The kitchen, opening off the foyer, was small, and made smaller still by the miniature greenhouse Terry had mentioned. Some three feet long, it stood on a large white table near the room’s one window. Goosenecked lamps leaned close around it, their bright bulbs reflecting in the glass and making it blinding white rather than transparent. In the remaining space the sink, stove, and refrigerator stood close together with cabinets jutting out above them on all sides. Rosemary wiped dishes at Mrs. Castevet’s elbow, working diligently and conscientiously in the pleasing knowledge that her own kitchen was larger and more graciously equipped. “Terry told me about that greenhouse,” she said.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Castevet said. “It’s a nice hobby. You ought to do it too.”
“I’d like to have a spice garden some day,” Rosemary said. “Out of the city, of course. If Guy ever gets a movie offer we’re going to grab it and go live in Los Angeles. I’m a country girl at heart.”
“Do you come from a big family?” Mrs. Castevet asked.
“Yes,” Rosemary said. “I have three brothers and two sisters. I’m the baby.”
“Are your sisters married?”
“Yes, they are.”
Mrs. Castevet pushed a soapy sponge up and down inside a glass. “Do they have children?” she asked.
“One has two and the other has four,” Rosemary said. “At least that was the count the last I heard. It could be three and five by now.”
“Well that’s a good sign for you,” Mrs. Castevet said, still soaping the glass. She was a slow and thorough washer. “If your sisters have lots of children, chances are you will too. Things like that go in families.”
“Oh, we’re fertile, all right,” Rosemary said, waiting towel in hand for the glass. “My brother Eddie has eight already and he’s only twenty-six.”
“My goodness!” Mrs. Castevet said. She rinsed the glass and gave it to Rosemary.
“All told I’ve got twenty nieces and nephews,” Rosemary said. “I haven’t even seen half of them.”
“Don’t you go home every once in a while?” Mrs. Castevet asked.
“No, I don’t,” Rosemary said. “I’m not on the best of terms with my family, except one brother. They feel I’m the black sheep.”
QI
“Oh? How is that?”
“Because Guy isn’t Catholic, and we didn’t have a church wedding.”
“Tsk,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Isn’t it something the way people fuss about religion? Well, it’s their loss, not yours; don’t you let it bother you any.”
“That’s more easily said than done,” Rosemary said, putting the glass on a shelf. “Would you like me to wash and you wipe for a while?”
“No, this is fine, dear,” Mrs. Castevet said.
Rosemary looked outside the door. She could see only the end of the living room that was bridge tables and file cabinets; Guy and Mr. Castevet were at the other end. A plane of blue cigarette smoke lay motionless in the air.
“Rosemary?”
She turned. Mrs. Castevet, smiling, held out a wet plate in a green rubbergloved land.
It took almost an hour to do the dishes and pans and silver, although Rosemary felt she could have done them alone in less than half that time. When she and Mrs. Castevet came out of the kitchen and into the living room, Guy and Mr. Castevet were sitting facing each other on the settee, Mr. Castevet driving home point after point with repeated strikings of his forefinger against his palm.
“Now Roman, you stop bending Guy’s ear with your Modjeska stories,” Mrs. Castevet said. “He’s only listening ‘cause he’s polite.”
“No, it’s interesting, Mrs. Castevet,” Guy said.
“You see?” Mr. Castevet said.
“Minnie,” Mrs. Castevet told Guy. “I’m Minnie and he’s Roman; okay?” She looked mock-defiantly at Rosemary. “Okay?”
Guy laughed. “Okay, Minnie,” he said.
They talked about the Goulds and the Bruhns and Dubin-and-DeVore, about Terry’s sailor brother who had turned out to be in a civilian hospital in Saigon; and, because Mr. Castevet was reading a book critical of the Warren Report, about the Kennedy assassination. Rosemary, in one of the straightbacked chairs, felt oddly out of things, as if the Castevets were old friends of Guy’s to whom she had just been introduced. “Do you think it could have been a plot of some kind?” Mr. Castevet asked her, and she answered awkwardly, aware that a considerate host was drawing a left-out guest into conversation. She excused herself and followed Mrs. Castevet’s directions to the bathroom, where there were flowered paper towels inscribed For Our Guest and a book called Jokes for The John that wasn’t especially funny.
They left at ten-thirty, saying “Good-by, Roman” and “Thank you, Minnie” and shaking hands with an enthusiasm and an implied promise of more such evenings together that, on Rosemary’s part, was completely false. Rounding the first bend in the hallway and hearing the door close behind them, she blew out a relieved sigh and grinned happily at Guy when she saw him doing exactly the same.
“Naow Roman,” he said, working his eyebrows comically, “yew stop bendin’ Guy’s ee-yurs with them that Mojesky sto-tees!”
Laughing, Rosemary cringed and hushed him, and they ran hand in hand on ultra-quiet tiptoes to their own door, which they unlocked, opened, slammed, locked, bolted, chained; and Guy nailed it over with imaginary beams, pushed up three imaginary boulders, hoisted an imaginary drawbridge, and mopped his brow and panted while Rosemary bent over double and laughed into both hands.
“About that steak,” Guy said.
“Oh my God!” Rosemary said. “The pie! How did you eat two pieces of it? It was weird!”
“Dear girl,” Guy said, “that was an act of superhuman courage and selfsacrifice. I said to myself, ‘Ye gods, I’ll bet nobody’s ever asked this old bat for seconds on anything in her entire life! So I did it.” He waved a hand grandly. “Now and again I get these noble urges.”
They went into the bedroom. “She raises herbs and spices,” Rosemary said, “and when they’re full-grown she throws them out the window.”
“Shh, the walls have ears,” Guy said. “Hey, how about that silverware?”
“Isn’t that funny?” Rosemary said, working her feet against the floor to unshoe them; “only three dinner plates that match, and they’ve got that beautiful, beautiful silver.”
“Let’s be nice; maybe they’ll will it to us.”
“Let’s be nasty and buy our own. Did you go to the bathroom?”
“There? No.”
“Guess what they’ve got in it.”
“A bidet.”
“No, Jokes for The John. “
“No.
Rosemary shucked off her dress. “A book on a hook,” she said. “Right next to the toilet.”
Guy smiled and shook his head. He began taking out his cufflinks, standing beside the armoire. “Those stories of Roman’s, though,” he said, “were pretty damn interesting, actually. I’d never even heard of Forties-Robertson before, but he was a very big star in his day.” He worked at the second link, having trouble with it. “I’m going to go over there again tomorrow night and hear some more,” he said.
Rosemary looked at him, disconcerted. “You are?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “he asked me.” He held out his hand to her. “Can you get this off for me?”
She went to him and worked at the link, feeling suddenly lost and uncertain. “I thought we were going to do something with Jimmy and Tiger,” she said.
“Was that definite?” he asked. His eyes looked into hers. “I thought we were just going to call and see.”
“It wasn’t definite,” she said.
He shrugged. “We’ll see them Wednesday or Thursday.”
She got the link out and held it on her palm. He took it. “Thanks,” he said. “You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to; you can stay here.”
