Hurt Go Happy (5 page)

“Thanks,” Joey said.

Kristin examined the nails on her left hand while she shook a bottle of nail polish with the other.

Ms. Rowe took roll, then clapped for their attention.
Chapter 3,
she wrote on the board, then held up the paperback of Steinbeck's
The Pearl
and
The Red Pony.
They'd finished
The Pearl
a week ago. “Who wants to start?” she said.

Everyone laughed and turned to look at Joey. Kristin tapped one bulb of her headset with a newly polished fingernail. “You're too loud,” she said.

Joey blushed and adjusted the volume.

Ms. Rowe blew in the microphone. “Can you still hear me?”

Joey nodded, though she couldn't. The volume was too low, but she didn't want to go through trying to find the level that she could hear but the rest of the room couldn't. Besides, they were going to take turns reading, so she didn't need to hear.

Terry got picked first. Joey slouched in her chair and read to herself. When Cindee tapped her shoulder, Joey had just started chapter 4. “It's your turn,” she said.

Joey's heart started to pound. Her teachers told her she read better than anyone in class, but she hated reading aloud because she knew her voice sounded funny. She found herself getting tangled up, as if she were reading with one eye and watching the class to see if she was pronouncing the words correctly with the other. She looked at Ms. Rowe, who was tapping on the microphone.

“Isn't this working?”

Joey turned the volume up.

Kids giggled and plugged their ears. She turned it down again.

Jason reached, pulled the scrunchie off Kristin's ponytail, and put it on his wrist like a bracelet. Kristin tried to grab it back. Joey's attention was scattered, distracted by Kristin and Jason and trying to understand where they were in the book.

Ms. Rowe wrote on the board,
4th paragraph, page 166.

Joey flipped back to 166 and counted down. “The fifteenth of January came, and the colt was not born,” she read, then glanced at Jason. He had Kristin's and his hand joined at the wrist with the scrunchie. “And the twentieth came; a lump of fear began…” Over the top of the book, Joey saw Jason's nostrils flare and his head bob from side to side. Kristin kicked him. Cindee, who had borrowed Kristin's polish, giggled behind her hand with its wet purple nails. Jason was imitating the nasal sound of Joey's voice. She swallowed and found her place. “… a lump of fear began to form in Jody's stomach. ‘Is it all right?' he demanded of Billy,” she continued, pronouncing each word as carefully as she could, plodding along as if she were slow-witted.

She stopped and looked up when Jason made a throat-cutting motion.

“That was fine,” Ms. Rowe said, then pointed to Jason. “You next,” she said, smiling coldly.

Joey sank back into the chair and stared at the page. It blurred and swam before her eyes.
Don't let them see you sweat
, her mother's voice said in time to the dull thud of a headache coming.

Next period was biology. Kenny glanced at her when he came in. She felt herself start to blush and quickly looked away. She'd put her backpack on the empty seat at her table. When Kenny headed in her direction, she leaned to move it, but Dillon caught his arm and dragged him off to sit with him.

Their teacher, Mr. Cary, was working his way, though not in any regular order, through the phyla in the animal, plant, and fungi kingdoms. They had started with marine invertebrates and algae while the weather was still nice enough to visit tide pools, then they'd switched to amphibians and fungi when the rains started in November. Joey drew well and had made cards with hand-colored sketches of each organism on one side and a description and some characteristics on the other to use as flash cards. Her best grades ever were in this class.

“Do you have your aids?” Mr. Cary asked. She hadn't given him the microphone because she tried never to wear the FM system in front of Kenny. He knew she was deaf but she wanted at least to look normal.

Joey shrugged. “I forgot them,” she lied.

Jason glanced at her and grinned.

“Today-is-a-lecture-class,” Mr. Cary said slowly. “Do-you-want-someone-to-take-notes-for-you?”

Joey wanted to slide under the table. She shook her head. “I can do it.”

Mr. Cary was no longer looking at her. “Thanks, Ken,” he said.

Joey glanced at Kenny, who smiled.

“Ken-said-he-would-take-notes-for-you.”

Joey blushed.

At lunch, when she got to the cafeteria, Roxy was already there with Brad, Kristin, and Dillon. Joey was almost at the end of the line and had raised her hand to wave, when Roxy turned away sharply. Well, that was okay. Joey understood. She wanted to be with her boyfriend, and Joey didn't really like Kristin and Dillon that much, anyway. She'd wait to tell Roxy about Sukari this afternoon in history, their one class together. She took her sandwich and left the cafeteria. She had a place behind the library where she used to go and eat before Roxy was her friend.

“Where were you?” Roxy asked her when she flopped into the desk beside her in history.

“When?”

“At lunch. I saved you a seat.”

“I … I didn't see you,” Joey said.

Roxy shrugged.

Their teacher rapped for attention. History was Joey's worst subject. It was nearly all lecture and she couldn't keep up. Roxy had volunteered to take notes for her, but her notes were so bad that they were nearly useless.

Roxy slipped her a note:
There's a dance next Saturday. Are you going?

Roxy knew she wasn't going. Sometimes she did stuff like that, ask a question she knew the answer to. Joey wasn't sure why.

I've been invited to a friend's house,
she wrote back, stretching the truth a little since they'd set no specific date.
He has a …
Joey stopped and crossed the last part out. Something warned her not to go any further. As much as she wanted to share meeting Sukari with Roxy, she couldn't get the way she'd laughed when Brad was teasing Harley out of her mind. She suddenly decided it wasn't a secret that would be safe with Roxy.

Roxy lived with her mother in a small apartment in a building that overlooked Noyo Harbor. Since the day they'd met Joey had been planning to take Roxy to the café to meet Ruth.
How about coming down to meet my mother tomorrow?

Roxy reached across the aisle and scribbled,
Can we eat free?

Joey smiled and nodded. Roxy was her mother's link to the world, as Ruth was Joey's. How could they not like each other?

At home that night, she was less sure. “I thought I'd bring Roxy down to meet you tomorrow.” Joey was setting the table.

“I'd like to meet one of your little friends,” Ruth said. “Which one is she?”

Joey hated it when her mother acted as if she were still a child and that her life was normal. “She's not little, she's my only friend, and I told you about her; her mother's deaf,” Joey said sharply.

“Watch your tone of voice, young lady.”

“That'll be a tall order,” Joey said, pulling on an earlobe.

“What's with you?” her mother snapped.

“Nothing. It's just you act as if I'm armpit deep in friends and beating boyfriends off with a stick.”

“You're too young for a boyfriend.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“I said yes. I'd like to meet her. What more do you want?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

*   *   *

The next day, Joey rode to work with her mother and spent the morning trying to study in her old corner, but she was too excited to get anything done. When her stomach began to growl, Joey decided it was time to go get Roxy.

She walked North Harbor Drive to the base of the staircase behind the Harbor Lite Motel. The climb was steep, at least 150 feet, and by the time she reached the top, she'd stripped down to her T-shirt. She walked the block and a half to Roxy's apartment building and knocked on the door. Though it was nearly twelve, Roxy answered still in her pajamas.

“Did you forget?” Joey asked.

Roxy stepped out onto the catwalk and pulled the door closed behind her. “I can't go. My mother's on a tear.”

“Come on. Let me ask her. You can have whatever you want for lunch and ice cream and my mother will bring you home when she gets off at three.”

Roxy turned her head sharply, listening. “Well, that suits me, too, old lady,” she yelled through the crack in the door.

Joey flinched. “My mother'd kill me if I yelled at her like that.”

“My mother'd kill me, too, if she could hear me.” Roxy grinned. “She just said she doesn't care where I go. So wait here. I'll change clothes.”

Joey sat on the top step. A whale-watching boat lay off the harbor entrance, waiting to surf the next breaker through the narrow opening to the channel. The passengers weren't looking too healthy; many were still hanging over the railing. A storm was due by nightfall and the seas were getting higher by the hour.

“Have you ever seen a whale?” Joey asked Roxy as they walked toward the staircase.

“Just ole Arnold, that blimp in our history class?”

“He's real nice, though,” Joey said.

Joey had never told Roxy that the reason she didn't sign was because her mother didn't want her to. She hadn't wanted to go into the reasons, all of which would have been offensive to someone who learned to sign before she learned to speak.

After Joey introduced them, the first thing out of Roxy's mouth, when she shook hands with Ruth, was, “I'm going to teach Joey to sign.”

From the look on her mother's face, you'd have thought she'd said she was going to teach Joey to rob banks. “I don't want her signing,” Ruth said.

“She thinks I'm better off reading lips,” Joey said, trying to change the footing they were on, though she knew it was too late.

One of the reasons Roxy had been instantly popular at school was that she would say or do anything. The first words she taught Joey to sign were four-letter. Nothing was sacred. Roxy pulled herself up to her full height, looked Ruth right in the eye, and said, “Well, that's really stupid.”

Ruth's eyes narrowed. “My daughter. My decision. I wish I could say it had been a pleasure to meet you.” She spun and walked away.

When Roxy slammed out of the restaurant, Joey started to follow, but Ruth caught up with her at the door and grabbed her arm. “Don't you dare follow that little … snot.”

“Why were you so mean to her? She's my friend.”

“Not anymore, she's not.”

Joey jerked free of her mother and ran out the door. Roxy was marching back down North Harbor Drive toward the cliff and the staircase. Joey called to her, but she kept going.

When Joey spoke in normal tones, she couldn't hear herself. “Roxy, wait,” she screamed.

Roxy kept going.

Joey took off running and caught her at the base of the staircase. “Please, don't be mad at me. You're my best friend.”

Roxy turned and for a moment Joey thought she was going to hit her. Her hands were balled into fists and her jaw was set. “Your mother's an idiot,” she snapped.

Joey couldn't bring herself to say
I know she is
and yet she was afraid to disagree with Roxy. She lowered her head and nodded.

When Roxy started up the stairs, Joey thought that was it. She'd lost her one and only friend. She squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of tears and turned away, but she'd gone only a few yards back toward the restaurant when Roxy tapped her shoulder. “I'm sorry,” she said, when Joey spun around. “She is an idiot, but let's not let that stand in our way.” Roxy hugged her. “I am going to teach you to sign, in spite of her. How 'bout it?”

The relief Joey felt was overwhelming. Her head bobbed. “Oh, yes, please.”

*   *   *

Luke was picking up Spanish from Mrs. Gomez, and it occurred to Joey, as she and Roxy worked in the library on Monday with
Signs of the Times
open between them, that if she taught Luke to sign, starting now, he'd pick it up as quickly as Spanish and be able to sign with Sukari when they met. Before she and Roxy left for history class, Joey checked the
Signed English Dictionary for Preschool and Elementary Levels
out of the library and sneaked it home in her backpack.

That evening, after dinner, when Joey thought her mother was out helping Ray stack the firewood he'd split, she told Luke she had a game to teach him. They were sitting on the floor in his room, forming the signs for “want candy” with his hands, when her mother walked in.

“Want candy,” Luke shouted, then signed, WANT CANDY, for Ruth and giggled.

Joey's stomach did a flip-flop as she watched the expression on her mother's face go from pleasure at seeing Joey reading to Luke, to a tight-jawed, icy stare. She marched out of the room and came back with a pen and notebook, something she did whenever she considered what she had to say too important for Joey to miss a word. She'd already written,
It's okay to teach him some words for fun but I don't want you two talking with your hands. It makes your handicap more obvious.

Like an ember in a dead-looking fire, resentment flared. “More obvious than hearing aids?” Joey snapped.

Her mother wrote something and poked the pad for her to read on.
It could stunt …
she dashed a line through “stunt” and wrote,
slow down his learning to talk. He's already mixing his English with Spanish.

Ruth snatched back the pad and added,
And it will keep you from fitting in with people who can hear!

“How am I gonna fit in with the hearing, with only you to talk to, Mom?”

“Practice your lip-reading,” Ruth said, emphasizing each word. “And stay away from that awful little girl,” she snapped. “She's trash.”