by Bill Rowe
I let my ecstasy squelch my twinge of guilt for contributing to her wrong decision on a marvellous opportunity. I banished the notion that I should get back to her immediately and tell her so. The tidings were too good to alter. Then, at the end of the letter, Rosie said she’d already told Suzy of her decision by phone because one of the reasons she’d decided to come home was that Suzy’s mother seemed to have persuaded the school board to let her daughter attend the same high school as Rosie, for “important, personal reasons,” even though Suzy didn’t live in the right school zone.
That was bad news. In fact, it was a catastrophe. It was already awful enough that Rosie and I would be in different high schools, but I had been counting on Suzy to be around my school as my liaison, to make sure Rosie and I would get together even if she went into one of her hell-bent-for-leather activity marathons again this year. I’d even been concocting persuasions in my mind to employ on Brent, encouraging him to romance Suzy so that we could be a regular foursome at various events. What the hell were these important personal reasons of Suzy’s anyway? And why did everything in Rosie’s life turn out to be more important than me all the time?
I FLEW BACK TO St. John’s a week before Rosie. My mother picked me up at the airport that early evening. Driving home, she said, “The Martin girl phoned lunchtime and left a message for you to call.”
I knew who she meant, of course, but I replied, “The Martin girl. Are you talking about Suzy Martin?”
“Yes, that’s her.”
“That’s her name. Suzy. She has a first name.”
“It slipped my mind for the moment. It’s not like I know her. I don’t think I ever met her.” When I didn’t respond after thirty seconds of surly silence, Mom went on, “Are you okay? You were in good spirits when Dad and I last saw you in Gros Morne. Now you seem to be very down. Something going on?”
“Nothing. Is. Going. On.”
Waiting at the light at Elizabeth Avenue and Portugal Cove Road, she broke the quiet with, “Did you and Rosie touch base this summer?”
“Yes.”
“She did well in her tennis up there. They were after her to spend a year in Florida.”
“How did you know that?”
“Your friend Suzy told me on the phone. She also told me Rosie is going be at the same high school as you and her in September.”
“What? No. You’ve got that all shagged up. Suzy is going to Rosie’s new high school.”
“No, Tom, I haven’t got it all shagged up. That was the original plan, but she told me it turned out to be easier and more convenient for the board and the schools and everyone if Rosie merely streamed from her old middle school to the same high school as Suzy. So that’s what they’re doing.”
I sat up so quick in my seat, the shoulder strap locked and hurt the side of my neck. Mom looked at me. I had to tell her, but very pleasantly with a laugh in my voice, that the traffic light had turned green. She said, “That seems like good news for you.” Perhaps she had noticed that within the space of one second, I’d leaped from churlish depression to manic euphoria.
“It certainly is for Suzy. She didn’t like the idea of the four of us being separated. We had pretty good times together at school.”
“The four of you? Oh, Brent, right. She didn’t mention that. When I asked her how they had pulled it off, she sort of joked that the clincher with the board was that Rosie’s good example and close friendship would keep her—Suzy, that is—from becoming a juvenile delinquent.”
“Suzy is great. She and her mother had a big struggle after the family broke up.”
“How did she and Rosie become such good buddies, I wonder?”
“Well, you know what Rosie is like. So kind-hearted and always wanting to help. I guess she saw a need and filled it.”
Mom looked straight ahead and said nothing. I added, “But then I think they found that they had a lot in common.”
“Yeah? Like what, I wonder?”
If I hadn’t been in such a good mood now, I would have snapped in irritation at the maternal harassment. Instead, I said, “Oh, a wicked sense of humour and stuff.”
“Hmm.” A few seconds later, Mom went off on a tangent: “Let me know how Pagan looks like she’s making out if you see her, will you?” That sounded like a weird way of putting it.
A COUPLE OF DAYS during the rest of the week, Suzy and I rode around on our bikes talking about the new school year. She told me that coming to our school was Rosie’s idea. It had hit her like a bolt from the blue up there and she had to leave the tennis court and telephone Suzy about it long distance on a pay phone. “She and I always intended to be at the same school if she was here,” she said, “but I think that Rosie’s change of plans was because she didn’t like the thought of being away from you. I always told you she really likes you, Tom. And—don’t tell her I told you— but I think she made up her mind this summer to act on it.” That night in bed I did not get one minute’s sleep.
I tried to encourage Brent to come on our bike rides with us, but he said he was too busy after being away most of the summer. Besides, riding a bike was starting to seem childish to him. So I tore myself away from more rides with Suzy and talking about Rosie in order to spend some time with Brent, hanging out, working out, running, and listening to hockey lore for the next three days.
Suzy called me to say that Mrs. Rothesay and Pagan were driving out to the airport to pick Rosie up. They invited Suzy to go with them. But Suzy suggested to me that she and I and Brent ride out on our bikes and surprise her. To that bike idea Brent agreed with alacrity.
At the airport, Pagan and her mother were standing six feet apart, waiting silently as we walked in. It must have been two years since I’d seen Nina. She smiled blandly when I said hello and said it was very nice to see me. I asked about Dr. Rothesay—I hadn’t seen him for a long time. He was fine, she said, very busy, though. He was running for director on the board of the Canadian Medical Association. And that was all she said as she pretended to study the flight arrivals panel. She looked okay, though more pasty-faced than she should have after all summer, and her voice sounded a bit like her tongue and vocal cords were made of flannel.
Pagan beamed and gave each of us a hug. She was as lovely as ever. I would be happy to tell my mother she looked healthy and well. Her body was girlish but poised on the cusp of teenage development. Little budding breasts jutted against her shirt. I asked her about her school in Ontario. Was it lonely up there for her sometimes? No, she said, she had soon made good friends, and she was home or on holiday with Mom and Heathcliff at Christmas and Easter and in the summer. I asked if Dr. Rothesay got a chance to drop in on her now and then, since he spent a fair amount of time on the mainland with his medical board obligations. Pagan looked at me and said no, almost as if I’d just accused her of a crime. Then immediately she said, “He and Mom visit me up there a couple of times a year, though. Look, here comes Rosie. I’ve got a bone to pick with her.” She laughed. “When I’m in Ontario, she stays here, and when I’m here, she goes to Ontario.”
Rosie was striding out of the arrivals area carrying a racquet bag. She was in a jeans skirt just above her knees, a T-shirt, and sandals. Her face, arms, and legs were lightly tanned, golden rather than the late summer bronze of everyone else around her. Spotting us, she stopped for a moment and grinned at the welcoming committee, and then quickened her step towards us. My God, at fourteen what a striking young woman she was. Animated glowing face, pert breasts and hips, slender strong legs. A man, unknown to me, with a nearly grown son and daughter, said to her passing, “Good luck with the tennis, Rosie. You’re going to do this place proud.” She smiled at him and the kids and mouthed, “Thank you.”
Approaching, Rose briefly eyed us all in turn. Her gaze stayed on me for a couple of extra beats. When she reached us she said, “This is a wonderful welcome. I hope I can live up to the honour.” Still holding her racquet bag, she hugged Suzy, Pagan, and Brent with both arms, and her mot
her with one, without looking my way. It was as if she was deliberately ignoring me. Then she handed her bag to Suzy and turned to me. She stretched out both arms and put them around me and hugged as long as all the others put together. Leaning back with her arms still around me, she had to lift her face to meet my eyes. “Just look at you,” she murmured, moving her mouth to my ear. “My God, you are lovely.”
I whispered back into her ear, “And you are absolutely beautiful.”
“Heathcliff couldn’t get away, Rosie,” said her mother, too loud, almost shouting. “He had an emergency with a patient.”
Rosie dropped her arms and turned to Suzy. “I must go over and wait for my suitcase. How’d you get out here, bikes? Would you mind if I rode your bike home? I haven’t had a bit of exercise all day. You could drive home with Mom and Pagan.” She had acquired a slight Ontario accent.
“I wouldn’t mind at all,” said Suzy. “Chasing those two guys out just about killed me.”
After Rosie’s baggage was put in the car, she and Brent and I set off, agreeing to meet Suzy at the house. Rosie’s bare legs and sandalled feet pumping below her hiked-up skirt brought stares, mostly of appreciation, with a few of disapproval, from drivers and passengers in nearly every car that passed.
“It was really great of you to come out to meet me,” she said when I drew abreast. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back doing this with you.” Often I fell behind to have a nice ogle at her myself, as I noticed Brent was doing also.
Once he sidled up beside me to mutter, “She looks some good, man. That’s a keeper.” As if I needed persuasion.
At Rosie’s house, she invited us in for a Coke. It was the first time Brent and I had ever been inside, and Pagan gave us the royal tour as Rosie toted her suitcase upstairs. The best features were the basement entertainment centre, the big modern kitchen, and, to my mind, Rosie’s bedroom, though it was much smaller than the master and no different from the other two. Rosie was unpacking her suitcase in there. She gave me a big smile and said, “Laundry” as she carried two handfuls of bras and panties from the suitcase to the closet and dropped them in her clothes hamper. I tried to remain as unself-conscious as her, although I couldn’t stop my heart from speeding up. I never saw Nina. She seemed to be in her bathroom all the while I was in the house.
Downstairs, the five of us were in the kitchen drinking Cokes and gabbing when Dr. Rothesay came in the front door. “Hello, Rosie,” he said from the door, “it’s nice to have you back.”
“Hello,” said Rosie, not moving from the window across the room where she was standing.
“And hello everyone else,” said Rothesay. “Tom, you’ve been a stranger too long. I hope we’ll see more of you this year.”
“And I hope so too, sir,” I said, glancing at Rosie, who was gazing out the window. “Have you met my friend Brent Anstey?”
“No, but I feel as though I have, I’ve heard so much about him. That’s a thriving ice hockey career you are building, my lad.” Rothesay came into the kitchen and shook his hand. “Your dad’s plans for the new house seem to be coming along quite nicely.”
I looked at Brent. He had shown me the blueprints for the new house in his father’s study earlier in the week, but had sworn me to secrecy because his father wanted to keep it quiet. “The old prick thinks that too many of his customers who bought rustbuckets off him will want to burn it down if they find out how big it is,” Brent had explained.
To Brent’s slight nod now, Rothesay said, “Nine thousand square feet. That’s bigger than this house. And eleven-foot ceilings.” He laughed. “I knew I should have gone into business rather than becoming a lowly family physician. Pagan, is your mother upstairs?”
“Ee-yup,” said Pagan. Like, what else was new?
Walking out, Rothesay said, “Bye bye, all. I hope to see you again soon.” He hadn’t spoken a word to Suzy. I only saw him slide his eyes sideways at her once for a second when she’d casually strolled over to join Rosie at the window. He went, not upstairs, but to the liquor cabinet, and I heard the clink of glass. Then I saw him with a tall tumbler in his hand half full of amber liquor, no ice or mixer, heading into his study.
Chapter 6
I HAVE OFTEN BEEN astonished, looking back, at how Rosie and I became so intimate so fast. I had no real sense that Rosie was taking the lead, but I don’t recall that she inhibited any of our actions of intense love and overpowering desire, over those months, either. Once, not long after the beginning, I said to Rosie, “We seem to be kind of young to be doing all this stuff.” And she replied with a laugh, “Speak for yourself, sweets. I don’t know how old Romeo was, but Juliet was only thirteen, and look how naughty she was. So I’m okay with this.”
It started with long delicious tongue-entangled kisses whenever we were alone. I went beyond that one Saturday evening during the first month of high school. She and I were down in the entertainment room of her house waiting for Casablanca to come on television. Her mother was two flights of stairs up, Pagan was back at school on the mainland, Rothesay was away on medical association business, and Suzy had said no to Rosie’s invitation to join us to watch the movie: “I’ll give you two lovebirds a night to yourselves.”
We were drinking the Coke floats Rosie had made and eating pizza when the movie began. “Oh look,” I said as the credits rolled, “Ingmar Bergman. I just adores her and Bogie.” Rosie looked at me sharply and then laughed out loud at my mockery of myself over having confused Ingrid Bergman with Ingmar a couple of years ago. Her burst of hilarity made her spill some Coke and ice cream onto the front of her blouse and slacks.
“Oh shoot,” she said, standing up, and wiping the mess off with a serviette. “That’s going to be wet and sticky all night. Back in a sec.” She tore out of the room and up the two staircases. A minute later she flew down the stairs again and into the room in her bare feet. “Did I miss anything?” she asked, flopping back on our couch and laying her legs across my thighs. She had changed into pyjamas and dressing gown.
“No,” I said. “That was fast. The credits just finished.” I rested my arms on her legs and glanced at her feet beside me, confirming how beautiful they were—creamy, and high-arched and perfectly proportioned to the ankles and calves. I could see the remnants of the tennis toenail on her left big toe she’d written me about earlier that summer.
“I hope you’ll excuse the informal attire, sire. It was the quickest I could find to put on.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t stand on ceremony,” I said. I laid my palm on the toes of her right foot and gave them a little squeeze.
“Nice,” she whispered and took my other hand in her two.
The first commercial break she went to pull herself up by my arm, but I wasn’t prepared and toppled over sideways gently on top of her. In that position we giggled and kissed, and when I moved my hands around her back, I noticed the absence of a bra strap. I also noticed the softness of her chest pushing against mine. After a minute, I moved one of my hands from her back and placed it on her breast outside the gown and pyjama top. She removed her lips from mine to whisper, “Do you like the feel of that?”
All but fainting, I whispered back, “Yes, I really do.” And the truth was I had never felt anything so soft and full and yielding and firm and delicate and entirely delightful in my life. That was—I could hardly make myself believe it—her naked breast in there.
“I really like your hand there, too,” she murmured. Then the movie came back on and we turned to the set to watch. She held my hand in place with hers.
During the second commercial break, my hand undid a button and slipped inside her pyjama top, and my caressing of her nipple as we kissed made us miss the next scene of the movie. By the third, fourth, and fifth breaks, both my hands were inside her pyjamas, all her buttons were undone, I was examining closely the loveliness of the symmetrical shapes and the pink nipples, and she was unbuttoning my shirt and pulling up my undershirt to press her naked br
easts against my naked chest.
When the movie ended, she broke off our kiss and whispered, “You can kiss them too if you want to,” and without waiting to hear if I wanted to or not, she pulled my head towards her chest and put first her left nipple and then the right between my lips for me to kiss and suck, and so on alternately for several minutes. “I love you so much,” she said, cradling my head in her arms. Meanwhile, I had an erection so hard it was painful. For some reason, I felt I should hide it from her, and turned my hips away. At that, she gently pushed my head back, affording me one last gaze at her breasts before she buttoned up her top and pulled her gown together and tied it resolutely. “Whew,” she breathed. “That’s good enough for one night.” That sounded like there’d be other nights. Could life get any sweeter? “What do you say we heat up the rest of the pizza? I don’t know about you, but all that excitement has got me starved to death.” She stood to go upstairs and pulled me by the hand.
“Me too,” I said, but I could not stand up yet without imagining that I would look like a pole vaulter. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
She bent over to kiss my mouth, unsuccessfully, because there was too big a grin on her face. “Take your time, my sweetness and light. I’ll go up and stick it in the oven.”
Walking delicately up the stairs a few minutes later, making sure my footsteps didn’t jar too much, I groaned to myself, so this was lover’s nuts. No wonder every male I knew was obsessed with scoring rather than cuddling. Nevertheless, lover’s nuts is what I kept giving myself, caressing and kissing Rosie’s breasts during the three times we could steal an hour alone at her house over the next two weeks.