by Sarah Willis
Ginny, and the other girl, Dot, are popular. Rose is popular, too, but knows she’s considered a tease since she doesn’t put out. Too bad. She couldn’t care less what other people think. She reads the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times—just to get both sides of the story. But slowly—she doesn’t even know how it happens—she’s spending more money on clothes, spending time looking for matching shoes and a belt. She gets her curly hair professionally straightened and bobbed. She begins to drink. A martini with a green olive is a pretty thing.
Girls rotate through the apartment like door prizes being handed out at the fair. Ginny Hartman moves out, and six other girls come and go. Now there’s only a girl named Laura, and Rose. Laura is blond and slim and dates a series of bashful boys who duck their heads in the morning when they leave. Some come back a few times—Rose recognizes the bobbing tops of their heads, the shy waves. She wonders where Laura finds these boring young men. Even after three or four drinks, Rose has the good sense to stop a boy’s ambition to defrock her. She’s not interested in boys—or getting pregnant. It’s not to say she doesn’t like to have fun, but she has some standards. She holds a memory in place that gives her the strength to say no.
It was during the second summer at the camp for the blind. There was a girl named Susan who was not pretty but would never know that. She was trying to explain to Rose how blind people see.
“When I touch your face, I learn things about you. How kind you are, by the easy way you allow my touch, and by the fact you don’t tense up. I can feel, on a face, anger, thoughtfulness, disdain, goodness, and evil. Here, give me your hands.” Susan had taken Rose’s narrow, thin hands in her own soft pudgy ones, and lifted them to her face. “Close your eyes. Now, feel my face.” Rose did what all the other blind people at camp had done to her. Felt from the top of the head down; the soft kinks in her hair, the flat skin of her forehead, the deep outer sockets of her eyes, the curve of her cheeks; moving her thumbs toward the center of Susan’s face to feel the shape of her nose, lightly brushing her lips, ending with the boney ridge of her jaw. It was strange, and interesting, but what Rose felt was the shape of the face she already knew. With her eyes closed, Rose saw only Susan: not pretty, but sweet. Blind. A curious girl who could easily share her own thoughts. But Rose already knew this. She tried to feel something more, working longer at Susan’s face than the blind ever had done on her. Susan had laughed. “Okay, I guess that’s enough. What did you learn?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Rose said, because she had learned, here, that lies showed in voice. “But thanks.”
Susan smiled. A big, wide smile showing all her crooked teeth. “I thought so. But that’s okay. We get some privileges, being blind, so we can pity you, too.”
But the thing Rose remembers best is the next thing Susan said. “Someday, when I fall in love, I will touch someone’s face and feel their soul.”
Rose is waiting for that moment, when she can feel someone’s soul in her fingertips. Then she will get married, and make love for the first time.
Chapter Four
“So, how many marriage proposals did you get?” I ask my mother. I say it simply, as if it’s a light thing, with no weight; a porcelain cup of air. I want to know if Simon asked her to marry him, or Joe, or any of the other men I scared away. How serious was my crime?
She glares at me. “I know who you are! Don’t pull this shit on me. Don’t . . . Don’t you . . . dare!” With this, she throws her cup of coffee on the floor. It breaks, as cups do. At least there’s no carpet for the coffee to stain. The dark liquid pools on the floor like an oil slick.
“Mother!” I say, with the voice of a woman reprimanding her mother for throwing her cup, and of a child calling out in the dark. “Look what you’ve done.” I head to the kitchen for paper towels and a garbage bag.
From behind, I hear her mimic me in a singsong voice. “Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done.” Then, under her breath, “Your mother. As if!”
When I come back into the living room, she’s climbing over the gate to the stairs. Once over, she straightens up, raises her chin, and walks regally up the steps. When she’s halfway to the top, Jazz comes down in that skipping, easy way that I can no longer do. I have to watch my feet.
“Hi, Nana!” she says to my mother, loudly and a bit too cocky for my taste.
My mother just nods once, and continues up.
My daughter looks at the mess on the floor and laughs. “She sure is nuts.”
Should I tell her that my mother is only what we will become? I bend down to pick up the pieces.
“I need a ride to Caeli’s,” Jazz says. “We have to work on our history project. Jesus, Mom, you should have made her clean it up.”
I’m going to try a new way of dealing with my daughter’s caustic remarks. Don’t say anything at all, let her words hang in the air; that way she’ll hear just how nasty she sounds. I read about this idea in a magazine while waiting for my mother in the doctor’s office last week. So now I just look at her. She rolls her eyes. She’s imagining what I would say, and getting huffy about it.
“I can’t keep asking Caeli’s mom for rides, just ’cause you don’t want to take Nana along. I’d really like to get out of here before more things break.”
I try not to say anything, but my jaw hurts. I’ll probably get TMJ from this.
“I can’t take you right now,” I finally say.
“Oh,” Jazz says, crossing her arms under her ample bosom, a bosom that is beginning to make me nervous. “So, now you’re going to ask me to wait until Todd gets home, and then you’ll take me?”
I was.
“Then you’ll ask him to take me, and he will. He does anything for you. Doesn’t that embarrass you?”
“Jazz! That’s enough!”
“Mom, all I’m asking for is a ride that takes five minutes. When was the last time you drove me anywhere?”
Wrong question. “Just two days ago,” I say. “Who do you think took you to the swim meet?”
“That was Wednesday! Four days ago! Oh, forget it. I’ll walk. I’ll hitchhike. I’ll goddamn fly before I ask you again!” Jazz grabs her backpack and throws it over her shoulders. I can hear the thud when it hits her spine, a sound that makes me immediately guilty. Still, she shouldn’t yell at me.
“Jazz! What is your problem? I just asked if you could wait a—”
“I’m done waiting. What should I wait for? You to tell me you can’t do it anyway? You to ask Todd? For Nana to die? What do you want me to wait for?”
I can tell she knows she’s gone too far by the way she stops talking, and her face looks stony. I don’t say anything. The trick works. She blushes. I know she’s embarrassed. She’s my daughter.
“I’m sorry I said that,” she says. “But I have to go to Caeli’s now. We have a lot of work. It’s worth two hundred points. I have to go, or I’ll fail history.”
“I’m ready,” my mother says, coming down the stairs. We both look at her. She’s wearing her little brown hat with the torn veil, the sweatshirt top with the big gold leaf, and the green plaid skirt. I look over at Jazz, warning her not to laugh, trying not to myself.
“Move this,” Nana says, waving at the gate across the steps.
“Oh, Jesus,” I say. “Fine.” Unlatching the gate, I ask her if she would like to ride along while I drop off Jazz.
My mother stops moving in mid-step. She does this a lot now when I ask her questions. It’s too much for her to walk and think at the same time—not enough brain cells left to do both. I’ve told Jazz that that’s what pot will do to her.
“You can drop me off at the place,” my mother says. “I need some . . .” She pauses, points to her legs.
“Stockings?” I say. “You need stockings?”
“Yes. Just drop me off at the place.”
“The store?”
“Yes, the store.”
“Sure, Mother, I’ll just drop you off at Kmart. How’s that?
You can walk home or get a cab. Will that be all right?”
I can’t believe I said that. Now everyone’s silent, letting my words hang in the air. Looking down, ashamed, I see that my mother is barefoot.
“All right, Mrs. Morgan, we’ll go to the store, but first let’s get your shoes and coat on.” There, that sounds like a caring daughter, doesn’t it?
On the way to Caeli’s, no one talks in the car. I drive through three yellow lights. When the car comes to a stop, Jazz hops out, shouts thanks for the ride, and runs up the driveway.
“Who is that girl?” my mother asks.
Rose watches the pretty, dark-haired girl wave to her. Funny, she thought that girl was called Tiffany, but now she’s not so sure. She must be a new secretary or something. She’ll have to find out tomorrow. It’s been a long day at work. Maybe that’s why she’s so tired and out of sorts. She loves her work, but really, it takes the strength out of a girl. Thank goodness she has arranged to get driven home today. If she just closes her eyes for a minute, she’ll feel better.
But at work the next day Mr. Wellman crooks a finger in Rose’s direction, beckoning her over. Jack Wellman is the head of the firm where’s she’s worked now for four years. Instinctively, she looks down to check on her outfit. Is her skirt too short? No, she’s just fine, thank you.
“Miss O’Neill,” he says, leading her into his office. He doesn’t ask her to sit down, but does close the door. She can feel her palms dampen.
He clears his throat. “Mr. Burt Thompson will be joining the firm tomorrow, and I’d like to offer him our very best secretary. You’re it, my dear. Mr. Klein has agreed to let you go, with a little arm twisting I must say, so please show Margaret Gallagher what needs to be done to take over for you there. You’ll need to clean up Mr. Halverson’s old office today. Make sure it looks spiffed up. Mr. Thompson’s bringing us a great deal of clients, Miss O’Neill, a great deal of prestige. We’ll want to keep him happy. It’ll be a lot of work, I’m sure, keeping up with him, but if anyone can do it, you can. By the way, you’ll be getting a raise. Not enough to buy a new car, I’m afraid, but maybe a new hat.” He chuckles.
She laughs along with him. “I don’t even have an old car yet,” she says, but he just smiles tightly and glances back at the papers on his desk.
“Well, thank you,” Rose says, and steps out of the office. She’s quite flattered she’s been chosen. She just wishes the other secretaries had heard what he said.
Mr. Thompson arrives the next day, followed by office boys carrying a load of boxes. He’s about forty-five and smells of expensive cologne. Rose thinks he’s nice enough, but it bothers her that he calls her Honey. “Honey, get me a cup of coffee,” “Honey, bring me the Klippard file.” “Honey, come here a moment.” Rose is twenty-two and dating a sweet guy named Cliff, and even he’s not allowed to call her Honey.
After one week of this, Rose is ready to explain, as nicely as she can, that her name is not Honey. He’s on the phone all day, but at three o’clock, Mr. Thompson calls her into his office.
“Close the door behind you, would you, please?”
She does. The light through the wooden blinds is dim from the gray of a advancing snowstorm. On the floor are a dozen boxes filled with files and plaques and Certificates of Merit. She’ll have to find someone to hang up all those plaques.
“Would you take a letter for me?” If he had said Honey this time, she would have begun the careful speech she has planned. It starts out: Mr. Thompson, I regard you with the highest respect, and I hope we can work together for a long time, but I’d like you to understand that calling me Honey is out of place. . . . She imagines she would only have to get that far before he would raise a hand and say of course, she’s right, and ask her what she would like to be called, at which point she will say, Rose would be fine. But now he simply says, “I’ll need this letter typed and sent out today.” Rose says that will be no problem at all.
The problem is where to sit. There are boxes on the two leather chairs that face his desk. There’s a clear spot on his desk, and he pats it. Well, it won’t be the first time she’s sat on the edge of a desk to take dictation.
It’s a long, windy letter, full of two-dollar words. She’s taught herself shorthand and is quite proud of that little feat since she never went to secretarial school. When he says, “That’s all, thank you,” Rose braces a hand on the desk so she can slip off with out stumbling. Just as she’s about to move, Mr. Thompson covers her hand with his. “Freckles and green eyes. Are you Irish, honey?”
Rose tenses. She’s furious—at him, and the fact that her little speech is now quite inadequate. She pulls her hand away, but before she can open her mouth to say something—she’s not sure what—he touches her cheek. Still sitting on the damn desk, she slaps him, a good solid whack, then thrusts herself off the desk, takes a step and stumbles over the nearest box, falling flat on the floor. She looks up to see steely blue eyes staring down at her and no hand to help her up, which she certainly would have refused anyway. She stands up, not retrieving the pad of paper or the pen, and walks out of the office. Who should she go to, to report this? Not a single name comes to mind. There are five other lawyers in the firm, all who would profess outrage, but not one of them would do a damn thing about it. Mr. Thompson has brought with him clients worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rose is a good secretary, but there are hundreds of thousands of secretaries.
She gets her purse and leaves without a word. She calls in sick for three days. In her mail, on Monday morning, is a note terminating her employment, with a check for sixty-two dollars; a two-week severance pay.
Every Sunday, Rose goes home to visit her mother for dinner. She brings a bottle of wine, and they drink from her mother’s spotless wineglasses. The two of them sit at the highly polished mahogany table with the overstarched white linen napkins and the too-shiny silver serving spoons laid out like bright dreams.
Each time, when she leaves, Rose writes her name and phone number on a slip of paper and places it on the table by the phone. Her mother never calls her, and the next Sunday, the piece of paper is nowhere to be found.
One Sunday, when her mother opens the front door, Rose’s father is there, standing in the hallway. She hasn’t seen him for almost a year.
“How’s my little girl?” he says. He has a mustache; a thin line across his upper lip. Both the mustache and his hair are darker than she remembers, both slick with some kind of hair grease. It looks ridiculous—he’s at least sixty-five. Who is he trying to fool?
“I’m not a little girl,” she says, thinking of Mr. Thompson. This is her father, she reminds herself. He just doesn’t seem like her father at all.
“Of course you’re not, sweetie. But you’re my little girl. And not married yet? Are you having fun, at least? Dating the boys?” He lights his pipe, his cheeks sinking in as he puffs hard to get it started. The pull of his cheeks and the smell of his pipe are so familiar that Rose wants to cry, to touch him, to say, Oh, Daddy, come back to us. Stop whatever you’re doing and come back to us. But then he winks at her. “You’re a pretty girl, Mary. I bet you’re having a real good time, huh?”
“What are you doing back here?” she asks. She doesn’t care that she sounds a bit angry. Her mother stands by the front door, which is still open. Rose knows her mother is desperate to get the lit pipe out of the house, maybe even the man holding it. It’s a new thought—that maybe her mother is happier without him. Living in her own life.
“Had to meet with the big guy, then I’m back out again, probably tomorrow.”
Rose has a bizarre thought—that the big guy is God, since her father sells Bibles. She laughs, a harsh giggle. She would like to go home now.
“What’s so funny?” he asks, eyeing her over his pipe. His eyebrows are too thick for the rest of his image—they are an old man’s eyebrows. She pictures a cartoon weasel, smoking a pipe. She almost laughs again. It’s just nerves. She could really use a drink right no
w, she thinks, feeling the weight of the bottle of wine in her hand. It feels solid and comforting.
“Nothing’s funny,” she replies. “Are you still selling Bibles?”
“Nah, that stopped a few years ago. Just insurance.”
“Dinner is ready,” her mother says, closing the front door with a snap of her wrist. “Why don’t we eat.” It’s not a question. Suddenly Rose’s mother is in charge. She tells them where to sit, passes the platter, moves them through dinner at a fast clip. She removes the plates without asking if anyone wants seconds.
“Dessert?” her mother says, carrying in a pie, already cut into pieces, plopping it down on their plates before they have time to say yes or no. Her mother is trying to get them through tonight quickly, right into tomorrow when her father will leave. Maybe this woman, who Rose starts thinking of as Francine, has not been abandoned by her children and her husband. Maybe she has finally gotten what she wanted all along. Rose could understand that. Rose has not been in love yet, and isn’t quite sure it exists at all. She has dreamed of love all her life—but it is certainly something grander that what she sees now.
Rose writes to her brothers and sisters, sends her nieces and nephews birthday and Christmas presents. In turn, they invite her to come visit; why don’t you come visit us someday, they write, not next week, or for Easter, or for the third week in July. Rose knows exactly how they were raised: to offer proper invitations, not to accept improper ones. She also understands that the distance between them is greater than miles.
Her brothers and sisters, and their wives and husbands, and their children, hardly ever come home for visits. Her sister Celia did once, three years ago. She and her husband and three children had to move into a hotel before the end of the first day. They never came back. In all the bright and cheery letters Rose writes and receives, no one mentions their mother’s dustless home, that the silver-framed photos of their family gleam behind glass so clear that the faces are masked by the glare of sunlight through the clean, vinegar-smelling front window.
