Rosie

by Anne Lamott

  James fingered the penknife in the pocket of his khakis. He was both moved and preoccupied, would watch her with tenderness a moment, stare into space the next. He wore a black Tshirt and argyle socks, one mostly green, one mostly gray.

  Downstairs at the kitchen sink, Elizabeth finished up the dishes. She wore her hair up, and the white kimono, and a look of sedated regality.

  She was listening to reggae on the radio: Bob Marley—Dead Marley—and Bunny Wailer; singing along softly, sipping unblended scotch. She was drunk enough to have decided that she was about to quit drinking.

  She went upstairs to kiss Rosie good night, pushing off from the banister every few steps.

  “James?” Rosie was asking.

  “Yeah?”

  “If the world blew up, would we still go to heaven?”

  “Don’t think about that before bed.”

  “But would we?”

  “Yes, I think so. I think our souls would survive.”

  “Would they be burned?”

  “What, our souls? Only physical things can be burned.”

  “But what about in hell? Doesn’t just your soul go down?”

  “Good question.”

  “Okay, sweetheart, hop into bed,” said Elizabeth, stepping into the room. “It’s after ten.”

  “Hi, Elizabeth.”

  “Hi, James. Good night, Rosie. I love you.”

  “Can Leon sleep in my room?”

  “No. Leon sleeps outside. You know that.”

  “But what if a killer comes into my room?”

  “What good would Leon be? He’d race around the house, gathering shoes to drop at the killer’s feet.” Elizabeth laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Rosie. Your mother locked the door. And if anyone got in, I’d tear them apart.”

  “Really?”

  “Limb from limb,” James snarled.

  Rosie managed a small smile and climbed under the covers, wiggled around to warm up the sheets, and lay down with her head on the pillow.

  Elizabeth kissed her eyes and mouth, James kissed her cheeks. Rosie was fine for about two minutes after they left.

  Then, drifting off to sleep, the frizzy black hair appears on the dark screen behind her eyes and she watches the movie where Mr. Thackery touches her arm with his penis; in the movie his face looks eerie, like a retarded ghoul’s, and it doesn’t stop playing until she’s sung “Row Row Row Your Boat” half a dozen times. It was late, and fairly soon, Rosie dozed.

  Sometimes, like tonight, when Elizabeth saw the full moon, it looked exactly like Marilyn Monroe’s face. James and Elizabeth took off their clothes and climbed into bed. James switched off the lamp. They held each other.

  She was about to fall asleep, but her hand brushed against his balls, and she petted them, rolled them between her thumb and forefinger, one at a time, both at once, and he exhaled a deep moan, like a wind from some faraway tropical place inside him.

  “James? I want to tell you something.” He was scratching her shoulder blades, lightly. “I’m going to go on the wagon. Pretty soon.”

  James hugged her. “I’ll go on the wagon with you.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you know when I’m ready. It’s going to be soon.”

  Elizabeth nuzzled against him and closed her eyes, sleepy, relieved, and in a few seconds fell asleep.

  She awoke a minute later. James was talking softly. She felt in a swirling fog. “What did you think?” he asked.

  She searched through the fog for an answer.

  “Two and two thirds Negroes.”

  James didn’t respond. She started to fall back to sleep.

  “What did you say, Elizabeth?”

  “Oh”—nonchalantly—“never mind.”

  James was still holding her, snoring, when she woke with a headache at dawn.

  Two hours later he was pounding away on the typewriter from behind the closed door of his study, coughing and occasionally laughing out loud. He was listening to KJAZ and perfectly happy without her.

  She was depressed and tired as she squeegeed egg yolk off their breakfast plates with a toast crust. She went to the living room to read a book and heard Leon scratching at the front door. She begrudgingly went to let him in, and he tore through the house panting, joyous and hungry. In an actively bad mood now, she went to the kitchen, made him a bowl of Gravy Train, and lured him outside to the front porch with it. He mooed.

  Inside, she looked at the closed study door like a hungry kid watching someone eat ice cream, and the clacking—the sound of his life’s work—got on her nerves, like a dripping faucet. Walking back to the living room, she slapped at her forehead, mistaking a lock of hair for a spider, and wiped at the corner of her mouth. Rosie stomped down the stairs and into the room, wearing red bermudas and her purple T-shirt.

  “Me an’ Sharon are going swimming with Mrs. Thackery today. Why didn’t you wake me earlier? She’s picking me up in an hour.”

  “Don’t whine at me, baby. I’m tired.”

  “I can’t even find my suit,” she began, and in the next few minutes had infused the downstairs with frustrated demands and energy as pervasively as food escapes in a space ship, infusing every molecule in the air. “All the towels are wet. Leon took one of my zoris, will you drive me into town to buy some more? I need a dollar, for the snack bar. I don’t want any breakfast. No, I hate eggs. You always make them so they’re all snotty. God, I hate Raisin Bran, it’s all boogery.”

  And so on until Elizabeth yelled, at the top of her lungs in the kitchen, “Shut up!”

  Elizabeth went upstairs to get ready for her interview at the bookstore, but sat on her bed for the longest time, immobilized. She could hear typing downstairs, and birds outside the window. She almost called the bookstore to cancel the interview. She was so tired.

  Finally, though, for reasons she didn’t understand, she put on a dress, and Spanish boots, and combs in her hair, and blusher on her cheeks, mascara on her lashes, and Chanel behind her ears and wrists.

  She didn’t get the job.

  The owner’s sister-in-law wanted to give it a try.

  “Oh, I see,” said Elizabeth. “Well, thanks anyway.”

  By the time she reached the doorway she was already in tears, and already reporting back to James and Rae that it was a lousy bookstore, mostly diet and cat books, no Faulkner, no Woolf....

  She drove to the grocery store, still sniffling, still rehearsing what she would tell her friends: James, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, a novel by Manuel Puig, was in the cinema section. Oh, Rae, I didn’t really even want the job. It’s just that I wanted it to be me who said no, not them.

  She dried her eyes, blew her nose, and went in to shop, with her head held high. She bought the makings for veal piccata, a six-pack of ale, and peaches. She began to feel better, paid, and left.

  She wasn’t ready to go home. She pulled off the road just past the harbor and looked out to sea. Streamers of silver and red burst through dark sworled clouds and were reflected perfectly on the water. The red spinnaker of an ancient ketch flapped. She opened an ale and watched an aircraft carrier plod toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

  When she finished the ale, she opened another.

  Her hazel eyes were old and sad in the rearview mirror, and the corners of her mouth drooped. She drank quickly and put the two empties on top of the groceries. They clinked against each other when she started driving home. She should have put them back in their carton.

  Hers was the only car on the road. She reached into the glove box for a Certs and, fiddling with the jammed button, saw a gangling blur dash out of a roadside bush, watched a big blond puppy dive beneath her wheels, saw it in slow motion because her mind was speeding ahead of time, and heard a terrible thud— kathunkakathunka kathunka—like a book going around in the dryer.

  She slammed on the brakes and the car stalled. The top of her head was coming off, and her heart beat in her ears. She slowly turned to see the bloody crumpled dog, felt a whirling rev
ulsion in her guts: it might have been a child. Her thoughts were wild, full of terror, her white knuckles on the steering wheel were trembling, and she started the car and fled. Coward! Go back! Jesus Christ! Go back and deal with it, Elizabeth.

  But she simply couldn’t.

  She parked outside her gate, turned off the engine, and came completely unglued. She was still sobbing ten minutes later when James opened the passenger door and slid in beside her.

  “What’s the matter? Didn’t you get the job?”

  She shook her head.

  He held her. “There, there,” he said, “there, there”: Yossarian and Snowden, whose guts are spilling into his flak suit. “I’m cold, I’m cold,” “There, there.”

  When Rosie arrived home at two, she found her mother and James in the window seat, talking. Her mother’s eyes were red and wet, with black smudges of mascara underneath.

  “What’s the matter, Mama?”

  Elizabeth looked at her sadly. “I—didn’t get the job.”

  Rosie winced, reached out to stroke her mother’s knee.

  God, do I love you, Rosie.

  “Oh, Mama. It’s okay.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t know why I’m taking it so hard. I think I’m just very tired.”

  Rosie nodded gravely. “Wull, why don’t we go to the movies?”

  “I’m too depressed.”

  “It would cheer you up.”

  “No, really, I just don’t want to.”

  Rosie sat down in the easy chair and threw up her hands in exasperation. “God!” she said.

  James smiled at her. Rosie crossed her arms.

  “You mean we’re just going to sit here all day?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “You don’t have to, sweetheart. Why don’t you give Sharon a call, and see if you can play at her house for a while?”

  “No!”

  Rosie got up and began pacing, angrily—Sharon’s house, Sharon’s father. Elizabeth watched her, puzzled.

  “Rosie, what’s been eating you?”

  Rosie stopped pacing and looked down at her feet.

  “Mama?”

  “Yeah?”

  There was a long pause. “I think I’ll go see Rae.”

  Elizabeth nodded encouragingly. Rosie felt sick to her stomach.

  “Hi, Rosie, what a nice surprise.”

  “Hi, Rae.”

  Rae was sitting on newspapers, on her porch, painting a bookcase white. White paint was everywhere, drizzled down the front of a plaid flannel shirt, streaked across her forehead and in her hair, in a puddle to the left of the newspapers, and in footprints which led to the door, where Rae’s moccasins lay, soles up.

  “I’m just about done here. Jesus, what a mess, hunh? You know what I always say? I always say, if you want something done right, do it yourself.”

  Rosie smiled and leaned against a white Corinthian column, with her hands jammed into the pockets of her baggy shorts, chewing on the neckline of her purple T-shirt.

  “Mama didn’t get the job.”

  “Ohhhh, nuts.”

  Rae put down the paintbrush.

  “Is she depressed?”

  Rosie nodded. Rae put the lid on the paint and got to her feet.

  “It probably wouldn’t have been that interesting for her anyway.”

  Rosie nodded.

  “Hey, are you by any chance hungry?”

  Rosie shrugged.

  Ten minutes later they were sitting in Rae’s breakfast nook, with a pot of lemon grass tea, eating buttery raisin-bread toast.

  Rosie looked shaky and sad. Rae studied her.

  “So. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Rosie shook her head, praying for Rae to make her tell.

  “Well, I do.” Rosie looked up at her. “I know you’re feeling pretty angry about your mother’s drinking. I feel upset and helpless about it too. And it’s time she and I had a long-overdue talk about it. It’s so hard to mention....”

  Rosie shook her head. “There’s something so much worse.”

  “Really?”

  Rosie nodded, absolutely terrified.

  “What is it?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “I swore to God I wouldn’t.”

  “You have to. It’s eating you up.”

  Rosie hung her head. Sharon’s dad showed me his dick. Sharon’s dad. Rosie was stricken, trapped and anxious. She looked up at Rae.

  Sharon’s dad—“Sharon’s dad.” She stopped.

  “Go on.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Okay, Rosie. Either you tell me what he did, or I call and ask him.”

  “No!”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Sharon’s dad—showed me his dick.”

  Time stopped. Rae’s mouth dropped open. Rosie burst into tears. Rae slammed her fist down on the table.

  “God!” she shouted and got to her feet. She grabbed Rosie out of her chair and sat back down, with Rosie in her lap. “That bastard! I’ll kill him!”

  Rosie buried her head against Rae’s breast, sobbing.

  “Oh, Rosie.”

  “He put it on my arm.”

  “Oh, Rosie.”

  “In his study.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Elizabeth?”

  “I promised Sharon I wouldn’t.”

  “How did Sharon find out?”

  “He does it to her all the time. When he did it to me, I ran out of the house, and Sharon got home right then, and she knew. But she said—and he said-that all fathers show it to their daughters, so when they see their husband’s—”

  “Bullshit, Rosie. Sick men do it. It’s a crime. Men go to jail for doing it.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Not that Mr. Thackery will go to jail—but ... Sharon needs our help. First we’ll tell your mother—”

  “No!”

  “Yes. We have to.”

  “No, not today!”

  “Rosie, I’m afraid—”

  “She’s totally depressed. She’s been crying.”

  Rae thought this over. She hugged Rosie tightly.

  “Well. Maybe we should call someone who knows about this sort of thing, a child protection agency. We’ll find out what to do—we’ve got to help Sharon.”

  “Can we tell my mother tomorrow?”

  Rae exhaled deeply. “Yeah.”

  “Will you be with me?”

  “Yes, of course. Why don’t you climb off my lap for a moment. I’m going to look in the phone book.”

  “But don’t tell them our real names.”

  “Okay.”

  Rosie milled around the room while Rae looked through the phone book and dialed the number of the Child Abuse Hotline.

  “Hey, do you want to spend the night?” she asked Rosie, as the phone rang.

  “Okay!”

  “Hello? Yes. I need some advice. A little girl that I know has been molested, by her best friend’s father.”

  Rosie shuffled over to Rae, with her head down, and stood at her side, sad and confused: God, what a mess. It was the end of the world. Sharon’s dad might go to jail, might want to kill her when he got out. Rosie saw him in prison stripes, gripping the bars of his cell. Sharon would hate her guts, and Mrs. Thackery would cry forever.

  Oh, Mama; God, she thought. I don’t know what to do.

  CHAPTER 20

  The next morning, Elizabeth sat on the porch swing reading Excellent Women. It was a brand new day, white, warm, and blustery, and she had slept well the night before. James had been trying to work since eight. At eight fifteen he had appeared in the kitchen to harp briefly on mediocrity in the publishing world. At eight thirty he had returned to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee and said, “A vale of tears, Elizabeth. A vale of tears.”

  Several minutes after she’d come out to the porch, he stepped outside and stood staring out into the garden, as if overseeing his fields and workers, and then abruptly went back inside to his
study. After five minutes, she heard frantic typing, and then the sound of paper being ripped from a typewriter. In another minute, he came outside and sat down beside her. She put down her book.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My writing days are over.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’m pathetic. I sit there hunched over the typewriter, poised, as if I’m about to start conducting the Eroica at Carnegie Hall, and then—nothing. I feel preoccupied, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Nah.” He got up and went back inside. Elizabeth shook her head.

  He re-emerged five minutes later with a platter of brittle, black french bread toast, dripping with butter, and sat beside her.

  “Here. Have a piece.”

  “Those are burnt beyond recognition.”

  “Oh, no, they’re perfect this way. Try one.”

  She shook her head.

  “Suit yourself.” He bit into a piece, with a thunderous crunch that became a sound suggesting automatic gunfire, or babies rolling on dry leaves. She was unpleasantly reminded of her mother eating bacon. “What are you going to do today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Crunnnnch.

  “There’s Rosie,” he said, pointing. “And Rae.”

  “Rosie actually looks cheerful, doesn’t she?”

  “Hey, Mama, hey, Mama, hey, James,” Rosie called from across the street, in front of Mrs. Haas’s house, waving wildly beside Rae, as if trying to flag them down. “Leon!” From out of nowhere, Leon tore past the porch carrying a small red rubber boot in his mouth which he dropped at the open gate. Rosie ran out into the street ahead of Rae, calling to Leon, who galloped toward her, “Here, buddy, here, buddy,” and just as Rae stepped off the curb, with Rosie and Leon twelve feet apart in the middle of the street, they heard the roar of a motorcycle: the adults on the porch leaped up off the swing, and for all of them time slowed all the way down, to a single played at 33, as a two-manned Harley plowed into Leon and sped on.

  Leon shot into the air like an acrobat, as Rosie and Rae screamed, and James and Elizabeth raced down the stairs to the gate. The motorcycle had disappeared. Rosie closed her eyes and shouted, Leon lay four feet away, and Rae swept Rosie up into her arms.

  “Rosie,” Elizabeth cried, rushing over to them. James stared at the two women holding Rosie and finally bent down to his dog, who was smiling, with shining-still eyes and blood pouring out of his mouth.