Rosie (4 page)

“We've got most of the same books.”

“Yeah?”

“But you've got more. I thought I'd just stop by, you know, say hello and introduce myself.”

“Ah.” Now gooooooooo away.

“I just moved in last week.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth nodded.

“I'm renting Hanuman's studio apartment. You know her?”

“The Pride of Cucamonga?”

Rae laughed.

“That's an old Grateful Dead song,” said Elizabeth.

Rae nodded, shuffled off toward the pewter mugs and vases on the mantelpiece, now seemingly oblivious to Elizabeth, who watched, bemused.

I've got to get rid of her. Listen, Rae, I'm glad you stopped by, but I was just leaving the house...

“She made a fortune on that odic force book,” said Rae. “She's still collecting royalties.”

“So I heard.”

“When I went to see her about renting the place, she stares deep into my eyes for a while—you may not have noticed, but my lower lids are big—and she goes, ‘You've got beautiful eyes,' I say—shuffle shuffle—'thanks,' and she says, ‘Do you have a thyroid condition?'”

Elizabeth smiled.

“Did you like
Henderson?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“Me too. Hanuman's boyfriend just left her.”

“Yeah?” I really care, I really care enormously.

“So she's holed up, getting into her mind-grief; I swear to God she says, ‘I'm getting into my mind-grief.”

Elizabeth smiled again, leaned against the wall. Rae came shuffling over.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Yeah, no, I don't know. You want to have a quick drink?”

“Okay, sure.”

“I'll get them. Have a seat.” You're making me nervous.

Rae was sitting on the blue velvet couch reading Auden when Elizabeth returned with two screwdrivers.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“So. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“Thanks.”

“What do you do?”

“I'm a weaver. I make these artsy-fartsy little potholders for a boutique in Sausalito to pay the bills, and I make big weavings—pictures, sort of—that I ... I don't know. As soon as I screw up the courage, I'm going to take them ... I don't know. What do you do?”

Ah, the question on all of our lips. What
do
I do?

“I—uh, do—uh, I don't know.” Elizabeth grinned, shrugged. “I raise my daughter, Rosie, who's six. I'm sort of in between jobs right now.” Oh, that's a good one, Elizabeth, the last job was nine years ago.

“But what line of work are you in?”

What line of work. Elizabeth cleared her throat, nodding. “I
love books, more than anything except for Rosie. I've been an editor”—well, sort of; I mean I typed for an editor—“and I've been a publicist's assistant, and—I don't know.” She shrugged again.

“Are you divorced?”

“Widowed. Two years ago.”

“Oh, my
God
How did he die?”

“Car accident.”

“Oh, my God. How
sad
Jesus.”

“Well. These things happen.”

Rae looked at her with horror, closed her eyes, shook her head. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“No, go ahead.”

“You want one?”

“No, thanks. I quit last year.”

“Oh, my
God
I would give anything on earth to be able to quit. How'd you do it?”

“It wasn't that big a deal. I just stopped smoking. I didn't smoke much to begin with. Rosie was all flipped about it, told me that if I kept smoking I wouldn't grow old enough to be a grandmother because I'd be dead. You know, the first week's a bitch; after that, the self-righteousness carried me through. I have one every few weeks.”

“That's amazing. See, I don't have the merest
shred of
strength of character, I swear to God. Well, yeah, I do, but—like, for instance I can weave all day every day, but say I start eating, there's no stopping me; it's like there's this savage pig animal in my heart that emerges roaring ‘more more more,' and I feel if I stop eating I'll die; the only way to stop me once I get going would be to shoot me with a tranquilizer gun like the ones they use on elephants at the zoo.”

“Do you drink much?”

“Not particularly. Do you?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Off and on.” Mostly on. She smiled. “Would you like another?”

“Are you going to have one?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Let's take them out to the porch.”

It was warm and blue outside; the wind had died down.

“I wouldn't sit in that chair if I were you.” Rae stopped in mid-squat above the folding chair. “It's a pain. It looks nice, doesn't it, but it'll turn on you, like a Venus's flytrap. Here, we'll sit on the swing.”

“This is a great place you've got.”

“Yeah, thanks.” They looked out to the yard, at the trees, rosebushes, flower beds, vegetable garden, Rosie's two-wheeler lying on its side by the gate.

“Do you have a man?” Rae asked, lighting another cigarette.

“Well, no one special. I see this man named Gordon a couple of times a week, but I also see other guys. How ‘bout you?”

“I've only been here a week. But—I sort of like that guy who bartends at Mickey's—you know him? That guy Brian, tall, reddish beard? Kind of funky genteel?”

“Yeah.”

“But I'm trying to take it slow, see, romance is not my strong suit. It brings out my most foolish, self-destructive tendencies. I
always
get in way over my head; I get strung out, totally obsessive. Like, for instance, one of the reasons I left New York was to get away from my last boyfriend, who was a shit of a shit of a shit, a liar, a two-timer, but funny, you see, and cute. And I kept thinking I'd change him, my great love for him would cause God to restore his glorious gift of sight and all that. He'd make progress, he'd start talking about getting married, and then—it was like Charlie Brown and the football, you know? How Lucy always cons him into kicking the football, promising that she won't pull it away at the last second? Well, he was Lucy, and I was Charlie Brown, and no matter how many times I ended up lying on my back, humiliated, I still fuckin'
wanted
the guy.” She shook her head.

“I was like that all through high school, all through college.”

“And you're not any more?”

“I haven't been in love in so long. But I don't think so. I have less tolerance now. And enormous pride.”

“That's how I want to be. But, see, I'm extremely ill, mentally; like, for instance, I didn't leave that guy in New York my phone number, and he doesn't know where I live, but every time I go into town and see a green Beetle, I think, ‘He's found me, he's come to
claim
me, he's come to his senses'; and, see, if I had him, if I got him, I don't think I'd really want him. He's not good enough for me. But shit, man, I don't know—like, for instance, right now, if the phone rang here, at your house, I'd have this rush of adrenaline, I'd start having palpitations, I'd think he'd tracked me down somehow....” Rae threw back her head and laughed.

Elizabeth smiled. She liked Rae, a lot. God, what she would give to be jolly.

“So where are your folks?”

“Dead. I'm an orphan. What about you?”

“My dad died in Korea. My mom's in Los Angeles, same house I grew up in.”

“Do you like her?”

“I adore
her. She's a sweetheart. I just can't stand to be in the same room with her for more than ten minutes.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah, man, I start climbing the walls. Then I end up hating myself for being such a shit. But I swear to God, she's afraid of
everything:
she's afraid of men, mice, cars, food poisoning; she's afraid of losing her hand in the washing machine; she's afraid of escalators; she's afraid when she buys toilet paper the clerk will think she's going to use it to wipe herself; she's afraid of drowning; she's afraid of planes—when I flew up here to look for a place, she called the airlines and asked if the pilot's biorhythm chart was available.”

“No.”

“I swear to God. What did your mother die of?”

“Old age. At forty. Cirrhosis.”

“Oh.”

“Ready for another?”

“Sure.” Rae gave Elizabeth her empty glass, smiling.

Rae was smoking again when Elizabeth returned with the drinks. “Did your dad drink too?”

“Yeah. They both drank like there was no tomorrow. He left my mother for another lady when I was ten.”

“What a wipe-out. For your mother.”

“Yeah. She went nuts. A week after he left she went out and started buying animals. A beagle, two cats, two white doves and two diamond doves, a guinea pig, a rabbit, and a tankful of tropical fish. It gave her something to do, something to take care of. It made her feel needed. But the house stank. I'd never liked animals all that much. My dad said he ought to buy me a boa constrictor.”

Rae laughed.

“And a parrot, that he'd train to say, ‘Daddy loves Elizabeth, he'll explain it all someday!'”

Rae looked suddenly mournful, like Stan Laurel. Elizabeth shrugged, took a sip, sighed.

“Were you and he close?”

“Oh, yeah, like that.” Elizabeth crossed her fingers. “I used to cut his hair, rub his feet.... I was the apple of his eye. And I thought my mother was pitiful for not being able to compete successfully.”

“God—mothers. Where would we be without them?”

“I don't know. My mother only loved me when I was doing something she could brag about.”

“My mother brags about stuff like—well, for instance, she says to this boyfriend of mine, ‘Rae had the talent to be a concert pianist'—which I didn't—'only she was lazy. I pushed her and pushed her to practice, I'd beat the stuffing out of her trying to get her to practice,' like, you know, it speaks of her devotion and wisdom, only to me and the boyfriend it's like she's bragging about having stolen money from orphans—no offense—to pay for my lessons.”

They shook their heads, smiled at each other.

“I wonder what Rosie will tell her psychiatrist about me when she's twenty, all this lurid, compelling, rewritten stuff about my lovers and neuroses and clothes and mannerisms”

“Nah. I bet you're a great mother.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot.”

“I don't know. I find myself doing all these things that my mother used to do, things I swore I'd never do.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know.” Like drinking, for instance—as if there were no tomorrow. Which there very well might not be. Elizabeth stared wistfully at Rosie's bicycle. In this morning's paper, Jerry Brown had likened the arms race to a bunch of small boys standing in a basement, knee-deep in kerosene, bragging about how many matches each of them had.

“Like what, Elizabeth?”

Oh. You still here? “Like, I use lines on Rosie that used to drive me crazy when my mother used them on me. Like ‘matters of principle.' Or ‘I'm so mad I can't see straight,' or ‘I'm so mad I'm seeing red.' And little mannerisms: sometimes I'll watch myself do something she used to do, rub my nose a certain way when I'm nervous, or rub my eyes with a thumb and forefinger when someone is getting on my nerves while making this little sniffly sound—as soon as I notice I'm doing it, my heart stops.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. When will Rosie be home?”

“Any minute.” God willing, she's still alive, every distant siren might ... “Shall we have one more drink?”

“Oh,
let's,
dammit,” Rae beamed. Rae beamed a lot. “Do you like to go to movies?”

“It's my only amusement. Well, besides books, and—”

“Oh, me, too. I figure we'll be inseparable.”

They got to their feet and walked inside just as the phone rang.

“It's him, it's him!” Rae shouted. Elizabeth laughed and cracked her hipbone on the corner of the hutch in the dining room.

“Hello?” she asked, picking up the phone.

“Hi, Mama. I'm playing at my new friend's house.”

“Good. What's her name?”

“Sharon Thackery.”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because she's standing right here.”

Rosie's first day back at school had been all her good dreams come true: she hadn't farted green bubbles. One kid joyously told Mrs. Gravinski that Rosie was the smartest kid in the class, another volunteered that she was the class clown. The smell of chalk dust on blackboard erasers excited and reassured her. The morning passed in a flash.

Recess was a whole new ball game; no more taunts of “Kindergarten baby, born in the gravy.” Now Rosie and her class-mates had the kindergarten babies to lord it over.

Rosie won at two-square more often than anyone else; the
boing
of the red rubber ball jazzed her, and she exhibited a sadistic competence. But the new girl, Sharon Thackery, was almost as good.

When the whistle blew ending recess and class resumed, it turned out that Sharon Thackery was
almost
as good at reading and writing. Rosie eyed her fretfully, eyed the long thick brown braids, tied with purple ribbons, wanted long brown braids more than she'd ever wanted anything before, and wanting them so badly made her stomach buckle, made it blush in misery, and in her mind's eye she watched herself hack Sharon's off with scissors, saw
herself
with long brown braids. “Rosie! Rosie!”

“Pssst,” hissed Sharon Thackery, in the seat beside her.

“Rosie,” Mrs. Gravinsky said again. Rosie jerked, looked at the blackboard—A a B b C c—as if it were
The Revelation.
Some of the kids giggled, and Rosie turned red.