Mystical Rose Read Free Page B

and my friends. Horse shows and polo matches and car rallies through the town. My friends would line King Street East to stare at the fashions and jewels on their way to the Arlington Hotel for the Saturday Grand Hop. Imagine a party with guests filling the whole lawn, and electric lights strung out along the hedges, and a dance band playing in the middle of the swimming pool filled with orchids! Mr. Davey told me about it; he’d driven the Rolyokes. A swimming pool filled with flowers and music — I still think it’s a beautiful idea.
    Oh, be careful! He watched closely, never moving from where he stood but never quite still. His hands fluttered about on their own. He jigged up and down, as if he had springs inside his clothes, while I looped the rope over a sturdy upper bough and threw the coil down to Adam, the head gardener.
    Excuse me, Mr. Robbie, he said.
    Oh, hello, Adam, said the young man.
    Ready, Rose? called Adam. I turned around carefully on my branch, reaching into the crotch of the tree where I’d left the saw.
    Rose? said the young man. Rose?
    Straddling my branch, I took a quick look down through the criss-cross of leaves before starting to saw.
    Rose? he said to Adam.
    Better stay out of the way, Mr. Robbie. That branch is going to come down.
    And that’s how you met? Wow! Talk about romance! Ruby exclaimed. You a servant girl and he a son of the manse. You had it all, Rosie, she said. Her face was flushed. Of course she’d had a bit to drink by then.
    Wait, there’s more, I said. It gets better.
    I must have had a bit too. And yet it wouldn’t have been too late in the day, would it? We were upstairs, above Ruby’s hat shop. I could see the lake through her front window, which looked down Glen Manor Road. Late summer afternoon, Sunday, and quiet. You wouldn’t believe how quiet Toronto could be on summer Sundays in the forties. I wonder where Harriet was. Movies? Band practice?
    What’s a manse? I asked.
    Nothing like that ever happens to me, said Ruby. Her hair hung down like a curtain in front of her face.
    What about Montgomery? I said. I’d have met him by then.
    What about him? He’s a good-for-nothing, a salesman. A great guy to have around if you want to buy a knife, but not romantic.
    Yes he is, I said. He can be. Anybody can be romantic. Romance is about you, not about circumstances, I said.
    She tried to digest this, but it wouldn’t go down. Bullshit, she said. And upended her glass. Rum, I think. That went down. She usually drank rum. Her father had been in the merchant marine.
    I sawed through the big rotten bough, but it didn’t move. Adam shouted at me to hurry up. I pushed and pulled, but I couldn’t free the rotten branch from the surrounding network of leaves and interlocking smaller branches. I cursed the stickiness and the bugs, cursed the loyalty of little fingers clutching the healthy parent tree which was no longer attached to it. Finally I climbed up, wedged myself against the rippled trunk and kicked at the fresh-cut end of the rotten branch, a gleaming white oval. It wouldn’t budge.
    The branch is stuck! I called down to Adam.
    I felt a vibration against the trunk of the tree.
    What should I do? I can’t get it to move. Are you climbing up? I called. I felt the vibration again. The rotten branch slid downwards, and then stopped. I couldn’t reach to kick it now. Then I heard the young man calling my name.
    Midsummer day, 1927, and choking hot. It was very close up there, surrounded by leaves.
    Hello? Rose?
    The young man’s voice came from nearby.
    Where’s Adam? I asked.
    On the ground. I say, where are you?
    I climbed down a few feet and peered through the leafy curtain that hung between us. He looked excited.
    Why did you climb up, sir? I said. He was standing on the top rung of the big wooden ladder that I had climbed up an hour previously.
    Is your name Rose? he asked me.
    Yes, sir, I said. Then, louder, Adam, the branch is going to fall! I called. He waved