Meeting Rozzy Halfway

by Caroline Leavitt

  “No, we won’t,” said Rozzy, but Stewey touched her arm. “There are those things you wanted to pack up, remember?” he said. “You don’t really want to do it tonight, do you? We can do it in the morning and leave.”

  “What things?” said Bea. “You can leave anything you want here. It’s your home.”

  Rozzy looked out the window. “Well, if it wasn’t so cold—” she said moodily.

  Bea gave them Rozzy’s old room, and I was to have the couch. Bea went to bed early, and then Stewey went to their room, yawning, wanting Rozzy, who insisted that she had to stay up and speak with me.

  Rozzy and I sat in the kitchen, eating cookies from a box we had found tucked under the sink. “Bea looks awful,” said Rozzy, biting into a cookie. “Do you think she’ll leave Ben? Anything could be a sign for her.” She got up and took the milk out of the refrigerator and poured a glass for each of us. She dipped her cookie into the milk until it was soggy, and then popped it into her mouth. “Ben could die any day, couldn’t he?” she said.

  “He’s pretty sick looking, but I don’t think so,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” said Rozzy. “Men drop like flies when they get to that age. Fifty is the death age.”

  “Not all of them die.”

  “Do you remember when were were kids and we played the heaven game, how we made up what heaven would be like and I ran into the house all excited to tell Bea that in my heaven you built your own house out of gold bricks and wood, the gold for all the good things you did, the wood for your sins? The prettiest houses would be for the people who were the prettiest inside. But Bea said that wasn’t it at all, that when you died, you died, and that was it, and the only thing inside you was worms, winding their way through dinner. I was five,” said Rozzy bitterly. “She was my mother. Why would she lie? I ran and hid outside in the bushes and then I went and dug up the doll we had once buried, only it wasn’t there. I thought it had turned to dirt because of the worms. I didn’t know that Bea had probably thrown it out, dug it up and thrown it out because she thought it was a bad sign or something.” She looked wistfully out the window. “I never could play the heaven game after that. It was ruined for me.”

  “Come on. Let’s go to bed,” I said.

  It was snowing when we woke up. The front steps were powdered over. We all got up and Stewey tried to start his car but the motor wheezed and died. We all ate breakfast together. Bea would stand behind Rozzy, fingering Rozzy’s hair until Rozzy would jerk forward. Bea gave a little laugh and then her restless hands strayed over to Stewey, who beamed.

  Ben crouched over his eggs, sucking in air and hacking it out again. Rozzy looked sharply at Bea, who was clearing away speckles of toast with a damp finger, her rings glittering, catching the morning light. When the phone rang, Bea picked it up in one swift move. “Who is it?” demanded Rozzy, but Bea waved her aside. Rozzy sat perfectly still, hushing Stewey when he tried to talk with her. She waited, listening to Bea’s monosyllables. “She looks embarrassed,” said Rozzy. Ben got up from the table and went into the other room, and Rozzy suddenly followed.

  Bea hung up the phone. “Such a look she gave me,” said Bea. “She’s not hearing voices again, is she?”

  We finished breakfast, and while Stewey perched on the kitchen stool and kept Bea company as she did the dishes, I went to find Rozzy. She was in the den with Ben, sitting opposite him. “You look so terrible,” she was saying to Ben. I pulled back from the door, listening.

  “Are you going to be OK?” she said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Hey,” said Rozzy, “remember when you went to Hay-market and bought me all those green peppers when I was sick?”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “When I touched you when I came in here, you thought it was Bea, huh?” she said, and then she stood up, making the leather on the chair whistle, and left the room. She didn’t notice me, pressed along the wall.

  Stewey, Rozzy, and I spent the morning in the basement going through Rozzy’s old things. Rozzy touched everything, the musty books whose pages were skittering with silverfish, the dresses she hadn’t worn in years, the old unworkable toys. She dumped everything into big white garbage bags to take back to the apartment with her or to throw out. “You want this?” Stewey lifted up a frayed Beatles sweatshirt. “If it’s mine, I want it,” said Rozzy.

  She worked frenetically, by herself, taking huge armfuls of things into a corner, keeping her back to us. Stewey and I teased and jolted against each other. Stewey kept trying to convince me that there were huge hairy wolf spiders lurking in the corners, and he’d tickle my legs when I wasn’t expecting it, which made me jump.

  Bea came down the stairs with Ben once, to show him something about the furnace. As soon as Rozzy heard them clumping down the stairs, she stopped her rummaging and came over to Stewey, wrapping her arms around him, kissing him. She stroked his back with her bitten nails. “Rozzy—” he said, embarrassed, trying to ease her away, but she clung even tighter. Bea glanced over, but Ben saw only the furnace. It was only when they went back upstairs that Rozzy disengaged. “No more, you had your fill,” she said, and she returned to her corner, showing us her back once again.

  We were through around three, and settled back upstairs. “Try the car again,” said Rozzy, “just go out and try. I can’t hang around here all day.”

  “Why not, what else do we have to do that’s better?” said Stewey.

  Rozzy flopped down on the rug, laying her head in the crook of her arm.

  “OK, I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me,” said Stewey.

  He went to stand by her, planting a foot on either side of her head. She flexed her fingers and gripped his ankles. “Can’t we walk to the bus and get home? You could get the car later.”

  Stewey looked toward the window. The pane was speckled with flakes. “I’m game to go,” I said, bored with the house, with doing nothing.

  “Bea will be upset,” said Stewey.

  “Oh, please,” said Rozzy, sitting up. She looked up at the mantel, at Bea and Ben’s wedding photo, flanked by two brass candlesticks. “You think if we had had a wedding picture, it would be there, too?” She stood up and took down the picture, giving it a curious stare. “Stewey, are you happy?” she said.

  “I’m married to you, aren’t I?” he said, with a loose, easy grin.

  Rozzy was suddenly preoccupied, she didn’t seem to see him. “I’m so crazy sometimes,” she said. “Once I made up this list of people I knew, separating them by who was happy and who wasn’t, who showed they were happy, who showed they weren’t.” She smiled wryly. “Oh, Stewey,” she said.

  Bea came into the room, wearing a red cooking smock, her face dusted with flour. “I thought I heard you kids in here,” she said, and then she looked sharply at Rozzy. “You look tired. You had better rest up. You know how you get when you don’t rest.”

  “I don’t get any way,” said Rozzy, annoyed.

  “We’re going to walk to the bus to get home,” said Stewey. “We’ll pack Rozzy’s stuff in the car and I’ll get it later. The motor’s just cold.”

  “I can drive you home,” said Bea.

  “No,” said Rozzy, “we’ll walk.”

  “Rozzy, are you sure? You really want to walk? It’s cold and it’s snowing. You won’t like it,” said Stewey.

  “What makes you experts on me, on how I act, what I like?” said Rozzy angrily. “I’m going to change and gather my things, then I’m going, whether you are or not.” She stormed out of the room.

  “Oh, my,” said Bea. She winged her flour-dappled hands out to her sides. “Come hug me, Stewey,” she said, “and I want to see you before you and Rozzy leave.”

  “Is Ben still here?” I said, and Bea shook her head.

  “At court,” she said dryly.

  It was cold outside, although it had stopped snowing and nothing had really stuck to the ground. I could see my breath. The ground was soggy and
water kept slipping inside my boots, making my steps slow and tentative. Rozzy lagged behind, panting, kicking up angry clumps of dirt.

  “I’m cold,” she said.

  “Well, if you move faster, you won’t be.”

  “It doesn’t get this cold in Texas,” she said.

  “It gets colder in Madison.”

  There were a few cars skidding on some slippery patches of road, whining their motors. “Why do we have to go to Madison?” said Rozzy. “It’s cold there, I won’t be happy. Why do we always have to do what you want?” Her words came out in tufts of frozen breath.

  Stewey stopped walking and waited for Rozzy to catch up with him. Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. “Come on. I came all the way out here because of you,” he said.

  “It was for you, not me,” she said, wrenching away.

  He grabbed her again, trying to still her. He stroked her through her heavy coat. He tried to tilt her stubborn face toward him so she would have to look at him, have to see what was in his face.

  “Do you care if I just spend today with Bess?” she said. “Would you go back to the apartment alone?”

  He released her. “Rozzy, is everything OK? Talk to me. Please.”

  “I just asked you a simple question. Will you go to the apartment?”

  “Sure. I’ll go.”

  “You really don’t care? Really?” She looked at him cautiously.

  We had another ten minutes to walk. Rozzy continued to lag behind, to complain loudly to herself about the bony coldness of the air, the terrible softness of the ground. She was haranguing the weather so loudly, gesturing so wildly, that when I glanced back at her, I sputtered with laughter. “Quiet,” whispered Stewey, “she gets mad if you don’t take her seriously.”

  When we got to the bus stop, the bus was just pulling in. Rozzy gave Stewey a cool peck on the cheek and indifferently waved him onto the bus. He had the whole bus to himself and he sauntered to the very back, and pressed his face against the large back window, flattening his features, making faces at Rozzy, trying to entice a smile from her. She was stubborn, she kept her face stone. She ignored Stewey until the bus pulled away and his face faded with the distance.

  “You all right?” I said.

  She whipped around. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? Christ.”

  We caught a Cambridge bus ten minutes later. Rozzy wanted to walk around Harvard Square, to prowl. We went past Holyoke Center where we used to sit on sultry summer days, waiting to be picked up. The granite stoops we used to lounge upon indolently, the broad walkway where we sashayed, were covered with slush. There were lots of young kids tramping around. Rozzy kept staring at faces, her eyes devouring, sprinting from one face to another, snagging. She was caught by detail, by fringed leather boots, a lacy shawl knotted over a black woolen coat, felt hats dripping with feathers, the quick puppylike kisses the young lovers exchanged.

  “Oh God,” said Rozzy, “look at them. They’re so young.”

  “You’re not exactly old,” I said. “Twenty-three isn’t over the hill.”

  Rozzy began shivering and we went into a paperback bookstore to warm up and to browse. We wandered around every section, riffling through the bins of unbacked posters, the table of already dated art calendars, the poster books. Rozzy examined everything, and her blatant curiosity was infectious.

  I had always been secretly and shamefully addicted to trash. As much as I feasted on good literature, I hungered for pulp. I indulged my passion in airport magazine stands and in terminal shops, in drugstores late at night when no one I knew was likely to be about. When I went to the supermarket with David, I read all the magazines I could slide out from the wire shelving, while David grinned wickedly.

  I was looking for the magazine section, when I noticed Rozzy staring glumly at a shelf, not moving. I wistfully glanced around for periodicals, and then went to Rozzy. “Look at this,” she said, “three whole shelves devoted to self-help books. Skinnies can get fat, fatties can get thin, and shy people can be as much of a bastard as anyone. Ben would like this section.” She paused, frowning. “At least the old Ben would. The new Ben doesn’t give a damn one way or the other, does he?”

  “Rozzy,” I said, “these books don’t work. If they did, there wouldn’t be so many fat, thin, shy people waltzing around.”

  “But they must work,” said Rozzy. “People buy these books all the time. Some of these things are in their fifth printings.”

  “Well, maybe the books work for a while, maybe people trim down and then toss out the book. Then they just get fat again, so they go and buy another book.”

  Rozzy was scanning titles, crouching down to see the lowest stacks. “Everything’s circular,” she said. She lifted up a book, smiling: Menal Health Through Will Training. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I feel claustrophobic.”

  We ended up at one of the Pewter Pot chain shops, a muffin and coffee place where the waitresses dressed up in black vests and red skirts and encouraged you to share your table with strangers. Rozzy and I were lucky enough to get a small table to ourselves.

  Rozzy was still gloomy. When her fudge muffins came, black and shiny as her hair, she picked at them, mashing them, slicing them with her fork. She kept looking at me expectantly, and then she’d stare down into her plate again.

  “What?” she blurted, her eyes tense.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t say a long sentence and then my name, you didn’t say ‘Rozzy’?” She stopped smashing down her muffin.

  “Rozzy, it’s noisy in here. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly hear myself think. You probably just heard someone else say something that sounded like your name.”

  “Sure, the noise,” said Rozzy, her voice flattening. “You like this purse? It’s new. I almost bought you one, but they didn’t have another.” She held up a fringed buckskin pouch, and then set it into her lap again. Her hands moved under the table. At first I thought she was going to reach for a comb, which irritated me a little. She didn’t take anything out, not that I could see. She yawned, covering her mouth with both her hands, and when she took her hands away, she was swallowing something. Her head moved forward a bit.

  “This used to be my favorite place,” said Rozzy. “When I was sixteen I used to come here and imagine that I’d bump into Joan Baez or Bob Dylan. I even thought I might be sitting in a chair Baez had sat on.” Rozzy straightened. “Don’t you ever wish you could go into the past and stay there? Everything you like always changes completely, and everything you don’t like gets worse with repetition.” She sighed. “I think dread is the worst emotion of all. I used to think loneliness was, but now I think dread.”

  “Hey,” I said, “come on.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, giving me a weak smile. “Did you think I was getting sick again? Everyone else seems to.” She glanced at the rim of her plate, smeared with the chocolate paste of her muffin. She shrugged into her coat, buttoning it, getting ready to leave. “I want to call Stewey,” she said.

  We walked toward the subway. “Are you going to marry David?” said Rozzy. “You’ll marry him and I’ll never see you. He’ll be the kind that won’t let you take a vacation by yourself.”

  “That’s not true. And anyway, I’m not marrying David.”

  “Do you think Bea will marry Walt?” she said, shivering. “Oh God, everything, everything’s changing except for me.”

  “I’m glad you’re not changing,” I said, taking her arm, stopping her from rushing forward. “I love you.”

  She looked at me for just a moment, before she darted her head to the side. “I’m not glad,” she said. She started looking around for the phones. “You’re lucky,” she said wistfully. “You’ll probably be a great photographer, have a rich and famous life. You do whatever you want and it just works out right.”

  I touched her shoulder. “Rozzy, I can’t believe you think that.”

  Rozzy dug out a di
me from her purse. “Maybe Stewey will meet us for dinner downtown,” she said. She slid into one of the phone booths, cursing at the sharp smell of urine. I leaned against the glass, breathing on it, tracing out pictures with the tips of my fingers.

  Rozzy was only in the booth a few minutes. She placed the receiver gently on the hook. It toppled off, dangling, and she slammed it back on. “No answer,” she said.

  “He probably just ran down the street for a paper,” I said, “or maybe he’s in the shower.”

  “Sure,” said Rozzy. She put her thumbnail into her mouth and chewed, and when I tugged her hand away, she smiled at me.

  We went down into the subway, ignoring the young kids hawking Boston After Dark, the bums begging for quarters, the kids clotted under the stairs smoking dope. The subways were always jammed, and now the place smelled of wet wool and leather boots.

  We moved toward the front, where the platform stopped and opened up into the dark pit where the subway ran. People were already jockeying for position, guessing where the doors might open, maneuvering for a prime spot to get a seat. A woman in front of me was talking to herself, using her arms like a spatula to clear out some space. Rozzy stared at her, frozen, until I touched Rozzy and then she looked down at the filthy ground, at the litter of shiny gum wrappers and Coke cans. When I said her name, she ignored me and kept her head down.

  “Rozzy,” I said, but her eyes remained unfocused. “Rozzy—” I pulled at her purse, and she turned, her face slowly taking on expression. “Let’s get out of the subway, let’s go walk upstairs for a while, get outside again. Come on.”

  “I hear the train coming,” she said, smiling a little. She handed me her purse. “Hold this for a second,” she said. “Please.” Then, while I was watching her, curious, waiting, she stepped over the white warning line, falling, disappearing as the train screamed over her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Everything happened very quickly after that, so quickly that it didn’t have time to really solidify into memory. Sometimes I think I know what happened. I’ll get these tugs deep within me, pictures as vivid as breath flickering suddenly; the panic will start, but then I’ll lose it. I wonder sometimes if anything happened at all the way I remember it.