Rosalind (9 page)

She closed the blinds
and went to her desk. With ten minutes left in the day, she grabbed her purse, locked up the station and went home.

***

"What do you want for dinner?" she asked
John.

"I don't care. Wait, I have some business I need to take care of tonight. I'll be h
ome late, just leave me a plate," John said.

"I don't know why you have to work so late," she sneered.

"You think part-time secretary work can keep this place going?"

"I
didn't say that. Never mind," she relented, "you're right."

He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Hey," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm just trying
to build something here. Something for us. Besides, if we're going to try again, we're gonna need the extra income."

She pushed herself away from John and walked to the empty basinet by the dining room window. She folded her arms and stared out at the tree in the yard.

"What's wrong?'" he said.

"Nothing." She let out a big sigh and turned to him. "It's this new girl in town."

"New girl?"

"Some stray wandered into town a week or so ago. She's staying with that waitress from the diner. She's quite the little scandal."

"How old is she?"

"I don't know," she replied, throwing her hands up in the air. "Young, I guess. The sheriff says she's sixteen, but when I saw her drive by the office today, she looked much younger."

"Is that the scandal? She looks younger than she is?"

"No, silly. Let's say she's youn
ger than sixteen and she's already gotten pregnant. The good thing is she lost the baby. Fine by me. She doesn't deserve it anyway."

"Pregnant already, huh? So sh
e's loose is what you're saying."

"Obviously," she replied.

"Huh," he said. He stared through Susan as she turned back to the window to look at the tree in the front yard. "Well, don't worry about what the doctor said. They're human and they can be wrong too. People like us deserve to have children and by God, we're gonna have one if I have to sell every tire in my warehouse to do it." He walked over to her and turned her around. He pulled her chin up and kissed her gently on the lips. "It'll all work out. Don't you worry."

John Byrd could lay on the charm. It was one of the things that set him apart from the other guys that they both went to school with. Most of them, to Susan's dismay, had little ambition to do anything but what their father's had done and what their mother's had expected of them. But John was from a different mold. When they
had sat on the edge of the cornfield one evening their during their senior year, he had looked up at the stars and said, "I'm going to be one of them." She asked him what he meant, and he replied, "They're still there. They've been around for thousands of years, maybe even more, but they're still there. I'm gonna make my mark."

The tire business was hardly the everlasting work of the cosmos, but in
the small town of Whispering Pines, he had made his mark. But he wasn't satisfied. Sure, the town loved him and he was well respected, but he wanted more. His desire to put himself on the map constantly pushed against the confines of the city limits, but instead of stretching the business into a regional power (like its name had suggested it was), his ambition festered inside of him and something darker was born. He wanted the money and the power, sure, but it that wasn't his prime motivation. Those things were nice and they made his life at home easier, but there was a hunger that was consuming him. A hunger for power, but a power over something or someone.

He tried running for
mayor in 1958, but when Sheldon Buckle won the spot, he took to the cellar under the hill by the edge of the cornfield and seethed. He hung a boxing bag in the damp room and punched it until his hands were raw. It didn't help. How could he have lost to Sheldon Buckle of all people? Wasn't he a respected and loved businessman? Sheldon owned a damned grocery store for crying out loud! But he gracefully shook Sheldon's hand that day, and took to the cellar that night. Susan had noticed this retreat and remembered what he had said to her that evening next to the cornfield. His ambitions, which she had so dearly loved, were effectively cut short. It was nearly impossible to be elected after an unsuccessful run at office in Whispering Pines, but John assured her that they still had the tire business and that people would always need tires.

While Susan was relieved that John's frequent visits to the cellar had declined over the past year, she could still see that there was something lingering in his mind that sometimes twisted his face into something horrible, and he would
go back to the cellar for hours, leaving her in the house to wonder. But the next day, he would always come back to being himself.

She could tell that this was one of those nights. He would go for a drive after it had gotten dark. But instead of using the car, he would always pull the old truck out of the barn. He assured her that he just wanted to keep it running and the best way to do that was to not let it sit. She would have been embarrassed to be seen in it—the paint was scratched to hell, the tires nearly bald
(which she always thought was ironic), the front window wore a long crack across the entire glass—but he only took it out at night. She was thankful for that, at least.

The last light of day had followed the sunset and John grabbed his coat and went out to the barn. Susan heard the monster roar and then backfire and then when she went to the window, the headlights trailed off down the driveway. He turned toward town and the truck disappeared from her sight.

John put the truck in park and killed the ignition. The light was absent in this particular spot and there weren't many houses on this road. If someone came by, he could just say he was looking at the stars or something. He still looked at them whenever he could, but instead of seeing them as equals—as comrades in the great plan—he now resented them. They were there and he was here. He eyed the girl in the window of the house that rested a few hundred feet off the right side of the road. He'd come here often since Susan had told him about her. At first it was out of curiosity, to get a peek at the fiery, young red-head that came to town only a month ago, seemingly out of nowhere. Sheriff Hanes, in his ignorant wisdom, neglected to provide Susan with any details about the young girl, her last name, or her connection to the family that had died in the fire, but John knew the town like no other. He had delivered tires to damn near every house in the county. So when Susan had told him that the young girl was staying with Nancy Fletcher, he knew right where to go.

He grabbed
a cigarette from the pack, lit it and rolled down the window. The smell of smoke and oil from the engine made him queasy at first, but it settled in his lungs and became something familiar and calming. He had been here before, but the street was different. And it was a different house and a different girl. His appetite and ambitions had changed—changed into something darker—and if this shitty town couldn't see him for the star that he was, the young women he stalked would.

He had to be careful. This new girl was different. She had the at
tention of the sheriff. But from her silhouette in the lit window of the living room, he could tell she was something special. Her breasts were large for a girl her age. Susan never had much in the way of a chest, but the girls he watched always did.

What was the harm?
 

He was just watching, and for the first few months it had been enough to quell the burning in him
. But lately it was growing. His appetite was bursting through the seams of his body.

But he had to be careful. He was a pillar of the community
. He was the Rubber Man.

John flicked the cigarette out of the window and started the truck. It backfired once, causing John to cringe, but when it warmed up, he put it in gear and drove home.

"Okay, I've set aside some food in the fridge—there's some chicken that's thawin' out and some potatoes under the sink. Plenty of milk, I think, but we're only gonna be gone for a couple of days," Nancy told Rosalind. She whirled around the kitchen, opening cupboards and closing them, doing a last minute check. "We'll be back on Sunday, do you think you can manage?"

Rosalind nodded with confidence. She had never been alone for two whole days, but she figured that she knew her way around a kitchen well enough to make sure she always had something to eat. And she had a
good television and a brand new J.C. Penney's catalog to flip through, although she still held on tight to the picture of the woman in the yellow dress.

Hank was packing some things in the bedroom and he came out and called to Nancy, tell
ing her to leave the kid alone, that she'd be fine.

"Mrs. Peterson will be around now and then to check on you, and I've put her number on the fridge. The sheriff's number is there too. If you get in any trouble whatsoever, just give them a call, okay?" Rosalind nodded again, this time less sure. It was really happening, they were leaving. But she told herself that it was only temporary. Nancy kissed her on the forehead. "
I'll be back before you can say Madison Avenue."

***

Nancy and Hank left a half hour later and Rosalind settled in on the couch with her catalog and a glass of water. There was plenty of milk in the fridge but in the back of her mind, whether consciously or subconsciously, she tried to avoid milk ever since the fire.

Twilight Zone
was on the set again, but Rosalind sat on the couch and flipped through the catalog, ignoring the creepy music emanating from the television. Sheriff Hanes had stopped by only three hours after Nancy and Hank had left, and they sat in the living room for a few minutes. He reassured her that he was a phone call away, and wrote down his home phone number next to his office number in case something came up when the office was closed. "My job is 24/7/365, okay?" he had told her. She didn't know what that meant, but decided it was a good thing.

"You really don't talk much, do you?" he said. She shook her head and bowed her head. "It's okay. I guess when you got something to say you'll say it."

They sat in silence while Rosalind flipped through the catalog.

The sheriff stood and went to the door, but Rosalind whispered something that made him turn around. He couldn't make it out but it sounded like 'thank you.' Instead of prodding her for confirmation, he nodded his head and left.

Rosalind turned off the television and the house became eerily quiet—too quiet. She flipped it back on and grabbed a cover from the back of the couch and pulled it over her legs. A few minutes after the man in the black suit with the cigarette in his hand had finished his introduction to the show, she fell asleep.

***

The t
ip of the morning sun broke through the break in the curtains and shone directly into Rosalind's eyes. She wiped them and threw off the cover. It was cold in the room. She opened the stove door and saw that only a few embers remained from the fire the night before so she grabbed a few pieces of wood and some old newspapers and brought it back to life. She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, downing it in two gulps. She wasn't that hungry, so she made a few pieces of toast and smothered them with butter. After finishing her breakfast, she cleaned off the table and washed her glass in the sink, setting it neatly on the towel.

Her first night alone went well, boosting her confidence even more.

John sat in his office and looked out the window at the diner across the street. He didn't see Nancy behind the counter, and what was worse, he didn't see the red-head young girl sitting at the counter. He threw his copy of
National Tire Monthly
down on his desk and looked at the calendar. It was Saturday. Maybe Nancy took a day off? The sheriff's office was only a few blocks down, so he decided to close the office and go visit his wife.

He didn't like that she worked
, but he knew it was necessary. The truth was that he didn't like Susan to frequent what he called his 'territory.' For Susan to come this close to town was an infringement of sorts. She was too close to his extra-curricular activities for his liking. His girls, both of them, lived in town, and while he never thought of Susan catching him in the act, it was still his turf and she was an intruder. This was his town, and he made the rules.

At first he thought it was strange that he didn't even know their names, but a few months of what he called
Byrd Watching,
he began to see it as something eccentric—like his personal motto or something.

Keep it simple.

Keep it anonymous.

The blond girl with the blue ribbon in her hair had an upstairs bedroom in an old Greek revival style house that was the only one of its kind in the county. He counted himself lucky that this particular style provided a view from the street. The brunette who always wore a blue skirt on Wednesdays lived
in a Western flat-top. Her bedroom was in the rear so he would always park on the street perpendicular to the main road. The street leading away from her home was dark which made it easier to hide. He had a system and it was working. But he wanted more. He needed more.