In Search of the Rose Notes (8 page)

“Hello,” she called as she led us through a dark alcove into the cramped living room. “I’m back.”

I was a little surprised myself to see her parents sitting in the living room watching TV. Rose’s parents were almost never home, because they were so busy with their restaurant.

“Hey, sweet pea,” Rose’s dad said from the gliding rocker. It took me a second to realize he was talking to Rose. I’d never have thought of her as sweet, and I wasn’t sure I’d want someone calling me a pea, personally.

“Hello, girls.” Rose’s mom was sitting on a bright love seat, the cream-colored fabric splattered with dark pink flowers and green leaves that looked like watercolors.

“Hello,” Charlotte replied as I took in the room. It felt overstuffed with furniture and decoration. Over Rose’s dad’s head was a painting of a rocking horse, and above that a black-and-white photograph of a desert. Rose’s mom sat against a pile of mismatched throw pillows, some of them shiny like prom dresses. And she had a quilt of tie-dyed fabrics pulled over her. Its pinwheels of red and orange could give you a headache if you looked at it too long.

“Hi, Nora,” Mrs. Banks prompted.

“Hi,” I mumbled.

“Oh, leave her alone, Wanda,” Rose said to her. “She
said
hello, you just didn’t hear her.”

I hadn’t, but I was willing to go with this.

“What brings you ladies here?” Mr. Banks asked.

“I’m just getting that movie. How was it, Dad?”

Mr. Banks rubbed his head. I noticed that his brown hair was combed every which way to cover up a golf-ball-size bald spot at the very top of his head.

“Not bad. But I don’t have it. I gave it—”

“Okay for underage viewers?” Rose interrupted, pressing a button on the VCR, then looking at the video that came out. “You’re right. It’s not here.”

“I told you, Rose. Toby came by for it this morning.”

“Toby?” Charlotte said, looking slightly offended.

“Well, it’s
their
movie,” Rose said. “Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?”

“I
did.
You just weren’t listening. You seem a little forgetful these days, Rosie.”

“Rose.” Mrs. Banks raised her brown-penciled eyebrows. “You aren’t going to show these little girls anything scary, are you?”

“Don’t worry, Wanda. This isn’t horror. This is science. It’s a documentary.”

“I see.”

“Well, we’ll just have to go up there and get it back,” Rose said. “Joe probably didn’t realize I still needed it.”

“You girls can come back and watch it here if you like,” Mr. Banks suggested. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.”

“What’s this movie about?” Mrs. Banks wanted to know.

“Aliens,” Charlotte said.

“Aliens?” Mrs. Banks snorted. “No thanks.”

“It was actually sort of interesting,” Mr. Banks said. “Wanda, you might like—”

“I think I’ll stick with earthlings this evening,” Mrs. Banks interrupted. “They’re showing that Cher movie on Channel Eight. The one with Cher and the two brothers.”

Mr. Banks shrugged and rubbed his bald spot again.

Rose turned her head very slowly and stared at her mother in a creepy way that made me think of something in one of Charlotte’s books—the evil eye. Then she stalked into the kitchen, leaving us with her parents.

Mr. Banks turned back to us and asked, “How’s school, girls?”

His wife just stared after Rose, into the doorway of the kitchen—even though Rose wasn’t visible. And Mrs. Banks’s eye seemed about as evil as Rose’s.

“Pretty good,” Charlotte said. “I got an A-plus on the first book report.”

“That’s great,” Mr. Banks said.

Figuring Charlotte had this conversation covered, I wandered off after Rose. I found her in the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets.

“What’re you doing in there, Rose?” Mrs. Banks called.

“Thinking,” Rose called back.

“Oh—Rose?” Mrs. Banks shouted. “I almost forgot. Aaron called again. He said there was some party tonight? He was under the impression you were going with him.”

Rose ignored her mother, pulling out a box of microwave popcorn and stuffing one of the packages in her jacket pocket. I examined all the papers and pictures hanging on the Bankses’ refrigerator. There was a report Rose had written about beetles when she was in elementary school and a picture her older sister, Cathy, had drawn of a horse. A snapshot of the whole family at Cathy’s high-school graduation last year. Half the papers on the fridge were brownish and crinkled and splattered with grease and stuff. The letters-of-the-alphabet magnets were gummed up with dust. Peeking out from a bunch of other drawings was one with purplish paint spattered on yellowed paper. I pushed some of the other papers aside to see that it was children’s handprints.
“Cathy”
was written under the purple hand,
“Rose”
under a smaller, bluish hand.

“Well, he’s wrong,” Rose called back to her mother. “I’m not going anywhere with him. And I
told
him I’m baby-sitting tonight.”

Rose returned to the living room, but I stayed and gaped at the old handprints. My mother put my stuff on the refrigerator, too, but she rotated stuff out. The Bankses never seemed to throw anything away.

“Maybe you ought to sit down with Aaron and explain to him—” Mrs. Banks was saying.

“I
have,
Wanda. Jesus. I
dumped
him.”

“Well, he doesn’t seem to realize that. He keeps calling here, and you keep making
me
make excuses for you.”

I surprised myself by thinking of something else in Charlotte’s books. The book said that people sometimes put a handprint on their door or their house to ward off the evil eye. I rearranged the papers so you could see both of the little hands. I wasn’t sure who I was protecting—Rose or her mom. Probably Mr. Banks. He seemed to need it the most.

“Okay, come on, Nora,” Rose called to me. And then to her parents: “See you guys later.”

“Bye,” I said to the Bankses as I crept through the living room—looking Mr. Banks in the eye the way I was supposed to but not managing to do the same for his wife—and followed Rose out the front door.

“Your parents are nice,” Charlotte declared as we stepped away from the house and back onto the dark street.

Rose grunted in reply.

“Do they like having a restaurant? Do they ever make you do the dishes?”

“I’m not sure, and no. No on the dishes.”

“Do you think you’ll run the restaurant when you’re older?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the restaurant won’t be open.”

“Why not?”

“The restaurant probably won’t be open in six months, much less when I’m old enough to run it.”

“Why not?” Charlotte wanted to know.

Rose sighed. “Just trust me. It’s boring stuff. About money.”

Charlotte hesitated, then decided to try a different line of questioning. “How come you call your mom Wanda?”

“My sister calls her Mom. I call her Wanda. It’s how she tells us apart.”

While Charlotte and I puzzled over this response, Rose led us still farther up the hill, past the trees in the no-man’s-land between the Cooks’ and the Larsons’, to the sharp turnoff onto Fox Hill Way, which dipped down slightly, then led up to two more houses, then Toby’s house, then the transfer station. One reason kids sometimes made fun of Toby was the proximity of his house to the transfer station. Sometimes kids said he smelled like the dump, which I didn’t think was true.

A few steps away from the turnoff, Rose stopped walking and looked upward. Charlotte and I did the same without knowing why.

“See?” Rose said. “All these stars? This movie’s gonna get you thinking about this. All these stars, and any one of them could be a sun. There’s bound to be lots of other creatures out there, spinning around some of those suns.”

“Maybe…” Charlotte said skeptically.

Rose didn’t seem to hear her. “I just hope the right ones get to us first.”

Rose began walking again, and as we followed her, we heard the sound of an engine, and then headlights suddenly appeared.

“Outta the road!” Rose shouted, yanking me by the sleeve as Charlotte jumped from the car’s path. There was no sidewalk.

The driver of the car braked and then pulled over slightly ahead of us.

“What the hell are you doing, Rose?” the young man demanded as he got out of the car. “You trying to get these kids killed?”

Rose mumbled something in return, which sounded like, “What do you care?”

“What’re you doing? Your mom said you’d just left for Joe’s.”

“That’s right. But I’m baby-sitting tonight, as you can see.”

“Doing a real good job of it, too.”

“Shut up, Aaron. What do you want?”

I squinted at Aaron. He was tall, with sandy blond hair, fierce eyes, and nice teeth. Charlotte had been right. He was handsome.

“I wanted to know if you’d come later. Paul says his parents just went to a movie. You’ll be done by nine-thirty, I’ll bet.”

“You researched where I’d be all night, you stalker?”

“Do you want me to pick you up when you’re done? You can call me at Steve’s.”

“No. I don’t know. I don’t feel like it.”

Charlotte and I stood by the evergreens, riveted. I couldn’t imagine being sixteen, having this handsome guy begging me to come out for a date, and saying no
.
Rose was a rock star.

“Rose,” Aaron said, reaching out for her shoulder, “why won’t you at least—”

“Get. Your. Fucking. Hand. Off. Me,” Rose snarled. “You make me
sick.
”

Charlotte and I looked at each other. This wasn’t just hobbyist swearing. Rose really was angry.

“You’re such a drama queen, Rose,” Aaron said, getting back into his car. “Do you know that?”

“Beats being an asshole,” Rose murmured, but I was pretty certain he didn’t hear her, because he’d slammed his door shut by then.

He drove past us, spun around at the transfer station, and sped back down the road, turning back onto the main Fox Hill Road, revving his engine as he did so.

“WOW!” Charlotte said as soon as the engine noise had faded. “Why did you yell at him like that?”

“Because he’s a jerk.”

“Why? What’d he do?”

Rose squinted at Charlotte, and for a moment I thought another evil eye was coming. When we’d nearly reached Toby’s driveway, Rose said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I would,” Charlotte insisted. “I’d believe you.”

Rose said nothing. She led us across the Deans’ grass.

“I would,” Charlotte said again.

Rose paused before heading up the Deans’ driveway. She seemed to be looking at the stars again. I gazed across the yard. I loved the Deans’ place, with its rickety farmhouse feel and two cool little outbuildings: the dilapidated shed and the root cellar. The shed was where Joe hung out and did his funny sculptures. I wasn’t sure what a “root cellar” was, really, but I liked how the tiny building was built into the hill like something a Keebler elf might live in.

“Sometimes,” Rose confessed, “I actually wish they’d come soon. I wish they would just come for real already. It’s, like, the one thing I can think of happening that
no one
could ignore.”

It took me a moment to realize she was talking about aliens again. I shivered. I’d never seen her so serious. The fact that it was so dark around the Deans’ house didn’t help either.

“So…” Charlotte purred. “What’d Aaron do? Kiss some other girl?”

I kicked her in the shin, and she whirled around and stared at me.

“OW! What’s
your
problem?”

When I didn’t reply, she chased me down the driveway and eventually managed to kick me back after about four tries, clumsily throwing her leg out repeatedly as I dodged it. Her shock at my kick had made her lose her coordination.

Rose caught up with us.

“Knock it off,” she murmured as she pushed ahead of us, ran up the steps, and rang the Deans’ bell.

“Hey, Toby,” she said when he opened the door.

Toby seemed delighted to find the three of us on his steps, and he held the door for us without asking what we wanted. As we stepped inside, the familiar mildewy scent of the old house filled my nostrils. I remembered the smell from when my mom used to help Toby’s dad and the elder Mrs. Dean.

“Joe’s not home,” he said once we were in his living room.

Mr. Dean was snoring on the brown corduroy couch, a bag of Ruffles wedged between his hip and the couch cushions.
Cops
was playing on the TV. He twitched a little, rubbed his nose and mustache, but didn’t open his eyes. I was surprised to see the chips. Mr. Dean was so skinny and sickly looking sometimes, you imagined him living on lettuce and chewing gum.

“That’s okay,” Rose said. “I just came for that alien movie. I wanted to borrow it again and show it to the girls.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll go get it,” Toby said, hopping eagerly up the stairs.

Mr. Dean snorted softly and then opened his eyes. Startled to see the three of us standing there, he pulled himself up on his elbow.

“What’s… girls? What’s… everything all right?” he asked groggily.

“Yeah,” Rose said. “We just came by for this video I wanted to borrow. Toby’s upstairs getting it for us.”

“What’s… where’s Joe? Joe all right?”

“Yeah… we’re just here for a video,” Rose repeated. “There’s a party at this kid Steve Hungerford’s house tonight. That’s probably where Joe is.”

“Oh…” The Ruffles bag crinkled as Mr. Dean settled back into the couch, looking relieved but still slightly confused. He put his hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair, mashing flat a cowlick at the top.

Toby bounded down the stairs and handed Rose the video.

“It’s due back tomorrow or we have to pay three more dollars,” he said.

“I’ll return it for you guys,” Rose assured him.

“Or,” Toby said, “I could come watch it with you guys, and then I could bring it home and Joe and I will return it tomorrow.”

“Tobe,” Mr. Dean said, opening his eyes. “Don’t… uh… bother this girl. She’s already got her hands full tonight.”

“You won’t be missing anything,” Rose assured Toby. “These girls will be screaming and whimpering the whole time. Really pathetic.”