Shooting Stars 03 Rose (9 page)

He asked me so many questions at lunch.
I
was barely able to chew my food and swallow. Mostly, he wanted to know what my school experiences were like. When
I
began in a new school, did
I
always gravitate toward a certain clique of friends? What kind of people did
I
like?

And what about my classes? Was there a great deal of flirting always going on behind the teacher's back? How many school dances had
I
attended? Did
I
have a boyfriend
I
regretted losing so much that
I
was actually in physical pain? Was
I
ever on a team or a cheerleader or in a play and what was that like? On and on it went, making me feel he was truly like someone who had just arrived from another planet.

"I
can't imagine really learning in such a setting," he finally said after hearing some of my school experiences. "'There's so much to draw
away your attention. Did you ever go to an all girls' school?" he asked quickly. "Without members of the opposite sex present, it might be easier. Well?"

He was so impatient for my responses, he couldn't wait for me to start to talk.
"No, Evan."
"I can't imagine not being related to you and being in a class with you," he suddenly said, but he said it like a scientist evaluating data. "I'd be looking at you all the time and never concentrating."'
I smiled, even though he had made it sound like cold analysis.
"You're going to give me a big head. Evan. There were always prettier girls in my classes."
"I doubt that. I've never been in school like you. but I've seen plenty of girls."
"Oh?"
"There's this personal dating service on the Internet where the girls put up pictures of themselves and describe themselves. Then boys send them their pictures and descriptions and they communicate for a while to see if it might work into anything. I've done it plenty of times. Of course. I substitute pictures so they never see me like this." he said, indicating the wheelchair,
"What's to keep anyone from doing the same?"
"Nothing, if that's all they want to do. But if they actually want to meet someday, they better show the truth, don't you think?"
I nodded.
"I have no illusions about it. The chat is as far as I'll be able to go." "You never wanted to meet this Arlene?"
"No," he said quickly. "Maybe she dumped me because she found out the truth about me. Besides. I'm not talking about her anymore. remember. She's going into your magic box," he reminded me.
I laughed and nodded. "Right."
"What about that boy you're seeing? Does he know you've actually moved?"
"Yes, and he's coming to take me to dinner on Saturday. You'll meet him. His name is Barry Burton."
"Great alliteration."
"P ardon?"
"You know. B and B? The repetition of consonants?"
"Oh. I bet you have one of those very high IQs, don't you?" "Off the charts." he said smugly.
"What do you want to do, to be. Evan?"
He thought a moment.
"I guess I'll become a brain surgeon. What they'll do is make a platform by the operating table and I'll wheel up on it and lean over the patient's head."
I stared at him coldly.
"I don't know." he said in a softer tone. "I like to write. I've been working on a play."
"Really? Can I read it?"
"No," he said quickly.
"Why not?"
"It's nowhere near ready and it's not any good. It's just a dumb idea."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"
"Oh? And you are a critic?"
"No, but I've been in plays. as I told you. and I would be honest." He stared a moment and then he shrugged.
"Maybe I'll show it to you later.'
"I'd like that," I said.
After lunch we went outside and I got him to talk a little more about his mother. I listened, practically holding my breath for fear he would stop.
"Sometimes-- often, I should say-- I felt she was more like the child and I was more like the parent. She was so trusting and always saw the best in everyone, even Aunt Charlotte. She had a beautiful laugh, musical, and she sang to me all the time. 'I'll be your legs, Evan.' she told me. 'Forever and ever if need be, so don't feel sorry for yourself.'
"She never thought she would die before me. I know, She thought I was so fragile I would surely pass away one day, just evaporate or something, and she would be at my side.
"When I was young, she was overprotective, afraid I would catch every little germ. The doctors kept assuring her that aside from my, what did you call it, unfortunate situation? Aside from that. I was relatively as healthy as any other person my age. Of course. I don't have the athletic abilities. I tried building up my arms and my chest, but she was always worried I was doing too much and after a while I stopped doing that.

"She liked it when I read to her. We read a lot of poetry together and we even read plays together and performed out there by the tree. She did a great Juliet. but I was a lousy Romeo.

"Aunt Charlotte complained, telling her she was doting on me too much and sacrificing herself too much. She told her she should be out socializing with young men, finding someone. She could have easily.

I suppose. She was beautiful, as beautiful as you," he added.
"She looks beautiful in every picture I've seen of her," I said softly.
"Yeah. Aunt Charlotte was always after her to get out, mix with people. I think she was hoping my mother would find a man, marry, and take me away so she wouldn't have to deal with all this. Poor Aunt Charlotte got stuck with me. She would send her out to meet some blind date she had arranged through one of her society friends sometimes. She would harp on it and badger her so much, my mother would finally agree.
"What kind of a date was it where she had to go meet the guy somewhere anyway, huh?" he
demanded, his eyes beginning to bum with hot tears. "Why couldn't he just come here and pick her up? Don't people go out on dates like that anymore?" he asked me. "Maybe Aunt Charlotte was afraid they would see me and be frightened off.
"It was the same sort of thing the night she was killed." he said. "Why did she have to go out that night?"
He wiped a fugitive tear from his cheek quickly."I'll write it on a piece of paper for the magic box," he said, and took a deep breath. "But I don't think there's enough magic even in that box."
He smiled.
"I keep her alive in my own magic box, but she's alive in so many ways. See those rose bushes over there?"
I looked and nodded.
"She planted those bushes. They're her roses and when they come up, they remind me of her. I think of them as waiting for her to prune them, nurture them, Sometimes, I see a shadow move or hear a footstep in the hallway and expect her to come walking into my room, her smile beaming at me, her voice light and full of laughter.
"You think of me as full of self-pity, but it was difficult to be that way with my mother. She just refused to let gray skies over our heads. If anything made us sad even for an instant, we were to close our eyes and think of blue, 'There she would cry. 'It's beautiful now. Isn't it, Evan?'
"I felt obligated to make her happy and agree. You know what I mean?"
"Yes." I said. "Daddy was like that."
"Mm. Maybe that's what drew them together. I wonder what their first date was like," he thought aloud and then looked down at his hands in his lap, lowering his head like some flag of defeat.
"I'd like to see how someone goes on a date over the Internet," I said to help move him from his terrible sorrow.
He raised his eyes to me quickly. "Really?"
"I don't know as much as other people my age do about computers. I started the course this year, but I've got a lot to learn yet."
"It's easy," he said. "Aunt Charlotte thinks it's rocket science, but she doesn't even know how to work the microwave oven. She's never had to do much for herself. I'll show you most of it in a few hours," he promised, permitting excitement to enter his voice.
"I'd like that. Evan. Thanks.' He smiled coyly.
"What?" I asked.
"I'll show you one of my computer dates, but you've got to share your date, too. You've got to tell me about it, okay?"
"Sure," I said.
It seemed innocent enough.
But I didn't know what he meant, how much he really wanted from me. Despite all his electronic relationships and connections, he was really very lonely. It showed in his shadowed eyes.
And then I thought, maybe Charlotte wasn't so wrong. Maybe she expected I would fill in some of the empty places that Evan's mother once occupied for him. It wasn't a bad thing to want for him. I thought. Perhaps she did care about him and feel terribly sorry for him. Who could blame her for bringing us into her home if that was truly the reason? It made me feel bad for doubting her or distrusting her.
But then I thought again about the lesson in the allegory of Plato's Cave: Things are not always what they seem to be. Wait, wait for the last bit of darkness and shadow to fall victim to the light, and then look again, think again, feel again.
Then you will know what is true and what is not.

I had no idea how much time I had spent in Evan's room watching him work his computer and learning about it. I couldn't help but be fascinated by the exchanges going on between the boys and Girls he and I watched in the so-called dating room.

"I used to date this girl, too." he told me. "Her screen name is Dreamluv. She didn't change her dating room password so I can eavesdrop."

He looked at me and smiled.
"I think she wants me to listen in. It's her way of teasing me. She thinks it bothers me. I guess. I blew her off two days ago," he said.
"How old is she?"
"She says she's seventeen, but from her vocabulary and responses, I'd say she's more like twelve, wouldn't you?"
"I can't believe this," I remarked when I saw that the conversation between Dreamluv and her supposed new boyfriend Spunky was rapidly becoming raunchy and quite vulgar. They began to tell each other things to do to themselves and then report the results.
"Disgusting!" I cried, and Evan clicked them off instantly.
"Now you've seen cyber sex," he remarked with a casual smile
^,
.
"I don't want to see it. It makes me sick to my stomach."
"For most of these people," he said, nearly in a whisper so that I had to struggle to hear him. "it's all they have. They're either too shy or they think they're too ugly to meet people face to face. Some of them are in my Invalids Anonymous organization. I'm sorry if it upset you.
Before I could respond, I heard Mommy's and Charlotte's voices echoing down the hallway. The sounds of their laughter and their shoes clicking over the tile floors brought my eves to the clock.
"They're back! Look what time it is.
^-
We've been here for hours. Evan."
He shrugged.
"Sometimes I'm here all day. I even have lunch brought to me, and occasionally dinner."
"I'd better see what Mommy's done. Thanks for showing your computer to me."
I went out to greet Mommy and see what her hair was like now and stopped dead when I saw. She had a hairdo that was practically a carbon copy of Charlotte's. She was wearing Charlotte's designer outfit and her makeup was different too: a far brighter shade of lipstick, and more vivid rouge and eyeliner. She had an armful of boxes, and there were more boxes at her feet.
"Oh. Rose, come quickly and help me with some of this," she cried.
"What is all that and what have you done to your hair. Mommy?"
"Don't you like it?" she asked, turning to model her coiffure.
"I took her to my personal beautician," Charlotte said, "who treated her with lots of tender loving care.'
She stood off to the side gloating at her new creation like a Doctor Frankenstein.
"Well?" Mommy asked, waiting for my response.
"We brought your mother into the twenty-first century," Charlotte bragged.
"It's not you. Mommy," I said. and Mommy's smile wilted quickly. "You're wearing too much makeup, too," I complained. "It's gross."
Charlotte laughed.
"Really, dear, your mother was made up by a cosmetic expert at the department store."
"I don't care. It's too much for her," I insisted. "You look... cheap," I said.
"Oh, my," Charlotte said, bringing her hand to the base of her throat.
"That's enough. Rose." Mommy snapped at me. "Help me with these packages. We're taking it all up to my room."
I gathered what I could.
"Where's Evan?" Charlotte asked.
"At his computer," I said.
"Really?" She grimaced like someone who had bitten into a rotten hard-boiled egg. "I was hoping you might draw him away from all that," Charlotte said and shifted her eves quickly toward Mommy, whose eves turned nervous with fear that I had somehow let her down,
"We did spend almost an hour and a half outside talking," I said.
"Good. A little more every day and maybe you'll get him to become social and normal.
^-
"He is normal." I insisted. "He's just in a great deal of pain."
"Not according to his doctors and nurses." Charlotte bounced back at me.
"I'm not talking about that kind of pain. I'm talking about the pain in his heart," I said.
"Oh, well, perhaps you can help him forget that," she continued. "It's why I wanted y'all here, you know," she added, the timbre in her voice colder, more formal.
"Of course she will," Mommy quickly said. "Won't you. Rose?"
"I don't know, Mommy," I said honestly.
"Well. I do." Charlotte said. "You will, We will lift the gloom and doom out of this house and bring it back to its glorious days when the halls were filled with laughter, the rooms were stuffed with wonderful, good-looking people and music and the clinking of champagne glasses, or we will die trying, won't we. Monica?"
Mommy smiled and laughed.
"Yes. Charlotte, oh. yes."
"We met some nice people at lunch, didn't we?"
"Yes," Mommy said. "We did."
"Especially that Grover Fleming." Charlotte said, her voice full of teasing. "He nearly wore lines in your face with the intensity of his looks. I've never seen him so infatuated with anyone. And he's a catch, worth millions!" she emphasized.
"He was very nice," Mammy admitted. Her eves looked as dream filled as a teenager's.
"And don't forget we've been invited to dinner in Atlanta this weekend," Charlotte continued.
"Dinner?" I asked. "But how... who?"
"Friends of Charlotte's," Mommy said.
"Grover will be there," Charlotte added.
"I'll tell you all about it later." Mammy said. "Let's take all this up now, please," she insisted and started up the stairway.
I glanced back at Charlotte. Her look of cold satisfaction put a stick of ice on the back of my neck.
As soon as we entered Mommy's room, she began to unpack her things to show me one outfit after another, matching shots, new blouses, belts, even some expensive-looking costume jewelry.
"The saleswoman said I looked ten years younger in this," she told me when she held up a burgundy pantsuit.
"When I looked at the price. I nearly fainted. but Charlotte didn't blink an eyelash. Take a guess at how much she spent on me today. Go on. Take a guess."
"I don't care. Mommy. This is... sick." "Sick? Why?"
"Why would she do all this for you and spend so much money on you?"
"We've been all through that. Rose," Mammy said, dropping the outfit onto her bed and reaching for hangers. "It's a trade-off.
I
don't feel a bit guilty or strange about any of it either. Well earn our keep here. I'm sure. You've already started becoming friends with Evan and helping him, haven't you?"
"I'm
not doing it to earn my keep, Mommy. He is my half-brother, isn't he?"
"Charlotte's told me so much about him, how introverted he really is and how much it troubles her," she continued as if
I
had not spoken. "You know he's never on to a movie? He doesn't want to go for rides or go into the city. She has to pull teeth to get him to get new clothes and shots. He doesn't care what he wears, and look at his hair! She's considered having him drugged and then having a stylist sneak in and do him one night."
"Brilliant. That's sure to bring him out,"
I
said and plopped into the French Provincial chair in her sitting area.
Mammy paid little or no attention to me. Her eyes were fixed on each outfit as she hung it up and described how she had looked in it when she had put it an in the store.
"The other salespeople came around to remark how nicely everything fit me," she continued.
"I
had my own little fan club for part of the afternoon, just the way you did that day
I
bought you your outfits for
the beauty contest, remember?"
"They do that only to get you to buy things. Mommy," I said.
"Now, Rose, they knew we were going to buy things. They didn't have to do anything. Charlotte's well-known in these stores. The way they cater to her, jump and drop everything they're doing when she appears... it took my breath away to see such devotion."
"It's not devotion. It's servitude.. They're beholden to her for what she spends there."
"It's the same thing in the end, isn't it. Rose? Who would you rather be, the salesgirl or Charlotte?"
"Never Charlotte." I insisted.
Mommy laughed at me as if I was saving the silliest things. I found myself getting more and more infuriated. I could see from the way she paused to gaze at herself in her vanity mirror every other minute that she was infatuated with her new look.
"Why did you let them cut your hair like that, Mommy?"
"When did I ever have the money or the chance to be in style, Rose? Why. I could see the difference the moment we walked out of that salon. Men on the street were pausing to look my way. Even men in automobiles turned toward us. It's been a long time since I turned a man's eyes to me like that. I've been living in a cocoon your father wove around me all these years. Who had time or the inclination to be beautiful before this, or even care?
"This," she said, pausing and holding one of her new dresses against her bosom as she gazed about the room. "is like a miracle. To get a second chance at life at my age."
"You're not that old. Mommy."
"You're as old as you feel," she countered. and when I was living back in that... that life. I felt old. Suddenly, it's as if I have sipped from the fountain of youth."
She closed her eyes and then she opened them on me.
"You'll see. You'll begin to enjoy all this. too. Wait until you attend that school tomorrow and make friends with boys and girls from well-established families. You won't complain about the gossip and the jealousies."
"That's ridiculous. Mommy," I said, scrunching my face in amazement. 'There's probably twice as much."
"Nonsense. When you have all this, you don't feel threatened and you don't have to tear someone else down to make yourself feel good. Why, they'll all appreciate you more, Rose. You'll see."
She continued putting her new things away. She seemed like some stranger to me, saying things, having ideas I had never heard from her lips before. I didn't know whether to be more frightened or angry.
"What's this dinner you're going to this weekend?
^-
"A dinner at one of the fanciest hotels in Atlanta where there's an orchestra playing while you eat. See why I needed better clothing?"
"Barry's coming to take me out to dinner Saturday," I said. She stopped putting away her clothes and turned to me.
"Really, dear, don't you think you should shed the past? You'll meet far nicer and finer boys tomorrow, and I'm sure before the week's out, you'll be asked on a date. You don't want to have to refuse someone from here because you've failed to cut the ties to that other place, now do you?"
Tears came to my eyes, tears of definite anger and disappointment. I took a deep breath and stood.
"Yes. I do," I said. "I don't measure people by their bank accounts, and when I meet someone as nice as Barry I don't turn him away in hopes that I'll meet someone who lives in a mansion. Mammy."
"You'll learn," she said, shaking her head and darkening her eves with pity. "I was hoping our lives, my mistakes would have been enough to drive it home by now, but hopefully, you'll learn."
"That's a lesson I'd rather skip. Mammy. You used to say that real love is true wealth."
"That's something poor people tell themselves to make themselves
feel better. Rose. Love." she said, shaking her head. "It's a soap bubble, full of rainbow colors, but as soon as you touch it, it pops and you have nothing but some illusion to remember.
"I'd rather remember all this," she said, nodding at the walls as if they were made of gold. "You'll see."
She thought a moment and then she laughed.
"Did I show you the necklace and earrings? They're made of that material that resembles diamonds. You can't tell the difference. It's called Diamond Air, Cubic Zirconia."
"Really, Mammy," I said. "Someone who has the wealth and background you're raving about would surely be smart enough to know the difference," I said.
She considered what I said and then shrugged.
"Well then, he'll decide to buy me the real thing, won't he?"
She laughed and turned back to her closet. I sat there a moment staring at her and then got up and left. She didn't even know I had.