The Rose and the Beast

by Francesca Lia Block

  In my case, the best friend would be my mom, of course, and maybe this boy if he turned out to be real cool and not stupid.

  I fell asleep for a little while and I had this really bad dream. I can’t remember what it was but I woke up feeling like someone had been slugging me. And then I thought about my mom, I waited to feel her there with me, like I did whenever I was scared, but it was like those times when he came into my room—she wasn’t anywhere. She was gone then and I think that was when I knew but I wouldn’t let myself.

  I think when you are born an angel should say to you, hopefully kindly and not in the fake voice of an airline attendant: Here you go on this long, long dream. Don’t even try to wake up. Just let it go on until it is over. You will learn many things. Just relax and observe because there just is pain and that’s it mostly and you aren’t going to be able to escape no matter what. Eventually it will all be over anyway. Good luck.

  I had to get off the bus before the boy with the notebook and as I passed him he looked up. I saw in his journal that he hadn’t been writing but sketching, and he ripped out a page and handed it to me. I saw it was a picture of a girl’s face but that is all that registered because I was thinking about how my stomach had dropped, how I had to keep walking, step by step, and get off the bus and I’d never be able to see him again and somehow it really really mattered.

  When I got off the bus and lit up I saw that the picture was me—except way prettier than I think I look, but just as sad as I feel. And then it was too late to do anything because the bus was gone and so was he.

  I stopped at the liquor store and bought a bag of pretzels and a Mountain Dew because I hadn’t eaten all day and my stomach was talking pretty loud. Everything tasted of bitter smoke. Then after I’d eaten I started walking along the road to my grandma’s. She lives off the highway on this dirt road surrounded by cactus and other desert plants. It was pretty dark so you could see the stars really big and bright, and I thought how cold the sky was and not welcoming or magical at all. It just made me feel really lonely. A bat flew past like a sharp shadow and I could hear owls and coyotes. The coyote howls were the sound I would have made if I could have. Deep and sad but scary enough that no one would mess with me, either.

  My grandma has a used stuff store so her house is like this crazy warehouse full of junk like those little plaster statuettes from the seventies of these ugly little kids with stupid sayings that are supposed to be funny, and lots of old clothes like army jackets and jeans and ladies’ nylon shirts, and cocktail glasses, broken china, old books, trinkets, gadgets, just a lot of stuff that you think no one would want but they do, I guess, because she’s been in business a long time. Mostly people come just to talk to her because she is sort of this wise woman of the desert who’s been through a lot in her life and then they end up buying something, I think, as a way to pay her back for the free counseling. She’s cool, with a desert-lined face and a bandanna over her hair and long skinny legs in jeans. She was always after my mom to drop that guy and move out here with her but my mom wouldn’t. My mom still was holding on to her secret dream of being an actress but nothing had panned out yet. She was so pretty, I thought it would, though. Even though she had started to look a little older. But she could have gotten those commercials where they use the women her age to sell household products and aspirin and stuff. She would have been good at that because of her face and her voice, which are kind and honest and you just trust her.

  I hadn’t told Grandma anything about him, but I think she knew that he was fucked up. She didn’t know how much, though, or she wouldn’t have let us stay there. Sometimes I wanted to go and tell her, but I was afraid then Mom would have to know and maybe hate me so much that she’d kick me out.

  My mom and I used to get dressed up and put makeup on each other and pretend to do commercials. We had this mother-daughter one that was pretty cool. She said I was a natural, but I wouldn’t want to be an actor because I didn’t like people looking at me that much. Except that boy on the bus, because his drawing wasn’t about the outside of my body, but how I felt inside and you could tell by the way he did it, and the way he smiled, that he understood those feelings so I didn’t mind that he saw them. My mom felt that I’d be good anyway, because she said that a lot of actors don’t like people looking at them and that is how they create these personas to hide behind so people will see that and the really good ones are created to hide a lot of things. I guess for that reason I might be okay but I still hated the idea of going on auditions and having people tell me I wasn’t pretty enough or something. My mom said it was interesting and challenging but I saw it start to wear on her.

  Grandma wasn’t there when I knocked so I went around the back, where she sat sometimes at night to smoke, and it was quiet there, too. That’s when I started feeling sick like at night in my bed trying not to breathe or vomit. Because I saw his Buick sitting there in the sand.

  Maybe I have read too many fairy tales. Maybe no one will believe me.

  I poked around the house and looked through the windows and after a while I heard their voices and I saw them in this cluttered little storage room piled up with the stuff she sells at the store. Everything looked this glazed brown fluorescent color. When I saw his face I knew something really bad had happened. I remembered the dream I had had and thought about my mom. All of a sudden I was inside that room, I don’t really remember how I got there, but I was standing next to my grandma and I saw she had her shotgun in her hand.

  He was saying, Barb, calm down, now, okay. Just calm down. When he saw me his eyes narrowed like dark slashes and I heard a coyote out in the night.

  My grandmother looked at me and at him and her mouth was this little line stitched up with wrinkles. She kept looking at him but she said to me, Babe, are you okay?

  I said I had heard him yelling at mom and I left. She asked him what happened with Nance and he said they had a little argument, that was all, put down the gun, please, Barb.

  Then I just lost it, I saw my grandma maybe start to back down a little and I went ballistic. I started screaming how he had raped me for years and I wanted to kill him and if we didn’t he’d kill us. Maybe my mom was already dead.

  I don’t know what else I said, but I do know that he started laughing at me, this hideous tooth laugh, and I remembered him above me in that bed with his clammy hand on my mouth and his ugly ugly weight and me trying to keep hanging on because I wouldn’t let him take my mom away, that was the one thing he could never do and now he had. Then I had the gun and I pulled the trigger. My grandma had taught me how once, without my mom knowing, in case I ever needed to defend myself, she said.

  My grandma says that she did it. She says that he came at us and she said to him, I’ve killed a lot prettier, sweeter innocents than you with this shotgun, meaning the animals when she used to go out hunting, which is a pretty good line and everything, but she didn’t do it. It was me.

  I have no regrets about him. I don’t care about much anymore, really. Only one thing.

  Maybe one night I’ll be asleep and I’ll feel a hand like a dove on my cheekbone and feel her breath cool like peppermints and when I open my eyes my mom will be there like an angel, saying in the softest voice, When you are born it is like a long, long dream. Don’t try to wake up. Just go along until it is over. Don’t be afraid. You may not know it all the time but I am with you. I am with you.

  ROSE

  When Rose White and Rose Red are little, they tell each other, We will never need anyone else ever, we are going to do everything together. It doesn’t matter if we never find anyone else. We are complete.

  Rose White is smaller and thinner and her hair is like morning sunlight; it breaks easily. Rose Red is faster and stronger and her hair is like raging sunset and could be used to hang jewels around someone’s neck. Rose White is quiet and Rose Red talks fast, she is always coming up with ideas—they will go ride the rapids, climb down to the bottom of the canyons, travel to far-off lands
where babies wear nothing but flowers and their feet can never touch the floor. Rose Red’s voice evokes volcanoes, salt spray, cool tunnels of air, hot plains, redolence, blossoms. Rose White listens and smiles. Yes—worlds, waters, rocks, stars, color so much color. She can see it all when Rose Red speaks. She can see herself balanced precariously on steep precipices or swimming through churning waters—with Rose Red.

  Rose Red gives Rose White courage and Rose White gives Rose Red peace. Rose White brushes out the fiery tangle of Rose Red’s hair, helps her pick out her dresses, makes her sit down to eat her meals. Rose White makes pumkin soup, salads of melon and mints and edible flowers. She makes dresses out of silk scarves. When Rose Red’s heart quickens and her skin flushes like her hair, Rose White listens to her until she is quiet, tells her she is right—the world is a strange mad place, it isn’t Rose Red who is mad. Rose Red’s world is where she wants to live.

  When Rose White gets too quiet, too cold, too deep within herself, afraid to speak, afraid to be seen, Rose Red puts a hat on her head, takes her hand, and brings her out where it is warm and bright. Even though they have not traveled far, with Rose Red it is always an adventure. She knows places to go where you can dance to live drums, eat spicy foods with your hands, buy magic talismans.

  One day Rose Red takes Rose White farther away than they have been before. They are in the woods gathering berries—which they eat till their hands and tongues are purple—burying their faces in the pine needles, practicing bird calls, chasing butterflies. They climb trees and bathe in a stream and adorn themselves with moss and vines and wildflowers. They lose track of time. Rose Red does because she wants time to be lost and Rose White does because she trusts Rose Red and so forgets to worry. But then it is suddenly night and the trees become hovering specters and the wind is lost ghosts and the owls are mournful phantoms. Rose White is afraid and Rose Red is becoming afraid, not of the night but because she is not sure she can console Rose White this time, or regain her trust. We’ll be all right, she says. We have each other. But she knows that, as the night goes on, Rose White is not content with this—she wants to be rescued, she wants someone from the outside who has a light and strength that Rose Red does not have. Rose White is crying and her dress keeps getting caught on branches and her face is scratched and she is cold. Rose Red gives her her sweater but it doesn’t help much. Rose White is shivering. She says, How could this have happened? What were we thinking? We’ve got to get help. This is how girls die. She is sobbing.

  Then Rose Red sees the light shining in the trees. To Rose Red the light is like Rose White, it is made for Rose White. Her relief is not for herself—if it wasn’t for Rose White, Rose Red would stay out in the forest until dawn, maybe for days and nights, maybe forever, growing wilder and wilder until she is a part of the trees and dirt and darkness—but Rose White is more important to her than all the freedom and all the wildness she desires. She has to raise her voice so that Rose White will stop crying and hear her—There, see the light, there, for you.

  They go toward it and when they see the little cottage they are not afraid, even Rose White is not afraid because the cottage is made of round stones with a thatched roof and a smoking chimney and moss growing on the walls and a carefully tended garden. They go up the little stone path among the hollyhocks, morning glories, the carrots and tomatoes and strawberry vines, and Rose Red knocks on the little green door with the big brass knocker.

  No one answers. Rose Red peeks through the lace-curtained window. She sees a room warmed by firelight, a wooden floor, cushions, a small table with a blue-and-white-checked cloth and a milk pitcher full of daisies and honeysuckle. Come on, Rose Red gestures, and she gently pushes the door open.

  That is when they see the Bear. Rose White steps back but Rose Red reaches for her hand and they stand very still. The Bear blinks up at them with his flickering fire-lit brown eyes. The tip of his snout quivers. His breathing is labored. He shifts his weight and his front paws sway in the air. His claws are long and sharp. Rose White and Rose Red hold their breath.

  He’s hurt, Rose Red says. Yes, there is a large wound in the Bear’s side. His blood is pooling onto the braid rug. Rose Red moves slowly toward him. It’s all right, she says, we won’t hurt you. Let me see you.

  She kneels down and they look at each other. The Bear smells of forests, smoke, berries. After a long time, Rose Red moves closer. She puts out her hand, palm down. The Bear sniffs it, licks it with his long, rough, pink tongue. Yes, there, it’s all right, Rose Red says.

  Rose Red goes and fills a basin with water from the well outside. She gives it to the Bear to drink. Rose White takes some berries from her pockets and holds out her hand. The Bear nuzzles her palm with his damp snout, tickles her as he eats. Rose White rips a piece of cloth from the bottom of her dress. She and Rose Red wash the wound and gently bandage it. The Bear lies back awkwardly, heavily, on the cushions and watches them. That is when Rose White realizes what it is he reminds her of. She can’t stop thinking this. She is less surprised by the thought than by the realization that she does not want to share it with the person who has known every single thing about her since the day they were born.

  After a while Rose Red and Rose White fall asleep. In the morning they feed the Bear again and help themselves to bread and honey and cheese, milk and berries. They go out into the woods. Neither of them mentions the idea of going home. They forage for food for the Bear. Roots, nuts, more berries. A little ways from the cottage they find a beehive that someone has been tending, and Rose Red puts on the beekeeper’s suit and collects some of the honey to replenish the Bear’s supply. They bathe in the stream and wash their dresses, dry them in the sun. When they dress, Rose Red notices that Rose White seems to be taking more care than usual. Her hair is sunlight in sunlight. Her cheeks are pink. She makes herself a wreath of wildflowers. She is wearing the dress with the torn hem out of which she made a bandage for the Bear.

  Rose Red knows what is happening, a part of her knows. She remembers what she and Rose White used to say to each other when they were young. She touches her hair—it feels coarse. She looks at her freckled arms and her big strong calves. She looks at Rose White admiring herself in the stream, casting white petals over her reflection.

  The Bear is better that night. His breathing is more regular and he eats more of the food they give him. Rose Red builds a fire in the fireplace. She sees the way the Bear stares at Rose White while she cleans and rebandages his wound. His eyes are full of dark firelight. Full of light and strength. Watching the Bear and Rose White, Rose Red feels the way she felt when she and Rose White first discovered the Bear—she can’t breathe, her body seems to have frozen.

  Days go by. Rose White and Rose Red spend them in the woods. Rose White’s skin is glowing and her body seems to be filling out. Neither she nor Rose Red ever talk of leaving. At night they watch over the Bear.

  One night it is especially cold. Rose Red wakes in the little bed with the carved headboard painted with blue hearts and yellow birds. Rose White is not there. Rose Red goes into the front room. The Bear is sleeping by the fireplace where he always sleeps. His wound has completely healed. His coat gleams. Rose White is curled up in the curve of his haunches. Rose Red stops breathing; she freezes. She knows that what Rose White told her once would now be a lie. She goes back to her bed and stares into the darkness where transformations are taking place.

  In the morning when Rose Red comes in for breakfast she sees a man sitting with Rose White at the little table with the blue-and-white-checked cloth. He is tall and strong, with a shiny brush of brown hair and fierce spellbinding brown eyes. He is staring at Rose White, whose hair is like the honey sunlight pouring in through the leaded glass window; she has berry-stained lips and hands and is wearing her flower wreath and her dress that is half the size it once was because it has been turned mostly into bandages.

  Rose White runs to Rose Red and kisses her with her berry-stained lips. Rose Red swallows a trickle
of salt in her throat and smiles. She says, This is what is supposed to happen, I’m so happy for you.

  Rose White wants to tell her, maybe he has a friend, you have to stay with us, things don’t have to change that much, but she doesn’t say anything. She knows that things have changed. When Rose Red sets out to leave she holds his hand and lets her go.

  BONES

  I dreamed of being a part of the stories—even terrifying ones, even horror stories—because at least the girls in stories were alive before they died.

  My ears were always ringing from the music cranked to pain-pitch in the clubs. Cigarette smoke perfumed my hair, wove into my clothes. I took the occasional drug when it came my way. The more mind-altering the better. I had safe sex with boys I didn’t know—usually pretty safe. I felt immortal, which is how you are supposed to feel when you are young, I guess, no matter what anybody older tells you. But I’m not sure I wanted immortality that much then.

  I met him at a party that a girl from my work told me about. It was at this house in the hills, a small castle that some movie star had built in the fifties with turrets and balconies and balustrades. People were bringing offerings—bottles of booze and drugs and guitars and drums and paints and canvases. It was the real bohemian scene. I thought that in it I could become something else, that I could become an artist, alive. And everyone else wanted that, too; they were coming there for him.