Waltzing at Midnight (15 page)

In the study, one bookcase was filled with awards—statues, plaques—testimonials to Rosie’s work. There was the City of Weberstown Citizenship Award, the Businesswoman of the Year Athena Award, the Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. Wow, what an overachiever! Seeing all the honors given to Rosie renewed my anger against the small-minded public who had failed to elect her mayor.

On all of these tributes, Rosie’s name appeared as Rosalind.

The only person I had ever heard call her that, though, was Dr.

Patel. It was a rich, romantic sort of name. Rosalind Monroe was a complicated woman, an ogress and a vampire girl crashing through walls, an ardent lover of women whose eyes said yes, whose voice said no, the tormented heroine in a historical romance.

The other bookshelves were a mix of fiction, non-fiction, cooking, gardening, plumbing, art, history and music. Then there were rows of nineteenth century novels, sixteenth century plays, modern mysteries, reference books on ancient Greek civilization. They were only loosely organized so that every shelf was a trove of discovery. The selections were so varied that they said almost nothing about Rosie’s interests or tastes except that she had many.

About nine, I called Jerry. “How are things at home?”

“Just fine. Amy wants to go to a rock concert next week. I thought I’d check with you.”

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“Who’s she going with?”

“Tommy. Or as she puts it, Tommy, of course!”

“Of course. Where’s the concert?”

“I think she said Lincoln Park.”

Okay, I thought, so I am not the only one who’s out of touch.

“Jerry, I think that’s probably who she’s going to see. Should be no problem.”

“She’s at this point now, Jeannie, where she doesn’t ask anyway. She just tells you so you won’t be alarmed when she comes in at two in the morning.”

“I know. Well, she’s nineteen, a college girl. She’s an adult, Jerry.”

“Scary, isn’t it?”

“Very scary.”

“What’s it like out there in the boondocks?”

“Peaceful. Why don’t you bring Amy over Saturday? She can ride the horses. We can have a barbecue.”

“Are you lonely, hon?”

“A little.”

“I’ll ask her if she has any plans. Oh, the neighbor’s dog broke through the fence again. He dug up your chrysanthemums, the lavender ones. I’ve replanted them, but I don’t know if they’ll make it.”

My response to this “news” was apathy. It didn’t seem to matter, and it also didn’t seem to have anything to do with me, yet I had picked out those mum plants two months ago with precision and had lovingly put them into the ground. “Did you talk to the neighbors?” I asked.

“Yes, when I hauled the dog back. Like it will do any good.

I’ll let you know tomorrow about Saturday. Remember to lock the doors and windows.”

“There’s a security system.”

“Good. Good night, Jeannie. I love you.”

“Good night, Jerry.” I hung up, feeling inexplicably forlorn.

As I lay in bed before sleep, I thought of Rosie, of her liquid eyes and her alluring mouth. I felt the touch of her fingers in my 111

palm, and my gut ached with longing. I envisioned myself kissing her, and my thighs and arms and hands were alive with yearning.

“Oh, God,” I said in the dark. “How is this happening to me?” I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in the pillow, forcing Rosie out of my mind. I replaced her with an image of uprooted mums.

Friday morning after taking care of the cats and horses, I went home and tried to do some work for the Partnership, managing to accomplish almost nothing, but I did end up sorting some things into folders so it felt a little better organized. While working, I made a pot of vegetable soup for Jerry and Amy’s dinner.

Remembering the contract Rosie had given me, I pulled it out to take a look at it. There was no reason to question the legalese of the thing. I trusted her absolutely regarding the details of my employment. The thing that stunned me, however, was the figure of my salary. My God, I thought, staring at it. I had never made anything close to this. Of course, I had never had a job with this kind of responsibility before, either. Seeing that figure scared me. They’d be expecting a lot in return. I can do this, I thought, trying to bolster my confidence. I was determined not to let Rosie down.

While I was waiting for the soup to finish cooking, I decided to do a little research into the names of Rosie’s pets. Her cats were Sappho and Meg. I knew who Sappho was, of course, if for no other reason than her frequent appearance in crossword puzzles with the clue, “ancient Greek poetess.” There was only one of those, so that was always an easy one. Meg, however, was more difficult, since it didn’t sound like a name that would have any association with Sappho or ancient Greece. Might have just been a name Rosie liked, of course. In a few minutes on the Internet, though, I discovered that Megara was one of several known female lovers of Sappho. I tried the horses’ names next and discovered that Violet and Vita were also named for lesbian lovers, writers Violet Trefusis and Vita Sackville-West. Their tempestuous affair was apparently notorious and the subject of a PBS miniseries entitled
Portrait of a Marriage
. There were plenty 112

of clues that Rosie was gay, if a person was paying attention.

Intrigued, I called some video stores asking for
Portrait of a
Marriage
, and finally found a copy at an independent store. I had a bowl of soup before leaving the house, stopping at the video store on the way to Rosie’s place. I arrived earlier than necessary, about three in the afternoon.

Bundling up in a thick sweater, I took a sack out to pick up walnuts in the driveway. Then I set to work cracking them on the stones of her rear patio, an exercise which left my mind free to wander. A bird called nearby and I jumped. My nerves were on edge. I hit my forefinger with the hammer and cursed. Hearing myself curse, I did it again just for effect. “Shit!”

You’re not used to being alone, I told myself. The sound of your own voice startles you. “Shit!” I said again, gauging how unfamiliar my voice sounded. When I’d finished with the walnuts, I went inside and examined Rosie’s extensive CD collection.

Preponderance of jazz, some classical, but there was popular music as well, even some of the music Amy listened to. Yes, there was even a Linkin Park CD, some oldies from practically every decade from the fifties onward, and big names like Melissa Etheridge, Billy Joel and Norah Jones. And there were names I didn’t recognize: Joan Armatrading, Chris Williamson and Ferron.

I opened the player to read the label of the Brazilian jazz CD that Rosie had played for us Wednesday night. I liked it and thought I might get one for myself, but I found a different CD

inside, a disc with a homemade label that said “Helen, 1995.”

Rosie must have put this on after I left, I realized, trying not to think about the fact that it represented yet another mystery woman from her past. I decided to play it. From the first couple of words, the song gripped me, so I just stood there in front of the stereo, listening to the plaintive female voice and accompanying acoustic guitar.

Here you are, looking so much like someone I should love.

I wish I could touch you

but the world stands between us…like a wall.

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You think you’ve come to steal my heart, but you’ve only come to
break it.

The song, from beginning to end, was evocative, full of yearning, and extremely melancholy. I had a hard time picturing Rosie sitting here in her house listening to this. But, obviously, she had. Was it possible that she had listened to this melancholy song with its message of hopelessness and thought of me?

I wish I could hold you

but the world stands between us…like a wall.

With that, the song finished. I found myself near tears and wondered if Rosie had reacted that way. But I was projecting.

Rosie would not be sitting here listening to this song and crying her eyes out. That was not her. It was a beautiful song. A person could just enjoy it, a person like Rosie. What would she be doing sitting here pining like that about me anyway? If she was pining, it wasn’t for me. I had to assume that Rosie had been through her share of loves and losses and had probably learned at some point to take it on the chin and move on when it didn’t work out.

As Faye had noted, Rosie wasn’t someone who lived with regrets.

Her relationship with life was extremely healthy. Still, I thought, perhaps she had wanted me a little, had wished it were possible.

Since it wasn’t, she would have given up the idea. Just as she had told me to do.

The next song was also a love song, though not a sad one, sung to a woman identified only as “she.” The voice of the singer was clear and true, emotionally candid. The lyrics on these songs were too evocative for me in my vulnerable emotional state. I turned the music off and poked through Rosie’s mail for reading material. People claim to be able to tell a lot about a person by what magazines they subscribe to. I didn’t subscribe to any magazines and had only been reading the newspaper since August when I began working on the election. Prior to that, the newspaper represented little more to me than the daily crossword puzzle. I was hopelessly out of touch. Rosie subscribed to business, financial and news magazines. A large stack of them in the study suggested that she was behind in her reading.

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She was such a stranger to me. I had thought I would be able to absorb her from her environment somehow. How could I feel so much yearning for someone I knew almost nothing about?

The house, the case full of awards, the music, the books, the magazines, they revealed almost nothing. All this told me was what I already knew—Rosie was serious about her business and public life. I knew nothing more about her private life. Don’t you mean sex life, I asked myself? Isn’t that what you’re really interested in, what kind of sex life she has?

They say that high-energy achievers like Rosie also have high-energy sex drives. She had claimed that she wasn’t seeing anyone, I recalled, when her sexuality had become an issue, but what did she really mean by that? She obviously wasn’t living with anyone. Maybe all she meant by it was that she had no special someone, no exclusive lover. It didn’t mean she was celibate. And she admitted to Clark that she had led a “full life,”

implying that there were secrets, a colorful past, probably, full of excitement. She was a woman of profound passions, it seemed to me. Did that mean that when she went on a business trip to Phoenix, she’d never spend the night alone? She’d rejected me because I was nothing but trouble, but perhaps she would accept a stranger, a sultry, dark-eyed advertising executive met at the evening social where they would discuss the latest in computer-generated animation, and then they would ride an elevator to Rosie’s room, staring seductively at one another, and do all the mysterious things that women do together. I tried to shake these tormenting thoughts from my mind.

It was peaceful at Rosie’s house, so quiet you could hear the hum of the refrigerator or, if you were sitting still, the purring of a cat. I’d never lived alone. It would be a different sort of life, being in charge of your time and your activities, being free to make your own choices, to be driven by your own needs? To be lonely too. But I wasn’t lonely just then. I was content. Who are you, I asked myself, when there’s no one else in your world?

When there’s no parent, spouse, child, boss, doorbell, phone or television defining you? Maybe you’re nobody at all. Or maybe 115

you’re someone you wouldn’t even recognize. Or maybe you’ll recognize her when you see her, recognize bits of her when you see bits of her, over time.

By six thirty, I decided to watch my video. I loaded the DVD

into Rosie’s player, then curled up on the sofa with a big cup of decaf for a three-and-a-half-hour diversion. Both cats joined me, one on the arm of the sofa and one on the other chair. My expectations, knowing that this series appeared on
Masterpiece
Theatre
over a decade ago, left me unprepared for the tempestuous drama that unfolded as Vita and Violet pursued their love and lust for one another. I had never seen anything like this before.

It was gorgeous, intelligent, stormy and sexy. I was completely transfixed as darkness descended around me and the only light in the house was the glow of the television.

When my cell phone rang, it took me several seconds to comprehend it. I paused the movie and grabbed my phone just in time before voice mail answered. It was Jerry calling to say thanks for the soup and to report that he and Amy would come over tomorrow. The chrysanthemums were wilting slightly, but he had flooded them with water and was optimistic. Anxious to get off the phone, I didn’t encourage any further conversation and told him goodnight. I returned to Vita and Violet as their love affair took them through the nightclubs of Paris.

Later, when my cell phone rang again, it was Rosie. I was still sitting in the dark, the cats on their armchair perches. I checked the time on my phone. It was nine thirty. Was the dark-eyed beauty already gone from Rosie’s hotel room, I wondered.

Had they completed their passionate, nostrings liaison or was the seductress lying there beside her still, waiting impatiently for this phone call to be over?

“How are things?” Rosie asked.

“Everything’s fine. How are things with you?”

“I’m having a good trip. After meetings last night, one of the guys took me out on the town. We went to a great Cuban restaurant, and then to a club where I danced so much I got blisters. I haven’t been dancing in years. It was a lot of fun.”