Ragtime Rachel
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The Christmas Ivy Bloomed, Part 1
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by Rachel Newstead
But one unusual Christmas, she would be hidden no longer.
Dec. 20
The child's small hands caressed the fabric of the dress, gently lifting it from the spot so no one would hear. Purple, his favorite color, with a bib front. The fact it was, at least nominally, the older sister's property mattered little. Taking it would relieve the pain knifing through the child's stomach, at least for a little while.
It doesn't fit her anyway, the eight-year-old rationalized. Besides, she hated it–she'd said so enough times to remove any lingering doubt. According to the younger sibling's straightforward sense of justice and fair play, therefore, any such item was up for grabs. So it wasn't really stealing, exactly. Just putting a neglected item to good use.
Slipping into the dress–an easy feat when one considers it was two sizes too large–the child faced an even larger problem.. Namely, making the fifteen-foot crawl to the other end of the hallway, then back downstairs–scooting in a seated position–to the waiting wheelchair at the bottom. In a comically overlarge dress, without being seen.
Joey McKinnon gave new meaning to the term “physically challenged.”
Feeling brave, even a bit reckless, Joey grabbed the plastic cylinder on the pink and white vanity table and painstakingly traced the contours of his mouth with the contents. Okay, so taking Bekka's lip gloss was stealing–she used that, after all, unlike the dress. But considering the way she treated him, Joey figured it was a fair exchange. He slipped the tube in the tiny pocket in the front of the dress, in case he needed to touch up his work later.
Checking the door at least fifteen times in a one-minute period, Joey pulled his body onto the stool next to the vanity and examined his handiwork. In the reflection was the face of a little girl, or so it would appear to anyone else. An almost elfin face, dominated by green eyes with thick lashes. A button nose, tiny yet full lips, and strawberry blond hair in barely-tamed waves completed the picture. Joey had to mentally caution himself against biting his lower lip in concentration as he viewed the image, which would spoil all his work. He didn't have time to start over.
Joey dropped to his hands and knees to begin the long trek back. The stabbing pain in his stomach now became a fluttery feeling, as his pulse started to race and a thin film of sweat formed on his forehead.
Can something feel both good and bad?
The excursion into his sister's bedroom should have been terrifying–any other day, it would have–but today it was sort of an adventure, a way of seeing just how sneaky he could be. He could pretend he was a spy in disguise. It was almost worth enduring the stomachaches The Girl gave him when she wanted to play.
Finding the hallway empty, Joey started his “dash” to the stairs, but soon noticed his normal half-crawling, half-scooting method of locomotion didn't lend itself well to extended travel in a long dress. The garment twisted as he moved, binding his legs at the knees and ankles, severely cutting down his traveling speed. Any faster and he could tear the fabric, and he'd really be in trouble. Though for the life of him he couldn't imagine it being much worse than the trouble he was already in.
Just a little bit more, and he'd be reach the stairs....
“You know, little one, if the niá±a wants to play, she ought to make less noise. I could hear her all the way in the kitchen....”
Head down, too absorbed in his task to pick up on his surroundings, Joey failed to see the pair of women's feet directly ahead of him. He curled his body into a ball, hoping perhaps to pull off a convincing imitation of a pile of dirty laundry. It took a second or two for the child to realize the feet belonged to his caregiver, Sonia.
“Since the niá±a is dressed for it, why don't we have a party? Hot chocolate and the cookies she likes?”
Joey didn't have to be asked twice. His reddish-blond curls bounced as he vigorously nodded.
Lifting the thin child on her hip, Sonia carried him downstairs to his chair. He rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes.
If he could relive any moment again and again, it would be this one.
The moment The Girl opened her eyes, she knew her host, Joey McKinnon, felt happy. She knew because she felt happy, too, and she couldn't remember the last time he shared such a feeling with her.
That was the first sign that things had gone seriously wrong.
Mostly, he only allowed her to feel angry, or sad. That was the deal, from the moment she first woke up inside Joey's mind. But this was too good, too wonderful a feeling for Joey to keep to himself. So it spilled over the barrier: first in dribs and drabs, then in a steady stream, then a full-out flood, crumbling away a portion of the barrier with it.
The dirty, almost feral child with the matted, wavy hair stared at the scene in front of her, her green eyes wide with astonishment. Something, somehow, created a crack. A narrow crack, to be sure, but a crack nonetheless. She hadn't been summoned--she couldn't remember the last time she had. Yet there the crack was, just the same.
The barrier had been there so long, she'd accepted its presence as an inviolable law, like "water is wet." Oh, she'd been let out now and then, true. But it was like letting a chained dog run around the yard for awhile.
But now the impenetrable wall had been breached, for the first time since the beginning of her exile. If something like that could happen....
Closing her eyes, The Girl took advantage of the new pathway to focus on Joey's memories, evoking half-remembered images from a time in his childhood outside his conscious mind. Instantly, the rocky, monochrome landscape transformed; colors--some garish, some incongruous, some quite beautiful--spilled over the void like paint onto a child's coloring book. Groves of violet trees with yellow leaves sprang from what had been barren promontories. A strip of beach appeared, alongside a narrow inlet, beyond which stood the remainder of the barrier. Warm sunlight beamed down upon her from a purple sky, while magenta butterflies flitted about, sometimes deigning to land on The Girl's hand.
Next, she set to work on herself. A vortex of primary colors surrounded her, evaporating the grime from her body and fabricating a yellow sundress to cover her previously naked form.
She basked in the warmth, let it envelop her like a hug, giggling as the surf lapped at her toes. She ran up and down the length of the shore, sometimes doing cartwheels, sometimes skipping. She climbed to a perch on a nearby rock, chewing a strand of her hair as she stopped to consider what this might mean. Whatever it meant, one thing became immediately clear.
Her escape was only a matter of time.
Tomorrow, she learned, was the last school day before Christmas break, but she knew from scanning his mind that for him, the fun would begin a day earlier than it would his poor deskbound classmates. He and his friends Aimee, Sarah, and Moira won the charity drawing, and had been picked to go on a special field trip--a free skating lesson for disabled kids at the Pettit Ice Center in Milwaukee, followed by lunch downtown. That was good enough. What made it even better was that they were the only third-graders picked to go.
But best of all was Aimee, Sarah and Moira. When they were around, The Girl knew she'd be free to come out and play.
Perhaps--she dared hope--forever.
Sonia Alvarez, CNA, cursed her car's less than adequate windshield wipers as they made timid swipes at the drizzle dotting her windshield, turning it to half-frozen rivulets on the glass instead of clearing it away. The mixture of rain and sleet wasn't a hazard, yet, but it was enough to make the roads a challenge to morning traffic. A challenge Sonia doubted her tires were up to, judging from the way her car fishtailed with every turn.
She pulled up the collar of her coat and shivered. The car's heater wasn't helping much either. She might make more money as a private-pay CNA than she ever did in a nursing home, but with a daughter in college in Texas, that monetary cushion didn't last. The plane ticket to El Paso ate up what little was left. She thanked God at least for the fact she was in good health–she didn't know what she'd do if that took a sudden downward turn.
Squinting at the blobs of light coming from car headlights in the predawn light, she could barely make out the sign that marked the exit to the section of town in which her young charge, Joey McKinnon, lived. She turned off the wipers, deciding they were doing more harm than good. Only the prospect of a week at her sister's house, in the relative warmth of El Paso–and with it the chance to see her daughter Inés–sustained her.
Though she might question moving to Wisconsin, a place climatically and culturally at the opposite end of the spectrum from her native Guatemala, she never questioned her choice of profession. Her job, as she saw it, extended beyond caring for her clients' physical needs. She could still hear the voice of the RN under whom she'd trained. “These people are not your friends. You have to maintain the proper professional distance.” In Sonia's view, she might as well have said, “these people are little better than houseplants, and should be treated as such.”
To her, a nurse's assistant had to be a companion, a sounding board, someone with whom a person could share their joys or vent their frustrations. She chatted with them when their families wouldn't, took them shopping when they otherwise might never have seen the inside of a store, fixed their hair when they couldn't afford to have it done.
For the younger ones, Sonia had to be equal parts parent and playmate. She'd probably read every children's book ever written, in both English and Spanish, and played every conceivable video game. She liked children generally, far preferring to work with those at the beginning of life than at the end. Yet, save for her own daughter, there was only one child she could honestly say she loved.
Joey.
The little boy with the heart and soul of a girl.
A child who on the surface might seem doubly burdened. But his biggest burden was not his disability, or the girl inside him struggling to break free. No, that honor would go to his family, particularly that woman who called herself his mother. Sonia wasn't sure, but in order to qualify for that title, one would think a woman had to spend a certain minimum amount of time actually mothering. But she hadn't seen anything approaching it from her in the three and a half years she'd known her.
Sonia tolerated the nitpicking, the obsession with image, cleanliness, perfection and order, for Joey's sake. If not for her, he'd revert to the sullen, mute shell of a child he'd been when she first saw him. Smothering him in his sleep would be kinder.
The woman not only demanded she remove her shoes upon entering, she'd marked a line in carpet tape–an actual, literal line–on the oak floorboards of the converted farmhouse, beyond which shoes dared not enter. That might be tolerable if she merely did it to remind the kids not to track in mud. She only put it up after Sonia, during a busy morning, unknowingly brought in a thimbleful of dirt. As if she were an errant six-year-old. From then on, Sonia loathed that line.
How Brenda McKinnon tolerated Joey's chair was anybody's guess. Sonia was sure that if Brenda had her way, she'd keep Joey and his chair out in the garage, as if he were a stray dog too filthy to let indoors. Packed in bubble wrap like her damned lead crystal goblets.
As Sonia turned toward the driveway to the McKinnon home, she saw the door wide open. That could only mean one thing–Brenda was on one of her cleaning tears, sweeping the front entryway. Only one more day of this, Sonia reassured herself, though it wasn't quite soon enough.
“Oh, there you are,” Brenda said, with just enough of a hint of sarcasm to be irritating. “It's already seven-thirty. I could swear you said you'd be here at seven-fifteen.”
“The roads were a little bit icy this morning,” Sonia said as she placed her shoes just behind the notorious carpet-tape line. “I had to take it slow.”
Brenda smiled that sickening smile that Sonia hated, and said in her most artificially pleasant, syrupy tone, “Well, dear, you really must anticipate these things. I always check the online forecasts before I go anywhere. If you'd just start earlier on days like this....”
Sonia cut her off. “I understand, Mrs. McKinnon. I'll go check on Joey.”
Sonia's mouth tightened into a thin line. She'd love to remind her that the only truly predictable thing about Wisconsin weather was its unpredictability, but decided she wanted her paycheck more. The moment Brenda turned to do battle with the kitchen range top, Sonia looked down at the shoes she'd just placed behind The Line.
Then, ever so subtly, kicked them over it.
"Levá¡ntate, sweetie, rise and shine. We have to get you ready for your trip this morning, and I know how slow you can be." A sharp rapping on the handle of the wheelchair next to the bed soon followed.
Joey's head turned toward the familiar voice, which both he and The Girl knew belonged to his caregiver. The Girl felt his joy at seeing the middle-aged Latina--all the more intense given the crack in the barrier--and knew Joey loved her. His smile, if only for a moment, brought broad splashes of primary colors, crayon-box colors, to the far horizon of the realm to which she'd been involuntarily exiled.
But The Girl loved Sonia most of all, because Sonia knew she was there.
" ¿Cá³mo está¡s, mariposa?" Sonia said, smiling. ¿Dormiste bién? You sleep good?" Joey nodded, his eyes having turned the deep, iridescent green they became whenever he, or The Girl, became really excited. Placing a plastic tray of water on the wheelchair seat, Sonia handed him a wet washcloth to remove the remnants of sleep from those eyes.
It had long been Sonia's habit to refer to Joey as her mariposa--butterfly. An odd epithet for a boy, certainly, but it fit the delicate eight-year-old. Not simply because he loved them, giggling when he coaxed one to come to him. It was that Sonia, unique among the adults around him, knew his secret--the Girl who dwelt inside. From her perspective, he seemed much like a butterfly, if still cocooned to most of the world. She alone knew of the beauty that had yet to be released.
The first thing anyone noticed about the youngster was the eyes, the eyes of an “old soul”, who'd endured more than those five times his age. Sonia chuckled as she watched him try to blow a stray tendril of hair away from them. But good luck getting him to agree to even a trim.
The Girl, because she held Joey's less-desirable emotions, usually sabotaged any efforts by his mother to shear his hair to the scalp, flailing and screaming until both the barber and his mother could convince Joey to take off just a little. Though normally unable to leave her little realm on her own, threats to her or Joey's person--real or perceived--were a necessary exception. The Girl always got him in trouble that way. That, unfortunately, was the downside of their little bargain.
It proved even less tolerable for The Girl herself. To have the barrier part for those few tantalizing moments, and even then emerge only when Joey's anger and fear reached critical mass, disheartened her. It eroded her hope month by month, year by year. She'd been "called up" on a few good occasions--if one could call them that--when Joey's aching desire to be who he was outweighed his fear of punishment and humiliation.
But those moments occurred less and less often, and even then, Joey fought her. She couldn't truly enjoy an afternoon with his sister Bekka's old dolls, or an hour rifling through forgotten boxes for her old outfits. Not without being interrupted by a wave of anxiety from her host, jumping out of his skin whenever he thought he heard the front door slam, or thought his sister was fast approaching.
Bad emotions, ugly emotions, hurt her, and every time she was hurt, it took longer and longer for the hurt to go away. Many times she'd sat huddled in the vastness as her wounds threatened to eat through her, making her believe that this time, she would dissolve into mere pinpoints of light.
But today...today. She had the keys to the candy store--or at least, a back door into Joey's consciousness.
All she had to figure out now is how, and when, to best use it.
"You ready to go on your trip today?" Sonia said with a smile.
Joey practically bounced to the edge of the bed, "I sure am. I get to stand up in a walker and skate on the ice, and we're all gonna do face painting. I wanna be a tiger...." Putting his "claws" in the air, he lets out his best attempt at a roar. What came out, however, came across as comically gentle.
"OK, cá¡lmate, my ferocious little cub..." Sonia interjects, laughing. "Maybe we ought to take care of that diaper first?"
An enraged preteen voice smashed through the relative calm of the morning."WHERE'S MY LIP GLOSS?"
Ah, Bekka. If the town's tornado-warning siren ever broke, they could use her for a backup.
An auburn-haired girl of about twelve burst through the doorway. Her face still had enough baby fat to pull off innocence, but judging by her current expression, one could be forgiven for thinking she could commit a murder and stuff the body in her book bag. Pushing her way past Sonia, she snatched up a small cylinder on Joey's desk next to a small white hand mirror. "I KNEW you had it, you little freak! If you slobbered all over this, I'm gonna take your chair apart and spread the pieces from here to Chicago! And there's the mirror I've been looking for all week!!"
Taking a quick sniff of the air, she wrinkled her nose. "Ewww. Don't tell me the freak messed his pants again...." The faint, impatient sound of a horn cuts her rant short. "Great...NOW I'm late...!" Turning toward Sonia, she remarks, "Looks like the fun's all yours. I'd help, but gotta go...."
Sonia put out a restraining arm. The penetrating glare coming from her eyes gave Bekka enough of a message that moving even an inch more was not a good idea.
"'Why, good morning to you too, Bekka dear. I'm so glad you could help me with Joey!" The irony of those words was, of course, so thick even a slightly mentally-challenged paramecium would have caught it, though she seriously doubted Bekka's ability to do so. "You're not going anywhere yet, princess, so it looks like you won't miss out on 'the fun' after all...." With that, she thrust the container of wipes into Bekka's hand.
"B-but the bus! I- I do have to go...."
"Then your little diva self will have to walk, no? It's a great day for it--it's beautiful out there...."
Joey's green eyes, which moments before had been so bright with anticipation, lost their luster as Bekka wiped his bottom--a little too roughly, but he didn't even flinch. The Girl, however, did, perceiving his discomfort as an ugly orange flash in the virtual sky. Joey refused to look at Bekka, but he could imagine the expression of disgust on her face--and knew it wasn't just from the disagreeable task she had to do.
"Y'know, freak, I oughta show these to your little friends so they can see what a baby you are...." Bekka said as she taped the clean diaper in place. Those green eyes of Joey's met hers with a hardened stare she'd rarely seen from him. The muscles in his face and jaw tightened, and he clenched his teeth. The sight unnerved her enough to cut her taunting off in mid-sentence.
"OK, go...go! I think you've done enough...." Sonia said, shaking her head as she put a pile of clothes on the bed. With a grunt of frustration, Bekka gladly complied, stomping out of the room as quickly as she'd entered. The sound of her whining to her mother about needing a ride grew fainter as she as the sound of her footsteps traveled in the direction of the kitchen. But just barely.
Inside Joey's mind, The Girl shivered, rubbing the sides of her ethereal body as the virtual wind gathered speed, and all color drained away. She tried concentrating, honing in on Joey's emotions to forestall it, but it came at her too fast. Jagged, rocklike formations sprang up from the pristine landscape like stalagmites. No, don't get mad now, please....please don't! I don't wanna feel mad! Not today!
“NO!!”
Her scream reverberated across the expanse, bouncing off innumerable tiny facets, echoing back to her from infinite directions. She rocked slowly back and forth, head down, knees drawn to her chest, until the sound faded away. Her pupils dilated; her pulse would have quickened, if she had one. A searing pain tore across her body from her shoulder to her abdomen, leaving a welt-like, lightning bolt-shaped streak where it passed.
Doubled over from the pain, she scanned Joey's memories for more pleasant thoughts, settling on an image of Katie, Joey's rag doll when he was two. Instantly, an exact replica of the toy, down to the tiny rip in its left arm, appeared. She rocked back and forth with the toy, anticipating the vertigo that inevitably preceded her being “called up.” But to her surprise and relief, it didn't happen.
In a span of time that could have been thirty seconds or an hour--The Girl had no way of judging such things in her realm--rays of sunlight poked through the metallic gray clouds, and color once again filled the landscape. Only when the purple sky once again came into full view did the child's anger and fear dissolve into mist.
And if The Girl had her say, it would never return.
"Joey? Joey, look at me, little one..."
Joey slowly turned his head to meet Sonia's eyes. His face was a mask, inscrutable, but Sonia had known the child long enough to see the hurt in it. Stroking his cheek, she asked, "What's wrong, child? Dime que pasá³..."
Not having the vocabulary to express the full range of feelings locked within his mind, Joey could only mumble, "Nothin'."
Sonia raised an eyebrow at his answer, but guessed at the underlying cause of his mood. Bekka....
"Might it be because of these?" Sonia said, patting the package of diapers on the dresser. "Or maybe The Girl inside you that took Bekka's things?"
Joey nodded, still expressionless.
There's nothing wrong with having to wear those diapers, little one," Sonia said softly. "Your muscles don't work right, so you can't 'hold it.' That does not make you a baby, no matter what your sister says." She took Joey's small hand into her much larger one and smiles. "You know, I used to have to change a grown man, eighty-five years old. And I'm not sure, but I think that's quite a lot older than you...." She punctuated her final word with a tweak of Joey's nose, making him giggle in spite of himself. "And as for having a girl inside you--well, there's nothing wrong with that either, as long as she isn't a girl like your sister...."
That made The Girl shudder a bit, but Joey's laughter obliterated the last of the gray, filling her world with magenta, lilac and mauve. To her, they were all just different kinds of purple, and she loved purple. She twirled in the vastness as colors, pretty colors, danced around her.
"Sonia! Sonia!"
The caregiver flinched at the sound of Joey's mother. She had a certain intangible quality to her voice that seemed genetically tailored to trigger Sonia's migraines.
Brenda entered, stoop shouldered, with a box full of used clothing pressed up against her thighs to absorb some of the weight. With a weary grunt, she dumps it in the far corner of the bedroom under Joey's window. "Oh, good. You have Joey up. Listen, I realize this is short notice, but...."
Sonia rubbed her eyes as a pinprick of pain formed on the bridge of her nose. Did every sentence that woman uttered have to start with that?
"Yes, Ms.McKinnon?”
"Could you be a dear and take this box of old clothes to the St. Vincent de Paul? I'm chairing the neighborhood clothing drive, but I don't have any room in my car...."
"Yes, I'll be glad to do that, Mrs. McKinnon." Sonia's migraine began to creep up to her forehead. To Brenda's mind, the line between caregiver for her child and personal maid was very thin indeed.
Joey eyed the contents of the box with an unusual interest. Most of them were Bekka's, outfits often worn two, three times at best, then shoved into the "Twilight Zone" area of her closet, never to be seen again. It was then that Joey saw It.
The outfit. The one he had to wear, now, or die.
The cream colored top and the jeans with the little flowers along the side. Right there on top of the box, begging to be taken..There was the small matter of the little flowers on the jeans, but Joey figured the the chair would cover up most of their incriminating girliness. Just as Sonia was about to put his plain boy jeans on him, he finds the courage to speak:
"Could--could you maybe put those clothes over there on me? The jeans with the little flowers on them, and the shirt?"
The Girl paused in the middle of her purple reverie, and didn't know whether to laugh, shout or cry. She loved that outfit--she had asked Joey to wear it before, lots of times, when it hung forgotten in Bekka's closet. But she could never get him to do it, stomachaches or no. Now he was practically begging to wear it. If it was going to be this easy, she'd be picking out the perfect dress and leggings to wear to Joey's school come January.
She could read what he was thinking much more easily, too. Normally, it was like listening with cotton in her ears, underneath a heavy layer of gauze--she picked up feelings, pictures, colors, but she usually didn't pick up words unless he let her. She couldn't do anything unless he let her. That was one of the rules, too, almost as important as the anger one. Now it was if he were sitting next to her, whispering in her ear.
And if he could talk to her....
She was going to have a few things to say to him.
"Sonia?..."
As Joey finished up the last of his peanut butter on toast, Brenda poked her head in through the kitchen door, fully armed for the day: purse on her right shoulder, cell phone in her left hand, coffee mug in her right. Sonia smiled a bit at the comical image of her opening the door with her elbow. "I just wanted to tell you the van's here..."
"Thank you, Ms. McKinnon--let me help you with your coat, little one..."
"Did you pack lunch for him?"
Sonia valiantly fought the reflex that would have sent her eyes rolling upward. "He's going to be eating on the field trip. I told you that!"
Brenda's eyes glazed for a moment, then sparked to life again as recognition dawned. "Oh....right. You did. OK, 'bye, kiddo. Be good today!”
Before she took two steps, her head snapped around again: "And Sonia, before I forget..."
Sonia inwardly groaned, waiting for the inconvenient and time-consuming request that inevitably followed. "Would you be available to take care of Joey tomorrow afternoon? I know you're flying out to see your daughter, but it's just for a couple of hours...."
Oh, yes. The migraine was in full bloom now. Well, it could have been worse. "I think I can manage it," she said, forcing a smile. "I'm officially on vacation as of noon tomorrow, so there's nobody else on my schedule, and I think the little one would like having me...." Joey quickly nodded his assent.
The last sounds Joey heard from his mother was her angry arguing into her ever-present cell phone: "Look, Herbert, I turned in that article on antique nutcrackers three days ago! Don't blame me if you don't check your e-mail...."
The color began to drain a bit from The Girl's domain. She didn't even hug us goodbye....
Brenda McKinnon was a devoted disciple of the art of control. Taking a last-minute look into her rear-view mirror for any defects she might have missed, the slightest of smiles formed on her face when she found none. Lipstick, unsmudged? Check. Mascara, unclumped? Check. Hair? Wait a moment....
An auburn strand escaped her notice, dropping down along her jawline when she least suspected. That would not do.
She brought the rebellious strand in line quickly, her hair clip precisely centered. If someone took a carpenter's level to it, they wouldn't find it one millimeter off the plumb line. Only then did she judge herself to be ready for the day.
She put the key in the ignition and dropped her cell phone in her “Louis Vuitton” bag–a knockoff, but few in this backward town would likely know that. Their idea of a designer bag is a canvas backpack with a Packers logo, she snarked to herself, smiling with a mouth full of perfectly uniform teeth at her little wisecrack.
She counted the seconds as she waited for the idiot van driver to back out of her driveway and get her son to school. That driver's taking longer every morning, she thought with no shortage of contempt. She'd have to take up the matter with the school board. Perhaps they could contract with a transportation service that was a bit more punctual.
Make no mistake. She might seem absent-minded to some, but only because she remembered what she needed to remember, saw what she needed to see. Anything else, frankly, wasn't worthy of her attention.
And she could swear she saw her son in clothes that only twenty minutes before had been at the top of the clothing donation box. Bekka's clothes.
Oh, dear God. Not THIS again. That damned doctor assured her....
She couldn't very well confront the child and force him to change. That would take more time, and the word “late” was not in her vocabulary. But she'd make sure a certain young man–she took care to emphasize the word–would be aware of her displeasure that evening.
The doctor had been right about one thing. Too much female influence. Not that she could help it, especially with Joe senior gone. But it's not as if she could parade new candidates for the role of Joey's dad through her living room, and with her schedule, dating was a fantasy.
That Sonia woman–she encouraged this! She tried to pretend otherwise, but Brenda knew. Doesn't she realize, Brenda thought, that she was only trying to protect the boy? Isn't having cerebral palsy alone difficult enough for anyone to handle, let alone a child? Why add this..this thing he does to his growing list of challenges? With the proper amount of control, discipline and hard work, he could overcome it. She was certain. Those three things always served her well.
Brenda might not be able to bring a man in. But she'd see to it that one woman would soon be out.
The Girl heard Joey's thoughts as he gazed, stonefaced, at the image of his mother in the front seat of her Prius, too preoccupied with her own image to look in his direction. One came through loud and clear.
I wish Sonia could be my mom instead...and I wish my real mom and Bekka would go away!
Sonia wasn't privy to his or The Girl's thoughts, but she could feel their pain, and saw an almost imperceptible tear form in Joey's eye as he sat on the lift waiting to be loaded. She ruffled his strawberry blond hair, saying gently, "Vente, mariposa. Dame un abrazo...."
"Give you a hug? I'll give you a squeeze!" Joey said. Child that he was, the horrible wish of a moment ago was quickly forgotten, swept away by more pleasant thoughts.
“Be sure to tell me all about the trip today, OK?”
“Seguro que sá,” the child said, with a smirk of self-satisfaction. Sonia laughed. It sometimes surprised even her how bright he was. She couldn't remember teaching him that phrase.
“OK, quit showing off, my little genius.” With that, the driver wheeled the child into the van, and the doors closed. Sonia waved goodbye through the window.
Color trickled back into the Girl's world, slowly, but The Girl just stood, arms folded in front of her. Kneeling down, she idly scratched into the wet sand beneath her with her finger. She had wishes of her own, wishes too important to simply blurt out. She couldn't sort them out unless she wrote them down. With that in mind, she writes the first of her wishes, in a scrawl that was typical "kid."
The Girl paused, chewing idly on a tendril of strawberry blonde hair as her brow furrowed in thought. No, a LOT more important than that.
She gazed into the virtual sky. For all its beauty when Joey had happy thoughts, it paled in comparison to the world outside. A world she'd only rarely been allowed to glimpse. In an instant, her second wish came to her:
She frowned. What did that mean? What made someone real? It wasn't like the Velveteen Rabbit, the story she and Joey both loved. No--real people had one thing she didn't.
A name.
Crossing out what she'd previously written, she scrawls the words I want a name.
She smiled slightly, quite pleased with herself. It turned to a pout when she realized that having a name didn't mean anything if she stayed there, alone, where nobody to call her by that name. After another few moments spent chewing her lock of hair, she knew just what to say. Underneath the other wishes, in letters too big to be ignored, she wrote just three words:
No, she thought. She'd been out before, but only for a little while. Not like that.
Sinking her finger back into the wet sand, she writes one more word:
Now if only Joey would listen.
The Christmas Ivy Bloomed, Part 2
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by Rachel Newstead
Story synopsis: We meet the girls who are Joey's closest friends, and learn of a little bargain our young protagonist made with them that comes back to haunt him during his trip to the ice rink. Little does he realize that this day would change his life, as he finds new happiness--and The Girl receives a name.
Joey fairly bounced in his wheelchair seat, as he waited for the driver to offload him from the paratransit van so he could be loaded onto the school bus. Only the restraining hand of Ms. Osterreich, the teacher's aide, ensured he stayed firmly in place. He knew Aimee, Sarah and Moira would be there, and they promised him a little surprise when he saw them.
Aimee, the little Asian girl, was the first to acknowledge him: “Hey, Joey!” Like Joey, she used a wheelchair, only hers had a plush Hello Kitty hanging from one of the handles. She waved a small pink box, with the picture of a girl with pink hair on it. "I got 'em...", she says in a teasing sing-song.
Joey saw they were a box of kids' press-on nails, with all sorts of pretty--and uncomfortably girly--designs. They wanted him to wear those here? Now?
"...and you promised you'd let us put them on you...." interjects Sarah, the girl with the curly brown hair, seated directly behind him. Unlike Joey, she could walk, but with the aid of leg braces.
"You did,” added red-haired Moira to her right, in a voice barely above a whisper. She walked unaided, but with an unsteady, toe-walking gait.
Joey flushed red. "I know I did, but....what if someone sees them? I thought we were gonna do that at your house, Aimee...."
Aimee shook her head. "Nuh-uh. We dared you to do it on the trip...."
“And you said 'yes,'” chimed in Sarah, nodding her head vigorously.
"C'mon....." whined Aimee with a frustrated toss of her head. "You promised...." The other two girls, not wanting to be left out but not knowing what to say, did her best to look stern.
The annoyed Girl--the one in Joey's head, that is--stamped her foot in frustration at Joey's reluctance. From her position at the very edge of Joey's conscious mind, she could see the girls' disappointed faces in her thoughts. He did promise--or, more accurately, she did. But that was before, when the barrier was still fully intact, and he let her out. He couldn't blame her for making that promise.
Closing her eyes, she sends him a memory of that Halloween, when he let them paint his nails orange. To her amazement, he readily accepted the message, even managing to relax a little. The memory, borne on the wings of a violet butterfly--made him smile. This isn't any different--it'll be okay, really, The Girl reassured him, though she knew he was seldom conscious of her words.
Meanwhile, Aimee is in full chatterbox mode: "You don't even hafta have glue. It's easy. All you gotta do is peel the back off, pick it up real careful, and push it down onto your nail! Just like this, see?" She provides a quick demonstration, still chattering away. "And you run 'em under water to get 'em off, an' I got you butterflies 'cause you said you liked 'em..." Aimee says, pausing--finally--to take a breath. "Besides, it's just us. Nobody there is gonna know us--most of 'em are big kids, so who's gonna--"
"OK, OK, you win..." Joey interrupts. "But I take them off again before we get back to school, deal?"
"Deal!", the three girls shout in unison.
"We'd better hurry, before Mrs. Drew gets here," Aimee said, unhooking the seat belt for just a moment to scoot forward in her chair, as close to Joey as she could. "Give me your hand..."
The fourth Girl--the one they didn't see--could only laugh at the silliness of the whole scene. Only later did she realize that she'd never laughed quite so heartily before.
"All right, girls, settle down!", Mrs. Drew yelled in her "no-nonsense" voice. Looking over at Joey, she catches her error. "And Joey. I forgot we had a young gentleman here with us this morning." Joey gives her a nervous smile, awkwardly fumbling with his newly-decorated hands and burying them into his lap.
"Anyway, we're going to arrive at the ice arena in about five minutes. Those of you in wheelchairs will be unloaded first; the others, please wait until the driver or I tell you it's okay. Once you are off the bus, follow me to the entrance. Again, let the children in wheelchairs go first...."
All four children nodded in assent.
The excited yells upon arrival at the glass doors of the Pettit Ice Center echoed through the small bus, earning a look of disapproval from Mrs. Drew. For Joey and Aimee, the lift hardly came down fast enough.
The children were awestruck by the size of the place, craning their necks in order to take it all in. To the four small-town kids, it resembled a small city, almost. The building itself stretched for several city blocks, with a speed-skating track around the perimeter, and an ice-hockey rink in the center. The girls broke their awestruck silence with shouts of “Wow!” and gasps of surprise, while Joey marveled at the banks of lights above. The Ice Center was also an Olympic-level training rink, and they were actually going to learn to skate here, at the same place where Olympic skaters trained. It was all too much. It took all their combined effort to keep still while the adults put on their skates.
"All right, children. I think I see your instructors coming now...." said Mrs. Drew. “You do everything they tell you and don't give them any trouble...."
Joey noticed two people coming toward them--a tall man with dark hair and a mustache and a shorter, younger woman with blonde hair. His attention was focused completely, however, on the tall man. Something about him gave Joey a warm feeling, and made his stomach sort of jittery. Something kind of weird, but kind of good, too.
"So, as Mrs. Drew should have told you girls, I'm Mr. Madeiras--you can call me Jim if you like--and this is Janet...." he said, indicating the blonde 20-something young woman to his right. We're going to be helping you while you're on the ice. Are you ready to do some skating?"
All four children yelled "Yes!" in unison. Joey, too caught up in the excitement to notice, didn't catch on at first that the instructors considered him just another girl. When he did, he felt as though someone were wringing out his insides like a wet washcloth.
Mr. Madeiras smiled. "Good, that's what I want to hear. Now, I just want to make sure I've got all your names straight: Aimee, Sarah, Moira, and...I'm sorry, I can't read your name here..." he said, peering at the sheet on his clipboard. Indicating Joey, he asked, "can you tell me your name, honey?"
Joey started to tremble, and not from the cold. Why couldn't he open his mouth and tell Jim the truth? Why was The Girl stopping him, putting a lock on his tongue? Even if his tongue could work, his throat felt as if he were gargling with sand. If this nice man found out he was really a boy, Joey would be totally humiliated, and he'd probably get kicked out for lying.
Opting for honesty, he manages to stammer out, "J-Joey...."
"Oh! I see...Joy. That's a very pretty name. Very Christmassy, too,” he said, chuckling. “Well, Miss Joy, you and Miss Aimee have the honor of being first.. Can you stand?"
"Yes sir., I guess. I have a walker. I tried it a couple of times, but I'm kinda scared of using it."
"No need to be scared, Joy. We'll try you out on the skate walker--that's kind of like the regular walker you use, but a lot sturdier--and I'll have Janet put a gait belt around you just in case....if that doesn't work, we'll try a harness like we're using on Aimee here. We've never lost anybody yet.” Jim said, giving the child a reassuring wink.
Joey gulped. His enthusiasm evaporated at the thought of the unfamiliar special skates he had to wear. Reaching up to the top of the ankle like a typical orthopedic shoe, the skates felt like lead bars, teetering atop stilts. And he had to stand in these?
The Girl's sky began to fill with shades of orange, rust, and brown, which she'd long since learned to recognize as anxiety colors. For those shades to appear, Joey would have to be literally be shaking in his shoes--or skates.. It did not bode well for her--if the concentration of ugly colors got critical, she'd be "called up," and if she got called up, it would a disaster for poor Joey. She didn't want him to be blamed for her fearful acting out. Not this time, when he seemed so close to releasing her from her prison.
Janet could see the "girl" was trembling. Walking over to Joey and squeezing his hand, she said, "Look at me. Look at me. That's a good girl...." Putting her hand under the child's chin, she continued, "I promise you. You. Will. Not. Fall. Do you hear me? We do everything we can to keep anyone from being hurt, OK? Why don't we keep it simple and just have you stand in your skates for now?"
Janet took the three-inch wide canvas belt she was holding and slipped it around Joey's waist. "I'm going to be holding this the whole time," she told the child, grabbing the loop in the back. "When I tell you, let go of the wheelchair and grab the sides of the skate walker. If you feel like you need to sit back down, or if you think you're going to lose your balance, tell me and I or Mr. Madeiras will bring your wheelchair up behind you. Got it?"
Joey, still uncertain, nodded.
She attempted to lift Joey to a standing position, but his legs collapsed on contact with the ice, adopting a "windswept" posture (twisting to one side as if they'd been blown that direction, hence the term). She quickly set him back down in the chair. "Jim, could you help me a moment before you get Aimee started?"
The mustached man is busy with Aimee, tightening the last of the straps. "Sure. What's the trouble?"
"No trouble, really. But I think I might need someone to hold her gait belt until I can get behind her."
"No problem." He grabs hold of the loop with his strong hand while Janet puts her hands underneath his arms and raises him to a standing position. Joey, meanwhile, wasn't sure if he was going to scream, faint, or lose his breakfast. Maybe all three.
"Now, we're going to grab the skate walker. One....two..three...GO!"
It was perhaps the longest split second of Joey's life, as he closed his eyes, felt himself let go of the armrests of of his chair, move his hands through about twelve inches of empty space, and grasp the sides of the skate walker. Once he'd done so, Janet quickly grabbed the loops of the belt to forestall any possible disaster. Patting him on the back, Janet says, "You can breathe now, sweetie. You did it!"
The skate walker was indeed quite sturdy. As Jim said, it was much like a regular walker, but much bigger, almost like a cage around Joey's body. Unlike a walker, it had runners along the bottom instead of legs, as if a mad scientist fused together pieces from a walker, a sled, and spare bits of plumbing. Joey stood grasping the front bar to take a little of the weight off his legs. He might have been able to stand, but he still felt as though he were on stilts. But the fact he was standing at all was a miracle in itself.
Hey, maybe I can do this, he thought as he at last let a breath out of his still-quivering body. Though it quivered now more out of excitement than fear.
"Thanks, Jim." Janet says to the man. "Now that we've got her standing, we'll probably have her in the Olympics before we're done."
The thought made Joey smile, as he imagined being in front of a large crowd, gliding around a turn, executing backward glides with the walker, making tight figure eights, reveling in the feeling of the sparkly sequined skating dress as if flowed around--
"Don't fall asleep on me, now. We still have to teach you to stand properly." The sound of Janet's voice snapped Joey out of his daydream, before his blush over imagining himself as an Olympic skater in a pretty skating dress could travel up his neck to his face. "Now I want to see your feet nice and straight, like this," she told him, placing her feet perfectly parallel to one another, "and I'd like to see you bend your legs like so."
Bending his legs wasn't difficult--they were pretty much like that all the time anyway--but getting his feet perfectly straight and parallel proved harder than Joey initially thought. His left foot had the stubborn tendency to point to the left, and he had to strain to keep his feet from turning in. Janet provided what help she could, placing both his feet in a perfectly straight line.
Brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face, Janet says, "Wonderful! Now I want to see that back straight, " and placed her hand at the small of the child's back to demonstrate what she wanted. "You've got it--just like a little dancer."
From there, Joey attempted to move each foot up and down in succession, as if he were marching in place. This proved something of a challenge, as the skates still felt heavy and unfamiliar, and he had to use every ounce of his concentration to put his foot down in exactly the same spot as it had been when he picked it up. Soon, however, he found he could do it without much thought.
The next part proved even more frustrating, as The Girl could sense from the tight feeling in her stomach as well as the developing rage already obscuring the purple sky in the west. There had to be something in Joey's catalog of memories to avoid the "calling up" that would inevitably occur, but she could think of nothing. She only hoped the nice lady with him would be able to calm him down for her.
"Now this is going to be a lot harder," Janet was telling him, "because we're going to try to push ourselves off and glide forward." Janet turns her right foot slightly to one side. "Do you see what I'm doing there? Putting your foot in that position will help you push off, kind of like you would if you were pushing a scooter. Or pushing your wheelchair along with your feet."
Joey's ankles rebelled somewhat at the task, and he found he was able to get little distance. Janet placed his foot in the proper position for him and told him, "OK, think about pushing forward, and let yourself glide.” She illustrated this with a gentle wave of her arm. “Then try to put your foot back down the way we had it at the beginning. Nice and straight..."
This time, Joey got a much stronger start, going about five or six feet before coming to a stop. He'd landed his right foot a little less than perfectly straight, but he did go forward, even if it wasn't pretty.
"Not bad for a first try," said Janet. "Would you like to try it again?" Joey wasted in time in saying "Yes!"
"You know, those are pretty nails, honey...you like butterflies?"
"Uh-huh..." Joey began to squirm, wishing desperately he could hide his hands.
"Well, when you push off again, why don't you imagine you're a butterfly, floating? It's good to be careful, but don't try to think about what you're doing too much..."
Butterflies! The Girl had her answer. She let loose a frustrated groan, annoyed with herself for not having thought of something so obvious.
Her little realm filled with butterflies, violet and orange, red and yellow. They swirled around The Girl and flew through the crack in the barrier to disperse and enter Joey's consciousness. Joey suddenly saw himself as a butterfly, freed from the constraints of gravity, able to float, hover, bank and turn. The only thing he felt was the air around his tiny body as he swooped down to alight on a flower....
“Whoa, hold it, young lady!” Joey emerged from his daydream to find a breathless Janet skating after him. He felt himself glide on the ice. His thin legs propelled him at a breathtaking speed. It was as if the normal laws of physics had been suspended for the day just for him. It might have been a bit too fast, as it took a bit of effort to try to plant his skates in the proper position and come to a stop. The forward momentum and the lag in firmly planting his right foot meant he stopped only after making a slight turn. He slumped down onto the skate walker, panting both from the burst of adrenaline and the fact he'd been holding his breath all the way.
“Wow! It looks like we have a natural here.” Janet said. “We weren't going to do turns just yet, but it looks like you figured out how all by yourself.” Quickly grabbing hold of the gait belt again, she eased Joey into the wheelchair she brought with her. “Take a break, sweetie–you earned it..” Turning more serious, she admonished him, “But next time, wait till I say 'go', OK? I didn't plan on you taking off like that.”
Aimee, who had been practicing just a few feet alongside him, was the first of the kids to cheer Joey's performance. Sarah and Moira, still waiting their turn, greeted Joey with hugs as he joined them on the sidelines. The next few minutes were filled with endless chatter, with Sarah and Moira's exclamations of “Did you see...I mean, wow!” and “I thought you were gonna crash!” interspersed throughout, while Joey mimed how he'd been shaking the entire time.
Watching and listening from the edge of his mind, The Girl smugly noted how Joey would slightly tilt his head, how he'd cover his mouth when he giggled; how delicate and animated his hands were as he joked and laughed with the girls. Joey liked to blame her for those moments when his guard was down, but she stayed tucked within her snug little universe, a mere bystander. Control of the body at the moment was entirely his.
That dress and leggings were coming more and more within her reach.
Moira had her own doubts about whether she could do something as difficult as this, especially after seeing what Joey had done. Even Aimee, who couldn't move her legs as well as she, took to it as she were born on skates, laughing and joking as she scooted along. Truth be told, Moira had enough trouble even on solid ground. Her legs wobbled back and forth when she walked, and when she took a step, she had no guarantee her foot would land within a one-foot radius of the spot she aimed for. Add skates, and she might as well be perched on a tightrope fifty feet in the air. With no net.
“Push down those heels for me,” she could hear Janet saying. Moira felt a twinge of pain as Janet pushed the heel into position. Seeing her wince, Janet released the child's ankle. “I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to hurt you.”
“It's right–I mean, it's all–I mean, I''m OK.” Were it not for her precarious position, she would have stamped her foot in frustration. Stupid words always got mixed up, especially when she was upset.
“Relax, honey. You'll do fine,” Janet tried to reassure her. “Now what I want you to try to do is kind of hard, but I know you can do it. I want you to roll your left foot, like this.” Janet demonstrated by rotating the child's ankle for her in a small arc. “Then push off, and do the same thing with the other foot. Can you do that for me?”
Moira doubted she could, but nodded anyway.
“Great! Let's start with the left foot.”
Her left leg wobbled so badly that her pushoff was weak, When she tried to plant her foot, it landed to the side, making an ugly scraping sound and bringing her to a dead stop. Switching to the right was even worse–she might have toppled backward had Janet not had a firm grip on the gait belt.
Janet motioned to Jim for a wheelchair. She could see the tears forming in the girl's eyes and was at a loss as to what to say. Instead, she put her arm around the girl and gave her a slight squeeze.
“Maybe that's a little too hard for you, “ she said as she settled the girl into the wheelchair. “Do you want to try just gliding on one foot again?”
“No. I just...no.” Moira couldn't look at Janet. She kept her head down, eyes focused on the feet that wouldn't obey her commands.
A sadder child you'd never see than the one who made the long trip back. She was the only one who didn't make it, and it made her feel stupid. That's what all the kids in class said she was when they made fun of the way she talked.
For the first time since she'd known him, she was actually jealous of Joey. He did it so much better than she did, and he'd only done it a couple of times. She's even prettier than me, she thought as she buried her face into her hands.
Moira flushed red when she caught her mistake. He, she meant. Stupid words again–she couldn't even think them right. It was so easy to forget he was a boy. But it was still true–he was prettier. The nails, and the girls' clothes he had on, made him even more so, as far as she was concerned.
Once she transferred to her seat at the edge of the ice, she crumpled herself into a ball, wrapping her arms around her knees. Maybe if she did it tightly enough, she could swallow herself and disappear, like an old cartoon character.
Joey cheered Sarah and Moira just as enthusiastically as they'd cheered him, kidding Sarah for her little shriek of surprise at how far and fast she traveled. As for him, what he did was no big deal, however wonderful the girls made it sound. He went maybe as far as the length of his hallway at home. But he couldn't help being pleased with himself, just a little.
He saw Moira's head drop down as she struggled with the next step, alternating from one foot to the other. Even he didn't get that far. He couldn't make out what Janet was saying to her, but saw that she gave her a slight squeeze to try to comfort her. When Moira returned to her seat next to him, he could see the the faint traces left by her tears as they ran down her cheek. Not knowing what else to do, he put his arm around her and drew her into a hug–which she readily accepted.
“Couldn't go,” she said, sniffling. “Not as far as you. I tried, b-but stupid feet....”
“Hey, it's OK, Moira,” Joey said as gently as he could. “I just got lucky, that's all. And I needed a lot more help. And I was a lot more scared, too....”
“Really?”
Joey nodded. “Yeah. But I did better when Janet told me...” In a whisper, he told her about how he imagined being a butterfly, and a smile started to form on her face.
“I got an idea,” said Joey in his normal voice. “You like Tinkerbell, right?”
Sarah looked up at him for an instant, then her head lowered again.“Uh-huh.”
“Well, ask if you can try again. Next time, pretend like you're Tinkerbell, you know, in that movie where she finds her sister?” Moira's eyes widened, and she had to suppress a squeal, when she realized what Joey was talking about.
Calling Jim over to her, she murmurs something barely intelligible to Joey. “Well...I think we have time for one more try, sure,” Jim told her, smiling his ever-present smile. “But just one. We have another group of students coming in soon....” Motioning to Janet, he had her take Moira in the wheelchair back to the skate walker.
Moira gripped the bar of the walker and saw herself as Tinkerbell in Secret Of The Wings. She and her new-found sister Periwinkle are skating delicate curlicues together on the ice. She let every muscle relax, and a tingling sensation coursed through her as she pretended to be lighter than air, settling one foot on the ice, then the other–wobbly and uncertain at first, then much smoother--then coming to a gentle stop....
The sound of applause coming from Jim, Janet, and the kids jolted her out of her daydream. She jumped when she saw how far she'd gone–farther even than Joey. The beaming girl again had tears in her eyes as she returned to her seat, but these were happy tears. “Thank you,” she whispers to Joey.
The Girl saw the gold aurora in the purple sky, and felt the heat rise as Moira, before Joey could fully register what happened, kisses him on the cheek.
While waiting in line for the face painter, Joey heard Aimee, at the head of the line, say something to the silver-haired woman, though he could only make out every couple of words: “Yeah, she's shy..uh-huh...orange one....no, don't...” alternating between pointing at the book of designs and pointing in his general direction. The face-painter repeatedly had to admonish the girls to hold still, as they erupted into giggles every thirty seconds.
Joey knew the girls well enough by now to know something was up. “OK, what's the joke?”
Sarah started to say something, but Aimee and Moira shush her, and giggle even louder. One of those weird girl things, Joey figured, and began leafing through the booklet for the perfect tiger face. Before he could get very far, however, the face painter put a restraining hand on his arm. “It's OK, honey. The girls told me what you wanted already,” she said, gently patting his hand.
Joey cast a suspicious eye in the girls' direction, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary–the orange, yellow and black face paints for the tiger face were right there on the table, waiting to be used. The lady directed him to close his eyes as she put the yellow face paint on his eyelids. She then blended some orange makeup above that, and began drawing a network of fine spidery lines upward and outward from his eyes, which Joey assumed to be the tiger stripes. He strained to look in the mirror at the opposite corner of the table, but the lady told him, “You'll see it soon. Trust me, you're going to love it.”
The Girl worked overtime to send calming messages to Joey as his suspicion and anxiety mounted, but with little success. He'd noticed that the face painter had begun blending in colors that were decidedly un-tigerlike–colors in the pink to purple range. And why hadn't she painted the tiger muzzle on his lip? When the smiling lady finally handed him the mirror to examine her handiwork, Joey stared as if he'd been transformed into a pillar of ice. His pulse pounded in his ears, and the hyperventilating child lets the mirror drop with a clatter onto the tabletop.
The confused face-painter could only watch as Joey sped past her, the teacher, the teacher's aide, and the three girls and headed down the nearest corridor, neither knowing nor caring where he might end up. The image he'd seen in the mirror did indeed consist of tiger colors, but he discovered the face painter had painted two variegated butterfly wings, one wing radiating out above and below each eye from his cheek to his forehead, following the contours of his face. Thin, graceful, swooping lines–some with white dots running down the edge--separated each section of the wing, ending in a delicate curl at the top and bottom. The colors ranged from pale yellow to deep orange, with the top and bottom edges painted a sort of maroon. It was quite stylized, quite beautiful–and quite girlish. Unquestionably, unambiguously so.
Ms. Drew and the teacher's aide, Ms. Osterreich, followed close behind Joey, yelling for him to stop. But Joey barely heard them. He heard only the pounding of his heart and the sound of his own breathing. He scanned his surroundings desperately for a restroom where he could take the face paint off, but turned toward a dead end, where the two adults caught him.
The Girl viewed the scene with alarm as her surroundings began to fade from view and she felt the unmistakable, uneasy, vertigo-like feeling of being propelled through a tunnel–clear signs of being “called up.” The anxiety and rage tore through her in spasmodic bursts–if Joey could not calm down, or be calmed down by someone, she would take control and blindly lash out at anyone who dared touch her, despite understanding this was the worst thing she could do.
As Joey was being pushed back to the face-painter's stall, he could only hear snatches of their reproachful comments and their threats to leave him on the bus when they went for lunch. The three girls, eyes downcast, slowly approached him, and Aimee touched his arm.
“It was my idea,” she said, almost crying. “We didn't mean to be mean to you. It was just a joke, and we thought you liked butterflies anyways, an'...”
“Yeah,” Moira interrupted, before Aimee went into full chatter mode, “we didn't mean anything bad. We like you, and”-- she paused for an agonizing few seconds while she struggled for the right words--”you helped me. You made me not scared anymore.”
“Everybody thinks you're a girl anyways,” Sarah added. “I know you're a boy, but you like girl stuff, so we all got butterflies, 'cause we thought you and us could be pretend sisters–y'know, just for today.”
Indeed they had, Joey discovered on closer inspection. He'd been so upset he hardly noticed, but each of the three had similar butterfly patterns on their faces in different colors–Aimee's in purple, Sarah's in pink, and Moira's in green. And really, his design didn't look that bad when Joey really thought about it. And although he didn't really like to lie, he couldn't resist the fun of fooling everyone. It might be a great game....
Turning to the concerned face-painter, he said, “They played a trick on you and said I wanted my face like this. I just got upset. I'm sorry....”
“That's okay, honey...” the lady said. “They told me you were shy, so I figured you just got embarrassed at all the attention. Do you want me to take that off and do another one?”
“No, ma'am, this is fine....” Joey said, “we all match, see? I don't wanna ruin it if we're gonna be pretend sisters....”
“OK, sweetie,” she said, laughing. “I'm glad you like it. Besides, it goes with your pretty nails, too.”
Joey shook his head in resignation. The Girl had better not bug him for a long while after this. She owed him big.
The bits of light constituting The Girl's realm slowly reassembled themselves, and she soon found the darkness fading. Her vertigo gradually left her as she regained her footing, though she remained a bit unsteady, as though she'd taken a turn on a roller coaster a bit too fast. Whether it was she, he or the girls who managed to avert a full-scale meltdown, she didn't know. Neither did she care. She didn't want to experience that again for any reason. And wouldn't, if she could find just the right way to reach him.
Wisconsin Avenue in December can be a pretty dazzling place, particularly if you're a small-town child. At night, the street is alive with lights, arranged in complex designs, stretching as far as anyone could see. Joey ached to see them at night when they truly became magical, but in the light of a midwinter noon, they dazzled just the same, when the faint rays of sunlight glinted off the coating of ice they'd received that morning. They looked as if they'd been dipped in a sugar-candy glaze, as had every branch of every tree.
The girls were transfixed by the sights, pointing and chattering away, but only one thing attracted Joey's attention--the carolers from the Salvation Army, next to a Santa with the ubiquitous copper kettle. There was something about the voices, the way they blended together in harmony, that brought peace to him as well. For a moment he forgot about the conflict playing out within him, one that left him weary and battle-scarred, and could just be a child, engaged in the simple joy of the holiday. Between repeated reminders from Ms. Osterreich to pay attention to where he was going, he caught the strains of a carol he'd never heard before:
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
O the rising of the sun,
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing of the choir.
The Girl listened too, from the little gazebo she'd occupied since the start of the trip. Joey's thoughts and impressions, in the midst of his unrestrained euphoria, lay open to the girl in a way they never had before. A flood of visual memories, aural memories, tactile memories, poured into her realm from the inner reaches of his mind--from movies, pictures, and books, to the the stories passed down to him from his grandparents. Music for her was a half-remembered dream, something snatched from her, something which lay tantalizingly beyond, but could never quite be reached. Now, with no effort at all, she knew every note of every melody her host ever heard, and it was beautiful beyond her childish capacity to describe.
She wasn't sure if she truly understood the meaning of the song the carolers sang, but the words “holly” and “ivy” stood out in bold relief. She knew enough, despite her imprisonment, to know those were girls' names, representing things that were quite beautiful--though she never had, in fact, seen them. Maybe if she had a pretty name, it would help her feel pretty. Maybe enough that Joey wouldn't shut her away anymore.
She turned her nose up at the name “Holly”. That was the name of one of Bekka's stuck-up friends, who called Joey a “sissy.” And some other words that made his mom really mad when he asked what they meant.
But “Ivy”....
“Ivy....Ivy....I-vy....”
She formed the word slowly, playing with it, playing with the pitch and intonation as it rolled off her tongue. It sounded more beautiful with every repetition; so much so, she noticed a very strange thing happening.
She saw a tear fall on her hand. And she wasn't sad.
One of her very fondest wishes had come true. She had a name.
It concerned her for only a moment–wasn't there something called “poison ivy?” She knew there was, because Joey got into it once, and she shared his misery with him. But they couldn't be singing about that, could they? The very thought made her giggle.
It had to be something pretty. And the name made her feel pretty.
The newly-christened Ivy set her jaw, as if to dare anyone beyond her realm to say anything. That was her new name, and she was sticking with it.
Perhaps as a gesture of defiance, perhaps to make the christening official, she shouted her name into the vastness beyond: “My name is Ivy! MY NAME IS IVY!” The sound echoed off the canyon-like walls of her prison, as if in confirmation of her newfound declaration of personhood.
Almost before she thought of it, she found herself transported to a scene she culled from Joey's fantasies. Woods with shimmering, Crayola-green trees–more than she could count, and higher than she could see–nearly surrounded her, except for a pond. A pond that looked like the ice rink Joey skated on. Everywhere she looked was filled with something white–and cold. She picked up a chunk of the stuff and crunched it into a ball. It made her fingers kind of numb, but it felt sort of good, too. She flinched as the tiny flakes of the stuff gently landed on her arm. They were cold too, like tiny pinpricks on her skin.
What was this?
A word popped into her head.
Snow.
This was snow!
She'd heard the word before, but had never been “out” long enough to experience it personally. It was wonderful! She stood there dumbstruck for quite a long time before she realized she was anything but properly dressed for her new surroundings. She shivered in the thin sundress that had served her so well before, and determined to do something about it.
Images unfolded before her of a much younger Joey, looking through his mother's huge book of dress designs. He had to struggle to carry it, opting to drape over the top of the armrests on the chair, and inch the chair forward ever so slightly until he came to the huge marble coffee table, where he spread it out before him. Ivy could swear she felt his heart pumping as a wave of anxiety briefly overtook him, but that vanished as soon Joey was sure no one was nearby.
He came across a sketch of his mother's, the one that was his favorite, with a photo of the completed outfit alongside. It was kind of old-fashioned looking, like he'd seen in old family pictures, but he loved it. His mother called it a “shirtwaist” dress: it was red and green plaid–Christmas colors!--with capped sleeves and ruffles along the front and the hem. A thin belt divided it at the waist, and the dress could be worn with a red wool cloak, red or green tights, and tam o'shanter hat, as his mother's additional sketches indicated.
Ivy smiled. Just thinking about it made her feel warm and cozy. Those clothes would be hers.
And in less than an instant, they were. The primary-color winds began to swirl, encasing her legs in red tights, moving up her body until the outfit was complete.
Ivy wrapped her arms around herself as the warm clothing enveloped her, twirling as snowflakes gently swirled around her. She had her second wish–a Christmas dress. Collapsing in a mixture of giddiness and exhaustion, she fell back into the soft snow, making “snow angels” without a thought as to how she came to know such a thing.
Only one wish to go, Ivy thought as she lay amid the expanse of white.
And something told her that it would be the hardest wish of all to get.