Stress Test Ch. 21

Linda always was luckier than Sandy. When they were kids, Linda was the one who found change along the sidewalk. In high school, she won all the records, tapes and posters she could scoop up in a three-minute frenzy at Chartbuster Music. Linda's parents were nice when they didn't have to be. They talked to you and even looked at you like you were a human being.

Linda got Roscoe; Sandy, Stephen X.

"My brother knows a guy who can get you a good deal on a car," Stephen X said that first winter when Sandy's battery died.

"I got the basic recipe from my brother," he told her the first—and mercifully the last—time he sacrificed spaghetti for her, "but the improvements are all mine."

"Roscoe X is big on the arts," Stephen X said when she paused to look at a Pollock print. "He knows all about that stuff."

Roscoe X grew larger than life. Each week saw a new virtue sprout from him, like a feather in an angel's wing. His hair was blonder, his eyes bluer, his knowledge more complete than any man Sandy had ever known.

"I'd like to meet your brother some day," Sandy said. "He must be one in a million."

"A billion." Stephen X bristled like a cat whose territory has been challenged. "But he's real busy. He doesn't get out much."

For all his talk of Roscoe X's talents, Stephen X didn't seem very eager for Sandy ever to meet the man. The more he bragged on him, the more it seemed he tried to keep their paths apart, as if it occurred to him that his brother could never fill the expectations he'd created. Maybe he thought having a mortal brother would expose him as a liar.

It was only by a chance reading of one of Stephen X's lists that Sandy learned Roscoe X's birthday fell on Valentine's Day.

Stephen X jotted even the most trivial things on note paper that read, "Do this for Stephen X Skinner. Now."

His master list for the day referred to various sublists which he spent weeks compiling. The master list included "get groceries" and "do the laundry." Once, "make lists" even appeared next to a bullet.

The grocery list itself itemized his favorite brands of chili or canned pasta products. The laundry list contained detailed instructions to "wash three loads," "hang shirts right from the dryer," "sort socks."

Sandy and Stephen X stopped at his apartment on the way to a matinee of Death Behind the Door on February 10. While he changed his slacks in the bedroom, she brewed coffee and saw the day's agenda hanging on the fridge. "Get Roscoe X's birthday card," it said.

He came back to the kitchenette, inhaling deeply through his nose. "Ah, java!" he said as he tucked his shirt tails in. "I've always said the woman I marry will have to make a good cup of coffee."

"When is Roscoe X's birthday?" Sandy asked.

"It's coming up." Stephen X looked around the room like he'd lost something. "Why?"

"I saw his card on your list of things to do."

"There's lots of stuff on there."

"What day is it?"

He set his coffee on the counter and slipped an arm around her waist. "There's a price for that information," he said, nudging her hair with his nose.

"You're just awful." She pushed him back, but wound up paying the price anyway.

At the card shop later, Stephen X found one that said, "I Thought I'd Give You A Couple Of Serious Bills For Your Birthday . . ." It opened on a picture of Shakespeare holding a plumber's invoice.

He slipped Sandy's card out of her fingers. "Roscoe X hates birthdays," he said. "It's one of those things when you hit thirty."

"I just feel like I know him already. I want to say 'Hi.'"

Stephen X put Sandy's card back on the rack. "Roscoe X really hates attention," he said. "He's just tired of it."

Come Valentine's Day, Stephen X sent flowers after standing her up for a lunch date. It was no big deal. It didn't hurt. In fact even then Sandy sensed that she enjoyed the flowers more than she would have enjoyed his company over burgers. The roses cost more than lunch, and that counted for something in Stephen X's world.

But it did leave her at a loose end. She called Linda and on a whim they found Roscoe X's address in the phone book and headed over there. It seemed like a fun idea.

"Roscoe X?" Sandy said when the tall man with the straight, blond hair opened the door.

"Just Roscoe."

"Roscoe? I'm Sandy and this is Linda. Your brother sent us over here to meet you on your birthday."

He held the door with his right hand and the door frame with his left. "That's nice, but you don't have to do anything," he said. "I won't tell him."

Sandy cocked her head. She knitted her brow at Linda, who never took her eyes off the man. "We didn't come to shine your shoes, buddy," Linda said, resting her hand on the door knob.

He looked down at his stocking feet as his toes curled involuntarily. "I didn't mean anything."

"You're letting all the heat out," she said. "Aren't you going to ask us in?"

He looked over his shoulder—as if trying to remember when he had last tidied the apartment—then shrugged and stood back to give them room to enter.

"Nice place," Linda sniffed, rubbernecking. "I guess your brother's the only neurotic asshole in the family."

He laughed abruptly from deep below his diaphragm. "He's the last of a long line."

"Thank God for that." Linda shook her head and cocked a thumb at Sandy. "I don't know how she can stand him."

"Oh, you don't even know him," Sandy protested.

"No, but Roscoe does and you haven't heard him say anything different, have you?"

Roscoe was a quiet man. From all the stories, Sandy had expected him to be a cross between Confucius and Einstein. In fact, he bore no resemblance to the hero Stephen X had spoken of so highly and so often. As the three of them sat on his sofa, she suddenly felt they had barged into this poor guy's simple, ordered life.

Linda didn't mind. "So, this brother of yours—how long have you known him?" she asked.

"I changed his diapers," Roscoe said. "I kept him out of trouble."

"Well, it was nice meeting you." Sandy put her hands flat on the sofa and straightened her elbows. "We'll all have to get together sometime."

Roscoe and Linda had not broken eye contact since he'd let them in. "Earth to Sandy! Earth to Sandy!" Linda laughed. "We're all together right now. Where are you?"

"I mean with Stephen X—"

"Oh," Roscoe deadpanned. "I thought you wanted to do something fun."

"Roscoe, meet Sandy," Linda nodded. "Sandy, Roscoe."

Like most things that swayed Sandy's life, the romance of Roscoe and Linda didn't seem to have any definite beginning. She talked to Linda one day and realized what was going on, what had been going on for some time.

She should have known even before the first of March when Linda called to say that she and Roscoe had had a wonderful dinner at Pierre's Place.

"Roscoe? How did you go there with Roscoe?"

"It's a long story," Linda said. "First he asked me. Then I said okay. Then we got in his car and he turned on the engine. Then we drove down Westmore—"

"I mean why did he ask you?"

"Beats me. You think I should have told him on the first date that I'm a scheming, credit-card abusing coke head with syphilis and six months to live?"

She didn't have to tell him anything. Information passed between Roscoe and Linda by telepathy or osmosis. Sandy could hardly keep up. By spring, the only time she could see her friend was with Roscoe, so Sandy felt awkward unless she brought Stephen X along.

Of course, she couldn't confide in Linda in those circumstances. It surprised her that she missed sharing her feelings and private thoughts with another woman. She had always imagined herself to be independent, self-sufficient. So many things nobody could ever understand had shaped her. Nobody could ever guess what fears made her heart beat more quickly. She didn't realize until now how much she might miss seeing herself in the mirror of Linda's irreverence.

On a windy Saturday in May, the four of them piled into Roscoe's Cutlass Supreme and went to the park for a picnic. They were barely out of the car before Stephen X had the badminton net up.

"Let's go! Men against the girls." He flipped Roscoe a racquet.

Roscoe, who stood a head taller than his brother, plucked the racquet out of the air. "I'll take Sandy," he said. "You take Linda."

Stephen X put on a headband and bounced around on the balls of his feet, although they rarely left the ground. He huffed and puffed with every dive and stab, slamming the birdie back over the net, shooting a fist against the sky when he scored.

On the other side of the net, Roscoe's long arms let him return most shots while rooted at center court. Sandy saved the deep ones.

Linda crossed her arms and turned her back to the net. "Hurry, lemonade!" she taunted her teammate. "Hurry, lemonade!"

Stephen X made a showy save to the right and began to celebrate the point, but Roscoe spiked the birdie back into his brother's nose. Stephen X fanned the air furiously. "Do you think you might try to get a few once in awhile, Linda?" he snapped.

When Roscoe tapped the game point into the corner, Stephen X put his hands on his hips and let his lungs heave. He raised his flushed and dripping face to look at Linda. "What's this lemonade crap?"

"Roscoe told me about your lemonade stand," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"How you sold lemonade but you were so afraid you'd miss a sale you wouldn't even go to the bathroom." Linda turned to Sandy. "Didn't he tell you how he stood in the street hopping up and down because he had to go so bad, yelling, 'Hurry, lemonade! Hurry, lemonade!'"

Sandy shook her head, puzzled.

"He wound up peeing in his shorts," Linda went on. "When his first customer finally did come, he was so embarrassed that he accidentally-on-purpose spilled the pitcher on himself so that it would look like it was all lemonade."

"I did not!"

"Come on, Steve," Roscoe laughed. "We all saw it."

"I don't remember anything like that," Stephen X said, with color taking over his face. Sandy felt sorry for him for taking himself so seriously. He'd given himself no graceful means of escape.

Linda patted him on the shoulder. "That's okay," she said, enjoying the moment. "You were just a little boy. Wasn't he, Roscoe?"

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