Rose Madder

  "Prettiest one on the team, too." He took her by the shoulders and turned her around. "It buckles under your chin. Here, let me." For a moment his face was kissing distance from hers, and she felt light-headed knowing that if he wanted to kiss her, right here on the sunny sidewalk with people going about their leisurely Saturday-morning errands, she would let him.

  Then he stepped back.

  "That strap too tight?"

  She shook her head.

  "Sure?"

  She nodded.

  "Say something, then."

  "Iss sap's ot ooo ite," she said, and burst out laughing at his expression. Then he was laughing with her.

  "Are you ready?" he asked her again. He was still smiling, but his eyes had returned to their former look of serious consideration, as if he knew that they had embarked on some grave enterprise, where any word or movement might have far-reaching consequences.

  She made a fist, rapped the top of her helmet, and grinned nervously. "I guess I am. Who gets on first, you or me?"

  "Me." He swung his leg over the saddle of the Harley. "Now you."

  She swung her leg over carefully, and put her hands on his shoulders. Her heart was beating very fast.

  "No," he said. "Around my waist, okay? I have to keep my arms and hands free to run the controls."

  She slipped her hands in between his arms and sides and clasped them in front of his flat stomach. All at once she felt as if she were dreaming again. Had all of this come out of one small drop of blood on a sheet? An impulse decision to walk out of her front door and just keep going? Was that even possible?

  Dear God, please let this not be a dream, she thought.

  "Feet up on the pegs, check?"

  She put them there, and was fearfully enchanted when Bill rocked the bike upright and booted back the kickstand. Now, with only his feet holding them steady, it felt to her like the moment when a small boat's last mooring is slipped and it floats beside the dock, nodding more freely on the waves than previously. She leaned a little closer to his back, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. The smell of sunwarmed leather was pretty much as she had imagined it would be, and that was good. It was all good. Scary and good.

  "I hope you like this," Bill said. "I really do."

  He pushed a button on the right handlebar and the Harley went off like a gun beneath them. Rosie jumped and slipped closer to him, her grip tightening and becoming a little less self-conscious.

  "Everything okay?" he called.

  She nodded, realized he couldn't see that, and shouted back that yes, everything was fine.

  A moment later the curb to their left was rolling backward. He snatched a quick glance over her shoulder for traffic, then swung across Trenton Street to the right side. It wasn't like a turn in a car; the motorcycle banked, like a small airplane lining itself up with the runway. Bill twisted the throttle and the Harley scooted forward, blowing a rattle of wind into her helmet and making her laugh.

  "I thought you'd like it!" Bill called back over his shoulder as they stopped at the traffic light on the comer. When he put his foot down it was as if they were tethered to solid land once more, but by the thinnest of lines. When the light turned green the engine roared under her again, with more authority this time, and they swung onto Deering Avenue, running beside Bryant Park, rolling through the shadows of old oaks that were printed on the pavement like inkblots. She looked up over his right shoulder and saw the sun leading them through the trees, flashing in her eyes like a heliograph, and when he leaned the bike onto Calumet Avenue, she leaned with him.

  I thought you'd like it, he'd said as they started off, but she only liked it while they were crossing the north side of the city, hopscotching through increasingly suburban neighborhoods where the hip-to-hip frame houses made her think of All in the Family and there seemed to be a Wee Nip on every corner. By the time they were on the Skyway out of the city she was not just liking it but loving it, and when he left the Skyway for Route 27, two-lane blacktop which traced the edge of the lake all the way up into the next state, she felt she would have been happy to go on forever. If he'd asked her what she thought about going all the way to Canada, maybe catch a Blue Jays game in Toronto, she would simply have laid her helmeted head against the leather between his shoulderblades so he could feel her nod.

  Highway 27 was the best. Later in the summer it would be heavy with traffic even at this hour of the morning, but today it was almost empty, a black ribbon with a yellow stitch running down the middle. On their right, the lake winked a fabulous blue through the running trees; on their left they passed dairy farms, tourist cabins, and souvenir shops just opening for the summer.

  She felt no need to talk, was not sure she could have talked, even if called upon to do so. He gradually twisted the Harley's throttle until the red speedometer needle stood straight up from its pin like a clock hand indicating noon, and the wind rattled harder in her helmet. To Rosie it was like the dreams of flying she'd had as a young girl, dreams in which she had gone racing with fearless exuberance over fields and rock walls and rooftops and chimneys with her hair rippling like a flag behind her. She had awakened from those dreams shaking, sweat-drenched, both terrified and delighted, and she felt that way now. When she looked to her left, she saw her shadow flowing along beside her as it had in those dreams, but now there was another shadow with it, and that made it better. If she had ever in her whole life felt as happy as she did at that moment, she didn't know when it had been. The whole world seemed perfect around her, and she perfect within it.

  There were delicate fluctuations of temperature, cold as they flew through wide swales of shadow or descended into dips, warm when they passed into the sun again. At sixty miles an hour the smells came in capsules, so concentrated it was as if they were being fired out of ramjets: cows, manure, hay, earth, cut grass, fresh tar as they blipped by a driveway repaving project, oily blue exhaust as they came up behind a laboring farm truck. A mongrel dog lay in the back of the truck with its muzzle on its paws, looking at them without interest. When Bill swung out to pass on a straight stretch, the farmer behind the wheel raised a hand to Rosie. She could see the crow's feet around his eyes, the reddened, chapped skin on the side of his nose, the glint of his wedding ring in the sunshine. Carefully, like a tightrope walker doing a stunt without a net, she slid one hand out from under Bill's arm and waved back. The farmer smiled at her, then slipped behind them.

  Ten or fifteen miles out of the city, Bill pointed ahead at a gleaming metal shape in the sky. A moment later she could hear the steady beat of the helicopter's rotors, and a moment after that she could see two men seated in the Perspex bubble. As the chopper flashed over them in a clattery rush, she could see the passenger leaning over to shout something in the pilot's ear.

  I can see everything, she thought, and then wondered why that should seem so amazing. She really wasn't seeing anything she couldn't see from a car, after all. Except I am, she thought. I am because I'm not looking at it through a window, and that makes it stop being just scenery. It's the world, not scenery, and I'm in it. I'm flying across the world, just like in the dreams I used to have, but now I'm not doing it alone.

  The motor throbbed steadily between her legs. It wasn't a sexy feeling, exactly, but it made her very aware of what was down there and what it was for. When she wasn't looking at the passing countryside, she found herself looking with fascination at the small hairs on the nape of Bill's neck, and wondering how it would feel to touch them with her fingers, to smooth them down like feathers.

  An hour after leaving the Skyway they were in deep country. Bill walked the Harley deliberately down through the gears to second, and when they came to a sign reading SHORELAND PICNIC AREA CAMPING BY PERMIT ONLY, he dropped to first and turned onto a gravel lane.

  "Hang on," he said. She could hear him clearly now that the wind was no longer blowing a hurricane through her helmet. "Bumps."

  There were bumps, but the Harley rode them easily, turning them in
to mere swells. Five minutes later they pulled into a small dirt parking area. Beyond it were picnic tables and stone barbecue pits spotted on a wide, shady expanse of green grass which dropped gradually down to a rocky shingle which could not quite be termed a beach. Small waves came in, running up the shingle in polite, orderly procession. Beyond them, the lake opened out all the way to the horizon, where any line marking the point where the sky and the water met was lost in a blue haze. Shoreland was entirely deserted except for them, and when Bill switched the Harley off, the silence took her breath away. Over the water, gulls turned and turned, crying toward the shore in their high-pitched, frantic voices. Somewhere far to the west there was the sound of a motor, so dim it was impossible to tell if it was a truck or a tractor. That was all.

  He scraped a flat rock toward the side of the bike with the toe of his boot, then dropped the kickstand so the foot would rest on the rock. He got off and turned toward her, smiling. When he saw her face, the smile turned to an expression of concern.

  "Rosie? Are you all right?"

  She looked at him, surprised. "Yes, why?"

  "You've got the funniest look--"

  I'll bet, she thought. I'll just bet.

  "I'm fine," she said. "I feel a little bit like all of this is a dream, that's all. I keep wondering how I got here." She laughed nervously.

  "But you're not going to faint, or anything?"

  Rosie laughed more naturally this time. "No, I'm fine, really."

  "And you liked it?"

  "Loved it." She was fumbling at the place where the strap wove through the helmet's locking rings, but without much success.

  "Those're hard the first time. Let me help you."

  He leaned close to slip the strap free, kissing distance again, only this time he didn't draw away. He used the palms of his hands to lift the helmet off her head and then kissed her mouth, letting the helmet dangle by its straps from the first two fingers of his left hand while he put his right against the small of her back, and for Rosie the kiss made everything all right, the feel of his mouth and the pressure of his palm was like coming home. She felt herself starting to cry a little, but that was all right. These tears didn't hurt.

  He pulled back from her a little, his hand still on the small of her back, the helmet still bumping softly against her knee in little pendulum strokes, and looked into her face. "All right?"

  Yes, she tried to say, but her voice had deserted her. She nodded instead.

  "Great," she said, and then, gravely, like a man doing a job, he kissed her cool wet cheeks high up and in toward her nose--first under her right eye and then under her left. His kisses were as soft as fluttering eyelashes. She had never felt anything like them, and she suddenly put her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely, with her face against the shoulder of his jacket and her eyes, still trickling tears, shut tight. He held her, the hand which had been pressed against her back now stroking the plait of her hair.

  After awhile she pulled back from him and rubbed her arm across her eyes and tried to smile. "I don't always cry," she said. "You probably don't believe that, but it's true."

  "I believe it," he said, and took off his own helmet. "Come on, give me a hand with this cooler."

  She helped him unsnap the elastic cords which held it, and they carried it down to one of the picnic tables. Then she stood looking down at the water. "This must be the most beautiful place in the world," she said. "I can't believe there's nobody here but us."

  "Well, Highway 27's a little off the regular tourist-track. I first came here with my folks, when I was just a little kid. My dad said he found it almost by accident, rambling on his bike. Even in August there aren't many people here, when the rest of the lakeside picnic areas are jammed."

  She gave him a quick glance. "Have you brought other women here?"

  "Nope," he said. "Would you like to take a walk? We could work up an appetite for lunch, and there's something I could show you."

  "What?"

  "It might be better to just show you," he said.

  "All right."

  He led her down by the water, where they sat side by side on a big rock and took off their footgear. She was amused by the fluffy white athletic socks he had on under the motorcycle boots; they were the kind she associated with junior high school.

  "Leave them or take them?" she asked, holding up her sneakers.

  He thought about it. "You take yours, I'll leave mine. Damn boots are almost impossible to get back on even when your feet are dry. If they're wet, you can forget it." He stripped off the white socks and laid them neatly across the blocky toes of the boots. Something in the way he did it and the prim way they looked made her smile.

  "What?"

  She shook her head. "Nothing. Come on, show me your surprise."

  They walked north along the shore, Rosie with her sneakers in her left hand, Bill leading the way. The first touch of the water was so cold it made her gasp, but after a minute or two it felt good. She could see her feet down there like pale shimmering fish, slightly separated from the rest of her body at the ankles by refraction. The bottom felt pebbly but not actually painful. You could be cutting them to pieces and not know, she thought. You're numb, sweetheart. But she wasn't cutting them. She felt he would not let her cut them. The idea was ridiculous but powerful.

  About forty yards along the shore they came to an overgrown path winding up the embankment, grainy white sand amid low, tough juniper bushes, and she felt a small shiver of deja vu, as if she had seen this path in a barely remembered dream.

  He pointed to the top of the rise and spoke in a low voice. "We're going up there. Be as quiet as you can."

  He waited for her to slip into her sneakers and then led the way. He stopped and waited for her at the top, and when she joined him and started to speak, he first put a finger on her lips and then pointed with it.

  They were at the edge of a small brushy clearing, a kind of overlook fifty feet or so above the lake. In the center was a fallen tree. Beneath the tangle of the soil-encrusted roots lay a trim red fox, giving suck to three kits. Nearby a fourth was busily chasing his own tail in a patch of sunlight. Rosie stared at them, entranced.

  He leaned close to her, his whisper tickling her ear and making her feel shivery. "I came down day before yesterday to see if the picnic area was still here, and still nice. I hadn't been here in five years, so I couldn't be sure. I was walking around and found these guys. Vulpes fulva--the red fox. The little ones are maybe six weeks old."

  "How do you know so much about them?"

  Bill shrugged. "I like animals, that's all," he said. "I read about them, and try to see them in the wild when I can."

  "Do you hunt?"

  "God, no. I don't even take pictures. I just look."

  The vixen had seen them now. Without moving she grew even more still within her skin, her eyes bright and watchful.

  Don't you look straight at her, Rosie thought suddenly. She had no idea of what this thought meant; she only knew it wasn't her voice she was hearing in her head. Don't you look straight at her, that's not for the likes of you.

  "They're beautiful," Rosie breathed. She reached out for his hand and enfolded it in both of hers.

  "Yes, they are," he said.

  The vixen turned her head to the fourth kit, who had given up on his tail and was now pouncing at his own shadow. She uttered a single high-pitched bark. The kit turned, looked impudently at the newcomers standing at the head of the path, then trotted to his mother and lay down beside her. She licked the side of his head, grooming him quickly and competently, but her eyes never left Rosie and Bill.

  "Does she have a mate?" Rosie whispered.

  "Yeah, I saw him before. A good-sized dog."

  "Is that what they're called?"

  "Uh-huh, dogs."

  "Where is he?"

  "Somewhere around. Hunting. The little ones probably see a lot of gulls with broken wings dragged home for dinner."

  Rosie's eyes dri
fted to the roots of the tree behind which the foxes had made their den, and she felt deja vu touch her again. A brief image of a root moving, as if to clutch, came to her, shimmered, then slipped away.

  "Are we scaring her?" Rosie asked.

  "Maybe a little. If we tried to get closer, she'd fight."

  "Yes," Rosie said. "And if we messed with them, she'd repay."

  He looked at her oddly. "Well, I guess she'd try, yeah."

  "I'm glad you brought me to see them."

  His smile lit his whole face. "Good."

  "Let's go back. I don't want to scare her. And I'm hungry."

  "All right. I am, too."

  He raised one hand and waved solemnly. The vixen watched with her bright, still eyes ... and then wrinkled back her snout in a soundless growl, showing a row of neat white teeth.

  "Yeah," he said, "you're a good mama. Take care of them."

  He turned away. Rosie started to follow, then looked back once, into those bright, still eyes. The vixen's snout was still rolled back, exposing her teeth as she suckled her kits in the silent sunshine. Her fur was orange rather than red, but something about that shade--its violent contrast to the lazy green around it--made Rosie shiver again. A gull swooped overhead, printing its shadow across the brushy clearing, but the vixen's eyes never left Rosie's face. She felt them on her, watchful and deeply concentrated in their stillness, even when she turned to follow Bill.

  4

  "Will they be all right?" she asked when they reached the waterside again. She held his shoulder, balancing, as she removed first her left sneaker and then her right.

  "You mean will the kits be hunted down?"

  Rosie nodded. "Not if they stay out of gardens and henhouses, and Mom and Pop'll be wise enough to keep them away from farms--if they keep normal, that is. The vixen's four years old at least, the dog maybe seven. I wish you'd seen him. He's got a brush the color of leaves in October."

  They were halfway back to the picnic area, ankle deep in the water. She could see his boots up ahead on the rock where he'd left them with the prim white socks lying across the square toes.

  "What do you mean, 'if they keep normal'?"

  "Rabies," he said. "More often than not it's rabies that leads them to gardens and henhouses in the first place. Gets them noticed. Gets them killed. The vixens get it more often than the dogs, and they teach the kits dangerous behavior. It knocks the dogs down quick, but a vixen can carry rabies a long time, and they keep getting worse."