Free Ira Levin by Son Of Rosemary (v0.9) (htm) Page B

said, "no. Thank you, Rosemary! Thank you!" She dabbed at her eyes, sighed, shook her head. "Look at me," she said. "I was an intelligent, capable woman with a meaningful job to do-and he has me completely derailed, a blubbering ninny who puts an X by a pink."
        Patting her hand, getting up from the sofa, Rosemary said, "Come on, we'll start over."
        "No!" Judy said, getting up, going after her. "It wouldn't be fair, you had a hundred! It's easy to put back: you were 'jittery," I was "jinxed," you were "foxy." his
        Rosemary, sitting at the table, shook her head. "No, dear, a new game. I insist on it."
        "Okay, but you go first."?
        As they gathered tiles, Judy asked, "Are you good at anagrams too?"
        Rosemary recalled the time, weeks before giving birth, when she had shifted tiles back and forth between steven marcato and roman CASTEVET, realizing that the neighbor who had befriended them was the son of Adrian Marcato, the nineteenth-century Satanist who had lived at the Bramford. "Pretty good," she said.
        "Thanksgiving night," Judy said, "while I was waiting for Andy's call, I finally solved the all-time killer anagram, after more than a year of working at it in trains and buses and waiting rooms." She sighed, smoothing her hair down. "Quite minuscule compensation, in truth."
        "It sounds like a killer," Rosemary said, drawing tiles from the bag.
        "That was an observation," Judy said. "The anagram is "roast mules." his
        "Roast mules"?"
        "R, O, A, S, T," Judy said, turning the timer over, "M, U, L, E, S. They can be made into one common ten- letter English word, so common that even children of five and six use it."
        Switching tiles around on the rack, Rosemary said, "I'll get on it later."
        "Don't come begging for the answer," Judy said, drawing tiles from the bag. "You'll be wasting your breath; I'm unyielding. And no fair using a computer."
        "I don't know how to," Rosemary said, "but I've really got to learn. What a great tool! Who ever thought they'd be so small and cheap? They filled whole rooms! Double on the y, double word." Starting at the central pink space, she laid out the letters of dandy.
        

 He brought her an angel-a curly-headed lad with a lyre and a book and a fine pair of wings, reclining in terra-cotta relief on a plaque about four inches square, white on della Robbia blue.
        "Andrea della Robbia made it," he said. "Circa fourteen seventy."
        "Oh my God, Andy!" she said, cradling it in both hands, adoring it. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"
        "It's named "Andyst was he said. "For him, I guess."
        Smiling, she tiptoed to kiss his cheek. "Oh thank you, darling, thank you!" She kissed Andy della Robbia- lightly, very lightly. "My handsome angel Andy!" she said to it. "I adore you! I could eat you up!" She gave it another feather-kiss.
        Sunday brunch was the first chance they had to be together. At the airport, he had come out of the VIP pass door with two elderly men. They seemed to be in an ongoing discussion, so after a hug and two handshakes outside the limo-one with a Chinese, one with a Frenchman-and a little eye language with Andy, she had ridden back to the city the way she had ridden out, up front with Joe. They listened to tapes of fifties big- band music, chatted about the musicians, and admired the billboards that had begun going up December first- Andy beaming at them over the lines of copy: Here in New York we're lighting our candles at 7 p.m. on Friday, December 31/. Love ya! When they got out of the limo on the building's lower garage level-at two in the morning Rome time-Andy was jet-lagged. They made their morning date.
        Rosemary and the waiter had shifted the Scrabble table aside a few feet to make room by the window for the brunch table and chairs. She walked there slowly, hands cupped, and leaned the plaque carefully,