“I know. I’m a bad boy, huh?” Roddy’ s playful grins were nearly as magical as those eyes of his.
“But…”
“It doesn’t matter, Rose. No one will ever know but us.”
“But they’re numbered. And they belonged to somebody famous.”
“Ha! Famous? Who cares?” Then Roddy took the remainder of the box of glasses and tossed them all into the trash. “For some reason we catalog these spectacles. For some reason our jobs matter just now. But once we do all the research, checking the facts, comparing notes, examining the specimens, and entering it all down in our journals, then what?” Roddy’s glower along with his fists set firmly on his hips told Rose he was truly expecting an answer from her.
“We… rebox the specimens, attaching the catalog number, and send them to the archives.”
“Which are where?”
Rose gave that some thought. Was she supposed to know that? She’d never thought to ask.
Roddy removed her glasses, gusted a breath of fog on the lenses, then wiped them clean with the tail of his shirt. “My dear Rose…” He replaced the glasses on her face, adjusting them carefully. “There are no archives. Everything is destroyed once we finish with them. They think I don’t know, but I do.” His sarcastic laugh followed him all the way into his office.
Despite Roddy’s unchecked brutality, he loved her. She knew he did. That’s why he’d given her the glasses and hadn’t told anyone about her failing eyesight. That’s why she hadn’t lost her job when the accident happened.
Roddy loved her. He was just afraid to let anyone into his miserable life. He was ashamed of what his family had done to society. If only he’d drop his own fear of truly sharing himself with her. Not inside some bag, but in one of the windows. Then people would know Roddy Bach-y-Rita and Rose MacGregor were making love and not war.
To the side of the stack of copies of artists’ renderings of people wearing spectacles lay an official-looking paper. “From the Office of Rodman J. Bach-y-Rita,” it said across the top. The page was a blanket woven with words, tiny words. The type he’d used for the single-page directive-whatever it was-had to have been no larger than nine points.
Straining to see, Rose made out: “Assistant Researcher Nancy Fleishman.”
There had never been any other assistant as far as Rose knew.
Rose held the paper closer to the window, hoping to better discern the other words, only they were too small to make out. Holding the message directly under the lamp on her desk proved no better.
“Fleishman.” Rose whispered the name as she sat down hard in the chair behind her desk. She knew that name well, but not a Nancy. Dr. David Fleishman was the most recognizable name in the study of spectacles. An esteemed former ophthalmologist, Fleishman had done the most exhaustive and extensive research and cataloging of eyewear ever. The stacks of papers on Rose’s desk were copies of his work. Roddy nearly bowed every time the man’s name was mentioned.
Rose’s scrutiny of the paper blurred as her eyes refocused on the box of exhibits that had arrived the day of her accident. It sat wedged between several other boxes beneath one of the windows. Rose recognized it because of the dark stains left from her splattered blood.
Nancy, if she was some new assistant, obviously had not cataloged its contents.
Without moving her head, Rose flashed a look at Roddy’s closed door and listened intently. Once he went inside his little sanctuary, he rarely popped out without her first being able to hear the click from his unlocking the door.
She kept her back to the door as she opened the box. Inside were the pitifully wrapped specimens. Several cases were marked with numbers only or had documents wrapped around them and secured with rubber bands. Just one had an aged and curling label attached to it, though a large #9 had been painted in red on the end of the case.
Rose shoved aside the rest and opened #9. They weren’t metal-rimmed as she had expected. So many glasses that had survived from the era marked on the outside of the box-the 1970s and 80s-were like that. Styles had always varied through the ages, but some were more readily recognizable than others. The ancient Trig Lane and Swan Stairs with frames of bone, wood, metal and leather.
Roddy taught her all about the historical significance along with the minute details. He’d told her how spectacles evolved with class needs. The invention of the printing press begat books and newspapers and nudged the entrepreneurial elements as more people jumped on the bus, and the use of spectacles grew so common that baskets of them would be available at merchants, and people would simply rummage through them until they found what suited them best.
In the latter part of the Twentieth Century, glasses shifted from signaling the brainy people to recognizing the trendy. Though the well-known image of John Lennon from the peeling posters did depict him wearing glasses, it was Roddy who had made Rose truly understand that Lennon’s “granny” style of wire frames had began its own revolution. Simply put, Lennon made it cool to wear glasses.
Though he didn’t rant while talking about spectacles, he could go on and on. It was his first love, his passion.
Standing with the case in her hand and wearing the round-lens glasses that had been inside, Rose was able to make out the name on the faded label on exhibit #9: John Lennon.
She wasn’t sure whether the tingles she felt all over her body were more fear or awe, but tingle she did. Unlike the pleasure goggles, which flashed “For the protection of all,” what zipped through Rose’s mind were the words from the ragged Lennon-Ono posters: “Think Different.”
Think different. Think different.
Think… Nancy Fleishman.
John Lennon’s old glasses were hardly perfect for Rose. His vision was obviously much worse than hers, but when she adjusted them a bit, the words on Roddy’s official paper became very clear: Nancy Fleishman would be replacing Rose. Not because of Rose’s failing eyesight or the accident or anything else.
“Due to the horrible accidental death of Rose Gregory, I am in need of another assistant. It was quite a moment of good fortune when I discovered Dr. David Fleishman’s great-great-granddaughter had also been working in this field. I have arranged for her to begin as soon as she can make arrangements.
“The committee should also be advised that the archived spectacles are now ready to be auctioned to highest bidders.”
Rose collapsed in a heap in the soft chair near the window in shock, the paper’s words so hot in her hand that she dropped it to the floor.
She was dead, and Roddy hadn’t even gotten her last name right. But she wasn’t dead…
During her down time, she’d tried to wrestle with what her life meant. She’d walked the boulevards, noting the neatly trimmed lawns and thoughtfully planted trees. Yes, there was a pattern to the streets. And an eerie emptiness she hadn’t had time or opportunity to notice before. Where were the children playing unabashedly in the yards? And bicycling gaggles of boys, fishing poles perched under scabbed arms with faithful tongue-dangling mutts running beside? And where were the young women with painted faces, strolling the boulevard as they shopped, sharing their banter about burgeoning careers and hopeful suitors? And the babbling and dowdy old men scraping their canes against the dry concrete sidewalks… where had they all disappeared to?
There were people on the streets and in the parks, mostly men and women in various uniforms, each keeping to himself or herself, making notes on handheld units or engaged in some bagism ritual, which didn’t always involve a second party in the bag.
The small light from her desk was the sole illumination when the lock finally clicked. Roddy’s entrance into the room was his usual bold advance until he saw Rose wasn’t at her desk. The hand behind his back clutched a box-cutter.
“It’s MacGregor, Roddy. Rose MacGregor.” When Roddy turned to face her, his amazing blue eyes opened almost as wide as his mouth. “What the…”