Only the Beautiful, page 14
“Leave it,” Celine commanded.
“But—”
“I said leave it!”
I turned and walked slowly toward my bedroom. I could feel my lip beginning to swell. As soon as I was inside, Celine grabbed the door handle.
“You open this door and I swear to God I’ll break your arm.” She slammed the door shut.
I folded myself onto my bed, dazed and aching. Many minutes later I heard Celine talking on the telephone three rooms away. I couldn’t make out the muffled words. Celine was speaking relatively calmly, though, definitely not to Truman.
Then I heard a key turn in the lock of my bedroom door. I hadn’t even known there was a key for that lock. Some minutes later, Celine was on the patio outside my window. I rose from my bed to peer out. Celine was standing there with my travel bag in one hand, her purse and car keys in the other. One of the vineyard employees, an older man named Horace, stood next to her.
“If she so much as opens that window an inch, you slam it shut,” Celine was telling the man. “I don’t care if you bring it down on her fingers. She has stolen from me.”
I watched as Celine handed the man money. It looked like a lot, surely enough to buy his participation. The man pulled up one of the patio chairs and set it within yards of my window and took a seat. Celine stared at me through the lacy curtain and then walked off, taking my travel bag with her, knowing that I wouldn’t go far without it.
From the window, I couldn’t see Celine getting into her ve hicle, but I heard the engine turn over, heard the tires on the gravel, saw pricks of pale brown.
I returned to my bed, curled up on it, and tried to think where Celine was driving off to. What was she doing? Who was she telling? And how was I going to get away now? How in the world was I going to get away now? After a long while lying there in terror, my troubling thoughts exhausted me into sleep.
When I woke up, it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. The house was still quiet. Horace was still seated outside my window, nodding off but not in deep sleep. I was thirsty. I went into my bathroom, turned on the cold-water tap, and drank from my cupped hand. The cool water soothed my swollen lip.
At four o’clock, Celine returned and Horace left.
Half an hour later, Celine opened the door, and I sat up on my bed.
Celine’s gaze was like steel, but her voice was calm. “Arrangements have been made for you.”
“Please, Mrs. Calvert. You don’t have to arrange anything. If you will just give me my bag, I—”
“You’ll go where I say.”
“Where . . . where am I going?”
Celine regarded me coolly. “Where you belong.”
“Please, Mrs. Calvert.” I felt new tears spill from my eyes, making the cut on my lip sting.
“Give me your shoes.”
“What?”
“Your shoes. Give me your shoes.”
“What? Why?” I sputtered.
“Why do you think? Mrs. Grissom will be coming for you the day after tomorrow. I intend to make sure you go with her and nowhere else. You’ll get your shoes back then. Now, give them to me.”
I sat back down on my bed, removed my shoes, and handed them to Celine.
“I don’t care what you do between now and then, but you will not leave this house or touch the telephone or answer the door. And I don’t want to see you. Do you understand? If I were you, I’d stay in here except to get something to eat. Because I don’t want to see you.”
Celine turned and left, closing the door behind her.
Minutes later, Alphonse arrived to make dinner. I heard him ask about me.
“She’s not feeling well,” Celine said.
15
JUNE 1939
When I am finally allowed to return to the third floor, the room I share with Belle is empty. I want to go looking for her, but I am told to stay in my bed. I wait until shortly before suppertime, when Belle at last returns to our room, congratulating me heartily on the birth of my baby girl. Only then can I tell her what Dr. Townsend has planned for me in just two days’ time.
“We’re getting out of here tomorrow, just like I said we would,” she says softly, confidently. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“Rudy’s keys have to open the door to the nursery, Belle,” I continue, my tone as quiet as hers, but not nearly as confident. “I can’t leave without Amaryllis.”
“Amaryllis? That’s her name?” Belle looks at me quizzically, but this is no time to explain anything.
“His keys have to open the door to the nursery!” I whisper insistently.
“They will, they will. His keys open all the doors. He told me.”
“And there’s sure to be a night nurse in the nursery. You must get my baby without her seeing you.”
Belle waves my concern away. “Not to worry, Rosie. I can be as stealthy as a cat. You’ll see. I’ve taken care of everything. Rudy’s going to be leaving some clothes in a suitcase for me on the outside, behind a gas station he knows of about a mile from here. We can’t be seen in these clothes, you know. And you probably won’t fit in anything in that bag of yours.”
“Which we have to get.”
“I know, I know. And, hey, I won’t be able to vouch for the style of the clothes Rudy gets. I have a feeling he’s going to be stealing them from the back of his mother’s closet. They’re going to be dresses even she doesn’t wear anymore.” Belle laughs lightly.
Far from putting me at ease, Belle’s confidence is unnerving. The last time I tried to escape from somewhere, I was sent to this godforsaken place. I want to believe, as she so easily does, that I can have a happy life again. I had one once. It was a simple life. There wasn’t much money, and I felt a bit alone, but I had been happy. I hadn’t realized this was true until this moment. When I had my family, the vineyard, and my colors, I had been happy. It had been a good life. My family is gone now, and so is the vineyard, but I still have my colors. Surely a new kind of happiness is still within reach.
That night, my sleep is again interrupted by my breasts, which ache, and by dreams of escaping, of holding Amaryllis. Several times I wake with a start when I realize my arms are empty.
On Sunday morning, I lie in my bed as the rising sun slowly replaces the darkness with mellow light. This is the last time I will open my eyes in this room.
I am allowed to go with Belle down to the cafeteria for meals, for which I am grateful. I don’t want to while away the entire day in our room waiting for the sun to set, waiting for the midnight hour, waiting for freedom.
Belle is in high spirits, seemingly intoxicated by what will happen tonight. Her cheeks, flushed with excitement, make her more beautiful than ever. I spend the day quietly wishing she would just act like herself. But all throughout the day, whenever I see her, Belle is full of laughs. She has learned Stuart Townsend has been charged with outside security tonight, and she finds this exceedingly convenient.
“Even if he does see us, he’ll let us go,” Belle murmurs to me just as the dinner chimes ring. “He’s in love with me.”
“But you can’t let him see us!” I reply in an urgent whisper.
“He won’t!”
Minutes later, Belle and I see Stuart on the first floor as we emerge from the elevator on our way to dinner. It is the beginning of his evening shift. Belle immediately makes a comment about how handsome he looks in his uniform and with that shiny whistle around his neck. The observation makes Stuart blush with obvious infatuation. He walks with us to the cafeteria, and Belle prattles on about how safe she feels with him in charge and I wish she would just shut up. When we get to the cafeteria doors and the queue to go inside, Stuart has no choice but to round the corner and continue on his way, though he seems reluctant to do it.
“Belle, can’t you please just leave him alone?” I say softly when he is gone. “Must you lead him on like that? You don’t need to.”
“For heaven’s sake. I’m just having a bit of fun with him,” Belle answers, loud enough for anyone to hear—if anyone in the queue with us cares to listen. A couple of residents turn their heads.
“But he thinks you really like him. It’s not kind, what you’re doing.”
“Honestly, Rosie,” Belle continues at normal volume, and sounding a bit peeved with me. “He’s just a child. Probably doesn’t even know what his pecker is for.” This Belle says plenty loud enough for others around us to hear. There are gasps and laughs, and I turn to see who else heard Belle. Belle turns, too, and we both see that Stuart has returned from around the corner, and he heard it as well. His face is a mask of humiliation and hurt.
“Oops!” Belle says, and a laugh escapes her. Several other residents laugh, too, but before she can think of a quick explanation for what she said, Stuart turns and hurries out of sight.
“I was only kidding, Stuart!” Belle calls after him.
I feel bad for the boy, but I must dismiss it. I need to concentrate on supper and eating a full plate. Neither I nor Belle knows when or where we will get our next meal. Soon we will be gone, and hopefully Stuart will forget Belle and that he had his heart flattened by her.
The rest of the evening seems to pass at a snail’s pace. When it is finally lights-out, I get under the covers to lie awake until Belle says it is time to set our plan in motion. We talked it over during outdoors time that afternoon. When the rest of the room is soundly asleep, we will put our day clothes back on and then wait for the nurse on our ward to go downstairs for her nightly snack of tea and toast, which usually happens around midnight. While I’m not supposed to use the stairs yet, I know I must, as not only will the elevator be noisy, but the night nurse from our ward will be taking it. We will quietly sneak down the stairs to the second floor, where Belle will use Rudy’s keys to open the door into the infirmary to get inside the nursery. I will hold the door slightly ajar so that she will not need to use the keys again to open it from within. We do not know how long this part will take because Belle will have to find the nursery, take the hoped-for sleeping baby out of the room, and all without being seen. And then we will head to the first-floor administrative closet, and then the front door and freedom.
When we are finally able to start executing the plan, the first part goes off seamlessly. In mere minutes after leaving our room—after molding our bed pillows and nightgowns into body-shaped mounds under our blankets—I am standing at the door to the infirmary, holding it only slightly open. I pray Hail Marys repeatedly, dreading every second I stand there that I’ll soon hear shouts or an alarm sounding. I don’t know how long I wait, but finally Belle is at the door with a bundle in her arms—sweet Amaryllis, asleep and wrapped in a blanket. She hands my daughter to me and quietly closes the door behind us so that it clicks nearly silently.
“The old bat is asleep in her chair,” Belle whispers with a laugh, speaking of the nursery’s night nurse, and the only staff member she saw in the infirmary.
Back to the stairs; we go to the first floor. My stitches are starting to burn, but I ignore the pain. Belle opens the stairwell door slowly and quietly, but there is no one in the hallway or in the dimly lit reception area. Belle has to try several keys to open the door to the administration wing, but once we are in the hallway, the same key opens a closet next to a file room.
“That’s it.” I point to my travel bag on a middle shelf on the right side of the enclosed space.
Belle grabs the bag and then pulls the closet door shut. We hurry back into the hall and to the front door. Belle chooses a different key to open the lock, and we quietly step out into the night.
Belle runs down the steps and onto the gravel drive, and I struggle to keep up, the burning sensation between my legs now feeling like fire.
“We’ve got to be quick about this part,” Belle whispers over her shoulder urgently.
“I know,” I say.
“Let me take Amaryllis.” Belle slings the travel bag over her shoulder and reaches for the baby as we continue to run.
“No, I’ve got her.”
A sallow moon is throwing pale light onto the gravel. Ahead are the darkened gatehouse and the two massive oak trees that frame it. No one comes through the gates after lights-out, and Rudy does not have a key to the gate, but he promised to leave it unlatched when he left for the night. As we near it, I hope against hope that he has done so.
We are nearly at the gate when a figure steps out of the shadows cast by one of the oak trees. Belle and I startle to a stop.
Stuart comes into the light spilled by the moon. He looks angry, defiant, and in charge. He also looks a little out of breath, like he ran to the shadow of the tree ahead of us before Belle even opened the front door. He must have seen us creeping down the stairs or entering the infirmary. He had to have seen us in the darkened halls to be here now, standing in front of the only way out of this place. He could’ve sounded the alarm when he first saw us, but he’s waited until Belle and I are just seconds away from our escape.
My heart begins to hammer inside my chest. In my arms, Amaryllis stirs.
“What are you doing here?” Belle says impatiently, clearly not concerned about how Stuart has come to be standing in front of us, blocking our way. But then she quickly softens her tone. “Come now. I know you care for me, Stuart. Let us be on our way. No one needs to know you saw us. You’ll be our hero.”
Stuart is staring at her as if he wants to be the hero of our story. As if maybe he is considering it, imagining what it might be like to be that man in Belle’s life, the man who saved her. But then his look goes stony.
“Why should I do anything nice for you?” He reaches for the whistle hanging around his neck. “After what you did to me?”
Belle takes a step forward. “Don’t—”
But Stuart puts the whistle to his lips and blows.
“Damn you!” Belle screams. She grabs me with one hand, throws open the gate with the other, and we dash out past the gatehouse and into the road. Amaryllis is wailing in earnest now. Behind us, Stuart is blowing into his whistle again and again as he runs back to the building. Over my shoulder, I see lights flooding the first-floor windows.
“Run!” Belle yells.
And I do. I try, but Amaryllis is screaming and Belle is running too fast and the night is dark and the road uneven and I can feel blood trickling down my legs. I stumble, and as I begin to go down, I cocoon my daughter against my chest so that my own head and cheek and shoulder take the brunt of the fall. For a second as I lie at the edge of the roadside ditch, I see only brilliant starlight. I raise myself up as my vision begins to clear, with blood and dirt in my eyes and my screaming baby still in my arms. I see Belle, with my travel bag over her shoulder, a speck in the distance.
Then there is the sound of a vehicle, and then headlights and loud voices.
The blood from inside me is warm on my legs, and the night is cold. And then my world goes black.
16
Before . . .
FEBRUARY 1939
Truman arrived home from his overnight trip to San Leandro in the late afternoon.
I had been instructed that when I heard his car, I was to stay in my bedroom. I was not to be seen or heard if I knew what was good for me.
It was a warm day for late February, and Celine had opened some windows in the house, including the one in the master suite. Perhaps Celine wanted me to hear what she was going to say to her husband, because she didn’t close it when, after having seen no one in the front of the house upon his arrival, Truman proceeded to their bedroom. My window was open as well.
Celine wasted no time.
“I have very distressing news about Rosie.” Her words were clipped but clear, floating on the air from her window to mine like they were pinned to a connecting ribbon.
“Oh?” Truman said.
“Yes, very distressing,” Celine continued icily. “She got herself pregnant.”
A slight pause. “What was that?” he said.
“She got herself pregnant, Truman.”
“Are . . . are you sure?” He sounded uneasy.
“Oh yes. I’m very sure. It happened sometime in November, I’d say. She’s far enough along you can see it.” The pitch of Celine’s voice had risen several degrees.
“No, that’s not . . . not . . .” Truman’s voice sounded weak. Airless.
“What? Not possible? Oh, it’s possible. It’s not only possible, it’s true. Rosie is pregnant. Easy enough for it to happen, you know. All a girl has to do is open her legs to a man.”
I felt the contents of my stomach churn, and I swallowed back the bile. There was no doubt in my mind that Celine knew. If there had been any question before, it was now crystal clear. Celine knew Truman was the father.
“God, that’s . . . disappointing,” Truman said.
“Yes. It is disappointing, isn’t it?” Celine’s voice was mocking, her words wrapped in venomous yellow.
Seconds of silence followed.
“Did she tell you . . . um . . .”
“Did she tell me who the father is? No. She did not. I imagine it’s some boy she met in town. Or maybe one of the field hands. Or any number of young men she has probably met up with in town on those so-called bicycle rides to the library. Maybe she herself doesn’t know who the father is because there have been so many.”
“Celine.”
“What? Isn’t that what had to have happened, Truman? Isn’t it? It had to have been someone she met in town or across the road. Because you would never risk all that you have here for a few moments of carnal pleasure, would you? You wouldn’t risk this beautiful house and all the money and your nice car and a relationship with your son for a romp with the maid, who, let’s just remember for a moment, also happens to be your ward? Can you imagine the consequences for this family if you had in fact risked it all? The charges that could be brought against you? The damage to the family business and my late father’s legacy? Why, it’s unthinkable. You would never, ever put Wilson and me through something like that. So of course that’s what happened. She’s been out sleeping around. You’ve probably seen her coming in late a time or two from a bike ride in town, haven’t you? I’m sure I have.”
