A CALIFORNIA ROSE
Chapter Eighteen
Sunday, May 4, 2003
Rose stood in front of the mirror in the
fitting room of the formal wear shop. Ruth stood behind her, tightening the
laces on the back of Rose’s wedding dress.
The dress had been custom made, as specified
by Ruth, who insisted that the gown looked beautiful on Rose. It was made of
ivory satin, with lace inserts in the skirt and tight boning in the low-cut,
sleeveless bodice.
Rose hated it. It was a nice enough dress,
she conceded, but not what she would have chosen for her wedding gown. The
skirt barely brushed the floor, while Rose would have preferred a long train.
Ruth had insisted that a train was impractical, and would only get in the way.
Rose had argued that wedding dresses themselves were impractical, useful only
for weddings, but Ruth had been adamant. No train.
Worse yet was the boning in the top. When
laced, the bodice pulled her waist in and emphasized her full figure, but to
Rose it felt like an old-fashioned corset, especially after the lacings were
pulled as tight as they would go.
It fit looser now, she conceded, as Ruth
pulled the lacings tight. She had had little appetite for the past two weeks,
and had lost weight. Ruth had been both exasperated and pleased by this. On the
one hand, Rose’s gown no longer fit as well as it should have, but on the other
hand, Rose’s weight was now closer to the ideal.
Rose stared into the mirror. Her mother had
pestered her about her weight for years, but Rose had never listened. She had
never been heavier than was medically recommended, so she saw no reason to
force herself to lose weight. She was content with her figure. If she didn’t
resemble the skinny models idealized by society, or even match her mother’s own
slender figure, it didn’t matter. She had always been pleased with what she saw
in the mirror.
Her mother had pulled the laces until they
joined the back edges of the bodice. Only now did the dress fit as it was meant
to. Ruth patted her daughter’s shoulder and told her that she looked lovely
before leaving to find Rose’s veil.
Rose ran her hands over her skirt. She was
getting married in six weeks; she should have been happy. But she wasn’t.
A happy bride should have been smiling,
planning her big day, looking forward to life with her new husband. Rose
dreaded her wedding day.
She should have been cheerful, radiant with
love. Instead, she stood in front of the mirror, staring at the fading bruises
on her arms and face--and at a new bruise on her right wrist.
Cal had promised that he wouldn’t abuse her
anymore. He had kept that promise for two weeks. Then, this morning, he had
grabbed her wrist and twisted it painfully when she had made a remark he
disagreed with. When Rose had protested, he had told her that he wasn’t hurting
her, then slammed her wrist against the doorframe, leaving a painful bruise.
Ruth returned with the veil and began pinning
it into place. Rose watched in the mirror. She did look good in her wedding
attire, she thought, except for her unhappy face. Ruth finished pinning the
veil in place and stepped back to look at Rose.
“Yes. This will do quite nicely. You’ll make
a lovely bride, Rose.” She looked at Rose’s sad face. “I know this is going to
take some adjusting, Rose, but you’ll be fine. You’re going to have a good
life, a good family. I know it’s hard, but you’ll be glad you did this in the
future.”
“Sure, Mom.” Rose forced a smile.
“Everything’s going to be great.”
She started unpinning the veil. Ruth left to
get the garment bags and pay for the dress.
Rose winced as the boning dug into her
healing ribs. Her eyes were haunted as she unhooked the front of the bodice and
let the gown drop to the floor.
Stepping out of the dress, Rose quickly hung
it up and reached for her other garment--a long, lightweight gauze dress that
put no pressure on her healing ribs. Cal had told her that it didn’t suit her,
but Rose had worn it anyway. It was his fault that her ribs pained her.
Besides, she liked the dress.
Ruth helped Rose put the gown and veil into
the bags, and they left the store. It was a warm afternoon. Rose pulled her
hair away from her face as the wind whipped it around. A stray cat darted out
of their path, leaping onto a nearby car with a yowl. Rose watched it,
wondering if her unhappy face had scared it.
They drove home in silence. Rose fiddled with
the radio, trying to avoid conversation. When they reached the house, Rose took
the bags from the trunk of the car and hurried inside.
As she headed for the stairs, she called to
Ruth. “I’m going to study for a while, Mom, okay?”
“Okay, Rose. Just don’t use the Internet. I’m
doing some research for a new project.”
“Fine, Mom.” Rose headed for her room, the
bags slung over her shoulder. Ruth worked every chance possible, trying to work
her way up as an interior designer. Rose shook her head. Her mother, despite
protestations to the contrary, hated her job. She was good at it, though, so
she made a decent income. To Ruth, money and prestige were more important than
satisfaction with life.
Rose wondered why her mother felt that way.
According to Rose’s grandmother, Ruth had once been full of idealism, eager to
change the world, to make a mark on it. Now, all Ruth seemed to care about were
money and prestige.
She wondered if her father had had anything
to do with it. From what she had heard, Ruth had loved Michael Bukater with a
fervor matched only by her desire to change the world. Things hadn’t worked
out, though.
The first year of her parents’ marriage had
been happy, but before long Ruth had grown tired of her husband’s lack of
ambition in life. She became withdrawn, turning more toward her work than her
husband. They had considered divorce, but by that time Rose was on the way, and
they had decided to stay together for her sake.
After Rose was born, things only became
worse. Ruth and Michael avoided each other, arguing vociferously whenever they
were together. As far as Rose knew, there had never been any physical violence
between them, but they had never gotten along.
As the years passed, Michael spent more and
more time away from his wife and daughter. Ruth told Rose that her father was
away on business trips, but by the time Rose was ten, she knew about her
father’s girlfriends.
Ruth had been hurt by Michael’s infidelity,
but she had remained in the marriage, only taking a separate bedroom from her
husband. And, Rose reflected, it was a good thing she had. Michael Bukater had
died from AIDS when Rose was sixteen.
After that, Ruth had thrown herself into her
work, concentrating upon advancing her career and making as much money as
possible. She wanted for Rose the happiness and opportunities in life that she
had never had.
Rose stared at her book, lying unopened on
the desk in front of her. She couldn’t concentrate. Sighing, she got to her
feet and went over to her window to look outside.
There wasn’t much to see. Despite the
pleasantness of the afternoon, few people were outside. One neighbor was
grooming his already immaculate lawn, but beyond that there was no one about.
Rose stared out the window, unseeing, as she
thought about her future. Her wedding day was six weeks away, but she already
knew that things weren’t going to work out. She had had hopes that it would
work out, after Cal’s promise not to abuse her any more, but after this morning
she realized how futile such hopes were. If she married him, she could expect
more beatings, more rapes. One day he might go too far and kill her.
Rose turned away from the window. She couldn’t
marry Cal, she realized, no matter what the consequences were. But what could
she do?
The close confines of the room were stifling
her. Grabbing her purse, Rose hurried out of the room and down the stairs.
“I’m going out for a while, Mom,” she told
Ruth, who was sitting in front of her computer, looking at pictures of
expensively decorated rooms.
“Where are you going?”
Rose thought for a minute. “The library. I
need to look something up for a term paper.”
“All right. I’ll see you later.”
Rose nodded and headed for the door. Her SUV
was parked in the driveway out front. Rose climbed into the vehicle and backed
out of the driveway.
What was she going to do? she wondered, as
she drove through the streets of Masline. She neared the library, but didn’t
pull into the parking lot. Instead, she kept going, driving aimlessly through
the city.
Ruth was serious about her threat to throw
Rose out into the streets, she knew. Her mother felt that she had set Rose on
the best possible course for life, and would not allow her plans to be
thwarted. Whatever she did, she had to do it for herself.
She could still live in the dorms for a few
weeks, Rose realized. Everything was paid for through the end of the quarter.
After that...
She thought about Jack’s words. ‘My home is open
to you.’ Had he really meant it, or had he just been saying it?
She thought about her financial situation.
Her share of the rent on the house that Jack and Tommy lived in would be about
two hundred dollars a month. She could afford that, if only for a short time.
The internship had ended in March, but Rose had saved most of the money she had
earned. She had also gained the skills for finding another job.
A new job could be difficult to find in
Masline, she admitted. Cal was now CEO of both Titan Construction and Sunpeak.
He would never let her take a job at either place if she broke off the
engagement. But Titan Construction and Sunpeak weren’t the only businesses in
the area, and Masline wasn’t the only city around. If she couldn’t find work in
Masline, she could always look for a job in Southland, or any other city in the
area.
Her thoughts turned back to Jack. Even if he
was serious about offering her a place to stay, he might have given up on her
by now. She hadn’t heard from him since that Thursday morning.
Rose wondered what he would think if she
suddenly showed up at his door. Would he be pleased, or would he tell her to
leave? She hadn’t been very nice to him the last time she had seen him, she
thought.
But she could only try.
Rose pulled to a stop at red light. Waiting
for the light to change, she contemplated visiting him. It wasn’t just that he
could help her get back on her feet, she realized. She wanted to see him
because she loved him.
Loved? she thought suddenly, as the light
turned green. As she drove through the intersection, she berated herself for
thinking that. He had never said anything to her about love, except for when he
had said that the fire he loved about her was going to burn out. Still, Rose
realized that that was what she felt.
She looked around her, realizing that she had
unconsciously made her way toward Jack’s neighborhood. She thought about
leaving, but shook her head. She wanted to see him. Whether he shared her
feelings or not, she still wanted to see him.
She didn’t have to say anything about how she
felt, she reasoned, as she drove up the street. He might not even want to see
her, but she could still try. And, she thought, even if he wanted nothing to do
with her, it wouldn’t change her mind about her marriage to Cal. She would
prefer to live in the riverbed with the other homeless people, than live with
Cal. At least if she was homeless, she would be so of her own free will.