Rosie

by Anne Lamott

  “Please, will you play outside?”

  “We could make you some tea,” said Sharon.

  “Yeah!”

  “No, thank you. I’ll be just fine.”

  “Can we come back for lunch?”

  “Yes, of course. And then we’ll go to the pool. Give me a kiss, darlings. Now run along.”

  ***

  They tied one end of Sharon’s jump rope to the garage door handle and took turns jumping—“Twenty-four robbers came knocking at my door”—until they grew bored.

  “I got two bucks,” said Rosie. “Let’s go to town.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “You can have one of my dollars.”

  “God. Thanks.”

  “But you know what we could get if we had three dollars?”

  “What.”

  “Mystic Mints, and potato chips, and Cokes, and candy lipsticks.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I don’t have any.”

  “Too bad your dad’s gone. If he was here, there’d be a fortune in his easy chair.”

  “And the seat of his car.”

  “Wull, what about on the dresser?”

  “Are you crazy?” Her father’s bedroom and study were irrevocably off-limits in their coin searches. If he had not gone so far as to actually rig the rooms with explosives, he had hinted darkly on a number of occasions that it would be mortally inadvisable for the girls to enter his territory.

  In town, with Rosie’s money, they each bought fifty cents’ worth of candy corn from Mavis Lee at the dime store, and took their little white bags outside to the curb, where they ate them one by one, section by section, white tip, orange center, yellow butt, whispering and giggling. Rosie made sure that hers lasted a minute longer than Sharon’s. She couldn’t stand it when Sharon still had candies left when hers were all gone; on several occasions she had bamboozled Sharon into eating her candies quickly—“Let’s see who can finish first”—just to make Sharon wish for what Rosie had, which was—more. But while Sharon hardly seemed to notice, Rosie felt glee and guilt; the original sinner.

  “You want to go to the railroad tracks?”

  “Let’s go to the post office and spy on people.”

  “Rosie, we could go to the lagoon fort and watch the carpenters.”

  “They don’t work on Saturdays. You know what I’d like to do? You know that old oak tree behind the fire station, I mean way back behind it? Wull. I’d like to make a tree house, exactly like the one in Swiss Family Robinson. First we’d just make a floor, put wood across over the branches, but then we’d build stairs, and put in windows, and a bed....”

  Rosie’s head was filled with the eventual details of their palatial treehouse—curtains, running water, refrigeration—and they walked in the direction of the firehouse but found, carved into the trunk of a pepper tree, FUCK. They spent the morning playing detective. Who had done it? A man. How tall was he? The word was written a foot higher than Sharon could reach her arm, so it was a tall man. How strong was he? Strong, very strong, the word was cut deep into the wood.

  It was only at Elizabeth’s urging that Sharon had learned to swim last year. Rosie had taken to the water at an early age, but at seven Sharon could not even do the dead man’s float.

  “You see,” Sybil Thackery had explained to Elizabeth, “all the women in my family lack the buoyancy mineral; yes, that’s right, there’s a mineral responsible for buoyancy, and both my mother and I were tested for it when I was young and unable to swim. And the doctor took our blood, and found it lacking in that mineral, so I’m afraid Sharon’s lacking in it too.”

  Elizabeth had not been able to believe her ears. Room-temperature IQ, she thought. “Uh. Listen. I think that Sharon really ought to learn to swim—and I’m sure I could teach her. Let me at least give it a try.”

  One year later, Sharon was almost as good a swimmer as Rosie. In the water they were as sleek and silly as sea otters. Mrs. Thackery viewed her daughter’s aquatic prowess with stunned pride, as if Sharon had had to triumph over muscular dystrophy.

  Today, she sat on a chaise longue sipping a diet orange soda by the side of the pool, nervously observing the little girls swimming the width of the pool underwater on only one breath. Chlorine, salt, the buttery coppery lanolin smell of sun lotions, steaming bodies on cement bleachers, cries, giggles, and the red slaps of bellyflops.

  The girls disappeared for a moment. Mrs. Thackery sprang to her feet, located them sitting cross-legged on the floor of the shallow end where, pinkies extended, they sipped from teacups.

  Rosie in her red tank suit, all skin and bones, a baby flamingo, every rib clearly defined, glossy black hair uncurled by the water, climbed out, dove back in, and did not surface until she had crossed the pool.

  Back at the Thackery house, Chutes and Ladders. Rosie’s marker, on space 37, was a red plastic girl, well ahead of Sharon’s blue boy.

  “I know how to make boobs,” Rosie announced, as Sharon rolled a five, just missing a ladder. Phew.

  “You do?”

  “Uh huh.” Rosie rolled a six and advanced up a ladder.

  “How?” Sharon rolled, hit a ladder, moved ahead of Rosie, who decided not to tell her how. “Come on.”

  Rosie rolled and advanced four steps. “Wull, see. You get this glass of milk. Then you pull on your nipple and drink milk at the same time, and the boob fills up with milk.”

  Sharon just stared at Rosie.

  “Come on, your move.”

  “Are you kidding? You pull on your nipple and drink milk?”

  Yep.

  “Who told you?”

  “This scientist.”

  Sharon looked at her skeptically.

  “Don’t worry. I know how to undo them, too.”

  They sat on Sharon’s carpeted floor, considering the prospects. A movie played in Rosie’s mind, where her own boobs filled up while Sharon’s remained flat. And then, in the movie, only one of Rosie’s boobs filled up, to gigantic proportions, and the whole world laughed...

  “Rosie?”

  “Yeah?” Rosie blinked, back on earth.

  “I don’t want to make boobs.”

  “Okay. What do you want to do?”

  “Slide down the hill, on cardboard.”

  “All right.”

  “Dinner in an hour, girls. So don’t be gone long.”

  Sliding was fun, dinner was fantastic: tuna noodle casserole, with crumpled potato chips on top to make it crunchy. Rosie ate two huge helpings, to Mrs. Thackery’s delight. Tuna noodle, oh, God, the food here was so much better than at home, where her mother was apt to have made some disgusting gourmet slop, like curry or dolmas, pate, ratatouille, pasta with cheese and anchovies, and once—oh, God— tongue. Tongue!

  “This is so wonderful.”

  “Oh, Rosie. It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  Life was fine again: lime sherbet and Toll House cookies for dessert; then R Thousand Clowns on the tube. All of them loved the movie and each other, and soon it was time for bed.

  “‘Bon voyage, Charlie, have a wonderful time.”’

  “‘Bon voyage, Charlie, have a wonderful time.”’

  “Remember Bubbles....”

  “Okay, girls. That’s enough. It’s getting late. Come on, my darlings, into bed.”

  “When will Daddy be home?”

  “Late. His plane arrives at midnight.”

  Mrs. Thackery gently smoothed down the bed as her daughter lay looking intently up into her face, brown braids on the pink pillow. Rosie watched them put their arms around each other’s necks, watched them kiss, and waited for her turn, filled with pangs of jealousy. When Mrs. Thackery came to Rosie’s bed and bent to put her arms around her, Rosie inhaled the Ivory soap on her neck, the hint of lemon on her breath, and wanted, wanted more than anything, for this to be her mother, instead of the woman who lay down beside her every night and smelled like wine.


  “Are you sleepy?” Rosie asked when the lights were out.

  “Yeah.” Faintly. “Are you?”

  “Totally,” she replied, wide awake.

  “Well, good night.”

  Rosie yawned noisily. “Good night.”

  She was awake for the next several hours, and in the darkened pink princess room the Chamber of Horrors show began.

  The fingernail moon outside the window made terrible shadows, turning shoes and socks into snakes and rats. Faces of men appeared at the window, psycho killers, a cyclops who would gobble her down like a cashew, leering one-eyed through the window. Under the bed was the living dead man, Dracula was in the closet, the mummy with the three diamond eyes was outside the door, and there was just enough moonlight to see the beady red eyes of the tarantulas who were marching toward her bed.

  “Sharon?” she whispered, but heard only soft, muffled snoring and the tapping of bloody red fingernails on the windowpane. The light switch by the door was ten feet away, but to get up meant almost certain death; if the cobras and rats didn’t get her, something else would.... She peered down at the floor beside her, stood and walked the length of the bed, jumped down softly, and saw— truly saw—and just barely escaped from the long, bony, phosphorous-white arm whose fingers were reaching for her ankles. Flicking on the light, she stood staring at socks and shoes, at branches that touched the window above Sharon’s bed. Sharon murmured in her sleep. Rosie looked around, huddled against the wall, and tiptoed to the closet: took a deep breath, threw open the door, and saw small dresses, skirts, and blouses. She turned off the light, dashed for the foot of her bed, and jumped back in.

  She heard Mrs. Thackery go into her bedroom and close the door. She lay dying, soon to be the only person awake in the house, except for the men under her bed and outside the window.

  Dear God: Hello, please let me fall asleep. Let Mama be alive still; God bless her and Rae and don’t let anything happen to them. Please let me fall asleep, I won’t ever cheat again, or lie—this time I really mean it.

  She gasped each time the old house creaked, settling down for the night. Mrs. Thackery must be asleep. This must be what Hell is like. Please God, let it be morning.

  Finally she dozed, and dreamed. She and her mother were in the checkout line at the supermarket, their shopping cart filled with bananas and wine. Something came over Rosie, anger at the wine maybe, and she punched her mother on the arm, and her mother turned into a fat old woman who didn’t seem to recognize her.... She awoke, sweating, footsteps on the stairs, creaking toward her.

  Ohgodohgodohgodohgod, it’s a man with a gun, or a pirate, she knows it. The steps are louder, closer—wait. It’s Mr. Thackery, she’s almost sure, please let it be Mr. Thackery. Just in case, though, she stops breathing and pretends to be dead so if it’s a killer he won’t have to bother with her. The footsteps have reached the top of the stairs, are approaching Sharon’s room, but they pass, and she hears the bathroom door open and close, water running. Surely a killer wouldn’t use the bathroom first. The bathroom door opens and the footsteps approach again. The door opens slowly, with a quiet squeak and the strong smell of man, by the shadowy moonlight she sees Mr. Thackery in his bathrobe.

  He walked softly to Sharon’s bed, his smell strong and soothing, an old, warm, salty smell. She ached for a father.

  He bent down and kissed Sharon on the forehead, oh please let him kiss me too. Let him tuck me in. “Hello,” she whispered.

  He spun around, angrily, but his face softened; in the thin moonlight he looked like Sharon, a roundish, open face, soft brown eyes.

  “Hello,” he whispered back.

  He came to her bed, and she smiled up at him. He tucked the sheet and blanket around her neck, smoothed her cheeks with his fingertips, and left the room.

  Sheltered, sleepy, safe, her breath grew soft and she slept.

  CHAPTER 9

  Millions of times a year, women turn around at the sound of a strange man’s voice and are shot, stabbed, raped. Rae was explaining to two men that this was why she had screamed bloody murder.

  Two hours later the four of them were sitting around a campfire that Rae had made; they were drinking Tang screwdrivers which the men had provided. Elizabeth and Rae had eaten by themselves and drunk all the rum. Rae had ventured to the men’s campsite and invited them over for a joint.

  Now they lay sprawled against the logs which formed a ring around the campfire, smoking dope beneath a crystalline starry sky. The white crescent moon made dappled slanting shadows of the trees, and the air was as crisp as chilled vodka, smelling of leaves and grass, of living and burning wood. Pretty Boy Meadow, bordered on one side by the rushing, rock-filled river, icy blue-green at dusk. The music of river, frogs, crickets, birds, owls, and the crackling fire soothed and enveloped Elizabeth, and she only half listened to Rae chatter on about mosquitoes.

  Lank, the one who had first approached them, was tall and fat and talkative. In the moonlight, the bald spot at the crown of his short red hair looked like a silver yamulke. The other man, James, was short and thin, with dark fluffy Einstein hair. He lay smoking silently.

  “I swear to God,” said Rae. “This Off is amazing.” She sprayed every inch of her body, clothed or exposed, with the mosquito repellent, then sprayed some into her fingers and dabbed it behind her ears as if it were Arpege. The men were transfixed.

  “Mosquitoes adore me. You’ll notice they leave Elizabeth alone; she’s got that bad-vibe force field, whereas with me, I mean, I can psychically hear them arrive—no mosquito in sight, but ever so faintly I can hear a plane approach, and then, neeeeeow, neeee-yowwwww, they’re buzzing me.”

  “You want another drink, Rae?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” Lank stood and walked to her. “Elizabeth?”

  “Please.”

  “James.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Drunk again,” said Lank. “Two nights running. It’s because we’re unemployed.”

  “It’s because we’re alcoholics,” said James.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “Pretty damn close.”

  Elizabeth looked up when Lank handed her the red thermos cup of Tang and vodka. “Thanks.”

  “You have an extremely aristocratic face. Doesn’t she, James?”

  “Yes,” he said, smoking again.

  “Do you guys backpack often?” Rae asked, lighting a cigarette.

  “I do. Several times a year. It’s James’s first—”

  “...and last—”

  “—time.”

  “Elizabeth’s too.”

  “Were you best friends before?”

  Rae nodded, smiled at Elizabeth, who scowled, good-naturedly.

  “So were me and James. I thought he would love it.”

  James and Elizabeth looked at each other cautiously.

  “You hate it too?”

  She nodded. “I liked the first couple of hours. The next five were as recreational as—I don’t know. Chemotherapy.”

  “You know what James did yesterday? He asked me to carry his pack for him against my chest, like a sandwich board. And when I refused, he got all sulky. Then he decided to abandon his pack on the trail. He thought someone would find it, see my address, and ship it home.”

  Rae laughed. “You know what Elizabeth did, a few hours ago? Well, see, first of all I should mention that I sort of lied—”

  “You didn’t sort of lie, Rae, you lied, period.”

  “This is true. I told her it was only four hours to the meadow, and so we have this enormous scene, and she goes into this two-hour sulk, during which, at one point, she suggests that I walk back to the trailhead, call the National Forestry Service, lie, and have them pick her up by helicopter.”

  Lank laughed, James smiled.

  “I haven’t felt so bratty in ages,” James said.

  “Where do you guys live?”

  “San Francisco. We live in an apartment building on Sacramento. Where do you live?”<
br />
  “Bayview. I live down the street from Elizabeth and her daughter.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a weaver. What do you do?”

  “I’m an unemployed English teacher,” said Lank. “He’s a writer.”

  “Published?” Elizabeth asked.

  It came out in a much snottier tone than she had intended, and hung in the air for a moment. She looked at him, saw that he was looking at her with disdain.

  “I’m sorry, I just—everyone says they’re a writer.”

  “Isn’t she awful?” said Rae. “Sometimes I don’t know what I see in her.”

  Elizabeth shook her head at herself, smiled wryly, apologized again.

  “Forget it. And yes, one story in the Kenyon Review, one in Esquire.”

  “Yeah? That’s great. You write short stories?”

  “I’m writing a novel. The stories were chapters from the novel.”

  “So, do you make enough to live on?”

  “Not really. I’ve been working on and off as a waiter for the last couple of years. Right now I’m living off some savings and the Esquire money. I figure it’ll last me for the next five or six months, and if I haven’t sold anything else by then I’ll go back to waiting tables.”

  “What’s the novel about?”

  “Me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s about trying to live a life which, when I review it at eighty, will not contain too many episodes for which I will kick myself.”

  “It’s pretty funny,” said Lank.

  “So,” said James, and sighed. “Read any good books lately?” And then he and Elizabeth were off and running: Far Tortuga? Birdy? Under the Volcano? Rabbit, Run? Middlemarch? Milagro Beanfield War? At Play in the Fields of the Lord? Out of Africa? Wapshot Chronicle? One Hundred Years of Solitude? Herzog? White Mule? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  Passage to India? Yeah.

  “How about Schuyler?” she asked.

  “What’s for Dinner? Loved it.”

  “‘Pussy pines so,’” she said.