Rosemary's Baby (7 page)

“No, it’s interesting, Mrs. Castevet,” Guy said.

“You see?” Mr. Castevet said.

“Minnie,”
Mrs. Castevet told Guy. “I’m Minnie and he’s Roman; okay?” She looked mock-defiantly at Rosemary. “Okay?”

Guy laughed. “Okay, Minnie,” he said.

They talked about the Goulds and the Bruhns and Dubin-and-DeVore; about Terry’s sailor brother who had turned out to be in a civilian hospital in Saigon; and, because Mr. Castevet was reading a book critical of the Warren Report, about the Kennedy assassination. Rosemary, in one of the straight-backed chairs, felt oddly out of things, as if the Castevets were old friends of Guy’s to whom she had just been introduced. “Do
you
think it could have been a plot of some kind?” Mr. Castevet asked her, and she answered awkwardly, aware that a considerate host was drawing a left-out guest into conversation. She excused herself and followed Mrs. Castevet’s directions to the bathroom, where there were flowered paper towels inscribed
For Our Guest
and a book called
Jokes for The John
that wasn’t especially funny.

They left at ten-thirty, saying “Good-by, Roman” and “Thank you, Minnie” and shaking hands with an enthusiasm and an implied promise of more such evenings together that, on Rosemary’s part, was completely false. Rounding the first bend in the hallway and hearing the door close behind them, she blew out a relieved sigh and grinned happily at Guy when she saw him doing exactly the same.

“Naow Roman,” he said, working his eyebrows comically, “yew stop bendin’ Guy’s ee-yurs with them thar Mojesky sto-rees!”

Laughing, Rosemary cringed and hushed him, and they ran hand in hand on ultra-quiet tiptoes to their own door, which they unlocked, opened, slammed, locked, bolted, chained; and Guy nailed it over with imaginary beams, pushed up three imaginary boulders, hoisted an imaginary drawbridge, and mopped his brow and panted while Rosemary bent over double and laughed into both hands.

“About that steak,” Guy said.

“Oh my God!” Rosemary said. “The pie! How did you eat two pieces of it? It was
weird!
”

“Dear girl,” Guy said, “that was an act of superhuman courage and self-sacrifice. I said to myself, ‘Ye gods, I’ll bet nobody’s ever asked this old bat for seconds on
anything
in her entire life!’ So I did it.” He waved a hand grandly. “Now and again I get these noble urges.”

They went into the bedroom. “She raises herbs and spices,” Rosemary said, “and when they’re full-grown she throws them out the window.”

“Shh, the walls have ears,” Guy said. “Hey, how about that silverware?”

“Isn’t that funny?” Rosemary said, working her feet against the floor to unshoe them; “only three dinner plates that match, and they’ve got that beautiful, beautiful silver.”

“Let’s be nice; maybe they’ll will it to us.”

“Let’s be nasty and buy our own. Did you go to the bathroom?”

“There? No.”

“Guess what they’ve got in it.”

“A bidet.”

“No,
Jokes for The John
.”

“No.”

Rosemary shucked off her dress. “A book on a hook,” she said. “Right next to the toilet.”

Guy smiled and shook his head. He began taking out his cufflinks, standing beside the armoire. “Those stories of Roman’s, though,” he said, “were pretty damn interesting, actually. I’d never even heard of Forbes-Robertson before, but he was a very big star in his day.” He worked at the second link, having trouble with it. “I’m going to go over there again tomorrow night and hear some more,” he said.

Rosemary looked at him, disconcerted. “You are?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “he asked me.” He held out his hand to her. “Can you get this off for me?”

She went to him and worked at the link, feeling suddenly lost and uncertain. “I thought we were going to do something with Jimmy and Tiger,” she said.

“Was that definite?” he asked. His eyes looked into hers. “I thought we were just going to call and see.”

“It wasn’t
definite
,” she said.

He shrugged. “We’ll see them Wednesday or Thursday.”

She got the link out and held it on her palm. He took it. “Thanks,” he said. “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to; you can stay here.”

“I think I will,” she said. “Stay here.” She went to the bed and sat down.

“He knew Henry Irving too,” Guy said. “It’s really terrifically interesting.”

Rosemary unhooked her stockings. “Why did they take down the pictures,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Their pictures; they took them down. In the living room and in the hallway leading back to the bathroom. There are hooks in the wall and clean places. And the one picture that
is
there, over the mantel, doesn’t fit. There are two inches of clean at both sides of it.”

Guy looked at her. “I didn’t notice,” he said.

“And why do they have all those files and things in the living room?” she asked.

“
That
he told me,” Guy said, taking off his shirt. “He puts out a newsletter for stamp collectors. All over the world. That’s why they get so much foreign mail.”

“Yes, but why in the living room?” Rosemary said. “They have three or four other rooms, all with the doors closed. Why doesn’t he use one of those?”

Guy went to her, shirt in hand, and pressed her nose with a firm fingertip. “You’re getting nosier than Minnie,” he said, kissed air at her, and went out to the bathroom.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, while in the kitchen putting on water for coffee, Rosemary got the sharp pain in her middle that was the night-before signal of her period. She relaxed with one hand against the corner of the stove, letting the pain have its brief way, and then she got out a Chemex paper and the can of coffee, feeling disappointed and forlorn.

She was twenty-four and they wanted three children two years apart; but Guy “wasn’t ready yet”—nor would he ever be ready, she feared, until he was as big as Marlon Brando and Richard Burton put together. Didn’t he know how handsome and talented he was, how sure to succeed? So her plan was to get pregnant by “accident” the pills gave her headaches, she said, and rubber gadgets were repulsive. Guy said that subconsciously she was still a good Catholic, and she protested enough to support the explanation. Indulgently he studied the calendar and avoided the “dangerous days,” and she said, “No, it’s safe today, darling; I’m sure it is.”

And again this month he had won and she had lost, in this undignified contest in which he didn’t even know they were engaged. “Damn!” she said, and banged the coffee can down on the stove. Guy, in the den, called, “What happened?”

“I bumped my elbow!” she called back.

At least she knew now why she had become depressed during the evening.

Double damn! If they were living together and not married she would have been pregnant fifty times by now!

T
HE FOLLOWING EVENING
after dinner Guy went over to the Castevets’. Rosemary straightened up the kitchen and was debating whether to work on the window-seat cushions or get into bed with
Manchild in The Promised Land
when the doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Castevet, and with her another woman, short, plump, and smiling, with a Buckley-for-Mayor button on the shoulder of a green dress.

“Hi, dear, we’re not bothering you, are we?” Mrs. Castevet said when Rosemary had opened the door. “This is my dear friend Laura-Louise McBurney, who lives up on twelve. Laura-Louise, this is Guy’s wife Rosemary.”

“Hello, Rosemary! Welcome to the Bram!”

“Laura-Louise just met Guy over to our place and she wanted to meet you too, so we came on over. Guy said you were staying in not doing anything. Can we come in?”

With resigned good grace Rosemary showed them into the living room.

“Oh, you’ve got new chairs,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Aren’t they beautiful!”

“They came this morning,” Rosemary said.

“Are you all right, dear? You look worn.”

“I’m fine,” Rosemary said and smiled. “It’s the first day of my period.”

“And you’re up and around?” Laura-Louise asked, sitting. “On
my
first days I experienced such pain that I couldn’t move or eat or
anything
. Dan had to give me gin through a straw to kill the pain and we were one-hundred-per-cent Temperance at the time, with that one exception.”

“Girls today take things more in their stride than we did,” Mrs. Castevet said, sitting too. “They’re healthier than we were, thanks to vitamins and better medical care.”

Both women had brought identical green sewing bags and, to Rosemary’s surprise, were opening them now and taking out crocheting (Laura-Louise) and darning (Mrs. Castevet); settling down for a long evening of needlework and conversation. “What’s that over there?” Mrs. Castevet asked. “Seat covers?”

“Cushions for the window seats,” Rosemary said, and thinking
Oh all right, I will
, went over and got the work and brought it back and joined them.

Laura-Louise said, “You’ve certainly made a tremendous change in the apartment, Rosemary.”

“Oh, before I forget,” Mrs. Castevet said, “this is for you. From Roman and me.” She put a small packet of pink tissue paper into Rosemary’s hand, with a hardness inside it.

“For me?” Rosemary asked. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s just a little present is all,” Mrs. Castevet said, dismissing Rosemary’s puzzlement with quick hand-waves. “For moving in.”

“But there’s no reason for you to…” Rosemary unfolded the leaves of used-before tissue paper. Within the pink was Terry’s silver filigree ball-charm and its clustered-together neckchain. The smell of the ball’s filling made Rosemary pull her head away.

“It’s real old,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Over three hundred years.”

“It’s lovely,” Rosemary said, examining the ball and wondering whether she should tell that Terry had shown it to her. The moment for doing so slipped by.

“The green inside is called tannis root,” Mrs. Castevet said. “It’s good luck.”

Not for Terry
, Rosemary thought, and said, “It’s lovely, but I can’t accept such a—”

“You already have,” Mrs. Castevet said, darning a brown sock and not looking at Rosemary. “Put it on.”

Laura-Louise said, “You’ll get used to the smell before you know it.”

“Go on,” Mrs. Castevet said.

“Well, thank you,” Rosemary said; and uncertainly she put the chain over her head and tucked the ball into the collar of her dress. It dropped down between her breasts, cold for a moment and obtrusive.
I’ll take it off when they go
, she thought.

Laura-Louise said, “A friend of ours made the chain entirely by hand. He’s a retired dentist and his hobby is making jewelry out of silver and gold. You’ll meet him at Minnie and Roman’s on—on some night soon, I’m sure, because they entertain so much. You’ll probably meet all their friends, all
our
friends.”

Rosemary looked up from her work and saw Laura-Louise pink with an embarrassment that had hurried and confused her last words. Minnie was busy darning, unaware. Laura-Louise smiled and Rosemary smiled back.

“Do you make your own clothes?” Laura-Louise asked.

“No, I don’t,” Rosemary said, letting the subject be changed. “I try to every once in a while but nothing ever hangs right.”

It turned out to be a fairly pleasant evening. Minnie told some amusing stories about her girlhood in Oklahoma, and Laura-Louise showed Rosemary two useful sewing tricks and explained feelingly how Buckley, the Conservative mayoral candidate, could win the coming election despite the high odds against him.

Guy came back at eleven, quiet and oddly self-contained. He said hello to the women and, by Rosemary’s chair, bent and kissed her cheek. Minnie said, “
Eleven?
My land! Come on, Laura-Louise.” Laura-Louise said, “Come and visit me any time you want, Rosemary; I’m in twelve F.” The two women closed their sewing bags and went quickly away.

“Were his stories as interesting as last night?” Rosemary asked.

“Yes,” Guy said. “Did you have a nice time?”

“All right. I got some work done.”

“So I see.”

“I got a present too.”

She showed him the charm. “It was Terry’s,” she said. “They gave it to her; she showed it to me. The police must have—given it back.”

“She probably wasn’t even wearing it,” Guy said.

“I’ll bet she was. She was as proud of it as—as if it was the first gift anyone had ever given her.” Rosemary lifted the chain off over her head and held the chain and the charm on her palm, jiggling them and looking at them.

“Aren’t you going to wear it?” Guy asked.

“It smells,” she said. “There’s stuff in it called tannis root.” She held out her hand. “From the famous greenhouse.”

Guy smelled and shrugged. “It’s not bad,” he said.

Rosemary went into the bedroom and opened a drawer in the vanity where she had a tin Louis Sherry box full of odds and ends. “Tannis, anybody?” she asked herself in the mirror, and put the charm in the box, closed it, and closed the drawer.

Guy, in the doorway, said, “If you took it, you ought to wear it.”

That night Rosemary awoke and found Guy sitting beside her smoking in the dark. She asked him what was the matter. “Nothing,” he said. “A little insomnia, that’s all.”

Roman’s stories of old-time stars, Rosemary thought, might have depressed him by reminding him that his own career was lagging behind Henry Irving’s and Forbes-Whosit’s. His going back for more of the stories might have been a form of masochism.

She touched his arm and told him not to worry.

“About what?”

“About anything.”

“All right,” he said, “I won’t.”

“You’re the greatest,” she said. “You know? You are. And it’s all going to come out right. You’re going to have to learn karate to get rid of the photographers.”

He smiled in the glow of his cigarette.

“Any day now,” she said. “Something big. Something worthy of you.”

“I know,” he said. “Go to sleep, honey.”

“Okay. Watch the cigarette.”

“I will.”

“Wake me if you can’t sleep.”

“Sure.”

“I love you.”

“I love
you
, Ro.”

A day or two later Guy brought home a pair of tickets for the Saturday night performance of
The Fantasticks
, given to him, he explained, by Dominick, his vocal coach. Guy had seen the show years before when it first opened; Rosemary had always been meaning to see it. “Go with Hutch,” Guy said; “it’ll give me a chance to work on the
Wait Until Dark
scene.”

Hutch had seen it too, though, so Rosemary went with Joan Jellico, who confided during dinner at the Bijou that she and Dick were separating, no longer having anything in common except their address. The news upset Rosemary. For days Guy had been distant and preoccupied, wrapped in something he would neither put aside nor share. Had Joan and Dick’s estrangement begun in the same way? She grew angry at Joan, who was wearing too much make-up and applauding too loudly in the small theater. No wonder she and Dick could find nothing in common; she was loud and vulgar, he was reserved, sensitive; they should never have married in the first place.

When Rosemary came home Guy was coming out of the shower, more vivacious and
there
than he had been all week. Rosemary’s spirits leaped. The show had been even better than she expected, she told him, and bad news, Joan and Dick were separating. They really were birds of completely different feathers though, weren’t they? How had the
Wait Until Dark
scene gone? Great. He had it down cold.

“Damn that tannis root,” Rosemary said. The whole bedroom smelled of it. The bitter prickly odor had even found its way into the bathroom. She got a piece of aluminum foil from the kitchen and wound the charm in a tight triple wrapping, twisting the ends to seal them.

“It’ll probably lose its strength in a few days,” Guy said.

“It better,” Rosemary said, spraying the air with a deodorant bomb. “If it doesn’t, I’m going to throw it away and tell Minnie I lost it.”

They made love—Guy was wild and driving—and later, through the wall, Rosemary heard a party in progress at Minnie and Roman’s; the same flat unmusical singing she had heard the last time, almost like religious chanting, and the same flute or clarinet weaving in and around and underneath it.

Guy kept his keyed-up vivacity all through Sunday, building shelves and shoe racks in the bedroom closets and inviting a bunch of
Luther
people over for Moo Goo Gai Woodhouse; and on Monday he painted the shelves and shoe racks and stained a bench Rosemary had found in a thrift shop, canceling his session with Dominick and keeping his ear stretched for the phone, which he caught every time before the first ring was finished. At three in the afternoon it rang again, and Rosemary, trying out a different arrangement of the living room chairs, heard him say, “Oh God, no. Oh, the poor guy.”

She went to the bedroom door.

“Oh God,” Guy said.

He was sitting on the bed, the phone in one hand and a can of Red Devil paint remover in the other. He didn’t look at her. “And they don’t have any idea what’s causing it?” he said. “My God, that’s awful, just awful.” He listened, and straightened as he sat. “Yes, I am,” he said. And then, “Yes, I would. I’d hate to get it this way, but I—” He listened again. “Well, you’d have to speak to Allan about that end of it,” he said—Allan Stone, his agent—“but I’m sure there won’t be any problem, Mr. Weiss, not as far as we’re concerned.”

He had it. The Something Big. Rosemary held her breath, waiting.

“Thank
you
, Mr. Weiss,” Guy said. “And will you let me know if there’s any news? Thanks.”

He hung up and shut his eyes. He sat motionless, his hand staying on the phone. He was pale and dummylike, a Pop Art wax statue with real clothes and props, real phone, real can of paint remover.

“Guy?” Rosemary said.

He opened his eyes and looked at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

He blinked and came alive. “Donald Baumgart,” he said. “He’s gone blind. He woke up yesterday and—he can’t see.”

“Oh no,” Rosemary said.

“He tried to hang himself this morning. He’s in Bellevue now, under sedation.”

They looked painfully at each other.

“I’ve got the part,” Guy said. “It’s a hell of a way to get it.” He looked at the paint remover in his hand and put it on the night table. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got to get out and walk around.” He stood up. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to get outside and absorb this.”

“I understand, go ahead,” Rosemary said, standing back from the doorway.

He went as he was, down the hall and out the door, letting it swing closed after him with its own soft slam.

She went into the living room, thinking of poor Donald Baumgart and lucky Guy; lucky she-and-Guy, with the good part that would get attention even if the show folded, would lead to other parts, to movies maybe, to a house in Los Angeles, a spice garden, three children two years apart. Poor Donald Baumgart with his clumsy name that he didn’t change. He must have been good, to have won out over Guy, and there he was in Bellevue, blind and wanting to kill himself, under sedation.

Kneeling on a window seat, Rosemary looked out the side of its bay and watched the house’s entrance far below, waiting to see Guy come out. When would rehearsals begin? she wondered. She would go out of town with him, of course; what fun it would be! Boston? Philadelphia? Washington would be exciting. She had never been there. While Guy was rehearsing afternoons, she could sightsee; and evenings, after the performance, everyone would meet in a restaurant or club to gossip and exchange rumors…

She waited and watched but he didn’t come out. He must have used the Fifty-fifth Street door.

Now, when he should have been happy, he was dour and troubled, sitting with nothing moving except his cigarette hand and his eyes. His eyes followed her around the apartment; tensely, as if she were dangerous. “What’s
wrong?
” she asked a dozen times.

“Nothing,” he said. “Don’t you have your sculpture class today?”

“I haven’t gone in two months.”

“Why don’t you go?”

She went; tore away old plasticine, reset the armature, and began anew, doing a new model among new students. “Where’ve you been?” the instructor asked. He had eyeglasses and an Adam’s apple and made miniatures of her torso without watching his hands.

“In Zanzibar,” she said.

“Zanzibar is no more,” he said, smiling nervously. “It’s Tanzania.”

One afternoon she went down to Macy’s and Gimbels, and when she came home there were roses in the kitchen, roses in the living room, and Guy coming out of the bedroom with one rose and a forgive-me smile, like a reading he had once done for her of Chance Wayne in
Sweet Bird
.