Briar Rose (6 page)

The kitchen sink was piled high with breakfast dishes, and the coffeepot was empty, which meant her mother was back in bed.

She filled the pot, got out a new filter, threw the old one onto the garbage, and counted out five tablespoons of Columbian Supreme.

Then she waited while the magic of modern invention turned tap water into a hot dark-brown caffeine-powered drink. It was better than any Biblical miracle and risked no beliefs. While she waited, she rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

A small body careened in through the door. "Aunt Becca, he's chaaaaasing me. "

"Not now, Sarah," Becca said, "your grandmother's in bed." But she knelt anyway to enclose her niece in the safety of her arms.

48

Jane Men

Benjamin raced in, braking to a stop when he saw Becca.

he pouted. "No fair. No grownups."

"I haven't had my coffee yet," Becca warned.

Page 29

Benjamin turned and raced out and Sarah, peeling herself o Becca's arms, followed screaming, "I'm gonna get you!"

"Coffee!" Howie walked into the room and poured him!

large mug of it, sipped it down, then topped it off again.

Becca stood and rescued the rest of the coffee for herself, quickly started another potful.

"Howie," she began slowly you ...

"Not till I drink my coffee, Becca. Are you making break]

His voice was childlike, wheedling.

Pointedly ignoring him, she walked into the dining roorr.

mother had kept her promise; the four piles were as Becca h, them, inviolate. She sat down, putting the coffee mug on a c(

and stared at the pieces of paper. Finally she picked up the of Gemma and the child as if by touching it she might get som of clue. The more she stared at the woman in the picture, tl the woman looked like Gemma, just some ill-dressed strange a half-century past.

When she finally took a sip of the coffee, it was lukewar she made a face, Then she pushed the four piles together, sw them back into the carved box. Hefting the box she wo: how-as frail as Gemma had been-she had managed to cart t to the nursing home; stranger still that Mama had never before. But she remembered suddenly that a visiting nur helped Gemma pack. And Gemma had always been secretivi things. Certainly about the past.

"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." It v father coming in to sit beside her, clutching a coffee mug.

"Churchill," she said automatically. Then she added.

Gemma."

He reached over and patted her hand.

Still holding the box, she stood and kissed him on the to]

head. "I'm going over to the Advocate."

"Honey, it's just the day after the funeral. Nobody expt at work. And your mother wants the family to sit shiva for seven days."

Briar Rose 49

"I'm not going to work to work, Daddy," she said. "I'm going to think."

"About that box." He inclined his head towards it.

She nodded. "About the box. About its contents. And about our riddle. About . . ."

"About Briar Rose." He nodded back. "Besides, it's hard to think in the house with Shana and Sylvia here. If I hadn't already canceled all my operations. . . " He chuckled. When their eyes met it was as if they shared a family secret. "Go on. I'll cover for you."

"Thanks, Daddy. You're a peach. The peachiest."

"I, on the other hand, have no favorites," he reminded her, mock serious.

"I know, Daddy, I know." She smiled as she left.

Even though the box was heavy and awkward, Becca decided to walk. The day was unaccountably mild and the newspaper was housed in a building that was only two country blocks away.

As she made the turn on School Street, she saw Dr. Grenzke weeding the herbacious borders by his house. He waved but the box was too heavy to shift so she just shouted a greeting back. By the time she passed Monty's grocery with its cheery neon beer sign and the hand-lettered poster advertising a tag sale, the corner of the box was beginning to dig into her side. She was afraid to shift it for fear of dropping it, so she set it on the sidewalk, then picked it up again, long-ways around.

Page 30

By the Polish Club, she had to put the box down once more.

When she knelt this time, a chorus of whistles floated down from the porch. She looked up, ready to say something sharp, and laughed. It was Mr. Stowkowski and his son Jamie. Jamie had been a year ahead of her in high school and they'd gone to the junior prom together. He and his father were in construction, Jamie the plural part of Stowkowski and Sons. Soon to be grandsons, she reminded herself. Jamie's girlfriend was pregnant.

"Shouldn't you two be at work?" she called out, standing once again with the box.

Break!" they called out together. Eerily their voices were exactly

~alike.

She laughed and walked on.

The Advocate was housed in an old remodeled mill overlooking Jane Yolen

Mill River's waterfall. New Englanders, her father often rema: were very conservative when it came to place names. There wE

least seven Mill Rivers in Massachusetts and Connecticut th~

knew of. The building was always bustling with gossip a revolutionary ardor indistinguishable from religious fervor i intensity. As Jonathan Edwards had been the minister in n(

Northampton two centuries earlier, such ardor seemed approp But since the advent of computers in the newsroom, thing,, become quite a bit quieter. Now the constant basso of the wat was broken only by the ringing of the phones and an occa, burst of laughter. An alternative newspaper, the Advocate cam once a week so the laughter was of the frantic variety. As Shan exclaimed when Becca first got the job there, "It's free to eve]

except its advertisers. Hope you actually get paid." And Sylvi added when she heard, "Even the Revolution has to pay its I

Becca's first professional bylines-she didn't count the oni the Smith College Sophian-had appeared in the Advocate: a ful, article on the local shelter for battered women, Jessie's Hous(

a page and a half on Merlin Brooks, who wrote lesbian s(

fiction at her farm in Montague. Merlin had been Becca's xA teacher for one semester at Smith before politics and a nc Board of Trustees had conspired to kick her out. The signs Bec(

posted all over campus (FREE MERLIN BROOKS and KEEF

MAGIC AT SMITH) in time for reunion weekend and thi pieces she wrote for the Sophian-sharp angry pieces-had

Becca a campus celebrity. And a friend of Merlin's for life. (

if you are straight," Merlin had told her in that unfortunate sq little-girl voice. "Even if you don't have a sense of the ironi(

The box was unbearably heavy by the time she reach(

Advocate. Swollen by spring rains, the waterfall was cascading I over its rocks and Becca turned for a moment to look at it. Ev box's weight could not stop her from her regular obeisance falls. But when she finally pushed through the door into the tion area and lowered the box on the receptionist's desk, she g

Merelle with a long sigh:

"There," she said.

Merelle looked up and covered the mouthpiece of the 1

"Hi, Bec. Sorry to hear about your grandmother. But I thoug.

were taking the week off."

Page 31

"Then why are you here? No," she said hastily into the phon , ((not you, sir. I'm sorry." She covered the mouthpiece more carefully and looked at Becca expectantly.

"To get away from home," Becca said.

Merelle nodded in understandinp, She came from a familv o Lifting the box once more this time to her shoulder Becca went up the stairs to her own desk.

She nodded at the other reporters as she went, effectively cutting off any expressions of condolence.

Most of them had sent cards anyway. This time when she put the box down, it was as if a great burden had really been lifted from her shoulders. She smiled wryly to herself and whispered,

"Walking

She turned around. In the doorway of his office was Stan, he

"No." She shook her head. "Just calling myself all kinds of fool."

She touched her hand to her hair. Being around Stan always made her do things like that: fix her hair, smooth down her skirt, tug the sweater over her jeans. He made her feel part schoolgirl, part co-quette. Not that he actually said or did anything. It was just his presence. Thirty-five years old and thinned down to bone wire-firmed glasses that only magnified the blue of his eyes; straight brown hair cut short but never in any recognizable style, as if he trimmed it himself in front of a half-mirror; a nose that was short and straight and unremarkable. And a low voice with an edge to it that always threatened laughter behind its intensity. She didn't understand why he made her feel so left-footed. It wasn't as if he

"What are you doing here anyway? You said the other day you He laughed. They both knew he was pure Yankee an Episcopa-fian who hadn't seen the inside of a church since hiah school It was

~ Per 1,anA straved to her hair avain and she willed it to return and 52

Jane Men

touch the box instead. She opened the lid. "My grandmother this with her at the nursing home.

It's filled with ... with d ments and stuff. I thought it might tell me who she really w,, "What do you mean-who she really was? She was a nice a Jewish grandmother, who walked around the block in rain, or snow every single day of the year. A Hatfield landmark. W7

was. Do you think she was a spy? A Russian mole? A runner of for the Irgun? A mafioso moll?

Harlan Ellison's secret musc perhaps you think she had a sleazy past on New York's I second Street."

Becca knew he was trying to make her laugh but all she coi.

was shrug. "Damned if I know."

Page 32

"Well, what do your parents say?"

"Damned if they know either."

"Really?" His head cocked to one side.

"Really,yl

He left the doorway and came over and sat on her desk, w He was good at waiting.

Becca touched the box again as if touching a talisman.

really knows where she came from. She never said. She-

going to sound dumb ......

"Say it. I won't care. If it's dumb and the facts bear it ou you're a genius. If it's dumb and the facts don't bear it out, it won't make it any dumber. Or you."

Becca looked up at the ceiling and drew a deep breath, times I wonder if she really knew where she came from."

"Everyone knows where they came from, Becca. Or do yo she was adopted? I was adopted. But I know where I cam

I know my adoptive parents and my birth mother, too. It, first story I ever chased down. I was fourteen."

"I didn't know that," she whispered.

He shrugged as if giving her back whatever pity or awe s~.

be feeling. "So what do you mean? Really?"

Becca opened the box and stared down at its contents.

sure. Except she always spoke of her past as if it were a fai He put his hand on the lid of the open box and looked dc the pile of things. "A fairy tale?"

"Briar Rose. You know-Sleeping Beauty. She always insi she was the princess in the castle and that a mist came

Briar Rose

53

entire castle and everyone fell asleep. She was the only one kissed awake by the prince."

"Always?" He leaned forward and the space between them suddenly seemed charged. It wasn't personal; she'd learned that long ago. He always leaned forward when he was interested in a story, making the moment electric. It made him a great editor. "She always spoke of it that way?"

Becca shifted away from him slightly and tried to answer with a coolness she didn't feel. "If you mean before she got sick-yes.

Always. At least as long as I can remember."

He leaned back, considering. At last he spoke. "What do the facts say, Becca?" He began fingering the top paper, the visa. "Any castles in the family? Any palaces? Or at least a mansion?"

He picked the visa up and scanned it.

"She didn't have any money to speak of, Stan," Becca answered.

"We always thought she came to America before the war, but evidently she came in 1944. She worked real hard, scrimping and saving all her life. She was still working hard up until the time she got so ... sick. Until she started forgetting things and had to stop."

"Anastasia didn't have any money," Stan said quietly. "Any deposed royalty is without its castles and palaces and

"She was Jewish, for God's sake, Stan!"

He smiled. "And she had a visa that let her into the country right after the war. Maybe she was a Rothschild. It was difficult getting in here without the right connections-family or friends to
Page 33

sponsor you. Maybe she worked for the Rothschild's at a castle or palace or mansion. And what about that prince?"

She shook her head. "We don't even know if she was married."

Unaccountably her eyes filled with tears.

Stan reached over with gentle fingers, raised her chin, and stared at her. "My birth mother wasn't married, Becca. What does that make me?" He shook his head. "So you've found no castles, no princes. At least none yet. Except those in the fairy tale. I'm sorry about your grandmother, Becca. The times I met her, I liked her. But you have only begun to investigate this story."

He stood and went back to his office, whistling. She recognized the tune. It was Sondheim's

"Into the Woods." She'd seen the play at UMass last semester. Biting her lower lip lightly, she realized she could still feel the pressure of his fingers on her chin.

54

Jane Men

It took her fifteen minutes to re-sort the piles, but when she ~

done, she felt the same kind of focusing that attended the start any new story. Looking again at the entry form and at the new,,;

per clipping from the same date, she sighed. The clipping was fr, the Palladium Times, the dateline Oswego. The clipping was no m than some kind of local news report about a town council. Th was an ad on the back. She wasn't even sure where Oswego %

except somewhere in New York State. She went over to the bo case where the state maps were kept.