Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin Read Free Book Online Page B

welcome. I’m glad that I helped.”
    “She was cremated yesterday morning with no ceremony,” Mrs. Castevet said. “That’s the way she wanted it. Now we have to forget and go on. It certainly won’t be easy; we took a lot of pleasure in having her around, not having children of our own. Do you have any?”
    “No, we don’t,” Rosemary said.
    Mrs. Castevet looked into the kitchen. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, “the pans hanging on the wall that way. And look how you put the table, isn’t that interesting.”
    “It was in a magazine,” Rosemary said.
    “You certainly got a nice paint job,” Mrs. Castevet said, fingering the door jamb appraisingly. “Did the house do it? You must have been mighty openhanded with the painters; they didn’t do this kind of work for us .”
    “All we gave them was five dollars each,” Rosemary said.
    “Oh, is that all?” Mrs. Castevet turned around and looked into the den. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, “a TV room.”
    “It’s only temporary,” Rosemary said. “At least I hope it is. It’s going to be a nursery.”
    “Are you pregnant?” Mrs. Castevet asked, looking at her.
    “Not yet,” Rosemary said, “but I hope to be, as soon as we’re settled.”
    “That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Castevet said. “You’re young and healthy; you ought to have lots of children.”
    “We plan to have three,” Rosemary said. “Would you like to see the rest of the apartment?”
    “I’d love to,” Mrs. Castevet said. “I’m dying to see what you’ve done to it. I used to be in here almost every day. The woman who had it before you was a dear friend of mine.”
    “I know,” Rosemary said, easing past Mrs. Castevet to lead the way; “Terry told me.”
    “Oh, did she,” Mrs. Castevet said, following along. “It sounds like you two had some long talks together down there in the laundry room.”
    “Only one,” Rosemary said.
    The living room startled Mrs. Castevet. “My goodness!” she said. “I can’t get over the change! It looks so much brighter! Oh and look at that chair. Isn’t that handsome?”
    “It just came Friday,” Rosemary said.
    “What did you pay for a chair like that?”
    Rosemary, disconcerted, said, “I’m not sure. I think it was about two hundred dollars.”
    “You don’t mind my asking, do you?” Mrs. Castevet said, and tapped her nose. “That’s how I got a big nose, by being nosy.”
    Rosemary laughed and said, “No, no, it’s all right. I don’t mind.”
    Mrs. Castevet inspected the living room, the bedroom, and the bathroom, asking how much Mrs. Gardenia’s son had charged them for the rug and the vanity, where they had got the night-table lamps, exactly how old Rosemary was, and if an electric toothbrush was really any better than the old kind. Rosemary found herself enjoying this open forthright old woman with her loud voice and her blunt questions. She offered coffee and cake to her.
    “What does your hubby do?” Mrs. Castevet asked, sitting at the kitchen table idly checking prices on cans of soup and oysters. Rosemary, folding a Chemex paper, told her. “I knew it! Mrs. Castevet said. “I said to Roman yesterday, “He’s so good-looking I’ll bet he’s a movie actor’! There’s three-four of them in the building, you know. What movies was he in?”
    “No movies,” Rosemary said. “He was in two plays called Luther and Nobody Loves An Albatross and he does a lot of work in television and radio.”
    They had the coffee and cake in the kitchen, Mrs. Castevet refusing to let Rosemary disturb the living room on her account. “Listen, Rosemary,” she said, swallowing cake and coffee at once, “I’ve got a two-inch-thick sirloin steak sitting defrosting right this minute, and half of it’s going to go to waste with just Roman and me there to eat it. Why don’t you and Guy come over and have supper with us tonight, what do you say?”
    “Oh, no, we couldn’t,” Rosemary said.
    “Sure you could; why