Rosie O'Dell (18 page)

I let my ecstasy squelch my twinge of guilt for contributing to her wrong
decision on a marvellous opportunity. I banished the notion that I should get
back to her immediately and tell her so. The tidings were too good to alter.
Then, at the end of the letter, Rosie said she’d already told Suzy of her
decision by phone because one of the reasons she’d decided to come home was that
Suzy’s mother seemed to have persuaded the school board to let her daughter
attend the same high school as Rosie, for “important, personal reasons,” even
though Suzy didn’t live in the right school zone.

That was bad news. In fact, it was a catastrophe. It was already awful enough
that Rosie and I would be in different high schools, but I had been counting on
Suzy to be around my school as my liaison, to make sure Rosie and I would get
together even if she went into one of her hell-bent-for-leather activity
marathons again this year. I’d even been concocting persuasions in my mind to
employ on Brent, encouraging him to romance Suzy so that we could be a regular
foursome at various events. What the hell were these important personal reasons
of Suzy’s anyway? And why did everything in Rosie’s life turn out to be more
important than me all the time?

I FLEW BACK TO
St. John’s a week before Rosie. My mother
picked me up at the airport that early evening. Driving home, she said, “The
Martin girl phoned lunchtime and left a message for you to call.”

I knew who she meant, of course, but I replied, “The Martin girl. Are you
talking about Suzy Martin?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“That’s her name. Suzy. She has a first name.”

“It slipped my mind for the moment. It’s not like I know her. I don’t think I
ever met her.” When I didn’t respond after thirty seconds of surly silence, Mom
went on, “Are you okay? You were in good spirits when Dad and I last saw you in
Gros Morne. Now you seem to be very down. Something going on?”

“Nothing. Is. Going. On.”

Waiting at the light at Elizabeth Avenue and Portugal Cove Road, she broke the
quiet with, “Did you and Rosie touch base this summer?”

“Yes.”

“She did well in her tennis up there. They were after her to
spend a year in Florida.”

“How did you know that?”

“Your friend Suzy told me on the phone. She also told me Rosie is going be at
the same high school as you and her in September.”

“What? No. You’ve got that all shagged up. Suzy is going to Rosie’s new high
school.”

“No, Tom, I haven’t got it all shagged up. That was the original plan, but she
told me it turned out to be easier and more convenient for the board and the
schools and everyone if Rosie merely streamed from her old middle school to the
same high school as Suzy. So that’s what they’re doing.”

I sat up so quick in my seat, the shoulder strap locked and hurt the side of my
neck. Mom looked at me. I had to tell her, but very pleasantly with a laugh in
my voice, that the traffic light had turned green. She said, “That seems like
good news for you.” Perhaps she had noticed that within the space of one second,
I’d leaped from churlish depression to manic euphoria.

“It certainly is for Suzy. She didn’t like the idea of the four of us being
separated. We had pretty good times together at school.”

“The four of you? Oh, Brent, right. She didn’t mention that. When I asked her
how they had pulled it off, she sort of joked that the clincher with the board
was that Rosie’s good example and close friendship would keep her—Suzy, that
is—from becoming a juvenile delinquent.”

“Suzy is great. She and her mother had a big struggle after the family broke
up.”

“How did she and Rosie become such good buddies, I wonder?”

“Well, you know what Rosie is like. So kind-hearted and always wanting to help.
I guess she saw a need and filled it.”

Mom looked straight ahead and said nothing. I added, “But then I think they
found that they had a lot in common.”

“Yeah? Like what, I wonder?”

If I hadn’t been in such a good mood now, I would have snapped in irritation at
the maternal harassment. Instead, I said, “Oh, a wicked sense of humour and
stuff.”

“Hmm.” A few seconds later, Mom went off on a tangent: “Let me know how Pagan
looks like she’s making out if you see her, will you?” That sounded like a weird
way of putting it.

A COUPLE OF DAYS
during the rest of the
week, Suzy and I rode around on our bikes talking about the new school year. She
told me that coming to our school was Rosie’s idea. It had hit her like a bolt
from the blue up there and she had to leave the tennis court and telephone Suzy
about it long distance on a pay phone. “She and I always intended to be at the
same school if she was here,” she said, “but I think that Rosie’s change of
plans was because she didn’t like the thought of being away from you. I always
told you she really likes you, Tom. And—don’t tell her I told you— but I think
she made up her mind this summer to act on it.” That night in bed I did not get
one minute’s sleep.

I tried to encourage Brent to come on our bike rides with us, but he said he
was too busy after being away most of the summer. Besides, riding a bike was
starting to seem childish to him. So I tore myself away from more rides with
Suzy and talking about Rosie in order to spend some time with Brent, hanging
out, working out, running, and listening to hockey lore for the next three
days.

Suzy called me to say that Mrs. Rothesay and Pagan were driving out to the
airport to pick Rosie up. They invited Suzy to go with them. But Suzy suggested
to me that she and I and Brent ride out on our bikes and surprise her. To that
bike idea Brent agreed with alacrity.

At the airport, Pagan and her mother were standing six feet apart, waiting
silently as we walked in. It must have been two years since I’d seen Nina. She
smiled blandly when I said hello and said it was very nice to see me. I asked
about Dr. Rothesay—I hadn’t seen him for a long time. He was fine, she said,
very busy, though. He was running for director on the board of the Canadian
Medical Association. And that was all she said as she pretended to study the
flight arrivals panel. She looked okay, though more pasty-faced than she should
have after all summer, and her voice sounded a bit like her tongue and vocal
cords were made of flannel.

Pagan beamed and gave each of us a hug. She was as lovely as ever. I would be
happy to tell my mother she looked healthy and well. Her body was girlish but
poised on the cusp of teenage development. Little budding breasts jutted against
her shirt. I asked her about her school in Ontario. Was it lonely up there for
her sometimes? No, she said, she had soon made good friends, and she was home or
on holiday with Mom and Heathcliff at Christmas and Easter and in the summer. I
asked if Dr. Rothesay got a chance to drop in on her now and then, since he
spent a fair amount of
time on the mainland with his medical
board obligations. Pagan looked at me and said no, almost as if I’d just accused
her of a crime. Then immediately she said, “He
and
Mom visit me up there
a couple of times a year, though. Look, here comes Rosie. I’ve got a bone to
pick with her.” She laughed. “When I’m in Ontario, she stays here, and when I’m
here, she goes to Ontario.”

Rosie was striding out of the arrivals area carrying a racquet bag. She was in
a jeans skirt just above her knees, a T-shirt, and sandals. Her face, arms, and
legs were lightly tanned, golden rather than the late summer bronze of everyone
else around her. Spotting us, she stopped for a moment and grinned at the
welcoming committee, and then quickened her step towards us. My God, at fourteen
what a striking young woman she was. Animated glowing face, pert breasts and
hips, slender strong legs. A man, unknown to me, with a nearly grown son and
daughter, said to her passing, “Good luck with the tennis, Rosie. You’re going
to do this place proud.” She smiled at him and the kids and mouthed, “Thank
you.”

Approaching, Rose briefly eyed us all in turn. Her gaze stayed on me for a
couple of extra beats. When she reached us she said, “This is a wonderful
welcome. I hope I can live up to the honour.” Still holding her racquet bag, she
hugged Suzy, Pagan, and Brent with both arms, and her mother with one, without
looking my way. It was as if she was deliberately ignoring me. Then she handed
her bag to Suzy and turned to me. She stretched out both arms and put them
around me and hugged as long as all the others put together. Leaning back with
her arms still around me, she had to lift her face to meet my eyes. “Just look
at you,” she murmured, moving her mouth to my ear. “My God, you are
lovely.”

I whispered back into her ear, “And you are absolutely beautiful.”

“Heathcliff couldn’t get away, Rosie,” said her mother, too loud, almost
shouting. “He had an emergency with a patient.”

Rosie dropped her arms and turned to Suzy. “I must go over and wait for my
suitcase. How’d you get out here, bikes? Would you mind if I rode your bike
home? I haven’t had a bit of exercise all day. You could drive home with Mom and
Pagan.” She had acquired a slight Ontario accent.

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” said Suzy. “Chasing those two guys out just about
killed me.”

After Rosie’s baggage was put in the car, she and Brent and I set off, agreeing
to meet Suzy at the house. Rosie’s bare legs and sandalled feet pumping below
her hiked-up skirt brought stares, mostly of appreciation,
with
a few of disapproval, from drivers and passengers in nearly every car that
passed.

“It was really great of you to come out to meet me,” she said when I drew
abreast. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back doing this with you.” Often
I fell behind to have a nice ogle at her myself, as I noticed Brent was doing
also.

Once he sidled up beside me to mutter, “She looks some good, man. That’s a
keeper.” As if I needed persuasion.

At Rosie’s house, she invited us in for a Coke. It was the first time Brent and
I had ever been inside, and Pagan gave us the royal tour as Rosie toted her
suitcase upstairs. The best features were the basement entertainment centre, the
big modern kitchen, and, to my mind, Rosie’s bedroom, though it was much smaller
than the master and no different from the other two. Rosie was unpacking her
suitcase in there. She gave me a big smile and said, “Laundry” as she carried
two handfuls of bras and panties from the suitcase to the closet and dropped
them in her clothes hamper. I tried to remain as unself-conscious as her,
although I couldn’t stop my heart from speeding up. I never saw Nina. She seemed
to be in her bathroom all the while I was in the house.

Downstairs, the five of us were in the kitchen drinking Cokes and gabbing when
Dr. Rothesay came in the front door. “Hello, Rosie,” he said from the door,
“it’s nice to have you back.”

“Hello,” said Rosie, not moving from the window across the room where she was
standing.

“And hello everyone else,” said Rothesay. “Tom, you’ve been a stranger too
long. I hope we’ll see more of you this year.”

“And I hope so too, sir,” I said, glancing at Rosie, who was gazing out the
window. “Have you met my friend Brent Anstey?”

“No, but I feel as though I have, I’ve heard so much about him. That’s a
thriving ice hockey career you are building, my lad.” Rothesay came into the
kitchen and shook his hand. “Your dad’s plans for the new house seem to be
coming along quite nicely.”

I looked at Brent. He had shown me the blueprints for the new house in his
father’s study earlier in the week, but had sworn me to secrecy because his
father wanted to keep it quiet. “The old prick thinks that too many of his
customers who bought rustbuckets off him will want to burn it down if they find
out how big it is,” Brent had explained.

To Brent’s slight nod now, Rothesay said, “Nine thousand square feet.
That’s bigger than this house. And eleven-foot ceilings.” He
laughed. “I knew I should have gone into business rather than becoming a lowly
family physician. Pagan, is your mother upstairs?”

“Ee-yup,” said Pagan. Like, what else was new?

Walking out, Rothesay said, “Bye bye, all. I hope to see you again soon.” He
hadn’t spoken a word to Suzy. I only saw him slide his eyes sideways at her once
for a second when she’d casually strolled over to join Rosie at the window. He
went, not upstairs, but to the liquor cabinet, and I heard the clink of glass.
Then I saw him with a tall tumbler in his hand half full of amber liquor, no ice
or mixer, heading into his study.