The Bubble Reputation (24 page)

“Tell Robbie I said hello,” Uncle Bishop reminded her.

“He's bringing his new girlfriend with him,” said Rosemary. “Did I mention that? I think he's really serious this time.” She kissed Uncle Bishop good night on the stubble of new growth across his cheek, which would, like the spring buds, soon sprout a beard.

Rosemary drove her own car through the snow filtering down on Old Airport Road. At home, Robbie's truck was in the driveway, already asleep beneath a half inch of snow. A warm light was on in the kitchen and one in the den. There was nothing better than a house on a snowy, starless night, with a warm light in its kitchen. She looked around her yard and then down the white, shapeless road. How quickly snow covered the old mistakes, filled up the holes, whitened the oil spills, the blood spills, corrected the dips. A slow-moving car slid along Old Airport Road, inching its way home. It looked like the Fergusons. The falling snow quickly ate up the red taillights and soon the sound of the engine, too, fell away. Rosemary put her hands in her jacket pockets, warming them. There was now so much snow on the hill by the wild cherries that her tent would only be half visible if it were still there. The willows beyond the cherries were barren now, but in the spring the catkins would burst to life before the leaves came, all velvety and furry, pussy willows all over the tree, Mugs on every branch. Now, Mugs's grave was lost in the white of the field, beneath a foot of snow.

Rosemary watched the smoke of her breath rising in the night, like signals. When they were children—she and Miriam and Robbie—they pretended to be smokers on nights this cold, and they stopped between slides down the hill to share an invisible cigarette, take a deep puff. The snow snapped beneath her boots and the sounds echoed in the yard. Did she still want the same things, these months after William's death, as she had wanted in those early spring evenings?
I
want
to
grow
crazy
as
I
grow
old, William,
she had lain awake and told his ghost.
I
want
the
gray
to
come
to
my
hair
slowly
and
the
hair
itself
to
go
wild. I want time to come together at the last, so that it seems like one long, lazy day that is passing and not my life.

“Rosie?” There was a voice coming out of the garage doorway. A voice in the night could be any voice. William's. Aunt Rachel's. A voice that comes out of the snow itself could be Father's voice, or maybe even Mrs. Abernathy's own, on its way out.

“Rosie?” It was Robbie, and Rosemary felt a sudden surge of love rise up in her. She wanted to tell him what Father had told her, via Aunt Rachel. She wanted to say, “Oh, Robbie, life is such a sweet thing. Life is all sugar.”

“Over here,” she said, from her spot in the shadows, where she could better see the snow ricocheting off the porch light. He came to her, shivering without his coat, so they could hug. Snowflakes flew like soft white moths around them. The trees and bushes and firewood, all usual landmarks, were buried beneath snow.

“Come inside. I'm freezing to death out here,” Robbie said, rubbing his arms. “And yes. I have Carol with me.”

Carol?
Rosemary thought.
Oh, Robbie, life is all sugar. There are Carols at every turn in the road.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, and pulled her by the sleeve of her jacket closer to the garage door.

“I have eight white hairs now,” Rosemary said, and swept the snow off her shoulders, arranged the ponytail in an orderly fashion for her first introduction to Carol. “Soon it will be all white,” she added.

And in the winter,

extra blankets for the cold

Fix the heater, getting old

I am wiser now, you know

—Janis Ian, “In the Winter”

It had been almost a year since William's suicide. January would mark not just the new year but the anniversary of his death. A cycle had spun its way through the spring, summer, and fall, and was now back again, full circle.

On Thanksgiving Day the gods bombarded the house with a foot of snow. Uncle Bishop brought Mother, her rocking chair, and the nurse easily up Old Airport Road in the Datsun, the chains biting into the snow all the way. Miriam and her recent boyfriend, whom everyone had yet to meet, were not so lucky. Sliding and swerving precariously close to ditches, they came into Rosemary's house pounding snow from their boots, with Miriam relating in excited tones how death had pursued them at every turn in the road, in every branch that hung low with ice.

“This is it,” Uncle Bishop said, unzipping the abnormally large parka and rubbing his plump hands together. “This is my last winter in Bixley. Mark my words. Humans beings are crazy to subject themselves to this torture.” As every man in Miriam's life was the last, the very last, so was every winter Uncle Bishop suffered through in northern Maine.

Robbie took their coats and introduced them to Carol, a tall, thin girl, quiet and intelligent. Neither Robbie nor Rosemary had prepared her as to the phenomenon that would occur once the family got together. She would discover that on her own soon enough. Mother, it appeared, felt even more like she was in a room full of rowdy strangers. But this pleased her more than struggling with remnants, those montages in her brain of babies she had once birthed but couldn't quite recall. Better she think herself in a friendly pub full of polite revelers for the holiday. Uncle Bishop convinced the nurse that a glass of wine, in honor of the holiday, would help Mother better accept her circumstances, and soon her little cheeks were blushed. She grasped Carol's slender hand.

“Good night, Mrs. Calabash,” Mother said, “wherever you are.” So tonight it was Jimmy Durante? What an amazing cast of mostly forgotten people now lived in Mother's mind. Rosemary wished it was a place she could actually visit.

Robbie built a boisterous fire in the Schrader fireplace, and the den was soon full of the sound and the warmth of it. He and Rosemary made sure that everyone had a glass of wine. Everyone, that is, but Lloyd, the new man in Miriam's life. To their surprise, he didn't drink. Miriam had introduced him—gaunt and fortyish—to the family, and now she was most intent on their liking him.

“Oh, Rosemary,” she whispered, while Lloyd went to the bathroom to wash his hands. “He even brings me flowers. The only time I got a rose from Raymond was when a Moonie shook one in his face at the car wash.”

“And what do you do for a living?” Uncle Bishop asked Lloyd when he reappeared. He and Miriam exchanged warning glances.

“You might say I deal with the fragility of human souls,” Lloyd said. He let loose a cryptic laugh. His eyebrows were bushy, and Rosemary noticed a bald spot flowering on his head.

“Are you with the IRS?” asked Uncle Bishop. Rosemary could already tell he didn't like Lloyd, which was not surprising. Raymond had been the most bearable of the lot so far, but he had already moved from Bixley. Miriam was divorcing again and liked to tell her friends that
business
divergences
had taken her future ex-husband from the area. The truth was that doors had opened to Raymond in the portable toilet business, and he was busy closing them on Johnny-on-the-spots all over New England.

“I'm a minister,” said Lloyd. “A man of the cloth.”

“What?” Robbie and Uncle Bishop and Rosemary all seemed to ask at once. Miriam with a minister!

“Is the cloth
green
, by any chance?” Uncle Bishop wondered.

“Tell them, Lloyd honey,” Miriam said, “what it is you want to do. Listen to this, Rosie,” she said, and nudged the minister's arm.

“Well,” said Lloyd. He cleaned teeth that looked to be false with a quick swipe of his tongue, something he'd done several times since he entered the house. “Quite frankly, I'd like to put a capital
B
back in
Bible
,” he said.

“Isn't that absolutely adorable?” Miriam asked, grinning. “I just
love
that.”

Rosemary was still grappling with
man
of
the
cloth
. Where would Miriam go shopping next when it came to husbands?

“Tell them what your hobby is, Lloyd.” Miriam wasn't finished showing him off. “This will interest you, Rosie. You and Lloyd have a lot in common.” Something in common with Lloyd? When would the universe stop playing tricks on her?

“I happen to love old films,” Lloyd said.

“Just like you do, Rosemary,” said Miriam. “And he knows the names of all those old stars.” She drank some wine, her eyes peering over the top of the glass at Rosemary, as if she were expecting a medal for this information.

“I think of movie stars in an
evolutionary
way,” Uncle Bishop began, in his best lecture voice. “I've often wondered,” he continued, “how many pea-brained Stallones had to come and go over the millennium before one little Woody Allen, pinkish and unshelled, managed to crawl beneath some foliage and there to slowly evolve all the way to
Annie
Hall
.”

“You have an unorthodox way of approaching film,” Lloyd said.

“It's the most
natural
way,” Uncle Bishop replied. “For instance, when I think of Stallone, I think of a brontosaurus toppling trees. But Woody Allen was one of those furry little creatures that hid in the branches by day and foraged by night, lemurs with big eyes and small digits that were slowly becoming fingers that could eventually hold a camera steady.” Here was a kind of cinema verité that Lloyd had never encountered within the dark, popcorn-strewn Bixley Square Theater, an aleatory technique that would have caused even Bergman to run.

“Rosie, please make him stop,” Miriam whispered. Rosemary looked at her and shrugged.

“Shit happens, Miriam,” she said, “but life is sweet. Life is all sugar. Fight your own battles, kiddo.” Miriam accepted the challenge.

“The Bible says that whosoever shall lie on the ground with their own kind,” Miriam said, “shall be made to stand up and take their punishment like men.” She looked at Lloyd, who nodded his approval.

“Something like that,” Lloyd said, and reached for her hand.

“For your information, Mary Magdalene,” said Uncle Bishop, “I have not lain upon the ground with my own kind since God invented beds. Unless you count the Quebec Winter Carnival.” He directed his next question to Lloyd. “Is it still a sin if there's snow on the ground?”

“Just where
is
Aunt Mary?” Mother demanded. It was bad enough that Father was always late.

“I told you this would happen, Rosie,” Uncle Bishop complained. “First it was Ayn Rand. Then Pyramid Power. Now it's Jesus because Miriam wants to put a capital
M
back in
money
.”

“That's a lie,” Miriam said, embarrassed now in front of her minister.

“And remember her Kahlil Gibran stage?” Uncle Bishop continued. “You couldn't ask her to pass the steak sauce without hearing that cryptic language out of
The
Prophet
.”

“Perhaps we should be going,” Lloyd said. Miriam looked pleadingly at Rosemary.

“No, of course not,” said Rosemary. “Dinner's almost ready.”

“Maybe one of these days, Bishop, you'll see things differently,” said Lloyd. He sounded professionally sympathetic. “You'll give yourself to Jesus, and your life will be on a more natural path.” A natural path? That was food for thought. And Miriam probably hadn't told him yet about the shoe fights. “The Heavenly Father is a forgiving Father.”

“Where
is
Father?” Mother asked.

“He'll be here soon,” Rosemary assured her, and took the empty wineglass from her hand.

“He'd better bring my chocolates,” said Mother.

“I'll get her a glass of cranberry juice,” Rosemary told the nurse. Miriam followed her into the kitchen.

“Rosie,
please
,” she said. “Make him stop his teasing.” She had unscrewed a pint of rum from her purse and was pouring some into her wine.

“I don't control Uncle Bishop's mouth,” was Rosemary's reply.

“This man is so different from Raymond,” Miriam said as she stirred her drink.

“No shit,” said Rosemary. She poured a small glass of cranberry juice and hoped that it would satisfy Mother.

“Are you or are you not going to make Bishop stop?” Rosemary looked at her big sister, at the glowing red hair, the abnormally green outfit.

“Not,” Rosemary said.

“Then what should I do?” Miriam asked. “Sit there mute?”

“What an excellent idea,” Rosemary said.

***

The kitchen table was loaded with salads. Vegetables were in the pots they'd cooked in, on the stove. As this was an informal family dinner, everyone was advised to fix his or her own plate. A small breadline formed, except for Mother, who was waiting for Rosemary to bring her a plate of food. Robbie and Carol were talking politics.

“We should be ashamed for bombing Iraq,” Carol was saying. “And let's face it, that war was for oil.” Robbie agreed.

“Edward Gibbon wrote that a large show of military force a long way from home is symptomatic of a sick society,” he told Carol. College students, so wonderfully sharp and political. Rosemary felt a twinge of jealousy, a longing for the old schooldays, those days when every ism and ideology seemed to matter. Back then it was Vietnam, something she hoped would never reoccur. But bombs were all the talk again, falling to earth like deadly stars exploding, this time over the very birthplace of civilization.

“That ham is overcooked,” said Miriam, poking with a fork. “I knew I should've offered to cook the ham. This happens every year.” She spooned mashed potatoes onto her plate. Uncle Bishop heard, as he heard
every
Thanksgiving
.

“Miriam, please lower your voice,” he said. “You're causing paint to peel from the ceiling. Does Lloyd know you have that God-given talent?”

As Uncle Bishop served himself marshmallowed yams, Miriam made her way to the dining room, Lloyd following closely. As she passed by, Uncle Bishop looked up at the French curls frozen into red loaves on the top of her head.

“Mount Stupid,” he whispered to Rosemary.

Seated around the table, the diners looked respectfully at one another.

“Lloyd, I'm not a believer in God, or in giving thanks to one,” Rosemary finally said. “And I know that Uncle Bishop and Robbie are not believers.”

“Neither am I,” said Carol.

“Nor me,” said Mrs. Fortney, the nurse, in a confession that surprised Rosemary. She had always perceived Mrs. Fortney as one of those widows who run to their cookie jars at the request of a TV preacher. Fig Newtons for Jesus.

“Atheists, five,” Uncle Bishop said happily. “Zealots, two.”

“Nor are Carol and Mrs. Fortney,” Rosemary continued. “And I have no idea what my mother believes any longer. But if you would like to offer a blessing for the food, you are welcome to do so.” Uncle Bishop was annoyed and wanted everyone to know by sighing dramatically. Miriam and Lloyd bowed their heads and folded their hands in prayer. Miriam was wearing her signature eye shadow and her lids were prominently green.

“Doesn't she look like a praying mantis?” Uncle Bishop whispered to Carol. Lloyd cleared his throat.

“Bless this food we have before us, dear Heavenly Father.”

“Where
is
Father?” Mother asked.

“Please try not to use the word
father
,” Miriam whispered to Lloyd, who looked confused at what appeared to be religious censorship, the very kind the pilgrims had sought to escape.

“Bless this food we have before us, Lord,” he continued. “And thank you for the safe crossing of the Pilgrims, by which we mark this day.”

“That was one bitch of a crossing,” Uncle Bishop said. “Before they even got settled on shore, William Bradford's wife jumped off the ship and drowned herself.”

“Your blessings abound here today, dear Heavenly Fath… ah,
Person
. Just as they did for our forefath…ah…fore
people
.”

“The Pilgrims fought like cats and dogs,” Uncle Bishop added. “Not to mention the diseases God saw fit to give them so that fifty percent of them died the first winter.”

“Rosie, are you going to read the true story of the Pilgrims again this year?” Robbie asked. “I told Carol how it's a ritual.” That was true. It was a family ritual each Thanksgiving to gather before the fire and listen as Rosemary read the true rendition of the Pilgrims and their hardships. That's where Uncle Bishop had gotten his information, from years of hearing it.

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” said Carol. She was going to be just fine. Rosemary could see already how, like William, she had settled into the rhythm of the family. “Tolstoy was right,” William often said. “All happy families are alike. You're lucky, Rosie, that your family is so unhappy.” Carol would fit right in. Robbie had done well in picking a mate, in pairing up.

“Everybody,
shut
up
!” Miriam shouted.

“And like the Pilgrims, dear Lord,” said Lloyd, “we are gathered here meekly in your presence.”

“Why do we always assume the woman is the salt?” Uncle Bishop asked, as he picked up Rosemary's little Pilgrim salt and pepper shakers from the table. “And that the man is the pepper?”