Poster Child (14 page)

In the lunchroom, I took my time getting my food so that one of the picnic tables would be almost filled up on either side and I could easily slip the fake leg through or let it hang off the bench. I didn't want to look awkward trying to maneuver my body between others. If I couldn't find a seat that met my criteria, I pretended I wasn't hungry and didn't eat, or I ate a sandwich quickly in a locked bathroom stall with both feet up and pressed against the door. If there was a sport I couldn't do in gym class—flag football, for instance—I would fake a headache. I never said, "I can't do that." While I lay on the nurse's cot, trying to generate some convincing groans, I'd say to myself,
You loser. You gimp. You cripple.
But when sat up again, I was all sweetness and light and positive energy. "I feel much better!" I'd say, and leap off to my next class.

Despite my extreme self-consciousness, my status as student manager and my flirtatious "public" self yielded me a slew of suitors. I'd had Jimmy after me in the fall, with his tight Wranglers, blond buzz-cut, and toned biceps from working the animals on his father's ranch. He'd put his mouth on my ear at a dance in the cafeteria.

In the spring there was Joe, who had written me a letter in English asking, "Do you like me, check yes or no," and then two empty stars to check. I was elated. A boy
liked
me, wooden leg and all. Perhaps my life would not turn out so badly. Soon Joe and I were expertly avoiding each other in the school hallways, a sure sign that we were "going out." I listened to Tiffany songs, daydreaming about him. He wrote me a letter clearly stating that he respected me way too much to ever stick his tongue down my throat. I was relieved. I couldn't imagine kissing a boy, although I longed to.

The bulk of my experience with or conversations about boys occurred in the world of female intimacy, where I was comfortable and where my wit and exuberance were admired. My friends and I listened to Air Supply and
REO
Speedwagon and fantasized about kissing Tom Cruise. We called the local DJ and asked him to play a love song for Lance or Aaron from "Lou Lou" or "Buffy." I gave hours of love advice, although apart from my one experience with Jimmy on the dance floor, I had never been within yards of a boy I liked for more than the length of a slow song, and this limited motion was always strictly monitored by the chaperones and teachers standing in an awkward circle around the kids in their charge. I had a whole gaggle of girlfriends who were loyal to me and confided in me. I felt like the leader of my miniroost of insecure teens.

After so much struggle and agony over my own physical appearance, I should have been that much more compassionate toward others who struggled with similar issues. The reverse was true. I had numerous flaws, but in what I thought was a clear sign of my superiority, I had managed to hide them all. I looked down on people who had acne, a stutter, buckteeth, or thick glasses. What was wrong with them? I thought:
Go to a doctor, get a speech therapist, get
contacts and
braces
—
for God's sake, just
fix it
as I did. Try harder. Fake it.
I had no idea that the financial burdens of these procedures were too great for most of my classmates' families. I was completely and willfully ignorant of the sacrifices my parents had made—most of them way outside their means—that gave me the privilege to ridicule others. I was merciless and cruel. I gossiped as much as anyone else. I felt powerful and popular.

I got my chance to use my power over Christmas in the eighth grade, just after I dumped Joe and before my family moved to Nebraska. In prealgebra class, the boy who sat behind me, Dean, suffered from an extreme case of acne. Not only did he already have deep scars embedded in his cheeks that made it look as though he slept on gravel every night, but some of the pimples covering his chin and forehead were large enough to cast a shadow when he turned his face to the side; other blemishes leaked white puss or blood. He frequently mopped his face with the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket.

I sat in front of Dean and made a huge scene of flipping my long hair around and leaning back to talk to him and smile. Because he sat behind me, Dean was my partner. I was hopeless at math, but he was patient and kind with me. Any other less tolerant partner would have made me pull my weight more. I spent a lot of time chattering away about unrelated subjects and making eye contact with my girlfriends across the room, trying to communicate wordlessly with expressions while Dean solved all the equations. When he looked at me, I could tell he liked what he saw: long, tightly permed hair; gravity-defying bangs shellacked by Perma-Soft hair spray into a stiff wave suspended above my forehead; blue eye shadow and frosted pink lipstick that were both hastily touched up in the bathroom between each class period and wiped off before I went home. Dean had a low, pleasant voice, and I realized, as we sat together for nearly forty minutes every day practicing problems, that he was smart and funny. I liked his
personality.
What a concept.

One day, I found a note inside my math book. It was from Dean. I had been sent flowers once from a boy at church, but this was my very first bona fide love note.

Not only did I tell people about the letter, but I read it aloud in the hallway. At first intoxicated with this attention, as I read it and people laughed, I realized how much thought Dean had put into his expression of affection for me and the way in which I was abusing it for a few moments of cheap laughter at his expense. I hadn't even taken the time to enjoy its sentiments for myself. Once I recognized what it was, I impulsively gathered a crowd and read aloud the words that were intended only for me. In doing so, I had ruined the gesture as well as its impact on me. More important, I had deeply hurt someone.

People teased Dean all day, all
year.
He never spoke to me again in class—we worked in silence—but other people said plenty to him. I never apologized and almost failed prealgebra. But my cruelty gave me status, and pretty soon the most popular guy in school, Tristen, had started "liking" me, a fact he communicated by wandering to my locker between classes to stare at me without saying a word, a perfect smile lighting up his face. After he touched my hand briefly at a party before I moved to Nebraska, I forgot all about Dean; Joe, too. But every time I thought of Dean, I was ashamed of how I'd treated him. Now I was on the other side of some invisible line. I wasn't happy there, either.

The fun of showing off my body to my girlfriends at slumber parties rapidly disappeared when they discovered all that private, intimate pairings with boys could lead to. When a boy touched them a certain way or kissed them deeply for the first time, I believed that the girls who had once admired me began to see me the way I assumed that boys did, the way I did, and that was in comparison with the photographs in fashion magazines.

My friends and I flipped through the pages of
Seventeen
and
YM,
our flanneled limbs piled on top of one another. We watched
Dirty Dancing
over and over again, squealing madly when Patrick Swayze holds Jennifer Grey's face and practically sings into her mouth, looking into her eyes the entire time, and repeatedly rewinding and watching again the scene when they wake up together in the morning, their necks and shoulders bare, just barely suggesting nakedness in places below the waist. He chose her, I thought, because she was beautiful. Using my pillow, I pretended to kiss Lee Majors (my first celebrity crush), and my friend pretended to kiss his sidekick, and then we switched pillows. I imagined that sleeping on a pillow was like sleeping on a man's chest. I desperately wanted to be chosen.

At these gatherings, after everyone else had fallen asleep, I'd almost always have insomnia, having chattered away for hours and eaten too much chocolate. I was also kept awake by fears for my future that, although very present, also felt distant and indistinct, like thunder that can be heard everywhere around you even as the exact location of it remains unknown; all you can see are occasional bright flashes of lightning in the windows.

Sleepless, I was seduced by those beautiful glossy magazines. I pored over them. I saw myself in those poses and locales (the beach, the library, the forest), wearing that skirt or that dress or those shorts or jeans, and always those perfectly normal and lovely legs. What had made me special as a child I knew I'd now give anything to trade for what my friends effortlessly possessed: normal bodies, two legs, and—I thought—the possibility of a life with a man and a job and babies, the only future that I could imagine.

The bulk of my fear stemmed from one particular incident that had led me to believe that this desirable life would forever elude me. One Friday night, I found myself baby-sitting Sophie, a four-year-old girl. I was chasing her around the corner when I felt something catch in my ankle followed by a soft cracking noise—as if I'd stepped on a pinecone or a fallen tree branch—and then the foot was spinning around as easily as a merry-go-round on its axis. I knew the foot could move when forced: Vince toed it in or out with his bare hands and the strength of his arms; the year before I'd been in a car accident, and the force of impact had turned the foot all the way around, as if the left leg were trying to walk away from the crash in the other direction.

Sophie scurried out of sight, and I bent down. The foot swiveled in circles at will as I tried to steady it. When I realized that the damage was too severe to fix, I limped back to the couch in the living room and announced that it was time for television. I looked at my watch: only an hour until bedtime. I would have to trust that she could brush her teeth and sort out her pajamas without my assistance.

As we watched television, Sophie threw her toys all over the family room and I made no move to stop her. I laughed and tickled her and pretended that it was completely normal for a babysitter to let the child in her care trash the house.

After she was asleep, I tried to figure out what was going on with the foot, but I was afraid to take off the prosthesis in case Sophie wandered out and saw me legless, and I didn't want to leave the couch and worsen the damage. The minutes ticked by. Shortly before her parents were due back, Sophie had a nightmare and I had to go to her. I walked slowly down the hall, carefully dragging my barely attached foot behind me.

When Sophie's parents arrived home, I had to explain to them what had happened. I spoke to the floor, too embarrassed to look them in the face. Apparently, they had not even known that I had an artificial leg. Now, here I was, literally falling apart in their family room. They paid me—far too much—and I walked to the door, trying to look composed and nonchalant while I dragged the loose, turning foot behind me. I prayed that it would not fall all the way off, taking with it my remaining dignity.

Sophie's mother went to check on her, and her father, who was probably in his late twenties and a graduate student at the university, watched me struggle for a few moments and then offered to carry me. I nodded, accepting his offer.

He lifted me in his arms; it was the closest I'd ever been to a man who wasn't a member of my family. His chest felt solid—not soft—against my shoulders. It was not at all how I had imagined a strange man's chest would be. He smelled like aftershave and strong cologne—a clean, slightly acerbic smell that made me blush. When he shifted my weight in his arms, his button-down shirt was pushed to the right and I saw a little patch of hair on his shoulder. I was amazed, having never imagined such a thing about a man. I wondered if he had hair on the other shoulder as well. I felt the pressure of his hands against the back of my legs and the warmth of his body through my shirt. My left foot dangled like a booger from a nose, pulling on the ankle, as if it would tumble to the floor at any moment. His warm arms were strong and straining under my legs and back.

The image of a man carrying a woman in his arms was one I'd been taught to think romantic, but this was not how I felt now. I had imagined being swept away by a man who desired and loved me, like Debra Winger in
An Officer and a Gentleman.
Now this stranger was carrying me like a wounded bird, a broken doll, and I felt ugly and strange and horrible. Part of me was missing, and the compensation provided by an artificial stand-in that made me at least temporarily physically whole seemed disastrously insufficient. The presence of a leg's replacement only called attention to its glaring absence. An artificial limb merely intensified my awareness of the part that had been lost and no longer existed; the part that had to be reconstructed under a technician's hands. I had never internalized this truth until that moment, held and carried in the arms of a man whose first name I can't even remember.

After Sophie's father left me in the living room at home, I cried for hours, in full view of my family, and I could not tell anyone why. I felt isolated and strangely violated. I felt desire for the man who had held me, although it was inappropriate, and I thought it would be impossible for him—or, more important, for any man—to desire me in the same way because of my body. If I winced every time I looked at the scars and stitches of my stump or saw my limping reflection in a mirror or store window, how much more grotesque would I seem to a boy or a man who did not know the history of my body but was assessing it on appearance alone? The stage of romance seemed one on which I simply did not belong, one on which there would never be a part for me to play. Instead, I would forever be behind the curtain, mollified and invisible. Useless. Disgusting. Shameful.
Ugly.

My parents were mortified. Dad was angry that the leg had done this, as if it had suddenly adopted a mind of its own and decided to betray me at the worst possible moment. He promised to call Vince first thing in the morning. The mention of Vince only made me cry harder. "Don't despair," Dad said, and then looked guilty, as if this had been the wrong thing to say. But it was absolutely accurate. This helpless, bottomless feeling: It was despair. That a feeling this hideous had a one-word description gave me some comfort.