to the “who” on her pad. She handed the stick back to her sister with a satisfied nod.
Brooke wrote Hah-hah. Then she cleared her pad before writing Dean’s cousin is getting a doctorate in psychotherapy at Duke. Maybe she could analyze you!
Leah signed A deaf shrink?
Brooke cleared her pad and wrote A deaf shrink for deaf patients, Dummy!
Leah was, pardon the pun to herself, dumb-founded. She’d never considered the idea of deaf doctors treating deaf patients. She started to sign a response.
Brooke stopped her and pointed to the pad tucked under her arm. “Write!” she mouthed.
Leah sighed and pulled out the pad. I never thought of deaf doctors she wrote in surprisingly neat script, given the setting and the medium.
Brooke wrote Start thinking of it, Lee! The sky is the limit, same for you as everyone else. She smiled at her sister then added I want to introduce you to Dean. She extended her hand to Leah and led her through the red world to the bar at the back.
The only one at the bar was a short guy seated on a tall stool gazing munificently across the red room like a king surveying his kingdom. He had short raven black hair set off by pale skin. He had a wide mouth and fine features. Once Leah got closer, she saw that his eyes were as dark as his hair and piercing.
Brooke strode forward, scribbling on her pad through her last few steps. She stopped directly in front of the guy and held up her pad. This is Leah.
Dean smiled and extended his hand.
Leah took the hand and shook it lightly. His skin was very soft. After she released his hand Leah signed, I’m told this is your doing.
Dean signed in response, using the latest and most refined sign language. I hope you think that’s a good thing.
And the pads?
Dean smiled and nodded.
Brooke scribbled furiously on her pad then held it between the two, first to Dean then to Leah. You have to use the pad!!!!
Dean shrugged then signed, Not if you can sign.
Brooke cleared her pad and wrote NO FAIR!
Dean took her pad and pointed stick and wrote My party, my rules.
Brooke grabbed back the pad. She wrote I’m going to go find someone who will talk to me. She crossed out talk and wrote write over it. After showing both her protest, she turned in a feigned huff. But Leah caught a mischievous glint in her eye just before she headed off toward three cute guys gathered around the pool table.
Leah turned back to Dean. The pads are your idea?
He nodded. I have a deaf cousin. I always wanted to know what her world was like.
Leah smiled. Quiet.
Dean laughed. Yes, but how quiet?
Real quiet.
I would go to the bottom of the pool and think “This is what Mary’s world is like.” Then I would run out of air.
Bubbles. Sound.
Dean nodded. So when Brooke said you were coming to Center, I decided to try something I had always wanted to do.
The pads.
More than that. A silent party—no voices, no music.
Leah looked across the room then turned back. Pool cues striking the balls. Pinball machine adding points. Leah loved playing pinball, feeling the “sounds” through the hum and purr and flashing lights. Brooke called her the Pinball Wizardess and printed out the words of the Who song.
Dean shrugged. I did the best I could.
Leah nodded then suddenly leaned over and lightly kissed his pale cheek. The skin there was as soft as his hands. She stood back upright, sure she was blushing but hoping the red lights masked the condition.
Dean gazed steadily into her eyes then signed I will take that as approval.
Leah nodded happily.
Dean suddenly looked beyond Leah to what must have been a sharp sound.
Leah turned to see Brooke holding a pool cue on the far side of the table, her hand over her mouth and an apologetic look on her face. The white cue ball was still bouncing across the room’s concrete floor, stopped finally at the base of Dean’s stool. Leah looked from the ball to Brooke and laughed loud and long, sure her uncommon laughter sounded odd in the otherwise silent room but, at just that moment, not caring.
The next morning bright and early (Brooke was glad she hadn’t had anything to drink last night) they were picked up in front of the dorm by Billy and Joe, two townies Brooke had met while swimming at the quarry. They rode four abreast across the wide front seat of Billy’s beat-up truck with the two girls in the middle, Brooke pressed tight to Billy’s side and straddling the long shift lever. They drove far out into the countryside west of campus, through fields and mixed woods to Billy’s family farm. They piled out of the truck next to a weathered barn with a corral in back and four horses milling about in the dusty soil. Billy and Joe worked together to retrieve the horses one at a time—they were calm animals and didn’t resist or shy away—and lead them into the barn by the halters. There they swapped the halter for bridle and bit, and fitted each horse with a saddle from the half dozen perched on a wide shelf along the back wall. The sisters watched in rapt silence while standing to one side. The four were going horseback riding.
While Brooke had ridden occasionally over the years and had taken a couple months’ of lessons while she was in junior high, Leah had never been on a horse. She’d always admired the animal’s powerful physique and independent spirit, but those same qualities made her afraid to mount one. What if they sensed her fear or misunderstood her gestures and took off? How would she stop them without a voice to enforce her wishes? There were a handful of activities she’d gladly consigned to the world of the hearing, and horseback riding was such an activity—until apparently, thanks to her sister, today.
Standing beside Brooke, she made no sound or gesture but gazed on the saddling of the four mounts with something bordering on total panic. But this panic was ever so gradually diluted by her amazement at how efficiently the two boys worked together in preparing the horses, and at the subtle and unconscious actions they took to keep each horse calm and reassured—the gentle brushing of the broad flat plain of a neck, the smoothing of the hair on the horse’s rump, the adjustment of the saddle strap when it became twisted.
As if reading her mind, Joe turned to her and said, “Horses are the only animals I know of that understand touch more than words.” He did well to maintain eye contact until the word touch, then blushed and looked down.
Brooke turned to Leah to translate.
Leah shook her head. She got the gist even if she didn’t see the last.
Brooke smiled then turned back to Joe and said, “Except humans.”
Leah could’ve killed her.
Joe blushed again but wouldn’t look up. He went out to get the last horse, one named Carrot for his love of that vegetable not his color, which was deep chestnut.
When the horses were all saddled, the two boys led them out into the drive. Billy handed Brooke the reins of the other three while he held the reins of Carrot, the calmest of the four. Joe showed Leah how to put her left foot in the stirrup and swing her right leg up and over the saddle.
Leah hesitated, standing on firm ground a few feet away.
Joe walked over and took hold of her hand.
Leah nodded thanks but withdrew her hand. Following a deep breath, she strode forward on her own, reached up to the saddle horn with both hands, slipped her foot into the stirrup, and launched the rest of her body up and over Carrot’s back. She’d lifted off the ground with nearly too much energy and determination and almost flew over the horse’s back to the far side. But her hands held onto the saddle horn and the saddle didn’t shift. Thank you, Carrot, she thought in a flash—she’d heard stories of how horses would intentionally shrink their chests at vulnerable moments to let the saddle slide sideways, dumping the rider on the ground. Leah landed on the saddle with a slightly painful thump. She stared at the horse’s stringy mane as she caught her breath, then glanced at the others.
Brooke smiled broadly. “Steer clear of
Leah when she decides to do something!”
Leah smiled back. Her eyes said Wonder whom I got that from? as her hands were still holding the saddle horn firmly.
Billy nodded and said, “So I can see” then handed up the reins.
Leah hesitated just a second before pulling her right hand from the horn and taking the reins.
And for the next two hours they rode trails through the surrounding freshly mowed fields and dry fall woods. At a meadow atop a far hill, Joe and Billy left the trail and headed across the field at a gallop, racing toward the far tree line.
Brooke glanced at Leah with a tilt of her head.
Leah nodded in response.
And Brooke headed off after the guys, not in a full gallop but in a quick cantor.
Leah sat and watched from astride Carrot, loosening the reins just enough to let the horse stray to the side of the trail to nibble on some late-season greenery.
It wasn’t till late that night as Leah unpacked her book bag that she discovered her pad from last night with the message Talk to him! in Brooke’s scraggly print. Behind that pad was a second, this one blank except for the name Paul written in pen across the top in a neat but unfamiliar hand. Leah smiled to herself in affirmation, having already resolved to act on that sisterly advice. She lifted the cellophane face to clear her pad, then returned both pads to her book bag, safely sandwiched between Algebra and History.
Debutante Ball, Again
March 2
Dear Brooke,
You are not going to believe this: I have been invited to the Debutante Ball!!!!!!