The Book of V.: A Novel(48)

She swallows what’s left of the apple’s pulp, looking not at Philip but out the sliding glass door to the yard, where the boys are running and throwing leaves in the near dark. Where is the girl?

“It’s getting cold out there,” she says.

Philip sets a pot on the stove.

“I need a little more time,” she says.

“We’ve given you time.”

“I have to figure some things out.”

“It’s not good for Rosemary.” Philip is doing nothing now but looking at her. “Having you here. She’s got the pregnancy. The kids.” Me, he adds with his eyes.

“Did you tell her about the call?”

“Not yet.”

Vee watches him. Her robe has loosened slightly, but she doesn’t clutch at it now. She simply stands there, looking at him as he looks at her, watching as his eyes drop, knowing what she’s doing even as she didn’t intend it. Half a minute passes. Then the door slides open and the kitchen fills with cold and shouts, the kids throwing off their hats, Philip ordering them to pick them up, and Vee slips out. Her robe is tightly wrapped again by the time she reaches the stairs. But Rosemary, who is sitting on the third step to take off her shoes, notices the fact of it—she scans Vee from top to bottom before returning her gaze to her shoes. Vee could explain. But to explain would sound like a defense, which would suggest she’s done something that needs defending. So she kisses the top of Rosemary’s head, says, “Welcome home,” and goes around her and up the stairs, to change.



* * *



Later that evening, after the children are in bed and Philip is in his office at the back of the house, Vee and Rosemary sit on the living room couch. Vee drinks bourbon. Rosemary drinks wine. She says the doctor told her no hard alcohol. And no more cigarettes.

“Why?”

Rosemary shrugs. Her feet are pulled up under her, swallowed by a flannel nightgown that makes her appear at once like a little girl and a much older woman. She looks very tired.

“Was it just a routine visit?”

“I think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve been spotting a little.”

“Like, getting your period?”

“No. Just a little spotting. It comes and goes,” Rosemary says again, with maybe a hint of impatience, and for a moment Vee wonders if what Philip said to her in the kitchen, about how Vee isn’t good for Rosemary, is something Rosemary said, to Philip. She wonders if Rosemary is thinking about the robe. But then Rosemary takes a long sip of wine and says, pointing at Vee’s pack of Raleighs on the coffee table, “You can smoke. I don’t mind. I like the smell,” and Vee relaxes.

She drags the pack toward herself with a socked foot. “Are you worried?” she asks.

“There’s not much use in worrying. Right? He said bed rest might help. But I’m not doing that.”

“Are you going to tell Philip?”

“What.”

“What the doctor said.”

“No.”

Vee lights a cigarette.

“But I can’t be intimate,” Rosemary says. “And I have to tell him that. According to the doctor.”

“Which part is according to the doctor?”

“Both. I mean, he hasn’t come near me in a month. So it may not be necessary to tell him.”

Vee nods. She waits. Maybe this is when Rosemary begins to talk. Certainly it’s not turning out to be the night for Vee to tell Rosemary about the lumberjack man, as she’d planned to. But Rosemary can tell Vee about her marriage. And maybe tomorrow, or the next day, Vee can tell.

But Rosemary is quiet, sipping her wine. Vee pours herself more bourbon. She is drinking quickly tonight; she can’t help it sometimes, this urge toward oblivion. She is frightened by Rosemary’s spotting. She feels guilty about the robe and the kitchen encounter with Philip, though nothing happened but a bared sternum, a hint of bone. She drinks for a little while, then ventures, “So?…?it sounds like the doctor’s a little worried. Even if you’re not?”

Rosemary groans. “Have you ever been able to tell what a doctor thinks?” She finishes off her wine, sets the glass on the coffee table, then leans her head back into the couch so that she’s staring at the fireplace across from them. Vee looks at it, too: a classic colonial fireplace lined with black bricks, big enough to cook in and to heat the whole house. The house is chilly. Philip keeps the thermostat at 67.

“Should I build a fire?” Vee asks.

Rosemary says, “Nah. It’s too late.”

“Good. I don’t know if I could even do it anymore.”

They laugh. But Rosemary still seems sad. She seems unlike Rosemary.

“Do you hang stockings?” Vee asks, waving her cigarette at the mantelpiece. “Do you put up a tree?”

Rosemary shakes her head.

Vee grabs a throw off an armchair and spreads it across her friend, and Rosemary sinks further into the cushions. “Thank you,” she says. Then: “I want to lie down.”

“It’s fine. I’ll just finish this cigarette and head up myself.”

“No, I mean on this couch. Right here. I’m too tired to sit up.”

Vee stands up so Rosemary can stretch out, then, when Rosemary pats the space next to her, she lies down, too, with her head on the armrest and her glass on her chest. They look at the ceiling together.