Nine Inches (22 page)

He was standing about ten feet away, close enough to Lenny Barton that you might have mistaken them for friends. Rose was in her late thirties then and still considered herself an attractive woman, but something in her son’s eyes made her wonder if she’d gotten old and ugly without realizing it.

“Go inside,” he snapped, as if commanding a dog. It was a voice she’d never heard from him before, though she’d become quite familiar with it in later years. “Go inside and put some clothes on.”

SHE FINDS
the skirt in the attic, tucked away in a cardboard box. It’s only calf length, and plaid to boot, but it’s the longest one she owns. It still
fi
ts, more or less, just as long as she leaves it unzipped.

It’s harder to
fi
nd a kerchief. Rose hasn’t worn one in years, though she remembers a time when they were not at all uncommon. On rainy days you’d see women all over town using them to protect their hairdos. Women had hairdos then.
Th
ey wore curlers. Now even the words sound funny:
hairdos, curlers.
Rose once had beautiful hair, chestnut with auburn highlights. Pat used to love watching her brush it when they were
fi
rst married. It’s cut short these days, and she’s stopped coloring it now that he’s not around to tease her about looking like an old lady.

On the way out she examines herself in the hall mirror.
Th
e out
fi
t looks awful, even worse than she imagined.
Th
e brown and tan of the skirt clash with the peculiar maroon of Pat’s bulky pullover, and the thing on her head — it’s a torn vinyl rain bonnet, decorated with a print of faded purple daisies — barely even quali
fi
es as a kerchief.

Oh my,
she thinks, laughing so
ft
ly as she slips out of the mirror’s grasp.
Am I really going to do this?

Th
e cold attacks her the instant she steps out the door, stabbing through her sweater, swarming under her skirt, doing its best to drive her back inside. She hesitates for a second or two on the stoop, mustering courage, reminding herself that it’s only a
fi
ve-minute walk to the supermarket.

Th
e sidewalks are empty. Nobody around here walks anymore, not even when it’s nice out. Rose leans into the heartless wind, thinking how nice it would have been to invite the girl inside for a cup of tea, to get to know her a little better.

I watch you,
she would confess.
Th
rough the windows.

I know,
the girl might reply, sni
ffi
ng suspiciously at the tea.
I don’t mind.

Go ahead and drink,
Rose would say.
It’ll warm you up.

We’re not supposed to. It’s a sin.

A sin?
Rose starts to laugh, then stops herself.
I don’t think it’s a sin to drink something warm on a cold day.

Th
e girl thinks it over, then brings the cup slowly to her lips, allowing herself only the tiniest of sips. She looks up at Rose.

It’s good,
she says, the blankness of her face giving way to shy pleasure.
Th
ank you very much.

ROSE DOESN’T
know if the Chosen girl is forbidden to drink tea.
Th
e idea just popped into her head, and she’s not sure if she’s confusing the Chosen with some other strange religion. She’s heard so many rumors since they began moving into town four or
fi
ve years ago, she doesn’t know what to believe: they’re Mormons, they’re Quakers, they’re ex-hippies making it up as they go along, the men have multiple wives, the women aren’t allowed to speak in public, they don’t own televisions, they keep large sums of money hidden in their mattresses, and so on. All she really knows is what she’s seen with her own eyes and read in the paper about their zoning dispute with the town two years ago.

Th
e Chosen bought a house on Spring Street, in a nice residential area, and applied for a permit to turn it into a place of worship. A
ft
er a lot of angry debate and letters to the editor — some of the neighbors were concerned about tra
ffi
c and noise and parking problems — a compromise was
fi
nally arrived at in which the Chosen agreed to sell the property and use the proceeds to buy a house in a mixed commercial/residential zone, where they wouldn’t cause so much of a disturbance. Since then a lot of the tension has died down, and the Chosen seem to have been accepted as a more or less permanent part of the community, both of it and apart from it at the same time.

Rose didn’t realize how accustomed she had become to their presence until Russell’s last visit, when he stopped by for a day at the tail end of a conference in New York City. Driving back from Home Depot, they pulled up at a red light in the center of town, right in front of a teenaged Chosen boy who was standing on the corner in a business suit, shouting at the top of his lungs the way they sometimes did, testifying to the passing tra
ffi
c. Rose barely gave him a second thought, but Russell lowered the driver’s-side window and began gesturing to the boy, asking him what was wrong, did he need any help?
Th
e boy stepped closer — he was tall and good-looking, like most of the Chosen boys (the girls, for some reason, were another story) — and bent forward until his face was almost inside their car.

“
Th
ey betrayed him!” the boy was screaming.
Th
ere was a note of genuine outrage in his voice, as if the betrayal had happened just a second ago, and he wanted someone to call the police. “
Th
ey betrayed him!”

“What?” demanded Russell. “Who?”

“
Th
e son!” the boy wailed. “
Th
ey betrayed the son!”

By the time Russell
fi
gured out what was going on, the light had changed, and some of the drivers behind them had started honking. Russell stepped on the gas, glancing in bewilderment at his rearview.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “What was that all about?”

“
Th
e Chosen,” she replied, enjoying his confusion more than she would have liked to admit. “
Th
ey do that sometimes.”

“
Th
e Chosen?”

“You’ve been away too long,” she told him.

•••

ROSE TAKES
a cart and starts o
ff
for the produce section, ignoring the hostile and questioning glances some of the other shoppers seem to direct at her. It’s mostly old people at this time of day, and she feels suddenly depressed to
fi
nd herself in their company.
I should be working,
she tells herself.
I should never have stopped.
But they had kept changing the computers around on her at the o
ffi
ce, and then her arthritis started
fl
aring up. On top of everything else, her boss was replaced by a younger man who talked to her like she was stupid, and one morning she simply couldn’t bring herself to climb aboard the train. Now she’s here, part of a small army of retirees who watch the cashiers like hawks and stand motionless in the parking lot, poring over receipts as if they’re love letters from the glory days.

“Rose?”

Startled, Rose looks up from the bananas in her hand and sees an old woman peering at her with an expression halfway between confusion and concern. A dirty-faced toddler is crammed into the child seat of the woman’s cart, sucking regally on a lollipop.

“Rose, honey, is that you?”

Rose has to force herself to look from the child to the grandmother, to work her way past the mask of age to the real face underneath.
Janet,
she realizes.
Janet Byrne.

“It’s me,” Rose confesses.

“My God.” Janet looks her up and down, smiling as if Rose has just told an unsuccessful joke. Janet leans forward, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I thought you were . . . one of them.”

Rose shakes her head, overcome by a sudden wave of embarrassment. She’d like to explain herself to Janet, to tell her about the Chosen girl —
I just wanted to know how cold she was
— but it all seems crazy now, nothing she feels free to discuss at the Stop & Shop. She turns her attention back to the baby, who is gazing up at her with glassy, placid eyes.

“Isn’t she precious?”

“I’m too old for this.” Janet shakes her head, but Rose can see the happiness in her eyes as she reaches forward to stroke her granddaughter’s cheek. “You forget how much work it is.”

Rose wants to tell her that she envies her fatigue, that it’s better to be tired from doing something than from doing nothing at all, but she and Janet have never been more than passing acquaintances.

“Such a pretty girl,” she says instead.

“How many do you have?” Janet asks.

“Just one. Cody. He’s eleven now. I don’t see him enough.”

“Cody.” Janet makes a face. “
Th
e names they give them.
Th
is one’s Selena.”

“Selena.” Rose wishes she’d had a little girl of her own to dress up and fawn over. Eliza they could have called her. Eliza Geraldine.
Th
ey would have stayed friends, the way Rose had with her own mother. She would have kept close to home. “Such a pretty name.”

“You son’s in California, right?”

“Beverly Hills.”

“I hear he does face-li
ft
s.”

Rose nods, though Russell’s actual specialty is breasts.

“Will he give me a discount?” Janet laughs merrily, tugging back the skin on both cheeks. For a disconcerting second, her former face rises to the surface, the slyly pretty young mother Rose remembers from Little League and PTA, the chain smoker with peasant blouses and tinted glasses.

“He’s coming for a visit soon.” Rose wants to smile, but her mouth won’t cooperate. “We’re going to celebrate Christmas in April.”

“
Th
at’s nice,” Janet replies, as her face surrenders to the forces of gravity. “
Th
at’ll be nice for you.”

“He’s very busy,” Rose adds. “His wife doesn’t like the cold weather.”

“You must be proud of him.” Janet smiles, but it’s an e
ff
ort of will. Her boy, Bobby, had a drug problem and now works the stamp counter at the post o
ffi
ce. “My son the doctor.”

“I don’t want to be a burden,” Rose explains, her voice coming out louder than she means it to. “Come when you want, that’s what I tell him. Whenever it’s convenient.”

Th
e baby whimpers impatiently. Janet touches Rose lightly on the shoulder.

“We better go,” she says. “You take care of yourself.”

Without asking permission, Rose bends down and kisses the baby on the forehead.

“So precious,” she whispers.

RUSSELL AND
his family aren’t coming for another month, but the blizzard on Saturday morning inspires her to put up the Christmas tree. It’ll be nice to have the company, a visible symbol of the holiday to li
ft
her spirits and keep her mind focused on the visit. And besides, it’s something to do right now, something to keep her occupied through the otherwise empty hours. She doesn’t know why, but Saturday is always the longest day of the week, the day she most misses Pat’s company, though all he did the last few years of his life was lie on the couch and complain.

Th
e plastic spruce is taller than she is, bottom-heavy and unwieldy, and Rose struggles to drag it down from the attic. It was Pat’s idea, the arti
fi
cial tree. Rose always preferred real ones,
fi
re hazard or not. But when you celebrate Christmas in April, it’s pretty much fake or nothing. At least there’s no assembly required.

A
ft
er getting the tree righted in the stand — another tough job — Rose makes several trips back to the attic for boxes of ornaments, tinsel, lights, and the little wooden Nativity scene she received as a wedding present from her great-aunt Margaret. She would have preferred to wait for Cody to trim the tree, but she knows from her last visit to California — most of which he spent wearing headphones and playing video games — that he’s past the age of enjoying it.

Th
e decorating goes slowly at
fi
rst. Rose tries to ignore the lurking sense that something’s missing, that she’s performing a common household task rather than a holiday ritual, when it
fi
nally dawns on her: she forgot the music. You can’t trim a tree without music.

She opens the cabinet,
fi
nds the ancient Bing Crosby album — he’s looking pleased with himself on the cover, sporting a rakish little elf’s hat — and sets it lovingly on the turntable.
Th
at was one thing that got Cody’s attention, the fact that she owned a record player and still used it. He was as amazed as Russell had been, at about the same age, to learn that his own grandmother had killed chickens with her bare hands, snapping their necks with no more thought than he would have given to twisting o
ff
a bottle cap.

Once Bing starts crooning, everything falls into place. Suddenly it’s Christmastime, a curtain of snow falling slantwise outside the window.
Th
e individual ornaments emerge like old friends from their tissue-paper cocoons. Before long the fake tree becomes the real thing, or at least close enough to believe in. Stepping back to admire her handiwork, Rose
fi
nally admits to herself how cheated she’s been feeling the past few months, how bitterly she resents her daughter-in-law for canceling the holiday at the last minute.

It’s all right,
she thinks.
We’ll pretend it never happened.