Waltzing at Midnight (21 page)

“What do you mean?” I knew absolutely what was wrong with me. I was standing at that damned crossroad in a yellow wood, trying to peer around that damned bend into that damned unknown that I had to choose that would make all the damned difference. Damned Robert Frost!

“You’re testy. And you and Jerry seem ready to cut each other’s throats. Did you have a fight?”

“Not especially.” I dried a large white platter with a turkey shape molded into it. “It’s nothing, really, Mom, nothing to worry about.” What could I say? What could I possibly say to my mother about damned Robert Frost?

During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I didn’t hear from Rosie. I knew she’d come home and was back to work as planned, as there were e-mails. Not to me, but to the business, to groups of people of which I was merely another group member on the cc list.

I walked through my days like a woman in a trance, doing all the things I had learned to do out of habit, but living elsewhere.

My unoccupied body continued to function, remarkably, without my presence, its atrophied heart and lungs still forcing through 154

enough oxygen to sustain itself. I had lived all of my life without her and it had been okay. Why did I now feel like I was drowning every minute that I wasn’t with her?

On New Year’s Eve, at midnight, as the firecrackers popped all around the neighborhood, Amy declared, “Two thousand eight is the year I’m going to become engaged to be married.”

“No!” I shrieked.

Jerry and Amy both stared at me through the zeroes in their red plastic 2-0-0-8 glasses. “That bad, is it?” Jerry asked calmly.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that she’s too young. Amy, it takes longer than nineteen years to find out who you are and what you want. Besides, it doesn’t even make sense to plan to get married when there’s nobody around you want to marry.”

I wasn’t in the mood to make any resolutions myself. I didn’t dare think about the year ahead. I knew that whatever happened this year, there were changes coming, formidable changes that seemed too large to grapple with. I had never in my life looked with such dread into the future.

When Jerry came to bed shortly after midnight, instead of sliding in beside me in the dark, he switched on the light and sat up on the bed in his shorts and T-shirt. I rolled over and looked up at him, seeing that he was full of purpose. We were going to have a confrontation, I realized. I shoved another pillow behind me and sat up. “What?” I asked.

“I’ve had enough, Jean. It’s time you explained why you’re behaving the way you are, why you act as though you no longer want to be here. Don’t you?”

I avoided his eyes, and looked instead at the stubbled depression between his nose and mouth. I hesitated, not wanting to answer. Then, deciding a lie would only make things worse, that I had lied enough, I said, “I don’t think I do.”

His lips quivered. “You don’t?” he asked, unbelieving. That wasn’t what he’d expected. He had expected the opposite, obviously, had expected that we could find out what little thing was wrong and fix it and things would be good again. Something fixable, that’s what he’d expected. Forcing the issue hadn’t been a 155

risk for him, so he had thought.

“I don’t think so,” I repeated.

“Since when?”

“I don’t know since when. Maybe a long time. I was in the habit of loving you for a long time. I don’t know when it became just habit. I’m just not in love with you anymore.”

He looked confused. Why are you making me tell you this, I thought. It’s going to hurt. If you knew how much, you wouldn’t ask. “I’m so sorry, Jerry.” I started to cry silently. Saying it aloud had made it seem more true. And now I had made a move forward, had taken a step that couldn’t be reversed.

After a silent moment, he bravely asked, “What do you want to do about it?”

“I don’t know what to do about it. Please give me a little more time.”

He sat staring at me for a minute, probably trying to think of something to say, but in the end, he gave up. He turned off the light and lay on his side of the bed silent but, I knew, awake. We lay there in the dark, back to back, not touching, more distant from one another than we had ever been.

156

Two weeks into the new year, Rosie left me a courteous voice mail asking me to meet her at my new office. It was ready to be occupied. She was there when I arrived, sorting through paperwork. It seemed like a lifetime since I’d seen her, but it was really just a month. When she turned and looked at me over her reading glasses, I felt the strength drain out of my limbs. The softness of her cheek and the curve of her lip beckoned me on some primeval level. It all rushed back at me in an instant, all the need and overwhelming singleness of purpose, as if I was nothing more than a fish in a stream or a turtle on a beach.

She was dressed simply today in black slacks, a tan jacket and an unadorned print blouse open at the neck, revealing nothing. I wanted to dive into that blouse.

“Good morning, Jean,” she said cheerfully, but with no indication that she shared my feelings.

“I’ve missed you, Rosie.” There was no cheer in my voice.

“I’ve missed you too. How were the holidays?”

“Miserable.”

“You look tired. There are dark circles under your eyes.”

15

“I’ve had some rough nights.” I put my new briefcase on the desk and looked around the office. It was small, covered in a fresh coat of off-white, still smelling slightly of paint. There was a computer, fax machine, copier, all the modern necessities of operating a business. On the door window, “Vision Partnership,”

was stenciled in block lettering.

“This is really nice,” I said. “Good location, too.”

“Jean,” Rosie said, enthusiastically, “look what I got for us.”

She showed me a four-foot wide framed sepia print leaning against the wall. “This is a photo of downtown Weberstown, 1877. It’s taken from the bank of the Deep Water Channel, you see, looking east at the heart of the city when that’s all there was of the city. The waterway is about the only thing you can recognize, but if you look here, right here where Main Street comes in, you can see the little red church, St. Mary’s, where it still is today, and the original Weberstown Hotel. You’ve got to admire the job they’ve done restoring that, don’t you think? I mean, it’s spot-on except that there are no horses out front at the moment.”

I don’t know why, but I loved Rosie for loving her town. Her face was alive as it had been when I first met her, sparkling with optimism and innocent joy.

“It’s perfect,” I said.

“Well, it ties things together, I think, the past and the future of the town, and that’s what this organization is about. We can hang it up later.”

“Thank you, Rosie,” I said. “I’m really grateful for all of this.”

“Well, you’re going to have to earn your keep. This is not going to be an easy job. But I’ll help you as much as I can. The others will too, of course. Why don’t we start right away? Let’s go over the outstanding business.”

Rosie was strictly professional. I wanted to know what she was feeling. Was I already something in her past? Had the holidays, with their huge emotional demands, stolen her away from me?

Had she found someone else? After all, it looked as though all I was offering her at this point was misery. Who could blame her 15

for leaving me behind?

We sat together at a work table where she had arranged some folders.

“The first thing I want to see is the itinerary for the Beijing delegation,” she said. “Who are you going to meet with, where are you going to take them? It’s important to plan everything for these people, right down to where they take meals.”

“I have a tentative schedule,” I said. “I’ll e-mail it to you later today.”

“Okay, great. I’ve made you this list of contacts,” she was saying. “These are the people you call when you have questions—

government officials, community leaders, etcetera.” She handed me the list. “I’ll try to introduce you to some of these people personally, as circumstances permit. We’ll be asking for a financial report once a month, of course, so keep track of your expenses.

You’ll be reimbursed for anything out of pocket, but it’s always better to use the company credit card or the petty cash account.

Gordon has set all of that up for you.”

I nodded.

“Jean, are you paying attention? You don’t seem to be with it.” She sounded irritated.

“Sorry,” I said. I felt like crying, but somehow managed to avoid it. “Yes, I understand. I’ve been keeping up. I set up a filing system at home.”

“Good. Then you know about the Career Day we’re planning.

We’ve got two months to organize it. Send out invitations to county businesses and send flyers to all the high schools and the college, of course. You’ll have to design the flyers yourself. Can you handle it?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically.

“That’s the first smile I’ve seen since you got here, Jean.

You’ll be surprised what hard work can do for you, to distract you from your problems.”

So that’s what she wanted, to distract me from my problems, namely, my preoccupation with her? She wanted to move on, then? I knew that I couldn’t ask her, not then. I would have 15

broken down, and I knew she wouldn’t want to see that. I was too weak, too vulnerable. And, Rosie, I couldn’t read her today.

She was all business and there was no affection in her voice, as if she had never held me in her arms and tasted my body with her brilliant tongue.

After leaving the office, Rosie took me to meet the Superintendent of Schools, where we discussed Career Day specifics. I was feeling better by the time we left. Rosie wanted to stop at her office to check her calls, so we went there next, to the place where this had all begun. It was an emotional homecoming for me, walking into that office again.

The posters were gone. The rainbow flag was gone. The big-screen TV was gone. There was nothing, in fact, to be seen from that riotous, euphoric episode in my life. It would not have taken much to persuade me that it had never happened. Tina was sitting quietly at her desk and everything was back to normal for Rosie. Her life seemed undisturbed by all that had happened between us.

“Hi, Jean,” Tina called as if there was nothing remarkable about seeing me walking about on the planet. “Nice to see you again.” It seemed odd to me that she even recognized me.

I stood in the doorway of Rosie’s office while she checked her messages. One of them was a male voice saying, “Rosie, there’s a meeting of the Arts Commission this afternoon at two at the Ramada. I think you should be there.” I glanced at my watch. It was almost exactly two o’clock right then.

“Arts Commission meeting?” Rosie said to nobody in particular. She looked at the calendar on her Blackberry. “Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“A friend.” There was a strangely sinister look on Rosie’s face.

“A good friend. I think the time has come for a showdown, Jean.

Strap on your six-shooters.”

I’d never seen Rosie really pissed off. I didn’t know what to expect. I also didn’t understand what was happening. Was I now going to see Catherine’s “ogress”? It was clear that Rosie’s mood 160

today was harsh. I felt that it was somehow my fault. Perhaps she was looking for a fight.

In the lobby of the Ramada Hotel, I said, “I’ll wait for you here.”

“No, Jean, I want you to come with me.”

A woman at the information desk directed us to the conference room where the Arts Commission meeting was already underway.

Rosie had said almost nothing to me since we left her office.

She stood outside the closed door of the conference room for a moment as though gathering strength, then turned the knob and threw the door open. A group of men and women seated at a long oval table turned to look in unison. Up in front of the group stood a well-dressed woman of about sixty-five in a teased and bleached bouffant reminiscent of a long-gone era. She looked absolutely terrified when her eyes landed on Rosie. My guess—

Tanya Lockhart of Adopt-A-Hmong fame.

I shut the door and stood leaning against it, trying to be inconspicuous. “Rosie,” said one of the men at the table. “Tanya said you couldn’t make it.”

“Oh, really?” Rosie said.

“Oh, it’s good you—” Tanya started. Rosie gave her a stare that shut her up instantly.

“I couldn’t make it because Tanya, who called this meeting, neglected to invite me,” Rosie said, her voice wavering on the edge of restraint. All heads turned to an uncomfortable looking Tanya. Rosie stood at one end of the table, Tanya at the other.

“Oh, no,” Tanya said. “You’re mistaken, Rosie.”

“I’m not mistaken. And I’m not surprised.” Rosie paused, looking at the faces around the table. She was in command.

“Suppose somebody tell us what Tanya said to this group two weeks ago after I left the room to attend another meeting. What she said about me, I mean. Robert, you were there. Why don’t you remind us?”

A young man, uncomfortably put on the spot, hesitated, looked embarrassed, then said, “Uh, Tanya said something like, didn’t we all agree that you weren’t the best influence for young 161

artists, that your special interests might lead us in an undesirable direction.”

Rosie let the room grow silent and glared at Tanya. I didn’t envy her. “What special interests were you referring to, Tanya?”

Rosie asked sweetly.

“Well, I don’t think I said that, that way. That’s not what I said.”

“What did you say, then?”

Tanya blushed. She stuttered.

“Well, what she meant was—” began an older man.

“I know exactly what she meant!” Rosie cut him off. He raised an eyebrow but settled back into his chair. She turned her attention back to Tanya. “Instead of sneaking around behind my back and making insinuations, let’s get this thing out in the open.