your bath water. Soak for half an hour a day until the rash clears up. Call me if it doesn't improve in a week," he told Ma as he stood up.

As soon as he left the room Ma said, "Get dressed, Deenie, and we'll stop by the drugstore on our way home."

An undershirt! I thought as I got into my clothes. How can I go to school in an undershirt?

That night Ma ran my tub and dumped in one package of the powder Dr. Nelson prescribed. "I'm setting the oven so I know when half an hour's up," Ma said. "I'll call you. Soak until then."

I got out of my brace and into the tub. At first I was bored just lying there. Usually I take showers and get in and out as fast as possible. But the hot water was very relaxing and soon I began to enjoy it. I reached down and touched my special place with the washcloth. I rubbed and rubbed until I got that good feeling.

There are still a lot of things I don't understand about sex. I think Helen has a book somewhere in her room. I'm going to look for it.

When Ma called that my time was up I got out of the tub, dried off and put on the undershirt before my brace. I think what I'll do is wear my bra under it. I'm certainly not going to school without a bra.

I tiptoed into Helen's room. She's never home anymore. And when she is home she's always locked up in her room. I think something's wrong with her. She got two B's on her report card and that's never happened before. Ma was plenty sore too!

I opened Helen's desk drawers one by one. I didn't see the book I was looking for but I did find a piece of notebook paper that said:

Mrs. Joseph Roscow
Helen and Joe Roscow
Joseph and Helen Roscow
Helen Marie Roscow
Helen Fenner Roscow
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Roscow

At first I didn't know what all those names meant. Then it hit me. Helen was writing about Joe, from Daddy's gas station, and herself. Helen was in love!

Not long after that Ma found out about Helen too. Because one night after supper Daddy went back to the station to do his books and Helen was there with Joe, while she was supposed to be studying at Myra Woodruff's house.

I don't know exactly what happened but Daddy drove Helen home and she wasn't allowed out at night for the next two weeks, except to do her baby sitting.

Helen cried a lot those two weeks. I heard her every night.

Then one afternoon Helen came home and started screaming at Ma. "How could you? How could you be so mean?"

"It's not what you think," Ma told her.

I wondered what was going on? I thought, maybe Helen and Joe want to get married and Ma won't let them.

"You
made
Daddy fire him just because we liked each other!" Helen shouted.

"That's not so," Ma told Helen. Daddy had to let him go because we need the extra money. You can ask him yourself."

"You're lying!" Helen yelled. "You did it because you don't want us together. Admit it … admit it, why don't you? You don't need the money."

"Yes we do!" Ma said. "I'll discuss it with you when you calm down."

"I'm calm now," Helen hollered.

Ma raised her voice too and I felt very uncomfortable. I wanted to leave the room but I didn't want to miss the argument. So I sat in my chair and listened.

"We have doctors' bills to pay," Ma shouted. "And we're going to have more of them. Until I can find some work Daddy's going to manage without help at the station."

Doctors' bills, I thought. Ma must be talking about
my
doctors! I'll bet my brace cost a fortune. I didn't think of that before. I'm the reason Daddy had to fire Joe. Helen is going to hate me!

"You didn't approve of him anyway," Helen told Ma.

"I don't want you throwing away your life," Ma said.

"I wasn't throwing away my life! I just wanted to be with him. Is that so wrong? I'm sixteen, Ma! I'm not a baby!"

"He wasn't right for you," Ma said.

"How do you know? Who are you to say what's right for me? It wouldn't bother you if a boy liked Deenie would it?"

Why did she say that? I wondered.

"That's different," Ma said.

"What's different about it?" Helen asked. "I'm human too."

"God gave you a special brain," Ma told her. "And he wouldn't have done that if he hadn't intended for you to put it to good use."

She's telling Helen the same thing she told me about my face!

"Oh Ma … you're impossible! God didn't give me a special brain. You made that up. And you almost convinced me, Ma … you almost did." Helen was really crying now. Tears ran down her face and everything but she didn't stop. She said, "I used to tell myself it didn't matter if I wasn't pretty like Deenie because I have a special brain and Deenie's is just ordinary … but that didn't help, Ma … it didn't help at all … because it's not true! None of it's true … don't you see … you can't make us be what you want … " Helen was sobbing so loud she couldn't talk anymore.

I didn't know what to do. I was hoping Helen and Ma had forgotten I was in the room. I wished I could vanish. I never knew Helen thought about me being pretty. I always thought it was just the opposite … that she was better than
me
because she was so smart. I feel funny knowing about Helen.

"If you think I'm going to sit by and watch you waste your life on a stupid boy with dirty fingernails you have a lot to learn, Helen Fenner!" Ma said.

"He's not stupid!" Helen cried. "He's going to be a Forest Ranger and he writes poems … did you know that? Do you know anything about him?"

Ma's not being fair, I thought. Joe does write poems. I know because I found one inside Helen's math book last Wednesday. I couldn't tell that to Ma though. Then Helen would know I'd been snooping, so instead I said, "Everybody gets dirty fingernails from working in a gas station … even Daddy!"

"Be still, Deenie!" Ma yelled. "This has nothing to do with you."

"It does too! You just said Daddy fired Joe because of doctors' bills and I'm the one who's always seeing doctors!"

Helen turned around and looked at me. Then she did the craziest thing. She ran to me and hugged me and cried into my shoulder. "It's not your fault, Deenie … don't let them make you believe that … it's really not your fault."

I started crying too. Helen doesn't hate me, I thought. She should, but she doesn't. We both cried so hard our noses ran but neither one of us let go of the other to get a tissue. And right through it all Ma kept talking. "I wanted better for you," she said. "Better than what I had myself. That's what I've always planned for my girls … is that so wrong?"

Twenty

I finally told Barbara Curtis about my undershirt. I got tired of rushing to the Girls' Room every time I had gym. And that's what I've been doing—taking off my undershirt and stuffing it in my pocketbook.

As soon as I told Barbara I felt better. She said one time the rash between her fingers was so bad she had to wear white socks on her hands at night, to keep from scratching in her sleep. She asked me what kind of cream I'm using and I described it to her. She said it sounds a lot like hers. I think my rash is getting better because it doesn't itch anymore.

I'm glad Barbara's not a liar after all. She's a nice kid. I think I must have been really weird to not like her just because of her creeping crud. Janet and Midge like her too. Janet invited her to the party she's having in two weeks. She's also invited Harvey Grabowsky which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I know he isn't going to come.

I dropped another question into Mrs. Rappoport's box. I wrote:

What does it feel like to have sexual intercourse?

The other night, when I'd finished my exercises, I went to Helen's room and asked if I could borrow her sex book.

"I lent it to Myra," she said. "You can read it when she gives it back."

"But I need it now," I said.

"What for?"

"Because … "

"You have a question?"

I nodded.

"Maybe I can help you."

"I have a lot of questions," I told her.

"Goon … "

"Well … "

"If you're going to be shy about it I can't help you."

"All right," I said. "What does it feel like to have sexual intercourse?" As soon as I said it I was sorry because Helen turned colors. "You told
me
not to be shy!" I said.

"I don't know the answer."

"Oh, come on, Helen."

"I really don't know," Helen said. "And now that Joe's gone I'll probably never find out!"

Joe left town without telling Helen. I think that was really rotten of him. Maybe he didn't love her after all. I hope Helen finds somebody else to love soon, because I can see how lonely she is without Joe. I also hope Mrs. Rappoport can help me with my questions and that Myra hurries with the sex book.

I got a letter from Dr. Kliner inviting me to a scoliosis clinic at his office, where all of his patients get together to talk about wearing their braces. I think I'll ask the other girls how they sit at their desks and if they got rashes too and if they all sleep flat on their backs and rip their clothes and worry about people looking at them wherever they go? And I'm going to tell them how I answer people who ask me what's wrong. I'll bet I'm the only one who's ever said, "I jumped off the Empire State Building!" The most important thing I have to find out is how smart you have to be to become an orthopedist because I've been thinking I might really like to be one.

This afternoon, on my way to French, I didn't look away when I passed the Special Class. I saw Gena Courtney working at the blackboard. I wonder if she thinks of herself as a handicapped person or just a regular girl, like me.

Twenty-One

I'm not going to wear the brace to Janet's party. It can't hurt to take it off for a few hours. I do it three times a week when I go swimming, and I want Buddy Brader to see me without it. I want him to hold me the way he did in the locker room, without feeling all that metal.

I got dressed in one of the outfits I bought to start junior high—a skirt and sweater that doesn't fit over the brace. I wasn't sure how Daddy and Ma would take it but I had the feeling they'd let me go because I haven't been complaining about the brace and I haven't asked to skip school again.

I went downstairs. "I'm ready to go to Janet's," I told Daddy.

He looked at me. "Where's your brace?"

"I'll put it on as soon as I come home."

"You can't go without it."

"Please Daddy … this is very important to me."

"No," he said. "If I let you go without it now you'll want to leave it off every time you're going somewhere special."

"No, I won't. I promise … just this once!"

"Go upstairs and change."

"But Daddy … "

"Oh, let her go, Frank," Ma said. "She looks so pretty."

Daddy slammed the book he was reading and shouted at Ma. "We've been through this before, Thelma." Then he turned to me and I thought he was going to yell but when he spoke his voice was back to normal. "The day I found out about your brace I promised myself I'd be firm," he said. "That's why I made you go to school when you wanted to stay home. And now I'm telling you … no matter how much it hurts … you wear the brace or you don't go."