Clarence straightened, his face flushing with embarrassment. “I’m just keeping Grandma company. I don’t really pay attention to these kinds of shows.”
“Come on, now,” Grandma Sally said. “You like the mystery elements.”
“Yeah, sure, but the romance is a bit thick.”
A Pillsbury commercial for instant mashed potatoes flashed across the screen. A stylish housewife in a crisp apron served her husband a dinner plate then winked at the camera. “Nothing says lovin’ like something from the oven, and Pillsbury does it best!”
Grandma Sally patted the spot beside her. “You’re welcome to join us, Rosa, if you like.”
“Maybe another time,” Rosa said. “I’m headed out to the pool to read.” She lifted her book as if she needed to provide proof.
The episode started playing again, and despite Clarence’s protestations of being uninterested, his actions declared otherwise, and his brow furrowed as he focused on the black-and-white images.
Rosa was pleasantly surprised to find Gloria poolside wearing a flouncy pool dress that was opened at the front showing off a red one-piece bathing suit.
She peered at Rosa over a pair of cat-eye sunglasses. “Hiya!” she said as though they hadn’t seen each other in a year. “Where ya been?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Rosa reclined in a cedarwood lounge chair, exactly the same as the one Gloria occupied. “I missed you at breakfast. And, you took the car.”
“I had a hair appointment,” Gloria said, patting the upturn of the tips of her hair and twisting to present her new do, which had been teased into a bouffant.
“Ah, yes,” Rosa said, her voice light with approval of the new style. “It suits you.”
“It’s blonder,” Gloria explained needlessly. “Can you tell? Blond is all the rage!”
“You look fabulous.”
Gloria’s eyes suddenly flashed with uncertainty. “Do you think so?”
Rosa wasn’t sure why Gloria seemed to need so much validation. Then again, with a demanding mother like Aunt Louisa . . .
“Yes, Gloria. You’re simply stunning.”
“Oh, thank you.” Gloria collapsed back into her lounge chair with an expression of relief.
Rosa opened her book, but the words swam without meaning in front of her. Instead, the sensation of rising into the air on the Ferris wheel captured her thoughts, and how she’d felt both trapped and liberated by the sensation of being suspended in the air. Once she’d let go of the fear of falling—an irrational fear at best since she’d never once heard of a carriage simply falling off such a machine—she’d been captivated by the view. She closed her eyes, and in her mind’s eye she could see the ocean off to the west and in the distance, facing east, a range of mountains. Beyond the natural beauty were the sparkling lights, golden white in the town and an explosion of neon in the fairgrounds.
She saw the tops of the heads of people as they moved from ride to ride, or stood in lines to buy cotton candy or paper cartons of buttered popcorn.
Rosa felt the weight of her eyebrows drop as another memory played like a short film; the one featuring Victor Boyd and Don Welks.
Her eyes popped open and she turned her head to stare at Gloria. Her cousin had also let her magazine fall to the patio as she closed her eyes and soaked up the sun.
“Gloria?”
“Uh-huh,” Gloria said, sleepily.
“Do you know where Joyce and Don live?”
Gloria opened one eye.
“On Sunnyside Avenue. What do you want to see her for?”
“Not just her,” Rosa said, wanting to keep her word to Miguel and not explain her inquiries away. “I want to see Nancy, and Pauline Van Peridon, sometime too.”
Gloria propped up on her elbows, excitement in her eyes. “Are we planning something?”
“Would you like to?”
“Sure. It would be fun.” Gloria’s expression dropped. “Now that Nancy and Joyce are both married, it’s hard to get them out without their husbands. And Nancy’s got kids. Marjorie would be up to it. I know Nance was more your friend, but Marjorie is a lot of fun.”
“What about Pauline?”
“Oh, yeah. I always forget about her.” Gloria’s elbows slid back to her side, her eyes closed again as she relaxed on her back. “Marjorie works as a carhop at the Steak and Shake farther down on Cedar Street.”
“Steak and what?” Rosa asked.
“Steak and Shake. It’s the drive-in restaurant. We should lunch there sometime!”
“Sometime, certainly,” Rosa said, thinking suddenly that she would lunch there today, alone. Her stomach growled at the thought of food. She swung her legs out, and stood. “It’s a little hot for this English flower,” she said. “I’ve not yet adapted to this heat.”
“Stay long enough, and you will,” Gloria said.
Rosa stared at her cousin, and reluctantly asked her next question. “It’s so terrible what happened to Victor Boyd last night, isn’t it?”
Gloria’s relaxed expression grew tight. She slid her sunglasses to the tip of her nose and stared up at Rosa. “Ya, of course. I mean, he was a horrible guy, but I certainly didn’t wish for him to actually die.” Pushing her sunglasses back into place she added, “But I can’t say I’m broken up about the fact that I never have to worry about running into him again.”
12
Now that Gloria had returned with the Bel Air, Rosa was free to take it to run “errands”, at least that’s what she told Aunt Louisa when she ran into her in the hallway outside Uncle Harold’s office where her aunt ran her affairs. She changed into a blue and red summer dress with a matching belt and cloth buttons, and, Gloria would be pleased to know, a full crinoline. Adding a blue half-hat trimmed with a cloth rose, short summer gloves, and red baby doll shoes with heels a little too high to be practical, Rosa took a moment to assess her reflection in the full-length mirror, then added a pearl choker. As her mother was apt to say, one never knew
