Rose Read online

  He smiled.

  "I keep her alive in my own magic box, but she's alive in so many ways. See those rose bushes over there?"

  I looked and nodded.

  "She planted those bushes. They're her roses and when they come up, they remind me of her. I think of them as waiting for her to prune them, nurture them, Sometimes, I see a shadow move or hear a footstep in the hallway and expect her to come walking into my room, her smile beaming at me, her voice light and full of laughter.

  "You think of me as full of self-pity, but it was difficult to be that way with my mother. She just refused to let gray skies over our heads. If anything made us sad even for an instant, we were to close our eyes and think of blue, 'There she would cry. 'It's beautiful now. Isn't it, Evan?'

  "I felt obligated to make her happy and agree. You know what I mean?"

  "Yes." I said. "Daddy was like that."

  "Mm. Maybe that's what drew them together. I wonder what their first date was like," he thought aloud and then looked down at his hands in his lap, lowering his head like some flag of defeat.

  "I'd like to see how someone goes on a date over the Internet," I said to help move him from his terrible sorrow.

  He raised his eyes to me quickly. "Really?"

  "I don't know as much as other people my age do about computers. I started the course this year, but I've got a lot to learn yet."

  "It's easy," he said. "Aunt Charlotte thinks it's rocket science, but she doesn't even know how to work the microwave oven. She's never had to do much for herself. I'll show you most of it in a few hours," he promised, permitting excitement to enter his voice.

  "I'd like that. Evan. Thanks.' He smiled coyly.

  "What?" I asked.

  "I'll show you one of my computer dates, but you've got to share your date, too. You've got to tell me about it, okay?"

  "Sure," I said.

  It seemed innocent enough.

  But I didn't know what he meant, how much he really wanted from me. Despite all his electronic relationships and connections, he was really very lonely. It showed in his shadowed eyes.

  And then I thought, maybe Charlotte wasn't so wrong. Maybe she expected I would fill in some of the empty places that Evan's mother once occupied for him. It wasn't a bad thing to want for him. I thought. Perhaps she did care about him and feel terribly sorry for him. Who could blame her for bringing us into her home if that was truly the reason? It made me feel bad for doubting her or distrusting her.

  But then I thought again about the lesson in the allegory of Plato's Cave: Things are not always what they seem to be. Wait, wait for the last bit of darkness and shadow to fall victim to the light, and then look again, think again, feel again.

  Then you will know what is true and what is not.

  7

  Heart of the Angel

  I had no idea how much time I had spent in Evan's room watching him work his computer and learning about it. I couldn't help but be fascinated by the exchanges going on between the boys and Girls he and I watched in the so-called dating room.

  "I used to date this girl, too." he told me. "Her screen name is Dreamluv. She didn't change her dating room password so I can eavesdrop."

  He looked at me and smiled.

  "I think she wants me to listen in. It's her way of teasing me. She thinks it bothers me. I guess. I blew her off two days ago," he said.

  "How old is she?"

  "She says she's seventeen, but from her vocabulary and responses, I'd say she's more like twelve, wouldn't you?"

  "I can't believe this," I remarked when I saw that the conversation between Dreamluv and her supposed new boyfriend Spunky was rapidly becoming raunchy and quite vulgar. They began to tell each other things to do to themselves and then report the results.

  "Disgusting!" I cried, and Evan clicked them off instantly.

  "Now you've seen cyber sex," he remarked with a casual smile,.

  "I don't want to see it. It makes me sick to my stomach."

  "For most of these people," he said, nearly in a whisper so that I had to struggle to hear him. "it's all they have. They're either too shy or they think they're too ugly to meet people face to face. Some of them are in my Invalids Anonymous organization. I'm sorry if it upset you.

  Before I could respond, I heard Mommy's and Charlotte's voices echoing down the hallway. The sounds of their laughter and their shoes clicking over the tile floors brought my eves to the clock.

  "They're back! Look what time it is. -We've been here for hours. Evan."

  He shrugged.

  "Sometimes I'm here all day. I even have lunch brought to me, and occasionally dinner."

  "I'd better see what Mommy's done. Thanks for showing your computer to me."

  I went out to greet Mommy and see what her hair was like now and stopped dead when I saw. She had a hairdo that was practically a carbon copy of Charlotte's. She was wearing Charlotte's designer outfit and her makeup was different too: a far brighter shade of lipstick, and more vivid rouge and eyeliner. She had an armful of boxes, and there were more boxes at her feet.

  "Oh. Rose, come quickly and help me with some of this," she cried.

  "What is all that and what have you done to your hair. Mommy?"

  "Don't you like it?" she asked, turning to model her coiffure.

  "I took her to my personal beautician," Charlotte said, "who treated her with lots of tender loving care.'

  She stood off to the side gloating at her new creation like a Doctor Frankenstein.

  "Well?" Mommy asked, waiting for my response.

  "We brought your mother into the twenty-first century," Charlotte bragged.

  "It's not you. Mommy," I said. and Mommy's smile wilted quickly. "You're wearing too much makeup, too," I complained. "It's gross."

  Charlotte laughed.

  "Really, dear, your mother was made up by a cosmetic expert at the department store."

  "I don't care. It's too much for her," I insisted. "You look... cheap," I said.

  "Oh, my," Charlotte said, bringing her hand to the base of her throat.

  "That's enough. Rose." Mommy snapped at me. "Help me with these packages. We're taking it all up to my room."

  I gathered what I could.

  "Where's Evan?" Charlotte asked.

  "At his computer," I said.

  "Really?" She grimaced like someone who had bitten into a rotten hard-boiled egg. "I was hoping you might draw him away from all that," Charlotte said and shifted her eves quickly toward Mommy, whose eves turned nervous with fear that I had somehow let her down,

  "We did spend almost an hour and a half outside talking," I said.

  "Good. A little more every day and maybe you'll get him to become social and normal.-

  "He is normal." I insisted. "He's just in a great deal of pain."

  "Not according to his doctors and nurses." Charlotte bounced back at me.

  "I'm not talking about that kind of pain. I'm talking about the pain in his heart," I said.

  "Oh, well, perhaps you can help him forget that," she continued. "It's why I wanted y'all here, you know," she added, the timbre in her voice colder, more formal.

  "Of course she will," Mommy quickly said. "Won't you. Rose?"

  "I don't know, Mommy," I said honestly.

  "Well. I do." Charlotte said. "You will, We will lift the gloom and doom out of this house and bring it back to its glorious days when the halls were filled with laughter, the rooms were stuffed with wonderful, good-looking people and music and the clinking of champagne glasses, or we will die trying, won't we. Monica?"

  Mommy smiled and laughed.

  "Yes. Charlotte, oh. yes."

  "We met some nice people at lunch, didn't we?"

  "Yes," Mommy said. "We did."

  "Especially that Grover Fleming." Charlotte said, her voice full of teasing. "He nearly wore lines in your face with the intensity of his looks. I've never seen him so infatuated with anyone. And he's a catch, worth millions!" she emphasized.
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  "He was very nice," Mammy admitted. Her eves looked as dream filled as a teenager's.

  "And don't forget we've been invited to dinner in Atlanta this weekend," Charlotte continued.

  "Dinner?" I asked. "But how... who?"

  "Friends of Charlotte's," Mommy said.

  "Grover will be there," Charlotte added.

  "I'll tell you all about it later." Mammy said. "Let's take all this up now, please," she insisted and started up the stairway.

  I glanced back at Charlotte. Her look of cold satisfaction put a stick of ice on the back of my neck.

  As soon as we entered Mommy's room, she began to unpack her things to show me one outfit after another, matching shots, new blouses, belts, even some expensive-looking costume jewelry.

  "The saleswoman said I looked ten years younger in this," she told me when she held up a burgundy pantsuit.

  "When I looked at the price. I nearly fainted. but Charlotte didn't blink an eyelash. Take a guess at how much she spent on me today. Go on. Take a guess."

  "I don't care. Mommy. This is... sick." "Sick? Why?"

  "Why would she do all this for you and spend so much money on you?"

  "We've been all through that. Rose," Mammy said, dropping the outfit onto her bed and reaching for hangers. "It's a trade-off. I don't feel a bit guilty or strange about any of it either. Well earn our keep here. I'm sure. You've already started becoming friends with Evan and helping him, haven't you?"

  "I'm not doing it to earn my keep, Mommy. He is my half-brother, isn't he?"

  "Charlotte's told me so much about him, how introverted he really is and how much it troubles her," she continued as if I had not spoken. "You know he's never on to a movie? He doesn't want to go for rides or go into the city. She has to pull teeth to get him to get new clothes and shots. He doesn't care what he wears, and look at his hair! She's considered having him drugged and then having a stylist sneak in and do him one night."

  "Brilliant. That's sure to bring him out," I said and plopped into the French Provincial chair in her sitting area.

  Mammy paid little or no attention to me. Her eyes were fixed on each outfit as she hung it up and described how she had looked in it when she had put it an in the store.

  "The other salespeople came around to remark how nicely everything fit me," she continued. "I had my own little fan club for part of the afternoon, just the way you did that day I bought you your outfits for the beauty contest, remember?"

  "They do that only to get you to buy things. Mommy," I said.

  "Now, Rose, they knew we were going to buy things. They didn't have to do anything. Charlotte's well-known in these stores. The way they cater to her, jump and drop everything they're doing when she appears... it took my breath away to see such devotion."

  "It's not devotion. It's servitude.. They're beholden to her for what she spends there."

  "It's the same thing in the end, isn't it. Rose? Who would you rather be, the salesgirl or Charlotte?"

  "Never Charlotte." I insisted.

  Mommy laughed at me as if I was saving the silliest things. I found myself getting more and more infuriated. I could see from the way she paused to gaze at herself in her vanity mirror every other minute that she was infatuated with her new look.

  "Why did you let them cut your hair like that, Mommy?"

  "When did I ever have the money or the chance to be in style, Rose? Why. I could see the difference the moment we walked out of that salon. Men on the street were pausing to look my way. Even men in automobiles turned toward us. It's been a long time since I turned a man's eyes to me like that. I've been living in a cocoon your father wove around me all these years. Who had time or the inclination to be beautiful before this, or even care?

  "This," she said, pausing and holding one of her new dresses against her bosom as she gazed about the room. "is like a miracle. To get a second chance at life at my age."

  "You're not that old. Mommy."

  "You're as old as you feel," she countered. and when I was living back in that... that life. I felt old. Suddenly, it's as if I have sipped from the fountain of youth."

  She closed her eyes and then she opened them on me.

  "You'll see. You'll begin to enjoy all this. too. Wait until you attend that school tomorrow and make friends with boys and girls from well-established families. You won't complain about the gossip and the jealousies."

  "That's ridiculous. Mommy," I said, scrunching my face in amazement. 'There's probably twice as much."

  "Nonsense. When you have all this, you don't feel threatened and you don't have to tear someone else down to make yourself feel good. Why, they'll all appreciate you more, Rose. You'll see."

  She continued putting her new things away. She seemed like some stranger to me, saying things, having ideas I had never heard from her lips before. I didn't know whether to be more frightened or angry.

  "What's this dinner you're going to this weekend?-

  "A dinner at one of the fanciest hotels in Atlanta where there's an orchestra playing while you eat. See why I needed better clothing?"

  "Barry's coming to take me out to dinner Saturday," I said. She stopped putting away her clothes and turned to me.

  "Really, dear, don't you think you should shed the past? You'll meet far nicer and finer boys tomorrow, and I'm sure before the week's out, you'll be asked on a date. You don't want to have to refuse someone from here because you've failed to cut the ties to that other place, now do you?"

  Tears came to my eyes, tears of definite anger and disappointment. I took a deep breath and stood.

  "Yes. I do," I said. "I don't measure people by their bank accounts, and when I meet someone as nice as Barry I don't turn him away in hopes that I'll meet someone who lives in a mansion. Mammy."

  "You'll learn," she said, shaking her head and darkening her eves with pity. "I was hoping our lives, my mistakes would have been enough to drive it home by now, but hopefully, you'll learn."

  "That's a lesson I'd rather skip. Mammy. You used to say that real love is true wealth."

  "That's something poor people tell themselves to make themselves feel better. Rose. Love." she said, shaking her head. "It's a soap bubble, full of rainbow colors, but as soon as you touch it, it pops and you have nothing but some illusion to remember.

  "I'd rather remember all this," she said, nodding at the walls as if they were made of gold. "You'll see."

  She thought a moment and then she laughed.

  "Did I show you the necklace and earrings? They're made of that material that resembles diamonds. You can't tell the difference. It's called Diamond Air, Cubic Zirconia."

  "Really, Mammy," I said. "Someone who has the wealth and background you're raving about would surely be smart enough to know the difference," I said.

  She considered what I said and then shrugged.

  "Well then, he'll decide to buy me the real thing, won't he?"

  She laughed and turned back to her closet. I sat there a moment staring at her and then got up and left. She didn't even know I had.

  I wasn't comfortable being driven to school by a chauffeur. but Charlotte insisted and Mommy was like her cheering section, urging me to agree to each and every suggestion concerning me that Charlotte made. At breakfast, she even had the audacity to suggest I cut my hair more like theirs. too.

  "Then we'll all look alike." I said. "What of it?" Charlotte asked, her eyes blinking with innocence.

  "One size doesn't fit all when it comes to things like that. I'm me. you're you, Mommy's..."

  "Mommy," Charlotte said. She looked at her and Mommy turned away. There was a time, only hours ago, it seemed, when that would have brought pride to her eyes, not shame and embarrassment. "Can't you call her Monica?"

  "What? She's my mother. Why do I have to call her Monica?" I asked.

  "Calling her Mommy just makes her sound... older." she insisted. "At least do it in front of any guests we have," she requested.

  Again. I looked at Momm
y to see if she would disagree, but she was silent and threw me a small smile.

  "Is that what you would like me to do. Mommy?"

  "I don't see why it's such a world-shattering thing," Charlotte pursued.

  "You don't have a daughter or a son," I said sharply. "You're not a mother."

  "Rose," Mommy chastised, shifting her gaze at Charlotte.

  "That's all right, Monica," Charlotte said in her sweet Southern voice. "Rose happens to be correct."

  She turned back to me, her eyes narrowing.

  "No. I'm not a mother, dear." She laughed a cold, mechanical laugh. "But after seeing what most mothers, and fathers. I should add, put up with these days. I can't say I feel deprived and disappointed. Modern children are so unappreciative. They think everything is coming to them just because they were brought into this world. They almost want to punish their parents for having the nerve to conceive them. You know what I'm talking about, don't you. Monica? We were discussing it yesterday in the car after we saw that poor woman being nagged to death by her spoiled daughter at Tiffany's."

  "Yes," Mammy said quickly. I turned to her sharply.

  "Fine," I said. "From now on, I'll call you Monica, Monica. I'd better get on my way. I don't want to be late for my first day in my new, wonderful school, Am I dressed stylishly enough?"

  "Oh. don't worry about that," Charlotte said with a small laugh that brought curiosity to my face.

  "Go on. dear." Mammy said. "I'm sure you have a lot to do."

  "Of course she does," Charlotte said.

  I marched out of the dining room and almost fell over Evan who was sitting back in his wheelchair just outside the door. He smiled at me.

  "Aunt Charlotte getting under your skin?" he asked.

  "Like a tick," I said, and he laughed.

  "I came out to wish you good luck today," he said. "I can't wait to hear all about it."

  "Thanks," I said. I felt like fanning my face and imagined smoke pouring out of my ears. He wheeled along beside me as I walked to the door.

  "Wait," he said when I opened the door and started to close it behind me. He wheeled out onto the portico. "I like watching you walk."

  "What?" I started to smile.

  "You have such perfect posture and you glide along as if you're always on some runway modeling clothes or something."