I was doing?” she asked, feeling a surge of warmth for Robbie Lefferts that was almost love.
“Uh-huh, but where he found you and what you were doing there doesn’t really matter. The fact is that you’re good, Rosie, you’re really, really talented. It’s almost as if you were born to this job. Rob discovered you, but that doesn’t give him a right to your pipes for the rest of your life. Don’t let him own you.”
“He’d never want to do that,” Rosie said. She was frightened and excited at the same time, and also a little angry at Rhoda for being so cynical, but all of these feelings had been suppressed beneath a bright layer of joy and relief: she was going to be all right for a little longer. And if Robbie really did offer her a contract, she might be all right for even longer than that. It was all very well for Rhoda Simons to preach caution; Rhoda wasn’t living in a single room three blocks from an area of town where you didn’t park your car at the curb if you wanted to keep your radio and your hub-caps; Rhoda had an accountant husband, a house in the suburbs, and a 1994 silver Nissan. Rhoda had a VISA and an American Express card. Better yet, Rhoda had a Blue Cross card, and savings she could draw on if she got sick and couldn’t work. For people who had those things, Rosie imagined, advising caution in business affairs was probably as natural as breathing.
“Maybe not,” Rhoda said, “but you could be a small goldmine, Rosie, and sometimes people change when they discover goldmines. Even nice people like Robbie Lefferts.”
Now, drinking her tea and looking out the window of the Hot Pot, Rosie remembered Rhoda dousing her cigarette under the cold tap, dropping it in the trash, and then coming over to her. “I know you’re in a situation where job security is very important to you, and I’m not saying Robbie’s a bad man-I’ve been working with him off and on since 1982 and I know he’s not—but I’m telling you to keep an eye on the birds in the bush while you’re making sure the one in your hand doesn’t fly away. Do you follow me?”
“Not entirely, no.”
“Agree to do six books to start with, no more. Eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, right here at Tape Engine. A thousand a week.”
Rosie goggled at her, feeling as if someone had stuck a vacuum-cleaner hose down her throat and sucked the air out of her lungs. “A thousand dollars a week, are you crazy?”
“Ask Curt Hamilton if he thinks I’m crazy,” Rhoda said calmly. “Remember, it’s not just the voice, it’s the takes. You did The Manta Ray in a hundred and four. No one else I work with could have done it in less than two hundred. You have great voice management, but the absolutely incredible thing is your breath control. If you don’t sing, how in God’s name did you get such great control?”
A nightmarish image had occurred to Rosie then: sitting in the comer with her kidneys swelling and throbbing like bloated bags filled with hot water, sitting there with her apron held in her hands, praying to God she wouldn’t have to fill it because it hurt to throw up, it made her kidneys feel as if they were being stabbed with long, splintery sticks. Sitting there, breathing in long, flat inhales and slow, soft exhales because that was what worked best, trying to make the runaway beat of her heart match the calmer rhythm of her respiration, sitting there and listening to Norman making himself a sandwich in the kitchen and singing “Daniel” or “Take a Letter, Maria” in his surprisingly good barroom tenor.
“I don’t know,” she had told Rhoda, “I didn’t even know what breath control was until I met you. I guess it’s just a gift.”
“Well, count your blessings, keed,” Rhoda said. “We better get back; Curt’ll think we’re practicing weird female rituals in here.”
Robbie had called from his office downtown to congratulate her on finishing The Manta Ray—just as she was getting ready to leave for the day, this had been—and although he hadn’t specifically mentioned a contract, he had asked if she would have lunch with him on Friday to discuss what he called “a business arrangement.” Rosie had agreed and hung up, feeling bemused. She remembered thinking that Rhoda’s description of him was perfect;