Small Blessings (17 page)

Iris, however, had gotten distracted by the contents of Russell's tray. Her sweet tooth was legendary. “Yes, Russell. Tom Putnam has a son. And while you're absorbing this, would you mind if I ate one of those pieces of pie?”

*   *   *

When Rose got back to the Book Store after lunch, Susan Mason was sitting by herself at a four-spot in the corner of the coffee room. She had spread out books and papers to make it look as though she needed extra room to work and so sat alone from choice rather than from dorkiness.

Two other tables were occupied by glossy upperclasswomen, another by Dean Eagle and the president, who appeared to be yukking it up over something in
The New York Times,
and a fourth by three female science faculty members and a senior who had their heads stuck in
Vogue.
Everyone, even the president, looked up as Rose came in. Everyone smiled and waved in acknowledgment that Rose was … well …
Rose.
Then they went back to their conversations.

Susan looked up as well, but immediately looked down again. Rose recognized this as standard practice among shy persons. It was designed to guard against the anticipated public humiliation of being ignored. The sad thing was that by doing this, shy people guaranteed themselves the feared humiliation. How can you possibly greet someone who won't look at you? Part of Rose's self-imposed mission in life was to help the shy members of her current community stop such self-defeating behavior. She agreed with Bruce Springsteen, that everybody—even the most reclusive—has a hungry heart.

Social inclusion, of course, always begins with the
theater
of social inclusion. Which is where Rose knew she could
really
help. Because she was generally perceived as cool by already cool people (although who knew exactly why?), those with whom she associated would automatically become cool as well. So, in front of glossy students, the president, et al., Rose marched over to Susan's table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Hello, fellow Shakespeare scholar,” she sang out heartily. “Thanks again for letting me copy your class notes. You really saved my bacon!”

Susan Mason's hand went to her chest:
You talking to me?

Rose nodded. “And while I've got you, I have another favor to ask of you.”

“Of me?” Susan's hand pressed harder against her chest.

“Of course, of you,” Rose said, smiling. The glossy students, having duly noted that cool Rose Callahan was sitting with some frizzy-haired student they'd never noticed before, had gone back to their glossy conversations. But they would, Rose knew, never
not
notice Susan Mason again. Which was a good start. She didn't, of course, want Susan Mason to
become
one of the glossies; she just wanted her to become comfortable being Susan Mason.

“Okay,” Susan said, looking worried.

Rose smiled again, encouragingly. “Here's the deal. I want to form a faculty-student advisory committee to come up with ways to bring people together in the Book Store who don't usually have much to do with each other. And I would like you to chair my committee. What do you say?”

“Me?” Susan Mason was stunned into abnormal forthrightness. “Why would you ask me? Nobody would pay any attention to anything I suggested.”

“Yes, they would,” Rose said. “Thanks to Mr. Pitts, I have a generous programming budget, so I can not only fund and publicize your committee's events, I can offer free cappuccino to anyone who participates. So getting people to come is not the problem. And the people I want to come are people like you.”

“Like me?” Susan's incredulity was absolute. “Why on earth would you want to interest people like me? I'm not involved in anything around here.”

“Exactly my point! That is such a waste.”

“It is?”

“It is,” Rose said firmly. Susan Mason had to know she was smart. She just didn't know how to make being smart useful outside the classroom. “Your brain, Susan Mason, is an underutilized community asset.”

Doubt had begun duking it out with the first wisps of self-confidence in Susan's eyes. “Will you help me?” she asked. “Teach me how to chair a committee and all? You are so confident and easy with everyone.”

“Of course,” Rose said.

Susan's whole being began to glow. Or at least, it seemed to Rose that it did. Right here, right now, Susan Mason had begun embracing her own unrecognized potential.

It struck Rose, perhaps for the first time ever, that she might have something important to give the young women at this college that had little to do with her job description. She herself might be worth sharing.

Impulsively Rose reached across the table and squeezed Susan's hand.
Might I,
she wondered,
have finally fetched up somewhere I belong?

Professionally, at least.

*   *   *

But then Ted Pitts, looking like thunder, asked the Book Store staff to stay for an announcement after closing, and any feelings of belonging that Rose might have had became irrelevant.

Once the eight women assembled themselves around the tables in Rose's section, Mr. Pitts wasted no time. He needed, he said, to make an announcement that he wanted to make about as much as he wanted to set his hair on fire. The college's VP of finance had informed him this afternoon that, as a cost-cutting measure, she was seriously considering leasing the Book Store to some big textbook company. Currently, she'd said, there was too much emphasis on “building community” and too little on making money for the college.

Rose sat listening to purple-faced Mr. Pitts as her own future reverted to type and thought,
So this is what someone looks like when their blood boils.…

He had, Mr. Pitts was saying, made it clear to the Harpy of a veep that if this happened, he would either resign or retire. The Harpy of a veep had said they would be sorry to lose him, and that one more staff position would probably need to be eliminated.

Every one of her colleagues, Rose knew, had gotten very busy
not
looking at her. Of course, she should be the one to go. She'd obviously been hired as the future of the Book Store, and now its future was to be leased to a big textbook corporation.

*   *   *

Rose walked home slowly through the slanted light of early evening. The days were noticeably cooler now, the maples tipped with orange.
The seasons roll on, no matter what,
she thought.
Life rolls on, no matter what.
Had she known that at Rice? Probably not. She'd thought then that she would have something to do with the grand course of it all, something to do with a larger picture than the structure of her own day. That the way she'd briefly felt this afternoon, that she belonged somewhere, was the way she'd end up feeling all the time.

It had been her last, perhaps her only, illusion. When had she let it go? Rose had no idea. Someday, in some bookstore, when she'd realized that she was now, always had been, and always would be a watcher; that other people might be doers and participants, but she was not. She'd been briefly sad about this, but then it had come to seem like the end of a long, gentle drift downward toward the earth, at the completion of which she'd settled comfortably into her own adult life, with both feet firmly planted on the ground and no real regrets. Life swirled on around her, and there was only this occasional, bothersome sense that she was waiting for something.

For one thing, she'd never been in love, the kind of love that Mavis appeared to be in, where life expanded instead of fixated. She'd certainly liked all her lovers—and she liked having a lover—but Rose was uncomfortably aware that she'd never tipped over the edge into something that felt more necessary and richer than the comfortable, serene way she felt most of the time on her own. A lot of the other people she'd known seemed to cultivate crisis, to court agitation, to need something emotional going on all the time, while she just drifted along, peaceful, happy, interested, but always—well, except for rare moments—slightly detached from the furor.

Rose reached the edge of her scrap of lawn, in the middle of which sat her cottage. As always, she felt more squatter than occupant. Where would she go if—or rather when—Mr. Pitts accepted the inevitable and eliminated her job? Which was obviously the only chance he had to save everyone else's. Which was, in Rose's opinion, an absolute imperative. All her colleagues had children settled in school, mortgages to pay, PTAs that depended on them during fund-raisers. She could blow somewhere else as easily as tumbleweed.

Rose felt again the jolt of Henry tackling her around the knees. It had been such a surprise. She'd figured whatever else life had taught the boy, it had not been to hold on to other people. That was, however, what life had apparently not taught
her
. Mavis would never have meant that to happen; Mavis would have meant to teach her to throw open her arms and embrace the world in its great and wondrous entirety. But the best-laid schemes of mice and mothers do go awry, and she was, Rose realized only now, when it appeared to be too late, tentatively allowing someone to pry her arms apart.

Damn it, she was going to miss him!

Whether that him was Henry or Henry's father, she refused to speculate.

*   *   *

Agnes answered when Russell knocked on the Putnams' front door a little after nine that evening. “Oh,” she said. “It's you. I suppose you've heard about Henry. I'll go tell Tom you're here. There's fresh coffee in the kitchen.”

She turned to go, having, as usual, not-much-to-nothing to say to Russell.

Russell impetuously caught her arm. “How are you?” he asked, surprised to find he truly wanted to know.

Agnes considered this with her head on one side, reminding Russell of a thoughtful sparrow. “I'm okay, I guess. I've got a legal question to ponder, which is making me
think
for a change.”

“Good luck with that,” Russell said.

Agnes regarded him frostily. “Luck,” she said, “has
nothing
to do with the law.”

With that, she turned and stalked off down the hall.

*   *   *

Tom came into the kitchen improbably dressed in jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with a chest-sized rendition of the college seal.

“What the hell is that you're wearing?” Russell glowered at Tom over his coffee mug. “You look like a billboard with legs.”

Tom stopped where he was. There was no mistaking his friend was in a snit. “You've heard about Henry, haven't you?”

“Yes.” Russell drew himself up with grand and petulant dignity. “Iris Benson had to tell me today, since you couldn't be bothered to tell me yesterday.” Russell threw both hands into the air.

“I'm sorry,” Tom said. “I simply didn't have the energy. Then, this morning, without thinking, Henry and I ran out to get Harry Potter books at the Book Store and there was Iris. Of course, I had to introduce Henry to her, which I suppose was like hiring the town crier to spread the news. I'm really sorry, Russell. You've been such a good friend. I should have thought things through better. I hope you'll forgive me.”

Abruptly Russell's anger left him. Of course, what had really happened was that Tom had hurt his feelings, and when his feelings got hurt he usually got mad. It was just somehow easier to be mad than to be sad. The truth was that Tom hadn't
meant
to hurt him. The man did have a lot on his plate right now. Besides, what he really wanted, Russell realized, was for Tom to sit down and tell him
everything.

“Okay,” he said, “I forgive you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Now go pour yourself some coffee and let's hear all about this mysterious Henry. I don't suppose he's still up by any chance?”

Tom dutifully headed for the coffeepot. “Henry's asleep. He went out like a light about eight thirty.”

“Damn!” Russell's eyes fastened on Tom's shirt. “You're not planning to wear that shirt out in public, are you?” he asked.

“Henry and I are planning to wear them whenever we go out in public. I'm thinking of asking him if he'd like to go to the college soccer game tomorrow.” Tom pumped the air with a fist. “Go team!”

Russell, before Rose's arrival, had had zero interest in women's sports. Since her arrival, he'd been trying to learn a few scraps of information with which he might impress her—given her basketball background and obvious athleticism. “Do you know what the college mascot is?”

“The Belles, I believe,” Tom said, selecting a cup from the open shelf above the pot.

“As in ring-a-ding or southern?”

“Southern. Belles with two
e
s. Hoop skirts and all that. It's meant as an homage to the campus's days as a plantation.”

“Oh.” Russell tried to imagine himself perched on an uncomfortable bleacher, shouting
Go Belles!
Tom finished pouring his coffee. “May I top you up?” he asked, gesturing with the pot.

“No, thanks. One cup's my limit after dinner. Hope you don't mind that I popped 'round?”

“I'm very glad you did,” Tom said, meaning it. On impulse, he reached into the drawer where they kept important household papers and fished out Retesia's letter. “Now you're here, I'd like to get your opinion on this,” he said, returning to the table. “It came registered mail the day before Marjory died. You're the only person on campus I've ever told about my … my
thing
with Retesia Turnball. Would you mind reading it and letting me know what you think?”

Russell's eyebrows shot up. He reached for the piece of lavender paper. “Certainly. I'd be glad to read it.

Russell could feel Tom's eyes on him as he read and tried to imagine the pale, uptight Retesia Turnball with a makeover, sashaying forth into a world of romance novel readers. It seemed desperately improbable, yet here it was, all spelled out in black and white. Or, more accurately, brown and lavender. Which also seemed very un-Retesia-like, now that he thought about it. Russell remembered having a passionate discussion with her about engraved wedding invitations, of all things; about how they were the only
proper
invitations to send. How could anyone who clung to movable type over ink-jet printers possibly go in for lavender note paper and brown ink?