The summer was nearing its end, twisting into fall. Stewey was getting ready to go back to school. I was moving back to BU for my sophomore year, but no one talked about it. We all felt the departures shivering in the future, and we all suffered, especially Rozzy, who started seeing Leffler twice a week.
“You can’t come with Stewey and me tonight,” Rozzy announced one Thursday. I looked up at her, and then at Stewey, who gave me a careful look. “We’ll see you later,” he said apologetically. I stood on the porch and watched them get into the car, heard it pull away without me. Rozzy didn’t get home until very late, and although I heard her whisper my name, I pretended to be asleep.
It happened more and more—the trio was splintered back down into a pair. I got used to spending evenings by myself. I read, I planned out a schedule of art classes for the fall, and I saw David, but his good humor annoyed me. When I went over to his place, it was always newly cleaned and he had set out flowers in pretty vases. We had good enough times. We walked around Boston, we saw some films, we swam, but I was always preoccupied, always daydreaming, and David sensed it. He got gloomier and gloomier until we were both relieved when our evening together was through.
One evening Stewey showed up and Rozzy wasn’t home. We sat on the front porch talking. I was in a black mood because that day my greeting cards had all been returned to me with a polite note. I didn’t like the visions I was having, the images of sharing a tiny apartment with hungry roaches while I starved and suffered for my art. But when Stewey asked me what was wrong, I merely shrugged.
“So where’s Rozzy?” he said, glancing at his watch. “We made a dinner reservation and if she isn’t here in half an hour, we’ll lose it.” He gave me a sidelong glance and then fumbled with his hands.
“Oh, it’s OK,” I said, as easily as I could, cutting him off. We were out there talking for two or three hours when Rozzy pulled up in a red car, her arm dangling out of the window. A blond man in a letter sweater got out of the driver’s seat and ran around to her door, opening it with a flourish, bowing from the waist. She was laughing, her black hair skipping down her back. She bounced up and kissed the blond on the cheek. “You won’t forget,” she said.
“Not a chance,” he winked. Then he climbed back into the car and made the tires screech as he peeled off. Rozzy didn’t stop laughing until she sat down on the steps with us. She was wearing old jeans with a big hole bitten out of the knee and a black sweater.
“Did you forget dinner? We had a reservation.”
“I guess I did,” said Rozzy, looking off into the sky. “No stars yet,” she said brightly.
“Who was that?” said Stewey.
Rozzy shrugged, still gazing at the sky. “Oh, someone.”
“Rozzy.” Stewey stood up, his voice hard and exact. He pushed his hands into his pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
Rozzy instantly darted up. “Wait, wait a minute,” she cried, but his shoulders were drowning with weight, he wouldn’t look at her. “What’s wrong with you?” she said. “I hitched. He gave me a lift. I won’t do it again. I promise.”
“You don’t hitch.”
“I do. I like to.”
“Bullshit. You get paranoid every time a car passes us at night.”
“This is different.”
“It’s always different,” said Stewey. “What didn’t you want him to forget?”
“To make the tires scream when he left,” said Rozzy innocently. She wrapped her arms about him. “Please stay. We can go get hamburgers at someplace junky.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I am,” she said. “Please. We can take Bess with us.”
All three of us ended up going out to eat. We rode down to Brigham’s at the shopping center and had burgers and raspberry lime rickeys. Brigham’s was a high school hangout. Twenty kids, dressed in identical pale yellow windbreakers, wandered in and out of the store, licking dripping cones, smoking, punching one another in the arm. The only difference between the girls and the boys was the blond streak the girls frosted into their hair. We hung around for dessert, hot chocolate sundaes, and by the end of the evening, things seemed the same as before.
Rozzy began missing dates more and more, sometimes pulling up to the house in strange cars, sometimes simply ambling lazily up the street herself, swinging her purse and singing. Her relationship with Stewey was becoming more and more an elaborate kind of dance, a dance in which she controlled the tempo and the moves. She was erratic, changeable, a piece of bright stained glass.
“Stewey,” she said one night, “let’s go someplace special to dinner. Just the two of us.”
They both went through the yellow pages, writing down the names of places they had never heard of. Rozzy kept giggling; she kept calling up all the places and asking for menus and prices. They finally decided on Bello’s, a little Italian place in the North End, making the reservations for seven sharp. “Now, you’re not going to forget, are you?” said Stewey. “You will be here.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I love you.”
“Then don’t ask me questions like that. It makes me nervous.”
On the day of the dinner, Stewey showed up at seven, in a dark blue suit, clutching some purple flowers for me because I was not going. Rozzy was sprawled on the rug in her blue jeans and a sweater reading the movie section of Boston After Dark. “I don’t feel much like going,” she said.
“You sick?”
“I don’t know. A little, I guess. My head aches.”
“We’ll go another time then.”
Rozzy shook her head. “No, I just want to sleep, just be by myself. And it’s crazy to waste those reservations. Why don’t you take Bess? She isn’t doing anything and she can get ready in a flash.” She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me. “You’ll go, won’t you?”
“Come on, Rozzy,” I said, “get dressed. You know you’ll feel better, you’ll have a good time.”
“I don’t want to,” she said.
Stewey set the flowers on the table, crushing them a little. “You want me to stay with you?” he said carefully.
Rozzy rolled on her stomach and lazily waggled her legs in the air. “I said no. Go with Bess.”
“OK, Rozzy,” he said, “but we’re never making any sort of plans again. Not for anything. You hear me?”
“Good. I hate plans.”
“We’ll see how you feel about it when the time comes,” he said.
“Take Bess,” she said.
“I will then,” he said defiantly. “Bess, you about ready?”
I ran into my room and pulled on a black summer dress over my head and told Rozzy that if she changed her mind, she could cab over to the restaurant. “Have a good time,” she said indifferently, turning back to the paper, ignoring Stewey’s hand wavering on her head, about her hair.
Stewey was silent the whole ride into Boston. He kept punching in different radio stations, and punching them out again, never listening to any song for more than a few bars. He slammed on the brakes and jerked us forward and back on the hot leather seats. He parked six blocks away from the restaurant and we had to walk, but he didn’t slow his steps for me and I had to stumble to keep up. When we got to the restaurant, it turned out to be a little diner, with a counter and some leather booths, and a few hefty middleaged waitresses scurrying around, shouting rudely at one another. “Yeah, you got a reservation?” one said, making Stewey smile. She waggled her hips as she sashayed across the blue tile floor and led us to a booth in the back. “Everything we got is right on the menu,” she said curtly. “No specials and everything’s good.” She waited, one hand on her hip, while we scanned the menu. We ordered a pizza and Cokes. “Some fancy place, huh?” whispered Stewey as the waitress left.
We didn’t discuss Rozzy that evening, or David. I always used to think Stewey would ask about him, since they had seemed to like each other, but I guess Rozzy must have told him something that made h
im keep his thoughts on David to himself.
We listened to the conversations of the people around us; we watched the silent angry gestures of a feuding couple near us, their snapping remarks. “Look at how they use their hands,” said Stewey. “You can tell just about everything about people from their hands.” He held his own hand up, the palm facing me. “Every hand exudes energy. Here, put your hand up against mine, nearly touching, but not quite. Yeah, like that. Now concentrate, shut your eyes. Do you feel that?”
I squinted my eyes shut.
“That was just ordinary energy. Now feel this.” He shut his eyes, and I shut mine again. Maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but I felt something zinging through my hand, startling me, so that I clenched my hand into a fist.
Stewey lowered his hand. “That was my feelings for you—coming through my hand.”
“Dinner’s here,” I said abruptly.
We chewed the rubbery pizza and drank the Cokes, which were mostly ice cubes with a little syrup, and on the ride home I had to loosen up my seat belt because I had eaten so much.
“I’ll just pop in the house with you and see how Rozzy’s doing,” said Stewey when he pulled into our drive.
But Bea told us that Rozzy was out. “She got dressed and took a cab. I just assumed she was going to meet you. She certainly was excited.”
Stewey’s mood crumbled. “Could I wait here for her? Is it all right?”
Bea smiled, embarrassed. She liked Stewey. “Of course you can, honey, but I don’t really know where she went and she might be a while.”
“She won’t be long,” said Stewey.
We wheeled the TV out into the living room and sat on the rug watching an old movie about clowns. It was a French film, dubbed, and the voices were unnatural and forced. I kept giggling, but Stewey was silent. I fell asleep around midnight, my head in his lap, his arms hung about my shoulders. What woke me was Rozzy’s stamping into the house, and I jerked up, blinking, my heart thudding against some alien intruder.
“Hi, I cabbed home,” she said.
Stewey stared at her. She was still in her jeans and sweater, a wool scarf carefully knotted about her throat. “Where did you go?” said Stewey. “I thought you were feeling sick.”
“I felt better.”
“How come you didn’t come to the restaurant? Who did you go with?”
“Stewey, Jesus, no one,” she said, “no one. I walked around Harvard Square. I went into Reading International to look at all the little literary magazines. I want you to believe me.” She leaned over to him and nuzzled his neck. She could always untwist things with him, he was always willing to believe her, willing to forgive anything she did. “I didn’t think you would still be eating, and I felt sick. I didn’t want to sit at a table and have to be around all that food, have to smell it,” she said.
“It’s late now,” said Stewey. “I’m going.”
Rozzy frowned. “Don’t go. I just got in. Why can’t I see you? Come on, sit. You and Bess can tell me all about the terrific dinner you had. Please.”
Stewey stayed, but no one really talked. We all sat around, curled up into private balls of arms and legs, jerking awake again. I was just coming out of that hypnotic almost-sleep when I heard Rozzy ask Stewey when he was leaving for Madison.
“Come with me,” said Stewey.
“Why do you have to leave?” she said.
“Marry me.”
“Stewey, please.”
“You’re never serious.”
“Me. What about you?”
“How do you know I’m not serious?”
“I just know.”
When Stewey left, it was already morning.
All the next week, abruptly, Rozzy clamored to answer the phone. In a breathy voice, she’d tell relatives and friends of Bea’s that she couldn’t talk with them right now because she was waiting for her boyfriend to come for her, and that he was so jealous he wouldn’t let her alone for one moment. When she finally handed the phone to Bea, her smile was triumphant.
One evening Rozzy didn’t come home. I called Stewey’s but no one answered. Ben and Bea had gone out to the theater, so I spent the evening aimlessly watching TV, eating corn chips from a rustling bag, and sipping stale Coke. At nine, the phone rang.
“Bess,” said Rozzy, “climb into a cab and come to 45 Newton Street in Newtonville.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just hurry up and get here.”
“Should I get Stewey?”
“Just come,” she said, and hung up.
I rode in that cab imagining Rozzy bleeding in some rape crisis center, being held for questioning by the police, kidnapped by hoods. But the cab pulled up to an ordinary blue house, and when I rapped at the door, a middle-aged man answered. He was dressed in a shiny blue suit and he grinned at me. “Are you Bess?” he said.
“Is Rozzy OK?”
“See for yourself,” he said, ushering me in, leading me to a back room. Rozzy instantly leaped on me. “Stewey and I are getting married!” she cried. “We’re both going to Madison!”
I stepped back. She was in a short white dress, her hair fluted down her back. Stewey was in a white Palm Beach suit, a red rose stuck in the brim of his straw hat. He grinned happily at me.
The justice of the peace’s name was Henry Douglas. He was in a hurry; he kept fidgeting with papers on the table near the door, looking curiously from Rozzy to Stewey to me. They had picked him out of the phone book, Rozzy told me, after getting blood tests, being jabbed in the arm by a new girl who had to prick Rozzy’s flesh several times before drawing blood.
“You knew for days and you didn’t tell me,” I said. “Those test results—everything—take days.”
Rozzy looked flustered. “Oh, look, Bess, I never believed any of this would really happen, not even when we drove up here. I haven’t even told Bea or Ben or anyone. You’re the only one invited—you’re our witness.” She frowned, and then abruptly brightened. “Look at my ring,” she said, digging a small blue box from her purse and opening it, exposing a flat gold band. “It was the widest one we could find,” she said.
“Let’s go into the study, shall we?” Henry said.
The study was done in that cheap dark wood paneling and there was a yellow and orange shag carpet on the floor. Henry had plastic slipcovers on his couch and two chairs, and they wheezed faintly when I touched them. There was only one painting, one of those Venus paint-by-number deer heads.
The ceremony was very short. I tugged at my T-shirt and stood very straight, while Henry read something from a book. Rozzy reached for Stewey’s hand and they both smiled, not even listening, because Henry had to clear his throat a few times to get them to answer. He finally slapped the book shut. “You’re a team now,” he said seriously. “Go ahead and kiss.” Stewey grabbed Rozzy and leaned over her like she was a soft young birch tree and planted a kiss on her forehead.
I stood beside Henry, feeling silly and out of place. “Bessie,” cried Rozzy, breaking free of Stewey and hugging me. I clung to her and then I started weeping on her new dress, making it patchy and dark with my tears. It was Henry who separated us. He tucked something hard and slippery into my hands, closing my fingers over it. I pulled back.
“Rice,” said Henry, “for luck.”
“I wish we were taking you with us,” Rozzy said wistfully.
“So do I,” said Stewey.
“When do you have to leave?”
They exchanged glances. “Now,” said Rozzy. “I’m leaving everything behind. I don’t want anything unless you find that sunlamp. Stewey’s been packed for days and we have to get out there and find a place. And I’ve got to call school in Texas, tell them I won’t be coming back.”
I put my hand on the plastic slipcover. “We’ll drive you home,” said Stewey. “We can’t leave you just yet.”
“You’re going in the car with them?” said Henry.
“Sure.”
We all climbed into the
front seat and I divided up the rice between us and we threw it at one another. Henry was standing dumbly on the curb, a box of rice in his hand. He gave a weak toss of rice as Stewey pulled out into the street. The rice pelted the fender and then scattered. As we rounded the corner, I looked back. Henry was still throwing rice, letting it hit the street, dozens of feet behind us, not even grazing the car.
Rozzy snuggled against Stewey. “You tell Bea, please,” she said. “Oh God, and Leffler, I didn’t even tell him.”
“I did,” said Stewey. “Do you mind?”
Rozzy shrugged. “Gee, I wish we were going someplace warm. Madison’s so cold.”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
Rozzy turned to me. “And don’t you go doing something stupid like starting up with that David again.”
“I kind of liked David,” said Stewey.
They ended up dropping me off in town, by the bus, in a swarm of people. They both got out of the car and the three of us stood there, hugging and weeping, saying one another’s names as if they were religious chants, as if they offered salvation.
CHAPTER TEN
Bea wasn’t angry, but she was hurt that Rozzy would marry without her. “I could have gone shopping with her, bought her pretty things, towels and linens, dishes. She won’t have any of that. It would have been my pleasure, too, I could have shared in it.” Bea sighed heavily. I hadn’t told her I had been at the ceremony, only that Rozzy had called me from a phone booth after the fact. “Well,” said Bea, “at least she’ll be taken care of. I like Stewey.”
Ben had no reaction at all, at least nothing that was visible. Bea said that when she told him he went into Rozzy’s room. She followed, thinking he was upset, but he was pacing out space. “I could use a new study,” he said. At dinner, though, Ben asked me if I was still seeing David. “I guess,” I said, and he nodded.
Meeting Rozzy Halfway Page 17
