Mrs. Trotter said I would have to sit in the wheelchair to go to the picture show. It felt like I had took a step backwards all of a sudden. I’d come there to learn how to walk, and instead it seemed like I was more of a cripple than ever.
My disappointment must’ve showed on my face. “I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Trotter. “Perhaps after the doctors examine you they will let you return to using crutches. Until then, this is a safety precaution.”
As we were going out the door, we nearly bumped into a large woman coming in.
“Hi, Ma,” said Olivia. “Ann Fay is here.”
The woman gave Olivia a hug. “Wonderful! I hope you’re taking good care of her.”
Then she turned to me. “I’m Ma Harding, your housemother.” She was wearing a nurse’s uniform and a stiff white nurse’s hat. But she was large and soft and her round face was covered in smiles. “You’re officially one of my girls now,” she said.
I started to shake her hand, but she reached down and pulled me into a hug.
“We were going to the Playhouse,” said Olivia. “Please, Ma?”
Ma Harding checked her wristwatch and let go of me. “By all means! Do have a good time and be sure to introduce Ann Fay to your friends.”
Olivia led the way through the quad. Mr. Botts was right when he said that she flitted about. She was always ahead of me and Mrs. Trotter, chatting with friends. By the time we caught up with her, she’d be taking off again to go talk with somebody else.
The Playhouse was an old white building with a wide porch and several ramps for wheelchairs. There was vines growing around the porch posts. They didn’t have any leaves or flowers, but I knew right off that it was wisteria. I’d recognize that vine in my sleep.
The Playhouse had lots of theater seats going up like stair steps. It also had extra room down front for wheelchairs and stretchers. There were plenty of those. Everyone seemed to be smiling. And all of a sudden I felt exactly like I did when I first visited Warm Springs. Like I hadn’t left home at all.
We found seats next to the front row. Mrs. Trotter left us then and said she would be going off duty. “A push boy will take you to the dining room,” she said. “And I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”
Before Mrs. Trotter left she went to a boy on one of the stretchers that was lined up at the front of the theater. The boy had a cast on his whole body. It got me to wondering if that might be the next thing they decided to do with me.
“That’s Leon,” said Olivia. “Mrs. Trotter’s son.” Olivia waved at Leon, and he grinned and waved back. It looked like Mrs. Trotter was explaining to him who I was.
I listened to all the jabbering around me. “Where do these people come from?” I asked.
Olivia laughed. “Wherever polio has struck.” She started pointing to different people. “He’s from Texas. And she’s from Michigan. That man over there is from South America even.”
Then she pointed to a girl about my age who walked with two canes and wore braces on both legs. “And there’s Suzanne. She doesn’t live at the foundation and she never even had polio,” Olivia said. “But she’s got a free pass to the Playhouse and the swimming pool whenever she wants. And she even walks from her school to get here.” Olivia jumped up and brought Suzanne over to meet me. “This is Ann Fay, my new roommate,” she said.
“Hi.” Suzanne sounded a little out of breath. She plopped into the seat where Olivia had been sitting. “I can’t believe I actually got here before the show started.” She looked around to see who was listening and then lowered her voice. “Olivia, don’t tell anybody, but I accepted a ride.” Then she looked at me. “You’re going to love Warm Springs,” she said. “I’ve been here for over ten years and I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
“Over ten years?” I wanted to hear more. “Did you know President Roosevelt?”
Suzanne grinned and her big brown eyes looked pleased as peaches. “You bet I did. I was just a little thing when I met him. My real name is Suzanne. But Mr. Roosevelt asked, ‘Do you mind if I call you Suzie?’ And guess what we called him? Rosey. Of course that was before he became Mr. President.”
I almost couldn’t believe it—here was someone who was on a nickname basis with Franklin D. Roosevelt! I wanted to ask her so many questions. But Suzanne was already on to another subject. She pointed to the framed pictures of movie stars and famous musicians on the walls. “They’ve all been here to visit,” she said. “And I even met Bette Davis and Jimmy Dorsey.”
A boy rolled up to us in a wheelchair. “Hi, Suzanne,” he said. He looked at me and then at Olivia. “Is this your new roommate?”
Olivia laughed. “How did you guess? Ann Fay Honeycutt. From North Carolina.”
The boy stuck out his hand. “Gavin,” he said. “I’m from Florida.” He had green eyes and blond hair that fell over his forehead. And a big smile that was just the least bit crooked.
Seemed like everyone at Warm Springs was smiling.
Then the lights went off and we heard music. Olivia found a seat on the other side of the aisle and Gavin wheeled himself away too. And just like that, the picture was showing. But it wasn’t the feature movie. It was a March of Dimes film asking people to donate money. And what do you know? It was the one with Greer Garson called The Miracle of Hickory.
“Look!” I said. “That’s my hospital. Oh, there’s Nurse Amanda!” I tried to spot Imogene. As far as I was concerned, she was one of the reasons for that hospital being such a miracle. I didn’t know any other hospitals that put white and black people side by side. But apparently coloreds wasn’t something to brag about in a movie.
Then the feature come on and I tried to enjoy it. But I was too worked up to pay close attention. I watched the dark shapes of people on stretchers and wheelchairs and the way the light from the screen danced across them. Some of them were odd shaped because of special equipment they wore or the way polio had distorted their bodies.
At first it was a little shocking to see all that. But to tell you the truth, it was comforting at the same time. It was a relief after being the oddball. I was among my own people now.
Off and on I’d think about what my family was doing right then. Momma was probably making supper, and more than likely the girls was pestering Mr. Shoes. And Daddy? I just hoped he was helping Momma with whatever needed to be done. And not yelling.
When the show was over, the push boys who brought people on stretchers and wheelchairs took them back. And one of them—it was Toby—noticed me sitting there and pushed my chair too. We followed a line of wheelchairs down the ramp that led out of the Playhouse.
Olivia pranced along beside Gavin and jabbered to him while Suzanne stayed with me. She told me how she had to walk to the foundation if she wanted to swim or go to the movies. “Sometimes,” she whispered, “like today, I sneak and get a ride. But if I get caught, I lose pool time. That’s because walking here is part of my physical therapy.”
“But Olivia said you never even had polio.”
“That’s right. But I was born with club feet. In other words my feet twisted inwards. My doctor asked if I could come here for surgery, and Mr. Roosevelt let me. I’ve had more surgeries than you can count. After each one I stay in the medical building. But once I’m walking again, I live at home. It’s not far from here.”
We went through a back entrance into Georgia Hall. Just riding into that big space made me feel small and shabby again. And to make matters worse, Suzanne pointed to a car sitting in front of the building. “There’s Mama, waiting to take me home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Oh,” I said. “Bye.”
She left me there, and all of a sudden I felt lost. I looked around for Olivia and saw her going into the dining room. She was still talking to Gavin. Then Toby took me into the dining room. I declare, if I’d been on crutches I would’ve stopped dead in my tracks.
I couldn’t help but stare. The tables were covered with white cloths and china and silver. It was fancier even than the Hinkle sisters’ dining room. All that finery—it scared me. What if I didn’t have the manners for a place like this?
Toby pushed my chair up to a table with three people who were about my age. One boy was skinny and had black hair and heavy brown glasses that sat crooked on his nose. “Hi, Ann Fay,” he said. He wiggled his nose to get his glasses back in place and his whole face squinched up. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Sam.”
I almost forgot to shake his hand on account of I was busy worrying about messing up. Like dropping my fork or saying something stupid. “How do you know my name?” was all I could think of to say.
The other fellow at our table spoke up then. “We knew you were coming. And it’s a good thing, too. Sam here needs someone to talk to, dontcha, buddy?” He gave Sam a punch on the arm. “My name’s Howie, and this is Loretta.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “They’re too sweet on each other to carry on a conversation with me.”
Loretta blushed a little at that. “I’m pleased to meet you, Ann Fay,” she said. I could tell right off she was a southerner. And from the way she talked, I thought she was probably used to eating her supper off china plates.
If it wasn’t for all the wheelchairs with crutches hanging on them and poles with slings to support people’s arms, a body would’ve thought she was in a fancy restaurant. There was flowered draperies from the ceiling to the floor, and arched doorways, and fancy lights above the tables. Straight ahead of me was a portrait of President Roosevelt hanging on the wall.
I thought about my family sitting down to eat. Their table was covered with a green-and-white-checked oilcloth. Their dishes didn’t all match and they sure didn’t have cloth napkins. What was I doing here?
A colored waiter in a white coat and black bow tie brought food to our table. A slice of pork, mashed potatoes, cooked cabbage, and black-eyed peas. And a nice soft roll with peach jelly.
All the colored waiters in white coats got me to looking around for colored patients. Since our hospital in Hickory had coloreds, I thought maybe a place like Warm Springs might take them too. What if me and Imogene could get together here? Would she want to come? And would she still want to be my friend?
I didn’t know. She hadn’t kept up the letter writing like I thought she would.
“Where’s the colored people?” I asked Sam.
“What?”
“I don’t see any colored people here.”
“The waiters are colored. Did polio affect your eyes?” Sam laughed like he had made a big joke.
“I mean colored patients.”
“Patients?” asked Sam. “We’re not patients, and we’re not cripples either. We’re polios. Like President Roosevelt. And for your information, colored polios go to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It’s like Warm Springs—only for Negroes.”
“I should’ve known,” I said.
Before I got polio, coloreds and whites being separated was as normal to me as walking. But being stuck in the hospital beside Imogene and hearing how things looked from her side of town made me see things in a new light.
“What else would you like to know?” asked Sam. “Because I can probably tell you.” He squinched his nose again to straighten his glasses. “Some people call me Mr. Encyclopedia.”
He seemed proud of this. Him knowing so much about every little thing made me think of Junior Bledsoe. “Well, I just left one Mr. Encyclopedia back home,” I said. “Does there have to be one everywhere I go?”
Sam just grinned like I had paid him a big compliment. “Evidently someone thinks you need us.” He rolled his eyes up so I would know he was talking about God. And then he went on to tell me the whole history of Warm Springs.
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt came here in 1924 to learn to walk,” he said. “This place was a run-down resort with a three-story inn that was a firetrap. So in 1933 they built Georgia Hall.”
While he was talking, I changed my mind about Junior Bledsoe being another Mr. Encyclopedia. I thought how Junior seemed more like a farmers’ almanac—full of downhome news about crops and weather. And what was the best brand of mayonnaise. And who had the lowest prices on motor oil.
And right about that time, with Mr. Encyclopedia filling my ears with facts and figures, a friendly almanac was starting to feel like a good thing to have around.