Meeting Rozzy Halfway

by Caroline Leavitt

  “You baby,” he said, starting up the car. I went up the steps to the house, hating him, wanting him to hurry up and leave instead of idling that way, waiting as if I might apologize or explain.

  I went inside and sat in the kitchen with a piece of ice, letting it drift over my skin and cool me. From outside, I could hear Rozzy laughing, screaming at Stewey to stop. I lifted myself up a little to look at them. Their eyes were bright, their faces flashing.

  I started to dial David’s number. “I don’t want you anymore,” I said. The phone rang and rang, but no one answered. He wouldn’t be home for another half-hour. I could wait. Every ten minutes I rang his number, and when he finally answered, he sounded friendly and cheerful. I could hear the TV in the background. “I don’t want to see you for a while,” I spat out.

  He was surprised. “Bess, you were just hot and cranky, that’s all. It was nothing. I’m not mad with you.”

  “It’s not good with you anymore, it’s not what I want,” I said, starting to cry, hiding my face in my hands, as if he could see through the wire and make me feel ashamed.

  “Bess,” he said, “I love you.”

  “I can’t talk anymore. Don’t call back.” I hung up the phone.

  The phone rang almost instantly. I couldn’t move. I sat on the stool in the kitchen, letting my nose run, not even lifting up a hand to stop it. “Shut up, shut up,” I hissed at the phone, finally gaining some motion, jerking the phone on its head to twist the volume knob down as low as it would go. When I turned the phone right side up, the ringing stopped. “Good,” I said bitterly, “good.”

  I heard Rozzy giggling, stumbling at the back door. I swiped at my tears with the heel of my hand and buried my face in my arms.

  Rozzy touched me. “Bess,” she said, “all right?” Her touch changed. “You teasing?” she said, pushing my hair from my face. I looked at her and she frowned. Stewey was leaning against the kitchen door, his face calm and serious.

  “I’m not seeing David anymore. Not for a while.”

  “Shut up,” she said, “not now, don’t tell me. There’s

  plenty of time later.” She turned to Stewey. “We’ll take her to the films with us tonight.”

  “You can’t do that,” I said.

  “Of course I can.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m OK, I can cope. I’m capable of staying here by myself. Anyway, it was just a tiff, maybe it’s just my period.”

  “You’re coming with us,” said Rozzy.

  “That’s right,” said Stewey, “so prepare yourself.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  No one ever really understood the relationship we three had, how easy and how natural it was for us to grow into something like that. At first I worried about the boundaries. I remembered how possessive Rozzy always was about anything that had to do with Stewey. That possessiveness had now stretched; it now included me before it snapped its walls shut around all of us.

  Rozzy never talked with me about what happened with David, but she never left me alone to brood. We spent the days together, and when the daylight dimmed into evening, the two of us waited for Stewey, the two of us climbed into the back seat of Bea’s car and made Stewey chauffeur us into town.

  I never felt left out, an unwelcome third. Rozzy wouldn’t let Stewey walk down the street holding her hand unless he held mine as well. She wouldn’t let him buy her a rose unless there was a violet for me. She’d push me against him so we could topple onto the ground, tickling one another, discovering the best spots. When we went to the movies, Stewey sat in the middle. “Who do you think you’re kidding, Stewey?” I said. “We all know you like the middle so you can hog all the popcorn.” At dinner, it was the three of us who rushed in and rushed out, shouting at one another, “Come on, come on.” Bea was baffled. “David keeps calling and calling. Just what do I tell him? Have you split up with him? I liked David.”

  “You go out with him then,” said Rozzy.

  “Listen, don’t be so smart. Someone will, soon enough. That boy’s a prize.”

  I felt a fluttering ache rising within me. “I should call him.”

  “Not now,” said Rozzy. “We have to rush to make the film.”

  It was always “not now.” I’d start missing David, and then Stewey would call and tell me to grab Rozzy and meet him for an art fair in town. I’d start walking toward David’s place, imagining his sweet earnest face, the way he’d touch me, and then I’d bang into Stewey, frantically biking to our house. At night, I’d idly dial numbers on the phone, and then Rozzy would insist we all make popcorn with melted cheese. It was easy to be caught up, to forget, to ignore the inked notes Bea kept tacking to the bulletin board—“Call David. Urgent.” It was always urgent.

  One Saturday, though, when Stewey was at the dentist’s, and Rozzy at the eye doctor’s, I ended up at David’s. He didn’t seem surprised to see me, but started talking as if nothing had happened; he led me to a seat on the floor by the window where it was cool. He sat on the couch, hugging a monkey pillow to his chest. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “You look fine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What did I do, Bess?”

  I picked at the ends of my jeans. “Nothing.”

  “I know. I know I did nothing. I was just curious if you knew it.” He bent down and made a feeble swipe for my hand, but I punched my fingers down against my thigh.

  “You want to break up? Is this what this visit is?”

  “I missed you.”

  “You want to get back together?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “I love you. I’m not seeing anyone else.”

  “Neither am I. That’s not it.”

  He got up from the couch and started pacing, running his hand across his face. “Bess,” he said, “what do you do all day, or at night? Couldn’t we just go to a movie—as friends?”

  “Friends,” I said. I stood up and leaned against the window.

  “Look, it’s not what I want, but it’s better than nothing, isn’t it? Maybe it will give you a chance to decide what it is you want. At least you won’t be home nights, right?” He gave a half-smile.

  “I don’t stay home. I swim. Or I go out with Stewey and Rozzy.”

  David stopped pacing and looked carefully at me. “Bess,” he said, “you know when Stewey finally goes back to Madison to school, Rozzy will leave, too. Maybe not with him, but she’ll leave.”

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “You don’t.” His face was folding in upon itself, crumbling.

  I had my hand on the doorknob.

  “At least it’s not over,” he said. “Stay now. Please.” And I left.

  I moped all afternoon, scribbling out notes, the pros and cons about David, about any relationship, until Rozzy came home, shouting for me. We were going out, and I’d have to get ready.

  I began to get to know Stewey. Occasionally Rozzy would be late, and we’d have to stumble into a conversation. Stewey was truly wonderful. We swapped life stories, and then, as always, the conversation centered on Rozzy. Stewey knew all about Rozzy, about her illness, and he didn’t care. In fact, it was Stewey who convinced Rozzy to get herself a doctor while she was feeling well. “Maintenance,” he said, and he even scouted out the doctor for her, a man named Leffler. Ben was suspicious. He didn’t want to be paying out large sums of money to any quack, so he had Leffler checked out, and grudgingly admitted Leffer’s qualifications. Stewey went with Rozzy to the doctor every Thursday, sitting in the waiting room reading the old magazines. He never let her go straight home from the doctor’s, but always took her someplace special to smooth out her sulky anger, her desperate hostility. It took a lot for him to be kind to her at these times, when she’d snap out at him and say ugly things, when she’d verbally abuse him, but he could tune out, he could wait for her to be calm.

  I never went to the doctor’s with them. On doctor days, I swam and I painted. I went out and bought myself an Artist’s Ma
rket and toyed with the idea of breaking into the greeting card business. I did research, wandering through the card stores, jotting down the fomulas that seemed to work the best, and seeing for whom they worked best. I spent hours folding watercolor paper into card size, figuring out how to make mermaids pop out of the mouths of fish and paper doors open and close. I had no idea what kinds of things might be written for my paintings, but I didn’t care. The art should carry the card, I thought. The card buyer should have enough originality to think up his own catchy phrases. I told no one what I was doing, and when I had packets of twenty cards, I mailed them off in a big brown envelope.

  “What did you do today?” Rozzy would ask when she and Stewey returned.

  “Painted. Swam.”

  “Are you famous yet?” said Rozzy, grinning.

  “Of course she is,” said Stewey. “We all are.”

  A week later, I came home to find Ben yelling at Stewey, who dashed outside into the street. I tried to clutch at him.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” I said, panting for breath in the still heat. I could hear the insects humming. “Where’s Rozzy?”

  “She’s with Bea out shopping,” he said. “Ben probably set it up so he could corner me.”

  “Come on, sit,” I said, pulling him down to the curb with me. He slumped down, hanging his arms over his knees as if they were dead things and not part of him.

  “What?” I said.

  “What, what, you want to know what Ben said about his own fucking daughter?” He kicked at a stone lying along the gutter. “I was expecting Rozzy to be home. She usually calls me when she’s going to be late, and when I came into the house, Ben was there in the living room, reading. He told me Rozzy was out, that she might not be back until dinner, so I said thanks and started to go home again. I didn’t want to hang around that house with just Ben.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said. “Don’t look so guilty.”

  “He told me to have a seat, that there was something he wanted to talk to me about, so I sat.” Stewey frowned. “He gave it to me like it was some revelation that would change everything. He said that Rozzy was really ill and that I should stop trying to see myself as some kind of savior. ‘Christ died already,’ he said, ‘and that didn’t change anything, did it.’ Oh God. He said he didn’t think that I realized the extent of Rozzy’s problem, how chronic it really was. Jesus, Bess, how could I be with Rozzy so much and not know? The moment I first saw her, in those duck-toed shoes and that black velvet, I knew something was different, but it was a good different, I liked it. The conversations we had were incredible; she knew something about almost everything, and the way she trusted me, the way she didn’t play any of those stupid games—it was just incredible.

  “At first, I thought she was just eccentric, what with her being so cold all the time, but the second day we spent together—here, at the house—I knew there was something else going on. We were sitting up on the hill and she was shivering in some heavy red sweater, even though it was ninety degrees. She stuttered something, but I couldn’t hear her and had to ask her to repeat it a few times. ‘I’m hearing voices,’ she said. I thought she meant some little kids were spying on us and she could hear them giggling and whispering, so I told her not to mind, that they’d be bored soon. Then she got this terrible panicky look on her face, so I took her hands. Hell, I didn’t know what else the fuck to do, so I took her hands. I told her she didn’t have to listen, that I was right there beside her. She blinked at me, and then she said, ‘But what if I want to listen?’ I told her I’d still be right there beside her. And then”—Stewey paused, jerking his shoulders firm again—“she leaned her head down against my chest and shut her eyes. ‘I can hear your heart,’ she said.

  “It’s all chemical, I know it is. She doesn’t have to be sick for the rest of her life. Doctors don’t know shit. It could disappear tomorrow, forever. But you want to know something that your thick-headed father can’t get through his skull? Even if Rozzy were never cured, is that so terrible? So she sometimes hears voices; I can handle that. And don’t tell me it gets worse; I can handle that, too. I can handle anything that has to do with Rozzy. I’d still want to be with her. But Ben—he wanted to know what kind of a man is attracted to people like Rozzy. People, he said. Damn, damn, I love her.”

  I wrapped myself around Stewey, trying to hold him, trying to be held. “I know,” I said.

  After that Stewey kept clear of Ben. Rozzy didn’t know what was going on. I think it would have destroyed her to hear Ben talk about her that way. I was angry with Ben, angry enough to confront him, but he only sighed and said I didn’t understand, that he was trying to protect Rozzy.

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  Ben’s eyes glittered. “I’m not talking to you when you swear like that,” he said.

  I wasn’t through. I went to Bea, I told her what Ben had said to Stewey. She fluttered her hands helplessly. “I’ll talk to him,” she said.

  “Sure.” I turned to go outside and then pivoted. “What does he say about me to people?” I didn’t wait for an answer but jerked open the screen door and went out into the shimmering heat.

  Stewey decided we needed a change, and he bought himself a used car, a bruised green Chevy with brilliant red seats. The seats were plastic and my skin always stuck to them in the heat. Stewey complained constantly about the car. Gas was too high, parking in Boston was impossible, and the drivers were mad, but he hung a small lobster charm from the rearview mirror and his bicycle began to quietly rust in the foyer of his apartment. When it was stolen, the heavy metal chain sliced cleanly through, he didn’t even bother to buy another bike, or to report the theft. The landlord had to finally remove the remaining piece of chain from the bannister and throw it in the trash himself.

  The three of us began to take long aimless weekend drives to nowhere, escaping Bea and Ben, and David, too, ending up in Biddeford and Toytown, in towns with names like stories. We never stayed late, sometimes we didn’t even get out of the car. Every place looked the same. What was nice was being in the car, safe in a kind of metal cocoon. It was wonderful, seeing all those tiny towns and knowing you’d never have to live in them, never even have to step on their gritty sidewalks or communicate with any of the pale dull faces staring at us. Hotels were expensive, and the one place where we stopped, Stewey asked for one room for the three of us. To Rozzy’s delight, he was misunderstood. The manager stiffened and told us that his hotel didn’t serve “our kind.” Rozzy and I collapsed against each other, giggling. “Very funny,” said Stewey. “Meanwhile, where do we sleep?”

  We slept in the car, achey with cramps, smelling of sleep and sweat. We ate in the greasy diners, meticulously checking our silverware for yesterday’s food. We bought newspapers and inked in obscenities in the comic pages; we played “Gimme Shelter” on the juke box over and over until a waitress would slam down our check, jutting out one angry hip so it formed a shelf for her hand.

  It was Stewey’s idea to go camping. Rozzy stumbled down into our basement and dragged up our old sleeping bags. They were kids’ bags, light cotton, printed with colorful Mickey Mouses, with big yellow zippers. Bea had bought them years back as a guilty retribution for not being a Brownie troop leader, for letting us grow up without a sense of belonging, a sense she thought we might need someday. Some other girls in our class, living in luckier blocks with troop leaders, wore their dirt-brown uniforms to school and got to pledge allegiance to the flag with a two-finger Brownie salute, instead of placing their whole hands on their budding breasts and flushing with mortification like the rest of us girls. Bea had set to work to make amends. She organized sleepouts for us in the backyard. She made up our own special merit badges for things like dishwashing and brushing teeth. She cut out red and blue circles of felt and embroidered dishes and beds and teeth on them and she taught us how to sew these badges onto our T-shirts. We wore those T-shirts everywhere, although I always had small red pinpricks on my fingertips f
rom the malicious jab of the sewing needle.

  Stewey was an experienced camper and had a big down sleeping bag, a mess kit, and a tent. We drove all the way to Maine, parking the car and hiking up into the woods, racing against the dimming light. Rozzy kept sprinting ahead, pulling leaves off the trees and tucking them into her jeans pocket, stubbing her toes on the rocks.

  Stewey took command. While Rozzy and I sat exhausted, leaning against a tree, he set up the tent and the bags, he made the fire. “I don’t see Boston from here,” said Rozzy, delighted.

  The tent was musty and wonderful. There wasn’t much to do in the woods, but we told ghost stories and toasted marshmallows, trying to eat them from the sticks without getting creamy white strings in our hair. Eventually we went into the tent to sleep. I was so quiet that they must have thought I had immediately fallen off, but I heard the things Stewey was whispering to Rozzy, the way he said them, and I heard Rozzy pleading with him that no matter what she did, no matter what happened, he had to stay with her, they always had to be together. I lay perfectly still. They stopped talking and the rustling began, the sounds. At one point, they rolled right over against me, but I didn’t move. I opened my eyes in the dark, but I couldn’t see, so their sounds became shape for me, they took on color and form. When the rustling stopped, when I heard Rozzy give out a sharp small cry, I slept. I dreamed that Stewey and Rozzy were making love in my bed at home while I was standing awake at the foot of the bed, watching. “She can’t see us,” Rozzy said, looking into my eyes in recognition.

  In the morning Stewey got up and made a fire. He kissed both of us good morning, but his kiss felt different on my cheek, and I began to miss David.

  We didn’t stay long. Rozzy said she was bored with trees, that the smell of the forest irritated her and she missed the smog of the city. She said we had to go home immediately. All during the ride home, Rozzy chattered and sang along with the songs on the radio. At one point she started talking about some of her old boyfriends. As she mentioned more and more, Stewey began driving more and more carelessly. He kept swerving away from trucks, clamping on his brakes and sending us slapping into one another. He told a few stories about his old girl friends, and then Rozzy deftly changed the subject, cajoling him back from his black mood.