by Sarah Willis
“Still want to watch?” he asks. She nods. He sits down right next to her. He smells warm and musky from the hot lights.
“Good,” he says. “I told them that if you didn’t cry this act, they were all fired.” He says this quite seriously, but then laughs. “Just kidding. It’s a love story. What I really told them is that if you don’t fall in love with me, they’ll have to do it over and over again until you do.”
“It will be an awful long night, then,” she says.
“Not if you’re sitting next to me the whole time.” He stands and hollers at the stage, “Once more, with feeling!” He sits back down and whispers to her, “Always wanted to say that. Sounds pretty damn stupid, if you ask me.”
The actors move into place. She watches, afraid to blink. Something has happened. They have just become a couple. She can feel it. It’s like a dream. God forbid she wake up.
That night, after the rehearsal, Michael asks her out to the nearby bar. They sit in a dark corner and drink gin and tonics. She asks him where he lives.
“Everywhere,” he says, cupping his head in one of his large hands and leaning on the table, gazing at her. “I’m a roving director. I’ve moved from play to play for four years now and have completely forgotten where I started from. I hope I didn’t leave the stove on.”
“Seriously,” she says, looking at him, noticing again the wizened skin under his eyes. She wonders how old he is. “Don’t you have a home base?”
“Not anymore. But I have a lot of friends. And I know a few hotels rather more intimately than I might have ever cared to. Where are you from?”
“Here,” she says. “Born and bred in Cleveland, Ohio.” She knows now, as she says this, that she is ready to leave her home-town tomorrow, that she wants to travel, like he does. She’s so tired of the same old streets, the same buildings, knowing exactly where she’s going. To get lost in a new city . . . It sounds romantic. She feels romantic. Her faces flushes as if Michael could read her thoughts.
He offers her a Viceroy and she wonders if he knows it’s the brand she smokes, how much of this could be real. He’s debonair and goofy, something she suddenly finds is an extremely attractive combination. There’s such intelligence in his face, and kindness, and mystery. She wants to touch his cheek, run a finger down his nose, feel the curve of his chin. She is beginning to have expectations. She wants to make sure.
“You’ve lived here your whole life?” he asks, sounding astonished.
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ll have to do something about that.” Nat King Cole comes on the jukebox, singing “Unforgettable,” and Rose feels a huge grin come over her face and has to cover her mouth with a hand. All around her is smoke and murmurs. Right in front of her is a man she knows she is crazy about. She’s living right smack-dab in the middle of a love song.
That night they make love in the narrow bed in his small, dark apartment. She tells him she’s a virgin as he unbuttons her blouse, and his hands stop mid-motion.
“We can wait, if you want,” he says. She shakes her head. She is more than ready for this. Mind and body agree.
She closes her eyes to feel what he does to her, then, after a while, she opens her eyes, to see. At first he’s very gentle, moving slowly down her body, and she’s gentle, too, but then things speed up and she’s not quite sure what’s happening, just that she feels pressure, pain, then pleasure. He kisses her all over as he’s inside her, even as they toss and turn. There’s one moment when she actually thinks this is nothing at all like dancing, which is how she imagined it, and then she comes. She knows what an orgasm feels like, she has touched herself—she’s not a prude, really, just stubborn—but this, with Michael inside her, kissing her now, is completely different. This is really fun.
The combination of love, and lust, and being a virgin at twenty-six, takes her right over the edge of desire into addiction. She can’t get enough of him. For three weeks they make love two times a day—morning and night, or morning and lunch, or lunch and lunch. And she gets better at it all the time. There is so much more than touching a man’s face. She wonders if the blind girl Susan ever found that out.
They’re married by the justice of the peace eight days after opening night of Romeo and Juliet. It’s only when they fill out the marriage certificate that Rose discovers Michael is eleven years older than she. Rose’s mother won’t come to the wedding because he isn’t Catholic. Rose’s father hasn’t shown up by the time they leave town to move to Chicago for three months so Michael can direct King Lear. Rose says she will call her mother, to give her an address when they get there. She doesn’t.
Rose loves Chicago. Three months later they move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Two months later they move to San Francisco.
Moving is more work than she ever imagined, but she likes it; the organizational skills, the frugality of what they take, even the lifting and carrying of boxes. She’s good at this. Wherever they move, she buys maps and locates the interesting sights to see, checking them off her list after she visits them. Michael’s too busy directing to come with her, and she pretends it’s her job: she’s an investigator, a journalist. She takes notes, storing them in different colored notebooks for each city, and saves the title page of the newspaper the day they arrive, and the day they leave.
Rose tries to make the apartments they rent seem like a home. She hangs curtains she sewed in Chicago, lays down a small braided rug she bought in Tulsa, puts books on the shelves. She scrubs and cleans these places she will soon leave, but she’s careful to leave some dust under beds and couches to prove her own sanity. She’s disturbed terribly, in the eighth month of her pregnancy, at the urge to haul the bed across the room, scrub the floor underneath it until it shines. She dreams of washing the walls and woodwork and windows of the small apartment, but she won’t allow her hands this relief. She is not her mother; she is nothing like her mother.
She’s ashamed of being pregnant so early in their marriage; she feels as if she has bought an expensive appliance without asking. When she told Michael, she actually apologized, but he hadn’t even blinked before hugging her. She wants time alone with him, something rare enough as it is; after rushing home to eat dinner, he runs off again for the late-night rehearsal. Sometimes they go out to see a play at a competing theatre, but even during those times he’s lost to her. Rose loves plays; she’s just beginning to love them a little less.
She has never, not once in her whole life, held a baby. It could be too late to start, she thinks. She won’t be able to do this.
One rainy day she writes her sister, Celia.
Dear Celia,
Hello! How are you? I wrote to you when we moved here, but since I never received a letter back, I assume you must have been too busy with four children to write. I’m exhausted just being pregnant. Michael’s doing quite well, and they’ve asked him to stay and direct another play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, even though his trade is really Shakespeare. The man who was going to direct it canceled with no excuse (can you imagine!), so Michael said yes. He’s now going into dress rehearsals of King Lear, and starting the blocking of Virginia Woolf. It’s getting harder for me to keep up with him, being the beached whale that I am. I’m due in two weeks. If there’s any possibility of your coming for a visit and giving me some pointers, I would greatly appreciate it and would love to see you. I do understand it might well be impossible, but I want to make the invitation all the same. The sooner the better, since I never had a younger sibling, and I don’t have a clue how to change a diaper or mix formula.
I haven’t been able to talk to Father since moving
here, actually for more than a year now. Do you know if he’s all right? Have you spoken to him at all? Do you know where I can reach him? If you do talk to him, please give him my address and phone number. I call Mother on Sunday afternoons. She seems to be doing fine, in her own way.
I am well and happy. I miss work. Not the work, per se, but the friends I ha
d there, even the deadlines and accomplishments. These days I feel accomplished by merely dragging my bloated self out of bed. Oh, I long to sleep on my stomach! Tell me things get better.
Please write back. I can’t talk to any of the rest of our crew as easily as I do you. I always feel I should start my letters by reminding them I’m their sister. Mother says they’re all fine.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Love,
Rose
Rose gets a letter back from her sister a week later.
Dear Mary,
I see you’re still calling yourself Rose, but I just can’t seem to do the same. I am sorry, but I won’t be able to come visit you. I just can’t leave my children behind, and to let you in on a secret I haven’t shared with Mother yet, I’m pregnant again and due in five months. I’d like to say I’m getting good at this, but unfortunately, that’s not the case and my ankles are already swollen. I’m tired beyond belief and must tell you that it never gets easier. Walter is now thirteen and trying to ape the older boys by combing his hair back and wearing those tight jeans. I suppose I’m spoiling him rotten by allowing him to go out of the house looking as he does, but it’s all in innocence and I know he’s a good boy. Bonnie, Melanie, and Dorothy are still too young to care about the latest fashions, so I get to dress them as I please, but that won’t last forever. I’m hoping for another boy this time, just to even things out. There are little girls’ clothing scattered all over the house like weeds. If you have a girl, let me know and I’ll send you some clothes.
I haven’t heard from Father, either. Enough said. I don’t care anymore. If he doesn’t want to be a part of our lives, then so be it. I won’t beg for his love. As for Mother, she must be getting money from Father, but she doesn’t talk to me about these things, and I don’t ask. I have my own family to look out for, and it keeps getting bigger. I don’t have the energy for her problems, or anyone else’s.
Good luck with your delivery. I will pray for you. Children are a wonderful blessing. I hope to meet your husband someday. He sounds like a very talented man. Congratulations!
Love,
Celia
Rose goes into labor while she hangs underwear to dry on a clothesline rigged up in the bathroom. She feels a moment of great power when she calls the theatre and has them interrupt the rehearsal. Michael leaves work and drives her to the hospital. They put her to sleep. When she wakes up, she has a baby girl. They name her Jennifer.
Two months later, after the second play opens, Michael accepts a job in San Antonio, Texas, but they don’t have to move for another three weeks. He paces in the small apartment like a caged tiger, holding the baby as if it were a script, looking at it, prodding it, sizing it up to see what it might become.
“She’s so serious!” he says. “Like a little banker. But look at these hands! Oh, she’s going to be a tough one, just like you. Feel that grip! She won’t let go of my finger! What a face! Look at those gray eyes. They’re almost violet. The next Elizabeth Taylor! Not that I think she should be an actress! Well, maybe. Just think of it, Rose, this little tiny child could grow up to be anything, anything she wants. A doctor, a magician, a play-wright! It’s fantastic. She’s fantastic! Don’t you think?”
“Would you like to go to the grocery store for me?” Rose asks. “Could you?”
“Sure, sure!” Michael says, handing her the baby so he can find a sheet of paper and make a list. He licks the tip of the pencil, a habit that is just beginning to annoy her.
“Milk, certainly,” Rose says. “And three pork chops for tonight. A few potatoes. Oh, how about a can of peaches? We can pour that over ice cream tonight. And a newspaper, please.”
“Okay,” he says. “Got it. Anything else?”
The way he looks so hopeful, his eyes wide with a need to get her something else, she adds peanut butter and celery to the list, even though she stopped craving peanut butter and celery after her fifth month of pregnancy. “And don’t rush. It’s time for her nap anyway.”
“All right. I’ll be quiet.” He kisses her on the forehead, which she should love, but doesn’t. It feels dismissive. It reminds her of her father.
Michael kisses the baby on the forehead, too, then her fingers. I’d like my fingers kissed, Rose thinks. Michael leaves, asking twice more if there’s anything else he can do. She wishes there were.
She looks down at the child in her arms. Jennifer. She doesn’t like Michael calling her Jenny. Jenny’s a silly name. Rose doesn’t want a silly daughter. Rose always calls her Jennifer. It’s a beautiful name.
They can’t have cats because of their moving about so much. She had to leave Daisy and Pinocchio behind with a friend. Rose misses that part of her life, the small soft creatures that would crawl into her lap, sleep awhile, then go off somewhere. A baby is nothing like a cat.
She pushes the baby carriage down the sidewalk to a nearby park. One lone cloud is left in the blue sky like a lost sheep. It’s hard to get used to the idea that it’s February and warm, but San Antonio is a beautiful place. Lying on her back, three-month-old Jennifer waves her fingers, wearing a pink hat, wrapped in a pink blanket, her tiny feet covered with knitted pink slippers, all sent by Rose’s sister Celia. Rose thinks her daughter looks like a bundle of cotton candy. Even her own thoughts seem to be about soft, shapeless things. Some days she walks a mile to the library just to read the local newspaper and then stares at the pages as if they are written in Greek. What is this about the U.S. getting involved in Indochina? She just can’t keep up. The budget’s so tight she’s given up all sorts of things, like perfume and new shoes. She makes meat loaf that lasts for three days.
All her siblings sent presents. Bibs and picture frames, bibs and pink sweaters. Her mother sent a check for fifty dollars. Her father sent a check for two hundred dollars and a nice note that said absolutely nothing, with no return address. She wrote a thank-you note she keeps in her bureau.
At the park, children climb metal jungle gyms and slide down slides. Rose sits on a bench, pushing the carriage back and forth with one hand. A woman walks over, dressed in sharp plaid capris and the newest sandals, and Rose wants her clothes. “May I?” the woman says, her arms reaching out toward Jennifer.
“Certainly,” she says.
The woman picks up Jennifer and makes cooing sounds. Rose has never gotten into the habit of making those noises to her baby, nor anyone else’s.
“They grow so fast,” the woman says. “My name’s Libby. That’s my Stephen over there. I can hardly pick him up anymore, not that he’d want me to. He’s no momma’s boy, that’s for sure.”
The child across the playground is maybe five. They do grow up, Rose thinks. She bets he can play by himself for hours.
She wants to ask this woman a thousand questions, and none of them about babies. What’s happening with Indochina? Did you go to college? Did you want go to college? What do you think about working mothers? If you could have any job in the world, what would it be? Who did you vote for? But she wants this woman to stay and talk to her. “Your son can really climb,” she says, as brightly as she can. “When did he start to walk?”
They talk children for a half hour until Stephen runs over and tugs his mother’s arm. “I gotta go,” he says, hopping from foot to foot. Libby laughs and says they will have to leave. She has held Jennifer the whole time and now hands her back.
With a friendly wave, Libby and her son walk off.
Rose feels abandoned, like that cloud that still sits in the sky, waiting for a breeze. It will dissipate, before it gets anywhere. The sheer pity she feels for herself makes her laugh out loud, a harsh laugh. Jennifer jerks and begins to cry.
On the way home she passes a small market that has fruit and vegetables displayed outside on crates. Going inside, she buys oranges, a pineapple, and peanut butter and celery.
Seven months later, in Milwaukee, she has a son. They name him Peter.
Four months later, in Tallahassee, she has still not
gotten her period back.
Rose knows she should see a doctor, but they’re moving to Boston in a week. Two weeks later, boxes unpacked, cribs set up, a dozen trips to the local drugstore for diapers and formula, she sits down on the shabby couch in their rented duplex and bursts into tears. She wants peanut butter and celery so badly she could scream. She tries to convince herself that if she just doesn’t eat them, everything will be fine, as if eating peanut butter and celery were what got her pregnant.
A month later, while drying dishes, she throws a clean sauce pot against the wall. “Damn it to hell!” she shouts at the wall, at the dented pot, at the dingy kitchen. Hell’s bells won’t do anymore, she can see that.
Michael runs into the kitchen, holding Peter. He’s a wonderful father. He makes up silly stories for the children that make Rose grit her teeth. She reads them The Wreck of the Hesperus and O Captain! My Captain! She reads them biographies of Roosevelt. She does this privately, when Michael’s gone. She could read them War and Peace in two days, he’s gone so much.
“What happened?” He looks around the kitchen bewildered, as if there should be some foe he can fight off. He understands so little, she thinks: it is her own body that is her foe. Once set free, she has found her sex drive to be a dominant need in her life. She thinks about Michael inside her at the stupidest times. She sees, while picking out apples, his eyes looking into hers as they push and twist their bodies, tastes the sweat on his forehead, smells the heat off his chest. It can blind her; she will pick out bruised fruit and never notice until she gets home. And it never shames her because this urge comes with such love she feels surely she must be blessed. But right now she feels cursed. She kicks the nearest kitchen cabinet, yelling, “Damn Him! What the hell is He doing to me?” Maybe God is punishing her because she doesn’t go to Mass anymore, and Michael is a lapsed Protestant. Who has time to find the goddamn church? She plops to the floor between the cupboards and the fridge, and can’t cry. The tears of just moments ago have burned off. Her face and eyes are hot and dry. She has nothing left in her, except another baby.