Rosie Colored Glasses

by Brianna Wolfson

  “Your note was fucked-up.”

  “Yeah? What about it?” Rex came back quickly, ready to spar.

  Rosie almost walked away with her grimace, but then something just slipped out.

  “Even Maleficent had something original to say to Sleeping Beauty.”

  Instead of firing back, Rex just stood there staring at her. And then he laughed. He found Rosie’s retort bizarre, immature and adorable.

  Rosie tried to make her escape from Rex for the second time, tote bag in hand. Rosie’s body jerked just as awkwardly and charmingly as it had two weeks ago at Blooms Flower Shop. But this time there were strange comebacks and endearing polka-dot underwear.

  Rex thought about Anabel. She never moved like this. Or dressed like this. Or talked like this. She always had a tall spine and a straight neck and a freshly dry-cleaned shirt.

  Rex was surprised to find that everything about Rosie right here under this willow tree was warming his heart. Especially the awkward manner in which she tried to wiggle out of their encounter. Rosie marched determinedly in one direction. Then abruptly she turned around and marched equally determinedly in the opposite way.

  But Rex had positioned his body right in front of Rosie’s and stared down at her.

  And Rosie slowly lifted her head and stared right back into his eyes.

  Rex saw right through her big brown eyes and into her soul. Her bones that had finally stilled. And into her heart. Her heart that was racing.

  Rex felt his heart do the same, and right then and there started to believe in the nuanced, invisible, loving force of the world.

  And it made Rex want Rosie. So wholly. So viscerally. And when Rex Thorpe wanted something, he made it happen.

  So right there next to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, Rex Thorpe pressed Rosie Collins up against the bark of a willow tree, and then pressed his lips against hers so gently.

  It was the best kiss Rex ever had.

  Even though there were Pixy Stix in her mouth and in his hair.

  Rosie still had her eyes closed when she asked Rex slowly and calmly, “Think I’ll ever see you again?”

  Then Rex stared into Rosie’s still-closed lids and said simply and honestly, “Sure do.”

  Rex Thorpe went home, made a reservation at the most impressive restaurant he could think of and told Anabel simply and honestly that he was sorry, but he didn’t love her.

  Because Rex Thorpe finally knew what love was. And she tasted like Pixy Stix and wore polka-dot underwear.

  4

  Willow dragged her feet getting onto Bus #50. How it was one of the most difficult parts about going to Robert Kansas Elementary School. Because #50 was cruel to a fifth grader with tightly coiled hair that sprung out in all directions. It was cruel to a fifth grader who preferred a CD player to hopscotch with friends. And to a fifth grader who sat in her seat engrossed in word searches. It was cruel to a fifth grader who wore the same outfit every day or had once, just once, even peed in her pants at recess in front of everyone.

  Bus #50 was a nightmare for Willow Thorpe.

  Willow couldn’t go back on that bus. Not one more time. So she told her father about Bus #50. She told her strong, sturdy father. About the hair-pulling while having the word boing yelled in her ear. About the pointing at her favorite black T-shirt with the horseshoe while everyone laughed and laughed and said “she’s wearing it again.” About the tearing of her word search pages right when she was going to circle S-L-I-T-H-E-R on a backward diagonal. Willow’s voice crept over the lump in her throat as she told him.

  But Willow was devastated when her father’s only suggestion was to fix it herself.

  “Stop sitting near those kids, Willow,” he said nonchalantly. “Sit in the seat right behind the bus driver. He can help.”

  Willow did her best to clear the lump in her throat once more to protest, but as usual her father was insistent and unwavering. Rex walked Willow all the way up into the bus, pointed at that green vinyl seat with the duct tape covering up a hole in the back and said, “Sit here, Willow.”

  He said it in front of everybody. He was already making things worse.

  “Sit, Willow,” the fifth graders, and even some fourth graders, mocked as they patted on their legs like they were talking to a dog.

  Willow might have been even more upset if she didn’t think those fifth, and even some fourth, graders had it right in some ways. Her father did talk to her like she was a dog. A dog being trained. And not just this one time on the bus. All the time.

  “Eat your broccoli.”

  “Take your plate to the sink.”

  “Finish your homework.”

  “Make your bed.”

  “Tie your shoes.”

  “Help your brother.”

  Her father said those things without a smile or a please or a morsel of warmth. Her father was firm and direct, and Willow didn’t like it. Not now on Bus #50. And not any day at his house.

  In an effort to avoid eye contact with everybody else on that whole entire school bus, Willow turned her attention to the duct tape on the seat. She wished Asher didn’t have to take the designated kindergarten bus. She wished he was sitting right next to her. And as she wished, Willow picked at the sticky edges compulsively until she revealed the entire hole in the back of the seat. But when she looked into the hole, she saw something unusual in there. Willow reached her hand into that hole to see what it was.

  Tucked inside the hole she discovered two grape-flavored Pixy Stix with a string tied around them and a typed note that said, “For Willow.”

  For the first time all year, Willow smiled on Bus #50. She smiled to herself and sneakily stuck her secret candies into her backpack.

  But then she took one right back out, ripped it open and poured the sugar into her mouth. She couldn’t hold out for even a second. She loved Pixy Stix. She loved the loving force that put them there. And Willow thought she knew exactly what, who, that loving force was. There was only one person in this town, on this earth, in this universe who loved Willow enough to surprise her with her favorite flavor Pixy Stix.

  * * *

  As Willow walked down the hallway with her remaining Pixy Stix in her bag, she almost forgot that the kids at Robert Kansas Elementary School were going to be so mean. She almost forgot they might put diapers in her cubby. She had almost forgotten about the first time she saw diapers in her first-grade cubby after she peed in her pants a few days after her parents told her about the divorce. The day of that big thunderstorm. That big, booming, terrifying thunderstorm. She had almost forgotten that she would have no one to sit with at lunch, and that everyone would avoid being her partner in gym class. That her teachers wouldn’t call on her even though she knew all the answers. That at some point during the day, she was inevitably going to trip and fall in front of everyone.

  Gravity worked differently on Willow than it did on everybody else. It yanked her down randomly. It pulled her toward the earth whenever it wanted to. It gave a quick but firm tug on her knee, her elbow, her hip—and her body would buckle, leaving Willow in a contorted pile of bent skinny limbs on the ground. And while this often caused minor scrapes or bruises, Willow actually didn’t mind falling down like this. She thought that it made her special. She thought it made her distinct. The very idea that somewhere, sometimes, the world around her had singled her out. It singled her out and pulled her close to itself. Willow liked the idea that gravity was thinking of her from time to time. And she liked the idea that it would always let her know, with a tug on the knee, exactly when that time was.

  When the lunch bell rang, Willow took her time retrieving her bagged lunch from her cubby and then took her time walking down the hallway to the cafeteria. It helped minimize the time in which she was sitting alone at her lunch table in the back. She put one foot slowly in front of the other and traced her
finger along the green elementary school walls.

  But before she even rounded the corner for the lunchroom, Willow could hear Amanda Rooney and Patricia Bleeker giggling even though she couldn’t see them. This was a trick Willow recognized from last year. Amanda and Patricia had waited for Willow to turn the corner, then they stuck out their clean white platform shoes, causing Willow to fall over right in the middle of the floor. They laughed, and then walked away with their arms linked at the elbows.

  Today, Willow knew better than to fall into their trap a second time. So, she made a very wide turn and exposed Amanda and Patricia huddled together on the other side. They were both wearing big blue bows in their blond hair and had on pink-striped T-shirts. Willow could barely tell which one was which, given the way they were tangled up in each other’s matching outfits like that. Willow looked right at them, smiled only slightly and let her eyes tell them, You’re not going to trip me twice!

  But just when Willow thought she had escaped the taunts, gravity yanked down on her so hard she fell all the way to the ground. First her right knee, then her right hip, then her right shoulder.

  Amanda and Patricia squealed equally high-pitched squeals. And with the sound of their laughter ricocheting in her skull, Willow just stayed on the floor and closed her eyes tightly and hoped that she would hear Patricia’s and Amanda’s shrieks soften.

  But their sounds only got louder.

  And when Willow opened her eyes, the two blond-haired, blue-eyed girls were standing over her and dumping handfuls of pencil shavings all over her body, making sure to get them into her curly hair.

  Willow just lay there watching as the apple from her lunch bag broke loose and rolled halfway down the hallway.

  And then finally Patricia’s and Amanda’s voices trailed away as they left Willow to her bruised elbow and her bruised apple. To her messed-up lunch and her messed-up hair.

  Willow got up and shook her head back and forth, expecting flakes of soft yellow wood to flutter out of her hair, but nothing did. The shavings hooked themselves so assiduously into her jagged curls that not a single one fell to the ground. Willow walked into the bathroom to find a mirror, thinking perhaps there would be enough time to pick out the pieces before lunch was over. But on the wall next to the mirror, in thick black Sharpie, it said, “Willow, Willow, hair like Brillo.” She wondered if someone had just added it here or whether it was left over from last year.

  Either way, after the quick glance she got of herself in the mirror before turning around, Willow thought the yellow flecks looked sort of cool in there. They had that same jagged in-motion effect as the design on her Keith Haring T-shirt. Mom would like that. Plus, tonight was pizza night so she could show her then.

  5

  Twelve Years Ago

  Although Rex was not Rosie’s usual type, her soul had already succumbed to Rex in so many ways. Rosie was equal parts nervous and excited for their first date.

  She mixed and matched printed dresses with vintage jewelry until she was pleased. She twirled around in the mirror and blew herself a kiss after applying her favorite red lipstick and scanning her final choice of outfit.

  Rosie shouldn’t have been surprised when their first date included a highly coveted reservation at a fancy Manhattan restaurant with high ceilings and a bathroom attendant, but she was. She was surprised and uncomfortable in her twenty-dollar dress on a six-hundred-dollar gold-adorned chair. And she was annoyed and uncomfortable as Rex ordered an appetizer of oysters for the two of them to share without consulting her.

  Rosie hated oysters. And Rex didn’t even pause for one moment to consider that he wasn’t going to impress Rosie with them. He was going to scare her with them. He was going to gross her out with them. Because Rosie thought they looked like boogers. And tasted like them too.

  Rosie considered putting one of them up her nostril when the oysters arrived to ease the tension between them, but Rex was too enraptured by the wine menu to have noticed.

  When their second course was set down by a waiter with a napkin folded over his forearm and the one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar wine was poured by a sommelier, Rex finally looked up at Rosie.

  “Cheers,” he said innocently.

  But Rosie was indignant and it bubbled out of her immediately.

  She positioned her tiny arms to push her stupid, gold-adorned chair back and leave Rex alone at his expensive fucking table with its boring white tablecloth and its overly formal waiters who bent from the hips with straight legs and backs when you walked by.

  “I hate oysters,” she stated a little too firmly and a little too loudly. “And this wine is, like, stupid expensive.”

  A pause.

  “And so is this stupid tablecloth and this stupid napkin, I bet!”

  “Ugh, I think you’re right,” Rex said, finally dropping his shoulders. “Let’s finish this stupid bottle of stupid expensive wine and get out of here. I know a good pizza spot around the corner.”

  And just like that, Rosie nuzzled her knees back under the table, finished her wine and found herself ready to be smitten all over again.

  As they munched on cheap pizza while expensive wine coursed through their blood, conversation flowed easily between them. Neither Rex nor Rosie had any idea what the other was saying because Rosie was focused on Rex’s deep, dark eyes. And Rex had his eyes locked on Rosie’s expressive, red lips. And just as Rex was about to take the last bite of his crust, Rosie grabbed his hand and whisked him out the door.

  “Music time,” she whispered in his ear as she pulled him in toward her on the sidewalk, and then twirled her body around.

  They walked a few brisk blocks, and then ducked under the red awning of Ray’s, Rosie’s favorite piano bar. Rosie loved everything about Ray’s. The dark corners and the red lamps at the tables. The smoky scent of cigars and the bottle-lined bar. The sexiness of it all.

  She loved that she could never guess who from the audience might stand up and play a tune for the rest of the room. She loved that one minute, a man with quiet eyes and deep wrinkles would be slowly sipping a whiskey neat, and the next minute he was slamming his fingers against the keyboard and filling a room with music. She liked the idea that anyone, everyone, in a given space might have a gift to share.

  Rex and Rosie sat in the back with another bottle of wine as, one by one, different members from the audience took a seat onstage and used their entire body to make sexy, full, stunning music. Rex and Rosie searched around the room and tried to guess which patron they thought would perform next. They tried to guess what song might be played. Billy Joel for the man about their age in the rugged baseball hat. Frank Sinatra for the gray-headed man with strong and wrinkled hands tapping his foot in the back. And while they were never right, not even once, Rex and Rosie both opened themselves fully to the game and to each other.

  When Rex slid away from the table, Rosie assumed it was to order another round of drinks. But then he was onstage under the foggy red lights. In a thousand-dollar jacket on a five-dollar piano bench. And he looked great.

  The crowd sang along to Rex playing “Bennie and the Jets” as he pressed his fingers deliberately but naturally into the keys. And right there, Rosie saw the most important thing she could see in a man. Rex Thorpe had soul—and she could work with that.

  So Rosie joined the rest of the room and sang along as her soon-to-be boyfriend moved the crowd and Rosie’s heart into motion.

  Rex left the stage after a standing ovation and a familiar handshake from the bar owner. And then Rosie kissed Rex deeply and proudly linked her arm in his as they walked out of the red-lit piano bar.

  She didn’t mean to stumble into Rex’s arms when he walked her back to her apartment, but she was drunk with wine and whiskey and new love.

  6

  Willow fixated on the second hand of the clock in Mrs. McAllister’s classroom as she waited
for school to be over. As she waited for pizza night. Waited for her mother to come around the bend of the parent pickup circle in her rattling blue car with its googly eyes stenciled on the front of it. Waited to spend the night swaddled in fun.

  When the three-thirty bell rang, Willow shoved her spelling list into the bottom of her backpack, confirmed that her laces were tied on both shoes and fast-walked all the way to Asher’s classroom. She grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him toward the parent pickup circle. Then Willow exhaled for the first time all day and locked her eyes on the entranceway.

  Rosie was typically late to pick up Willow and Asher from school. She never wore a watch and often found herself in a daze somewhere, completely oblivious to the time. But Willow didn’t want to miss one second with her mother, so she rushed to the pickup circle anyway every Tuesday and Thursday after school. Willow noticed that all of the other moms wore jeans, a T-shirt and dark sunglasses. They drove black or white cars that sparkled permanently. They kept their hair in neat ponytails and never got out of the car to say “hi” to their children.

  But that wasn’t her mother. Her mother’s car was bright blue and made loud clanking noises. Rosie had named her car Lili Von after her favorite character in Blazing Saddles. The googly eyes that were stenciled just above the headlights always caused side-eye glances from the other mothers too. But that didn’t faze Willow or Asher. They loved that car and they loved those googly eyes.

  After only three games of tic-tac-toe, Lili Von appeared around the bend with Prince blasting out the window. Willow saw her mother’s left knee poking out the driver’s seat window. Her wavy brown hair was blowing around excitedly. Her big brown eyes and arched eyebrows were sticking out above her neon pink, thick-framed sunglasses that were resting on the tip of her nose. Lili Von screeched as her mother pulled up to the curb in front of where Willow and Asher were standing. And almost before the car had fully stopped, Rosie jumped out of the front seat to give each of her children separate, tight hugs.