Miriam's Well (2 page)

“Well …” Diana thought about it for a minute. “She suits up for basketball.”

“Whoa, she actually gets out of those flowery skirts and starchy nun's blouses?”

“Don't be obscene, Adam.”

“I'm not asking about her underwear.”

“White, government issue. Little pink hearts. Just kidding. I never really noticed. I just thought it was amazing that she even played sports, being so holy and all.”

Around Eisenhower, we all knew she was a religious fanatic. There were three or four others in the school who met in Mr. Borell's classroom for some hearty Bible thumping before school started. We'd see them coming out just before first hour, their faces all red and sweaty, as if they'd just been to a Friday the thirteenth movie. Of course, they never had anything to do with the rest of us normal people, as though they didn't want to catch what we had. But they didn't have much to do with Miriam, either. She didn't even sit with the Jesus freaks at lunch. Sometimes I had to pass her in the lunchroom, as I looked for my friends. She'd take things out of a rumpled sack, and she'd be reading and twirling a strand of her mousy brown hair while she ate. As crowded as the cafeteria was, there was usually an empty space on each side of her. That's religion for you.

Religion, now there's something I take seriously. I seriously try to avoid it. Oh, sure, I had to go to Sunday School for eleven miserable years, and I had the standard regulation bar mitzvah a few years ago and the confirmation last year, but now I only go to the synagogue when my parents make it a condition of my surviving into manhood. Religion is their department, not mine. It's not that I don't feel Jewish; I do. It's just that in the things that define who I am, which is one of the more exciting things we used to do in Sunday School, besides making
succahs
out of tongue depressors, Jewish wouldn't be at the top of the list. The list would go like this:

(1)   male

(2)   citizen of the universe

(3)   human being

(4)   male

(5)   American

(6)   champion-quality debater

(7)   underachiever

(8)   too thin

(9)   male

and maybe, just maybe

(10)   Jewish

So, since religion wasn't in my Top Five and was even at the lowest end of my Top Ten, you can imagine how thrilled I was to have a poetry partner who was first cousin to the Virgin Mary.

English was grinding to a close, finally. Even though I'd been staring at the bell, I jumped when it rang. All the kids were slamming their books shut, scraping their sneakers under their desks ready to bolt when Loomis gave the word.

“Before English tomorrow,” Mrs. Loomis said, as though it were the Eleventh Commandment, “thou shalt get together with thy poetry partner.” Then, when the Big Bang turned toward the board, we escaped.

In the next class, physics, Miriam sat in her usual seat, the front of the third row. I was over closer to the window and four seats behind her, so I had a good view of the back of her head, which she kept pointed straight toward Mr. Moran. Brent sat in back of me, tapping out some rap song on my back with the eraser of his pencil. Mr. Moran, A.K.A. Mr. Moron, was returning our tests. He had this cruel way of passing them back according to score. Diana's was always near the top, and by the time mine came, Diana had already corrected her few mistakes and handed the paper back to Mr. Moran. Miriam's paper, I noticed, was halfway down in the pile. She took the paper from his hand and stuffed it under her desk, without even looking at it. Then all of a sudden her head dropped to her desk with a clunk.

“Mr. Moran, look!” Arnita cried.

Moran ran over to Miriam, lifted her head by the chin, then eased it back down. “Terry, go get the nurse, pronto,” he said, in his calm, even voice. Arnita, who was sitting behind Miriam, patted her back, but Miriam's arms hung lifelessly at her sides.

She's dead. I'll get a different poetry partner, I thought, then felt a jab of guilt. Brent had stopped tapping, and we all sat there silently embarrassed until the nurse came in. Mr. Moran and the nurse eased Miriam onto the floor, on her back. Arnita smoothed the skirt down over Miriam's knees. The rest of us crowded around. We'd all had CPR in gym. We all knew you were supposed to yell into the face of the victim, “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? ARE YOU OKAY?” We watched the nurse check the airway for an obstruction, check for breathing, take her pulse.

Well, Miriam was alive. Pretty soon she started pulling her eyes open, as if they were stuck together with rubber cement, and when she saw us all huddled over her, she got this scared look on her face. “What did I do?” she asked.

“You fainted,” the nurse said. “Can you sit up?” She could. “Can you stand up?” Unsteadily. “Can you walk? Let's go down to my office, and we'll call your mother.”

“No!” Miriam said. The nurse looked around at us all, while Mr. Moran motioned us back to our seats.

“All right, we'll talk about it,” the nurse said, supporting Miriam firmly as they left the room.

“Back to our cogent discussion of velocity,” Moron said, but it was useless.

Brent said, “Mr. Moran, what happens to Miriam Pelham is really important to Adam. See, he just got her last hour for a poetry partner.” Brent kicked the bottom of my desk hard enough that I jumped with that old male instinct to protect my vital organs.

“Of course,” Mr. Moran said blandly. “It is alarming when a student faints, but I'm certain she's fine. All right, people, let's take a few minutes to diffuse the tension.” That meant he'd sit at his desk correcting papers, and we could talk.

“Well, on TV,” Rachel whispered, “whenever a woman faints, it's because she's pregnant.”

“No, no, sometimes it's because they got leukemia,” Arnita said. “She sure looks pale.” Some of the guys snickered, because Arnita was about as black as a tree stump. She snapped, “Whaddya think, I don't get pale when I'm sick?”

Diana, of course, had her own diagnosis. “Personally, I think she's anorexic. Anorexia nervosa is the disease of the '90s.”

“Maybe it's PMS,” Brent said.

Rachel shook her head. “Can't be, if she's pregnant.”

“AIDS?”

“How would
she
get it?”

“We'd run out of diseases of the '90s, so someone started talking about a rock concert that was coming to the Kansas Coliseum, and the Jesus freaks that were threatening to picket it, and about the anemic record of our football team. Mr. Moron never did tune back in before the bell rang, and pretty soon Miriam Pelham's fainting spell was ancient history.

CHAPTER TWO

Told by Miriam

I don't remember fainting, only waking up on the floor and seeing the whole class hovering over me like a coven of witches. I remember snapping my knees together, and the nurse, Mrs. Elgin, saying she'd call my mother. “No!” I remember that.

I told Mrs. Elgin I was fine and pinched my cheeks for some color. Maybe that would convince her. Mama did that every morning, not for any nurse, of course, but so she'd look fresh and healthy as she headed for the church. It was Mama's job to send out all the mail and run off our bulletins. She didn't get paid much, not in money. What she got was something far more valuable to all of us—a sense of belonging, of being loved, a blessing from Brother James when we were feeling vulnerable to the dark spirit, a healing hand when that was what we needed most.

Right now I just needed some color. So I pinched my cheeks and smiled brightly.

“Miriam, I do not like the way you look. When was the last time you had a checkup?”

I could feel this band tightening around my chest. Brother James always said, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord,” but I also knew that telling the truth now would cost us all way too much. Holy Jesus, forgive me just this once, I prayed silently. “Just a week or two ago,” I said.

“And did everything test out all right?” Mrs. Elgin asked.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You had a blood test, the whole works?”

“Everything I needed, Mrs. Elgin.” My face was hot, even though the rest of me was freezing cold. I felt bumps raising under the skin of my cheeks.

“Open wide,” Mrs. Elgin commanded, and before I could protest, she shoved a cold, bitter thermometer in my mouth. I coughed and spit the thing out. It clattered to the floor, sending shivers up my back. But it didn't break, and she cleaned it and put it back in my mouth.

“Close your lips tight,” she said, probing my wrist for a pulse.

I could barely breathe, and I was terrified that the hateful glass stick would slide down my throat and choke me to death. Finally, mercifully, she slid it out of my mouth and went over by the window to read what it said. “It's 101, Miriam. Have you had the sniffles?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Any strange symptoms—going to the bathroom a lot or an itchy rash, vomiting, diarrhea?”

“No, ma'am.”

“When was your last period?” she asked.

“Do I have to tell you? Does the school law say so?”

“No, Miriam, it does not.”

“Well, in my family, Mrs. Elgin, we don't talk to strangers about personal things like that.”

Then she asked me, “Are you pregnant, Miriam?”

“No, I am not pregnant. I'm not even married.” Mrs. Elgin smiled. Did she think I didn't know it happened to unmarried girls sometimes? But I wasn't that kind of girl. Brother James always says that our bodies are temples, and we must sanctify them and not defile them. One thing I've secretly wondered is, why is it okay to defile your body after you're married? Questions come into my head when I'm not concentrating hard enough. I swallow them all the time, praying that the questions won't show on my face, and praying for answers.

Mrs. Elgin sighed deeply. I didn't mean to cause her such grief. “I must call your mother, Miriam, because we can't keep you at school when you're running a fever.”

“Please don't tell her about the fainting,” I pleaded. “And don't tell her you took my temperature. And don't give her any numbers, 101 or whatever it was.” Mama would have a fit if she knew I was even in Mrs. Elgin's office. I looked around at the padlocked cabinet with its shelf full of white bottles. I had to get out of there before Mama came for me. “Can I wait for her outside?”

“I'll tell you what. You can wait on the bench in the hall. How long will it take your mother to get here?”

“She has to walk from the church, which is about ten blocks away.”

“She has no car?”

“The men have the car,” I said. “My uncles, Benjamin and Vernon.” I couldn't tell her Mama didn't and wouldn't drive.

“Then let me do this. We'll call your mother, and I'll drive you by the church to pick her up.”

“No! I mean, I don't think that's the best idea. Let me call my mother and tell her to walk home. If you want to take me home, I can be there waiting for her.” Mrs. Elgin agreed, thank God. Why did He grant me that much, when I'd lied? Another question.

By the time Mama got home, I was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped in a granny-square afghan, and shivering. Mama took one look at me and lit the gas for a kettle of water. She put her lips to my forehead; that was how she could tell I had a fever. “What's happened today, baby?”

“I just haven't been feeling very well.”

“Something happened at school?”

“No, Mama. Mr. Moran thought I looked peaked, so he sent me home.” Mama put her arm around me under the afghan until the teakettle began to whistle. I drifted off to sleep while she made the cinnamon tea; it was the hot vapors that woke me up as she settled back beside me.

“Drink your tea, baby, and we'll talk.” Mama's cup tinkled daintily, while mine seemed to clunk onto the saucer. I didn't feel like I had much control in my fingers. Pretty soon Mama took the cup and saucer out of my hands. “You lay down here on a pallet in front of the fire, baby,” she crooned, spreading a quilt on the floor for me. “I'll give Brother James a call and see if we can't get him over here before the men come home.” She pulled a soft cushion from the couch, and my head sank into it. Mama sat beside me, with her back up against the brick fireplace, reading the
Book in Gold Leaf
. Everyone else but us called it the Bible, Old Testament and New, but we found such beauty in the book that all our copies were in gold leaf, to mirror the treasure within the pages.

I heard the pages gently slap together as Mama looked for certain passages. I dozed and dreamed. I whirled through space, no, through a huge wooden room, spinning like a dervish, my hair flying behind me. Whirling, twirling, spinning, my skirt whipping around my legs—I was dancing! I awoke with a start, ashamed. Imagine, dancing. But then I was doubly ashamed to realize that it wasn't the wicked dream that woke me, but the telephone.

Mama knelt beside me. “Baby, it's some boy from your English class. Says he has to see you today.” Mama's voice was dry and disapproving.

I stumbled to the phone. “Hello?”

“Are you okay?” asked Adam Bergen.

“Oh, sure. I slept a while, and I'm feeling much better,” I said.

“Well, Mrs. Loomis says we have to get together with our poetry partners before tomorrow, and I thought maybe we should, because you're probably worried about your grade in there.”

“Aren't you?”

“In English? Are you kidding?”

He didn't know me well enough to know that I was never kidding. “What do you want to do?”

“I could come over.” He said it, but it didn't sound like he meant it.

I considered the possibility for just a moment. “Hold on. Mama,” I whispered, “what time is Brother James coming over?”

“I haven't called him yet. You were sleeping so peacefully, I thought there'd be no need to bother him.”