The Nakeds (8 page)

“Billy says that she’s crippled. I’d rather be dead than crippled,” Sandy said.

Martin said nothing. He lifted his cup and took a big swallow. He set the cup down hard, smacking the glass table next to him, startling Sandy so that she slipped, the little brush she’d been aiming at her fingernail going off course.

“Damn it,” she said. “Look what you made me do, Marty.” She held the finger up to him, a red line going from knuckle to nail.

“Fuck you too,” he said.

“Why don’t you go up to your own apartment and leave me alone? I don’t know why you moved up there. You’re always here.” She dipped the brush back into the polish and didn’t look at him.

He hated the way nail polish smelled and wondered how girls could stand it.

He hoped Sandy’s team lost tonight and that Billy dropped the fucking football.

Perhaps she’d twist her ankle while doing a cheer.

He wished his parents could see through her.

He hoped they couldn’t see through
him
and that they believed he’d registered for classes.

He wished he
had
registered.

He wanted to talk to Penny again.

He was sorry he was drinking his parents’ most expensive vodka and he wasn’t sorry he was drinking it.

He thought it was strange that he could feel two opposing things at once. Maybe he was crazy—the injured girl always on his mind.

He dreamt about her almost every night.

In last night’s dream she was older than she was or he was younger than he was—and she was in love with him. She had an arm for a leg in the dream, but he didn’t care, he was in love with her too. It was just a dream, but it freaked him out when he thought about it—and he thought about it a lot. He didn’t know the girl and he certainly didn’t love her. He felt terrible that he hit her, sure, but he wasn’t in love with her. It was gross to even think about. She was a little kid and he was a grown guy. Thinking about the dream made him feel like a pervert, made him want to take another shower, and worse, much worse, gave him a boner. He adjusted himself, pushed his boner down, which he was able to do discreetly because of the map across his lap.

“You’ve been acting even weirder than usual lately,” his sister said, working on her thumb with the little brush. “Are you even going to school? I bet you’re not. Shouldn’t you have bought books by now or school supplies or something?”

“Shouldn’t you shove that pompom up your ass?”

“They say her liver had to be removed. I’d rather die than live without my liver,” Sandy said, twisting the cap on the bottle of nail polish. “Wouldn’t you rather die?” she said.

“And how long do you think someone can live without a liver, Sandy?” he said.

She didn’t answer him. She leaned over, and without using her hands, without messing up her precious nail polish, took a loud sip from the straw. She sucked and sucked.

Martin stared at her lips around the straw and decided that she was fucking Billy Judson, and probably giving him head too. “You’re a slut,” he said.

“I’m not a slut,” she said, adamantly. “A slut fucks a lot of people—and I only, well, I only
make love
to one.”

“
Make love,
” he mocked. “I might like you better if you were a slut.”

She held her hands up on either side of her head, her fingers splayed out dramatically, waving like a lunatic. “Go home,” she said.

He picked up the remote and turned on the television. The newscaster was talking about the nineteen mountain climbers who died on Mount Fuji in an avalanche. Martin was thinking that it was dangerous enough just getting up in the morning and walking to school, let alone climbing a fucking mountain.

“They shouldn’t have been up there,” Sandy said. “You won’t catch me on a mountain.”

Martin downed his drink and thought about making another one. More vodka this time, fewer ice cubes, less orange juice. He’d feel better. His sister could chatter on and he’d have no trouble closing his eyes and zoning out. He’d be able to look at his map and ignore her completely.

Tony would be home by six o’clock and he’d call him then. He could tell him that Sandy was fucking Billy Judson. He could tell him that she was probably giving him head too, that she’d accept a mouth full of dick but wouldn’t eat food.

“Mom and Dad think something’s wrong with you,” Sandy said suddenly.

“Yeah, well,” he said.

“They’re not even sure if they want you to work at the new restaurant.”

“Don’t exaggerate,” he said.

“Well, Mom says your mood better improve if you’re going to be head waiter.”

“
My
mood? What about you, Sandy? Skinny, fucking you. Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

“Aren’t I
what
?”

“I see you playing with your food, moving it around on your plate. Anything to keep it out of your mouth, huh?”

“Something
is
wrong with you,” she said, emphatically. “No wonder they don’t want you around.”

“I’m moving anyway,” he said, looking down at the map in his lap. There were so many places he could live, state after state after state. He ran a finger from Southern California to Nevada, and then scooted it all the way to New York.

HANNAH SAT
up on the examination table, her bare leg at an angle in the doctor’s hand. He had just removed the first cast, in which she’d spent eight weeks, and was preparing to put on a second one.

Hannah’s injured leg was whiter and thinner than her right leg and Nina wished the doctor would hurry up and get the second cast on so they wouldn’t have to look at it. She wanted the leg covered up, not only for her own eyes but for Hannah’s too. She didn’t want Hannah to ask the doctor questions about her leg’s appearance, and didn’t want to hear the answers.

Dr. Bell was a large man with heavy jowls. He sat on a little stool at the foot of the examination table. His body spilled over the sides of the stool and although Nina thought he looked like an enormous mushroom, she found herself using that voice with him and giving him that smile. She told herself that if Dr. Bell were attracted to her, he’d work harder to fix her daughter’s problems.

He took a little wheel with several dull spikes sticking out of it and rolled the wheel up and down Hannah’s calf and ankle, asking if she could feel it. He rolled the wheel on her foot, the bottom first, trying to tickle her, but got no response. Then he tried the top of her foot—again, nothing. He asked Hannah to wiggle her toes, which was something she couldn’t do the whole time she was in the hospital, but she could do it now, and she did.

“Good girl,” Nina said, as if Hannah had done the dishes or made her bed without being asked.

The doctor wore bifocals with thick black frames. He was jowly, his skin ruddy and wrinkled. The one oily strand of gray hair he had left was combed back over his bare scalp. “Can you move those toes up?” he said.

Hannah tried.

She tried again.

When they wouldn’t move up, she moved them down.

“Move them up, not down. ‘Up,’ I said.”

Nina squeezed her daughter’s hand. She willed her daughter’s toes to move up, not down, and nothing. Hannah tried again and again. Nina could see it on her face, how Hannah concentrated and focused—and still, nothing, not the slightest quiver. The doctor might as well have asked her to fly around the room or read his mind or bend a fork without touching it.

Dr. Bell looked disappointed and Nina felt afraid, biting her bottom lip. “Try once more, baby,” she said.

“I can’t. They won’t move. They’re stupid.”

“Toes can’t be stupid. People can be stupid,” Dr. Bell said. “And you’re certainly not stupid, Hannah. You’ve been injured,” he said gently.

Two new rolls of plaster were smoking in the sink behind his head.

It was only Hannah’s second cast, but Nina already knew the steps: first the gauze, then the cotton, then the plaster—she wished he’d hurry up.

Nina was mostly concerned with Hannah walking again, of course, and by not asking about aesthetics, what the leg would eventually look like, she could make her own prognosis. Certainly the atrophy was to be expected and was temporary. Of course Hannah’s leg would plump right up once the last cast was removed. Her ankle, though, alarmed Nina—it was sunken and the foot itself was twisted inward, like a pigeon’s.

“The toes are stupid,” Hannah said again, her voice sharp. She was angry, not only at her mother and Dr. Bell, but at her toes, talking about them as if they weren’t quite hers. Her fingers and other limbs behaved, responded to her internal orders, and her left leg, by comparison, was becoming her bad leg, the leg that wouldn’t listen.

It was a bum leg.

It was a peg leg.

It was something separate from the rest of her, yet very much attached.

The three of them stared at her stubborn toes. “Move them up, not down,” he had said. It was there on Nina’s face, how important his request was, how everything depended on this one seemingly simple thing Hannah could not do.

“You can’t move them up?” Nina’s voice cracked.

Hannah shook her head, trying not to cry.

“It’ll come back to you, I’m sure. These things take time. We just need to be patient.” Nina left her daughter’s side then and went to the corner of the room where she’d left her purse. She searched inside it for a minute with both hands, then popped something into her mouth. “An aspirin,” she told Dr. Bell, who was looking at her.

He nodded.

“For my headache,” she added, returning to Hannah’s side.

Dr. Bell told them that this second cast was a special cast, one he hoped would straighten out Hannah’s foot. “Let’s get this on you, shall we?” He slapped his hands on his big knees and stood up. “Let’s get this going.”

He started with the gauze, wrapping it around and around Hannah’s leg, her calf, her ankle, her foot, leaving her useless toes free. She was leaning back on her elbows, watching him.

“It’s a lot like polio,” the doctor said, finishing with the gauze and moving on to the roll of cotton.

“What?” Nina said, horrified. Getting hit by a car was one thing, but having a disease—a
disease
—was another.

“What’s happened to Hannah’s leg is what we used to see with polio cases—the nerve and muscle damage.”

“Polio?”

He nodded.

“More movement will come back to her, though, right?” Nina said. “Hannah was in the hospital for four weeks before she could move those toes at all. And now she’s wiggling them. You saw them wiggle. One day she couldn’t do it and the next day she could. It’s possible. I’m sure it’s possible.” She looked at him, searched his face.

He said nothing.

“Don’t tell me it’s not possible,” she said.

Dr. Bell didn’t respond, which, they both knew, was a sort of response. He stood up again and walked over to the sink. He put on plastic gloves, so tight they slapped against his wrists. He reached into the sink and scooped up the hot rolls of plaster, then carried them across the room, milky white drops falling from between his fingers. He sat down and began wrapping the first roll around and around Hannah’s leg. He worked around her calf and ankle and foot and started humming.

When one roll was finished, he picked up the second one and began again.

“What are you now, Hannah? Eight?” he asked.

“I’m seven,” she said.

“She just had a birthday last week,” Nina said, trying to sound upbeat.

“You could pass for eight,” Dr. Bell said, winking.

“She’s very mature,” Nina said.

Finally, he rubbed the cast up and down and sideways too, working with both hands, smoothing the plaster out with such care it was as if he was making art, a sculpture, something beautiful and permanent.

•  •  •

Two days later, the cast completely dry, Hannah was back on Dr. Bell’s examination table. To her left, a circular saw with white dusty blades hung from a chrome-plated mobile stand. “This isn’t just any cast. It’s unique,” he said, pulling a black marking pen from his jacket pocket.

“Hear that?” Nina said, smiling at the doctor. She crinkled the table’s white paper in a clenched fist and took in a deep breath.

Hannah wasn’t biting, though. She knew the little yellow bus that took the slow kids to school was unique, and she knew the kids themselves were unique too, and she knew her leg was unique in the same way.

Dr. Bell was drawing on the cast now—what looked like an outline of a huge kidney bean that wrapped around her ankle. He stood back and admired his drawing for a second before pulling the mobile stand closer, lifting up the saw, and turning it on. It whirred and vibrated in his hand. He leaned down then and began, twisting the saw, maneuvering it around his drawing.

When he was finished, he used what looked like a large bottle opener to pop the chunk of plaster out, making room for what was next. He slid across the room on his stool, the little wheels squeaking and struggling, and opened a drawer. He pulled out a metal contraption that looked like a shackle and held it up proudly for them to see. “It won’t hurt. It just looks like some sort of torture device,” he said.

“Hmm,” Nina said.

Dr. Bell wheeled back over to them. “A little pressure at night after you twist, that’s all.” He fit the metal contraption into the space left around her ankle, fit a metal screw and a tiny wheel in place, and gave the two of them instructions to twist the screw an inch to the left. “It’s important to do it every single night.”

“Of course, Dr. Bell,” Nina said. “We’ll do whatever you say. Isn’t that right, Hannah?”

Hannah was quiet.

“Of course we will. We want to walk, right?”

“
I
want to walk,” Hannah snapped, surprising even herself.

Her mom cleared her throat and looked like she was about to cry.

On crutches, Hannah
did
walk, but it was stepping into the world in a new way: pushing off with her arms, lifting her one good leg in the air, and thrusting forward—a short flight to the next square of linoleum or shaggy carpet, the next patch of grass or piece of sidewalk. It was a steady business of effort and relief, and when her two feet were off the ground, swinging forward together, she was aware for that brief second of not being planted to this world.