Such a Pretty Girl. Nadina LaSpina
silence. I couldn’t think of any comforting words to say.
Finally, she stopped crying. “I didn’t even ask how you are.”
Since my mind was brimming with so many new ideas, I couldn’t hold back. I started talking about the college students who tutored me, and about Seth and Sarah. I told her how I wanted to go to college, wanted to fight for civil rights, go to demonstrations, and hear Dr. King.
“I can’t wait to be out in the real world!” I said.
“Oh, you’re so naïve!” The bitterness in her voice hit me like a spray of snake venom. “You think they’re all waiting for you with open arms in the real world! Don’t you understand? No one wants anything to do with us because we’re handicapped! The only thing the real world has to offer us is pity!”
Audrey was right. No matter what my father said, I knew I wasn’t about to be cured. How could I go to college when I couldn’t even get out my front door? How could I be a freedom rider when I couldn’t ride on a bus? How was I going to get to a concert or a demonstration? And what good would a handicapped girl be at a demonstration? Or anywhere else, for that matter? For days I cried.
Before long, I wasn’t the only one crying. About a week after Audrey’s call, another call came, for Seth, while we were working on one of our art projects.
“The president’s been shot.”
Seth’s face was as white as the sheets on our beds. He turned on the big TV set in the recreation room.
“The president’s been shot,” the nurses’ voices echoed down the hallways.
In the following days, everyone crowded in front of the TV, crying. And I cried along with them. For the handsome president who was now dead, for his beautiful wife, who looked so sad, and for the two children, who would never see their daddy again.
I kept crying, even after everyone else had stopped. I cried because it was too cold to go outside, and the trees I loved were all bare. In Sicily, where the winters were mild, I’d never seen trees look so dead. I cried when it snowed so much that my parents couldn’t come see me. And because I didn’t like the food they served us and missed our summer picnics. I cried when the nurses were mean to me or too rough and hurt me. I cried when my roommates teased me because I was always crying.
Then the six months were up and it was time for the big cast to come off. Back in the hospital, they cut the cast with an electric circular saw down the middle in the back, rolled me over and cut it down the middle in the front, then forced it open with a pry bar. I came out of the cast naked and shaking, just as I had been when they’d put it on me.
“Your back looks nice and straight,” one of the nurses said. “Do you want a mirror?”
But all I wanted was to be enclosed, hidden again. They put a smaller cast on me, which had to stay on for four more months. It covered my torso, from under my arms to my hips.
“What a nice shape that cast gives you!” Audrey said when she came to visit me in the hospital.
I hadn’t seen her in over six months. She looked beautiful, with streaks in her hair—highlights, they were called—and her makeup so perfect. She said she had learned to accentuate her features without looking made-up. She seemed happy; she didn’t talk about Harry, or whatever his name was. She brought me eye shadow and hair spray. I hadn’t been wearing makeup all those months in the big cast, so I didn’t even remember how to put it on. And my hair had grown back, but I didn’t know what to do with it.
Audrey went to work.
“Your hair has grown in so nicely!” She played with it, teasing it on top, making it curl over my ears. Then she made me try on the eye shadow. “I knew it was your color! You look so pretty!”
I did feel pretty again. “Thank you, Audrey.”
I hugged her, now that in the smaller cast I could reach her, and asked, “Are we blood sisters again?”
“Of course”—she laughed, hugging me back—“we’re blood sisters forever.”
I went back to Blythedale feeling pretty. In my shapely new cast, I wore jeans and bright- colored sweaters, instead of the triple X nightgowns that had been my exclusive wardrobe for many months. With my hair curly and shiny, and some makeup, only enough to bring out my features, I didn’t feel like crying anymore. I could turn myself in bed now, though I still needed some help washing and dressing. I wasn’t allowed to sit in a wheelchair, but I could wheel myself on a stretcher, on my stomach, a pillow under my chest. I became a pro at maneuvering, and, though it was still winter, I liked to sneak out the door.
In March, I looked for signs of the coming spring. It made me happy to discover grass growing where there had been none the day before, a violet shyly opening up to the mild sunshine, then the first tiny leaves appearing on trees.
Edwin, who had gotten his four-month cast a month before I did, also liked to sneak out the door. Two years older than I was, he was almost eighteen. We met outside and went all the way to the end of the path, where you could see the highway.
“That’s a ‘62 Chevy Impala! That’s a ‘61 Dodge Dart!” He pointed to the cars as they zoomed by.
I didn’t care, but I tried to look interested.
When he got tired of looking at cars, he kissed me—clumsy, open-mouthed kisses that almost made me choke. Then he squeezed his hand inside my cast, but I didn’t let him get in far enough to touch my breasts. Whenever his hand went toward the zipper of his pants, I got nervous, thinking I heard someone spying on us, and made him stop.
Audrey approved of Edwin. Since he had only scoliosis, no other disability, he rated pretty high in her book.
“Maybe he won’t have much of a protrusion on his back when he’s done,” she said.
The morning after our first campfire of the season, I hurried to the pay phone with a bunch of coins I kept under my pillow and called Audrey. I told her how Edwin and I had parked our stretchers right next to each other’s and shared a heavy blanket. Seth had some trouble getting the fire started, but once it got going, it was the most beautiful fire ever. Trembling from the excitement, and the still-chilly weather, I’d let Edwin guide my hand to his crotch under our blanket. I touched something hard and throbbing.
Audrey got so agitated, she wouldn’t let me tell the story.
“You held it in your hand? Wow, how big was it? How long? How hard?”
“It was big,” I told her, though I had no basis for comparison.
I think for the first time Audrey was jealous of me.
I never found out how much of a protrusion Edwin had. He went to HSS to get his cast off and I never heard from him again.
“Of course,” Audrey said. “Now that he’s practically normal, he wouldn’t want anything to do with a handicapped girl.”
“I didn’t love him anyway,” I declared.
When my turn came to get my cast off, I was nervous. I’d already been fitted with braces while at Blythedale. At HSS, they would teach me to stand and walk. I’d seen kids walking with braces and crutches. It didn’t look easy.
It was even harder than I’d thought. I exhausted myself every day in PT, determined to learn to walk as well as I could. Unlike Audrey, I felt I had to walk. My father had brought me to America so I could walk. I wanted to repay my parents for all the sacrifices they had made. But now I understood what Audrey meant when she talked about those who had only scoliosis being “practically normal.” I watched my Blythedale roommates come into the hospital, shed their casts, and walk out looking gorgeous.
When Susie joined me at HSS, I was so happy. Her cast came off and we went to PT together. But Susie had learned to use braces and crutches when she was a little girl. It didn’t take long for her to get back in practice. She went home, while I was only starting to take tentative