When Rose Wakes (5 page)

Aunt Fay had wanted to drive the short distance to the school, concerned that by arriving on foot they might appear to be some sort of charity case. Aunt Suzette had called this “classist nonsense” and said that Aunt Fay was too in love with her Mercedes and that they all could use the exercise. Rose had piped up in favor of walking. It was a lovely day, the first Monday in October, and she wanted to see more of the city.

At last Aunt Fay had relented, which was how they now found themselves walking up to the entrance of St. Bridget’s, admiring the granite steps and the marble relief of the school’s patron saint above the main door. The keystone of the building indicated it had been built in 1957, so the school was young by Boston standards, but its architecture seemed to harken back to older days, seeming archaic in comparison to the row houses around it, which were in all probability older.

Aunt Suzette smiled proudly as she held the door for Rose and Aunt Fay to enter. Rose stepped into the school
and paused. Though she had never been in this particular building before, she had hoped for at least some sense of familiarity. After all, she had gone to a small private school in France. How different could this be?

But as she looked around at the trophy case and the sports banners hanging on the walls and the plaques of prestigious awards and portraits of the school’s original benefactors and the large crucifix on the wall, none of it created any resonance within her. There were no familiar echoes. She studied a small alcove where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood, bathed in light from a recessed bulb above, dust motes swirling around her.

“What is it?” Aunt Fay asked.

Rose thought about telling her, but how to truly explain? She recognized everything, could put a name to it, but without her memory they all felt like things she knew only from television or from reading about them, not from any personal experience. It was a disquieting feeling. Yet, if anything, that feeling itself had become all
too
familiar ever since her release from the hospital. The strangest things felt odd and new to her, even something as miniscule as putting on a pair of pants.

Her aunts had stocked her wardrobe fairly well, but Rose had discovered that she hated wearing pants. Today she wore a floral dress in fall colors and an expertly faded denim jacket slightly turned back at the cuffs. She’d seen enough magazines during her physical therapy and once she’d gotten home to get a sense of fashion, but nothing
really spoke to her, and she had decided that style was something personal and she would have her own. Though only the first week of October, it had been a little chilly this morning, and she knew that in time she would have to surrender her irrational hatred of pants, at least for the winter. But for now dresses and skirts were her preference. On the plus side, that meant her aunts needed to take her shopping after the test today.

Aunt Fay seemed to know where she was going. She turned left at the first jog off of the main foyer and found the administrative offices. Rose had been in a lot of doctors’ offices since awakening from her coma, and she was sick of them. Sick of waiting, and of talking about her memory loss without any real improvement. This was an unsettling reminder of those places. On the left was a closed door with
SR. ANNA DOLAN, PRINCIPAL
etched into a plaque beside it. On the right, a high counter separated the waiting area from the rest of the office, three desks under fluorescent lighting, computer screens and paperwork showing all the signs of a busy day. A young, slender African-American woman occupied one desk. At the one nearest the counter, a sour-looking, sixtyish Caucasian woman in a skirt much too short and tight for her aging, shifting figure glanced up at them and narrowed her eyes, then went back to her typing. The third desk seemed temporarily abandoned.

Yet the room, and the women behind the counter, caught her attention only because she was doing her best not
to look at the single other person in the waiting area. Even seated, she could see that the boy would be tall. He had broad shoulders and brown eyes and artfully disheveled hair, and his features and the hue of his skin made her think he must have some Latino heritage. A beautiful boy. When they entered the room he had been slouched in the chair and had glanced up at them with bored indifference, right up until he saw Rose. To his credit, he hadn’t puffed himself up like some kind of peacock, or even sat up straight. But he had shifted a bit in the chair so as not to look overly slouchy, or at least Rose thought he had.

She felt certain he had taken notice of her, and even now as she focused on the women behind the counter, the boy—
stop thinking “boy,” teenage boys don’t like to be called boys, they’re “guys”
—continued to notice, to watch her. She appraised him in her peripheral vision, so curious about him and about guys in general. Her aunts couldn’t possibly imagine she could be in school with boys and never speak to them. Of course not. No, she knew what truly concerned them. She had already decided that there would be nothing wrong with indulging a certain amount of interest in boys as long as she kept them at arm’s length.

“Excuse me, we have an appointment with Sister Anna,” Aunt Suzette said sweetly.

The sour-looking woman looked up at them, glanced at the empty desk to indicate that its usual occupant ought
to be handling this particular encounter, and sighed as though greatly put upon.

“What is it I can do for you?” she asked, making no attempt to hide her irritation.

Aunt Suzette began to reply, but Aunt Fay put a hand on her arm.

“Well,” Aunt Fay said, matching the woman’s acidic tone, “you can begin by standing from your desk and coming to greet us with at least a fraction of the courtesy that your mother must have taught you.”

The woman flinched as though she’d been spit upon. At the desk behind her, her younger office mate stiffened but did not look up.

The sour woman stared at Aunt Fay, then sighed and rose, barely hiding a smile.

“Well, if you insist,” she said as she walked to the unoccupied desk and picked up a heavy ledger or planner. Scanning it, she walked back to them. “I take it one of you charming ladies is Fay DuBois?”

She appraised them over the top of her glasses, barely looking up from the book.

“I’m Fay, and this is my sister, Suzette,” Aunt Fay said. “You may call us both Ms. DuBois. This is our niece, Rose. She is meant to take a level placement test today.”

Rose had been observing this frosty exchange with amused fascination, aware also that the broad-shouldered guy in the corner was overhearing the whole exchange. Up until now Rose’s attention had been split. But now
the sour woman focused on her and Rose practically squirmed where she stood.

“Oh, right.” The woman smiled, suddenly quirky and warm. “You’re the coma girl.”

Rose felt her face go hot as she flushed deeply and closed her eyes, trying to imagine some way that the gorgeous guy might not have heard the woman’s words. She barely listened as Aunt Fay chided her for her rudeness and the woman issued a lackluster apology and then bade them all sit and wait while Sister Anna finished with whatever conference had caused her to close her door.

The temperature in the room had dropped twenty degrees, or so it felt to Rose as her aunts flanked her, guiding her to a seat between them against the wall opposite the counter. Their backs to the principal’s office, she thought she could make out muffled voices inside but did not try to eavesdrop. Aunt Suzette whispered something to Aunt Fay, apparently attempting to soothe her and keep her from doing something to the sour secretary, though what Aunt Fay might have done—fisticuffs seemed unlikely—Rose had no idea.

Only once did Rose glance at the guy, and she caught him studying her so intently that it took him a second before he could tear his gaze away. Rose smiled, liking that he seemed embarrassed. She hadn’t expected him to be at all shy. Maybe he wasn’t as cocky as she had first thought. She took advantage of the moment, studying him in return. He wore the uniform she had seen on the
school website, tan pants and a burgundy short-sleeved shirt with the school’s name and logo emblazoned on the breast, but with the shirt untucked and slightly rumpled, he looked really handsome.

Aunt Fay nudged her. Rose glanced guiltily at her, realized she’d been caught staring at the guy, and looked down at her hands, hoping nothing would be said.

The principal’s office door opened and they all sat up a bit straighter. An attractive, fortyish brunette appeared, grimly intent on some task that had been set for her, but the moment she saw Rose her face lit up with a smile so bright and full of kindness that it fell just short of delight.

“Hello!” she said. “You must be Rose!”

Rose nodded, standing with her aunts. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, gosh, don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” the woman said. “It makes me feel so old. You can call Mrs. Sauer ‘ma’am,’” she said, hooking her thumb toward the woman behind the counter who had sparred with Aunt Fay. “She’s old enough for all of us put together.”

Mrs. Sauer didn’t even look up. Typing away at her keyboard, she muttered, “And Mrs. Barkley thinks she’s funny enough for all of us put together.”

The pretty brunette, whom Rose took to be Mrs. Barkley, rolled her eyes with a grin. “Someone’s got to be.”

She went on, welcoming the aunts, but Rose barely listened, distracted both by the amused grin on the cute guy’s face and by the fact that the sour woman’s actual name was “Sauer,” which seemed all too appropriate.

“If you ladies will come in, Sister Anna would like to speak with you for a minute before we bring Rose in,” Mrs. Barkley said, looking at Rose. “As soon as you’re all done in there, I’ll take Rose to an empty classroom and sit with her while she takes the test.”

Mrs. Barkley held up a hand to hide her mouth as though sharing a secret, but she spoke in a stage whisper. “Don’t worry, kiddo, it’s not that hard.”

And then Aunt Fay and Aunt Suzette were being shuffled into the principal’s office. Aunt Fay seemed to hesitate, glancing back and forth between Rose and the cute guy as though she might say something awkward, but then the door closed behind them and Rose exhaled, happy to have dodged that bullet.

“They’ll just be a minute,” Mrs. Barkley assured her. “I’ll let you know when you can go in.”

The secretary turned to the cute guy, arching an eyebrow mischievously. “As for you… just sit there. She’ll get to you eventually.”

Rose thanked Mrs. Barkley and the kind woman lifted a portion of the counter and went behind it, returning to her desk. When she sat down, only the tops of the three secretaries’ heads were visible behind the counter, and it was almost as though Rose and the cute guy were by themselves in the room.

Her face felt warm and her palms itched. She looked everywhere but at him.

“That was awesome,” he said, voice low.

She hesitated a second before looking at him. His smile made her jittery.

“What was?”

“Your aunt versus…” he said, nodding toward the counter, obviously not wanting to say more.

“I can hear you, Jared Munoz,” Mrs. Sauer said amidst the tap-tap of her keyboard.

Jared Munoz.
Rose tried the name out in her mind and found she liked it.

“Wow,” Jared said, “and they say hearing is the first thing to go.”

Delivered differently, the teasing might have seemed obnoxious, but Jared spoke with a warmth Rose doubted the woman deserved, and Mrs. Sauer actually laughed.

“You just wait and see if you get brownies the next time you’re over,” Mrs. Sauer said, still without looking up.

Rose shot a questioning look at Jared.

“She lives up the street. Her granddaughter goes here,” he explained. “So, what’s this test you’re supposed to take?”

Rose shifted awkwardly in her chair, hating the idea of talking about this, but Mrs. Sauer had already called her “coma girl,” so Jared would already be wondering what that was about. And once school started, people would find out her story anyway and would talk about it. She would rather tell the story herself than have them talking behind her back.

“It’s a placement test,” she said, “to figure out what grade they should put me in.”

Jared frowned. “I don’t get it. What grade are you supposed to be in?”

“That’s sort of the point. I’m sixteen. I guess I should be a junior, but I’ve missed a lot of school…”

She hesitated.

“Because you were in a coma,” Jared prompted.

Relieved, Rose nodded. “Yeah. Almost two years. And then there’s been physical therapy, which kept me out longer.”

“And you’re from, like, Paris or something, right? I can tell by the accent.”

“France, yes, but far from Paris,” she said, remembering her aunts’ description of the place. “A seaside village called Beaulieu-sur-Mer. So it’s difficult to determine what grade I should be in and… voilà, the test.”

Jared studied her with great interest, and she found that she loved his eyes. They looked like milk chocolate and had a real warmth in them that comforted her. She ought to have been a wreck just talking to him, but somehow he set her at ease. She wondered how she looked to him, if he liked red hair and green eyes, if her pale skin made her seem like some kind of ghost, if he thought it was odd that she wore a dress.

“You’ll do fine,” he said.

“I’m not so confident. I… well, the doctors say I’m recovering very well after what I’ve been through. I was
thrown from a horse, had some head trauma. Something happened then, or during the coma… they don’t really know, but my memory is just gone.”

“Whoa,” he said, eyes wide. “That’s awful. I mean, it must be really hard. Real amnesia. Wow. It’s the kind of thing you think only happens on TV.”

“I wish,” Rose said, glancing away a moment before looking back at him with a smile. “I’ll be all right. My memories will probably come back, but until then I’ll be busy making new ones. Anyway, that’s my story. What’s yours? What are you doing here?”

Some of the light went out in his eyes and his smile faded.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said quickly.