I went still.
No response from the woman.
Rose said: ma’am. Please, look down.
Then the woman said, loudly: how dare you. Leave me alone.
Rose said, and her voice was different now, it was the voice she used when she had decided something and had committed to the decision: you really need to look.
She said it with the firmness of someone who has been patient as a discipline and who is now choosing a different approach.
The woman said nothing but I heard a sound.
A shift of weight.
A chair moving.
Then I heard the woman make a sound.
Not a word.
A sound.
A very specific sound.
Rose turned around.
I could see her from seven rows back, the blue blouse, the white flowers at the collar.
She found my eyes.
She winked.
Rose does not wink.
In twenty-seven years, I had never seen Rose wink.
