constantly to hide his fear of being asked a question he couldn’t answer. It had given Simone a chilling sense of what working for him would be like. Miss McCaffrey enjoyed learning new things, but Bill Webb wouldn’t like it, and every time it happened, he would take it out on Simone.
Neither Rosemary nor Shelly seemed to have heard Simone mention her fiancé.
“A public service for whom?” Rosemary asked. “For Geoffrey? How long my children and I remain under this roof depends on how puerile and vindictive he chooses to get. This place has been in his family since they stole it from the Indians. The children and I are tenants here or, the way Geoffrey feels, guests—”
“The way Geoffrey thinks,” corrected Shelly. “It is not an unimportant distinction.”
“I forgot,” said Rosemary. “Geoffrey doesn’t have feelings.” She motioned for Shelly and Simone to sit and set out a platter of veal arranged with lemon wedges and parsley. “Ladies, please. Help yourselves. There’s salad and risotto.”
“Kenny has feelings,” Shelly said. “Unfortunately, ninety-nine percent of them are about himself and about how, because he is such a nice guy, he is barely earning enough to pay some high-school chick to dust the Velcro monkeys. One half percent is about how I don’t love him enough or at all, and the final half percent is about rich and famous movie stars who are, as he eloquently puts it, scumbags, which is why they are rich and famous. I could find this more touching coming from a poor or unsuccessful person than from a man charging thirty dollars a pop to cut rich ugly children’s hair.” Shelly clapped a hand over her mouth. “Not all ugly, of course. George and Maisie are gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” Rosemary said.
Shelly lifted her fork up in a salute to the food. “This veal is marvelously underdone. No one underdoes veal anymore. Lord, listen to me! First calling the children ugly and then being bitchy about the food. It’s so hard for me to switch gears, dealing with other women. With men it’s totally different. They insist you be nasty and rotten. It makes them think they can do things with you that they can’t do with their wives.”
Rosemary said, “Kenny shaved a Batman logo on the back of George’s head. George of all people. The funny thing was, George loved it. Maybe there’s hope for him yet. And by the way—I don’t want to jinx it—George seems to have quit those awful crying jags since Simone has been here. Not that the school would notice any sort of improvement. But he’s stopped bringing home those depressing notes about his weeping in class. I suppose George could be throwing them out or just not delivering them, but even that, with Georgie, would be an encouraging sign.”
In an effort to conceal how happy Rosemary’s saying this made her, Simone pretended to reconsider some rejected veal on her plate. She, too, had noticed that the children seemed less withdrawn than when she had arrived. You still wouldn’t call them chatty, but they made efforts at conversation. Maisie told anecdotes from school, mostly about other children’s misbehavior. George asked fake-casual questions about upsetting current events. “Is the ozone layer gone yet? That kid in Poughkeepsie who got tortured and killed—did he know the guy who did it?” One evening George had asked Simone to tuck him into bed, but later, when Simone knocked on his door, he’d called out, “No thanks. That’s all right.”
Shelly said, “George has a problem to overcome. It’s called his DNA code.”
“I beg your pardon,” Rosemary said. “His father’s half of the DNA code. The other half is mine.”
“Half is a lot,” replied Shelly. “It only takes one chromosome.”
Rosemary said, “The bluebloods will have a run for their money when the mutants take over. New races that don’t require oxygen or ozone.”
“You’re losin’ me, darlin’,” Shelly murmured, drifting
Neither Rosemary nor Shelly seemed to have heard Simone mention her fiancé.
“A public service for whom?” Rosemary asked. “For Geoffrey? How long my children and I remain under this roof depends on how puerile and vindictive he chooses to get. This place has been in his family since they stole it from the Indians. The children and I are tenants here or, the way Geoffrey feels, guests—”
“The way Geoffrey thinks,” corrected Shelly. “It is not an unimportant distinction.”
“I forgot,” said Rosemary. “Geoffrey doesn’t have feelings.” She motioned for Shelly and Simone to sit and set out a platter of veal arranged with lemon wedges and parsley. “Ladies, please. Help yourselves. There’s salad and risotto.”
“Kenny has feelings,” Shelly said. “Unfortunately, ninety-nine percent of them are about himself and about how, because he is such a nice guy, he is barely earning enough to pay some high-school chick to dust the Velcro monkeys. One half percent is about how I don’t love him enough or at all, and the final half percent is about rich and famous movie stars who are, as he eloquently puts it, scumbags, which is why they are rich and famous. I could find this more touching coming from a poor or unsuccessful person than from a man charging thirty dollars a pop to cut rich ugly children’s hair.” Shelly clapped a hand over her mouth. “Not all ugly, of course. George and Maisie are gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” Rosemary said.
Shelly lifted her fork up in a salute to the food. “This veal is marvelously underdone. No one underdoes veal anymore. Lord, listen to me! First calling the children ugly and then being bitchy about the food. It’s so hard for me to switch gears, dealing with other women. With men it’s totally different. They insist you be nasty and rotten. It makes them think they can do things with you that they can’t do with their wives.”
Rosemary said, “Kenny shaved a Batman logo on the back of George’s head. George of all people. The funny thing was, George loved it. Maybe there’s hope for him yet. And by the way—I don’t want to jinx it—George seems to have quit those awful crying jags since Simone has been here. Not that the school would notice any sort of improvement. But he’s stopped bringing home those depressing notes about his weeping in class. I suppose George could be throwing them out or just not delivering them, but even that, with Georgie, would be an encouraging sign.”
In an effort to conceal how happy Rosemary’s saying this made her, Simone pretended to reconsider some rejected veal on her plate. She, too, had noticed that the children seemed less withdrawn than when she had arrived. You still wouldn’t call them chatty, but they made efforts at conversation. Maisie told anecdotes from school, mostly about other children’s misbehavior. George asked fake-casual questions about upsetting current events. “Is the ozone layer gone yet? That kid in Poughkeepsie who got tortured and killed—did he know the guy who did it?” One evening George had asked Simone to tuck him into bed, but later, when Simone knocked on his door, he’d called out, “No thanks. That’s all right.”
Shelly said, “George has a problem to overcome. It’s called his DNA code.”
“I beg your pardon,” Rosemary said. “His father’s half of the DNA code. The other half is mine.”
“Half is a lot,” replied Shelly. “It only takes one chromosome.”
Rosemary said, “The bluebloods will have a run for their money when the mutants take over. New races that don’t require oxygen or ozone.”
“You’re losin’ me, darlin’,” Shelly murmured, drifting
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