Shooting Stars 03 Rose (7 page)
what was it anticipating? Good things or bad?
"Let's look at all the rest ofit." Mommy said suddenly, so filled with such excitement and joy, she shed the lines of worry and sorrow instantly.
Already she was looking younger, happier.
Charlotte Alden Curtis was right. She was either an angel of mercy. Or an angel of temptation leading us to a deeper fall into unhappiness.
Mommy and I wandered through the house looking at the pictures of the Curtis and Alden families. We both lingered over pictures of Angelica. There were very few pictures of Evan, and in these he was always looking away or down and never smiling. I picked up the one on the grand piano and looked more closely at his face. It was only natural I suppose for me to look for resemblances to Daddy and to myself. I thought he definitely had Daddy's nose and jaw as well as his hair. In the pictures where I could have some view of his eyes, I thought they were his mother's eyes, and he did have his mother's slightly cleft chin.
Charlotte had her maid set up a small buffet lunch for us on the patio that was on the west side of the house and therefore soaked in warm sun. Soft blue umbrellas shaded the rolls, meats, and salads that were placed on the tables.
"Why don't you go to Evan," Charlotte asked me. "introduce yourself, and see if you can get him to join us for lunch?"
"I can't just go to his room," I said.
"Of course you can. dear. I want y'all to feel this house is your house immediately. Go on," she urged. "He won't bite. The worst thing he'll do is what he does often to me. He'll ignore you, pretend you're not there."
I looked at Mommy. She smiled some encouragement and I shrugged and started toward Evan's room. What a strange feeling came from realizing I was about to meet my brother for the first time. We shared the same father. We had similarities in our looks. Did that mean we might think alike, feel things the same way?
And what did he think of our father now? Did he hate him for what he had done to his mother, for helping to create him and then deserting him? Would his anger toward our father spread to me? Would he resent me and hate me no matter what I said or did?
I was actually trembling a bit when I approached the door to his room and 'mocked. I heard nothing, and thought perhaps I had knocked too softly, so I did it again much sharper, harder. Still, he didn't say come in or ask who it was. My third set of knocks actually opened the door. It wasn't closed tightly at all. It swung in and I looked at his room.
I hadn't been in many boys' rooms, but this certainly didn't look like any I would imagine. The walls were bare. There weren't any posters of sports heroes or movie and television stars or rock singers. The room itself resembled a cold, aseptic hospital room. There was a special bed made up with stark white sheets and pillow cases bounded by railings. Around the room were all sorts of therapeutic equipment.
At first I didn't think Evan was in the room, but when the door finished opening. I saw him staring at a computer monitor. He was also wearing headphones, which explained why he didn't hear my knocking. I saw that there was a microphone attached to the headphones and he was talking softly to someone. I thought I shouldn't interrupt him, but something told him I was in the doorway. Perhaps it was the shadow that came from the light behind me or maybe
I
was reflected in the glare of his computer screen. Whatever it was, he turned suddenly and looked at me, practically stabbing me with his furious eyes,
"I'm sorry," I began. "I knocked and then knocked again and your door just opened."
He said something into the microphone and slowly took off the headphones, placing it all in his lap.
"She tells me you're my sister," he said. His voice was deeper than I had expected and not unlike Daddy's. "My half-sister," he added.
"It seems to be so," I replied.
"She's trying to make it sound like half is better than none," he said. "That's not always true. Half a glass of cyanide isn't better than none; half a headache isn't better than none."
"I'm hardly poison and I don't think I give people headaches," I retorted. "Look. this is just as much a surprise for me and my mother as it is for you, believe me. More so,"
I
added after a beat. "because, according to Charlotte, you've known about us for some time."
He stared, his eyes so unlike Daddy's. They were definitely his mother's eves entirely-- a deep blue, sapphire, but so penetrating, searching, and unmoving.
"I don't see why you and I have to suffer because of what others have done," I suggested.
His eves brightened and softened.
"Oh, and how do I stop suffering?" he asked with a bit of an impish smile. "'The best doctors haven't come up with an answer. Can you?"
"I'm not talking about that."
"What?" He was wheeling toward me. "What's that?"
"Your unfortunate condition." I said, nodding at him in the chair.
"Unfortunate condition, Yes, that's a good way to put it. Thank you. I used to call myself crippled."'
"'If you accept misery, you will be miserable,' Daddy used to say."
"Daddy? Daddy," he muttered. "You'll have to tell me about Daddy,
"
he added, spitting the word like some profanity.
"I will," I said defiantly. "I'll tell you lots of things if you let me, but first you have to want me to. I'm not coming here begging you to be friends. I'd like to be friends, but if you don't want me to be your friend..."
"It's up to me. I know. She's always saying things are up to me-- as if I really had any control of anything," he complained.
"You do when it comes to our relationship." He stared and then smiled.
"What's your real name?"
"That's my name."
"Rose? That's on your birth certificate?" "Yes."
"What were they going to call the next child. Daffodil?"
"Very funny," I said. "Look. I'm hungry. There's a nice lunch out there. Do you want to have some lunch with me and talk sensibly, or do you want to shut yourself up in here and try to make us feel terrible. too?"
"That's a tough one," he said. He looked back at his computer. "I may have to go on a search engine to find the answer."
"Yes, well when you do, come on out and join me," I said and started to turn away.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'm coming, Lead the way. Rose."
"I'm glad my name amuses you," I said and we started down the hallway, him wheeling himself alongside me. "I can push you, if you like." I said.
"Thanks, but this is all the exercise I'm getting today. My therapist isn't coming today."
"What were you doing on the computer? Who were you talking to?"
"I was in a chat room with other shut-ins. I created the club. It's called Invalids Anonymous. We compare notes and depress each other."
"Doesn't sound like fun."
"We just got started. We'll find a way to have fun yet."
We reached the patio doors. Charlotte looked up. She and Mommy were seated at a table, talking and eating. "Well, isn't this nice," she said.
"Yes," Evan said.
-
'one big happy family."
He looked up at me with a half smile on his face, waiting for my reaction. In that split second. I saw the pain and the loneliness as well as the impishness in his eyes. He wasn't just crippled with a bone deformity. He was all twisted emotionally, full of anger and self-pity.
And yet I thought he was actually a very goodlooking boy. He had the best of Daddy's features and his mother's. If some sparks of joy could light some happiness in those eyes, he would be very attractive, I concluded.
He seemed to be challenging me with his recalcitrant stare, daring me to do something that would help him, daring me to really be his sister, to be sincere and care about him. He looked like he expected me to flee, to turn away in disgust, but I didn't.
I smiled at him.
"This is my mother, Monica," I said. "She and my father named me Rose."
His eyes softened and filled with some humor. "Hello, Evan," Mommy said.
He said hello politely.
"Can I get you a plate of food. Evan?" Charlotte asked him.
"No," he said sharply. He looked up at me. "I'd rather have Rose do it. By any other name, she'd smell as sweet."
Okay I thought. I'll play, too.
"Too bad you don't.
"'
I threw down at him.
He seemed to wince, and then he laughed. The sound of it must have been alien to Charlotte. She dropped her mouth in amazement, and then looked at Mommy as I pushed Evan toward the food.
"I do believe this was meant to be." she said.
I would soon learn that what she meant by this and what we would interpret it to mean were two entirely different things.
After lunch. Evan allowed me to push him down the paths that wove through the gardens, ponds, and grounds around and behind the grand house. He said he wanted to show me his favorite places. but I sensed he wanted to get away from his aunt and Mommy to talk to me. I soon learned that Charlotte wasn't exaggerating when she characterized Evan as an introverted fifteen-year-old boy who had chained himself to his computer and who had minimal contact with the physical world around him. He reminded me of the allegory of Plato's Cave, one of the dialogues in Plato's The Republic, which my English teacher, Mr. Madeo, had made me read as an extra assignment just a few weeks ago.
In the allegory, people were living in an underground cave and chained so they could only look at the wall ahead of them. Above and behind them a fire burned so that everything that moved between the fire and them was thrown on the wall in the form of shadows. All they knew as real were the shadows and the echoes of sounds they heard and thought came from those shadows,
As Evan talked and described some of the things he did on his computer, the people he met and had gotten to know only over the Internet. I thought to myself that he was living in a cave-- an electronic one, but still, a cave. His only friends were people he heard over his earphones and saw on his computer monitor. He traveled through the monitor and knew about exotic lands and people, but he had never really left the grounds of this estate. The only flowers he
smelled or touched were the ones he could experience from his wheelchair trips down these paths. His world was populated solely by nurses, doctors, and other medical people, as well as a few servants and his tutor. Mrs. Skulnik, a fifty-eight-year-old retired math teacher who he said had a face like an old sock, so full of wrinkles it would take a tear two months to travel down to her chin.
"And she smells," he said. "like sour milk. I've told my aunt that I don't want her, but she says it's difficult to find someone else. I know she's not even trying.
"Maybe I don't need a tutor anyway," he suddenly thought aloud and looked up at me. "Maybe now that you're moving in, you can be my tutor and I'll just take the high school equivalency exam." "It's not definite that we're moving in. Evan." "I meant, if you do."
"I don't know if I can do that, Evan. I don't
"Right." he snapped, looking down quickly. "It was a stupid idea. Forget it."
"I didn't say it was stupid. Evan."
He stopped talking. I could see how quickly he could be discouraged. Fooling around with him at lunch, meeting his challenges and quips with my own, had, strangely enough, gotten him to relax enough with
me so that he was willing to talk with me and be with me privately. From the way his eves traveled over my face, searching for sincerity.
I
could feel how difficult it was for him to place his trust in anyone. No wonder it was easier and far more comfortable for him to deal with people through a computer. There was so much less danger of being disappointed.
If
someone displeased you, you simply clicked the mouse and sent them into electronic oblivion.
"You wouldn't have the time for me, anyway," he finally said. "Once you started school here, you'd make lots of friends and wouldn't want to be tied down to some invalid, even the president of Invalids Anonymous."
"That's not true,"
I
protested.
"Right. You just wouldn't be able to wait every day to rush home to help me with schoolwork. The truth is, you're probably the most popular girl in your school."
"The truth is. Evan.
I
don't have all that many friends at the school
I'm
at now,"
I
revealed,
He looked
up
at me. "Sure."
I
stopped pushing his chair and walked around to the front so he would have to face me.
"For your information. Evan.
I
can count on the fingers of one hand
the girls I care to talk to at school. Mommy. Daddy. and I have moved so many times. I never had a chance to make meaningful relationships. I can't even remember most of the other kids I knew, Their faces are like one big blur to me.. It just so happens, our present address is the longest I can remember occupying, and it's not even a full two years!"
His self-pity dissolved as that look of interest and some trust seeped into his eyes again, warming them.
"I saw just how many places you've lived in. Why did you move so much?"
I looked off at the trees and folded my arms under my breasts.
"I used to think it was just because Daddy got bored easily or didn't care about important things as much as he should have, but after we learned about..."
"Me? The tragic accident of my birth?" he asked, the corners of his mouth turning down.
"I don't think of you as a tragic accident. Evan. Look. I expect to get to know you better, and maybe I won't like you. Maybe you're too bitter, so bitter that I won't be able to help," I said. "But from what I can see and what I've heard so far, you seem to be very intelligent. When I said I wasn't sure I could help you as your tutor. I was thinking to myself that you've already taught yourself so much, you probably know more than I do even though I'm two years older than you.
"Anyway," I continued. "yes, when we heard about you and your mother, both Mommy and I began to think that Daddy moved so much to avoid being pinned down by his added responsibilities. He was like that, I suppose," I said.
Evan's face softened further, making him look more like a little boy to me.
"I pretended I wasn't interested in him whenever Aunt Charlotte talked about him. but I would like to know more about him," he said. "I know I should hate him more than I could hate anyone. but I can't help wondering about him."
"I couldn't help loving him. I still love him. He was probably the most charming manI'll ever meet. but I can't deny being hurt and disappointed by what he's done, for Mommy as much as for myself. Maybe more than for myself," I added.
Evan stared at me and then, after a deep breath. said, "The reason I thought you wouldn't care to spend so much time with me is I thought you were so pretty, you surely had a string of boyfriends calling on you and would if you came here to live as well."
"Well, thank you. but I don't have a string of boyfriends."
"You won a beauty contest, didn't you?" he asked.
"No. I didn't win. I was first runner-up. Wait a minute." I said with my hands on my hips. "'How did you know about that?"
"Aunt Charlotte told me. She had a detective."
"A detective? I thought she just had some attorneys doing some inquiries. A real detective?"
"Philip Marlowe himself," Evan joked. "I don't know, some retired policeman. I think. That must have been some beautiful girl to beat you.'
"I'm not that beautiful. Evan."
"Can we promise each other that we won't lie to each other about the obvious at least. Rose? I'm crippled and you're pretty enough to be in the movies and that's that."
It was my turn to smile.
"She was related to the owner of the company," I revealed. He laughed.
"I knew it. Don't you have at least one boyfriend, someone you like?"
"I'm seeing someone nice at the moment, yes," I admitted. "I'd like you to meet him."
He studied me for a moment and then looked down.
"No, you wouldn't," he said. "You're just being nice. You probably don't want anyone to know about me," he added, reverting to that bitterness. "'There's no reason why you'd want anyone to know we're related."
"That's not true."
"My aunt promised your mother she'd keep it all secret. She told me."
"Well, it's embarrassing for her."
"And for you," he punched at me. "I'm just an embarrassment for everyone."
He spun his chair around and started pushing himself back toward the house.
I watched him for a moment and then shot forward and stopped him by putting my hands on his arms and leaning into him.
"Just a moment." I ordered.
"Let go. I got to get back to my room," he said. He glared at me, his eyes burning with anger and tears. He tried to thrust me aside. but I clung to his arms, weighing him and his wheelchair down so he couldn't move.
"No. You're going to stay here and listen. I'm not someone you can click off like you click people off on your computer."
"What?"
His face turned crimson with race right down to his neck. I was sure his tantrums and explosions of anger always got him what he wanted, but my feet were planted firmly.
"You're not going anywhere until you promise to stop this. I certainly don't want to move in here and live with you if you're going to be like this all the time."
"Like what?"
"Like Mr. Self-pity."
I released my grip and stood up straight before him.
"Okay, we won't lie to each other about the obvious. You're right, This is not a lucky break for you and most people are not crippled and in a wheelchair, but you'd be surprised at how many people are crippled in other ways. For one thing, you're more intelligent than most people your age. I can see that immediately. You could probably do something wonderful with your life because of that and because of other talents you have that you don't even know about yourself.
"Most people who walk easily won't do something wonderful with their lives. I don't know if I'll do anything worth spit. but I'm not going to moan and groan about it. I'm going to make the best of what I have."
His eyebrows lifted. "Really?"
"Yes, really, Daddy didn't do a good thing with your mother and you. I know, but he had a philosophy that helped him get by and often helped me face disappointments. too."
"And what exactly was this brilliant
philosophy?" Evan asked, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest.
"He used to say there was no sense in worrying about things you have no control over." I smiled.
"What's so funny about that?" he asked.
"When I was a very little girl and something would bother me, he would always come into my room to stop me from crying or sulking."
"Terrific. Lucky you."
"One day," I continued, ignoring his sarcasm. "he brought a beautiful little wooden box in with him. It's this big," I said, holding my hands about a foot apart. "and it has that face of tragedy engraved on it on one side, and the face of happiness on the other... you know, what the Greeks used."
"You mean masks, not faces, and they originated with the Dionysian cult," he said.
I smiled at him.
"I bet you're a walking encyclopedia."
"Walking?"
"I mean..."
"I know," he said quickly. "Aunt Charlotte calls me Mr. Computer Head. so I had this T-shirt made up: Evan Dot Com. I ordered it over the Internet. It's where I do all my shopping now. But forget that. Tell me about the box." he said impatiently, like a child who didn't want to have a fairy tale end.
"Daddy said whenever something bad happened or something sad. I should write it down on a slip of paper and put it in the box and then turn the box so the happy face, the mask of comedy," I corrected. "is turned to me, and that would help me forget about it."
He nodded slowly. I expected some new sarcasm any moment, but he looked thoughtful.
"When you come here to live, if you actually do, be sure to bring the box along," he said. "I'll have lots to put in it," he added and wheeled himself forward. I watched him for a moment and then walked slowly after him, thinkin that maybe we were more alike than either of us really knew or, more
importantly, wanted to admit.
"Well, I see you two have been getting along like two sweet hummingbirds. That's wonderful," Charlotte cried as we returned to the patio.
"Yes, everything's going to be just peachy-keen from now on. Aunt Charlotte,," Evan said and continued to wheel himself past Mammy and Charlotte and into the house.
Mammy looked at me quizzically. I tilted my head a bit and smiled back at her with a slight shrug of my shoulders. She looked very anxious.
"Why don't I let you two talk a bit?" Charlotte said, looking from me to Mommy. "I have to make some social phone calls. I'm on so many committees these days."
She rose and went into the house, and I sat at the table watching the maid clear the food and dishes away.
"What do you think of all this, honey?" Mammy asked.
"I don't know, Mommy. It's certainly beautiful here."
"And look at what would be our rooms, and there are servants and no more money worries. She wants to take me shopping the day after tomorrow," Mammy continued excitedly. "She says I must have what she calls 'decent clothes' to wear because she does a great deal of socializing and I must be part of all that now. I must say, my head is whirling. Parties, dinners, dances, trips to Atlanta to the theater, and she will pay for everything. Such generosity."
"Did she indicate any more specifically what she expects from you, Mommy?" I asked
suspiciously.
Mommy shook her head.
"Just to be here, to help create a feeling of family, to help her cope. I suppose. It doesn't sound very difficult. She's looking for a companion, someone her own age, I think."
"Why would a woman with all this need to draft a companion, Mommy?"
"I don't know all the answers. Rose, but should we look a gift horse in the mouth?" she asked.
"I guess not."
"Did you get along with Evan?"
"He's a very sensitive and angry person," I said.
"Who needs someone like you," Mommy insisted. I could see Charlotte had done a wonderful sales job, not that she needed all that many different ways to persuade. The house, the grounds, all of it was enough for anyone to give up her life without a second thought.
"Maybe," I said cautiously.
"So shall we say yes, Rose?" Mommy asked me.
I took a deep breath. We were going to move again. Even Daddy's death didn't stop that now. Mammy looked so excited about it, so enthusiastic. How could I even think of putting up any obstacles at this terrible time in her life?
I nodded.
"Okay, Mammy," I said. "Let's move in."
She clapped her hands and then reached out to hug me.
Charlotte must have been watching us from inside that patio door because she was out just as we embraced.
"Does that mean yes?" she asked Mommy.
"It does." Mommy said.
Charlotte smiled.
"Welcome then, you two. My home is now yours as well." She turned to me and added, "Evan will be so pleased. Come upstairs, Monica. I must show you this new outfit I bought at Saks last week. I think we're almost the same size," she added,
"Her closet is like a department store. She has clothing with the tags still hanging off," Mammy whispered and then she leaped to her feet and started toward her. Just before she entered the house she looked back at me and beamed a smile as she raised her arms.
"We're due for a little luck," she called back to me and disappeared. I looked out over the grounds toward the shadows in the forest.
A little luck, yes, but is it good luck or bad? I wondered.
Time keeps all the secrets buried under weeks and days, hours and minutes, and we poor unfortunate souls have to pluck them away second by second, searching for our discoveries, our great moments of pleasure and happiness, and our great moments of terrible disappointments and sadness, I thought.
How soon would we know what secrets awaited us here? I felt confident there would be more than one.