Change Places with Me(10)

“Oh, my dear, come in!” Mrs. Moore said. Rose realized she’d never seen Mrs. Moore indoors and close up like this. Her skin looked thin, papery. She wore a flowery housedress that zipped up the front, and she smelled like minty toothpaste. “How lovely to see you. Is that a new hairdo?”

“You like it?”

“You have such lovely blue eyes. I never knew.”

“Mrs. Moore, I’d like to have a party this Saturday night. It might get loud. If that’s a problem, I’ll cancel it.” Rose really hoped she wouldn’t have to.

“The benefits of old age—you get quite deaf,” said Mrs. Moore. “The noise won’t bother me at all. Would you like to come in and sit down?”

“I’d love to.”

Rose followed Mrs. Moore to the living room. The place had the same layout as Rose’s, but the unfamiliar furniture made it look entirely different. Mrs. Moore had wooden benches with cushions and tiny Persian rugs. Here the rugs were out of place, scattered to the corners, no doubt because of the dogs—who had gone to another room. “Probably to sit on my bed, where they’re not allowed,” Mrs. Moore said. “How nice, my dear, having you here.”

Rose was thinking the same thing. How important it was to be a good listener. For a moment she got lost in this thought, and when she tuned in again, she heard, “—you poor thing, so much sadness in your young life.”

“We all have sadness,” Rose said lightly. “But you can’t let it destroy you; you have to let it go. Grief is a balloon just waiting to be popped.”

“Oh? I can’t say I know what that means. I lost my husband, too, so long ago. He was an artist. He did the painting behind you, of Belle Heights Bay.”

Rose swiveled around to see a swirly picture. Was that a sailboat? Was that lots of water? She couldn’t make it out. People used to swim in Belle Heights Bay, but it hadn’t been clean enough for that in decades. As a kid, she’d heard that if you put your feet in the water, your toenails would dissolve. Her dad always said that was an urban myth, that he’d gone swimming there—“And at last count, I had ten toenails! Though they all turned green.” She’d shrieked and insisted he show her he was only kidding. Unfortunately for her dad, she asked to see them again and again.

“That painting is really pretty,” Rose said.

“Some people find his work blurry. I have to admit, I’m one of them!”

Rose didn’t say she was one of them, too.

Mrs. Moore launched into several stories, including something about going to an eye doctor, to check on that blurriness. Rose’s attention wandered again. She thought about what she might wear to the Halloween party. She hadn’t gotten dressed up since she was a little kid, a ghost in an old sheet with holes cut out. “A classic costume that couldn’t be improved upon,” her dad had said, when she’d wanted to go to Party-A-Rama and buy something. Maybe she should go as a farmer—an inside joke with Nick? Rose was pulled back into the conversation when she heard Mrs. Moore say, “It’s a funny thing about memories. Why do we remember certain things and forget so much else?”

“Memory is a dog,” Rose said.

“What, dear?”

“Memory brings us things we don’t want and plops them in front of us, wagging its tail.”

“The things you say! Grief is a balloon. Memory is a dog.”

“Anyway,” Rose said, “thanks for being so understanding about Saturday night, and for telling me that story about your husband.”

“My niece, you mean.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I have other paintings—in the hall, in the bedroom. Would you like to see them?”

Poor Mrs. Moore was positively starved for company. This was what happened when you gave people a little taste of something they craved—they wanted more and more and more. In a small corner of her mind, she knew exactly what that felt like, to want something so desperately and have no idea how to get it— “Toothache?” Mrs. Moore said.

“What?” Rose, unaware, had been rubbing her jaw.

“See a dentist, my dear. Make sure it’s not the roots.”

Rose stood. “About those paintings? One or two would be nice.” She didn’t want this visit to last forever, after all.





CHAPTER 7


Rose went out for lunch with Selena and Astrid again on Thursday—who knew there was a Korean place in Belle Heights, tucked between a gas station and a parking lot near the expressway?

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Astrid said. “What’s with that ID pic on your phone?”

True, it wasn’t flattering. She’d had it taken at Kim’s apartment when they were experimenting with some stage makeup.

“Yeah,” Selena said. “It’s seriously disgusting.”

“I almost threw up when you called me and that thing came up,” Astrid said. “Delete it now.”

“I will. After we eat.” Rose didn’t want to interrupt things, not when she was ordering sukuh chi gae—seafood with vegetables in spicy broth. In Korean it sounded so sophisticated! Add that to adventurous.

“This party is gonna be so much fun,” Selena said. “I sent out the insta-vites, and tons of kids are coming.”