“I think I will,” she said. “Stay here.” She went to the bed and sat down.
“He knew Henry Irving too,” Guy said. “It’s really terrifically interesting.”
Rosemary unhooked her stockings. “Why did they take down the pictures?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Their pictures; they took them down. In the living room and in the hallway leading back to the bathroom. There are hooks in the wall and clean places. And the one picture that is there, over the mantel, doesn’t fit. There are two inches of clean at both sides of it.”
Guy looked at her. “I didn’t notice,” he said.
“And why do they have all those files and things in the living room?” she asked.
“That he told me,” Guy said, taking off his shirt. “He puts out a newsletter for stamp collectors. All over the world. That’s why they get so much foreign mail.”
“Yes, but why in the living room?” Rosemary said. “They have three or four other rooms, all with the doors closed. Why doesn’t he use one of those?”
Guy went to her, shirt in hand, and pressed her nose with a firm fingertip. “You’re getting nosier than Minnie,” he said, kissed air at her, and went out to the bathroom.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, while in the kitchen putting on water for coffee, Rosemary got the sharp pain in her middle that was the night-before signal of her period. She relaxed with one hand against the corner of the stove, letting the pain have its brief way, and then she got out a Chemex paper and the can of coffee, feeling disappointed and forlorn.
She was twenty-four and they wanted three children two years apart; but Guy “wasn’t ready yet”-nor would he ever be ready, she feared, until he was as big as Marlon Brando and Richard Burton put together. Didn’t he know how handsome and talented he was, how sure to succeed? So her plan was to get pregnant by “accident”; the pills gave her headaches, she said, and rubber gadgets were repulsive. Guy said that subconsciously she was still a good Catholic, and she protested enough to support the explanation. Indulgently he studied the calendar and avoided the “dangerous days,” and she said, “No, it’s safe today, darling; I’m sure it is.”
And again this month he had won and she had lost, in this undignified contest in which he didn’t even know they were engaged. “Damn!” she said, and banged the coffee can down on the stove. Guy, in the den, called, “What happened?
“I bumped my elbow!” she called back.
At least she knew now why she had become depressed during the evening.
Double damn! If they were living together and not married she would have been pregnant fifty times by now!
Seven
The following evening after dinner Guy went over to the Castevets’. Rosemary straightened up the kitchen and was debating whether to work on the windowseat cushions or get into bed with Manchild in The Promised Land when the doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Castevet, and with her another woman, short, plump, and smiling, with a Buckley-for-Mayor button on the shoulder of a green dress.
“Hi, dear, we’re not bothering you, are we?” Mrs. Castevet said when Rosemary had opened the door. “This is my dear friend Laura-Louise McBurney, who lives up on twelve. Laura-Louise, this is Guy’s wife Rosemary.”
“Hello, Rosemary! Welcome to the Bram!”
“Laura-Louise just met Guy over at our place and she wanted to meet you too, so we came on over. Guy said you were staying in not doing anything. Can we come in?”
With resigned good grace Rosemary showed them into the living room.
“Oh, you’ve got new chairs,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Aren’t they beautiful!” “They came this morning,” Rosemary said.
“Are you all right, dear? You look worn.”
“I’m fine,” Rosemary said and smiled. “It’s the first day of my period.”
“And you’re up and around?” Laura-Louise asked, sitting. “On my first days I experienced such pain that I couldn’t move or eat or anything. Dan had to give me gin through a straw to kill the pain and we were one- hundred-percent Temperance at the time, with that one exception.”
“Girls today take things more in their stride than we did,” Mrs. Castevet said, sitting too. “They’re healthier than we were, thanks to vitamins and better medical care.”
Both women had brought identical green sewing bags and, to Rosemary’s surprise, were opening them now and taking out crocheting (Laura-Louise) and darning (Mrs. Castevet); settling down for a long evening of needlework and conversation. “What’s that over there?” Mrs. Castevet asked. “Seat covers?”
“Cushions for the window seats,” Rosemary said, and thinking Oh all right, I will, went over and got the work and brought it back and joined them.
Laura-Louise said, “You’ve certainly made a tremendous change in the apartment, Rosemary.”
“Oh, before I forget,” Mrs. Castevet said, “this is for you. From Roman and me.” She put a small packet of pink tissue paper into Rosemary’s hand, with a hardness inside it.
“For me?” Rosemary asked. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s just a little present is all,” Mrs. Castevet said, dismissing Rosemary’s puzzlement with quick hand- waves. “For moving in.”
“But there’s no reason for you to . . .” Rosemary unfolded the leaves of used-before tissue paper. Within the pink was Terry’s silver filigree ball-charm and its clustered-together neckchain. The smell of the ball’s filling made Rosemary pull her head away.
“It’s real old,” Mrs. Castevet said. “Over three hundred years.”
“It’s lovely,” Rosemary said, examining the ball and wondering whether she should tell that Terry had shown it to her. The moment for doing so slipped by.
“The green inside is called tannis root,” Mrs. Castevet said. “It’s good luck.”
Not for Terry, Rosemary thought, and said, “It’s lovely, but I can’t accept such a-“
“You already have,” Mrs. Castevet said, darning a brown sock and not looking at Rosemary. “Put it on.”
Laura-Louise said, “You’ll get used to the smell before you know it.”
“Go on,” Mrs. Castevet said.
“Well, thank you,” Rosemary said; and uncertainly she put the chain over her head and tucked the ball into the collar of her dress. It dropped down between her breasts, cold for a moment and obtrusive. I’ll take it off when they go, she thought.
Laura-Louise said, “A friend of ours made the chain entirely by hand. He’s a retired dentist and his hobby is making jewelry out of silver and gold. You’ll meet him at Minnie and Roman’s on-on some night soon, I’m sure, because they entertain so much. You’ll probably meet all their friends, all our friends.”
Rosemary looked up from her work and saw Laura-Louise pink with an embarrassment that had hurried and confused her last words. Minnie was busy darning, unaware. Laura-Louise smiled and Rosemary smiled back.
“Do you make your own clothes?” Laura-Louise asked.
“No, I don’t,” Rosemary said, letting the subject be changed. “I try to every once in a while but nothing ever hangs right.”
It turned out to be a fairly pleasant evening. Minnie told some amusing stories about her girlhood in Oklahoma, and Laura-Louise showed Rosemary two useful sewing tricks and explained feelingly how Buckley, the Conservative mayoral candidate, could win the coming election despite the high odds against him.
Guy came back at eleven, quiet and oddly self-contained. He said hello to the women and, by Rosemary’s chair, bent and kissed her cheek. Minnie said, “Eleven? My land! Come on, Laura-Louise.” Laura-Louise said, “Come and visit me any time you want, Rosemary; I’m in twelve F.” The two women closed their sewing bags and went quickly away.
“Were his stories as interesting as last night?” Rosemary asked.
“Yes,” Guy said. “Did you have a nice time?”
“All right. I got some work done.”
“So I see.”
“I got a present too.”
She showed him the charm. “It was Terry’s,” she said. “They gave it to her; she showed it to me. The police must have-given it back.”
