Waltzing at Midnight

by Robbi McCoy

  Friday morning after taking care of the cats and horses, I went home and tried to do some work for the Partnership, managing to accomplish almost nothing, but I did end up sorting some things into folders so it felt a little better organized. While working, I made a pot of vegetable soup for Jerry and Amy’s dinner.

  Remembering the contract Rosie had given me, I pulled it out to take a look at it. There was no reason to question the legalese of the thing. I trusted her absolutely regarding the details of my employment. The thing that stunned me, however, was the figure of my salary. My God, I thought, staring at it. I had never made anything close to this. Of course, I had never had a job with this kind of responsibility before, either. Seeing that figure scared me. They’d be expecting a lot in return. I can do this, I thought, trying to bolster my confidence. I was determined not to let Rosie down.

  While I was waiting for the soup to finish cooking, I decided to do a little research into the names of Rosie’s pets. Her cats were Sappho and Meg. I knew who Sappho was, of course, if for no other reason than her frequent appearance in crossword puzzles with the clue, “ancient Greek poetess.” There was only one of those, so that was always an easy one. Meg, however, was more difficult, since it didn’t sound like a name that would have any association with Sappho or ancient Greece. Might have just been a name Rosie liked, of course. In a few minutes on the Internet, though, I discovered that Megara was one of several known female lovers of Sappho. I tried the horses’ names next and discovered that Violet and Vita were also named for lesbian lovers, writers Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West. Their tempestuous affair was apparently notorious and the subject of a PBS miniseries entitled Portrait of a Marriage. There were plenty 112

  of clues that Rosie was gay, if a person was paying attention.

  Intrigued, I called some video stores asking for Portrait of a Marriage, and finally found a copy at an independent store. I had a bowl of soup before leaving the house, stopping at the video store on the way to Rosie’s place. I arrived earlier than necessary, about three in the afternoon.

  Bundling up in a thick sweater, I took a sack out to pick up walnuts in the driveway. Then I set to work cracking them on the stones of her rear patio, an exercise which left my mind free to wander. A bird called nearby and I jumped. My nerves were on edge. I hit my forefinger with the hammer and cursed. Hearing myself curse, I did it again just for effect. “Shit!”

  You’re not used to being alone, I told myself. The sound of your own voice startles you. “Shit!” I said again, gauging how unfamiliar my voice sounded. When I’d finished with the walnuts, I went inside and examined Rosie’s extensive CD collection.

  Preponderance of jazz, some classical, but there was popular music as well, even some of the music Amy listened to. Yes, there was even a Linkin Park CD, some oldies from practically every decade from the fifties onward, and big names like Melissa Etheridge, Billy Joel and Norah Jones. And there were names I didn’t recognize: Joan Armatrading, Chris Williamson and Ferron.

  I opened the player to read the label of the Brazilian jazz CD that Rosie had played for us Wednesday night. I liked it and thought I might get one for myself, but I found a different CD

  inside, a disc with a homemade label that said “Helen, 1995.”

  Rosie must have put this on after I left, I realized, trying not to think about the fact that it represented yet another mystery woman from her past. I decided to play it. From the first couple of words, the song gripped me, so I just stood there in front of the stereo, listening to the plaintive female voice and accompanying acoustic guitar.

  Here you are, looking so much like someone I should love.

  I wish I could touch you

  but the world stands between us…like a wall.

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  You think you’ve come to steal my heart, but you’ve only come to break it.

  The song, from beginning to end, was evocative, full of yearning, and extremely melancholy. I had a hard time picturing Rosie sitting here in her house listening to this. But, obviously, she had. Was it possible that she had listened to this melancholy song with its message of hopelessness and thought of me?

  I wish I could hold you

  but the world stands between us…like a wall.

  With that, the song finished. I found myself near tears and wondered if Rosie had reacted that way. But I was projecting.

  Rosie would not be sitting here listening to this song and crying her eyes out. That was not her. It was a beautiful song. A person could just enjoy it, a person like Rosie. What would she be doing sitting here pining like that about me anyway? If she was pining, it wasn’t for me. I had to assume that Rosie had been through her share of loves and losses and had probably learned at some point to take it on the chin and move on when it didn’t work out.

  As Faye had noted, Rosie wasn’t someone who lived with regrets.

  Her relationship with life was extremely healthy. Still, I thought, perhaps she had wanted me a little, had wished it were possible.

  Since it wasn’t, she would have given up the idea. Just as she had told me to do.

  The next song was also a love song, though not a sad one, sung to a woman identified only as “she.” The voice of the singer was clear and true, emotionally candid. The lyrics on these songs were too evocative for me in my vulnerable emotional state. I turned the music off and poked through Rosie’s mail for reading material. People claim to be able to tell a lot about a person by what magazines they subscribe to. I didn’t subscribe to any magazines and had only been reading the newspaper since August when I began working on the election. Prior to that, the newspaper represented little more to me than the daily crossword puzzle. I was hopelessly out of touch. Rosie subscribed to business, financial and news magazines. A large stack of them in the study suggested that she was behind in her reading.

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  She was such a stranger to me. I had thought I would be able to absorb her from her environment somehow. How could I feel so much yearning for someone I knew almost nothing about?

  The house, the case full of awards, the music, the books, the magazines, they revealed almost nothing. All this told me was what I already knew—Rosie was serious about her business and public life. I knew nothing more about her private life. Don’t you mean sex life, I asked myself? Isn’t that what you’re really interested in, what kind of sex life she has?

  They say that high-energy achievers like Rosie also have high-energy sex drives. She had claimed that she wasn’t seeing anyone, I recalled, when her sexuality had become an issue, but what did she really mean by that? She obviously wasn’t living with anyone. Maybe all she meant by it was that she had no special someone, no exclusive lover. It didn’t mean she was celibate. And she admitted to Clark that she had led a “full life,”

  implying that there were secrets, a colorful past, probably, full of excitement. She was a woman of profound passions, it seemed to me. Did that mean that when she went on a business trip to Phoenix, she’d never spend the night alone? She’d rejected me because I was nothing but trouble, but perhaps she would accept a stranger, a sultry, dark-eyed advertising executive met at the evening social where they would discuss the latest in computer-generated animation, and then they would ride an elevator to Rosie’s room, staring seductively at one another, and do all the mysterious things that women do together. I tried to shake these tormenting thoughts from my mind.

  It was peaceful at Rosie’s house, so quiet you could hear the hum of the refrigerator or, if you were sitting still, the purring of a cat. I’d never lived alone. It would be a different sort of life, being in charge of your time and your activities, being free to make your own choices, to be driven by your own needs? To be lonely too. But I wasn’t lonely just then. I was content. Who are you, I asked myself, when there’s no one else in your world?

  When there’s no parent, spouse, child, boss, doorbell, phone or television defining you? Maybe you’re nobody at all. Or maybe 115

 
you’re someone you wouldn’t even recognize. Or maybe you’ll recognize her when you see her, recognize bits of her when you see bits of her, over time.

  By six thirty, I decided to watch my video. I loaded the DVD

  into Rosie’s player, then curled up on the sofa with a big cup of decaf for a three-and-a-half-hour diversion. Both cats joined me, one on the arm of the sofa and one on the other chair. My expectations, knowing that this series appeared on Masterpiece Theatre over a decade ago, left me unprepared for the tempestuous drama that unfolded as Vita and Violet pursued their love and lust for one another. I had never seen anything like this before.

  It was gorgeous, intelligent, stormy and sexy. I was completely transfixed as darkness descended around me and the only light in the house was the glow of the television.

  When my cell phone rang, it took me several seconds to comprehend it. I paused the movie and grabbed my phone just in time before voice mail answered. It was Jerry calling to say thanks for the soup and to report that he and Amy would come over tomorrow. The chrysanthemums were wilting slightly, but he had flooded them with water and was optimistic. Anxious to get off the phone, I didn’t encourage any further conversation and told him goodnight. I returned to Vita and Violet as their love affair took them through the nightclubs of Paris.

  Later, when my cell phone rang again, it was Rosie. I was still sitting in the dark, the cats on their armchair perches. I checked the time on my phone. It was nine thirty. Was the dark-eyed beauty already gone from Rosie’s hotel room, I wondered.

  Had they completed their passionate, nostrings liaison or was the seductress lying there beside her still, waiting impatiently for this phone call to be over?

  “How are things?” Rosie asked.

  “Everything’s fine. How are things with you?”

  “I’m having a good trip. After meetings last night, one of the guys took me out on the town. We went to a great Cuban restaurant, and then to a club where I danced so much I got blisters. I haven’t been dancing in years. It was a lot of fun.”

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  “It sounds like it,” I said, wondering if there was more to this story. What did she mean by “one of the guys”? What did she mean by “club”? I couldn’t ask, especially after she had told me to get out of her life.

  “Tomorrow Jerry and Amy are coming over for the day,” I said.“Glad to hear it. Are you finding everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be back Sunday as planned. If you want to go home tomorrow evening, go ahead. You don’t have to stay. Slip the key under the back door. I know you must be bored there.”

  “I’m not bored, Rosie. I’m enjoying myself.”

  “Well, it’d still be a good idea if you went home tomorrow or, if you want, early Sunday.”

  Yes, Rosie, I get the message, I thought. She didn’t want me there when she came back.

  After saying goodnight to her, I returned to the movie. When it finally ended, I just sat where I was, watching, but not seeing, the credits roll by. I had always assumed that Masterpiece Theatre was for fuddy-duddies. If this was typical, that was a big misconception.

  I was emotionally drained, but also highly aroused by the violent passions I had just witnessed. It was essentially a tragic story, but it was also a story about an all-consuming obsession that burned in two women their whole lives long. When Sappho came up and butted my arm, wanting to be petted, I roused myself and went to bed.

  Tonight my fantasies were more intense than last night’s. I imagined Rosie making love to me, with her fingers, with her tongue. I imagined myself as the sultry woman in her hotel room, the stranger whose name she didn’t know, whose face she would always remember. Holding these images in my mind, I touched myself, imagining that my hand was Rosie’s, that she lay beside me, that her hands and mouth were all over me, that her voice was in my ear telling me how beautiful I was and how much she wanted me. I fell asleep with a sated body and a mind in turmoil.

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  “Be careful,” I called to Amy Saturday as she climbed onto Vita’s back. She had brought her boyfriend Tommy who was pretending, with some success, that he knew all about horses, though it was Amy who saddled them both. She rode off into the field looking confident and lovely. Our children had both turned out better than anyone could have hoped. Bradley was smart and decent and responsible. Amy was lively and outgoing and relaxed.

  Jerry looked at me and smiled affectionately, slipping his arm around my waist. Was he too thinking about our children?

  Under the circumstances, I couldn’t help wondering if I still loved this man. Sure, I thought, I must love him. Things had been good between us. I remembered what Rosie said about her marriage, about how she and her husband had become like brother and sister. Brothers and sisters love each other too. I couldn’t honestly say I was in love with Jerry, not anymore. Years ago we had apparently fallen out of love and didn’t even notice.

  Oh, I wasn’t so naive that I’d missed the natural cooling down over the years. But I’d always thought that we still loved each other, that the things we did that looked like love were exactly what they looked like. We were still traveling through space like a rocket after the fuel was exhausted, maintaining course and speed with nobody at the helm.

  Am I deluding myself, I wondered, because of Rosie, into believing I don’t love my husband?

  We barbecued steaks and potatoes for dinner on Rosie’s gas grill. In the kitchen, I made a salad, listening to a Madeleine Peyroux CD. Amy and Tommy brushed the horses. When Jerry brought the steak in, he asked, “What’s that music?”

  “Jazz,” I answered.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes. It’s growing on me.”

  Amy and Tommy teased and insulted each other good-naturedly, just like siblings. He called her “dude” a lot. She called him “dude” a lot. It was funny to watch them. I concluded that Tommy was not going to be around very much longer. Amy didn’t love him. There was no desperation between them.

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  After dinner, the three of them left for home. I stayed. Rosie would arrive tomorrow hoping I was already gone. I wouldn’t be gone at all. Somewhere in my muddled brain, I was plotting, but I didn’t even know what. All I knew was what my body knew, that it wanted to see her again, that it wanted to touch her again, even if the result was the same. Even if she turned me away.

  Which she would, of course, because she was too shrewd to give in to me. What did she need me for anyway? She had just spent a passionate night with a sultry advertising executive in Phoenix, and tonight she was lying in the arms of the enigmatic Grace Carpenter in Sacramento. What the hell did I have to offer her after that?

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  Chapter Eleven

  By Sunday morning I was so excited about Rosie’s return that I couldn’t be still. I mopped the kitchen floor, raked leaves, baked brownies full of my freshly shelled walnuts, and avoided thinking too much about how I would greet her or how she would treat me. I had to will myself not to think about that or I would have spun off into the stratosphere.

  By noon, I was panicking and began throwing my things into my suitcase. You’ve got to get out of here, I thought with alarm.

  Then, looking at the turbulent pile of clothing, I realized that I was acting ridiculous, certainly not my age. Calm down, I advised myself, be poised, be rational. I cut the brownies into squares and gave the cats a fresh bowl of water.

  When Rosie arrived, I would say hi, ask about her trip, give her the accumulated mail, and go home. Yes, you’ll go home in time to make dinner for Jerry and Amy. That’s the plan, then. No more of this life in Fantasyland. It was an entertaining diversion, a swerve off the highway of life, and now we had to get back on the main road. Being alone for a few days can fill your head with the most bizarre thoughts. Yes, I was over it. I chuckled at myself 120

  and ate a brownie, perfectly composed. Then I sat down to read a magazine and got caught up in a story about global warming.

 
I needed to pay more attention to what was happening in the world, develop some civic-mindedness. I should “go green,” I thought.

  It was a few minutes after two when I heard the crunch of gravel under the wheels of a car. Rosie! I sat up stiffly. She would see my car, would know I was still here. I went out to help her with her luggage. Pulling a suitcase out of the trunk, she smiled and said, “Hi.”

  So she wasn’t unhappy about my being here, not enough to let it show. What a relief. She wore slim black slacks and a knit sweater of gray and red rectangles. Rosie carried the small bag and I carried the large one through the open front door.

  “How was the trip?” I asked.

  “Successful. But it always feels good to be home. How are things around here?”

  “No problems.”

  She put the suitcase in the front room, sniffing the air. “Smells good. What is it? Chocolate cake?”

  “Brownies.”

  “Oooh, I love brownies!”

  Our eyes met for the first time since she’d arrived. Rosie’s eager smile gradually faded as we stood for several moments looking at one another like statues, so quietly I could hear the ticking of a clock in another room. My nerves had gone taut. My plans, whatever they had been, had no hope of reclaiming me.

  “So,” she said, looking away from me, “where are my babies?”

  Her voice was unsteady. She could feel it too, the powerful urgency between us. She wanted me, I realized. There was no doubt about it now.

  “In the kitchen, I think,” I said. “I just fed them.” I could feel the trembling in my body, growing worse each moment like the rumblings of a volcano before it erupts.

  Rosie, stepping around me, said, “Go home, Jean.” It was a command. She strode into the kitchen.