Warm Springs by Susan Richards Shreve

Author:Susan Richards Shreve
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I cannot for the life of me understand now how I had the nerve or stupidity or exhibitionism to wear a sanitary belt around my neck, in full view of nurses and doctors and eighteen adolescents in the Boys’ Ward. It occurs to me now, considerably more embarrassed for myself in reflection than I was then, that the gesture was an announcement of desire.

I went into the Boys’ Ward as if they expected me. In the far corner of the room, Miss Barnes was fixing the IV of one of the boys, and Joey was propped up on pillows in the first bed, and a boy I’d never met was leaning on his crutches, looking out the window.

I pushed my wheelchair across the room to Miss Barnes, so I could announce myself before she had a chance to ask me to leave.

“I need to see my friend Joey Buckley,” I said.

“Ask Miss Riley.” She was concentrating on slipping the needle into the boy’s vein. “She’s in charge.”

“You’re going to get in trouble,” the boy in the bed next to Joey’s said. “Girls aren’t allowed.”

“I’m allowed,” I said.

“Who says?” the boy asked.

I pulled my wheelchair up beside Joey’s bed.

“Miss Barnes,” I said.

“The baseball cap looks good on you,” Joey said. He was pale and thin and fragile against the white pillow.

“I wear it every day,” I said. “It’s my favorite.”

“I guess you know I’ve been sick,” he said.

“I was here when they took you away.”

“I had blood poisoning from the incision they did when I had my stabilization, and they don’t know why because it’s never happened before, but it happened to me, and so I was really sick.”

“And you’re okay now?”

“I won’t be allowed up in my wheelchair for a while,” he said. “But I’m not sick any longer, and the year after next I’ll be playing football, I think.”

I wheeled my chair between Joey’s bed and the one beside it.

“Hey, girl.” The boy in the next bed swung his legs over the side. “What’s that thing around your neck?” He called to another boy to look. “Ask the girl what’s that thing she’s wearing, Joey.”

“It’s a necklace,” I replied.

“An elastic necklace?” the boy next to Joey asked.

Joey was looking at me and I didn’t know exactly what to say, already sorry I had the sanitary belt around my neck, but not sure what to do with it or what I could possibly say about it.

“I’ve seen that kind of thing before in my house,” the boy next to Joey said, “and it’s not a necklace.”

“Shut up,” Joey said.

“Don’t tell me to shut up”

“Then leave her alone.”

The boys were yelling at each other. Miss Barnes had finished inserting the IV needle and was headed in my direction.

“No shouting,” she said, coming up behind my wheelchair. “What’s going on?”

“We’re fighting about this girl and the necklace she’s got hanging on her,” the boy said.

Before I had a chance to speak, to turn my chair around and explain myself or leave, the nurse had caught hold of the sanitary belt and pulled it off.

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