She was startled by her body’s vehemence, always wanting him. Everything had become easy. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong ever again. She set to her work with ease, relished her students, and when she and Guy went out together, caught and savored admiring glances.
He took her up north to his land. The thrumming of his truck motor detached itself from the urban roar as the city gave way to fields and woods. Within a half hour, they were in open country: acres of sunlight, barns like cathedrals, and thickets of pines like slabs of night.
A turn-off onto a narrow road took them through miles of pasture and oak scrub. Guy sat up straighter and started to whistle. Here was the oat field where the bears had loafed. A tractor driver lifted two fingers from the steering wheel. A woman digging potatoes raised her chin sharply in greeting. Rose was enchanted anew to discover this entirely separate life of his.
A dirt track lifted through a meadow. Below, the lake spread glistening through a vast stand of birches. The trees were like a fulfillment, each a candle, as he’d said, but taller and wider than she’d imagined and more plentiful; the trunks striped black over waxy white, and crowned with yellow leaves. As they got out, birds and wind resounded, shockingly clear.
Not to rush anything, he said, but couldn’t she picture herself in a studio there? He took his boat out to fish, allowing her the pleasure of listening to the swoosh of the oars as he pulled, observing him at a distance from her seat at the foot of a birch tree. They cooked the fish over the open fire and, after lovemaking, dropped to sleep on the mattress on the floor of the shack where he’d managed clean sheets for her and dropped over them his zipped-open sleeping bag.
She took to driving up every weekend. The stonework grew: three courses high, then four; the walls immensely thick. He was building for The Ages. He’d begun an enormous central chimney that would open on two sides, the large hearth in the main room and a smaller hearth in the kitchen for a bread oven. The best bread, he claimed, was baked by wood fire. He switched on a cement mixer to stir mortar and fitted stones into the top of the wall while she sat nearby in a lawn chair, reading student papers and marking up pages of her music.
“Look at all this.” He threw his arms wide, over the pounding mixer. “Look at us,” he shouted, “you and me.” She grinned and nodded, not looking up. He switched off the mixer and cracked in half a piece of granite. “It’s like we created ourselves for each other, don’t you think? Perfected ourselves, all these years—you for me and me for you?”
He had since childhood loved and believed only in nature. Rose didn’t know whether she believed in god. Guy knew he did not, and when, in third grade, he’d made the mistake of sharing his views on the play-ground, he’d been showered with pebbles. Yet he had an obvious need of psalms and so invented them. “Look at us,” he sang out. “I mean, whether or not we’re married—isn’t it just what we feel in our hearts?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “What?”
Was this a proposal? Did he picture his stone house complete with a wife in a big apron baking bread? She could snooze along on his theology, but marriage? She thought of Harold Atkinson’s gluey possession of Doris and her own father bluntly commanding her mother’s submission. Guy would never put it so baldly—he’d call it togetherness, call it compromise.
“What exactly are you saying?” she asked.
“You’re perfect. You know that?” he cried, spreading his mortar-encrusted fingers, his long face flushed, his eyes on fire.
“Shut up,” she said. It was true, he made her happy. She was absorbed in the music she was writing, mad, joyful music, and now there were lake sounds in it and the jittering of birch leaves. But she wouldn’t be in his Hypnotism Movie. She had her own movie, thank you. She’d have things clear as this October day, with everyone scattered to their own pursuits.
He could catch a five-pound northern pike with the plastic spinner from a firecracker. He knew how to bake his own bread, and did, in a reflecting oven at the campfire—light soda bread, perfectly browned. Under the stars, he recited Sam McGee and sang old folk songs, vibrating his voice so it seemed he was making harmony all by himself.
She wrote about him, briefly, factually, to Ursula, curbing her excitement. She put a curb, also, on her phone calls to Natalie, who had taken to referring to Guy as the god, Rose’s god.
“I hear you’ve found God,” her mother had said, snatching the phone from Natalie.
“Oh, Marion. He’s just—he’s a very nice man.”
“Do tell,” her mother drawled.
Rose knew Marion thought there was no such thing.
Who could she talk to? She didn’t dare tell Guy directly all she felt. He was much too prone to jump to conclusions.
“Frances,” she began tentatively, one afternoon at the music department when nobody else was around. “Do you know you predicted it—me and Guy?”
“At a German movie,” said Frances readily.
“Yes, and on the very day you prophesied. How do you know these things?” Frances smiled and admitted Alan had told her. Was it possible that she felt warmly toward Rose after so many weeks of neglect? Sharing a coffee break—why had they never done so before?—Rose waxed eloquent on the subject of Guy and found Frances receptive to every word, calm, self-contained, even pleased. After that awful scene with the Atkinsons, it seemed she had collected herself. A new nameplate—Frances Dupre, unadorned—had replaced The Beauty.
“Why don’t you come over some evening?” Rose asked impulsively. Frances, she thought, did not get out much. She’d never met Guy properly. Saturday night, Frances ought to come over and join them for supper. Would she?
Yes, she would. And might she bring somebody?
“Of course,” said Rose. “We’ll make it a foursome, a dinner party.”
Frances would bring Alan. Great—Alan. It had been weeks since Rose had exchanged more than two words with Alan. Now they’d all be friends: Rose and Frances, Guy and Alan.
But then the dinner party had to be postponed. On Saturday morning, Rose awakened with flu, wiped out, barely able to make it to the bath-room to vomit. Guy called Frances and Alan to cancel, and then stayed in the city to tend her.
It was blissful the first few days to find she could get sick, even very sick, without fear, now that she had people. Guy made soup and then broth, then weak tea and finally water, and fetched her campus mail every day. Alan taught her classes. Frances sent along get-well notes, knowledgeable of her symptoms. She realized they were getting acquainted without her and tried to get out of bed. Guy wanted her to go to the doctor but she knew what a waste of time that would be, bringing flu symptoms to a doctor.
A week passed and she was no better. Guy tended her very well; then it seemed he had taken her over. He knew before she did when she was going to vomit.
Late October had arrived and the nights were cold. A witch face went up in a window across the street, and a crayoned monster with tusks and smoking nostrils. A skeleton hung from a lamppost. The downstairs ten-ants ensnared the bush at the front door with fake cobwebs and plastic spiders. Halloweens back east were nothing to this. Pumpkins were amassed on porches for carving, doubling the population. Frances brought quantities of candy to lay in for trick-or-treaters. But when Rose propped herself up in a chair to carve her jack-o-lantern, the odor and the slime of the pumpkin pulp got to her, and she had to crawl back to bed.
Trooping through her bedroom on their way to the campus party came a cat with broom straw whiskers (Frances) and an enormous carp (Alan), his scales made of broken light gels scrounged from the theater department. Rose had hoped to go as guacamole, her chili pepper beads crowning her head. It killed her to have to stay home, but she made Guy go: he had an ax in his truck; he’d be Paul Bunyan. She waved them off from her post on the front stairs, beside a bucket of candy for trick-or-treaters, and then had to dump the candy, needing the bucket for another purpose. Back up in bed, she was forced to listen inertly as the doorbell rang and rang.
The first week of November brought a hard freeze. Up north, the well-digging could be postponed no longer, and Guy had to be there to oversee. Rose decided she was better. She could keep down rice and soft-boiled eggs. She told him to go, and he said he would if she’d go see a doctor. Why now, when she was up and stirring? Well, he insisted, just to be safe. Under his watchful eye, she made a morning appointment and then phoned Frances and Alan. She declared she was holding office hours, to be followed by the long-awaited dinner party—a pot roast with braised carrots and apples. She already had the roast defrosting, if Alan would bring wine.
Before he went, Guy pressed upon her cab fare to get to and from the doctor. He didn’t want her behind the wheel. She told him she’d pay her own way or she’d walk; it was less than a mile. Then he’d just stay there, well-digger be hanged, and carry her down the sidewalk to the doctor in his very arms. She laughed and accepted his cab fare. He kissed her. He’d be back that evening in time for the dinner party.
But now he sat in his muddy boots by the door a scant five minutes early, stunned by what she was telling him. She knelt before him in her black dress, tugging at his bootlaces, her hair washed, combed, and pulled back in a knot, her face hidden, gray with fear and nausea. Their guests were coming—would he please hurry? On her own, she’d dragged the mahogany table and chairs back into the dining room. It had been more than she could manage. The roast was back in the freezer. On the table sat boxed pizzas and a bowl of salad.
“I didn’t even know you were late,” he said.
“I didn’t either. My cycle’s not regular.” She should not have been pregnant. They’d never broken a condom, never ran out of foam, never “forgot.” But here it was: statistical failure, the one percent. His features seemed to crumble. Without his sureness, she almost didn’t know him. He gave his head a shake and then beckoned her to his lap. She backed away.
“Call your friends and tell them not to come,” he said.
“It’s too late. They’re here.”
She opened the door to Frances, who came twirling in on Alan’s arm, breathlessly animated, stunning in a blue silk polka-dot dress that flick-ered and slid over her angles, doubling her every motion.
“Rose, how do you feel?” Her eyes were incandescent. It brought to mind the hammer ride at the State Fair, when Rose stood bracing herself and, as now, struggling not to puke.
Frances flashed to the dining room, dragging Alan with her, and peeked into the boxes.
“Pizza?” said Alan, setting his carefully chosen bottle of Cabernet on the kitchen counter.
She wouldn’t meet his gaze, couldn’t tell him what a fix she was in— not when she, herself, barely knew it. But, oh, she could feel it. Her gorge rose and she fought it back down.
Alan was wearing a necktie. He hated ties, and he seemed held in, bouncing on his heels in his dress shoes, very much on best behavior, in his “earning tenure” mode. Why? What he could accomplish there in her sublet toward earning tenure, Rose could not imagine. At least he was nicer to Frances. He was letting her boss him around, loading him with plates and silverware, instructing him as though he’d never before set a table.
Frances declared that she adored pizza, quizzed Guy about the well-digging, and, failing to note his muted response, turned her questions to Rose, who was thankful she didn’t wait for answers. Guy hoisted himself up and clumped off after Frances, who bore the wine and glasses into the dining room. Was his footfall always so noisy? Maybe so. Hadn’t he always been a bit of an oaf? Alan was creaking his chair, leaning back so the front legs lifted off. Alan was a nervous, pinched sort of person, wasn’t he? And Frances—poor, lonely, pitiful Frances? She’d invited Frances as a kindness and here she was, Rose MacGregor, far worse off than Frances could ever be.What Rose wouldn’t give to be Frances now, and out of it. What she wouldn’t give to be completely alone—lonely, even. She’d be glad of loneliness. People could pity her, she wouldn’t mind. She grasped the salad utensils and dizzily made her way to the table.
Frances had fished out of a drawer a framed photo of the Atkinsons, not on a mountainside but dressed up for some college event. Frances was in the picture. Cut off at the forehead, she stood directly behind Harold Atkinson, her arms crossed on her chest, elbows clutched tensely. She pointed herself out to Alan and laughed. The laugh was carefree. Rose found she was staring.
“It’s okay, Rose,” said Frances. “Ancient history. Alan knows and he doesn’t mind.”
Alan avoided Rose’s eye. Something was going on here. She couldn’t get quite what. Unable to bear the smell of vinegar, she passed the salad to Guy, who sat stupidly with the big wooden forks in his hands.
“Toss it, would you please,” she said.
Alan took the utensils. Under the table, Guy reached and put his hand on Rose’s knee. She felt his heat and sighed. Dizzy as she was, if he’d stood up, she would have gotten up to follow him. Nothing would have been easier than to follow him, whoever he was, however oafish, to some warm lair and curl up with him for good. Alan drummed a tight little rhythm on the side of the bowl. Rose groaned and got to her feet, letting Guy’s hand drop.
“Rose, what is it?” asked Frances, with an excess of warmth.
Rose shook her head, sat down again, and suffered Guy to rest his hand a moment on her cheek. She lifted a slice of pizza. She watched the others chew and swallow.
“Isn’t it amazing?” said Frances. “Love?” They were in the living room having coffee. Awkward for the first time that evening, Frances got up and slid into Alan’s lap. As Alan gingerly closed his arms around Frances, Rose came alert and swung her gaze to meet his.
“Simply amazing,” Rose said savagely and pitched herself to her feet.
“You guys have a fight?” she heard Frances ask Guy as she staggered to the kitchen. Gripping the counter, she pulled herself erect as Alan stepped in and closed the door behind him. They faced each other, glaring.
“What on earth are you doing with Frances? You haven’t told her, I don’t suppose.”
“Rose,” he said. “How is it your business? What on earth is the matter with you?”
Guy and Frances came in. “I’m standing by you,” Guy told Rose. “You know that.”
“Rose is having a baby,” Frances told Alan softly.
“So,” Rose told Guy, through clenched teeth, “we’re telling people? We’re making announcements?”
“Not ‘people.’ Friends. Your friend Frances.”
Rose turned to Frances, steeled for compassion, but Frances’s face changed. Her mouth twisted unhappily and her eyes widened. Envy! So this, too, was lucky?
“Correction,” said Rose. She might be in trouble—yes, pregnant, but who on earth said she was having a baby? Frances was in trouble herself, imagining Alan in love with her.
“Ah, Rose,” said Alan, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you in trouble?”
She gasped and he enfolded her in his arms.
“Alan,” said Frances. “What are you doing? You said it was over between you two.”
Alan sighed. “Rose wants me to tell you I’m gay.”
“Well, but we’ve been over that and you might not be.”
“Oh, really,” said Rose, tight in his arms, gulping for air.
Alan loosened his grip. Frances stood frozen, her face an empty mask. “Well, are you?”
She’d be crying in a minute, calling herself unlucky. She didn’t recognize luck when she saw it: her life all to herself and unencumbered. If Rose could have gotten at even a shred of Frances’s luck right then, she would have torn it from her. But luck couldn’t be gotten from another, not begged, nor stolen, nor in any way exchanged.
“Don’t try to help me.” Rose shoved Alan away. What could they do to help her? Was any of them a doctor? Could any of them offer her so much as a knitting needle?
“That’s enough,” said Guy. “We’ve had enough now.”
They went, leaving her alone with him.
No, of course she hadn’t meant that about the knitting needle. Laws had changed. She could have it done safely.
“Uh-huh,” he said. The dirty dishes stood on the table. He put his arm around her and maneuvered her to bed, undressed her, helped her under the covers, and gave her a brief kiss. He pulled a chair to the bedside and sat, gazing down on her. His face was absolutely calm.
When she awoke, it was morning, and he still sat in the chair beside the bed.
“What we’ll do,” he said, “is get married.”
“I’m sorry?” She looked past him into an immaculate kitchen. She sat up and her nausea returned. “You mean,” she sneered, “like, before god and man?”
“Not in a church. Of course not,” he told her. But this was serious now. It was fate. Between the two of them, it wasn’t just fooling around any more. It wasn’t just fucking.
She got unsteadily out of bed and, keeping an eye on him, pulled on her clothes.
It had always been serious between them. It had never before been fooling around.
“Isn’t love amazing,” she observed bitterly.
“I’ve put it wrong. I want to marry you, Rose. Always have. You know that.”
He seemed a simpleton, gazing at her, waiting for her to crush him. Well, it was crush or be crushed. She could see herself, five, ten years, down the dirt road beside the lake, fecund and brainless, her life gone, merged into mortar and mud. It even had a disgusting appeal. She’d be a slack-jawed thing in his movie, a wife and mother, would she? She’d just let them take her over, he and the cluster of cells inside her, which was, even now, doubling in size every few seconds.
“I’ve got to go out,” she said and stepped past him.
He hurried after her to school and sat at the back while she taught. She stood in front of the classroom, a young girl, barely older than her students.
After class, he leaned into the office to speak to Frances, and Rose sped down the back stairs, drove to a motel nearby and got a room, got the name of a doctor, made the appointment, and called back to cancel classes. Frances asked where she was. There were students to see her. Guy—wait, she’d put him on. Rose hung up.
For twenty hours in the motel, she stared at ice-blue walls.
Then she lay on her back on a steel table with a nurse at her side who smelled of lilacs and held her hand primly. As she gulped and panted through the procedure, the nurse asked if she didn’t think that perhaps next time she should use protection?
Poor thing, Rose thought—she hasn’t heard that protection does not exist. And Rose would have enlightened her, too, had not the pain come on so strong.
Immediately after, she felt better, emptied out, unburdened. She brushed past the nurse, who reminded her she wasn’t to drive. She walked to her car, the wadding between her legs hindering her gait. She pulled over every few blocks to lie down and rest on the seat, just on principle, she told herself, not because she was tired. By now she knew her way through the streets around the college, or at least had ways of getting lost and backtracking and finding her way again. She was maybe a little tired, but certainly her strength was returning.
She parked in front of the duplex and sat. It was done. The thing was taken care of. Ursula, she thought—she could tell her dreadful news to Ursula. Better yet, she’d tell her mother: in this she could count on her mother’s interest and sympathy and on their shared relief at the outcome. She hauled herself up the back stairs.
On the top step sat Guy, red-eyed, unshaven, hugging himself.
“It was mine too,” he declared.
“Well. Yes, it was,” she said.
“It was my life too,” he said, and stumbled off.
Good-bye, she thought. They’d known each other barely two months.