Rose Read online

  One weekend morning, as usual, he rose early and left the house before Mommy and I rose. He didn't leave a note or any indication about where he had gone, but it was fall and duck season, so we knew he was off to some solitary place he had discovered, some little outlet from which he could launch his rowboat and sit waiting for the ducks. He never shot more than we could eat, and Mommy was very good at preparing duck. She said it made him feel like some great hunter providing for his family. He was always saying that if we had to return to the days of the pioneers, he was equipped to do so.

  The night before he went hunting, he had come into my room while I was doing my homework. I had started it on a Friday night because I had been given a lot to do over the weekend, including beginning a social studies term paper. He stood there a while, watching me quietly, before I realized he had entered. He smiled at my surprise.

  "Daddy? What?" I asked him.

  He shook his head and sat beside me on the floor with his legs curled up under him. It had been a while since he had done this. Unlike the parents of most of my friends. Daddy didn't hover over me daily or even on a weekly basis checking on my schoolwork and questioning my social activities. In some of the houses of my school friends, their parents behaved like FBI agents. One girl revealed that her parents had actually bugged her telephone because they suspected she was in with a bad crowd, and another told me her parents had hired a private detective who followed her when she went out on dates. She said it was by pure accident that she had discovered it. She inadvertently pressed the answering machine playback in her father's office and heard the detective's report about her most recent date.

  These parents made me feel grateful I had a father who was so casual and trusting. Nothing I did ever displeased him greatly. He didn't yell. He never even so much as threatened to hit me, and if my mother imposed a punishment like "Go to your room for the night." or "Stay in all weekend," my father would intercede to say, "She knows she's made a mistake. Monica. What's the point?"

  Frustrated, my mother would throw up her hands and tell him to take charge and be responsible. Daddy would turn his big, soft eves on me and say. "Don't get me in trouble. Rose. Please. behave." I think that plea of his, more than anything, kept me from misbehaving. It was funny how I hated the idea of Daddy ever being sad. If he should be, it would seem as if the world had come crashing down on us. I was afraid that once my daddy lost his smile, the sunshine would be gone from our lives.

  "There's nothing in particular," Daddy replied to my question when he sat an the floor beside me. 'But it's Friday night. How come you're not going anywhere with your friends-- a movie, a dance? You're probably the most beautiful girl in the school."

  "I'm going out with Paula Conrad tomorrow night. Daddy. remember? I told you and Mommy at dinner."

  "Oh. Right."

  He smiled.

  "Just you and Paula?"

  "We'll probably go to a movie and meet some other kids." He nodded.

  "And I assume other kids includes boys."

  "Yes, Daddy."

  "So how are you really doing these days. Rose? Are you happy here?"

  A small patter of alarm began in my heart. Daddy often began a conversation this way when he was going to explain why we were about to move.

  "Everything is good. Daddy. I like my teachers and I'm doing well in my classes. You saw my first report card this year, all A's. I've never gotten all A's before. Daddy." I pointed out. He nodded, pressing his lips tightly.

  "And I was in the school plays last year. so I was thinking of Going out for the big musical in the spring. The drama teacher keeps reminding me. I don't know why. I can't sing that well."

  "You're the jewel. Rose. He wants his show to sparkle," Daddy said, smiling. "Don't be too humble." he warned. "Act like sheep and they'll act like wolves." he warned.

  I knew he was right, but I was afraid to wish anything big for myself. I guess I've always been modest and shy. Maybe that was because I was afraid of committing myself to anything that required a longterm effort. We had been so nomadic, moving like npsies from town to town, city to city, so often I was terrified of becoming too close to anyone or too involved in any activity. Goodbyes were like tiny pins jabbed into my heart. How many times had I sat in the rear of the car looking through the back window at the home I had just known as it disappeared around a bend and was gone forever?

  However. Daddy wasn't the only one who used superlatives when remarking about my looks. I should have been building up my confidence. Wherever Mammy took me, even when I was only six or seven, people complimented me on my features, my complexion, my eyes. I was often told how

  photogenic I was, and how I should be on the covers of magazines.

  When I was about eleven. I sensed that my male teachers looked at me and spoke to me differently from the way they did the other students and especially the other girls. I could feel the pleasure I brought merely being in front of them. In my early teen years, my male teachers seemed to flirt with me. Other girls with green eyes of envy muttered about my being Mr. Patter's pet or Mr. Conklin's special girl. They complained that I could do no wrong in the opinion of my male teachers. They even assumed my grades were inflated because I knew how to bat my long, perfect eyelashes or smile softly so that my eyes were sexy, inviting.

  I suppose it was inevitable that Mommy would want to enter me in a beauty contest. Six months after we had arrived in Lewisville. Mommy heard about the Miss Lewisville Foundry beauty pageant and discovered that through some oversight there was no minimum age requirement. She decided I could compete with women in their late teens and twenties and filled out the application. She made Daddy ask his boss to consider sponsoring me, and I was brought to the dealership to meet Mr. Kruegar, a balding fortyyear-old man who had inherited the business from his father. It was the first time I was paraded in front of someone who looked at me like some commodity, a product-- in his case, like a brand-new car. He even referred to me as he would refer to one of his new model vehicles.

  "She has the chassis. That's for sure. Charles," he said, drinking me in from head to foot, pausing over my breasts and my waist as if he was measuring me for a dress. "Nice bumpers and great chrome," he added and quickly laughed. "You're a beautiful one, Rose. No wonder your father's proud of vou. Sure we'll sponsor her. Charles. She's a winner and I can't get hurt by the publicity. Not if she's going to wear a Kruegar T-shirt and a Kruegar pin. That's for sure."

  Mr. Kruegar wiped the tip of his tongue over his thick, wet lips and nodded as he continued to scrutinize me with his beady eyes. I felt like a dinner for a cannibal and wanted nothing more to do with the contest or him, but Mommy assured me he would have little to do with what happened.

  "You probably won't see him again until the actual event," she promised.

  With a good budget now for my preparations. Mommy set out to buy me an attractive evening dress, a new bathing suit, and a pretty blouse and skirt outfit. The contest took only one day. Like the Miss America pageant, there was the question and answer period, which at least pretended an interest in our minds as well as our bodies. Then there was the swimsuit competition, and finally, the evening when we could sing, read poems, dance, whatever. I did a Hawaiian folk dance I learned off a videotape Mommy had bought. After we were all finished with our talent show, we paraded in front of the judges for the final evaluation, supposedly based upon poise and grace.

  I knew the older women were infuriated that I had been entered. None of them were friendly. As it turned out, a woman named Sheila Stowe won the title. I was first runner-up. Everyone in the audience, except Sheila's family, thought I was cheated because Sheila, as it turned out, was a relative of the Lewis family.

  After the contest, people insisted on calling me Ms. Lewisville Foundry or just Miss Foundry whenever they saw me. They sympathized with my mother, cajoling and insisting I was the true beauty of Lewisville. I can't say it didn't put daydreams in my head. I,began to imagine myself on the covers of the big
gest and most glamorous magazines, eventually developing products under my name. I started to think of elegance and style more seriously, and began to dare ambition.

  "I'm expecting you to become someone very special. Rose," Daddy told me as he sat there in my room. "I have high hopes. I know that I haven't exactly made things easy for you and your mother, but," he said. smiling, "you're like some powerful, magnificent flower plowing itself up between the rocks, finding the sunshine and blooming with blossoms richer than those of flowers in perfectly prepared gardens. Just believe in yourself," he advised.

  Daddy hardly ever spoke so seriously to me. It kept my heart thumping.

  "I'll try. Daddy," I said.

  "Sure you will. Sure," he said. He played with the loose ends of my bedroom floor rug for a moment, holding his soft, gentle smile. "I guess I never had much faith in myself. I guess I move on so much because I'm afraid of making too much of an investment in anything. It would make failure look like failure," he said, looking up. "instead of just a temporary setback I can ignore.

  "Don't be like me. Rose. Dig your heels into something and stick with it, okay?"

  "Okay, Daddy," I said.

  He stood up, leaned over, and kissed me on the forehead, twirling my hair in his forefinger and reciting: "Your eyes are two diamonds.

  Your hair is spun gold. Your lips are rubies and your skin comes from pearls. My Rose petal."

  He laughed, kissed me again, and walked out.

  I never heard his voice again or his laugh or bathed in his happy smile.

  2 Gone

  Mommy was up almost as early as Daddy Saturday morning. When I came down to breakfast, she told me she must have just missed him. She was sitting at the table, flipping the pages of her cookbook, searching for a new and interesting recipe for duck.

  "I'm tired of having duck, but if we don't eat what he brings home, he'll make me feel like I've committed a sin, having him kill a duck for nothing."

  "You always make it delicious. Mammy," I said.

  "Um," she replied, her eyes on the recipe she had found.. "I've got to go to the supermarket to get some of these ingredients."

  "I'm going to the movies tonight with Paula Conrad," I reminded her. She nodded. half-listening.

  "Mammy. Daddy didn't say anything about us having to move soon, did he?" I asked, and she brought her head up so fast, I thought she would snap her neck.

  "No, why?"

  "I don't know. He was talking so..."

  "What?"

  "Seriously. I just got that feeling," I said.

  "I won't go. I won't." she insisted. "This time. I'm going to plant my feet in cement. I've got an interview with Mr. Weinberg who owns that insurance agency on Grant Street. He's looking for a receptionist and bookkeeper and I can make a good salary. I won't go.

  "Besides," she continued. "you've got to finish your senior year here. Did he actually suggest moving?"

  I shook my head.

  "It was just a feeling I got. Mammy."

  "Um," she said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. "I should be wary. Whenever he starts going off by himself regularly on weekends and increases his drinking, it usually means something. No one can blame me for being paranoid,'" she added.

  She sat there, pensive for a long quiet moment, and then she slammed her palm down on the table so hard, she made the dishes jump and clang.

  "I'm not going and that's final,"

  She rose and marched out of the kitchen before I could even try to calm her down. I felt guilty for putting her ill at ease and probably clawing and barking at Daddy the moment he returned from hunting.

  All day long she built up her fury. I could see it in the brightening fire in her eves and could hear it in the way she pounded through the house, slammed doors, and ran the vacuum cleaner. She was pressing down so hard on the handle. I was sure she was sucking up the very foundation of the house.

  Early in the afternoon, she set out for the supermarket. She asked me to go along. I was afraid even to hesitate. It was an unusually warm day for late October, with just a few puffs of cotton white clouds barely moving across the turquoise sky. The world looked so vibrant, all the colors sharp and rich in the grass, the flowers, the picket fences. Days like this encouraged people to wash their cars, cut their lawns, paint and spruce up their homes. The freshness and the sharpness around us underscored how good we both felt about our present home and how much we wanted to hold on to it.

  How could he even dare to contemplate a move now?" Mommy muttered.

  Once again, I emphasized that I didn't know he was for sure. It was just a feeling.

  She looked at me and nodded, convinced of the worst possible scenario.

  "He is." she said. "You're right on it. I live in denial most of the time and ignore all the signals until they're plopped right in my fact.

  "I'll make him a duck dinner," she fumed, making it sound more like a threat. "I'll make him a duck dinner he'll never forget."

  She carried her fury into the supermarket and stomped around the aisles, pushing the cart like a lawn mower, plowing anyone in her way to the right or to the left before they had to meet her head-on. When anyone said hello, she fired her hello back as if they had cursed her. Her reply of "I'm fine, thank you very much." was almost a challenge to declare otherwise. I saw some people shake their heads as we continued by.

  At the checkout counter. Jimmy Slater gave me his usual big grin as he packed my mother's groceries.

  "How's Miss Lewisville Foundry today?" he asked me.

  "I'm not Miss Lewisville Foundry," I said for the hundredth time.

  "You are to me." Jimmy insisted.

  My mother glanced at him with her eyes askance and almost smiled at me as we headed out to the car. At home I helped her unpack and put away our groceries, and then I went up to my room to continue my homework. Around five o'clock. I expected to hear Daddy's Jeep pulling into the driveway with its usual squeal of tires. I leaned toward my window, which faced the front of our house, and looked down, anticipating his arrival any moment. At five-fifteen, I heard Mammy pacing in the downstairs hallway.

  "If that man expects a duck dinner tonight, he'd better be here in five minutes.' she declared. "I don't serve greasy duck. It takes a few hours to make it right."

  She pounded back to the kitchen and then, twenty minutes later, she returned to the living room to look out the front windows. I came down the stairway and stood in the living room doorway. She was standing there, her arms folded, glaring at the street. For a long moment, neither of us moved or spoke. Then she tamed and looked at me, her face twisted with anxiety and anger.

  "I don't know why I'm surprised. Why should time matter to a man like that now? It never has before," she said.

  I glanced at the miniature grandfather clock on the mantel above our small fireplace. It was now fiveforty-five. Twilight deepened. Shadows were spreading like broken egg yolks over the street.

  "You go make yourself something to eat. I know you're going to the movies," Mommy told me.

  I nodded and went to the kitchen, but I had very little appetite. My anxiety over what would go on when Daddy returned had turned my stomach into a ball of knotted string. Every once in a while my heart would pitter-patter like a downpour of rain against a window.

  Six o'clock came and went and still we were waiting for Daddy's Jeep to pull in. Mommy came into the kitchen and banged some pots and pans and then started to put things away.

  "If he thinks I'm going to make a duck dinner now, he's got another think coming," she muttered.

  At six-thirty. Mommy's lines of anger began to slip and slide off her face to be replaced by folds of anxiety and concern in her forehead. Small flashes of panic lit her eyes as she walked back to the front windows.

  "Where is he?" she cried.

  When the phone rang, we both looked at it for a moment. Then I lifted the receiver. It was Paula, telling me she would be by to pick me up at ten after seven. I looked at Mommy. I couldn't l
eave her until Daddy had arrived. I thought.

  "I can't go, Paula."

  "What? Why not? We're supposed to be meeting Ed Wiley and Barry Burton. We practically promised. Rose."

  "I can't go. My father hasn't gotten home yet from hunting ducks and we're worried about him," I said.

  She was silent.

  "Oh, go to the movies," Mommy said. "You're not 'acing to do me any good sitting here and clutching your hands. I'll eat something and watch television. I'm sure he's just gone a little farther this time."

  "Why wouldn't he call us. Mommy?"

  "Why? Why? Don't start asking me why your father does this or that. We'll be here forever thinking of answers. Go on. Be with your friends."

  "Are you sure?"

  "yes," she insisted.

  "Okay, Paula." I said. "Come on over to get me."

  "Good." Paula said and hung up before I could change my mind.

  I didn't see how I was going to have a good time. but I went up to fix my hair and put on some makeup. At seven o'clock. Mommy hovered over a plate of cold salmon and some salad, but she had eaten very little.

  "Two hours late. Mommy."

  "I can read a clock. Rose. When he comes through that door. I'm going to hit him over the head with it, in fact," she threatened. I knew it was a very empty threat. When he came through that door, all the air she was holding in her lungs would be released and all the tension in her body would fly out. We both spun as if we were on springs when we heard a car pull into the driveway.

  "See if that's him," she ordered. and I went out to look. It was only Paula arriving a little early.

  Paula was tall and slim with long dark brown hair and round hazel eyes. She was the captain of the irls' basketball team and very popular in school. The real reason we were going out together was that the boy she was after. Ed Wiley, was best friends with Barry Burton. who I heard was interested in me, but was very shy. Paula had practically begged me to go out with her.

  "Hi," she cried enthusiastically as soon as I opened the door.

  My mother stood in the hallway, her arms folded, gazing at us and forcing a smile onto her face. Paula looked from her to me and raised her eyebrows.