9
...And the princess grew to full stature over
the course of years...
HIS
The following Saturday, he called Rose. Even though it was almost ten o’clock in the morning, he woke her.
“No, that’s okay. I needed to get up. I’m supposed to go down and meet Kateri at the hospital for a protest. I was at our first full run-through till late last night. And I’m really glad to hear from you,” she said, the sleepiness dropping from her voice.
“How are you doing?” he asked
“Fine, mostly doing the play, but I have four more papers to do, too. Excuse me!” She yawned.
“I wanted to see what happened with those girls who attacked you.”
“Oh, yes, I did mean to tell you. Yesterday, I was called to the president’s office. Donna and I had a meeting. She apologized.”
“Did she?”
“Yes. Her eyes were red, but otherwise she was fine. She told me that she was very sorry for what she had done, and asked my forgiveness. I said I forgave her, of course.”
“Did you believe her?” Fish asked skeptically.
“I’m not sure,” Rose said reflectively. “She seemed ashamed, but not really—Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I found her convincing. But she’s an excellent actor.”
“Acting again?”
“That’s just it. I couldn’t tell if she was acting or not.”
“Then don’t trust her,” Fish said flatly. “You can forgive people without trusting them. Is she still on campus? She hasn’t been expelled from school?”
“No, she hasn’t been expelled. But she’s on probation.”
Fish groaned. “Well, let’s hope the administration is making a good judgment call. But I want you to be on your guard. People like her can get vindictive when they’ve been shot down. Have you told anyone what happened?”
“Not really. It’s sort of embarrassing, you know? Especially since Donna still goes here, and I don’t want to make everyone hate her. And the dean and president asked me to keep the situation quiet, but they said I should stay in touch with them and tell them if anything else happens.”
Fish could easily imagine something else happening. “Well, I disagree with their reasoning on keeping the situation a secret. I think you should tell your roommate—she seems like a level-headed girl. And what about those knights of yours?”
“I haven’t told them,” Rose confessed.
“Well, why not?”
“I’m afraid it will come off as me wanting too much attention,” she said. And added, after a pause, “I’m afraid some of them like me, and this might give them the wrong idea.”
“Oh.” Fish digested this. “Well, don’t let that be a hang-up for you if you really need their assistance. And if anything freaks you out again, take it as a sign from God and be more cautious and get help. Okay?”
“All right.”
“And don’t leave the rehearsals at night alone. Get Kateri or one of your friends to come and pick you up from late rehearsals.”
“All right. I guess that would make me feel safer.”
“Yes. And hopefully you’ll be safer. That’s the idea.”
There was a pause.
She asked, “Fish, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” he said guardedly. “Why?”
“I’ve just been thinking about you a lot. About our conversation in the car.”
“Ah.”
The silence lingered between them, and he grew impatient. He added, “I am planning on coming up for your first performance, you know.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am. I told you I wanted to see some good Shakespeare.” There. Would that satisfy her?
“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll see you then.”
“Rose,” he said, “if you’re afraid, for any reason, call me, okay?”
“I will.”
“Okay then. I’ll talk to you soon.”
After he hung up the phone, he stared at it, perplexed and wary.
He still wasn’t sure why he had told her so much. Even his lawyer didn’t know the whole story, because Fish was afraid that if Charles had known, he would have insisted on adding it to the prosecution. Keeping it a secret had made it slightly easier to forget it had all happened.
But if Rose was going to keep bringing it up, pretty soon he was going to regret he had told her. He didn’t want to keep dwelling on it. The main reason he had told her was to explain why he was so distant, and why he needed that space. Those kinds of scars don’t heal naturally, any more than the scars on my face would ever disappear.
And yet Rose still wanted to be friends with him. But then again, he had always suspected that she would find it interesting to be friends with the oddest creatures. He could plausibly see her befriending griffins, chimera, hippogriffs, and all sorts of monstrous creations. I would fit right in with that kind of menagerie, he told himself cynically, and turned back to his books.
Hers
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death, Amen.
Rose prayed the familiar words in an audible murmur, and tried not to shiver in the November winds. She was among a group of students and other people who were standing on the section of sidewalk just across from Robert Graves Memorial Hospital, where court order had allowed that civil protests could still be held.
It was cold that Saturday morning, and Rose stomped her feet to keep the blood circulating. She had been feeling the need to do something more, lately, something expiational. For Fish. So today, she was out here for the unborn children, but she was offering up her discomfort for her friend.
Rose was suddenly distracted as a woman crossed the street furtively and began to make her way towards the group. Kateri didn’t seem to see her, but Rose looked up and met the woman’s eyes. She was a black woman, and she looked scared. Rose smiled at her reassuringly.
“What was that you said about women needing options?” the woman sidled up to Rose and asked in a low voice.
“There’s a crisis pregnancy center near here that helps anyone who needs it,” Rose said.
“What services do they offer?” the woman asked.
Kateri had seen her, and came over, having heard the woman’s last words. “Here’s a brochure listing their services and other information,” she said, and gave the woman a pamphlet describing a baby’s growth in the womb. In a moment, she had drawn the woman aside and the two of them were talking in low voices.
A man from their group picked up leading the rosary, and the group continued to pray, obscuring the voices of Kateri and the woman further. Rose rubbed her hands together and focused more deeply on the prayer. Holy Mary...
Just then a car pulled over at the curb on the other side of the street, and a woman got out, a tall hefty woman with brown curly hair and a scowl on her face. Rose noticed that her eyes were fixed on Kateri’s figure. If Kateri was aware of the woman glowering at her, she ignored her.
The woman pulled out a cell phone, punched some numbers, and spoke into the phone. A few minutes later, a security guard came out of the hospital.
The burly man walked slowly across the street, pausing for traffic, and planted himself in front of Kateri and the woman. Kateri finished what she was saying and looked up calmly.
The guard spoke to the black woman, and Rose caught the words, “Are you trying to get to the hospital? Are these people detaining you?”
“No—not at all—I just asked for some information,” the woman said, crumpling the brochure into her pocket.
“Did they approach you?”
“No,” the woman said. “I—came over here.”
“We just wanted to make sure.”
Kateri said nothing, but she smiled at the guard and said, “Have a nice day,” as he crossed back over the street.
The guard conferred with the woman in the car, whose expression grew darker. She glared at the group of students and met Rose’s eyes for a brief instant. For an instant, Rose thought she saw a look of fear on the woman’s face. Abruptly, she got back into her car and drove into the hospital parking garage without stopping to take a ticket. Rose felt an urge to move behind the others in the crowd and hide somehow.
Kateri finished her conversation with the black woman, who walked away, still scared but seeming a little more confident. Then Kateri picked up her bullhorn and resumed the rosary. Rose’s heart swelled with admiration for her roommate, and she picked up her part of the prayer.
Wonder if Dad ever came down here to pray the rosary? I should ask Mom, she mused as she offered up the tail end of another Hail Mary. Some of the older people from the local parish looked as though they had been coming here for a long time. They seemed happy to have a young person like Kateri leading. Again, she felt the urge to go back to the old barn and dig more into her family history, spend more time learning about her dad. As soon as I find the time…
HIS
During the first performance of King Lear, Fish was remarkably surprised by Rose’s acting. She was quite good. The director had encouraged her to play a light-hearted Cordelia, and her delivery of the line, “Neither more nor less,” with a characteristic shrug of her shoulders, made the audience laugh.
It was clear her acting was determined by her usual personality, and Fish mused as to whether good acting involved putting on a new, artificial personality, or merely using your own personality to show off a certain character. It was hard to tell what Rose was doing—if she played a good Cordelia because she was like Cordelia, or if she was using Cordelia to show the audience new parts of herself.
Whichever it was, she was doing a fine job. And the costume she wore, white and sky blue, with a net of pearls and gold wire over her hair, suited her.
During intermission, he went backstage to see her, as she had asked him to. Backstage was a flurry of actors, wardrobe people, and stagehands in black readying for makeup, scenery, and costume changes. He looked around a bit apprehensively, hoping he wouldn’t stumble onto anyone changing clothes in an odd corner.
Dr. Morris, hurrying past, recognized him and gave a quick smile. “Rose is upstairs,” he pointed to a room up a short flight of steps whose door said “Makeup.” “How’s the play?” he asked.
“Great. Really enjoyable,” he said, and the director looked relieved, nodded, and was gone. Fish climbed up the stairs, avoiding those hurrying downstairs on one errand or another. He almost bumped into one girl in black and apologized, “Sorry.” Looking up, he found himself staring up into Donna’s blue eyes.
Startled, she halted. Her face became self-protective.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded quietly.
“I’m working on the costumes,” she said defensively, lifting her small chin. “The director said I could. Are you satisfied?”
“Actions satisfy me, not words,” he said coolly. “Excuse me.”
She hurried out of his way, her face red. He shot a distrustful look after her, and continued up the steps.
A bit uneasy, he looked for Rose, and was relieved to see her in the dressing room Dr. Morris had indicated. She was sitting in front of the mirror in her blue and white dress. When she saw him in the mirror, she turned her head, smiling. “Hello. How did I do?”
To his surprise, her face was different, her features a bit softer and more expressive. He realized he wasn’t used to seeing Rose wearing makeup. “Hi. Great job.”
“Would you like to sit down and chat? We’ve got ten minutes.”
“Do you have to change?”
“Oh, eventually. I like this costume so much I usually wait. The other gown has a stiff stomacher on it, and it’s not as comfortable.” She indicated a stool, and he sat down, his eyes still drawn to her face in the mirror. Rose lowered her chin and began to pull bobby pins out of her hairpiece.
“I just saw Donna,” he said, so that he wasn’t just staring at her.
“Yes, she’s working on the wardrobe.” He observed that the makeup heightened Rose’s features, her lips, her long lashes. She looked more like a woman than a sprite of a girl. Had he ever seen her done up like this before? He wasn’t sure.
“How is she?” he asked, after another pause.
“Fine. She avoids me. We’ve been civil to each other. She’s making an effort to be helpful to everyone. No more tantrums, the way she was when she was a lead actor.” She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully, and started to loosen the pearly hairnet. Suddenly, her red hair came tumbling down her white neck in a rich cascade that slid and tumbled down her shoulders. The motion caught him by surprise, and a line from Keats came shimmering up from his subconscious:
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees...
Hers
She studied her eye makeup in the mirror and decided she didn’t need to touch it up after all. With a toss of her head, she pushed her hair over her shoulders, picked up a brush, and began to sweep it through her hair. Actually, it had bothered her that Donna was still working on the production, but she hadn’t really told anyone. Goodness, I’ve been enough of a nuisance to the director already, she said to herself.
Fish had fallen silent. She glanced over at him. He was looking at her.
“Fish?”
He started, and dropped his eyes, then abruptly rubbed his face as though he were tired. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Oh,” she paused. Was he tired? Feeling ill?
He stood up at once and looked around the room, as though he had dropped something. Then he said, “I guess I’ll come back and see you after the performance. How many shows do you have this weekend?” He glanced up at the ceiling, then back down at the floor.
What was wrong with him? “A matinee tomorrow, then a show tomorrow night, and then Sunday night. The same thing next weekend.”
He paused, picked up a piece of string from the floor and deposited it in the trashcan. “Well, I should be able to make the night shows. I’ll have to miss the matinees, though. I have to work.”
Realizing what he had just said, she was incredulous. “You’re not going to come to all of the shows, are you? You don’t have to do that.”
He looked at her and shrugged. “Why not? It’s a good play.”
This was very strange. “You’ll have it memorized by the time the run is over,” she said doubtfully, picking up the golden net of pearls and running her fingers over it.
He smiled. “Tis but a courtesy, mademoiselle,” he said formally, bowing.
He hadn’t said he was doing it out of a duty to protect her. Maybe he was actually enjoying her company. Maybe he was seeing himself as more than the family bodyguard. She should at least encourage this. She brightened. “Well, Blanche and Bear are coming up next weekend. For my birthday. We could all go out afterwards. That would be fun.”
“It’s your birthday next week? How old will you be?”
“Twenty.”
“Oh.” He was looking at her again, almost bewildered. “Are you really just a year younger than me?”
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 lover,
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.