She laughed outright. “I’ve always been a year younger than you! Not five, or ten!”
“Of course,” he seemed to recollect himself. “I guess I assumed you’d perpetually be a teenager. Time flies. Well, keep up the great work, and I’ll see you after the show,” he said. He set a hand lightly on her shoulder, and then turned away and left.
After he left, Rose sat down in some confusion. “What was that all about?” she raised an eyebrow to her reflection in the mirror.
Unable to answer the question, she ran her hands through her hair and stared at the mirror. “He’s still the most aggravating man in the world!” she said at last.
HIS
Hurrying down the staircase to the theatre, he felt himself perspiring. This was ridiculous, foolish. She had only been brushing her hair. He had only touched her shoulder—all right, partly bare shoulder—just as he had touched her many times before. So why was he aware of having touched her? He rubbed his hand self-consciously.
I’m just not used to seeing her in makeup, he told himself reasonably. That’s all it was—that’s all the theatre is—tricks with dabs of paint and smears of color. The makeup had made Rose look more like a fully-grown woman. Up until now, he had always seen her as a charming waif, and the foreshadowing of what was coming had startled him. That was all.
And what had made him promise to go to all of her shows? No wonder she had looked at him oddly. Well, it’s logical, he told himself. Because I just found out that Donna is working on the show, and it makes sense that Donna would try to do something vindictive while the show is on. So I should be here to guard Rose. It’s very sensible.
But she was almost twenty? Twenty years old, in just a few days? Somehow he hadn’t quite expected that...
He rejoined the audience for the second act of King Lear. The rest of the play was good. Tragic, but good. The last scene, with Rose playing a convincing corpse in a pale gray gown, was a bit overdone on Lear’s part, but it was moving. He had to admit he was relieved to see Rose walk out, smiling graciously beside Lear, for the curtain calls at the end.
Hers
“So how was the play, roomie?” Kateri welcomed her back in the room, lifting her head out from under the covers.
“Delightful,” Rose said, throwing herself into the chair. “Except you weren’t there.”
“I’m going tomorrow night,” Kateri said, swallowing a yawn. “And I’m looking forward to it. It’s a big step up from homeschool productions. Remember when we did that Shakespeare play together that one summer?”
Rose giggled. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You and I and Blanche were the three little fairies.”
“Mustard, Peaseblossom, and...whoever I was,” Kateri said, remembering. “I kept taking off my costume because it itched. Tracy was furious with me.”
“She was Titania. And your brother Maximilian was Bottom,” Rose said, giggling at the memories. “Yes, this is a decidedly more professional production.”
“Come to the kitchenette and tell me about it,” Kateri stumbled out of bed, pulling at the legs of her sweatpants. “I need a snack all of a sudden. Let’s go get something from the lobby machine.”
It was good to have her roommate around during times like these. Rose chattered with her as they walked down the hallway to the lobby. She was trying to decide whether or not to say anything about Fish’s strange behavior. But last time she had mentioned Fish’s name, Kateri had held her ears and started singing “All Creatures of Our God and King” at the top of her lungs. Thus, Rose was inclined to be silent, at least for now.
They fortified themselves with junk food and started back to the room.
“It just started raining,” Kateri remarked. “Love going to sleep when it rains.”
“Me too. It always makes me think…” Turning the corner, Rose nearly bumped into someone. Unfortunately, it was Donna, again.
The tall girl leaned over her. “So it’s Cordelia?” she said acidly. “Cordelia, who came to a tragic end.”
Rose took a step back, but Kateri came forward. “Be careful, Donna,” she said quietly. “You’re forgetting yourself.”
Something about Kateri’s quiet demeanor made Donna step back, blinking. Kateri ushered Rose aside and they went on their way.
Rose looked at Kateri when the door was closed behind them. “I don’t know what to make of her sometimes,” Rose whispered.
“She’s not mentally stable,” Kateri said. “How much do you want to bet she’s supposed to be on some kind of medication, and she’s not taking it?”
“How can you tell?” Rose asked.
Kateri threw a bag of chips at her. “I’m a mental health major, remember? What do you think I do all day, plan protests?” She tore open her snack cakes. “Which reminds me—I’ve got one tomorrow. So tell me all about the play so I can figure out what’s going on when I watch it.”
Grinning at her, Rose opened her snacks. “Don’t you remember the play?” she asked, slightly shocked.
Kateri shook her head as she finished her mouthful. “All the home schooling prep didn’t do me any good. I still don’t understand Shakespeare. So fill me in.”
HIS
That night, in bed, sleep eluded him, and he tossed around in bed restlessly.
There’s no mystery about it, he told himself. All that’s happened is that you’ve realized what every other normal male in her vicinity figured out the first time they saw her: Rose is beautiful.
So, now you know. There you go.
He steered his thoughts away from dwelling on the physical aspects of her person. But he had always known she was an extraordinary girl, with a vibrant soul. Was there anything wrong with thinking about her as Rose, herself? And appreciating her?
He warned himself: don’t go there.
It was one thing to tell Rose his struggles—it would be entirely different to allow himself to open up so that she could witness his struggle in action. He could vividly picture Rose recoiling in distress from his emotional turmoil. This was the lesson he had learned from his first furtive attempts to woo a girl back at NYU. He had failed, mostly, he thought, because he had been transparent about his problems. Never do that again, he thought, and he wondered which he meant: open up, or woo a woman. At the time he had thought, both.
Maybe he shouldn’t rule it out. It was statistically possible that someday he might meet a woman with a desire for an academic friendship of the masculine sort—a man who would talk philosophy, take out the trash, and be the escort on the dark side of the street. Such a relationship might even lead to marriage. A safe, platonic marriage. But he was certain that woman would not be Rose. For all her talk about friendship, he knew what Rose wanted was love—overwhelming, passionate, romantic love, the very sort he couldn’t supply.
It had begun to rain outside, further sinking his mood. Depressed, he got out of bed and took out a volume of Boethius to comfort himself. The Consolations of Philosophy were all he had right now.
Hers
Rose also couldn’t sleep that night.
After Kateri had gone back to bed, her hair a black burr prickling up from the pillow, Rose puttered restlessly around the room, trying not to think about Fish. Even the rhythmic beat of the rain outside couldn’t hypnotize her into sleep. Giving up, she took her basket of toiletries to the bathroom and got ready for bed.
On her bed, that night, she sought through the writings of John of the Cross with a flashlight, highlighting phrases that struck her as good material for her theology paper on romantic love.
On a dark night
kindled in love with yearnings—oh, happy chance!
I went forth without being observed,
my house being now at rest.
In darkness and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised—oh, happy chance!
My house being now at rest.
...O night that guided me,
O night more lovely than the dawn,
O night that joined Beloved with love
r,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!
She put her head upon the book, her cheek crushed into the crease, wishing that those words could impress themselves through her skin, into her mind, into her soul. And she fell asleep dreaming of her soul wandering like a lonesome girl through a vast maze of city streets in the moonlight, searching for her Love. But he was nowhere to be found...
...You can’t hurry love, no you just got to wait...
HIS
He had an awful day.
A headache had wakened him, and he stiffly hobbled out of bed and went for the aspirin. He couldn’t keep on using pain relievers like this. Addicted to aspirin, that’s what I’ll be. Got to get out and get some exercise.
But it was still raining. What he needed was to get out and go hiking, but he was reduced to going to the school gymnasium and bench pressing, trying to get his tightened muscles to relax.
After the rain stopped in the late afternoon, he drove out to the rifle range outside of the city and practiced with his handgun. Normally he didn’t like to handle a weapon when he was upset, because he didn’t believe in shooting just because he needed to let off steam. Although it was tempting, he had never indulged in the fantasy of shooting his enemies while practicing, because he was convinced that, besides being a mortal sin, it wouldn’t be helpful to his sanity in the long run. Father Raymond’s influence yet again. He tried to focus on the challenge of skill and accuracy, hitting that far-off target, a tricky thing to do with a handgun.
But he was still sickened inside. It wasn’t logical that every time a girl stirred up feelings of protectiveness, or admiration, or even merely attraction in him, that he should be punished by a surge of chaotic hostility that led to frozen unresponsiveness, and then self-flogging humiliation. But there it was—it happened all the time. A desperate, humiliating desire to rejoin the human race, followed by failure.
Perhaps, he thought, licking his lips and reloading his gun, perhaps that’s what Freet felt inside as well. There his enemy stood, mocking proof that living under a lifetime of this kind of emotional deformation would fatally drive a person to criminal self-indulgence and murder. “We’re too much alike,” Freet had said. “You know that, Benedict. You’ve always known that.”
He ignored the monster and fired the gun again, steadying his arm to take the kickback. Then he flexed his shoulders again. Darn, I need the practice, but I’m going to get tense again. A vicious cycle.
By the time he was due to drive back to Meyerstown to see King Lear (at least he was in the mood for the depressing play by now), he had managed to staple everything back down. He had isolated and defused all explosive thoughts of Rose, and was guarded against any further assault on his senses.
When he finally walked up to see her during intermission, the tremor of going to worship at the shrine of a beauty had evaporated without a trace. She was just Rose, and he was just himself.
By the time the play was over, he had chalked up the whole affair to a case of temporary insanity, and was calmed. Infatuation had fled as abruptly as it had come. That’s all it had been—infatuation.
He felt so sure of himself that he offered to take Rose and Kateri, who had come to the performance, out to eat afterwards.
The restaurant was fine—packed with other playgoers and actors, chattering and clamoring. He and Kateri and Rose had to hunch together in their booth and speak rather loudly in order to hear each other. They talked about books, Shakespeare, and varying interpretations of the plays. It was good, solid talk, and he enjoyed it.
When he drove them back to the dorm, Rose sat in the back seat and leaned her head against the door and listened to the conversation. Kateri and he were arguing heatedly about whether or not there was anti-Catholicism inherent in the books of Ursula LeGuin as they reached the dorm. Even then, he let the car idle while he finished demonstrating that Kateri was mistaken, and finally, with a shrug of her shoulders, the black-haired girl gave in. “I suppose there’s two sides to the question in this case,” she said, and got out.
He had assumed that Rose was getting herself ready to go, but when he got out and opened the door for her, he saw that she had fallen asleep, leaning against the seat. Her hair was blue-toned and red in the mixture of moon- and street-light, her features smooth and calm in sleep.
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
He leaned down and put a hand on her shoulder and said softly, “Rose.”
She sighed and lifted her head sleepily. Her hair slid down her neck again, over her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
This time the spell didn’t evaporate. She was still lovely. Somehow he had to say something. But he found he couldn’t.
“Are we home?” she looked around, and looked at him, quite innocently.
“Uh—yes, we are.”
She stepped out, covering a yawn, and hugged him. “Thanks for taking us out,” she said.
“Any time,” he tried to say carelessly. She was still hugging him, her light warmth around his neck and leaning on his chest. He could smell her hair, the clean smell of makeup remover, a trace of scent. She even smelled beautiful. He had to recover. What should he do?
She released him and he realized she hadn’t embraced him any longer than normal—it was just that he was too aware. Fortunately in the night, no one could see him blushing.
She and Kateri said goodnight and walked towards the dorm. He waited for them to go inside and reminded himself that he was only watching them because he wanted to make sure that she was safe. He was just protecting Rose. Physical safety. That’s all this was about.
10
...And the gifts of the wise women were plenteously fulfilled in the young girl, that everyone who saw her was bound to love her...
Hers
“Kateri, I really think he likes me.”
Kateri, who was drying her hair with a towel, didn’t answer for a moment, and Rose, putting on her clothes, actually grew a bit hopeful. It was Monday morning, and Rose’s confusion had been sorting itself out for the past forty-eight hours.
But when Kateri emerged from the towel, her eyes were weary. “All right. And why do you think this?”
“Just because of how he’s acting. He’s been…” Rose’s voice trailed away in front of her roommate’s stare.
“Proof, Rose. Where’s the proof?” Kateri folded her arms.
“Well, he’s coming to all of my plays...”
Kateri shook her head. “Has he said anything? In my experience, a guy isn’t serious until he says something.”
“Well, he hasn’t.”
“Then put it out of your head, roomie,” Kateri commanded. “Don’t be fooled. Besides, aren’t you going to the dance with Paul this weekend?”
“Uh, yeah.” Rose blushed. She had forgotten that she had been practicing regularly with Paul the entire week before the play started, and had been enjoying herself.
“Then think about Paul. If Fish likes you, let him do the work. You’re doing too much for him. You always have.”
She ran a hand through her tangled hair. “You’re learning ballroom dancing with Paul too, right?”
“Yes.”
“In that kind of dancing, does the woman dance forward or backward?”
“Backward.”
“When she goes backwards, what does the guy do?”
“He dances forward.”
“Get the picture?”
“Yes,” Rose said, suddenly ashamed. “Yes, I think so.”
At least she had five days to immerse herself in regular life before she had to see him again. That was a relief.
She had to do something about her bioethics paper, which was starting to hover over her head like the sword of Damocles, threatening to fall and take her grade point average with it. The longest paper she had ever had to write, she thought dismally. And she had never found the notes in the family barn from her dad’s interviews, which she felt was the key to finding a direction for this paper. Sh
e kept intending to go back, but hadn’t yet found the chance. The inevitable was coming: she would have to change her topic, to the more prosaic matter of the ethical treatment of comatose patients. Since her sister had been in a coma once, it was something she actually knew a bit about.
Dr. Cooper wanted them to submit their topics for approval this week, so she took some time after class to tell him what she was thinking of doing.
“That sounds very promising,” he said. “Now, you know I prefer that you do interviews with actual medical professionals working in the field, as opposed to just doing Internet research. You’ll learn more from talking to an actual person.”
“But who can I interview?” she asked, and added, “I’d like to avoid talking to anyone at the Meyerstown hospital if I can...you know, it’s so controversial over there with them doing late abortions and so on.”
“Understood. Actually, there is a facility that cares for patients in comas a few miles outside of Meyerstown. The director is a Dr. Madelyn Murray. Perhaps you could get an interview with someone there—a nurse, a staff doctor. How’s that for a start?”
“That helps a lot,” Rose said gratefully, scribbling down the information in her special “Monster Bioethics Paper!” notebook. Maybe she wasn’t in the deadlock that she had thought she was in.
Paul was hanging around after class when she came out. “Hey Rose, how’s it going?”
“Better,” she said. “I just settled on a topic for my paper.”
“Awesome. Did you stick with abuse or go to comas?”
“Comas. Because I just haven’t had time to go back to the barn to find the notes my dad had on patient abuse,” Rose said. “What about you?”
“I’m doing some email correspondence with someone in Taiwan about Chinese medicine and cannibalism. It’s pretty horrendous stuff. I should show you some time.”