Meeting Rozzy Halfway Read online

  “I want to stay longer,” said Rozzy. “I’ll catch a bus or a cab. I have some bills somewhere.”

  “You’re really turning down ice cream? David wants to treat us.”

  Rozzy set her head back down on the bench. I was suddenly irritated with her. “Damn you,” I said, “you don’t care whose feelings you hurt, do you, as long as they aren’t yours.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” said Rozzy.

  “Fine. Do what you want.”

  When I saw David, I took his hand. “Let me dress and then we’ll go. Rozzy’s staying.” I gave him a light kiss.

  David never gave up with Rozzy though. He brought her books and flowers and records. He would catch at her hands and beg her to come with us. She would sit very still, watching me, and then, inevitably, she would pull away. “She hates me,” David mourned. “Her whole body changes when she sees me.”

  “So does mine,” I said gently, tickling his arms.

  The summer got hotter and hotter, expanding, and Rozzy began wearing lighter clothing. Bea decided that Rozzy was now well enough to do without her, and Bea and Ben began taking weekend trips. They usually went out to the country to ride horses. We were never invited on these trips, but we were used to that. It had been that way since childhood. They came back exhausted and very much pleased with each other. Bea was usually a little bruised, wanting only the heating pad and her own soft bed. While they were gone, Rozzy and I slobbed around the house, living on take-out chicken and pizza, watching TV and talking about nothing at all. We never left the house on those weekends except to go to the spa for an hour. Rozzy wouldn’t allow me to turn on the house’s air conditioning, but at night I slept with the fan. We created our own world on those weekends. No one existed except for us. We didn’t answer the phone and opened the door only to the Chicken Delight or pizza man. If David was hurt, he said nothing.

  It took everyone time to readjust to the week after one of Bea and Ben’s vacations. We never saw much of Ben. He left for work early, and returned late, and the only person he really dealt with was Bea. I kept suggesting that the four of us go out to dinner someplace, that we be a family. Of course, that never happened. It never could.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was the next week that the invitation came. Our cousin Trina was getting married. She lived in Ohio, but was marrying a man from Boston, holding the wedding at the Copley Plaza.

  “I’m not going,” said Ben. “I detest these stupid rituals, the whole family bit. Anyway, look at the date on this thing. Wedding invitations go out at least a month in advance, and this thing is less than two weeks away. It’s insulting.”

  “They never see us,” said Bea. “They probably forgot. I don’t see it as such a big deal.”

  “Well, I’m going to forget going.”

  “But a wedding,” said Bea wistfully.

  “Five seconds at one of those things is too long.”

  “Well, I want to go, even if you don’t. What if I take the girls?”

  “Fine. I’m not going, that’s all.”

  “David can take Ben’s place. He’d like to go, wouldn’t he?”

  I was reading in the kitchen, sipping a limeade through one of those five-and-dime-flavor straws. “He might like to go,” I said lazily, “but I wouldn’t.”

  “But why?” said Bea. “Weddings are wonderful.”

  “That’s my daughter,” said Ben, grinning.

  “Where did I get such a family?” said Bea. “Both of you antisocial as all hell.” She looked at Rozzy, who was sitting across from me, fiddling with a piece of cheese. “You interested in coming?”

  “Yeah, I want to go.”

  “You do?” I said. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I just do.”

  “Maybe I’ll go, too, then,” I said.

  “You both can have new dresses,” said Bea. “Spend as much as you like.”

  Rozzy got up early the next morning and went to Filene’s. When she came home, she had two big boxes. “Wait here,” she cried, motioning Bea and me into the living room. “You just sit until I come out.”

  “I hope it’s a nice bright color,” said Bea. “God, I had better get cracking on finding something nice to wear myself, some shoes, a purse.” She gave me a critical look. “Your hair could use a trim.” I was ready to bite back at her when Rozzy sang out, “Da duh,” and pranced into the room.

  She was in mid-length, long-sleeved black velvet, a flounced bottom with a low-slit neckline and gathered waist. Her hair was spread across her back. She had twined a silk rose the color of blood into a lock of hair at the side of her head. She took a step forward, walking awkwardly. She had on pink satin toeshoes, giving her thick stubby feet.

  “Oh, Rozzy,” said Bea, standing, mechanically fingering the heavy velvet, pushing Rozzy’s spread-out hair together.

  Rozzy frowned. “You don’t like it, do you?” she said. She twisted toward me. “Do you like it? Never mind, forget it. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter, this is what I’m wearing.” She flounced out of the room and then she got back into her jeans and a sweater and went to read outside in the pulsating heat.

  “Black at a wedding,” said Bea, “long-sleeved velvet in the summer. Nice. Very nice.”

  “She looked beautiful,” I said, but Bea shook her head.

  On the day of the wedding, Bea dusted the living room in her new peach chiffon gown and fluffed out the bedroom shams while she glanced about for her stack heels. She was annoyed with me, with my simple gray dress, my flat shoes, my hair that curled and twisted and did what it pleased down my back. Bea’s own black hair was pushed and prodded into a comma-shaped bulge on her head. “Rozzy—” she called, picking up some lint from the floor and studying it before she let it float into the wastebasket. “You feeling all right?”

  “Want me to see a doctor before I go, get certified?” said Rozzy bitterly.

  “You don’t have a doctor here,” said Bea evenly, “and don’t take that tone with me, please.”

  “How do you know I don’t see a doctor?” said Rozzy, coming into the room, brushing at her black velvet. “You think you know everything about me because you’re my mother, how I feel, how I live, even how I hurt. Well, being my mother is nothing more than biology.” Bea stopped moving around to watch Rozzy. “Go ahead,” smiled Rozzy, “ask me if I’m seeing a doctor. You’re just dying to.”

  Bea composed herself. “You don’t have money to see a doctor.”

  “Oh?” said Rozzy. “Ever hear of free clinics? Think I go to one of those?”

  Bea’s mouth jerked in sudden spasm. “My shoes hurt,” I said abruptly. “Let me borrow a pair from you, Bea. Maybe you’re right, maybe heels would look better.”

  Bea slowly unfroze and went to get the shoes. Rozzy shot me a look. “Don’t you ask me either,” she said. “If I want to tell you anything, I will.”

  David arrived, in a rented tuxedo, looking like a high school senior at his prom. “You look fantastic,” he said, kissing me, “and Rozzy—you look something like a fairy tale.” Rozzy blushed and looked at her hands. She had spent all morning painting her nails bright red and then had bitten them off. I kept finding little half-moons of red all over the house, shining from the floor.

  Bea came back with the shoes and smiled when she saw David.

  “Let’s see, have we got everything? I hope Ben remembers his dinner is in the freezer. He’s so stubborn.” She gave David a bright look, winking. “Don’t you look handsome,” she said.

  We went in David’s car, Bea and Rozzy wedged into the back. It was only a twenty-minute drive, and Bea and David small-talked until David got lost on the twisting Boston streets, making us late for the ceremony. “I don’t even know what Trina looks like,” said Bea.

  We hurried to the reception, held in the dining room of the hotel. It was air-conditioned and Rozzy hugged herself, shivering a little. Bea led us through the flowered hallway into the huge room, carpeted with
people and tables, with greenery and flowers and filled with the smell of wine. Everything was orange and green; there were candles on the tables. Bea searched for familiar faces and gave little cries of recognition, tugging at my sleeve, keeping score with the pressure of her hand. “Bea Nelson!” someone shouted, and arms swooped toward her, hugging her back into that circle of family and taking us along with her.

  There were aunts, uncles, cousins, names like blisters, memories like thorns, pricking us. They remembered Rozzy when she was little, their eyes compared that small brilliant waif with the girl before them. They gave her black velvet dress slanting glances, and when Trina stumbled over, pieces of her white brocade gown bunched up in either hand, she started. “Those aren’t toeshoes, are they?” She waited for an introduction and then said that she hadn’t known Rozzy would turn out to be a dancer, all she remembered was playing duets on the piano with her when they were kids.

  “I’m not a dancer,” said Rozzy, but Trina was moving on to someone else, grasping a hand from the sea of people.

  I heard the same basic conversation, over and over, tones and accents jumbling, relatives shifting into relatives. When can we all get together? Why don’t we ever visit? Where is Ben? They were satisfied with brevity. Sometimes I thought they weren’t even listening. I was in school, Bea told them, I was a wonderful swimmer, perhaps I’d be a painter, and David was my boy friend. Rozzy was going to school and Ben hadn’t felt well enough to attend. I felt tired of all the hands on me. I felt fingerprinted, known, and the smell of perfume was curling up inside of me. I tapped David. “Let’s find our table,” I said.

  Rozzy, David, and I walked to a small table where there were stacks of green paper boats. Each of the boats had a table number and a name scribbled across the hull. We were at a different table from Bea, among three giggling girls wearing false eyelashes and cheap printed dresses, and with a friend of the groom, a first-year architecture student from Madison, Wisconsin, Stewey Hobart. Stewey was tall and thin, with shiny curls of black sprouting on his head, and black eyes. He immediately pulled his chair close to Rozzy. She sat with her fingers curled in, hiding her bitten nails.

  I spotted Bea chatting with my aunt. I thought she was someone else. Trina reappeared, her groom in tow. He was small and chunky and very blond, and his skin was angry and red with pimples. I had a sudden vision of their first child, a plump kicking baby pockmarked with acne.

  Trina put her hand on David’s shoulder and winked. “Oho,” she said, “I’ll bet I know who’s next to get hitched up. Introduce me again, before I forget that I married this clod Barry here.” Barry smiled, showing uneven white teeth.

  “Barry’s a dentist,” said Trina. “We love Boston, but we’re not going to settle here. We’ll be in Cleveland.”

  “Cleveland’s nice,” said Barry.

  “I’ll bet,” I said, and David kicked me under the table.

  “Aren’t you hot?” Trina said to Rozzy, who looked up, startled. “God, I can’t believe that after all these years, I get to see you people again.” Trina gave a light little laugh. “My mother’s going nuts over Bea. If she had her way, she’d move right next door.

  “Stewey,” said Trina, “you come with us. We have someone for you to meet.” Stewey looked up but didn’t move. “Well, come on,” said Trina.

  “I want to eat something,” he said, lifting up his fork. “Aren’t they serving yet?” he grinned.

  “Stewey, very funny,” said Trina. “Come on.”

  “Really,” said Stewey, “later, maybe.”

  “Be that way then,” said Trina. “We’ve got to go mingle.”

  The food was served shortly afterward, a dull green salad with a muddy yellow dressing, some slices of roast meat, and some green beans. There was wine, too, and a four-piece band began playing as everyone ate, bastardizing popular tunes. Our table was splintered into groups. The young girls tittered among themselves, I spoke to David, and Stewey talked at Rozzy. She acted as if he were a ghost; she didn’t look at him when he spoke, and she didn’t answer any of his persistent questions.

  “Oh Jesus, look,” I said. A few men were dancing, some with little girls, mincing around, some with overweight women who were trying to rock and roll.

  Rozzy was picking at her food when Stewey took her hand, unprying her from the chair. She pulled back, but then, suddenly, she relaxed, and let herself be taken onto the floor. Her toeshoes made a clacking sound, and a few people turned around in their seats to stare. I watched Rozzy and Stewey, losing and finding them as the crowd began sifting onto the dance floor. Sometimes all I could recognize was a leg, a flip of black hair, the edge of a pink toeshoe, or their sound when the music stopped for a moment. Rozzy and Stewey didn’t stop dancing even when their uneaten dinners, congealing on their plates, were cleared and replaced with glass dishes of wedding cake and ice cream.

  “We should dance,” said David, his hand startling me as it teased along my knuckles.

  “I want to watch,” I said.

  “Sometimes you really piss me off,” he said, jabbing his fork into the cake. I was watching Rozzy, leaning against the back of my chair. She moved awkwardly in her toe shoes, but she was looking at Stewey now, talking to him. I drummed my fingers against the chair back.

  It was one A.M. when we left. People were already carting away the flowers, wrapping pieces of crumbling cake in their napkins, and dabbing at wine stains with handkerchiefs dipped into their water glasses. Trina sprinted off with her husband for Bermuda, the two of them in matching green. The band jangled a few dramatic-sounding chords and Trina threw her bouquet. One of the giggling girls at our table caught it. Then everyone converged on Trina, clutching, crowding, and although I didn’t much like Trina, I felt sorry for her. She should have left right after the ceremony.

  Bea came over to us, her elaborate hairdo falling, drifting down onto her neck. “Well, I haven’t seen you two all evening. Did you have a good time? Are you about set to go?” She glanced around. “Where’s that sister of yours?”

  Rozzy was in a corner, leaning against the wall, talking seriously with Stewey, who was holding her hand. When she spotted us, she held up one finger and leaned closer to Stewey, who stepped back a bit and smiled. When Rozzy finally started to wander back over to us, Stewey was her backdrop. He leaned against the wall and watched her, smiling as if she could see him.

  “Who was that young man?” said Bea.

  “I’m tired. All I want to do is sleep,” said Rozzy.

  She crumbled into a chair, rubbing her shoes. The shine of the satin was already dulling.

  “Do I have to say good-bye to anyone?” she asked.

  “Well, you should,” said Bea.

  “You do it for me. I can’t.”

  “I don’t want to do it, either,” I said.

  “You kids. Just wait until the shoe is on the other foot.”

  “It won’t be,” I said.

  We finally got out of there, stepping out into the heat. “Feels good,” said Rozzy, arching her back. As soon as she was in the back seat, she leaned her head against her arm and fell asleep. “Hand me her purse,” said Bea. “She threw it in the front.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see if she has any pills in there.”

  “I will not.”

  Bea leaned forward and took Rozzy’s little clutch purse that was on the seat. She riffled through it. “No pills,” she said, lifting out a pink comb with three teeth missing, a crumpled Kleenex, and a small vial of perfume. “And I told her not to wear black. I begged her. People mentioned it. They complimented me, they said you looked lovely, Bess, they even said nice things about David—oh, I didn’t mean it that way, dear—but not about Rozzy. ‘Isn’t she hot?’ they’d say, or ‘Isn’t she ahead of the times?’ I got so tired of hearing it. As if I could do anything about it, anything with that girl.”

  “Oh, who cares,” I said, leaning against David, who patted my arm. He was still a little miffed with
me. He dropped us off, helping to rouse Rozzy, who stumbled into the house, swinging her arms and humming. Ben’s lamp, the study lamp, was flickering through the bamboo shades in the room, casting rulers of light.

  “Call me?” I said to David, leaning into the car and kissing him.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I might.”

  The phone woke me. I peered out at my clock. Seven A.M. David never got up that early, and anyway, no matter who it was on the phone, at seven in the morning I didn’t want to talk.

  Bea and Ben were always up and outside running around as soon as the sun was starring to rise, so I let the phone ring and ring, waiting for the silence to ease me back to sleep. The phone rang twenty-five times. I counted, all the while feeling the day getting hotter and muggier, the sheets changing texture and starting to stick. I finally jerked free from the bed and padded into the kitchen, wrenching the phone from the hook. I started to slam it back down, but I could hear a voice on the other end, catching me, forcing a connection between us.

  “What,” I said flatly.

  “Is Rozzy there?” It was a male voice, and for a moment I felt Tony’s presence coiling up inside the phone, insidious as a cobra. “Jesus,” I swore under my breath, setting the receiver down on the Formica counter and going into Rozzy’s old room.

  She was curled under a red quilt, her nose poking out. Her windows were tightly shut, sealing in the hot summer air. Her velvet dress was thrown on the floor, crumpled over her toe shoes and the dust. I shook her. “Phone.” She blinked and stumbled out of bed, making her hazy way into the kitchen. She was wearing a long checkered flannel nightgown, and she wrapped her arms about herself. She grabbed blindly for the phone. “Yeah” she said, still keeping one free arm wound around her body. I got out orange juice and muffins, thinking I might as well eat breakfast, and since Rozzy was up, she might as well eat it with me.

  “What? You want what?” said Rozzy. I glanced at her. She was standing very still and erect. “Yes. I guess it would be OK. Yes, yes,” she stammered and then she hung up the phone and turned to me. I waited for her to say Tony’s name, to make him real again.