Irene suggested inviting Mason to their Seder on the first night of Passover, surprising Miri. Miri wore her new patent-leather slingbacks. Mason brought lilacs for Irene. They all missed Henry and Leah, who had gone to visit Leah’s parents. But Miss Rheingold was there and Blanche Kessler from the Red Cross with her family and Ben Sapphire.
Corinne called a few days later, another surprise, saying if Miri would like to see Natalie she would pick her up at school the next afternoon, if that was convenient for her.
That night Miri wrapped the copy of Seventeenth Summer and tied it with one of the ribbons from Irene’s collection. “She doesn’t know you’re coming,” Corinne said on the drive to Watchung. “She doesn’t want anyone to see her in this place but the doctors think it might be good for her to begin to reconnect to the outside world.”
“Is she coming home soon?”
“Maybe in time for graduation. Just act as if nothing’s changed. As if you’re still best friends.”
Aren’t we still best friends? Miri thought, though she didn’t say it aloud.
The Watchung Hills Children’s Home, a big white house, sat on a hill surrounded by tall trees. The azaleas were in bloom. The grass was very green.
Inside, the halls were filled with music and children’s laughter.
Corinne stopped outside Room 218. She knocked on the door before turning the knob. “Everyone decent?” She didn’t wait for a reply.
Miri hung back, anxious, not sure what she’d find inside the room.
“Nat…look who’s here!” Corinne called, stepping back to make room for Miri. “I’ll leave you two alone to catch up,” she said brightly, as if there were nothing unusual about Miri visiting Natalie in this place. Then she disappeared.
From the look on Natalie’s face, first surprise, then anger followed by disgust or maybe embarrassment, Miri could see Natalie didn’t want her there any more than she wanted to be there.
“Hi,” Miri said, trying to make her voice sound as bright as Corinne’s.
“Hi.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
“I’m alive, if that’s what you mean.” Natalie’s voice had an edge to it.
In the other bed someone was sleeping. She had the covers pulled up so high almost her whole head and face were covered. One arm lay outstretched, attached to tubes.
Natalie was wearing regular clothes—dungarees, a shirt and a bulky cardigan sweater. She didn’t look any different to Miri than she had that day she went cuckoo in the basement. Well, maybe a little better than that, but not much.
“You were there that day, right?” Natalie asked.
“Which day?”
“That day I went to the hospital.”
“Oh, that day.”
“You’ll never believe who my nurse was.”
“Who?”
“Phyllis Kirk’s mother.”
“Phyllis Kirk, the actress?”
“Yes, isn’t that something? And she told me Phyllis is up for a big part in a Vincent Price movie. And it’s going to be in 3-D.”
“What does that mean?” Miri asked.
“I’m not sure.”
Now the figure in the other bed sat up. She was so thin Miri was sure she’d been in a concentration camp. Next to her Natalie seemed almost healthy. Natalie, at least, had some color in her cheeks.
The skeleton said, “You have to wear special glasses and it looks like things are jumping out at you.”
“How do you know?” Miri asked.
The girl shrugged.
“Lulu knows a lot,” Natalie said.
So, the skeleton had a name.
“How come they let you see a friend?” Lulu asked Natalie.
“I don’t know,” Natalie said.
“Friends can make you feel worse about yourself,” Lulu said.
“I don’t want to do that,” Miri told her.
“You don’t want to, but you might anyway.”
“Should I go?” Miri asked, hoping the answer was yes.
“Why don’t you just shut up for once, Lulu?” Natalie said.
Lulu laughed. “So are you from Plane Crash City, too?” she asked Miri, swooping her free arm around like a plane taking off, then coming straight down, onto her bed. “Boom!”
“Come on.” Natalie grabbed Miri by the sleeve and pulled her out of the room, then down the hall to a sunroom, where other kids had visitors, too. Many of the kids had braces on their legs. Some had crutches. Others were in wheelchairs, their legs straight out in plaster casts. “They had polio,” Natalie explained. “They’re learning to walk again. If you want milk and cookies they’re on a table over there.” She pointed across the room.
“What about you?”
“I don’t drink milk or eat cookies.”
“Okay.” Miri helped herself to two shortbread cookies and a small cup of milk.
She sat down on a sofa next to Natalie.
“My hair is growing back.” Natalie said.
“I didn’t know you cut it.”
“I didn’t. It was falling out. From my condition.”
Miri was dying to ask, What condition? But she was trying to act ordinary, like it was just another day. “It looks good. Like always.”
“Lulu and I are the only freaks here. We didn’t have polio, and we don’t have cerebral palsy. What’s happening at school?”
Wait—what do you mean freaks? Miri wanted to ask. Instead she said, “School…you know…the usual, except I was almost expelled.”
“You, Goody Two-Shoes? What’d you do?”
“Wrote a story for the paper Mr. Royer didn’t like, so I handed it out on my own.” And I’m not Goody Two-Shoes, she wanted to add, but didn’t. “The chorus is practicing for graduation. We’re singing ‘Younger Than Springtime.’ ”
“I hate that song.”
“It’s pretty sappy.”
“What about you…are you still in love with Mason?”
“We’re still the same.”
“Why won’t you admit you’re in love?”
Miri didn’t answer. Didn’t say she was afraid to call it love, although it was love, and not puppy love, either. It was something much deeper now. Last week, in Irene’s basement, she took his hand and placed it on her breast. It bothered her that he never tried to get to second base, never mind third. Why didn’t he want to go any further with her? As an experiment she pulled her sweater over her head. His hands on her naked back were almost more than she could stand. But she didn’t stop there. She reached around and unhooked her bra, showing him her breasts. Neither one of them spoke for the longest time. Then he said, “What are you doing?”
“I want you to touch me.” She took his hands and placed them on her perfect A-cup breasts.
She could hear his breath quicken as he ran his hands over them. And she felt something, too, something down there, the way she did at night in her bed when she touched herself.
“It’s not a good idea,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, kissing him.
“Suppose I can’t stop?”
“I’ll stop you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I just wanted to make sure…”
“What?”
“That you like me that way.” She put her bra back on, pulled on her sweater.
“And now?” he asked.
“Now I know you do.”
She couldn’t tell Natalie or anyone how much she cared. Probably Rusty once loved Mike Monsky, or thought she had. And look how that ended.
“What are the girls saying about me?” Natalie asked, bringing Miri back to the moment.
“They hope you’ll get better soon.”
“What do they think is wrong with me?”
“None of us knows what’s wrong.”
“Do they laugh when they talk about me?”
“No! Why would they laugh?” She would never say that they hardly ever talked about her. She was as removed from their lives as Robo, living in her new house in Millburn. Even more removed.
“Because it’s funny, isn’t it? I didn’t even see the crashes, but here I am. My mother says I’m just very sensitive. Do you think I’m sensitive?”
“I guess. What about Ruby? What does she think?”
“She abandoned me a while back. Didn’t even say goodbye. Didn’t even say I’d be okay without her.”
“Are you…okay without her?”
“What you see is what you get.”
“Why are you talking in riddles?”
“That’s not a riddle. A riddle would be more like, What’s soft and mushy and gray all over?”
Miri didn’t have a clue. “I give up.”
“Natalie’s messed-up brain. Get it?”
Miri was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. How long did Corinne expect her to stay here?
“Did you hear?” Natalie said. “My father wants us to move to Nevada. To someplace called Las Vegas.”
“Nevada! But that’s so far away, isn’t it?”
“Only two thousand, five hundred miles. It takes five days to drive there. Some people fly. You have to make two or three stops. My mother swears she’ll never go. They hate each other.”