Rose Madder (24 page)

Rosie shrugged uneasily.

He leaned toward her, those eyes with their fascinating greenish undertint fixed on hers. “Do you know you're beautiful?” he asked. “That's not a come-on or a line, it's plain old curiosity.
Do
you know you're beautiful? You don't, do you?”

She opened her mouth. Nothing emerged but one tiny breath-noise from the back of her throat. It was closer to a whistle than a sigh.

He put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. His touch was brief, but it still lit up her nerves like an electric shock, and for a moment he was the only thing she could see—his hair, his mouth, and most of all his eyes. The rest of the world was gone, as if the two of them were on a stage where all the lights except for one bright, burning spot had been turned out.

“Don't make fun of me,” she said. Her voice trembled. “Please don't make fun. I can't stand it if you do.”

“No, I'd never do that.” He spoke absently, as if this were a subject beyond discussion, case closed. “But I'll tell you what I see.” He smiled and stretched out his hand to touch hers again. “I'll
always
tell you what I see. That's a promise.”

S
he said he needn't bother escorting her up the stairs, but he insisted and she was glad. Their conversation had passed
on to less personal things when their meals came—he was delighted to find out the Roger Clemens reference hadn't been a fluke, that she had a knowledgeable fan's understanding of baseball, and they had talked a lot about the city's teams as they ate, passing naturally enough from baseball to basketball. She'd hardly thought of Norman at all until the ride back, when she began imagining how she would feel if she opened the door of her room and there he was, Norman, sitting on her bed, drinking a cup of coffee, maybe, and contemplating her picture of the ruined temple and the woman on the hill.

Then, as they mounted the narrow stairs, Rosie in the lead and Bill a step or two behind, she found something else to worry about: What if he wanted to kiss her goodnight? And what if, after a kiss, he asked if he could come in?

Of
course
he'll want to come in,
Norman told her, speaking in the heavily patient voice he employed when he was trying not to be angry with her but was getting angry anyway.
In fact, he'll insist on it. Why else would he spring for a fifty-dollar meal? Jesus, you ought to be flattered—there are gals on the street prettier than you who don't get fifty for half-and-half. He'll want to come in and he'll want to fuck you, and maybe that's good—maybe that's what you need to get your head out of the clouds.

She was able to get her key out of her bag without dropping it, but the tip chattered all the way around the slot in the center of the metal disk without going in. He closed his hand over hers and guided it home. She felt the electric shock again when he touched her, and was helpless not to think of what the key sliding into the lock called to her mind.

She opened the door. No Norman, unless he was hiding in the shower or the closet. Just her pleasant room with the cream-colored walls and the picture hanging by the window and the light on over the sink. Not home, not yet, but a little closer than the dorm at D & S.

“This is not bad, you know,” he said thoughtfully. “No duplex in the suburbs, but not at all bad.”

“Would you like to come in?” she asked through lips that felt completely numb—it was as if someone had slipped her a shot of Novocain. “I could give you a cup of coffee . . .”

Good!
Norman exulted from his stronghold inside her head.
Might as well get it over with, right, hon? You give him the coffee, and he'll give you the cream. Such a deal!

Bill appeared to think it over very carefully before shaking his head. “It might not be such a good idea,” he said. “Not tonight, at least. I don't think you have the slightest idea of how you affect me.” He laughed a little nervously. “I don't think I have the slightest idea of how you affect me.” He looked over her shoulder and saw something that made him smile and offer her a pair of thumbs-up. “You were right about the picture—I never would have believed it at the time, but you were. I guess you must have had this place in mind, though, huh?”

She shook her head, now smiling herself. “When I bought the picture, I didn't even know this room existed.”

“You must be psychic, then. I bet it looks especially good there where you've hung it in the late afternoon and early evening. The sun must sidelight it.”

“Yes, it's nice then,” Rosie said, not adding that she thought the picture looked good—perfectly right and perfectly in place—at all times of the day.

“You're not bored with it yet, I take it?”

“No, not at all.”

She thought of adding,
And it's got some very funny tricks. Step over and take a closer look, why don't you? Maybe you'll see something even more surprising than a lady getting ready to brain you with a can of fruit cocktail. You tell me, Bill—has that picture somehow gone from ordinary screen size to Cinerama 70, or is that just my imagination?

She said none of this, of course.

Bill put his hands on her shoulders and she looked up at him solemnly, like a child being put to bed, as he leaned forward and kissed her forehead on the smooth place between her eyebrows.

“Thank you for coming out with me,” he said.

“Thank you for asking.” She felt a tear go sliding down her left cheek and wiped it away with her knuckle. She was not ashamed or afraid for him to see it; she felt she could trust him with at least one tear, and that was nice.

“Listen,” he said. “I've got a motorcycle—an old butch Harley softail. It's big and loud and sometimes it stalls at long red lights, but it's comfortable . . . and I'm a remarkably safe cyclist, if I do say so myself. One of the six Harley owners in America who wears a helmet. If Saturday's nice,
I could come over and pick you up in the morning. There's a place I know about thirty miles up the lake. Beautiful. It's still too cold to swim, but we could bring a picnic.”

At first she was incapable of any sort of answer—she was simply flattered by the fact that he was asking her out
again.
And then there was the idea of riding on his motorcycle . . . how would that be? For a moment all Rosie could think of was how it might feel to be behind him on two wheels cutting through space at fifty or sixty miles an hour. To have her arms around him. A totally unexpected heat rushed through her, something like a fever, and she did not recognize it for what it was, although she thought she remembered feeling something like it, a very long time ago.

“Rosie? What do you say?”

“I . . . Well . . .”

What
did
she say? Rosie touched her tongue nervously to her upper lip, glanced away from him in an effort to clear her mind, and saw the pile of yellow fliers sitting on the counter. She felt both disappointment and relief as she looked back at Bill.

“I can't. Saturday's the Daughters and Sisters picnic. Those are the people who helped me when I came here—my friends. There's a softball game, races, horseshoes, craft booths—things like that. And then a concert that night, which is supposed to be the real moneymaker. This year we're having the Indigo Girls. I promised I'd work the teeshirt concession from five o'clock on, and I ought to do it. I owe them such a lot.”

“I could have you back by five no sweat,” he said. “Four, if you wanted.”

She
did
want to . . . but she had a lot more to be afraid of than just showing up late to sell teeshirts. Would he understand that if she told him? If she said,
I'd love to put my arms around you while you drive fast, and I'd love for you to wear a leather jacket so I could put my face against the shoulder and smell that good smell and hear the little creaking sounds it makes when you move. I'd love that, but I think I'm afraid of what I might find out later on, when the ride was over . . . that the Norman inside my head was right all along about the things you really want. What scares me the most is having to investigate the most basic premise of my husband's life, the one thing he never said out loud because he never had to: that the way he treated me was perfectly
okay, perfectly normal. It's not pain I'm afraid of; I know about pain. What I'm afraid of is the end of this small, sweet dream. I've had so few of them, you see.

She realized what she needed to say, and realized the next moment that she couldn't say it, perhaps because she'd heard it in so many movies, where it always came out sounding like a whine:
Don't hurt me.
That was what she needed to say.
Please don't hurt me. The best part of me that's left will die if you hurt me.

But he was still waiting for her answer. Waiting for her to say
something.

Rosie opened her mouth to say no, she really ought to be there for the picnic as well as the concert, maybe another time. Then she looked at the picture hanging on the wall beside the window.
She
wouldn't hesitate, Rosie thought; she would count the hours until Saturday, and when she was finally mounted behind him on that iron horse, she would spend most of the ride thumping him on the back and urging him to make it gallop faster. For a moment Rosie could almost see her sitting there, the hem of her rose madder chiton hiked high, her bare thighs firmly clasping his hips.

That hot flash swept through her again, stronger this time. Sweeter.

“Okay,” she said, “I'll do it. On one condition.”

“Name it,” he said. He was grinning, obviously delighted.

“Bring me back to Ettinger's Pier—that's where the D and S thing is happening—and stay for the concert. I'll buy the tickets. It's my treat.”

“Deal,” he said instantly. “Can I pick you up at eight-thirty, or is that too early?”

“No, it's fine.”

“You'll want to wear a coat and maybe a sweater, too,” he said. “You might be able to stow em in the saddlebags coming back in the afternoon, but going out's going to be chilly.”

“All right,” she said, already thinking that she would have to borrow those items from Pam Haverford, who was about the same size. Rosie's entire outerwear wardrobe at this point consisted of one light jacket, and the budget wouldn't stand any further purchases in that department, at least for awhile.

“I'll see you, then. And thanks again for tonight.” He
seemed briefly to consider kissing her again, then simply took her hand and squeezed it for a moment.

“You're welcome.”

He turned and ran quickly down the stairs, like a boy. She couldn't help contrasting this to Norman's way of moving—either at a head-down plod or with a kind of spooky, darting speed. She watched his elongated shadow on the wall until it disappeared, then she closed the door, secured both locks, and leaned against it, looking across the room at her picture.

It had changed again. She was almost sure of it.

Rosie walked across the room and stood in front of it with her hands clasped behind her back and her head thrust slightly forward, the position making her look comically like a
New Yorker
caricature of an art gallery patron or museum
habitué.

Yes, she saw, although the picture's dimensions remained the same, she was all but positive that it had widened again somehow. On the right, beyond the second stone face—the one peering blindly sideways through the tall grass—she could now see what looked like the beginnings of a forest glade. On the left, beyond the woman on the hill, she could now see the head and shoulders of a small shaggy pony. It was wearing blinders, was cropping at the high grass, and appeared to be harnessed to some sort of a rig—perhaps a cart, perhaps a shay or a surrey. That part Rosie couldn't see; it was out of the picture (so far, at least). She could see some of its shadow, however, and another shadow as well, growing out of it. She thought this second shadow was probably the head and shoulders of a person. Someone standing beside the vehicle to which the pony was harnessed, maybe. Or maybe—

Or maybe you've gone out of your mind, Rosie. You don't really think this picture is getting bigger, do you? Or showing more stuff, if you like that better?

But the truth was she
did
believe that, she
saw
that, and she found herself more excited than scared by the idea. She wished she had asked Bill for his opinion; she would have liked to know if he saw anything like what she was seeing . . . or
thought
she was seeing.

Saturday,
she promised herself.
Maybe I'll do it Saturday.

She began to undress, and by the time she was in the tiny bathroom, brushing her teeth, she had forgotten all about Rose Madder, the woman on the hill. She had forgotten all
about Norman, too, and Anna, and Pam, and the Indigo Girls on Saturday night. She was thinking about her dinner with Bill Steiner, replaying her date with him minute by minute, second by second.

S
he lay in bed, slipping toward sleep, listening to the sound of crickets coming from Bryant Park.

As she drifted she found herself remembering—without pain and seemingly from a great distance—the year 1985 and her daughter, Caroline. As far as Norman was concerned, there never had been a Caroline, and the fact that he had agreed with Rosie's hesitant suggestion that Caroline was a nice name for a girl didn't change that. To Norman there had been only a tadpole that ended early. If it happened to be a girl-tadpole according to some nutty headtrip his wife was on, so what? Eight hundred million Red Chinese didn't give a shit, in Normanspeak.

1985—what a year that had been. What a year from hell. She had lost