seven
IN the week that followed, Elizabeth cleaned out and relined every drawer in the house, throwing out little broken things that they were supposed to mend someday, announcements of events that had passed long ago, invitations they had meant to respond to. It was the dandruff of their lives. She hummed little songs as she worked, and listened to Joan Baez. Time passed, and the crazy broken feelings of loss subsided. Rosie was gone so much of the time, practicing, hanging out with Simone, who had all but disappeared from sight, and even with Hallie, who called from time to time. Rosie had some secrets, that was one thing Elizabeth now knew. Elizabeth tried to get her to tell, but her chance had come on the river, and Rosie apparently wouldn’t give her another.
Elizabeth had heard her getting up all night, from her little rabbit nest of a bed, up to pee every hour or so, down to the kitchen for milk at midnight. Elizabeth had found the unwashed glass on the counter this morning.
“Hello, love,” said Elizabeth. “What are your plans for the day?”
“I don’t have any.”
Rosie’s gaze passed over Elizabeth, slippery as oil. “Can we go up on the mountain?” she asked finally.
“You want to go for a hike? Or do you want to tell me something?”
“I want to talk to you, but not here.”
“Okay. Why don’t you go pack us a lunch while I finish up here?”
ROSIE packed salami sandwiches, Oreos, a thermos of Coke. She had not actually decided which of the two secrets she would tell her mother today, about cheating or about Simone. But she couldn’t go on keeping both of them.
Surrounded by clouds and fog, they drove halfway to the top of the mountain, where they broke through into sunshine. Rosie stared through the window and listened to Elizabeth’s pathetic folk music on the car stereo. The foliage was fleecy, woolly, all looking from a distance like a thick green pelt you could stroke or even wrap yourself in. She thought about wrapping her mother in it, like a car blanket, to comfort her and make her feel safe. Then she felt a stab of annoyance; her mother was the one who should be taking care of her.
When they’d driven for twenty minutes, they came to a place to park in the dirt by the side of the road. They looked out through the windshield at the nappy hillsides, the wind-sculpted trees, yellow Scotch broom everywhere.
“You know,” said her mother dreamily, “I think the Muslim holy colors are green and gold.”
Rosie’s stomach buckled at her mother’s oddness. She looked at her skeptically. “Why did you say that just now?”
“I just remembered it, darling. Okay?” Rosie nodded, feeling old and worried. “I asked a woman from Tehran who goes to my meetings why those two colors. And you know what she said?” Rosie shook her head. “She said, ‘We like green so much because we live in the desert. And everyone loves gold.’ ”
Rosie thought this over for a moment; finally they got out of the car. Rosie carried their lunch in her mother’s old canvas knapsack, and as they began to walk she felt almost elated; they were away from everything, in the middle of nowhere. This filled her with a sense of lightness, as if she could breathe deeply again. And the smells enveloped her, the sense of life that is not yet fouled. She could smell the salty seaweed smells of the ocean. There were still a few poppies and lupine around, all that blue and yellow, the poppies so sweet and gold, like a Buddhist monk’s robe, like little cups you could drink from.
Rosie rehearsed her opening lines. Simone was really starting to show, but big clothes covered her stomach. They walked for a while beneath the cover of trees, Douglas fir and redwood, over moist crunching vegetation. Mama, Rosie practiced saying, I cheated a few times this year. I didn’t even really mean to, but that’s what Renee’s mother meant when she said someone should have gotten a line judge long ago.
Her mother suddenly reached out and put her arm around Rosie’s shoulders.
“Rosie? Is it too soon for you to tell me what you wanted to? Or should we just hike for a while?”
Tiny metallic explosions of fear went off in Rosie’s stomach. She decided not to tell, rather to make up a new pretend secret she’d been keeping—that Hallie smoked or something.
“Hike for a while,” she said.
She tried to think of something to fill the silence with. Under and beside the perfect, magnificent redwoods, she was the size of a ladybug.
“A redwood is a tree you have respect for,” she said. It made her feel grown-up to say this.
Now they were in fog again, or a heavy mist, and Rosie stopped. She smelled the wet, springy, primeval softness underfoot, the life, the rot.
“Mommy?” she asked, without meaning to.
“Yes?” Elizabeth looked into Rosie’s grim, tight face.
Rosie stared down at the earth and leaves at her feet. She didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m trying so hard to tell you a secret. A horrible, horrible secret.”
Elizabeth simply nodded, but Rosie felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. Her face began to crumple, and Elizabeth pulled them both over to a great rock at the foot of the slope beside the path, then waited for Rosie to sit down beside her.
Fingers of sunshine now streamed through the trees, the soft-edged shafts inside a cathedral.
Rosie listened to her mother’s voice, which sounded very far away.
“Darling, there’s nothing, nothing in the world, you could tell me that you’ve done that will be so bad—nothing, nothing.” After another minute, Rosie came back and sat on the rock beside her, and Elizabeth pulled her near, and Rosie folded over sideways with her head in her mother’s lap. It was very quiet, except for the sound of a nearby stream.
“There’s two things,” said Rosie, looking up into the branches above her. Then she said something into Elizabeth’s lap that, muffled though it was, sounded like “I cheat.”
“What?” said her mother. “What did you say, darling?”
“I said. Oh, Mommy. There’s something so bad. I’m just going to say it.” Elizabeth peered tenderly into her daughter’s brilliant blue, troubled eyes. Rosie wasn’t breathing. At this moment she still did not know which secret she was going to say. Then she looked down for a second and off into the distance, and when she looked back at Elizabeth, the terror was gone, replaced with a hushed intent look of surprise.
“Simone,” she whispered, “is pregnant.” She drew in a deep breath and held it; she felt like she did when they entered the rainbow tunnel on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and she held her breath all the way to the other side—suspended, bursting, focused.
“God almighty,” Elizabeth said. Rosie watched her expectantly. “Jesus Christ,” Elizabeth whispered. She blinked as if her eyes hurt, and her mouth hung open and she tilted her head back slowly to stare at the canopy of green above their heads. “Is she going to … have an abortion?” Rosie shrugged and after a moment shook her head.
“I don’t think so. She’s canceled two appointments to do it so far.”
Elizabeth buried her face in her hands, shook it from side to side. Time passed. Rosie closed her eyes too, listened to her heart throb in her chest, hard and fast. After a while she opened her eyes. All the greens were almost too bright.
“God almighty, Rosie. Is there really a second one?”
Rosie didn’t say anything for a moment. “There was just that.”
“You said two, you—”
“Shhhh, Mommy,” said Rosie. She felt like when a shot of hers hit the top of the net and then, after a long moment, dropped onto the other side. “The first secret is she’s pregnant. The second secret is that she’s maybe going to keep the baby. She hasn’t decided.”
“When is the baby due?”
“Six months.”
“God. That’s why she’s gained so much weight. This is why the big shirts.” Rosie nodded. “What does Veronica say?”
“They’re not speaking.”
“Well, they better fucking well start speaking.” Elizabeth stared up throug
h the branches. Rosie felt a stab of pain that her mother was angry at her.
“Actually,” she explained, “they only stopped speaking this morning. When Simone told her.”
“Simone told her for the first time—today? Jesus Christ, what did Veronica say?”
“I don’t know, but Simone is grounded.”
“Oh, Rosie! You! Simone! What a secret!” Rosie finally turned around so she could sit in her mother’s lap. “Who’s the daddy?” her mother wanted to know.
“This guy who’s eighteen and plays tennis.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He’s no one you know. His name’s Jason Drake. He’s really handsome and stuck up.”
“Is he sticking by Simone? Never mind. Don’t even bother answering.”
“He gave her two hundred dollars for the abortion.”
“The abortion she decided not to go through with.”
“Yeah.”
“I see. And how are you—how are you holding up?”
“Not so good.”
Her mother held her tighter then, held on too tight for a minute, but it felt good, like it might hold them all together.
ELIZABETH shook her head, in a daze. “Can we just sit here another minute while I—process all this?”
Images of Simone began to play in her head, scenes of Simone having sex, oral sex, screwing, hugely pregnant, screaming in delivery, Rosie as her birth coach, swabbing her with compresses the way Rosie wiped Elizabeth’s forehead when she was depressed. Simone with a baby. Elizabeth rubbed her eyes. Then Rosie nudged her and, when she looked up, handed her a cup of soda. Elizabeth took the cup and a sip, and then stared out at the redwoods until her vision blurred. Pregnant. Simone was pregnant. She was doomed; the light of her future had just gone out. For Simone to have already had sex was disastrous. To have gotten pregnant, to be facing an abortion, would be a catastrophic setback. This, though, was tragedy. This was almost evil. She looked at Rosie and shook her head. Rosie looked back at her with concern and fear, her lips pressed tight together like a worried little child. “Pregnant,” Elizabeth whispered, filled with a terrible emptiness. They gawked at each other. Each time she thought the word pregnant or saw an image of Simone with a bulging tummy, something reverberated in the mountain air like a sonic boom inside her.
“Mommy,” Rosie pleaded softly, “don’t space out on me now.” Elizabeth looked at her daughter intently and tried to inhale a deep breath of fresh mountain air. The fog was moving into the redwoods, like there was a wordless relationship between them, old friends. Rosie was peering into her face as if trying to read a smudgy set of blueprints.
eight
THE next day, Rae invited Rosie over to spend the night. She was in the middle of a large weaving, and the smells of the fibers were very strong. Rae was weaving sorrow into a landscape of bottle greens and taupe. The sorrow was a curvy band of muddy purple blue, and the secret she was weaving into it was a ginger-red rayon ribbon. You couldn’t see it, though, at first, through all those dull colors.
“You know about Simone,” said Rosie. “Right?”
Rae nodded. “I do know,” she said.
“What would you have felt like if your best friend had gotten pregnant when you were thirteen?”
“Oh, Rosie. You know, it was so different then. My best friend would have been whisked away and made to have an abortion. Which would have been illegal and maybe dangerous. She simply wouldn’t have had the choice of keeping the baby.”
Rosie leaned against the loom. The wool in the weaving smelled like animals, earthy, damp, sweaty, more like boys, like men. Silk smelled more like girls, like sweet dreams, but she couldn’t smell any now.
“Tell me how you feel.” Rae’s voice was quiet and kind. Rosie, eyes closed, was mute. Rae made it look so easy to make something beautiful out of her life with little acts of goodness and attention. All Rosie had these days were ugly pieces of yarn—all fear and secrets and hating everyone.
She took a long deep breath and started to tell Rae that Simone had had a little bleeding in her underpants but that the doctor said she was fine, everything was fine, the doctor said. Only maybe she was a little afraid, and Rae said, “Uh-huh,” so quietly, and Rosie said it was all so strange because she was afraid that Simone would lose the baby, and she was afraid Simone would actually have the baby; she was afraid she would lose Simone, because she lost everyone—her daddy, and Sharon, and Charles—and she was afraid that their life, her life and Simone’s life as best friends, was now ripped to shreds, because how would they be able to be friends when Simone had a crying baby around? She said she felt like she was underneath a sort of heavy blanket, and she felt sorry for Simone and also jealous that Simone got to get unstuck from being a teenager. And she felt afraid, just afraid, afraid in every way, and everyone would say her best friend was a slut, and she was afraid because she was so so so glad it wasn’t her, and she was afraid because abortion was so horrible and Simone was too far along and she felt afraid because she hoped the baby would die so they wouldn’t have to deal with all this. Rae made a whistle with no sound in it, like a little wind. Rosie fiddled with her fingernails, clicking them against each other. She was also afraid of things she couldn’t tell Rae, like that every day she expected a letter from the regional sportsmanship committee, summoning her before them about the cheating; she was also afraid she would never get caught; she was afraid because she dreamed about kissing James, and Lank, and Luther—she didn’t mean to have those dreams but she woke up with that buzz, that tightening down in her vagina.
Rae stretched out on the floor, and Rosie lay down beside her. “I’m afraid of a thousand things,” she said in a very small voice that sounded even to herself like Betty Boop’s. Her heart was brimming over with misery, and tears rolled down the sides of her face, falling on the carpet.
“Rae, are you not ever afraid because you believe in God?”
“I am afraid sometimes. But I have company.”
“You mean, because you feel like God is with you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I think I’m a Christian,” said Rosie. “Except for the Jesus part.” She heard Rae give a quiet laugh through her nose. At first Rosie felt worried that Rae thought she was stupid, but then she could tell that Rae was just making that little laugh because she loved her.
THE next night, at the Fergusons, over the sound of James’s pencil on paper and the turning of magazine pages came the nebulous hum of Lank and Rae in the kitchen. They were washing dishes. Elizabeth had decreed that tonight would be a reading night. Lank, lonely and bored, needed company, and Rae needed to get away from the phone, and they had both called Elizabeth to invite themselves to dinner. But Elizabeth had said they were welcome to come over only if they felt like sitting around after dinner and reading. They had both agreed. But when James and the Fergusons had taken up their stations, Rae and Lank had stood around trying to figure out where to sit. They had a brief shoving match over the rocking chair. Then Rae stormed over to the love seat and plopped down.
“What are you going to read, Rae?” Rosie asked, as if Rae were a kindergartner.
“I’m going to read your mother’s mind,” she said. Elizabeth shook her head and refused to look up.
Lank approached the love seat and tilted his head to peer at the empty space beside Rae.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“I’m looking to see if his royal Lordhood is sitting there beside you.” Rae blushed a dark crimson.
“You shouldn’t tease her about Jesus,” said Rosie. “This country was founded on the principle of religious freedom, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“That’s right, honey,” said her mother.
“And it’s sexist of men to mock a woman’s deepest feelings—”
“Uh—that’s enough, sweetheart.”
“God.”
Lank sighed. “Rosie, you know me better than that, right?” Rosie simmered. “You know
I’m not Jesse Helms, right? You can see the difference? I just want to make sure I don’t sit on him, honey, on Jesus. That’s all.” And so saying, he continued to scout the empty seat on the couch.
Rae patted the space next to her, giving Lank the clearest, kindest look. “He’s in my heart, Lank.”
Rosie rolled her eyes a bit, but then as Lank sat down next to Rae, returned to her magazine, picking at an eyebrow.
“You don’t have anything to read,” Elizabeth implored, addressing Lank and Rae. “I just want to have a quiet night here, reading with my family. I was very clear on that.” Rosie stared at her magazine, smiling now on the inside. It was so great when other people were getting in trouble besides her.
“You don’t want to watch TV with your family?” Rae asked hopefully.
“No,” said Elizabeth. “It’s a reading night. See how nicely Rosie is reading?” Rosie looked up from her magazine and waved. “See how nicely James is working?” said Elizabeth. James looked up and waved his pencil in greeting, scribbling words on the air in front of his face.
“Is there anything we can do to get out of reading?” Rae asked. Elizabeth shook her head. “Could we do the dinner dishes?” After a moment Elizabeth nodded.
And so Lank and Rae had disappeared into the kitchen.
“She’s our sun,” Elizabeth heard Lank pronounce. “And we her unworthy planets.” James smiled at Elizabeth, who did not notice. She was listening to the sound of water running in the background, the sound of friendly sparring. Memories of Andrew drifted into her head like leaves, Andrew at the sink doing dishes after dinner. She always washed and he always dried, and in her mind she heard, either from the past or from the kitchen, the clink of clean dishes being set down against one another.
nine
AT 10:30 that night, after Lank and Rae had left and Rosie had gone to bed, when James and Elizabeth were in the living room still reading, the phone rang. It was Simone. “I think I need to go to the hospital,” she told Elizabeth, her voice high and tremulous. “My mother’s out on a date, and I don’t know where.”