Rouge(15)

I look back up at the mannequin. Smiling at me mysteriously, cruel sister. “Why didn’t she tell me about the basement?” I whisper.

“Excuse me.” A woman standing in the doorway, holding one of the sack dresses limply in her arms. “Sorry, I was just looking for someone to help me, but there’s no one out front.”

“They’re in the basement,” I tell her.

“Oh.” She stares at me kneeling on the floor before the mannequin like I’m praying. “Well, if now’s not a good time…”

“No, it’s fine. I can help you. You wanted to try on that dress, right?”

She looks at me hesitantly. Even a little afraid. “Yes.”

“The dressing rooms are just out and to the left. I can take you.”

Her face brightens. “Oh. That would be lovely, thank you.”

“No problem,” I say, smiling a little as I stand up, wipe the shop floor dust off my knees. “This way, follow me.” Behind me, I can feel the mannequin gazing coyly at me. Like Mother used to whenever I handled a customer for her. My best saleswoman, she always said. Making up for her coldness. The good cop to her bad.

“Any particular occasion?” I find myself asking, slipping into the mode. Like I’m interested. It’s a throwaway question. I can intuit the needs of the customer with one look in their stranger’s eyes. Guess the event, the existential crisis behind the potential purchase.

The woman smiles. She enjoys this question of an occasion, though there is none. “Oh, just this and that.”

“Of course,” I say. I picture what this and that might look like for this woman. A three-hour prosecco lunch on a patio with her fellow blonds. Long drunken nights on rooftop terraces overlooking a roaring ocean they ignore. Lots of loud talk about personal journeys. When we get to the dressing rooms, she asks me would I mind terribly waiting here? She’d love to get my take. Of course I mind. Now that I’m back in the shop, I want to get the hell out of here. But I just smile at her placidly. “Not at all.” And I stand outside the door with my smile still on my face. I stare at the dress forms in their sacks. Watch a few women paw through the racks. Still the swell of soft hits all around. I bought this place for both of us, you know. Besides, what else are you going to do, Belle? A French literature degree is all well and good but come on. And you can’t be Princess Jasmine forever. I mean, can you? You tell me.

“Well,” the woman says, emerging at last from the changing room door. “What do you think?”

It’s hideous. A taupe halter-neck dress that bells out straight from the clavicle in a strange, asymmetrical triangle. It hangs on her like a poorly pitched tent. The taupe washes her out.

“Tell me,” she says, a little pleading.

But she doesn’t want me to tell her. Not truly. I can tell by the twitch in her lip, the hopeful shine in her eyes. She’s brimming with it: a longing for delusion. She’s not looking at the giant gilt-trimmed mirror Mother nailed to the wall, though it’s right beside her. She’s looking at me. An entity capable of reflecting back exactly what she desires to see. Like how Mother used to look at me instead of a mirror sometimes. Slavering for just the right adjective. Well, Belle? What do we think?

“It’s a little too, I don’t know… look at me, isn’t it?” the woman says, and then laughs, embarrassed.

I smile. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“What do you think?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

I can feel her holding her breath. For a moment, I savor the power, the true words right on my tongue. Unflattering. Unfortunate. I could speak them and crush her.

“I think it’s wonderful.”

“Really?”

“Sophisticated,” I offer. “Avant-garde, even,” I add, over-enunciating the French.

“Avant-garde,” she repeats dreamily. Another language. She likes that. “You really think so?”

“Never hide your light,” I tell her. She smiles. She’s prone to hiding her light, her eyes say. She looks at herself in the mirror. Now it’s safe. Her face brightens at what she sees.

“It is sort of elegant, isn’t it? Cutting edge, even.”

I nod. Absolutely. It could be those things if she likes. “And versatile,” I add. “A daytime sharpness that could translate easily into a nighttime chic.”

Where are these words coming from? My lips, apparently. It always comes so easily. Telling people what they want to hear. Divining the perfect words with one look at their waiting faces. Giving them their dream of themselves. I did it in a spangled bra for ten years beneath the arch of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Aren’t you as pretty as a princess? I’d say, even to the homely ones. Especially to the homely ones. I do it now at Damsels in my dark, high-necked dress. And, of course, I did it for Mother. In this shop and all my life, I’d have my slew of words ready to hand out like candy. You always have the magic words, Mother said, grateful but also suspicious. How do you always know exactly what to say?

The woman smiles more broadly. “I should take you with me everywhere. Normally I shop with my daughter. She’s very cruel. She calls it being honest, of course.” Laughter.

I smile. “Of course.”

“And how are we doing here?” Sylvia says, suddenly appearing at my side out of nowhere. “Oh my, that looks fantastic. Aren’t these halter necks just the cutest things? Just got them in from Sweden.” It has the ring of falsehood. Of too much.