Rosalind

by Stephen Paden

But he had to be careful. He was a pillar of the community. He was the Rubber Man.

  John flicked the cigarette out of the window and started the truck. It backfired once, causing John to cringe, but when it warmed up, he put it in gear and drove home.

  Chapter 17

  "Okay, I've set aside some food in the fridge—there's some chicken that's thawin' out and some potatoes under the sink. Plenty of milk, I think, but we're only gonna be gone for a couple of days," Nancy told Rosalind. She whirled around the kitchen, opening cupboards and closing them, doing a last minute check. "We'll be back on Sunday, do you think you can manage?"

  Rosalind nodded with confidence. She had never been alone for two whole days, but she figured that she knew her way around a kitchen well enough to make sure she always had something to eat. And she had a good television and a brand new J.C. Penney's catalog to flip through, although she still held on tight to the picture of the woman in the yellow dress.

  Hank was packing some things in the bedroom and he came out and called to Nancy, telling her to leave the kid alone, that she'd be fine.

  "Mrs. Peterson will be around now and then to check on you, and I've put her number on the fridge. The sheriff's number is there too. If you get in any trouble whatsoever, just give them a call, okay?" Rosalind nodded again, this time less sure. It was really happening, they were leaving. But she told herself that it was only temporary. Nancy kissed her on the forehead. "I'll be back before you can say Madison Avenue."

  ***

  Nancy and Hank left a half hour later and Rosalind settled in on the couch with her catalog and a glass of water. There was plenty of milk in the fridge but in the back of her mind, whether consciously or subconsciously, she tried to avoid milk ever since the fire.

  Twilight Zone was on the set again, but Rosalind sat on the couch and flipped through the catalog, ignoring the creepy music emanating from the television. Sheriff Hanes had stopped by only three hours after Nancy and Hank had left, and they sat in the living room for a few minutes. He reassured her that he was a phone call away, and wrote down his home phone number next to his office number in case something came up when the office was closed. "My job is 24/7/365, okay?" he had told her. She didn't know what that meant, but decided it was a good thing.

  "You really don't talk much, do you?" he said. She shook her head and bowed her head. "It's okay. I guess when you got something to say you'll say it."

  They sat in silence while Rosalind flipped through the catalog.

  The sheriff stood and went to the door, but Rosalind whispered something that made him turn around. He couldn't make it out but it sounded like 'thank you.' Instead of prodding her for confirmation, he nodded his head and left.

  Rosalind turned off the television and the house became eerily quiet—too quiet. She flipped it back on and grabbed a cover from the back of the couch and pulled it over her legs. A few minutes after the man in the black suit with the cigarette in his hand had finished his introduction to the show, she fell asleep.

  ***

  The tip of the morning sun broke through the break in the curtains and shone directly into Rosalind's eyes. She wiped them and threw off the cover. It was cold in the room. She opened the stove door and saw that only a few embers remained from the fire the night before so she grabbed a few pieces of wood and some old newspapers and brought it back to life. She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, downing it in two gulps. She wasn't that hungry, so she made a few pieces of toast and smothered them with butter. After finishing her breakfast, she cleaned off the table and washed her glass in the sink, setting it neatly on the towel.

  Her first night alone went well, boosting her confidence even more.

  Chapter 18

  John sat in his office and looked out the window at the diner across the street. He didn't see Nancy behind the counter, and what was worse, he didn't see the red-head young girl sitting at the counter. He threw his copy of National Tire Monthly down on his desk and looked at the calendar. It was Saturday. Maybe Nancy took a day off? The sheriff's office was only a few blocks down, so he decided to close the office and go visit his wife.

  He didn't like that she worked, but he knew it was necessary. The truth was that he didn't like Susan to frequent what he called his 'territory.' For Susan to come this close to town was an infringement of sorts. She was too close to his extra-curricular activities for his liking. His girls, both of them, lived in town, and while he never thought of Susan catching him in the act, it was still his turf and she was an intruder. This was his town, and he made the rules.

  At first he thought it was strange that he didn't even know their names, but a few months of what he called Byrd Watching, he began to see it as something eccentric—like his personal motto or something.

  Keep it simple.

  Keep it anonymous.

  The blond girl with the blue ribbon in her hair had an upstairs bedroom in an old Greek revival style house that was the only one of its kind in the county. He counted himself lucky that this particular style provided a view from the street. The brunette who always wore a blue skirt on Wednesdays lived in a Western flat-top. Her bedroom was in the rear so he would always park on the street perpendicular to the main road. The street leading away from her home was dark which made it easier to hide. He had a system and it was working. But he wanted more. He needed more.

  He opened the door to the sheriff's office and Susan was typing away on the year-old Oliver. She looked up and smiled when she saw her husband.

  "A nice surprise!" she said.

  "Well, I was in the neighborhood," he said with his usual charm. "Thought I'd buy my lovely wife some lunch." The sheriff popped out of his office and walked over to John, extending his hand. "John, nice to see you."

  "Sheriff, you think I can take this pretty thing off your hands for a while?" John said.

  The sheriff looked at Susan and then back at John. "I think I can manage alone for an hour," he replied. "You have a key?" he asked Susan.

  "Ever since the day you gave it to me," she said, holding it up.

  "Okay, you kids get out of here. I need to run over to Nancy's and check on our girl," he said, grabbing his coat.

  "Oh yes, the new girl in town, right sheriff?" John said.

  "The same. Have fun," he said, closing the door behind him.

  "What's that all about?" he asked his wife.

  "Nothing. Nancy and Hank went on the road for the weekend. We're just watching out for her."

  John nodded absently. Was this a gift? Had the stars actually given him another chance? Another shot at being among them? He didn't know, but tonight he would have to investigate. "Shall we?" his wife asked, breaking his thought.

  He bent his arm and she put hers through his. They went outside and she locked the door behind them.

  Chapter 19

  Sheriff Hanes and Mrs. Peterson had both come to visit that day, but Rosalind was glad when they had left. She didn't know what all the fuss was about, anyway. She knew how to cook for herself and the television and catalog were more than enough to keep her busy. She even started drawing. The pen she had used to scribble her name on the picture of the woman in the yellow dress was now in her hand, forcing rudimentary shapes on a piece of paper from Mr. Hank's notebook. She hadn't actually asked if she could use it, but it was only one sheet and she was only going to use that one sheet, she promised herself.

  At first the shapes were just circles and a few triangles, but when she looked at the picture of the woman in the yellow dress, she started to see more than that: the woman's head a circle of sorts, her dress just a triangle towards the bottom, her arms and legs simple ovals that could be connected together. When she held it up to the light, it looked like a wretched thing, but it was her wretched thing. She made it. And that was enough for her.

  She put the pen down and went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk. She put it back and instead poured herself a glass of water from the faucet. The butterflies in
her stomach got worse every time she even looked at a bottle of milk. She wondered why. Maybe it was one of the last memories she had of her mother—she had covered it with her hand when Rosalind went to pour a glass for her father.

  She put it out of her mind. She liked the taste of water anyway, so she gulped down a few glasses and washed the floral-patterned cup and put it on upside-down the towel. She went back into the living room and turned off the television. She was bored with the catalog so she just sat there when a knock on the door startled her out of her daze. She became frightened for a second, but it was probably the sheriff checking up on her again. She answered the door and the man standing there was not the sheriff. He wore a long, beige trench coat and a fedora. He was smoking a cigarette like her momma used to.

  "Evening, young lady," the man said in a raspy voice. She pushed the door closed just enough to see the shape of the man. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, but I thought since you were out here all alone, I'd check on you to see if you were okay." She thought back to what Nancy had told her just before she left, and didn't remember her saying that anyone but the sheriff and Mrs. Peterson would be coming over, but there was something in the man's voice that was quite soothing, pleasant beyond the rasp.

  "I—I'm okay," she said from behind the crack in the door.

  "Well, that's fine then," he said. He looked down at her chest and noticed that her cleavage was showing. If she could have seen his face right then, she would have slammed the door, but because the door was only a fraction of the way open, she didn't. "Just fine," he whispered to himself. "Well, it appears you are in fact okay, so I'll just be going along." The man tipped his hat and then walked to the road and turned left. Once he was far enough away, she opened the door wider to look for his car, but didn't see anything.

  The whole affair crushed all confidence she had built over the past few days. She turned off the light and pulled the cover over her. She lay there for hours, unable to sleep.

  ***

  When she finally nodded off, a crash from the kitchen woke her. It sounded like breaking glass. Did she leave the cup too close to the edge of the counter? Nancy would be very upset with her if she'd broken one of her glasses. She tip-toed to the kitchen and flipped on the light. There wasn't a shard on the floor below the towel on the counter, and her glass was still on the towel. She scanned the kitchen with her hand on the light switch, but didn't see where any glass had been broken, but she felt a draft of cold air pour over her bare feet. She looked at the back door that sat off the kitchen and noticed that it was cracked open. Slowly, she circled the table in the middle of the room and peered around at the floor below the door and saw the broken glass. Her heart started racing. She looked behind her, but nothing was there. She stopped and listened for any noise, but heard none. When she bent down to pick up a large piece of glass, the lights in the kitchen went off. She jumped up and looked around, but her eyes weren't adjusted and she felt a hand cover her mouth from behind. Suddenly another hand came around her midsection and lifted her in the air. She tried to scream but the strange hand covering her mouth wouldn't let any sound escape. Her breathing became erratic and her heart pounded even harder. She felt herself fly through the living, her hands stretched out to grab something, anything to stop her. A voice whispered in her ear, saying "Shhh." She stopped struggling. "Good girl," the voice said. He lowered her to her feet and swung her around. She felt herself being pulled gently to the floor of the living. "Not a peep, red," the voice said again. He pushed her back slowly and then uncovered her mouth, but she didn't scream. Her mind raced back and forth but then settled into understanding.

  She knew what this was.

  She unbuttoned her blouse. The man stopped to see what she was doing, and to his surprise, after she'd unbuttoned her blouse, she started to take off her skirt. The stars were shining bright, he thought. Right down on him like a spotlight. He was on stage and all of the stars were looking down on him, down on what would be his finest moment.

  He took his gloves off and grabbed her breast. His breathing hastened and then went back to normal. The moonlight was creeping over the floor and it landed on her face. Her smooth, freckled skin looked like a ceramic doll that had been painted to perfection. He impatiently unzipped his pants, pulled them down and climbed between her legs. "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you," he whispered.

  ***

  Rosalind lay on the floor in the moonlight, alone. She pushed herself up and grabbed between her legs. It was wet with something coming out, so she went to the bathroom and peed like she always did after a man climbed on top of her.

  When it had happened in the past, she hadn’t known it was wrong. But since meeting Nancy and being told that what her father had done was one of the worst things a father could do to his own daughter, a sense of hopelessness and fear moved in. Had he really died in the fire? Was he back to exact some sort of revenge for what her mother had done to him? It didn't sound or smell like him, but she wasn't sure.

  She stripped and got into the bathtub. The water was way too cold, but she didn't care and her body couldn't tell the difference. She was numb. She sat in the tub with a blank stare, making circles in the water with her right index finger.

  When the numbness wore off, she climbed out of the tub and shivered into a towel. She unplugged the tub and watched the water swirl into the drain.

  She put on some panties and a t-shirt and went back into the living. The picture of the woman in the yellow dress was still unfolded on the coffee table. She sat down on the couch and went to scribble the woman's face off, but stopped. She hated the woman almost as much as she hated herself. But she couldn't do it. She folded the page into her hands and got up.

  Rosalind unlocked the front door and opened it. The stars were shining brightly and she looked up at them. When she was younger, she had always enjoyed looking at them and even pretended that they were watching over her, but now, underneath this wretched canopy, she was wasn't so sure. She began to wonder if this was all there was to life, and when she looked up at them again hoping that they would comfort her and tell her that it was all going to be just fine, she was sure now that they didn't care, and that they probably never did.

  Chapter 20

  "We're going to be late, Susan," John called up the stairs. He had spent his entire life waiting on her, but it never got an easier. He was an important man in this town, and showing up to church on time was something that spoke to his character as a local leader. Susan finally walked down the stairs and preened herself. He rolled his eyes. "I'll go start the car."

  They drove to the Whispering Pines Baptist church. The usual crowd poured into the white building as bells chimed. It was the same old rigmarole, John thought as he sat down in the pew. But as a respected leader of the community, it was his duty to be seen attending church on a regular basis. After all, what kind of man does business with a tire salesman who doesn't believe in Jesus? Or any salesman for that matter?

  Once seated, he looked up at the cross that hung behind the podium and felt a deep reverence wash over him. He was truly a leader in this town, but he knew, at least on the surface, that a much greater leader was one who put God first. When the collection plate came their way, John reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty. He dropped it in the plate and Susan looked at him.

  "We don't have that kind of money," she snipped.

  "Shut up," he said. He smiled at her, and at first she didn't know if he was joking around or not, but when she studied his face, she realized he wasn't. For the first time in their marriage, she didn't recognize him. She turned her attention back to the minister and blocked out every single word that he said.

  The service ended an hour later and the people poured out of the building, some groups conglomerating around the steps and some in the grass. As soon as John walked out of the building with Susan just behind him, the sheriff's car pulled up the curb right in front of the church.

  The bitch talked, he thought. Sherif
f Hanes exited the vehicle. He made a few stops at the different crowds on the lawn, and then, when he saw John and Susan on the steps, he politely said goodbye and shook one of the men's hands. John's stomach filled with acid and he gripped his wife's hand. She was pleasantly surprised, but then looked forward and saw Sheriff Hanes.

  "Sheriff, we missed you this morning," she said.

  "I had some business to take care of," he said and then turned to John. "John, would you mind if I talked to Susan? Alone?"

  "Sure. I need to say hi to Pete Lauder," John walked away, nervously looking back every few feet or so. He found Pete Lauder and shook his hand.

  "I'm not even sure how to say this," Hanes began. "There's been an accident."

  "I don't understand, what kind?" Susan asked.

  "A bad one. This is gonna get out quick because that's how it works around here, but I need—" His lips quivered. Susan had never seen him like this. She'd always thought the sheriff to be a pretty stoic individual, actually. He collected himself and was about to speak, but Susan interrupted.

  "Oh my God, is it that little girl? Rosalind? Is she okay?"

  "Well it concerns her, but no. It's about Nancy. Seems Hank was a bit sick last night and they decided to come home early from their trip. Hank veered to the other side of the road and was hit head-on. Nancy was killed instantly. He's a mess, Susan. He blames himself, but the other driver was drunk. Still, it was Hank that veered."

  She had gasped loudly enough to where a few of the women, trained proficiently in the art of gossip, heard her and rushed over. The sheriff sighed and took his hat off.

  "Dammit," he muttered.

  "What can I do, sheriff?" she asked. By now the crowd of bird-ladies was circling in for the kill, ready to pick and peck him to death.

  "Meet me back at the office," he said. He put his hat on and returned to his car. John, seeing that he was gone and taking a deep, relaxed breath, walked over to his wife.