“There would have been more drama if you’d let it fall to the floor,” he said.
Mrs. Goldglitt congratulated Rosie. “You don’t even like the girl, but you helped her out! I’m proud of you, honey. Love thine enemy,” she said, rolling her eyes to heaven, which set them all laughing.
“She didn’t even thank me,” Rosie said. “Nothing changed. But Robbie said I was cute!”
“Did he say it sarcastically?” Jimmy asked.
“Not at all!” Nothing could sink Rosie’s spirits tonight. She had looked up the word cute in the dictionary. The definition sounded even better than the word itself. Robbie thought she was “endearingly pretty,” and there hadn’t been a hint of sarcasm.
They cleared the dirty dishes, and Jimmy surprised them by wiping off the table, a chore that he hated. Rosie and Jimmy did their homework in the living room and then settled down to watch television. Jimmy laughed at the he-man parts, and Rosie and her mother watched what the stars were wearing. The popcorn was salty, low-fat but tasty. For the first time in a long time, it felt like the family was working again.
The telephone rang, and Mrs. Goldglitt answered. By the look on her face, someone had died.
“Who’s hurt?” said Rosie, remembering the same expression when the police had called to tell them that their father had been involved in a traffic accident.
“Who’s dead?” said Jimmy, voicing what she felt.
“No one,” their mother quickly replied, cupping her hand over the receiver. “Uncle Moe says there’s something the matter with Grandpa. Let me hear.”
Mrs. Goldglitt adored her father’s brother. When Grandma Rebecca had ended up in the nursing home after a broken hip, Uncle Moe had come to the rescue. Rosie’s parents were in the middle of their divorce, and Grandpa Joe didn’t know how to make his bed, or pay the bills, or do the laundry. They all knew that Grandpa couldn’t live by himself. But who could take him? Rosie’s mother hated to see her father in a nursing home, but had put him on the waiting list to join Grandma Rebecca, just in case. Uncle Moe took pity and invited Grandpa to live with him until Grandma recovered. Rosie remembered hearing her mother tell her uncle, “I could kiss your feet, I’m so relieved.” Twice a week, Uncle Moe had taken Grandpa to the nursing home to visit his wife. And one day, Grandma’s bed was empty. She had died in the middle of the night.
Rosie loved Grandpa Joe better than anyone. Before the divorce, he was her biggest admirer. He listened to her. After Grandma died, with her mother dating and Jimmy in his own world and Dad building a new life away from them, Rosie needed Grandpa’s ears more than ever. He rarely gave her much advice, but nodded his head or widened his eyes so that she felt understood. When Grandma was around, he had laughed a lot, as if the world’s problems didn’t touch him and life was expected to be good. After her death, the laughter had lessened.
Rosie’s mother pressed the telephone against her ear, muttering, “I see, I see,” over and over. When she said goodbye, she sank into the armchair with a sigh that wiped out the evening’s pleasure. “Grandpa Joe is too much for Uncle Moe,” she said. “He needs a break.”
“For how long?” asked Rosie.
“He’s not staying in my room,” Jimmy said quickly.
“Jimmy, you’ll have to sleep in Dad’s old office. Your room is away from the stairs and next to the bathroom. We can’t have Grandpa falling and breaking his neck.” Mrs. Goldglitt’s tone was flat and final.
“He has a sketchy smell!” Jimmy complained bitterly. “I don’t want my bed smelling old like Grandpa.”
“That’s awful!” said Rosie, bristling at her brother.
“Then let him sleep in your bed!” said Jimmy, which shut Rosie up.
Mrs. Goldglitt walked out of the room muttering, “Do the laundry,” and the subject was closed.
* * *
After school on Friday, Rosie and her mother drove to Uncle Moe’s house. Summer wanted to come along for the ride, but Mrs. Goldglitt said no. “She’s a lovely girl, but we don’t need her chirping in the backseat, honey.” Rosie didn’t argue. Jimmy said Summer was like Chinese food. It filled you up for the moment, but you were hungry an hour later.
When Uncle Moe and Grandpa Joe walked out to greet them, Rosie’s mother let out a deep shuddery sound that signaled disaster. “He’s aged so much, I can’t believe it! I just saw him a week ago!”
“He looks like he’s going to fall down,” said Rosie, noting how firmly Uncle Moe gripped his brother’s elbow.
Grandpa shuffled his way toward them as if he were crippled. His face was pale, and his eyes were dead. It chilled Rosie to the bone. Uncle Moe helped him into the front seat of the car. Grandpa struggled with his seat belt until he got so exasperated that he wouldn’t wear it. He didn’t answer when Rosie said hello.
Rosie exchanged glances with her mother in the rearview mirror. Her mother’s face was drained of color, in spite of carefully applied blush. Rosie knew what her mother was thinking: that Grandpa Joe looked as though he was ready to join his dear departed wife.
When they parked in the driveway, Rosie helped Grandpa out of the car.
“Where am I?” he said. “I want to go home.”
“You’re staying with us for a while, Grandpa.”
Rosie and her mother led him as if they were guiding a sleepwalking child.
Rosie sat next to her grandfather on the couch. He didn’t move or speak, but when she turned on the television, he directed his empty gaze at the set. She left him alone and went into the kitchen.
Rosie’s mother wasn’t much of a cook, but she’d managed to make her father roast beef, which sat like a bomb in her nearly vegetarian kitchen.
“We’re eating flesh tonight?” Rosie joked. Her mother laughed, but it was thin and fake, coming from the windpipe, not the heart or the stomach. Jimmy and Rosie loved to make her laugh so hard that she was red in the face, with tears running down her cheeks. Each of them competed to be her favorite funny person. Lately, Sam topped everyone.
Grandpa wandered in, startling them both. He munched on a carrot, which made Rosie happy. Wanting to eat was being alive, wasn’t it? He pulled Rosie to him, and said, “How’s my little Rosebush?” Her real Grandpa was back as if she’d suddenly switched radio stations from classical to rock, asking about school and teachers and whether she had a nice boyfriend. When her mother announced, “Rosie likes to make her boyfriends fall head over heels backward into the bushes,” they laughed too hysterically, relieved that Grandpa was feeling better. He demanded to hear the entire story, and drank a full glass of cream soda, bought especially for him.
“After weeks of torture, Robbie thinks I’m cute,” Rosie told him.
“Cute? Not good enough.” Grandpa wrinkled up his brow in mock anger, saying, “You’re gorgeous. You’re beautiful. Dump that bozo!”
“He’s not a bozo, Grandpa. Boys my age don’t say you’re beautiful.” Rosie giggled. “Besides, the dictionary says cute means ‘endearingly pretty.’”
“Okay,” he said grudgingly. “Endearingly pretty in an extraordinary way. That’s my little Rosebush.” He looked around the kitchen, saying, “Just the way I like it! A little bit of dirt. A little bit of clutter. Everything at Moe’s is covered in plastic. One day, he’s going to spray disinfectant on me.”
“He’s a neat freak like Sarah’s mother,” said Rosie, laughing. Maybe Grandpa had been lonely and just needed company. Her mother was smiling, and Rosie could talk about Robbie again without feeling bad.
* * *
The next day, Mrs. Goldglitt had to go to work. “Can you go for a walk with Grandpa?” she asked. “The fresh air and exercise will do him good. I’d take him, honey, but Saturday is such a busy day at work, and I took off two weeks ago. Besides, it’s just a few hours.”
“Can I wash my hair first?” Rosie asked, and her mother agreed. Sometimes Robbie and his friends hung around with their bicycles outside Sal’s Pizzeria. Bumping into him with dirty hair
wouldn’t do. She was drying her hair with her head upside down when Grandpa called in to her, “I’m going for a short walk around the block! I’ll come back and get you.”
“I’m almost done!” she called back to him, swinging her head upright so fast it made her lightheaded. She heard the door slam.
Ten minutes later, Grandpa wasn’t back. Rosie stood outside and waited ten more, and then another ten before she started worrying. Should she call her mother and get yelled at when he might turn up at any moment? Rosie decided against it. She grabbed her jean jacket, dabbed some lip gloss on her mouth, and set off into town.
It was a ten-block stretch into the main part of town. Rosie peered down each intersection, looking for Grandpa. She passed Mr. Kerry, stooped but sturdy, who walked his dog several times a day. “Have you seen an old man?”
Mr. Kerry bristled. “What kind of old man? Is he fifty? Eighty? Be specific.”
“Seventy,” she told him.
“Young,” said Mr. Kerry. “What was he wearing?”
“I’m not sure,” Rosie said uncertainly.
“I haven’t seen anyone matching that wonderful description.”
Now, that was sarcastic, Rosie thought, walking off quickly.
She was getting tired and frightened. Was he lost, or worse, had he been hit by a car? She looked inside every store along the way, the bakery where her mother bought carrot muffins, the post office, the pharmacy, Sal’s Pizzeria. No glimpse of Grandpa, no Robbie and his friends, just strangers going about their business.
“Rosie!”
It was a young male voice. Rosie looked around. Where was it coming from? Across the street and up the road, a boy darted into traffic, skirting cars and bounding toward her with a familiar gait. It was Billy Jones. His face was flushed, and he was breathing hard by the time he reached her.
“Come with me,” he said, pulling her by the hand into oncoming traffic, weaving his way back to the bench where her grandfather sat.
“Here she is, sir,” said Billy, and Grandpa’s face lit up and a tear slid down his cheek.
“It’s you!” said Grandpa, holding out a trembling hand. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Rosie sat down next to him and cradled his hand in hers. “I’m here,” she said. “It’s okay, Grandpa.”
Billy said, in a low voice, “I found him standing here, looking kind of confused, you know? At first, I thought he was drunk or something, he looked so out of it.”
“He’s not drunk!” Rosie said defensively.
“I know, I know! That’s what I’m saying! I got him to sit down, and we started talking, and he says, ‘I took a walk and I got lost and I’m looking for my little rosebush.’ So I’m thinking, okay, he lives in a house with roses around it, but it’s too early for the roses to be out yet, you know? Then I remember Mrs. Petrie has that rosebush that twines all over the picket fence, around the corner from the school, and he gets agitated, and he’s shaking his head, and he says, ‘No! No! My little rosebush, I need my little rosebush,’ and he’s looking around, and his face lights up, and he says, ‘There she is!’ And it was you.”
Rosie couldn’t speak.
Billy rushed on, saying, “So I said, you mean her? Rosie? Is that your little Rosebush? And he said yes.”
“He called me that when I was a little girl.”
“I wondered.” Billy paused, and turned toward Grandpa. He spoke clearly in his ear. “So you’ve found your granddaughter, sir!”
“Yes,” said Grandpa, squeezing Rosie’s hand.
“Do you want to come home with me?” Rosie said.
“I’ll walk you there,” said Billy. He stood up, and Rosie recognized the familiar Billy smell that cried out for a shower. Today, it was cologne, it was perfume, it was Mrs. Petrie’s roses at their very best, because Billy was her knight in shining armor. They walked, the three of them, Grandpa in the middle, until they reached Rosie’s house.
Her mother’s car was in the driveway. Billy helped her grandfather up the stairs. His steps were slow and labored, as if each one cost him a year or two.
“Thank you so much,” Rosie whispered to Billy, thinking his blue eyes were so kind that they made her want to cry.
“You’re late!” said her mother, fussing around them, looking quizzically at Billy.
“He got lost,” Rosie told her, gesturing toward Grandpa, watching her mother’s face turn grave. “Billy found him.”
Mrs. Goldglitt started grilling them as if she were a police detective. After a few minutes, Billy said that his mother must be wondering what had happened to him. “I was supposed to bring back milk for her coffee!” he said.
Rosie’s mother thanked him with tears in her eyes. Billy shifted from foot to foot, saying, “It’s okay. It’s really okay.”
Rosie walked him to the door. “Do you want some milk?” she said, feeling awkward.
“I’m not thirsty,” he said, turning the doorknob.
Rosie couldn’t help laughing. “For your mother!”
“Oh!” Billy hit the side of his head. “No, that’s okay, I’ll go buy a quart,” he called over his shoulder.
“What a good boy,” Mrs. Goldglitt said when Rosie joined her.
“He makes me laugh,” said Rosie.
* * *
For the rest of the visit, they never left Grandpa alone, and there was very little laughter. Mrs. Goldglitt took Grandpa to the doctor for tests, and he told her that Grandpa would not be getting better and shouldn’t be left alone.
Mr. Goldglitt arrived to help take Grandpa to the nursing home. They sat around the table until it was time to go.
“You got along with Grandpa, didn’t you, Dad?” Rosie asked.
“He was good to me. He treated me like a son.” His eyes darted sideways toward Rosie’s mother as if she might make a comment. “Even after we told him we were getting divorced.”
“He loved you,” said Mrs. Goldglitt grimly. “Thank goodness I put him on the list for the nursing home. How could I ever take care of him?”
But Rosie saw a look in her mother’s eyes, the look of guilt and pain that said: A good daughter would take him. A good daughter wouldn’t make him live with strangers for the rest of his life.
“He doesn’t know us anymore,” said Rosie, defending her. “He’s there but he’s not.”
Rosie’s mother sipped the last of her coffee. “I wish I could do it,” she said quietly. “I’m an orphan now.”
“You have us,” said Jimmy.
Rosie looked at her mother, wrinkles fanning out from her dark-shadowed eyes. Her father looked older, running his hand through hair that used to be thicker. Rosie didn’t want to be an orphan any time soon.
“We should go,” said her father, walking into the living room to help Grandpa off the couch. “Let me carry your bag, Pop,” he said, gently prying the satchel away from the old man.
“Where am I going?”
Nobody answered, and Grandpa didn’t ask again. Perhaps he had forgotten the question. Mr. Goldglitt handed Rosie the satchel and helped Grandpa up with two hands. It was as if Grandpa had forgotten how to bend his legs, how to sit down, how to talk, and, especially for Rosie, how to listen.
Rosie went to bed early that evening. The Kissing Diary seemed a little silly, next to death and dying. It made Rosie wonder if she really wanted to get old, with all the sorrow that led up to it. She read the last entry before Grandpa’s arrival, so light and breezy, so full of hope!
But the clean blank page beckoned Rosie to fill it, and she wrote:
Sunday evening
I miss Grandpa already.
I am yours,
Rosie Gold-sadder
… and … sadder … and … sadder
8
Rosie’s Mind over What-Mary-Says-Doesn’t-Matter
As soon as she saw Billy running up the steps to school on Monday morning, Rosie knew she had to help him. “Billy!” she called.
He continued bounding down the h
allway.
“Billy!” she cried. He kept on walking. “BILLY!” she screamed so loudly that everyone stared at her. That’s my last time, she said to herself, feeling ridiculous. He stopped.
Rosie ran to meet him and put a hand on his shoulder, saying, “Turn around.”
“What is it?” Billy did as he was told.
Rosie peeled a pair of pink thong underwear off the back of his sweatshirt. “You didn’t mean to wear these, did you?” she whispered, handing them to him.
“Oh, man!” Billy rolled them into a ball and stuck them deep in his book bag. His face turned beet red, and he mumbled, “Sometimes the dryer does that, you know? Static electricity. They’re my sister’s!”
“I didn’t think they were yours,” said Rosie.
“Thanks,” said Billy. “I owe you one. I’ll see you later in history class.”
She headed in the opposite direction, and someone called out, “Nice save, Rosie!”
Teresa was grinning widely at her. “He’s not the pink thong type, is he?”
“Not really!” said Rosie.
“He’d be cute if he wore some deodorant!” said Teresa, jingling cheerfully as she walked.
Rosie agreed. “Wouldn’t you think his friends would say something?”
“Half his friends don’t shower!” said Teresa, and they walked into homeroom laughing.
In Mrs. Geller’s class, Rosie sat down at her desk, watching her teacher’s butt shake as she wrote on the blackboard. Someone should show her a video of her backside in jiggly motion. Maybe that was why her mother used the elliptical trainer so religiously.
“Hello,” said Robbie, clearly, audibly, directed at her. She nearly fell off her chair.
“Hi,” she answered, searching for something clever to say.
“How was your weekend?”
“Good. We put my grandfather in a nursing home.”
“That’s good?”
“No,” said Rosie hastily, “that’s bad. We had to do it. He got lost in town.”
The Kissing Diary Page 5