Mr. Crozier didn"t laugh, but he never laughed, really. He raised his eyebrows, pretending to scold, to find Roxanne outrageous but endearing all the same. This could have been good manners, or grat.i.tude for all her efforts, whatever they might be.
I myself made sure to laugh, so that Roxanne would not put me down as being full of priggish innocence.
The other thing she did, to keep things lively, was tell about her life. Coming down from some lost little town in northern Ontario to Toronto to visit her older sister, then getting a job at Eaton"s, first cleaning things up in the cafeteria, then being noticed by one of the managers because she worked fast and was always cheerful, and suddenly finding herself a salesgirl in the glove department. (I thought she made this sound something like being discovered by Warner Brothers.) And who should come in one day but Barbara Ann Scott, the skating star, who bought a pair of elbow-length white kid gloves.
Meanwhile Roxanne"s sister had so many boyfriends that she would flip a coin to see who she would go out with almost every night, and she employed Roxanne to meet the rejects regretfully at the front door of the rooming house, while she herself and her pick sneaked out the back. Roxanne said maybe that was how she had developed such a gift of the gab. And pretty soon some of the boys she met this way were taking her out on her own, instead of her sister. They did not know her real age.
"I had me a ball," she said.
I began to understand that there were certain talkers-certain girls-whom people liked to listen to, not because of what they, the girls, had to say, but because of the delight they took in saying it. A delight in themselves, a shine on their faces, a conviction that whatever they were telling about was remarkable and that they themselves could not help but give pleasure. There might be other people-people like me-who didn"t concede this, but that was their loss. And people like me would never be the audience these girls were after, anyway.
Mr. Crozier sat propped up on his pillows and looked for all the world as if he was happy. Happy just to close his eyes and let her talk, then open his eyes and find her there, like a chocolate bunny on Easter morning. And then with his eyes open follow every twitch of her candy lips and sway of her sumptuous bottom.
Old Mrs. Crozier would rock slightly back and forth in her curious state of satisfaction.
The time Roxanne spent upstairs was as long as she spent downstairs, giving the ma.s.sage. I wondered if she was being paid. If she wasn"t, how could she afford to take the time? And who could be paying her but Old Mrs. Crozier?
Why?
To keep her stepson happy and comfortable? I doubted it.
To keep herself entertained in a curious way?
One afternoon when Roxanne had left his room, Mr. Crozier said he felt thirstier than usual. I went downstairs to get him some water from the pitcher that was always in the refrigerator. Roxanne was packing up to go home.
"I never meant to stay so late," she said. "I wouldn"t want to run into that schoolteacher."
I didn"t understand for a moment.
"You know. Syl-vi-a. She"s not crazy about me either, is she? She ever mention me when she drives you home?"
I said that Sylvia had never mentioned Roxanne"s name to me, during any of our drives. But why should she?
"Dorothy says she doesn"t know how to handle him. She says I make him a lot happier than what she does. Dorothy says that. I wouldn"t be surprised she even told her that to her face."
I thought of how Sylvia ran upstairs into her husband"s room every afternoon when she got home, before she even spoke to me or her mother-in-law, her face flushed with eagerness and desperation. I wanted to say something about that-I wanted somehow to defend her, but I didn"t know how. And people as confident as Roxanne often seemed to get the better of me, even if it was only by not listening.
"You sure she never says anything about me?"
I said again that no, she didn"t. "She"s tired when she gets home."
"Yeah. Everybody"s tired. Some just learn to act like they aren"t."
I did say something then, to balk her. "I quite like her."
"You qwat like her?" mocked Roxanne.
Playfully, sharply, she jerked at a strand of the bangs I had recently cut for myself.
"You ought to do something decent with your hair."
Dorothy says.
If Roxanne wanted admiration, which was her nature, what was it Dorothy wanted? I had a feeling there was mischief stirring, but I could not pin it down. Maybe it was just a desire to have Roxanne in the house, her liveliness in the house, double time.
Midsummer pa.s.sed. Water was low in the wells. The sprinkler truck stopped coming and some stores had put up sheets of what looked like yellow cellophane in their windows to keep their goods from fading. Leaves were spotty, gra.s.s dry.
Old Mrs. Crozier kept her garden man hoeing, day after day. That"s what you do in the dry weather, hoe and hoe to bring up any moisture that you can find in the ground underneath.
Summer school at the college would end after the second week of August, and then Sylvia Crozier would be home every day.
Mr. Crozier was still glad to see Roxanne, but he often fell asleep. He could fall asleep without letting his head fall back, during one of her jokes or anecdotes. Then after a moment he would be awake, he would ask where he was.
"Right here, you sleepy noodle. You"re supposed to be paying attention to me. I should bat you one. Or how "bout I try tickling you instead?"
Anybody could see how he was failing. There were hollows in his cheeks like an old man"s and the light shone through the tops of his ears as if they were not flesh but plastic. (Though we didn"t say "plastic" then; we said "celluloid.") The last day of my working there, Sylvia"s last day of teaching, was a ma.s.sage day. Sylvia had to leave early for the college, because of some ceremony, so I walked across town, arriving when Roxanne was already there. Old Mrs. Crozier was also in the kitchen, and they both looked at me as if they had forgotten I was coming, as if I had interrupted them.
"I ordered them specially," said Old Mrs. Crozier.
She must have meant the macaroons sitting in the baker"s box on the table.
"Yeah, but I told you," said Roxanne. "I can"t eat that stuff. Not no way no how."
"I sent Hervey down to the bakeshop to get them."
Hervey was the name of our neighbor, her garden man.
"Okay let Hervey eat them. I"m not kidding, I break out something awful."
"I thought we"d have a treat, like something special," said Old Mrs. Crozier. "Seeing it"s the last day we"ve got before-"
"Last day before she parks her b.u.t.t here permanently, yeah, I know. Doesn"t help me breaking out like a spotted hyena."
Who was it whose b.u.t.t was parked permanently?
Sylvia"s. Sylvia.
Old Mrs. Crozier was wearing a beautiful black silk wrapper, with water lilies and geese on it. She said, "No chance of having anything special with her around. You"ll see."
"So let"s get going and get some time today. Don"t bother about this stuff, it"s not your fault. I know you got it to be nice."
"I know you got it to be nice," imitated Old Mrs. Crozier in a mean mincing voice, and then they both looked at me, and Roxanne said, "Pitcher"s where it always is."
I took Mr. Crozier"s pitcher of water out of the fridge. It occurred to me that they could offer me a golden macaroon out of those sitting in the box, but apparently it did not occur to them.
I expected him to be lying back on the pillows with his eyes closed, but Mr. Crozier was wide awake.
"I"ve been waiting," he said, and took a breath. "For you to get here," he said. "I want to ask you-do something for me. Will you?"
I said sure.
"Keep it a secret?"
I had been worried that he might ask me to help him to the commode that had recently appeared in his room, but surely that would not have to be a secret.
Yes.
He told me to go to the bureau across from his bed and open the left-hand little drawer, and see if I could find a key there.
I did so. I found a large heavy old-fashioned key.
He wanted me to go out of this room and shut the door and lock it. Then hide the key in a safe place, perhaps in the pocket of my shorts.
I was not to tell anybody what I had done.
I was not to let anybody know I had the key until his wife came home, and then I was to give it to her. Did I understand?
Okay.
He thanked me.
Okay.
All the time he was talking to me there was a film of sweat on his face and his eyes were bright as if he had a fever.
"n.o.body is to get in."
"n.o.body to get in," I repeated.
"Not my stepmother or-Roxanne. Just my wife."
I locked the door from the outside and put the key in the pocket of my shorts. But then I was afraid it could be seen through the light cotton material, so I went downstairs and into the back parlor and hid it between the pages of I Promessi Sposi I Promessi Sposi. I knew that Roxanne and Old Mrs. Crozier would not hear me because the ma.s.sage was going on, and Roxanne was using her professional voice.
"I got my work cut out for me getting these knots out of you today."
And I heard Old Mrs. Crozier"s voice, full of her new displeasure.
"... punching harder than you normally do."
"Well I gotta."
I was headed upstairs when some further thoughts came to me.
If he and not I had locked the door-which was evidently what he wanted the others to think-and I had been sitting on the top step as usual, I would certainly have heard him and called out and roused the others in the house. So I went back down and sat on the bottom step of the front stairs, a place from which it could have been possible for me not to hear a thing.
The ma.s.sage seemed to be brisk and businesslike today; they were evidently not teasing and making jokes. Pretty soon I could hear Roxanne running up the back stairs.
She stopped. She said, "Hey. Bruce."
Bruce.
She rattled the k.n.o.b of the door.
"Bruce."
Then she must have put her mouth to the keyhole, hoping he could hear but n.o.body else could. I could not make out exactly what she was saying, but I could tell she was pleading. First teasing, then pleading. In a while she sounded as if she was saying her prayers.
When she gave that up she started pounding up and down on the door with her fists, not too hard but urgently.
After a while she stopped that too.
"Come on," she said in a firmer voice. "If you got to the door to lock it you can get there to open it up."
Nothing happened. She came and looked over the bannister and saw me.
"Did you take Mr. Crozier"s water into his room?"
I said yes.
"So his door wasn"t locked or anything then?"
No.
"Did he say anything to you?"
"He just said thanks."
"Well, he"s got his door locked and I can"t get him to answer."
I heard Old Mrs. Crozier"s stick pounding to the top of the back stairs.
"What"s the commotion up here?"
"He"s locked hisself in and I can"t get him to answer me."
"What do you mean locked himself in? Likely the door"s stuck. Wind blew it shut and it stuck."
There was no wind that day.
"Try it yourself," said Roxanne. "It"s locked."
"I wasn"t aware there was a key to this door," said Old Mrs. Crozier, as if her not being aware could negate the fact. Then, perfunctorily, she tried the k.n.o.b and said, "Well. It"d appear to be locked."
He had counted on this, I thought. That they would not suspect me, thinking of his being in charge. And in fact he was.
"We have to get in," said Roxanne. She gave a kick to the door.
"Stop that," said Old Mrs. Crozier. "Do you want to wreck the door? You couldn"t get through it anyway; it"s solid oak. Every door in this house is solid oak."