Rose (12 page)

Just as she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, Rosa saw behind the frosted glass the vibrant shade of magenta Flossie had been wearing earlier. She took a deep breath of the warm, dry air, and waited as the door opened.

“Miz Audi,” Flossie said with a look of astonished curiosity on her face. “What can I do for you?”

Again, Rosa wondered at the rudeness of these Americans. Signora Flossie did not seem willing to invite her in out of the intense noonday heat. Rosa looked right and left before she voiced her request, but dared not turn around.
He
might still be watching. “I may come in to speak to you?” Rosa asked softly.

The older woman’s surprise was evident, but she immediately stepped back into the cool, shadowed interior of the parlor. “Of course. Why, I didn’t even think to ask a lady such as yourself if you’d like to come in. Then again, it’s no wonder I forgot my manners. Haven’t had a lady come to the door since I can remember.” Flossie mumbled the last remark more to herself than to Rosa.

Rosa swept in and waited in the center of the room while her astonished hostess sent the young blonde off to fetch a pot of tea.

“Tea
?
”
The blond girl’s voice rose as she stared dumbstruck at Flossie.

“Tea,” Flossie reiterated. “If you can’t find some in the back cupboard, run over to the Yees’ and ask for a pinch.” She turned back to face Rosa. “Sit down, Miz Audi, and let me make up for my poor show o’ manners.”

Rosa sat, grateful to be in out of the sun’s intense glare. She stared around the room, thinking it one of the loveliest she had ever seen, still amazed to think she was inside a bordello. The walls were covered with deep crimson paper gilded with an ornate design. Sconces that dripped with crystal teardrops and cradled oil lamps were scattered at intervals about the ruby-colored walls. Flossie sank down onto a mohair settee, its upholstered surface rubbed to shining with long wear.

“What can I do for you, Miz Audi. I thought you were leavin’ town.”

“I choose to stay.”

Flossie Gibbs arched a brow. “I see.”

“And now I need a job.”

Flossie’s eyes widened. “Here? I was only teasin’ you when—”

“No!” Rosa said a little too quickly, then feared she might have insulted the
signora.
She smiled and lowered her voice. “No. I come to talk. Signor Paddie tells me about stores here in Busted Heel. He says if I open a store, everyone she’s still going to buy from the old one.”

“He’s probably right.” The madam nodded, her brow furrowed in concentration. “What do you know how to do?”

Before Rosa could respond, the blonde reentered the room with a pot of tea. Flossie pointed to the side table, then once more devoted her attention to Rosa. Leaning forward to accept a cup of tea from the blonde, Rosa considered Flossie’s question. She blew on the steaming liquid, then looked up.

“You can go now, Chicago,” Flossie Gibbs told the young girl. With a disgruntled look, the girl left the room.

Rosa listed her talents. “I can cook, clean, read, write ... but not so good in English.”

“Can you sew?”

Rosa made a face. “My aunt would say no.”

Flossie laughed. “It was just a thought.”

“I have now an empty store. I need to know what is possible to sell there.”

“What people need and what they want are two different things. Folks around here are either farmers needin’ seed and feed and calico, or they’re cowboys needin’ whiskey, a little tobacco, and comfortin’.” She thought for a moment and then added, “But what they all want at one time or another when they come to town is good, decent vittles.”

“Ahh,” said Rosa sitting up a bit straighten “Vittles!”

“Yep.” Flossie nodded, obviously pleased with herself.

“What is vittles?”

Flossie threw back her head with hearty laughter that set her wide bosom jiggling. “Food, Miz Audi.”

“The other store does not already sell food?”

“Not hot cooked meals. Why, the only way a body can get anything to eat here in Busted Heel is to cook it themselves or resort to eatin’ Bertha Matheson’s food, and her slop ain’t fit for hogs.”

Rosa thought back to the poor excuse for a meal that she’d pushed around her plate at breakfast and had to silently agree with Flossie’s apt description.

“So,” Flossie went on, “the way I see it is that you have two choices: you can work here, cookin’ for me and my gals— seein’ as how I been thinkin’ of hirin’ my own cook lately—or you could open up a café. Serve folks some vittles they wouldn’t have to close their eyes and hold their noses to eat.”

A
caffè.
A
ristorante.

Rosa tried to imagine the musty, empty store filled with customers enjoying delicious meals, the likes of which she had not tasted since she left Corio. The Piedmont region of Italy was famous hot only for its main course dishes but also for puddings, sweets, melted cheese
fondute,
and wines. Perhaps, she thought, with a lot of hard work and a little luck...

Flossie interrupted her musing. “O’ course, it’ll take you some time, not to mention money, to get set up. Why don’t you take a job here with me until you get on your feet? With your husband dyin’ and all... well, maybe you need a little time.” Flossie eyed her carefully. “You might change your mind about leaving.”

“Signora Flossie,” Rosa began, confidently meeting the older woman’s green-eyed stare, “my husband send for me. Now I am here. I must eat to live. To eat, I must make money.” Rosa reached down for the valise at her feet. “I want to thank you. You are much help to me. I go now to my store and think about all you have said.”

Flossie stood as Rosa did and walked her to the door. “I’ll help you in any way I can, Miz Audi. You jes holler.”

“Please call me Rosa, Signora Flossie.”

“Sure thing, Rosie.” The old woman looked pleased. “It’d be my pleasure.”

“Grazie,
Signora Flossie.
Buon giorno.
”

“Bon-journey to you, too, Rosie, and good luck!”

Brushing her hands against the once-white dish towel tied around her waist, Rosa walked toward the shanty that stood behind the row of stores fronting Main Street. The yard around the place was littered with all manner of refuse. Broken wheels, lengths of wire, and empty cans and bottles were strewn about the ground around the clapboard shack with the vegetable garden beside it. As she took in the jumble of trash, the split-rail fence that housed a lazy sow and her shoats, and the chickens that scratched with futility in the well-packed earth about the yard, Rosa slowly became aware of the aches and pains that were beginning to settle into her limbs. It was late afternoon now, and the sun was moving all too quickly toward the west. Rosa gauged its progress and felt a sense of relief coupled with frustration. It would be good to stop work, but there was still so much to do.

The hours of the afternoon had flown by as she put her plan to open a café into effect. After her conversation with Flossie, Rosa had returned to Giovanni’s store and assessed her situation. The place was knee deep in dirt. She took stock of the furnishings the rooms possessed. Aside from the dust, the cot, and the stove, there was an empty water barrel, a battered tin tub, and what was left of a straw broom.

What were you thinking of, Giovanni? she wondered as she glanced around the pitiful supply. What was your dream?

Shrugging off the questions that had plagued her since morning, Rosa had then sent for her trunk, making good the small Negro boy’s offer to help. The child was the same one the marshal had spoken to earlier in the blacksmith’s barn. He informed her his name was G. W. Davis and that he lived in the place just behind her store. It seemed that only pennies for candy were required to convert the small boy into an able-bodied co-worker. She welcomed G.W.’s company and put the boy to work immediately. Once he had carried a message to John Tuttle and her trunk was delivered, G.W. informed her that the Wilkies’ sons—Robbie, Ritchie, Rudy, and Roy—took turns oiling the tall windmill at the edge of town and delivering water to the residents. She sent him along to the store with the message that she would like to pay for and receive her share of water as soon as possible.

While G.W. swept the floors from one end of the place to the other, Rosa changed into one of her familiar everyday dresses, tied on a makeshift apron, and took the stove to task. Her hands burned from the lye soap she used to polish the relic, and she promised to herself to keep the stove shining as long as it promised to turn out wondrous culinary delights in return.

Now, as she stopped outside the shanty, Rosa waited for the woman moving about inside to notice her. The door to the place was open, so Rosa could see nearly all of the one-room cabin. The place was crowded with a table and four chairs, a double bed in the corner, and the stove near the door. Rosa imagined the family seated about the rickety table and felt sad. It had been weeks since she had seen her own family, and now that Giovanni was gone, she would not know the luxury of having anyone to share her meals with. Determined not to cry, she fought back the tears that threatened and told herself that soon the café would be full of customers and she would not feel so alone.

The tall Negro woman she had seen only from afar was bent over an open oven door. The heat inside the small room must have been nearly overpowering. Rosa wondered how the very pregnant woman could stand it. Finally, the woman G.W. had informed her was his mother, Zetta, straightened. When she noticed Rosa standing outside, she smiled. She wiped her hands on her tightly stretched apron and reached up to be certain the scarf tied around her hair was straight.

“Yes?” Zetta Davis’s smile was shy but welcoming.

“I am Rosa. Rosa Audi. Maybe you know my husband, Giovanni?”

“I did,” Zetta said. “Spoke with him once or twice. Sorry about him gettin’ hisself kilt.” She looked Rosa up and down. “Decatur tol’ me you was in town.”

Rosa nodded, still ill at ease when offered condolences. “I am wondering. Can you tell me about the table?” She pointed toward the back of her store. “Was his?”

Zetta glanced toward the buildings. There was a weather-scarred table standing abandoned near the rear of Rosa’s store.

“Yep. Used it to clean them vegetables he was settin’ to sell.”

“You know his ideas?” Anxious to hear more, Rosa raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“He was plannin’ to cart in vegetables and fruits from Cheyenne. Seems a group of you folks was startin’ up a colony there and been growin’ all kinds of gardens. Why he thought anybody here in Busted Heel be needin’ more than what we already had, I don’t know. They already sellin’ vegetables at Al-Ray’s; most are mine, some the farmers bring in in trade. I got my own patch I used to make a little money now an’ then. Weren’t any need for any more vegetable sellers hereabouts.” She squinted at Rosa. “You thinkin’ on sellin’ vegetables?”

“No. Cooking. I will start a café.”

“Sho’ nuf?”

“Sho’ nuf?” Rosa had never heard the phrase, but thought it bore repeating. “Sho’ nuf.”

“Well, I’ll be. A café, you say? Ain’t this place turnin’ fancy, now?” Zetta laughed and called out to the children waiting for Rosa on the back step of the store. “You two childrens come on home right now! Time for dinner. Yore pappy’ll be home shortly.” Her attention on Rosa again, Zetta said, “My husband Decatur’s the town blacksmith. You ever need anything fixed, you come to me, an’ if G.W. and Martha get to pesterin’ you too much, you jest shoo them on home.”

“Grazie.
You said you sell vegetables?”

“Sho’ nuf.”

“I want to buy. Tomorrow we will talk again.”

“Nice meetin’ you, Miz Audi.” Zetta smiled.

“Rosa,” she said over her shoulder. As she recrossed the yard, sidestepping the scattered chickens running to and fro, Rosa practiced the curious new phrase she had learned from Zetta Davis and looked forward to a bath.

As the sun moved on, easing its way across the plains until it disappeared beyond the horizon, dusk began to gather like fog about the town of Busted Heel. As the shadows between the buildings intensified, Kase Storm stood in his office and stared out of the dust-streaked window that fronted Main Street. With his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his feet spread wide against the pine plank floor, he let his expression mirror the growing shadows outside.