Rose hurried out into the aisle, back through the foyer, and out onto the brick path, where a tall man in a suit was standing as if he were waiting for her. Rose stopped, and stared up at his crisp white shirt, red-and-gold patterned tie, square jaw, tanned skin, sparkling blue eyes. Jim Danvers.
“Hello, Rose,” he said.
He looked exactly the same. But what had she expected? That he’d wither up and die without her? That he’d go bald, that he’d develop adult acne, that hair would sprout out of his ears?
Rose nodded at him, hoping he couldn’t tell that her knees were shaking, her hands were trembling, that even her neck was wobbling, too. Come to think of it, she saw, he did have hair coming out of his ears. Not much, really, not the kind of disgusting bristly growth she’d noticed coming out of other men’s ears, but still . . . there it was. Ear hair. The incontrovertible evidence that he wasn’t perfect. Then again, sleeping with her sister could also be interpreted as evidence of his lack of perfection, but still, she found the ear hair comforting.
“What brings you here?” he asked. His voice sounded higher than she remembered it. Could it be that Jim Danvers was nervous?
Rose tossed her hair. “Oh, Lopey and I go way back. We rode horses together, and then we were in that a capella singing group together in college. We were sorority sisters, we went on double dates . . .”
Jim shook his head. “Lopey’s a vegetarian, and I think she believes that riding horses would be exploitative. Also, she was a pretty hard-core lesbian in college, so any double-dating you did would have to be of the all-female variety.”
“Ah,” said Rose, “I must have been thinking of the groom, then.”
Jim gave a short, uncomfortable laugh. “Rose,” he began. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“Lucky me,” said Rose.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“What’s not to miss?” she said. “Come meet my fiancé.”
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Take a walk with me first,” he said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Come on. It’s a beautiful day.”
She shook her head.
“You look so beautiful,” he murmured.
She whirled, glaring at him. “Look, Jim. You’ve had your fun with me, so why don’t you give it a rest? I’m sure there’s plenty of women here who’d be impressed with your talents.”
Now Jim looked distressed. “Rose, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“You slept with my sister,” she said. “I’m a little past offended.”
He took her arm and tugged her toward a wooden bench, sat down beside her, and looked earnestly into her eyes. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while. The way it ended . . . What I did . . .” He clutched her hands. “I wanted to be good for you,” he said in a choked voice. “I was weak. I was an idiot. I threw away everything we could have had, and I’ve felt horrible about myself for months . . .”
“Please,” she said. “I’ve felt horrible about myself for practically my entire life. You think I’m going to feel sorry for you?”
“I want to make it up to you,” he said. “I want to make it right.”
“Forget it,” she said. “It’s over. I’ve moved on. I’m engaged now. . . .”
“Congratulations,” he said sadly.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Don’t tell me you even thought for a minute that you and I were . . . that we would . . .”
He blinked. And were those tears in his eyes? Amazing, thought Rose, who felt as if she were observing a specimen on a slide through a microscope. I wonder if he can make himself cry whenever he wants to?
Now he was taking her hands, and she could predict every single one of his moves, every word that he’d say.
“Rose, I’m sorry,” he began, and she nodded, because she’d figured that would be his lead-in. “What I did was unforgivable,” he said, “and if there was any way to make it up to you . . .”
She shook her head and got to her feet. “There’s not,” she said. “You’re sorry for what happened. I’m sorry, too. Not only because you’re the kind of guy you turned out to be, but . . .” And suddenly her throat felt thick, as if she were trying to swallow a sweat sock. “Because you ruined . . .” My life? she thought. No, that wasn’t true. Her life was fine, or it would probably be fine, once she got the whole career thing back on track, and she was with Simon now, Simon who was so kind, who called forth all of the goodness in her own heart, who made her laugh. The short, spectacularly failed romance she’d had with Jim felt like nothing more than a far-off bad dream. He hadn’t ruined her, but he’d damaged something else, hurt it possibly beyond repair. “Because of Maggie,” she finally said.
And now he was pulling her back to the bench, and he was talking about her future, how terrible he’d felt when she’d left Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick, and how that had been unnecessary—he was a cad, yes, he’d admit to that, but at least he was discreet, and nothing would have happened to her at work—and where had she landed? Did she need help? Because he could help her, it was the least he could do in light of what had happened, and . . .
“Stop! Please!” said Rose. She could hear the strains of a string quartet filtering through the garden, and the church doors creaking shut. “We need to get back.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I accept your apology,” Rose said formally. And then, because he looked so sad—and because, in spite of her absent sister, wicked stepmother, and lack of a legal career, she was so happy—she leaned close to him and kissed his cheek lightly. “It’s okay,” she said. “I hope you’ll be happy.”
“Oh, Rose,” he groaned, and wrapped his arms around her.
And suddenly, there was Simon, his eyes wide and shocked. “They’re starting,” he said quietly. “We should go.”
Rose looked at him. His pale face was even paler than it usually was. “Simon,” she said. Oh, God.
“Come on,” he said, in a soft, toneless voice, and he walked her up toward the wedding, where the flower girls had already started their trip down the aisle, strewing pale-peach rose petals as they went.
Simon sat quietly through the service. He was silent during dinner. When the band started to play, he made a beeline for the bar, and stood there, drinking beer, until Rose finally convinced him that they should talk, and they should do it in private. He held the car door open for her—a gesture that had always seemed kind, but now seemed ironic, even cruel. “Well,” he began. “Interesting afternoon.” His eyes were straight ahead, and there were splotches of hectic red high on his pale cheeks.
“Simon, I’m sorry you saw that,” Rose said.
“Sorry that it happened, or sorry that I saw?” Simon asked.
“Let me explain,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you about this. . . .”
“You kissed him,” Simon said.
“It was a kiss good-bye,” said Rose.
“Good-bye for what?” Simon asked. “What was going on with you two?”
Rose sighed. “We dated.”
“A partner dating an associate? How daring,” Simon said.
Rose squeezed her eyes shut. “I know. It was really stupid. A big mistake for both of us.”
“When did your association begin?”
“Our association?” Rose repeated. “Simon, it wasn’t a corporate merger!”
“Not a corporate one, evidently,” he said. “Why didn’t it work out?”
“Infidelity,” Rose said quietly.
“Yours or his?” Simon shot back.
“His! Of course his! Come on, Simon, you know me better than that.” Rose took a look at him. He ignored her. “Don’t you?”
Simon said nothing. Rose stared out the window, at the blur of trees and buildings, at other cars. How many couples in how many cars were fighting? she wondered. And how many of the women were doing a better job of explaining themselves than she was?
“Look,
the important thing is that it’s over,” she said, as he parked the car in front of their apartment. “It’s really, truly, genuinely, absolutely over, and I’m sorry that you saw what you saw, but it doesn’t mean anything. Believe me, Jim Danvers is the last thing I want in my life. Which is what I was telling him when you showed up.”
Simon exhaled. “I believe you,” he said, “but I want to know what happened. I want to understand it.”
“Why? I don’t want to know about your old girlfriends.”
“This is different.”
“Why?” Rose followed him into the bedroom, finally pulling her beads over her head.
“Because whatever happened between you two, it was bad enough to make you never want to see the inside of a law office again.”
“Not every law office,” Rose said. “It’s really that particular one that presented a problem.”
“Don’t change the subject. You have this . . . this history. And I don’t know anything about it.”
“Everyone’s got a history! You’re friends with people named Lopey, which could have been pointed out to me earlier . . .”
“But I don’t know any of your history!”
“What do you want to know?” she asked him. “Why is it so important?”
“Because I want to know who you are!”
Rose shook her head. “Simon, it’s not like I’m some huge mystery. I had a . . .” she searched for the least offensive word. “A relationship with this guy. It didn’t end well. And it’s over. And that’s all!”
“How did it end?” Simon asked again.
“He did something,” Rose began. “Something with someone . . .” She swallowed hard.
“When you’re ready to tell me,” Simon said coolly, “I’ll be happy to listen.”
He walked into the bathroom. Rose listened to him slamming the door and starting the shower. She walked back to the living room, bending to scoop up the pile of mail they’d both stepped over when they’d come home. Bill, bill, credit-card offer, actual card with her name on it, her name written in very familiar, large, looping handwriting.
Rose sank onto the couch. Her hands were shaking as she opened the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of notebook paper inside.
Dear Rose, she read. Words jumped out at her. Grandmother. Sorry. Florida. Ella. Reconciliation.
“Oh, my God,” Rose breathed. She forced herself to read the whole thing twice, then hurried into the bedroom. Simon was standing in front of the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist and a serious look on his face. Wordlessly, Rose handed him the letter.
“My . . . grandmother,” she said. The word felt strange in her mouth. “It’s from Maggie. She’s staying with my grandmother.”
Now Simon looked even more upset. “You have a grandmother? You see what I mean, Rose? I didn’t even know you had a grandmother!”
“I didn’t know either,” Rose said. “I mean, I guess I knew I had one, but I don’t know anything about her.” She felt like she’d suddenly been plunged underwater, like everything was slow and strange. “I have to . . .” she said. “I should call them.” She sank onto the bed, feeling dizzy. A grandmother. Her mother’s mother. Who, evidently, wasn’t living in some old-age home, the way Rose had always believed, unless they were letting twentysomething vagabonds stay in those places, too. “I should call them. I should . . .”
Simon was staring at her. “You really didn’t know you had a grandmother?”
“Well, I mean, I knew that my mother came from somewhere. But I thought she was . . . I don’t know. Old, or sick. In a home. My father said that she was in a home.” Rose stared at the letter, feeling her stomach clench. Her father had lied to her. Why had her father lied about something as important as this?
“Where’s the phone?” she asked, jumping to her feet.
“Hey, hold on. Who are you going to call? What are you going to say?”
Rose set down the telephone and picked up her car keys. “I’ve got to go.”
“Go where?”
Rose ignored him, hurrying to the door, running for the elevator, her heart thrumming in her chest as she ran down the street to her car.
Twenty minutes later, Rose found herself in the same place where she and her sister had stood almost a year ago—on Sydelle’s doorstep, waiting for admission. She leaned against the doorbell. The dog howled. Finally, the lights flicked on.
“Rose?” Sydelle stood in the front door, blinking at her. “What are you doing here?” Her stepmother’s face looked strange somehow beneath the glare of the light. Rose looked carefully before deciding that it was just the usual—another eye lift. She shoved Maggie’s letter at her stepmother. “You tell me,” she said.
“I don’t have my glasses,” Sydelle parried, pulling her lace-trimmed bathrobe tightly around her and pursing her lips at the blank spot on her walkway where Maggie had yanked out the shrub back in November.
“Then let me fill you in,” said Rose. “This is from Maggie. She moved in with my grandmother. My grandmother who I didn’t know was still making sense.”
“Oh,” said Sydelle. “Oh. Um . . .”
Rose stared. If her stepmother had ever been at a loss for words, she sure couldn’t remember it. But there she was, nonplussed and twitching uncomfortably underneath her face cream and stitches.
“Let me in,” said Rose.
“Of course!” Sydelle said in a strange, twittery voice, and stepped aside.
Rose strode past her and stood at the foot of the stairs. “Dad!” she yelled.
Sydelle put her hand on Rose’s shoulder. Rose jerked away. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?” she said, glaring at her stepmother. “‘Oh, Michael, they don’t need a grandmother. They’ve got me!’ ”
Sydelle stepped back as if Rose had slapped her. “That’s not how it happened,” she said in a quivering voice. “I never thought I could be a substitute for . . . for everything you’d lost.”
“Oh? Then how did it happen?” Rose demanded. She felt as if every cell of her body had been pumped to the bursting point with rage, as if she were going to explode. “Fill me in!”
Michael Feller hurried down the stairs, dressed in sweatpants and a white T-shirt, polishing his glasses with his handkerchief. His fine hair floating like a mist over his bald head. “Rose? What’s going on?”
“Well, what’s going on is that I’ve got a grandmother, she’s not in a home, Maggie’s living with her, and nobody saw fit to mention any of this to me,” Rose said.
“Rose,” said Sydelle, reaching toward her.
Rose whirled toward her. “Don’t touch me,” she said. Sydelle flinched.
“That’s enough!” said Michael.
“No,” said Rose. Her hands were shaking, her face was on fire. “No, it’s not enough. It’s not even a good start. How could you?” she yelled, as Sydelle cringed into a corner of her freshly wallpapered foyer. “I know you never liked us. But hiding a grandmother? Even for you, Sydelle, that’s a stretch.”
“It wasn’t her,” said Michael Feller taking Rose by the shoulders. “It wasn’t her idea. It was mine.”
Rose gaped at him. “Bullshit,” she said. “You wouldn’t . . .” She stared at her father, his faint gray eyes and high white forehead, her sad, kind-hearted, lost dog of a father. “You wouldn’t . . .”
“Let’s sit down,” Michael Feller said.
Sydelle looked at Rose. “It wasn’t me,” she said, in a flat, dull voice. “And I’m sorry . . .” Her voice trailed off. Rose stared at her stepmother, who had never looked less monstrous, had never seemed more pathetic. Her face looked small and vulnerable, in spite of the tattooed lipstick and taut skin. Rose stared at her, trying to remember whether she’d ever heard those words before, whether Sydelle had ever been sorry for anything. She decided that if her stepmother had ever apologized to her, she couldn’t remember it.
“You don’t know . . .” Sydelle drew a whispery breath. “You don’t know what it was lik
e to live in this house. You don’t know what it was like to spend years never being good enough. Never being the first choice, never being the one anyone really wanted. Never being able to put a foot right.”
“Gee, I’m sorry,” Rose said, in a snotty voice she could have borrowed from her little sister.
Sydelle lifted her eyes and glared at Rose. “Nothing I did was ever what you wanted,” she said, and blinked her freshly-stitched eyelashes. “I never had a chance with you or Maggie. Not with any of you.”
“Sydelle,” Michael said gently.
“Go on,” Sydelle said. “You tell her. Tell her the whole thing. It’s time she knew.”
Rose stared at her stepmother seeing, for the first time, the vulnerability that lay beneath the makeup, the Botox, the diet tips and condescension. She looked and saw a woman who’d left sixty behind her, whose thin body was stringy and unwelcoming, and whose face looked like a cruel caricature, a harshly etched drawing of a woman instead of the real thing. She looked and saw the sadness Sydelle had lived with every day—a husband still in love with his dead first wife, an ex-husband who’d left her, a daughter grown and gone.
“Rose,” her father said. Rose followed him into Sydelle’s living room. The leather couches had been replaced by slipcovered suede, but they were still a blinding white. She sat down on one end, her father sat on the other.
“I’m sorry about Sydelle,” he began, and looked out into the foyer. He was waiting for her, Rose thought. Waiting for her to come and do his dirty work.
“She’s going through a really bad time right now,” her father said. “Marcia’s giving her mother a very hard time.”
Rose shrugged, not feeling terribly sympathetic toward either Sydelle or My Marcia, who’d never had much time for or interest in her stepsisters, other than making sure they weren’t touching her things while she was off at college.
“She’s joined Jews for Jesus,” he said, and looked away.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Well, that’s what we thought at first, that she was kidding.”
“Oh, God,” Rose said, thinking that Sydelle, who had mezuzahs on every door of the house, including the bathrooms, and scowled at every shopping-mall Santa she saw, had to be in agony. “So she’s Christian?”
In Her Shoes Page 34