Rosalind (15 page)

"Huh,
" Susan said. She handed the shoe back to Rosalind. "I found the box with the ornaments. I'll need you to carry the that one. You guessed it, they're all broken."

Susan handed Rosalind the box of broken ornaments and took the larger box into her arms. She ushered to Rosalind to the tunnel while she reached up and pulled the drawstring of the light. It got dark, and Rosalind found herself hurrying to the entrance.

Rosalind put the shoe in the box without thinking about it and headed back to the house while Susan clamped the locks: one, two, three. She looked at them for a minute and wondered why John needed so many of them. It wasn't like Whispering Pines was a big city with people all around you couldn't trust. Hell, they never even locked the door, come to think of it. And where did that shoe come from? John had been known to take off at night and do God knows what, and sometimes he'd end up in the cellar doing the same, but until now she never questioned it. He was the perfect husband and a community leader.

She shrugged it off and picked up the box and went back to the house.

John pulled into the long driveway an hour later than he usually did. Rosalind was in her room looking out the window at the snowy drifts and saw his car pull in. She was happy to see that he was home, but even happier to see what was on top of his car: a freshly cut pine tree. She ran downstairs and sat on the bottom step, eagerly awaiting the green behemoth. Susan had prepared a space in the far corner of the room opposite John's den, but she was upset that they wouldn't be able to see it through any of the windows. Normally, she would have put it in the living room window, but John insisted on buying a television that year so he could watch the news. He still read the newspaper, but in the interest of keeping up appearances, one had to lead by example if one was to be a community leader.

The door flew open and the cold air hit Rosalind in the face. She closed her eyes and let it cool her until he pushed the tree in.

"Can I get some help with this?" he said.

Susan ran to the door, laughing. "My God
, it's bigger than last year's." Susan closed the door as John pushed the trunk through. It fell to the ground and a few small needles lodged themselves into the carpet. Rosalind hopped up and raced to the couch, waiting for the opportunity to start hanging ornaments. Susan was popping corn in the kitchen and had found some tinsel in the ornament box. It was sitting on the coffee table with the box.

Rosalind took
in the smells of pine tree, popcorn, cold air and tried to remember a time back home when she had been this happy, but she couldn't. She hadn't seen the stars in quite a while, but she made her wish, sitting on the couch in the Byrd house, that she would remember this night for the rest of her life.

John set the tree into the metal tripod in the corner and took a step back. He was out of breath and his
back hurt, but the glow on his face when he saw Rosalind's reaction would never reveal that.
Forget the sodas
, he thought,
this
was the big score
. She would never turn him away after what he had done tonight.

Susan ran back to the pot of oil and popcorn on the stove and turned it off. Some of the kernels were burnt, but enough was there to pour into a bowl. She brought the bowl of popcorn into the living room and put a needle and spool of thread on the table. She sat next to Rosalind.

"Do you know how to make popcorn strands?" Susan asked her.

She grinned and shook her head
.

"Okay, you get to learn." Susan grabbed the needle and the spool and unraveled a portion of the thread. She stuck the end of it into her mouth and then, with one eye pinched closed, she gracefully stuck it through and tied it around the eye. "Now, you stick the needle through the heart of each popcorn
thing like this. Easy enough?" Rosalind nodded her head and took the needle. She grabbed a piece of popcorn and pushed the needle through the middle and once most of the metal was on the other side, she grabbed it and pulled it through. She looked at Susan for approval and was met with an abundance of it. "Now keep doing that until you get a line long enough to wrap around the tree at least—" Susan got up and inspected the tree, twirling her finger and counting to herself. After a few seconds she said, "Six times."

Susan walked back to the kitchen to see
about making a quick dinner, but when she rounded the table, she saw the shoe from the cellar laying on the floor. She stopped and looked at it. She stared at it. Something about it bothered her, but she couldn't place it. John could have found it in the yard or something. In summer, kids were known to frequent the cornfields in search of adventure, amusement, or a hiding place to make out. One of the local girls probably got scared and ran off without it. A shame too; it was a nice shoe. She put the thought out of her mind again and went to the kitchen.

Rosalind finished the long strand in record time, according to Susan, and the two wound it around the tree.

"Beautiful," Susan said. John had gone to his study, but he closed each sliding door to within an inch. When he had a good view of Rosalind through the slit, he grabbed his crotch and started to massage it. He heard Susan coming towards the den and stopped, then moved quickly across the floor to his desk. Susan slid the doors open and poked her head in. "Come see this."

John rose from his chair and went into the living room to see what they had done.

"Marvelous, girls. We'll have the best tree in town. I only wish we hadn't put it up so late. It certainly deserves a front page spot in The Gazette," he said.

"At the very least," replied Susan, rolling her eyes. "Honey, would you like some hot chocolate?"

Hot chocolate
, Rosalind thought. She'd had it before, but it had been at least four years ago. She turned to Susan and nodded that she would indeed like some as well. Susan laughed and John, seeing Rosalind's reaction said, "Why not?"

When Rosalind was finished adding the rest of the ornaments to the tree, she sat down on the couch and marveled at it. John sat on the other end of the couch, not pressing his luck, and looked at the tree. "You did a fine job, young lady."

Rosalind nodded, but this time she looked directly at him and smiled. He turned back to the tree and nodded. He nodded victoriously.

Susan put Rosalind to bed at 10 P.M. sharp.
She tucked her in and told her to try as hard as she could to sleep. Susan could tell that Rosalind was excited and figured that this just might be the first real Christmas the girl had ever had.

Susan parted Rosalind's red hair on each side, saying "Sweet dreams." Rosalind closed her eyes and thought of the woman in the yellow dress. She thought of saying goodbye and in her place, in
the biggest chamber of Rosalind's mind where her fantasies lived and were called upon to protect her from her father, she made room for a new memory—not one that would serve as a protector of any kind; not one who she'd reluctantly call upon to save her from heartache—just a beautiful woman who had shown her kindness and was continuing to do so. She made room for Susan.

Rosalind slept, but when the first hint of sun came through her bedroom window, she jumped up and ran downstairs to sit on the couch. She looked at the tree in awe, and a few minutes later noticed that there were presents underneath it. Two to be exact.

Rosalind went to the kitchen and poured some coffee grounds
and water into the stainless-steel Saladmaster coffee pot, like Susan had once shown her, and turned it on. She wouldn't dare wake them up on purpose, but she couldn't help it if the smell of coffee did. Luckily, she didn't have to grind the beans.

The smell of coffee permeated the air of the kitchen and soon the entire downstairs. Snow began to fall as Rosalind sat on the couch and stared at the tree. The sun was teasing the countryside from the numerous cracks in the cloud cover. Patterns of frost stretched out from the corners of every window, eventually joining each other to form an oval, creating individual, picturesque canvases.

A few minutes later, a stirring sound from above caused Rosalind to bounce up and down in her seat on the couch and about ten minutes after the it occurred, Susan emerged from the second level. Her blond hair strayed in every direction; her eyelids half-open as she went to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. She walked into the living room with a steaming cup.

"You're up, sweetie," she said to Rosalind. Rosalind smiled and nodded. She took a sip of the coffee. "This is good, you really know your way around a kitchen."

"Santa came," Rosalind said.

"What? Oh! I must have been out like a log." Susan looked under the tree and smiled
, then sat down on the couch next to Rosalind. "Let's wait for Mr. Byrd and we will see what we see."

They sat in silence while Susan methodically downed the cup of coffee. Susan then rose once she had taken her last sip, and went back to the kitchen to refill her cup.
She went back to the living room and sat on the couch. Rosalind looked down and rubbed her belly. Susan watched her.

"We'll give it another month before we tell anyone. I can't imagine what kind of world we live where a man would find pleasure in a thirteen year old girl like that." Rosalind recoiled at the thought.
It was true that her pregnancy was not confirmed at this point, but Rosalind was still experiencing all of the symptoms, as the doctor had called it, and he was right about one thing, a woman knows her body, even if that woman was actually a young teenage girl. She took her hand off her belly and went to the table to get Susan's coffee. She brought it into the living room and set it on the coffee table in front of Susan.

"Thank you, dear," Susan said yawning.
"Mr. Byrd's awake," Susan said.

Rosalind got excited. She hopped up from the couch and went to the kitchen, poured another cup of coffee, and brought it back to the living room, setting it down on the end table next to John's chair. He came down a few minutes later, the sound of the toilet flushing a herald of his
arrival.

"Merry Christmas, ladies!" he said. "Is that for me?" he said, pointing to the cup next to his chair. Rosalind nodded excitedly. "So thoughtful." He sat down and took a sip. "Well, it looks like Santa paid us a visit."

Susan yawned. "Mr. Byrd, will you do the honors?" Susan said.

"My pleasure," he replied. He got up and went to the tree and sat down on the floor. He pulled an elongated box from under it and looked at the label. "To Susan, from
John," he said. "Rosalind would you be so kind to hand this to Mrs. Byrd?" Rosalind stood up, took the box, and handed it to Susan. "Thank you," she said. She unwrapped the present slowly. When she opened the lid, she pulled back the white tissue paper to reveal a pair of dress shoes.

"Oh, John.
These are beautiful," she said, setting the box on the table. She came back and took the shoes out of the box, setting one shoe next to her bare leg. "Exquisite," she said.

He grabbed another box and looked at the label.

"Well that leaves one more here. Let's see what we have," John said, pulling the last box from the tree. "To John from Susan. Well isn't that nice!" He took the box, swiveled it around and started unwrapping it. It was a long, thin box with a gold lid. He opened it and took out a tie. He draped it from his neck down to his midsection and looked at Susan. "Lovely, dear!" he said. Rosalind smiled and thought that it was the sharpest tie she had ever seen. The truth was that she had maybe seen one or two in her life before coming to Whispering Pines, but the lighting from the sun came in the window and reflected off of the silky thing.

"What a great Christmas," John said. "I didn't get my yacht
, but I'm sure one day—"

As if on cue, Susan looked at Rosalind expecting to see disappointment, but to her surprise, Rosalind
's face was brighter than the sun. At that moment, Susan felt the worst pangs of guilt. She was never an extravagant woman, but being the wife of a prominent businessman in a small town, she never wanted for anything. And while her needs were not as luxurious as those of a movie star who required constant pampering and affection, she did have an eye for some of the finer things that the small town had to offer. But here was this creature sitting on her couch, who, in the face of being left out of the Christmas lottery, simply sat there as if she had found a cache of diamonds in her bed. She wanted to cry for Rosalind, but she knew that no one would understand it, least of all Rosalind. She held back a few tears and tightened her lips. "Honey, I think there might be one more back there, why don't you have a look," she said to John. John, being in on the ruse, said, "I suppose I can take one more look."

John reached behind the trunk of the tree and up inside of a few branches, and pulled out a long box wrapped in red and gold striped wrapping paper. It had a brilliant, silky-white bow and a tag on it.

"Good eye, honey! Rosalind, I can’t read this one, can you help me?" He handed the box to Rosalind. She looked at it closely, putting her finger on each letter, and when she got to the end, her eyes widened.

"
R-o-s-a-l-i-n-d. That's me!" she said. "She flipped the box over and over in her hands, not knowing what to do with it. Susan couldn't hold back any more tears, and they fell down her cheeks as she sat next to Rosalind. And for one brief moment, John looked at Rosalind and questioned himself and his intentions towards her.