by Lois Metzger
She stopped in and met Stacey, the very pretty twenty-something receptionist, with cropped reddish-brown hair and large brown eyes, and the owner, Dr. Lola, who was tall, though not as tall as Rose, and had dark-blond hair tied back in a scarf that couldn’t hold it all.
“Your timing is uncanny! Somebody just quit,” Dr. Lola said. “Do you have any experience working with animals?”
“Not a whole lot.” Other than taking a couple of Dobermans to the dog run in Belle Heights Park two days ago.
“Why do you want to work here?”
Rose had to think. After a moment she said, “I don’t think people can be happy unless their animals are happy.”
Dr. Lola grinned. “That’s the best answer I ever heard. How old are you? You’ll have to get working papers if you’re under sixteen.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“I can give you temporary papers right away. I can’t pay much. The hours would be Saturday all day and one weekday afternoon, as needed. Can you manage that?”
Rose had to work with Mr. Slocum this week, so she said, “Starting this Saturday.”
“Rouge, come meet Rose! Rose is going to work here.”
Rouge turned out to be a Doberman, too. Rouge meant red—first the lipstick, now the dog, as if the pieces of Rose’s life were magically connected.
Dr. Lola explained that Rouge lived there and gave blood when animals needed transfusions. The brown patches in her coat were a beautiful tawny color.
Rose scratched Rouge under the chin, and the dog leaned her sleek, muscular body against Rose. See? I love animals, she thought, as if someone had walked in on this cozy scene and claimed otherwise.
CHAPTER 5
Rose spent Tuesday evening rummaging through Evelyn’s closet. Evelyn didn’t have a ton of clothes but more of a simple, careful selection, only a few new items but mostly things that had been well cared for over the years. There were basics, like pressed black pants and tailored blouses, and lots of colors, nothing too loud or gaudy, soft purples and browns and blues and pale reds, and a bunch of different textures, mohair sweaters, corduroy shirts, silky skirts, knit shawls that draped Rose’s shoulders, a velvet jacket that felt wonderfully soft, and tweed wool blazers that fit Evelyn at the hips and hit Rose at the waist. She tried on nearly everything (except the kimonos, which Evelyn wore at home, relaxing), even the low-heeled, plain leather shoes with straps at the ankles, which didn’t fit, but there were some old cowboy boots Rose slid right on. Amazing, how good these clothes looked on her, considering that Rose was a few inches taller than Evelyn.
Too bad Evelyn didn’t have that perfect jean jacket.
“I always wanted to share my things with you,” Evelyn said, adjusting the waistband of a silky navy-blue skirt on Rose. “I had a feeling you would look great in them.”
“I guess I got stuck on those old, drab clothes for a while,” Rose said.
“I tried to get you to come shopping in Spruce Hills—”
“I was stubborn, wasn’t I?” Rose laughed, that strange laugh that felt like someone else’s.
“That you were,” Evelyn said.
Before first period the next day, Rose walked over to Astrid and Selena, enjoying the lively swish of a silky skirt, and a light-gray blouse, and cowboy boots. A second skin that fit like the first one. It made her feel better; she’d had a bad moment that morning. The red light had lasted longer instead of immediately fading. But now it felt as if it had never existed.
“I’m seriously dying to go to a Halloween party,” Selena was saying. “I’ve got my costume and everything—a leather jumpsuit and love beads, like the girl singer in the Cadaver Dogs.”
“You’re not gonna wear anything if you don’t have anywhere to go,” Astrid said gloomily.
Selena glanced at Rose. “What do you want?”
“Just saying hi,” Rose said, and got a great idea. “I heard you guys talking about Halloween. Why don’t you come to a party at my house? You know, you and a bunch of other kids.”
Astrid raised an eyebrow.
“I could have a party,” Rose repeated. “I mean, if you can’t have a party at your own houses—”
“There is that,” Selena burst out. “My mother’s so worried about her precious furniture! She says she doesn’t want a bunch of kids running around breaking things.”
“As if we were still two years old.” Astrid sighed.
“Why doesn’t she get House-in-a-Can?” Rose suggested. “The inflatable furniture would be great for a party.”
“My cousin bought it after seeing a video,” Selena said. “The couch exploded. They were cleaning up pieces weeks after.”
“You don’t have to tell her your whole life story,” Astrid said.
“And your mom’s too cheap to throw a party,” Selena said, “even with all that alimony. I don’t know how she gets to collect from more than one ex-husband! She must have some insane lawyer!”
“You don’t know when to shut up, do you?” Astrid said.
“So,” Rose said cheerfully, making light of the moment, “what about Saturday night at my place?”
Astrid and Selena exchanged a look.
“Where do you live?” Astrid said.
“How big is it?” Selena said.
Rose described her living room and how she lived across from Belle Heights Tower.
“Hey,” Selena said, taking a step closer to Rose and touching her hair, “I like those boots—they look ancient. And your hair’s really cute.”
“Thanks! I just had it done.” Rose also explained about the clothes.
“My mother’s stuff is hideous,” Selena said. “It would be like wearing a granny nightgown in public.”
Rose didn’t mention that just a few nights ago she’d slept in a granny nightgown. Since then she’d switched to a big T-shirt.
“This party could actually be fun!” Selena said.
Nick Winter came by to talk to Selena. “Did you give Dylan that picture of me with bedhead?”
Selena smiled shyly. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”
“That idiot posted it.” Nick looked over at Rose curiously, as if he knew something was different but couldn’t place it. “You’re that girl, right?”
“Which girl is that?” Rose replied, trying not to get distracted by the diamond in his tooth and everything else about Nick Winter that was so gorgeous.
“You always looked like a farmer girl.”
Amazing, all these years in the same schools and he didn’t even know her name. Well, he could start with her new one. “Rose Hartel,” she told him.
As he turned to leave, he said, “You don’t look like a farmer girl anymore, Rose Hartel.”
Promising.
“Why don’t you sign out and have lunch with us?” Selena said to Rose. “We can plan this party.”
Rose tried to get Kim to come out, too.
“With Selena and Astrid? Are you kidding?” Kim said. Today she had on a tie-dyed parachute dress. It looked homemade.
“Why, what’s wrong with them?”
“Um, let’s see, how about everything?”
“Astrid and Selena are the most popular girls in tenth grade, and everybody wants to hang out with them. Does that mean there’s something wrong with everybody?”
“Yeah, there is.”
“Well, then I’m happy to have something wrong with me, too!” Actually she felt honored. Lots of kids hung around Selena and Astrid, but today Rose had actually been asked to lunch. “I’ll let you know where we are. You can meet us if you change your mind.”
Kim looked hard at Rose. “I’ll be here—maybe checking out today’s crossword puzzle. I’m a natural, remember?”
“Of course. I remember everything. Why wouldn’t I?” The week before, she and Kim had done a puzzle together. Although before that, she’d always done them by herself, off at a corner table that faced a brick wall.
They ate in a Thai restaurant. It was dimly lit with gleamin
g cherrywood tables and a heavenly smell of coconut and ginger; Rose basked in the scent. She didn’t recognize anything on the menu. “What should I get?”
“You want us to order for you?” Selena asked.
“Maybe she hasn’t had this kind of food before.” Astrid cast a glance at Selena. “She’s being adventurous.”
Rose liked the sound of that. Adventurous.
“Speaking of ordering stuff,” Selena said, “for the party, you’ve gotta get cupcakes from Fully Baked.” It was the best bakery in Belle Heights, according to Selena.
“Says the girl who shouldn’t eat cupcakes,” Astrid said.
“You always make me feel like such a blimp!” Selena said.
“But you’re not fat,” Rose said.
“Next to her I am.”
“No need to compare yourself like that,” Rose said. “What you see in the looking glass isn’t important—it’s who you are that matters.”
“Looking glass?” Astrid said, stifling a laugh.
“I mean mirror.” Where had that come from? Rose could almost hear someone else saying it. But who would use such an old-fashioned word?
“Getting back to the party,” Astrid said, “you have to get some entertainment.”
Selena wanted a DJ; when Rose said that might cost too much, Selena said, “I know! You can have a psychic! My cousin went to a party and said the psychic was incredible. One look and she could recite your whole past.”
Rose had no need for her past. But her future—why not?
The food arrived. Rose ate slowly and savored the garlic, basil, and peanut sauces. Amazing how many things there were to experience if you were adventurous. Selena said it was good she had Skipping that afternoon.
“It’s the best exercise!” she said. “They play music seriously loud and you skip around the room.”
“You need somebody to teach you how to skip?” Astrid said.
“It’s a special way to skip! You’d know if you tried it.”
Rose thought it was good they felt comfortable enough to tease each other in front of her.
“You can come skip with me,” Selena said to Rose.
“It’s tempting,” Rose said, imagining herself skipping to “Changes.” She’d been listening to it on her phone whenever she had a chance, even disabling the ads so she could play it on a loop. “But I’ve got school service.”
“There are ways to get out of that,” Astrid said. “I haven’t done it since fifth grade.”
“No, it’s okay.” Rose was looking forward to it, actually. She was going to uncover the humanity in Mr. Slocum. Because that’s the kind of person I am.
When it came time to pay, Astrid was short, and Selena just had a credit card. The place was cash only.
“We’ll treat tomorrow,” Selena said.
CHAPTER 6
Were Rose’s taste buds working overtime? Every meal was a feast, even the quick dinner of spinach-and-cheese ravioli Evelyn had made that night. “Mm, this is incredible,” Rose said. “Hey, let’s have a party this weekend.”
“What?” Evelyn looked tired, shadows under her dark-blue eyes. Hadn’t she been sleeping well? Rose slept like a rock as soon as her bedside lamp was off.
“For Halloween. With music—and a psychic. My friend Selena knows someone really good. Is that okay with you?”
“Um, sure.” Though it sounded like Evelyn had been about to ask her something but then had stopped herself.
“I had a really great day,” Rose said, as if that was what Evelyn had been thinking about. “Not even Mr. Slocum could ruin it. I helped him organize papers, and he barely spoke to me. What a stick-in-the-mud, as Dad used to say. Something else that came from his grandma Clara, I guess.”
“Mr. Slocum is the one who sent you down to Ms. Pratt’s office.”
Ms. Pratt—the school psychologist. Rose was supposed to check in with Ms. Pratt this Friday. “Mr. Slocum thinks I don’t listen in class. I tried to tell him that I do listen, but he cut me right off.”
“Maybe it’s best to let him be. He’ll speak to you when he’s ready.”
“But I want him to talk to me now.”
“Why?”
Because, Rose told herself firmly, Mr. Slocum is alone, and I can help. But she didn’t say this out loud. Instead she said, “That reminds me. I should go upstairs and check with Mrs. Moore, see if she’d mind a loud party down here.”
“But her dogs—”
“I love animals! I’m starting work at a vet’s office!”
“I know. If you get scared, you can always call me.”
Rose shook her head. Had Evelyn always been such a worrier?
Upstairs, Rose knocked on Mrs. Moore’s door and heard the dogs scuffling behind it. When the door opened, she was as happy to see them as they were to jump on her. They seemed to remember that she’d taken them to the dog run—or rather, that they’d pulled her there.
“Oh, my dear, come in!” Mrs. Moore said. Rose realized she’d never seen Mrs. Moore indoors and close up like this. Her skin looked thin, papery. She wore a flowery housedress that zipped up the front, and she smelled like minty toothpaste. “How lovely to see you. Is that a new hairdo?”
“You like it?”
“You have such lovely blue eyes. I never knew.”
“Mrs. Moore, I’d like to have a party this Saturday night. It might get loud. If that’s a problem, I’ll cancel it.” Rose really hoped she wouldn’t have to.
“The benefits of old age—you get quite deaf,” said Mrs. Moore. “The noise won’t bother me at all. Would you like to come in and sit down?”
“I’d love to.”
Rose followed Mrs. Moore to the living room. The place had the same layout as Rose’s, but the unfamiliar furniture made it look entirely different. Mrs. Moore had wooden benches with cushions and tiny Persian rugs. Here the rugs were out of place, scattered to the corners, no doubt because of the dogs—who had gone to another room. “Probably to sit on my bed, where they’re not allowed,” Mrs. Moore said. “How nice, my dear, having you here.”
Rose was thinking the same thing. How important it was to be a good listener. For a moment she got lost in this thought, and when she tuned in again, she heard, “—you poor thing, so much sadness in your young life.”
“We all have sadness,” Rose said lightly. “But you can’t let it destroy you; you have to let it go. Grief is a balloon just waiting to be popped.”
“Oh? I can’t say I know what that means. I lost my husband, too, so long ago. He was an artist. He did the painting behind you, of Belle Heights Bay.”
Rose swiveled around to see a swirly picture. Was that a sailboat? Was that lots of water? She couldn’t make it out. People used to swim in Belle Heights Bay, but it hadn’t been clean enough for that in decades. As a kid, she’d heard that if you put your feet in the water, your toenails would dissolve. Her dad always said that was an urban myth, that he’d gone swimming there—“And at last count, I had ten toenails! Though they all turned green.” She’d shrieked and insisted he show her he was only kidding. Unfortunately for her dad, she asked to see them again and again.
“That painting is really pretty,” Rose said.
“Some people find his work blurry. I have to admit, I’m one of them!”
Rose didn’t say she was one of them, too.
Mrs. Moore launched into several stories, including something about going to an eye doctor, to check on that blurriness. Rose’s attention wandered again. She thought about what she might wear to the Halloween party. She hadn’t gotten dressed up since she was a little kid, a ghost in an old sheet with holes cut out. “A classic costume that couldn’t be improved upon,” her dad had said, when she’d wanted to go to Party-A-Rama and buy something. Maybe she should go as a farmer—an inside joke with Nick? Rose was pulled back into the conversation when she heard Mrs. Moore say, “It’s a funny thing about memories. Why do we remember certain things and forget so much else?”
&nbs
p; “Memory is a dog,” Rose said.
“What, dear?”
“Memory brings us things we don’t want and plops them in front of us, wagging its tail.”
“The things you say! Grief is a balloon. Memory is a dog.”
“Anyway,” Rose said, “thanks for being so understanding about Saturday night, and for telling me that story about your husband.”
“My niece, you mean.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I have other paintings—in the hall, in the bedroom. Would you like to see them?”
Poor Mrs. Moore was positively starved for company. This was what happened when you gave people a little taste of something they craved—they wanted more and more and more. In a small corner of her mind, she knew exactly what that felt like, to want something so desperately and have no idea how to get it—
“Toothache?” Mrs. Moore said.
“What?” Rose, unaware, had been rubbing her jaw.
“See a dentist, my dear. Make sure it’s not the roots.”
Rose stood. “About those paintings? One or two would be nice.” She didn’t want this visit to last forever, after all.
CHAPTER 7
Rose went out for lunch with Selena and Astrid again on Thursday—who knew there was a Korean place in Belle Heights, tucked between a gas station and a parking lot near the expressway?
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Astrid said. “What’s with that ID pic on your phone?”
True, it wasn’t flattering. She’d had it taken at Kim’s apartment when they were experimenting with some stage makeup.
“Yeah,” Selena said. “It’s seriously disgusting.”
“I almost threw up when you called me and that thing came up,” Astrid said. “Delete it now.”
“I will. After we eat.” Rose didn’t want to interrupt things, not when she was ordering sukuh chi gae—seafood with vegetables in spicy broth. In Korean it sounded so sophisticated! Add that to adventurous.
