Rosie O'Dell

by Bill Rowe

  The other girls at school were forever prevailing upon Rosie to be captain of a team, or to emcee the Friday night hop in the gym, or to write a letter to the editor protesting on behalf of their entire generation the existence of famine among third-world children, or to sleep over at a weekend pyjama party. And she’d take on everything, cheerfully and reliably.

  I heard one teacher say to another as I went by the open door of the staff room, “What a beautiful human being inside and out that young Rosie O’Dell is!” I couldn’t agree more, but what intrigued me was how full of the joy of life she had become halfway through this school year. She had always exuded a lively gladness about simply existing, but this year, of all years, I would have been less surprised to see that trait remaining dampened rather than fired up. Often now she even struck me like one of the older, teenage girls in love I might see at hockey games with a sweetheart or walking arm in arm with a beau or depicted on a television show. But Rosie was only eleven years old and, apart from the girlish crush she, as well as Pagan, sometimes seemed to have on their mother’s Heathcliff, there was no object of any apparent love.

  In July, not long after my twelfth birthday and Rosie’s, and with the expiry of the obligatory year since Joyce O’Dell’s death, Nina O’Dell said yes to Dr. Heathcliff Godolphin Rothesay. Only a few family and friends were invited to the wedding. During the days leading up to it, what to do about Gram O’Dell exercised Nina greatly. Rosie loved the old woman despite her quirks and foibles, and had persuaded Pagan to forgive her for that speech about her name at the graveyard— “She picked holes in ‘Rosie’ and ‘Gudrid’ too, Pagan, but she’s old and thought she was ranting and roaring for fun like Dad.” Both of them wanted Gram at the wedding. Nina decidedly did not. The propitiousness of the marital match proved itself to Nina when, perhaps for the first time in her entire life, Gram performed an obliging act seven days before the nuptials by dying.

  Questions arose about delaying the wedding out of respect for the girls’ grandmother, but Nina wouldn’t hear of such a thing. “She made me and Joyce postpone our wedding by breaking her leg in a car accident,” she said to Mom, “and now the contrary old bat is trying to get away with the same thing this wedding by kicking the bucket.” Nina’s attitude raised Dad’s esteem for her.

  Mom acted as matron of honour, Rosie and Pagan as bridesmaids, and another doctor in practice with Rothesay as best man. And when asked, Dad replied he’d be delighted to give the bride away. I was an usher with Nina’s nephew from Corner Brook, a tall handsome boy two years older than Rosie. Ours was not a terribly demanding task as there were only a dozen or fifteen guests. He and I were there all dickied up to provide gender symmetry at the front of the church, that little deconsecrated church in Quidi Vidi Village. When the bridal party walked out after the ceremony, Rosie and her cousin came together behind Mom and the best man, and I was paired with Pagan at the end of the parade. Pagan smiled at me, blushing as we came together, and she looked more beautiful than ever in her self-conscious earnestness walking up the aisle. I actually liked walking next to Pagan, she being a couple of inches shorter than me, but I couldn’t stop the thought that if I’d been in Rosie’s place I would have arranged the procession so as to have me and her walk along side by side. I figured she wanted to be next to the cousin because, unlike me, he was taller than her. I had no idea how far such trivial notions were from her thoughts.

  The reception took place at our house. What hit me most there was that Dr. Rothesay, Nina, Rosie, and Pagan already looked and acted like a real family. An easy familiarity among them reigned. Neither of the girls hesitated any more than Nina did to loop into one of Rothesay’s arms, or take his hand, or when he was seated, put an arm around his neck and hug him from behind. Both Rosie and Pagan flitted about him more or less constantly, but it was Pagan alone whom he would take upon his knee, or lift off her feet during a hug, or pat on the bum as she passed close by. That was all natural, she being only ten, but once or twice I noticed Rosie striving too openly for his attention, and saw Dr. Rothesay turning to her from Pagan with a patient look on his face. I wished Rosie wouldn’t do that. Her undisguised attention-seeking seemed so out of character for her at any time, let alone her vying for it with her little sister.

  A change of plans by the new O’Dell-Rothesay family during the reception surprised everyone. Arrangements had already been made for my mother to move into Nina’s house and take care of the girls while Nina and Heathcliff went on their honeymoon to San Francisco. I saw myself dropping in to say hello every other day. But now, out of the blue, after a spirited chat among Nina and Heathcliff and Rosie and Pagan, with much nodding of heads, Heathcliff asked Dad if he could use the telephone in the den. He went in, closed the door, and came out beaming five minutes later with his announcement. He had just made airline reservations for his lovely bride’s lovely daughters on their flight tomorrow. The girls jumped up and down ecstatically and the guests glanced at each other in wonder for a few seconds before applauding.

  “Doctors are truly the new high priests,” Dad joked to Heathcliff. “To arrange those reservations with the airline the day before the flight, right in the middle of peak season, I don’t think even a chartered accountant could have pulled that one off.”

  Dr. Rothesay laughed and seized Dad’s shoulder comrade-like. “I was exceedingly lucky, Joe,” he said.

  When Nina and Heathcliff left to spend the night at the Newfoundland Hotel, Rosie and Pagan went home with their aunt to sort out what clothes they would be taking with them on the trip.

  “I can die happy now,” said Dad to Mom in the kitchen loading up the dishwasher after the last guests had left, “because I have now seen and heard everything: taking your kids along on your honeymoon.”

  “I didn’t get the idea the brainwave was Nina’s,” said Mom.

  “That’s worse again. Imagine taking your stepkids along on your honeymoon.”

  “He desperately wants to become part of the family, Joe. Remember, there’s three of them and only one of him. I think it’s kind of cute.”

  “You think that’s cute? Obviously there will never be a meeting of male and female minds on what makes up cute.”

  “What do you mean? He’s a male and a fine figure of a male, if I may say so, and he obviously thought it was cute.”

  “You got me there.” Dad laughed out his words as if in despair for humanity, shaking his head. “And that is really scary.”

  With the abrupt end of Mom’s commitment to look after the girls, she and Dad took it into their heads to use a few days of their vacations visiting the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. These last remains of the once vast colonial empire of France in North America were only a few miles off the toe of the Burin Peninsula on the south coast of Newfoundland, but to take the ferry there meant we’d have to drive several hours across the Avalon Peninsula and down the Burin Peninsula to Fortune. In the absence of Rosie, I was eager to go. We arranged for Brent, who was with his parents in Twillingate, to come with us. He had to be driven east to Goobies, where we picked him up at an assigned time at the service station restaurant on the turnoff to the Burin Peninsula. When I rushed through the door of the restaurant to see Brent sitting there with his suitcase waiting for us, it all felt like we were on an exciting adventure. And how true that feeling turned out to be.

  We went ashore in St. Pierre, Brent and I still feeling woozy and half seasick from the ferry ride over. Brent had told me his dad had instructed him not to take any Gravol, no matter how rough the sea was, because he didn’t want him to turn into a wimp. He’d never make the National Hockey League, his old man had said, if he let a little dizziness and nausea get to him every time he was knocked to the ice on his arse. Because Brent wouldn’t take any, I wouldn’t either, and both of us spent most of the trip being held onto tightly by Mom and Dad as we puked over the leeward side. All that was instantly forgotten on shore, though.

  The buzz among everyone, as w
e walked up the road to our hotel, was that today there would be an unscheduled, unofficial, surprise visit to St. Pierre by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his new wife, Margaret. I couldn’t believe my ears. I said to Brent, “This must be fate or something. Rosie loves the Trudeaus.”

  “Rosie is in California,” said Brent.

  “I mean me being here. I can get their autograph for her.”

  “Better you than me,” said Brent, looking up ahead to make sure Mom and Dad were out of earshot. “I heard Dad saying to Mom when Trudeau became prime minister: ‘If he comes around shaking hands looking for votes, don’t get too close to those fingers or any other digit—that guy is a queer.’”

  “A queer?” I said. “How can he be a queer? He just got married to Margaret three or four months ago.”

  “Dad says that’s only a front. Married life is bad enough when you marry someone your own age. For a fifty-year-old man to marry a hippie broad thirty years younger than him, he’s either got to be a moron or he’s secretly got no interest in normal married life. Since Trudeau is supposed to be the smartest man in Canada, work it out for yourself, he told Mom. She was some pissed off with him. How come Rosie loves them so much?”

  “She just likes the fairy-tale princess part of it, she said. A young girl wooed and won by the mature Prince Charming of her dreams, a man of the world who can give her what it takes for them to live happily ever after.”

  “Sounds like she’s got the hots for her lover-boy doctor. He’s nearly as old as Trudeau.”

  “Don’t you be so fucking stupid,” I barked at Brent, enraged. “That’s her own stepfather you’re talking about, and for your information he’s only thirty-five or something. And he told me himself that Rosie wanted to marry me when we grow up.”

  “I was only joking, Tom, for shag’s sake,” said Brent, looking up at Mom and Dad as they turned around at my raised voice. Then he quoted his own mother, “Contain yourself, boy.”

  We trudged along in silence for a moment until I asked, “Yeah, well, okay then, are you going to help me get the autographs or not?”

  “I suppose, boy. Jesus.”

  In the hotel, Dad didn’t like what I proposed to do. “The gendarmes are liable to shoot you if you try to get too close to Trudeau. They guillotined a guy over here a few years back.”

  “Dad, that was nearly a hundred years ago.”

  “Yes, well, they’re a bit slow to change in these parts. Anyway, Tom, Trudeau and his bouncing new bride are over here on a holiday. The last thing they want is some Canadian bugging them for an autograph.”

  “I read in your Globe and Mail that there’s going to be an election in a year or so and that he’s going to need all the votes he can get, even with Margaret’s popularity. He’ll be glad to give an autograph to a Canadian.”

  “Oh, you’re going to vote this time around, are you?”

  “Shut up, Dad. You know what I mean. Rosie will never forgive me if I have this chance and don’t get it for her.” I looked at Mom.

  Mom said, “Joe, can’t you go down with them and make sure everything is all right? Tom, you and Brent pay attention to your father and do whatever he says. I’ll come down too.”

  Pierre and Margaret were strolling around the streets of St. Pierre like a pair of college kids in heat. He had on some sort of sailor’s jersey—a nautical T-shirt or something with horizontal stripes around it—and a neckerchief tied around his neck with a jaunty knot. Brent whispered in my ear, “Jesus Christ, look at the getup he’s got on. I told you he was a fruit.”

  I was too preoccupied watching my chance with Trudeau to reply then, but some time later, reminiscing about all this, I would ask Brent, “What was Margaret wearing that day?” “I don’t remember,” he replied. And I said, “I don’t either, and she’s a beautiful twenty-two-year-old woman, but we both clearly remember Pierre’s outfit—so who do you figure the fruits are now?”

  Today on St. Pierre as they passed, fingers intertwined, I squirmed away from Dad’s restraining hand on my shoulder and lunged towards the couple with my paper and ballpoint at the ready. Someone said, “Non, arret.” I kept going and an arm caught me across the chest, knocking the wind out of me, and the owner barked into my ear, “Non, arret!” at the same time as I heard, “Tom, stop,” from Dad. Then I heard at once Trudeau’s distinctive voice softly say something in French, and the arm dropped. Pierre and Margaret stepped to the side towards me. “Would you like us to autograph that for you?” he asked.

  In reply, I thrust the paper and pen towards them. “What’s your name?” asked Pierre.

  “Make it out to Rosie,” I ordered. “With an i-e.”

  “Is Rosie your girlfriend?” asked Margaret.

  “She’s going to be after a little while,” I answered.

  “That’s so sweet,” said Margaret.

  “Sweet?” said Pierre. “You think? It sounds like what someone else was put through.”

  “And look at us today. Perfect bliss.”

  “And what’s your own name,” asked Pierre again.

  “Tommy. Tom.”

  Pierre spoke the words as he wrote: “To Rosie, because Tom would not take ‘non’ for an answer, just like his friend Pierre Trudeau.” He passed the paper to Margaret, who spoke the words as she wrote them: “which is lucky for Tom’s friends Rosie and Margaret T.”

  “Tom,” said Pierre, passing the paper and pen back, “Did you know there is a ‘Point Rosey’ on the east side of Fortune Bay?”

  “Yes, sir, up by Garnish.”

  “And the word ‘Rosey’ in the name is a corruption of the French word ‘Enragée.’ Enraged. Mad. So: ‘Rosey—Enragée.’ The real meanings of things are not always what they seem, are they, Tom?”

  “No, sometimes they are completely inside out and upside down and arse foremost.” In my nervousness, I couldn’t find the words “contrary in meaning” and was immediately embarrassed at having said “arse.”

  “‘Arse foremost.’ I rather like that. Would you mind if I apply it to my separatist friends in the future?”

  My Jesus, what kind of a pickle was I putting the prime minister of the country in now? “That’s kind of a swear word in English, sir.”

  “Thank you for the heads-up, Tom. I’ll use it guardedly.” Pierre gave me three pats on the back. “When you are ready to run for the House of Commons in a few years, please give me a call.” Margaret kissed me on the cheek. Then they moved on hand in hand, smiling back at me and then at each other and at the streetside gawkers.

  Mom and Dad and Brent and a few strangers gathered around me to look at the paper.

  “What were you talking about so long?” asked Dad.

  “Old stuff.” All I could think about was Rosie’s face of amazement and gratitude when she saw the writing, and her telling me how important I really was in her life.

  Chapter 4

  ROSIE WAS THE CENTRE of five girls walking along the corridor. This was the first day of grade seven, the day I’d been waiting for. I hadn’t seen her since the wedding. She and her family had returned from their month-long honeymoon a week or so before school opened. When I’d called her the next day to say I had a surprise for her, she said she would look forward to it, but they were in the middle of an awful hassle trying to get ready this late for the new school year. Could it wait until school started? That evening, Mom said she was popping in to see Nina—did I want to come and give Rosie the autographs? I declined: they seemed to be up to their eyes over there. I told her not to say anything about the Trudeau encounter. I wanted it to be a bombshell when the time came. Mom appraised me with a glance. She was kind enough not to say that if I’d mentioned the autographs to Rosie she would have found time for me. When Mom got back just twenty minutes later she said I was right about how busy they were: mother and daughters had been heading out the door for the mall again.

  Now, a week later, in the school corridor, I caught up with her from behind and said, “Hi, Rosie.”
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  She stopped on hearing my voice. “Tommy,” she said brightly and turned around. Her face startled me. It looked angelic. The way her lips and eyes were smiling made her seem to be in a state of rapture. “Oh, Tommy,” she practically sang, “I’m so happy to see you well.” She leaned towards me and made the motion of a kiss at my right cheek and then my left, an absurd six inches away. Then she turned to walk on with the waiting girls.

  “How was California?”

  “Super,” she said in the English fashion, without the “r,” hardly turning her head, and kept going. “It couldn’t have been more perfect.”

  I followed her past my locker. “We saw Pierre and Maggie Trudeau in St. Pierre.”

  “Oh, did you? That must have been quite interesting for you. We must talk soon.”

  “I got their autographs for you.” All five girls stopped. “They made them out to you, in your name.” All five girls turned around.

  “Oh, your surprise,” said Rosie. She stepped back and took the piece of paper from my hand, reading it. “Oh my God, Tommy, this is supah. You should have told me you had this. I would have run right over.”

  I know you would have, I said to myself.

  “Thank you ever so much, Tommy. You are a real mate. We should really get together, and sooner rawthah than later.”

  “For sure,” I said, “See ya.”

  “Cheerio.”

  I watched her go. There seemed to be something different about her physically. Different from earlier this summer and different from the other girls around. Her hips were starting to flare and her developing breasts were sometimes noticeable under the sweater, but that wasn’t it. Just about all the girls her age had traits like those becoming evident. But now she was walking, carrying herself, like a woman rather than a twelve-year-old in a still girlish body. I found it weird and off-putting, and I wished she wouldn’t do it, especially when she talked to me like an adult to a child. It didn’t make me love her less, but it made me like her less. I was gratified, though, to be paired with her that first week as the talk of the school focused on the Pierre and Margaret autographs.