Маргарет Миллар - Rose's Last Summer [= The Lively Corpse]

“That old bat, if you’ll pardon the expression. What did she say about me?”

“Just that you were kicking up a little.” Frank sat down in the upholstered rocking chair beside the window. “Are you?”

Rose laughed heartily at this preposterous question. “My dear child, I never felt better in my life. The thing is that the old bat can’t stand to see anyone else having a good time. That’s the thing.”

There was such a strong element of truth in this, as there was in so many of Rose’s remarks, that Frank was tempted to agree with her out loud.

“She told me you disturbed the household,” Frank said. “Is that true?”

“I didn’t disturb anyone. I merely sang . Can’t a person even sing? My God, you’d think this was Russia instead of California.” For the past six months Rose had divided all blame for everything equally among the Russians, Mrs. Cushman and the mental hygiene clinic. “Are you going to write down what I say today?”

“No.”

“Not even afterwards when you go home?”

“No. This is just a friendly chat. Tell me, when did you start this bout?”

Rose was silent a moment. “It isn’t a bout. It isn’t a bout yet, anyway.”

“Think it’s going to be?”

“Maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Let’s try to stop it, the way we did last time.”

“We?” Rose elevated her eyebrows. “ I’ve never had to depend on anybody. I’m completely independent. I’ve supported three husbands in my lifetime, never took a cent from any of them. I’m a giver, that’s what I am. I’m a giver, not a taker.”

“What’s on your chest, Rose?”

“Nothing.”

“What happened? What started you off this time?”

“It’s none of your business. Just remember, I’m independent. I don’t need any help or charity from anyone. I’m expecting a long distance call from central casting any day now.”

“Are you going to sit around drinking until it comes?”

“That’s my affair.”

“You’re stubborn today, Rose.”

“I intended to be charming,” Rose said, “but you put my back up. Would you really send for the butterfly net?”

Frank smiled, he couldn’t help it. “You don’t need one.”

“That old bat said you’d send for the butterfly net if I weren’t charming. I could be charming as hell if I wanted to.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“The thing is, why bother? You know too much about me.”

“I wish I did,” Frank said. His report on Rose covered more than a hundred pages, but it was impossible to separate fact and fiction. About some things, like her three husbands, she was devastatingly candid; other things, like her family, she refused to discuss — seemed, in fact, to have forgotten.

“You know, Rose, I used to go to all your pictures. I thought you were a great actress.”

“Who are you kidding, I was a ham.”

“You were great.”

“Don’t use any of your lousy therapy on me. Trying to make me feel good, baloney.”

It was partly true and partly baloney, and sometimes she ate it up and sometimes she spat it out like a moody child.

“Have you anything hidden around the room?” Frank said.

“Not anymore. I drank it.”

“Got any money?”

“Some. I could go on a good bun if I want to, if that’s what you’re trying to find out.”

“I hope you don’t.”

Rose laughed. “I hope I don’t, too.”

“Hold on for a while, will you? I’m still trying to get you a job. I have a couple of new leads.”

“In a small city like this I don’t stand a chance. Everybody knows me. If I could just get south again and start going the rounds.”

“South” to Rose meant only one place, Hollywood. It was only a hundred miles away but to Rose it often seemed a million. When, oh Saturday nights, she walked down the quiet main street of La Mesa, she became violently homesick for the lights on the strip and the big stores on Wilshire and the confusion of people at Hollywood and Vine. Wherever she went in La Mesa she could see the sea. Rose had no use for the sea; it was cold, dangerous, and smelled of fish.

“How’s your canasta game coming along?” Frank said.

“Don’t try to change the subject. So you think I wouldn’t make good if I went south, that’s what you think.”

“You’re probably better off here.”

“Bull. Bull.”

“Quit trying to play the bad girl, Rose. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Bull.” She flounced over to the window and looked out through the pink net drapes. There was the lousy sea again, leering at her. “Why’d you come here anyway?”

“To cheer you up.”

“Well, you don’t cheer me up,” Rose said coldly. “You depress me utterly. Utterly .”

“Then I’ll leave.”

“Go ahead, leave.”

“Why not leave with me? Come out to the house and have dinner with Miriam and me.”

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

“I can’t. I’m expecting a call.”

He took her at her word.

When he went downstairs, he found Mrs. Cushman posted at the front door. Mrs. Cushman had a great capacity for enjoying remote catastrophes like hurricanes in Florida or train wrecks on the New York Central, but petty annoyances at home sent her blood pressure up.

“Is Rose going to be all right?”

“Hope so,” Frank said. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, my goodness; you should be.”

Mrs. Cushman, who was never sure of anything herself, couldn’t tolerate this weakness in others, especially someone from the clinic. The clinic had had considerable publicity in the local newspaper during the past year, and Mrs. Cushman had somehow received the impression that it was omniscient and infallible. Frank was sorry to disappoint her.

“I think Rose will be all right,” he said. “Don’t exaggerate her condition. Compared to most of the people I deal with, Rose stands out as a shining light.”

“Well, she don’t stand out no shining light with me. Many’s the hour I’ve spent regretting the day I opened this very door and there she stood and I recognized her right off. Rose French — I said it right out loud like that — Rose French. Little did I dream at the time—”

“I’m trying to get her a job.”

“Huh. The day you get her a job and the day she keeps a job, that’ll be the day.”

It seemed like a good exit line, and Frank used it.

Before he got into his old Chevrolet, he looked up at Rose’s window. Behind the pink net curtains he could see her small, still shadow. He lifted his arm and waved but the shadow didn’t move.

By the time he arrived home he’d almost forgotten about Rose. Miriam had planned a beach picnic and the two boys were waiting with the cocker on the porch steps, loaded with equipment for the day like a couple of marines. The orange-colored cat was sitting on her haunches on the railing, withdrawn, despising the excitement. The cat’s independence reminded him of Rose.

That night he and Miriam spent an hour discussing Rose, but the only conclusion they reached was that Rose had too large a personality to be squeezed into a small world.

He didn’t expect to hear from Rose for a while. If she got drunk she wouldn’t ask for his help, and if she stayed sober she wouldn’t need it. But at three the following afternoon she phoned him at his office. She was in a cheerful mood.

“Frankie? It’s me. Rose.”

“Hello, Rose. How are you feeling?”

“Couldn’t be better. I’m leaving town.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t oh me like that. What a sourpuss. All you can say is oh when I’ve got good news.”

“What’s the news?”

“I have a job. I told you I didn’t need any help, didn’t I?”