The Truth about Mary Rose

by Marilyn Sachs

  “Of course,” said my father, “but according to the doctor she should be managing already. You’re too good a nurse, I’m afraid, and the patient doesn’t want to recover.”

  “You’ve been very patient, Luis, and I really appreciate it. I know she’s hard to take, and you’ve been wonderful.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said my father. “When your mother turns on the charm, there’s nobody like her. And I think it’s very considerate of her to circle all the important news items in the paper for me—especially the ones about Puerto Ricans who commit crimes.”

  I tiptoed back to my room, and had to wait until they were asleep before I got to the bathroom.

  Next morning at breakfast, Manny pushed away his bowl of corn flakes. “I can’t stand this stuff,” he said.

  I don’t like it much either, but I’ve been eating it since we moved. At home, in Lincoln, my father used to have hot oatmeal for us every morning, or corn meal mush.

  “How about some eggs?” my mother said. “Or maybe French toast?”

  My father and Ray had already left, so it was only Grandma, Mom, Manny and me.

  “I’ll make them,” Manny said, but then he changed his mind, said he wasn’t hungry, and went upstairs.

  “I don’t know,” said my mother. “I just don’t know what to do about that boy.”

  “Leave him be,” said my grandmother. “It’s a stage he’s going through. That’s the way it is with those smart ones. He’s a lot like Stanley at that age ...”

  I followed Manny upstairs. The door was closed, and I pushed it open, and walked into the bedroom. Manny was sitting on the bed, crying. I looked away from him, quick, like I didn’t see him, and then I walked over to the window and looked out at the yard below.

  After a while he said, “Damnit, Mary Rose, don’t you ever knock at the door?”

  “I’m sorry, Manny, but I have to ask you something.”

  I was still looking out of the window to give him some time. I don’t remember when I saw Manny cry before. My mother and my father, yes—even Ray, but not Manny. I hated to see Manny cry because I knew when he cried he really meant it.

  “What?” he asked. “What’s so important that you couldn’t even knock at the door?” He still didn’t sound right so I kept looking out of the window, and thinking what should I tell him I had to ask him about. All I could think of was Mary Rose’s box. So I asked him about that. I mean, I told him how I’d been looking for three days, and how I hadn’t found it, and that the basement was such a mess, I didn’t feel like looking there, and what did he think I should do.

  It was very quiet behind me, so I took a quick look. I could see it was all right again. He was looking at me, and he wasn’t crying, and there were think lines across his nose.

  “And you say Grandma doesn’t remember where it is?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, that’s strange because she seems to remember just about everything else about Mary Rose—everything she ever said ... every time her nose ran ... everything!”

  I let that go. I remembered the way he was crying just a little while ago.

  “So what should I do?”

  “Get Grandma to remember. She’s got it stored somewheres up there. It’s sort of like Pavlov’s dog—a conditioned reflex. Use the correct stimulus, and she’ll remember.”

  “Manny, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you could get her to remember, you’d save me a lot of work.”

  He got up from the bed. “OK.” I could see he was interested. We walked downstairs to the kitchen. My mother and grandmother were drinking coffee, and arguing.

  “... it is so because of her. He works too hard, but all she’s interested in is money, money, money.”

  “Mama, Stanley didn’t have to expand the business if he didn’t want to. He made that one cleaning store grow into twelve. He wanted it to grow. It’s not only her. You can’t blame everything on her.”

  “It’s not natural for a woman just to hang around the house and spend all that money, and never go anywhere.”

  “Mama, she has four young children, and another one on the way.”

  “It’ll be another girl. Just see if I’m not right.”

  “Mama, how can you keep saying that!”

  “Grandma,” Manny said, “would you let me perform an experiment on you?”

  “Ooh!” my grandmother was pleased that Manny wanted to perform an experiment on her. “What do I have to do?”

  “I just want you to do free association with me. I’ll give you a word, and you tell me the first thing you think of. Like if I say ‘girl’ what do you think of?”

  “Boy.”

  “Very good. All right, here we go. Remember, we’re going to go very fast. The first thing you think of. OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Black.”

  “White.”

  “Good.”

  “Bad.”

  “Pencil.”

  “Paper.”

  “Top.”

  “Bottom.”

  “Very good, Grandma. Now we’re going to do it a little differently. We’re going to play location. It’s the same idea, except if I say something, you have to say where it is. Like if I tell you ‘piano’, you’d say what?”

  “Living room.”

  “Right! Here we go now—stove.”

  “Kitchen.”

  “Bathtub.”

  “Bathroom.”

  “Rocking chair.”

  “Upstairs bedroom.”

  “Mary Rose’s box.”

  “What?”

  “Mary Rose’s box. Quick, Grandma, just say the first thing that comes to your mind.”

  “Well, I did already, Manny. I told Mary Rose that I thought it was in the attic, maybe in the storage closet behind those curtains, but she said it wasn’t there. So I thought maybe in the basement, but you know when the Jacksons ... very nice people ... used to live down the street ... smart girl they had ... but she never said hello ... I think she’s a teacher now ... they put all their things in the basement so I...”

  Manny started laughing. We went upstairs again. “Sorry, Mary Rose,” he said, but I didn’t really mind. At least he was laughing.

  I laughed too. Both of us stood there outside the room he was sharing with Ray, and it felt good, standing there, laughing together.

  “You know what, Mary Rose,” Manny said, “let’s go pack a lunch, and spend the day in Van Cortlandt Park. We’ll hike over there, and then later, I’ll take you rowing.”

  I didn’t want to go to Van Cortlandt Park with Manny. I wanted to go downstairs in the basement and look for Mary Rose’s box. But Manny was looking so happy now, and so sure that I was going to be happy he asked me, like I usually was whenever he asked me to go anyplace with him. What could I do?

  The mosquitoes were really biting that day in Van Cortlandt Park. It was while I was scratching three new ones under my left arm that I started feeling sorry for myself. By the time we had tramped over to the lake, and I didn’t think it was much of a lake, I was feeling desperate. I knew that I was going to have to get Manny settled pretty soon or I’d be stuck worrying about him for the rest of the summer, and maybe never get a chance to look for Mary Rose’s box.

  It was only because I was desperate that I got us involved with Irene and Iris. Manny was rowing, and I was being desperate, when I saw this girl sitting on the bank of the lake, reading. She was a small girl with glasses. Not pretty, but she looked just about the right age. I guessed she was smart—reading there by herself. It was worth a try. Manny always liked smart people, girls as well as boys, and I couldn’t think of anything else at that moment.

  “Can I row, Manny?” I asked.

  He gave me the oars, and was so busy telling me what I was doing wrong that we were practically on top of her before he noticed. By that time one of my oars slapped the water so hard, she got all splashed. She let out a little yell.

  “Oh, I’m s
orry,” I said.

  “Mary Rose, give me those oars,” Manny yelled.

  But I held on to them, and kept apologizing to the girl.

  “It’s OK,” she said, smiling. She really wasn’t good-looking at all, but she had a nice smile, and did look smart.

  “Give me the oars, Mary Rose.”

  “My brother’s teaching me to row, but I’m really no good at all.”

  “It’s hard in the beginning,” the girl said.

  “My name is Mary Rose Ramirez,” I said, “and this is my brother, Manny—Manuel.”

  “Oh! Hello—I’m Irene Jonas.”

  “Hi,” said Manny, “Mary Rose, just hand over ...”

  “We just moved here from Lincoln.”

  “Really!”

  “Yes, just a month ago. We’re staying with my grandmother over on Maple.”

  “Oh—I live on Spruce.”

  “Isn’t that interesting. We’re practically neighbors then.” I really had to hold on to the oars. Manny was still trying to get them away. “What’s that book you’re reading?”

  She said it was called Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, and she was enjoying it very much.

  “I guess you read a lot,” I said.

  “Yes, and I’ve really had a ball this summer. I just finished the whole ring sequence by Tolkien.”

  Manny let go of the oars, and began talking about Tolkien. I settled back, and started feeling not so desperate. They were arguing about whether Return of the Kings was better than Two Towers, but they sounded like they were enjoying the argument. Then Manny asked her what school she went to.

  “Hunter College,” she said.

  “College?” I asked. “You don’t look old enough to go to college.”

  “I’m eighteen.”

  Manny is sixteen, and won’t be seventeen until October. I started feeling desperate again.

  “Irene!” somebody yelled. “Irene!” and then this girl came bouncing down the path. She was gorgeous, really gorgeous. She had long, long, gleaming yellow hair, which looked like it had just been combed, big yellow eyes, and a wonderful sort of yellow skin. She looked like a cat. “Let’s go home,” she yelled. But then she saw us. Not really us, because her eyes went sliding over my head, and stayed on Manny. So when she saw Manny, she just stretched her mouth over her teeth, and said, “Hi!”

  Manny is very good-looking. He is tall and blond and blue-eyed.

  “This is my sister, Iris,” said Irene. “She’s sixteen, and goes to Stuyvesant. That’s one of the academic high schools in New York City.”

  “Where all the heavies go,” said Iris, giggling. She didn’t look like a heavy to me. She didn’t look like she ever stopped looking inside a mirror to look inside a book.

  “Oh,” Manny said, “we’ve just moved here from Lincoln, and I don’t know what school I’ll be going to in the fall.”

  “Well, we’ll be glad to help you decide,” said Iris, “and our advice will cost you one free row around the lake.”

  She was already in the boat sitting down before Irene said we shouldn’t take her sister seriously, and if we had other plans not to be afraid to say so.

  But Manny said he’d really like to, so Irene came and sat down on one end of the boat, and I sat on the other end, and Manny and Iris sat in the middle.

  First Iris rowed, and then Manny rowed, and then Iris and Manny both rowed. She was a good rower. I didn’t like her—Iris, I mean. Irene was nice. Why couldn’t she be sixteen and Iris eighteen, instead of the other way around. It turned out that Iris was smart too. At least she said so, and Irene agreed. She was some kind of math genius, and was planning to go to M.I.T. when she graduated. But most of the time she giggled, and didn’t really give Manny any advice at all about what school he should go to in the fall. She said she never met anybody from Lincoln, and she figured nobody really ever came out of such a place alive. I couldn’t stand her.

  But Manny didn’t seem to mind. We all took the bus back together, and they walked us home. Manny asked them to come in, and they sat, and drank Coke and ate fig bars, and listened to my grandmother talk about how it really wasn’t safe for girls to go out alone into parks anymore.

  Iris tossed her yellow hair all over her face and narrowed her yellow eyes, and said well she had taken two years of karate, and she could take care of herself, but that Irene refused to take it because she said she was non-violent. Which was silly, according to Iris. Because there was no sense being non-violent if somebody was trying to murder you. You only ended up dead, so where did it get you.

  After a while, the two girls got up to go, and Iris said why didn’t Manny come back with them, and have dinner. They were both planning on going to see a Shakespeare play that evening down in Central Park, and he could come along if he liked.

  “Central Park at night!” said my grandmother. “It’s not safe.”

  “Now, Mama!” said my mother.

  “It’s all right, Grandma,” I said, “Iris will protect him.”

  Manny looked over at my mother, and she said, “Mary Rose!”

  But Iris laughed, and said no sweat, she could take a joke. She followed Manny out the door, but Irene turned, and said to me, “Why don’t you come along too, Mary Rose. I think you’d enjoy it.”

  She was nice, Irene. It was a pity that she was flat-chested, and not pretty, and not even as smart or as strong as Iris. And eighteen besides. It really was a pity. Especially since I couldn’t stand Iris. But at least I wasn’t going to have to worry about Manny.

  So I told her no and thank you and that night I began looking for Mary Rose’s box in the basement.

  Chapter 7

  I found two shoe boxes in the basement. One was filled with old checks, and the other with embroidery yarn. Both of them belonged to the Jacksons.

  There were plenty of other boxes—boxes of papers, books, trophies, games, clothes, golf balls, rags, old shoes, and shoe polishes, hardware, Christmas ornaments, dishes, trays and one paint-by-number set. I looked through them all. From Monday night through Friday with time off for a weekend at Pam’s house, and from Monday until Wednesday morning, I spent nearly all my time down in the basement. I didn’t even watch TV with my grandmother.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find,” my grandmother said. “It’s no treasure. Just some old magazine clippings.”

  My mother said she hoped I found Mary Rose’s box. She said Mary Rose actually had about ten or fifteen boxes, filled with different kinds of things she collected.

  “One of them had all sorts of ideas for interior decorating,” my mother told me. “You know she and I shared a bedroom. It was a little, dark room, and it looked out on the backyard with all the washlines. We had some old furniture, and poor Mary Rose was always trying to turn that room into something out of her box. One Christmas, she saved her money and bought a blue satin bedspread, and got Mama—your grandmother—to buy her matching curtains. She was so excited when she unwrapped them, and she laughed and chattered about how beautiful the room was going to be ...” My mother shook her head.

  “Well, what happened, Mom?”

  “We made the bed with the new bedspread, and hung up the new curtains. Mary Rose really straightened up the room that morning ... She swept and dusted and put fresh doilies on all the furniture to hide the scratches. Then we all had to go out of the room, and close the door, and come back in to see what it looked like when you came in from outside.”

  “Go on, Mom, what did it look like?”

  “It looked terrible!” said my mother, “worse than before. The furniture was so old and scratched, and the spread and the curtains were so new and brilliant ... So then she convinced Grandma to let her paint the furniture a baby-blue color ...” My mother began laughing. “What a mess!”

  “But, Mom, what did it look like?”

  “It must have been the wrong kind of paint. It chipped, and after a while, the spread got creased, and Stanley spilled a cup of Ovaltine on i
t.”

  “You never told me that story before, Mom. How come?”

  “I must have forgotten. But coming back to New York, and having you dig around for that box brings it all back, just like it was yesterday.”

  “What was in her other boxes?”

  “I can’t remember all of them. There was the one on interior decorating ... one on fashion ... one on make-up ... one on etiquette. Let me think ... there was one on hotels, you know, with bridal suites and beautiful rooms where rich and famous people stayed. I think she had one on countries she wanted to visit. Was there one on perfumes? I think ... yes ... there was one on hair styles ... poor, little thing.”

  That seemed to be the way my mother thought of Mary Rose, as a poor, little thing. Back in Lincoln, when she used to say “poor, little thing,” I thought she meant because Mary Rose died the way she did. But now she meant it in a different way.

  I didn’t like that story about the bedspread. I didn’t like it either when my mother referred to Mary Rose as “poor, little thing.”

  I guess Mary Rose was the only one in the family who really had taste and loved beautiful things, and maybe there were some people in that family who just couldn’t understand. I mean, I love my mother very much, and I think she’s great and all that, but I was pretty sure that Mary Rose must have had plenty to put up with from her and Stanley too. Spilling his Ovaltine over her beautiful, new spread!

  My room is not beautiful. I mean, back in Lincoln it wasn’t beautiful. And my bedspread is washable because, I admit, I can get it pretty messy. But then I know I’m not as wonderful as Mary Rose. But I keep on trying.

  She would have made that room beautiful, I know, even though my mother shakes her head, and says, “poor, little thing.” If she had lived, she would have turned that dirty, dark, old room into something shining and beautiful—like herself. I know!

  Wednesday morning, I was down in the basement sweeping up a pile of those little colored pebbles you put on the bottom of fish tanks. I accidentally dropped the bag they were in as I was moving three tennis rackets to get to a box covered with a plastic tablecloth. I heard my mother beep the car horn three times, which meant she needed help.