Rosalind

by Stephen Paden

  Susan ran back to the pot of oil and popcorn on the stove and turned it off. Some of the kernels were burnt, but enough was there to pour into a bowl. She brought the bowl of popcorn into the living room and put a needle and spool of thread on the table. She sat next to Rosalind.

  "Do you know how to make popcorn strands?" Susan asked her.

  She grinned and shook her head.

  "Okay, you get to learn." Susan grabbed the needle and the spool and unraveled a portion of the thread. She stuck the end of it into her mouth and then, with one eye pinched closed, she gracefully stuck it through and tied it around the eye. "Now, you stick the needle through the heart of each popcorn thing like this. Easy enough?" Rosalind nodded her head and took the needle. She grabbed a piece of popcorn and pushed the needle through the middle and once most of the metal was on the other side, she grabbed it and pulled it through. She looked at Susan for approval and was met with an abundance of it. "Now keep doing that until you get a line long enough to wrap around the tree at least—" Susan got up and inspected the tree, twirling her finger and counting to herself. After a few seconds she said, "Six times."

  Susan walked back to the kitchen to see about making a quick dinner, but when she rounded the table, she saw the shoe from the cellar laying on the floor. She stopped and looked at it. She stared at it. Something about it bothered her, but she couldn't place it. John could have found it in the yard or something. In summer, kids were known to frequent the cornfields in search of adventure, amusement, or a hiding place to make out. One of the local girls probably got scared and ran off without it. A shame too; it was a nice shoe. She put the thought out of her mind again and went to the kitchen.

  Rosalind finished the long strand in record time, according to Susan, and the two wound it around the tree.

  "Beautiful," Susan said. John had gone to his study, but he closed each sliding door to within an inch. When he had a good view of Rosalind through the slit, he grabbed his crotch and started to massage it. He heard Susan coming towards the den and stopped, then moved quickly across the floor to his desk. Susan slid the doors open and poked her head in. "Come see this."

  John rose from his chair and went into the living room to see what they had done.

  "Marvelous, girls. We'll have the best tree in town. I only wish we hadn't put it up so late. It certainly deserves a front page spot in The Gazette," he said.

  "At the very least," replied Susan, rolling her eyes. "Honey, would you like some hot chocolate?"

  Hot chocolate, Rosalind thought. She'd had it before, but it had been at least four years ago. She turned to Susan and nodded that she would indeed like some as well. Susan laughed and John, seeing Rosalind's reaction said, "Why not?"

  When Rosalind was finished adding the rest of the ornaments to the tree, she sat down on the couch and marveled at it. John sat on the other end of the couch, not pressing his luck, and looked at the tree. "You did a fine job, young lady."

  Rosalind nodded, but this time she looked directly at him and smiled. He turned back to the tree and nodded. He nodded victoriously.

  Susan put Rosalind to bed at 10 P.M. sharp. She tucked her in and told her to try as hard as she could to sleep. Susan could tell that Rosalind was excited and figured that this just might be the first real Christmas the girl had ever had.

  Susan parted Rosalind's red hair on each side, saying "Sweet dreams." Rosalind closed her eyes and thought of the woman in the yellow dress. She thought of saying goodbye and in her place, in the biggest chamber of Rosalind's mind where her fantasies lived and were called upon to protect her from her father, she made room for a new memory—not one that would serve as a protector of any kind; not one who she'd reluctantly call upon to save her from heartache—just a beautiful woman who had shown her kindness and was continuing to do so. She made room for Susan.

  Chapter 31

  Rosalind slept, but when the first hint of sun came through her bedroom window, she jumped up and ran downstairs to sit on the couch. She looked at the tree in awe, and a few minutes later noticed that there were presents underneath it. Two to be exact.

  Rosalind went to the kitchen and poured some coffee grounds and water into the stainless-steel Saladmaster coffee pot, like Susan had once shown her, and turned it on. She wouldn't dare wake them up on purpose, but she couldn't help it if the smell of coffee did. Luckily, she didn't have to grind the beans.

  The smell of coffee permeated the air of the kitchen and soon the entire downstairs. Snow began to fall as Rosalind sat on the couch and stared at the tree. The sun was teasing the countryside from the numerous cracks in the cloud cover. Patterns of frost stretched out from the corners of every window, eventually joining each other to form an oval, creating individual, picturesque canvases.

  A few minutes later, a stirring sound from above caused Rosalind to bounce up and down in her seat on the couch and about ten minutes after the it occurred, Susan emerged from the second level. Her blond hair strayed in every direction; her eyelids half-open as she went to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. She walked into the living room with a steaming cup.

  "You're up, sweetie," she said to Rosalind. Rosalind smiled and nodded. She took a sip of the coffee. "This is good, you really know your way around a kitchen."

  "Santa came," Rosalind said.

  "What? Oh! I must have been out like a log." Susan looked under the tree and smiled, then sat down on the couch next to Rosalind. "Let's wait for Mr. Byrd and we will see what we see."

  They sat in silence while Susan methodically downed the cup of coffee. Susan then rose once she had taken her last sip, and went back to the kitchen to refill her cup. She went back to the living room and sat on the couch. Rosalind looked down and rubbed her belly. Susan watched her.

  "We'll give it another month before we tell anyone. I can't imagine what kind of world we live where a man would find pleasure in a thirteen year old girl like that." Rosalind recoiled at the thought. It was true that her pregnancy was not confirmed at this point, but Rosalind was still experiencing all of the symptoms, as the doctor had called it, and he was right about one thing, a woman knows her body, even if that woman was actually a young teenage girl. She took her hand off her belly and went to the table to get Susan's coffee. She brought it into the living room and set it on the coffee table in front of Susan.

  "Thank you, dear," Susan said yawning. "Mr. Byrd's awake," Susan said.

  Rosalind got excited. She hopped up from the couch and went to the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee, and brought it back to the living room, setting it down on the end table next to John's chair. He came down a few minutes later, the sound of the toilet flushing a herald of his arrival.

  "Merry Christmas, ladies!" he said. "Is that for me?" he said, pointing to the cup next to his chair. Rosalind nodded excitedly. "So thoughtful." He sat down and took a sip. "Well, it looks like Santa paid us a visit."

  Susan yawned. "Mr. Byrd, will you do the honors?" Susan said.

  "My pleasure," he replied. He got up and went to the tree and sat down on the floor. He pulled an elongated box from under it and looked at the label. "To Susan, from John," he said. "Rosalind would you be so kind to hand this to Mrs. Byrd?" Rosalind stood up, took the box, and handed it to Susan. "Thank you," she said. She unwrapped the present slowly. When she opened the lid, she pulled back the white tissue paper to reveal a pair of dress shoes.

  "Oh, John. These are beautiful," she said, setting the box on the table. She came back and took the shoes out of the box, setting one shoe next to her bare leg. "Exquisite," she said.

  He grabbed another box and looked at the label.

  "Well that leaves one more here. Let's see what we have," John said, pulling the last box from the tree. "To John from Susan. Well isn't that nice!" He took the box, swiveled it around and started unwrapping it. It was a long, thin box with a gold lid. He opened it and took out a tie. He draped it from his neck down to his midsection and looked at Susan. "Lovely, dear!" he sa
id. Rosalind smiled and thought that it was the sharpest tie she had ever seen. The truth was that she had maybe seen one or two in her life before coming to Whispering Pines, but the lighting from the sun came in the window and reflected off of the silky thing.

  "What a great Christmas," John said. "I didn't get my yacht, but I'm sure one day—"

  As if on cue, Susan looked at Rosalind expecting to see disappointment, but to her surprise, Rosalind's face was brighter than the sun. At that moment, Susan felt the worst pangs of guilt. She was never an extravagant woman, but being the wife of a prominent businessman in a small town, she never wanted for anything. And while her needs were not as luxurious as those of a movie star who required constant pampering and affection, she did have an eye for some of the finer things that the small town had to offer. But here was this creature sitting on her couch, who, in the face of being left out of the Christmas lottery, simply sat there as if she had found a cache of diamonds in her bed. She wanted to cry for Rosalind, but she knew that no one would understand it, least of all Rosalind. She held back a few tears and tightened her lips. "Honey, I think there might be one more back there, why don't you have a look," she said to John. John, being in on the ruse, said, "I suppose I can take one more look."

  John reached behind the trunk of the tree and up inside of a few branches, and pulled out a long box wrapped in red and gold striped wrapping paper. It had a brilliant, silky-white bow and a tag on it.

  "Good eye, honey! Rosalind, I can’t read this one, can you help me?" He handed the box to Rosalind. She looked at it closely, putting her finger on each letter, and when she got to the end, her eyes widened.

  "R-o-s-a-l-i-n-d. That's me!" she said. "She flipped the box over and over in her hands, not knowing what to do with it. Susan couldn't hold back any more tears, and they fell down her cheeks as she sat next to Rosalind. And for one brief moment, John looked at Rosalind and questioned himself and his intentions towards her.

  His guilt was briefly lived.

  He stood up and went to his study to salivate over her while she unwrapped his thoughtful gift.

  "Go ahead. Open! it!" Susan said.

  Rosalind looked at her and then back at the box. She furiously ripped the red and gold paper and the first thing she saw was a white box with black writing which she couldn't understand. If she could, it would have told her that this box and everything inside of it was made by Mattel. She continued to tear at the box and then swiveled it around. On the front of it were several pictures of women wearing several outfits of all different colors and styles. While this representation wasn't as real as the page with the woman in the yellow dress, it was certainly more vibrant.

  "It's a new line of dolls from Germany. They just started making them in the United States this year. At least something good came out of that horrible country," Susan said. "Mr. Byrd insisted on doing something very nice for you this Christmas."

  Dolls? Rosalind thought.

  She opened the box and inside she saw a clump of blond, shiny hair with what appeared to be pointed sunglasses. She pulled it out and there sat, in her very own hands, a slender, pale doll with a zebra-colored swimsuit; her eyebrows inverted V's that said Like what you see? She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh hysterically. She vaguely remembered having a doll when she was very little, but it had been a hand-me-down that was missing an arm and had chewing gum matted in the hair. Rosalind looked at Susan again and then back at the doll.

  "Is it for me?" she asked.

  Susan nodded.

  Rosalind stroked the doll's hair and sobbed. This was the reaction Susan was expecting. She scooted over and put her arm around Rosalind. Rosalind leaned her head into Susan's bosom and continued to cry.

  Chapter 32

  New Year's Day had come and gone and they were well into the middle of January. 1960 promised to be a better year for everyone.

  The weather had gotten unseasonably warm for January, and the sun had been making regular appearances lasting more than half the day most days. No one in Whispering Pines held out any hope that the heat wave would continue into February, but they took advantage of the reprieve and built snowmen, shoveled the remaining snow out of their driveways, took walks through town, and some even stopped wearing their coats.

  But February did come, and with it, to everyone's dismay, bitter cold. The countryside was splotchy with patches of snow that the sun hadn't melted, but no new snow fell for the rest of the winter.

  Rosalind, with Susan's tutelage, had started learning her alphabet and how to read simple books. It was frustrating for Susan at first, but Rosalind, she had found, was a fast learner. She thought that in a different world (or even a different universe), Rosalind might even be smart. But the cards weren't there for her here, Susan thought. Still, she wanted Rosalind to have every chance.

  Sheriff Hanes visited the Byrd house that month to check on Rosalind. His investigation into the break-in at Nancy Fletcher's house had turned up nothing, he had been sad to report. "The guy took some pretty serious precautions. Usually there's some kinda physical evidence at the scene, but we didn't find a thing. To be honest, it didn't help our case that we did the investigation a month after the fact. Hank had already been over and over the house. It was actually a mess with empty beer bottles, but I can't say I blame the man. I know what he lost," he had told Susan one evening at the Byrd house. John had nodded along with Susan as the sheriff had spilled the information. Inside he was pissing himself with relief with a small part of him feeling like he could do anything he wanted in this town, because they were too stupid to figure it out. The sheriff had also checked on Rosalind, and the melancholy, sour child he left at their house a month before was now a vibrant, bouncy young girl. He still didn't know if this was going to be a permanent fix for her situation, but he figured that if no one was any the wiser, and no one was looking for a girl that no one knew existed in the first place, he was alright leaving her here. But there was one more matter he needed to discuss before he left.

  "So, do we know yet?" he asked Susan.

  "Know? Oh!" She looked at John, ashamed that she hadn't told him yet. "Not for sure, but she still hasn't gotten it?"

  "Honey? What are you two scheming about?" John said with a grin.

  The sheriff looked at John and then at Susan. "Maybe you better tell him, I don't have the heart to utter the words," said Sheriff Hanes.

  Susan looked around to the room to make sure Rosalind was still upstairs. "The person who broke into her house…did things to her," she said. John was confused. If he covered his tracks so well, how did they know?

  Did the little bitch tell? He thought that the threat of death was good enough for a longer period of silence. She was getting a bit cocky around the house, come to think of it. She was more vocal now than she'd ever been. And she was quick to strut that body around like she was begging for it! He began to burn on the inside at her betrayal.

  But his face never told the tale of his heart. He calmly nodded in thoughtful motions, "Just horrible what's happened to this young woman," he said.

  "It gets worse. She might be pregnant. She is pregnant, I just know," Susan said. While John's face might have hidden his initial reaction to the news about Rosalind's violation, it suffered a shockwave of anger that he quickly hid when he turned away and looked back at his den.

  Son of a bitch, he thought. I didn't use a rubber? What the hell was I thinking? No, no, don't blame this on yourself, Johnny. It was all her. If she hadn't been flaunting her shit, and those over-sized tits… Yes, it was her fault, proving once again that she was just a conniving little tramp. It was her fault, Susan!

  John turned around, and threw on his business face.

  "My…God, she's just a child," John said.

  "It's disgusting, John," replied the sheriff. "I'm not sure how I'm gonna handle this."

  "Dr. McClelland just wants to be included in what is going on. I don't think he can wait any longer to hear from you about her situation," S
usan said.

  "Has he called me directly? I know you've been taking some time off to see to Rosalind, but if he called before Christmas…I haven't been in the office much."

  "I'm going to see him soon. I'll tell him that you'll call him with the final report," she said.

  "I think we're forgetting one thing," John said. "This is a very, very small town, and when the folks around here see this young lady start to—," he stopped and made a half circle over his stomach with both hands and then continued, "then not only will there be gossip the likes of which this county has never seen, but it might be directed at this household. And me!"

  The sheriff looked at John and then nodded, slowly catching on to what John was hinting at. "I didn't think of that," he said.

  "John's very worried about his reputation. With good reason," said Susan. "Something like that could…it could destroy us." John put his arm around Susan and then took it off. He started pacing back and forth in thoughtful contemplation. He could continue to speak for himself and protect his own ass, or he could take another route.

  "My reputation is solid. And I'm sorry I drew attention to that first sheriff, but let's put that aside for now. Let's put Rosalind's interests first. What would they say about the poor girl? This town is a fine place to live, good people, until you do something out of the ordinary. Then they turn into sharks, or those other fish with teeth. It could get very ugly around here, and I don't think that beautiful young lady up there deserves any of it."

  The sheriff nodded again, not looking at anything in particular. It did bother him that John sought at first to protect his own honor, but he did have a point. And his logic about the effects on Rosalind was solid. "What do you suggest?" said the sheriff.

  "First of all, in anything we do from now on, we have to put Rosalind's well-being at the front. Sheriff, if anyone finds out about this, it'll be in The Gazette by morning. So what I suggest is that Susan and I keep her here. She likes it here. We keep her out of sight as her… belly? …baby?