Rose Madder

  Bill thought it over and decided it made sense. "What will she do about it?"

  "She's already started. She faxed a women's group back home--where I came from, anyway--and told them what might be happening here. She asked them if they could send her any information about Norman, and they faxed back a whole bunch of stuff just an hour later, including a picture."

  Bill raised his eyebrows. "Fast work, especially after business hours."

  "My husband is now a hero back home," she said dully. "Probably hasn't had to pay for a drink in a month. He was in charge of the team that broke up a big drug-ring. His picture was on the front page of the paper two or three days running."

  Bill whistled. Maybe she wasn't so paranoid, after all.

  "The woman who took Anna's request went a step further," Rosie continued. "She called the Police Department and asked if she could speak to him. She spun a big story about how her group wanted to give him a Women's Commendation Award."

  He considered this, then burst out laughing. Rosie smiled wanly.

  "The duty sergeant checked his computer and said that Lieutenant Daniels was on vacation. Somewhere out west, he thought."

  "But he could be vacationing here," Bill said thoughtfully.

  "Yes. And if someone gets hurt, it'll be all my f--"

  He put his hands on her shoulders and swung her around. Her eyes flew wide, and he saw the beginning of a cringe. It was a look that hurt his heart in a new, strange way. He suddenly remembered a story he had heard at the Zion American Center, where he had gone to religious-study classes and USY until he was nine. Something about how, back in the days of the prophets, people had sometimes been stoned to death. At the time he had thought it the most fabulously cruel form of punishment ever invented, much worse than the firing squad or the electric chair, a form of execution which could never be justified. Now, seeing what Norman Daniels had done to this lovely woman with her fragile, vulnerable face, he wondered.

  "Don't say fault," he told her. "You didn't make Norman."

  She blinked, as if this were a thought which had never occurred to her before.

  "How in God's name could he have found this guy Slowik in the first place?"

  "By being me," she said.

  Bill looked at her. She nodded.

  "It sounds crazy, but it's not. He can really do that. I've seen him do it. It's probably how he busted that drug-ring back home."

  "Hunch? Intuition?"

  "More. It's almost like telepathy. He calls it trolling."

  Bill shook his head. "We're talking about a seriously strange guy, aren't we?"

  That surprised her into a little laugh. "Oh boy, you don't have any idea! Anyway, the women at D and S have all seen his picture, and they'll be taking special precautions, especially at the picnic on Saturday. Some of them will be carrying Mace ... the ones who might actually remember to use it in a jackpot situation, Anna says. And that was all sounding good to me, but then she said 'Don't worry, Rosie, we've been through scares like this before' and that turned it around again. Because when a man gets killed--a nice man like the one that rescued me in that horrible bus station--it's not just a scare."

  Her voice was rising, picking up speed again. He took her hand and stroked it. "I know, Rosie," he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "I know it's not."

  "She thinks she knows what she's doing--Anna, I mean--that she's been through this before just because she's called the cops on some drunk man who threw a brick through one of the windows or hung around and spit on his wife when she came out to pick up the morning paper. But she's never been through anything like Norman, and she doesn't know it, and that's what scares me." She paused, working to get control of herself, then smiled up at him. "Anyway, she says I don't have to be involved at all, at least not at this point."

  "I'm glad."

  The Corn Building was just ahead now. "You didn't say anything about my hair." She looked up again, a quick, shy glance this time. "Does that mean you didn't notice it or you don't like it?"

  He glanced at it and grinned. "I did notice and I do like it, but I had this other thing on my mind--being afraid I might never see you again, I mean."

  "I'm sorry you were so upset." She was, but she was also glad he had been upset. Had she ever felt even remotely like this when she and Norman had been courting? She couldn't remember. She had a clear memory of him feeling her up under a blanket at a stock-car race one night, but for the moment, at least, everything else was lost in a haze.

  "You got the idea from the woman in the painting, didn't you? The one you bought the day I met you."

  "Maybe," she said cautiously. Did he think that was strange, and was that maybe the real reason he hadn't said anything about her hair?

  But he surprised her again, perhaps this time even more than when he had asked about Wendy Yarrow.

  "When most women change their hair color, what they look like is women who've changed their hair color," he said. "Most times men pretend they don't know that, but they do. But you ... it's like the way your hair looked when you came into the shop was a dye-job and this is the way it really is. Probably that sounds like the most outrageous con you've ever heard, but it's the truth ... and blondes usually look the least realistic. You ought to braid it like the woman in the picture, too, though. It'd make you look like a Viking princess. Sexy as hell."

  That word hit a big red button inside her, kicking off sensations that were both powerfully attractive and terribly alarming. I don't like sex, she thought. I have never liked sex, but--

  Rhoda and Curt were walking toward them from the other direction. The four of them met in front of the Corn Building's elderly revolving doors. Rhoda's eyes scanned Bill up and down with bright curiosity.

  "Bill, these are the people I work with," Rosie said. Instead of subsiding, the heat continued to rise in her cheeks. "Rhoda Simons and Curtis Hamilton. Rhoda, Curt, this is--" For one brief, abysmally black second she found herself completely unable to remember the name of this man who already meant so much to her. Then, thankfully, it came. "Bill Steiner," she finished.

  "Goodtameetcha," Curt said, and shook Bill's hand. He glanced toward the building, clearly ready to slide his head back between the earphones.

  "Any friend of Rosie's, as the saying goes," Rhoda said, and held out her own hand. The slim bracelets on her wrist jangled mutedly.

  "My pleasure," Bill said, and turned back to Rosie. "Are we still on for Saturday?"

  She thought furiously, then nodded.

  "I'll pick you up at eight-thirty. Remember to dress warm."

  "I will." She could feel the blush spreading all the way down her body now, turning her nipples hard and even making her fingers tingle. The way he was looking at her hit that hot-button again, but this time it was more attractive than scary. She was suddenly struck by an urge--comical but amazingly strong, nevertheless--to put her arms around him ... and her legs ... and then simply climb him like a tree.

  "Well, I'll see you, then," Bill said. He bent forward and pecked the comer of her mouth. "Rhoda, Curtis, it was nice to meet you."

  He turned and walked off, whistling.

  "I'll say this for you, Rosie, your taste is excellent," Rhoda said. "Those eyes!"

  "We're just friends," Rosie said awkwardly. "I met him ..." She trailed off. Suddenly explaining how she had met him seemed complicated, not to mention embarrassing. She shrugged, laughed nervously. "Well, you know."

  "Yes, I do," Rhoda said, watching Bill's progress up the street. Then she turned back to Rosie and laughed delightedly. "I do know. Within this old wreck of femininity there beats the heart of a true romantic. One who hopes you and Mr. Steiner will be very good friends. Meantime, are you ready to go back at it?"

  "Yes," Rosie said.

  "Are we going to see an improvement over this morning, now that you've got your ... other business more or less in order?"

  "I'm sure there will be a big improvement," Rosie said, and there was.

&nb
sp; VI

  The TEMPLE OF THE BULL

  1

  Before going to bed that Thursday night, Rosie plugged in her new phone again and used it to call Anna. She asked if Anna had heard anything new, or if anyone had seen Norman in the city. Anna gave a firm no to both questions, told her all was quiet, and then offered the old one about no news being good news. Rosie had her doubts about that, but kept them to herself. Instead, she offered Anna hesitant condolences on the loss of her ex-husband, wondering if Miss Manners had rules for handling such situations.

  "Thanks, Rosie," Anna said. "Peter was a strange and difficult man. He loved people, but he wasn't very loveable himself."

  "He seemed very nice to me."

  "I'm sure. To strangers he was the Good Samaritan. To his family and the people who tried to be his friends--I've belonged to both groups, so I know--he was more like the Levite who passed by on the other side. Once, during Thanksgiving dinner, he picked up the turkey and threw it at his brother Hal. I can't remember for sure what the argument was about, but it was probably either the PLO or Cesar Chavez. It was usually one or the other."

  Anna sighed.

  "There's going to be a remembrance circle for him Saturday afternoon--we all sit around in folding chairs, like drunks at an AA meeting, and take turns talking about him. At least I think that's what we do."

  "It sounds nice."

  "Do you think so?" Anna asked. Rosie could imagine her arching her eyebrows in that unconsciously arrogant way of hers, and looking more like Maude than ever. "I think it sounds rather silly, but perhaps you're right. Anyway, I'll leave the picnic long enough to do that, but I'll come back with only a few regrets. The battered women of this city have lost a friend, there's no doubt about that much."

  "If it was Norman who did it--"

  "I knew that was coming," Anna said. "I've been working with women who've been bent, folded, stapled, and mutilated for a lot of years, and I know the masochistic grandiosity they develop. It's as much a part of the battered-woman syndrome as the disassociation and the depression. Do you remember when the space shuttle Challenger exploded?"

  "Yes ..." Rosie was mystified, but she remembered, all right.

  "Later that day, I had a woman come to me in tears. There were red marks all over her cheeks and arms; she'd been slapping and pinching herself. She said it was her fault those men and that nice woman teacher had died. When I asked why, she explained she'd written not one but two letters supporting the manned space program, one to the Chicago Tribune and one to the U.S. Representative from her district.

  "After awhile, battered women start accepting the blame, that's all. And not just for some things, either--for everything."

  Rosie thought of Bill, walking her back to the Corn Building with his arm around her waist. Don't say fault, he'd told her. You didn't make Norman.

  "I didn't understand that part of the syndrome for a long time," Anna said, "but now I think I do. Someone has to be to blame, or all the pain and depression and isolation make no sense. You'd go crazy. Better to be guilty than crazy. But it's time for you to get past that choice, Rosie."

  "I don't understand."

  "Yes, you do," Anna said calmly, and from there they had passed on to other subjects.

  2

  Twenty minutes after saying goodbye to Anna, Rosie lay in bed with her eyes open and her fingers laced together under her pillow, looking up into the darkness as faces floated through her mind like untethered balloons. Rob Lefferts, looking like Mr. Pennybags on the yellow Community Chest cards; she saw him offering her the one that said Get Out of Jail Free. Rhoda Simons with a pencil stuck in her hair, telling Rosie it was nylon stockings, not nylon strokings. Gert Kinshaw, a human version of the planet Jupiter, wearing sweatpants and a man's V-necked undershirt, both size XXXL. Cynthia Someone (Rosie still couldn't quite remember her last name), the cheerful punk-rocker with the tu-tone hair, saying she had once sat for hours in front of a picture where the river had actually seemed to be moving.

  And Bill, of course. She saw his hazel eyes with the green undertints, saw the way his dark hair grew back from his temples, saw even the tiny circle of scar on his right earlobe, which he'd once had pierced (perhaps back in college, as the result of a drunken dare) and then allowed to grow back over. She felt the touch of his hand on her waist, warm palm, strong fingers; felt the occasional brush of her hip against his, and wondered if he had been excited, touching her. She was now willing to admit that the touch had certainly excited her. He was so different from Norman that it was like meeting a visitor from another star-system.

  She closed her eyes. Drifted deeper.

  Another face came floating out of the darkness. Norman's face. Norman was smiling, but his gray eyes were as cold as chips of ice. I'm trolling for you, sweetie, Norman said. Lying in my own bed, not all that far away, and trolling for you. Pretty soon I'll be talking to you. Right up close, I'll be talking to you. It should be a fairly short conversation. And when it's over--

  He raised his hand. There was a pencil in it, a Mongol No. 2. It had been sharpened to a razor point.

  This time I won't bother with your arms or shoulders. This time I'm going straight for your eyes. Or maybe your tongue. How do you think that would be, sweetie? Having a pencil driven straight through your quacking, lying t--

  Her eyes flew open and Norman's face disappeared. She closed them again and summoned Bill's face. For a moment she was sure it wouldn't come, that Norman's face would return instead, but it didn't.

  We're going out on Saturday, she thought. We're going to spend the day together. If he wants to kiss me, I'll let him. If he wants to hold me and touch me, I'll let him. It's nuts, how much I want to be with him.

  She began to drift again, and now she supposed she must be dreaming about the picnic she and Bill were going on the day after tomorrow. Someone else was picnicking nearby, someone with a baby. She could hear it crying, very faintly. Then, louder, came a rumble of thunder.

  Like in my picture, she thought. I'll tell him about my picture while we eat. I forgot to tell him today, because there were so many other things to talk about, but ...

  The thunder rolled again, closer and sharper. This time the sound filled her with dismay. Rain would spoil their picnic, rain would wash out the Daughters and Sisters picnic at Ettinger's Pier, rain might even cause the concert to be cancelled.

  Don't worry, Rosie, the thunder's only in the picture, and this is all a dream.

  But if it was a dream, how come she could still feel the pillow lying on her wrists and forearms? How come she could still feel her fingers laced together and the light blanket lying on top of her? How come she could still hear city traffic outside her window?

  Crickets sang and hummed: reep-reep-reep-reep-reep.

  The baby cried.

  The insides of her eyelids suddenly flashed purple, as if with lightning, and the thunder rolled again, closer than ever.

  Rosie gasped and sat up straight in bed, her heart thumping hard in her chest. There was no lightning. No thunder. She thought she could still hear crickets, yes, but that might just have been her ears playing tricks on her. She looked across the room toward the window and made out the shadowy rectangle leaning against the wall below it. The picture of Rose Madder. Tomorrow she would slip it into a grocery sack and take it to work with her. Rhoda or Curt would probably know a place nearby where she could get it re-framed.

  Still, faintly, she could hear crickets.

  From the park, she thought, lying back down.

  Even with the window closed? Practical-Sensible asked. She sounded dubious, but not really anxious. Are you sure, Rosie?

  Sure she was. It was almost summer, after all, lots more crickets for your buck, shoppers, and what difference did it make, anyhow? All right, maybe there was something odd about the picture. More likely the oddities were in her own mind, where the final kinks were still being worked out, but say it really was the picture. So what? She sensed no actual badness
about it.

  But can you say it doesn't feel dangerous, Rosie? Now there was a touch of anxiety in Practical-Sensible's voice.

  Never mind evil, or badness, or whatever you want to call it. Can you say it doesn't feel dangerous?

  No, she couldn't say that, but on the other hand, there was danger everywhere. Just look at what had happened to Anna Stevenson's ex-husband.

  Except she didn't want to look at what had happened to Peter Slowik; she didn't want to go back down what was sometimes called Guilty Street in Therapy Circle. She wanted to think about Saturday, and what it might feel like to be kissed by Bill Steiner. Would he put his hands on her shoulders, or around her waist? What, exactly, would his mouth feel like on hers? Would he ...

  Rosie's head slipped over to the side. Thunder rumbled. The crickets hummed, louder than ever, and now one of them began to hop across the floor toward the bed, but Rosie didn't notice. This time the string tethering her mind to her body had broken, and she floated away into darkness.

  3

  A flash of light woke her, not purple this time but a brilliant white. It was followed by thunder--not a rumble but a roar.

  Rosie sat up in bed, gasping, clutching the top blanket to her neck. There was another flash, and in it she saw her table, the kitchen counter, the little sofa that was really not much more than a loveseat, the door to the tiny bathroom standing open, the daisy-printed shower curtain run back on its rings. The light was so bright and her eyes so unprepared that she continued to see these things even after the room had fallen dark again, only with the colors reversed. She realized she could still hear the baby crying, but the crickets had stopped. And a wind was blowing. That she could feel as well as hear. It lifted her hair from her temples, and she heard the rattle-slither-flump of pages. She had left the Xeroxed sides of the next "Richard Racine" novel on the table, and the wind had sent them cascading all over the floor.

  This is no dream, she thought, and swung her feet out of bed. As she did, she looked toward the window and her breath stuck solid in her throat. Either the window was gone, or the wall had become all window.