Free Rosie by Anne Lamott Page A

with him because you already have plans, and then we just hang out here all night reading.”
    â€œGood. Good point.”
    â€œI mean,” said Rosie, “what sort of example do you think that sets for me?”
    Oh, Rosie. You’re becoming a scapegoater, like me. “See, sometimes I think it’s all right to lie if the truth would hurt someone’s feelings about something that they’ve already done—like if someone gets a terrible haircut, or an expensive and ugly dress. Or, say, if some perfectly nice man wants to be with me and I’m not interested, I think it’s better to lie to save his face, instead of saying, ‘I don’t want to hang out with you because you’re so fucking boring it sets my teeth on edge!’ But! When you lie to make yourself look more impressive, or you have betrayed someone’s trust or broken a promise, or if someone else is going to have to take the blame for something you did—”
    â€œBut, but—”
    â€œLet me finish. I know you didn’t hurt anyone by lying to the class, but maybe they won’t believe you next time, when you’re telling the truth. And I know you lied because you wanted your life to seem more exciting than theirs....”
    â€œNoooo. I did it ‘cause people bring the stupidest, most boringest stuff, and you have to listen to them for about an hour talk about some stupid acorn or something, or some stupid sea gull feathers.”
    Elizabeth smiled. “Yeah, I know, I know how you feel, but there’s funny stuff in your room you could take—that fake blood Rae gave you, or—”
    â€œI brought that in two weeks ago.”
    Elizabeth exhaled, looked intently at her daughter. “Look, I really just want you to tell the truth—I want me to tell the truth—as much as possible.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œRosie?”
    â€œAh-yeh?”
    â€œDid the star kill Gordon?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œDon’t you like him?”
    â€œNot very much. He thinks he’s so big. Do you?”
    â€œSometimes. Sometimes I like him all right.”
    â€œMama, but you know what? Sometimes when you tell Rae astory about something we did, it didn’t really happen that way. I mean, it mostly did, but when you tell the story, there’s all this extra stuff.”
    â€œYeah. You got me. It’s called embellishment, it’s sprucing up a story to make it more interesting, or funny, or vivid.” Embellishment is the story of my life, embellishment and revising, like I never tell anyone that my first love left me for someone less moody, I tell them we just grew tired of each other. And that I initiated the breakup.
    When Elizabeth turned her eyes and attention back to Rosie, Rosie smiled her rougish, lopsided, knowing smile.
    â€œDeal? We try not to lie? And we always keep our promises?”
    â€œDeal.”
    Elizabeth was drinking considerably less while Rosie was awake. Three or four glasses of wine, at most. Later, with Rosie asleep, two or three glasses more. That evening she waited for her first glass until Rae swept through the house, unexpectedly cheerful, Margaret Rutherford in Blithe Spirit again. Elizabeth attributed it to their phone conversation earlier in the day and felt herself glow within.
    â€œHey, baby,” she said to Rae.
    â€œHey, Mama.”
    Okay. You become more like me, proud; I’ll become more like you, great-hearted, jolly and honest.
    Rae taught Rosie to make macaroni and cheese, while Elizabeth prepared a salad with herbs she had grown herself.
    â€œNow everything’s ready to assemble,” said Rae, in her singsong Julia Child voice, “so we’ll just butter up the casserole dish before adding the noodles—now, we never use Saffola, it has to be butter. Saffola sticks to the bottom of pans, so think what it would do in your stomach.”
    Rosie giggled.
    â€œNow, pour in those