Rouge(32)

Thank you though, I said. For the offer.

I’ll still need more time. To do the foundational stuff.

How long?

A few weeks, maybe. If not more. I’d really think about selling some of this stuff. I could take you to that antiques man downtown tomorrow. Buy you a month.

A month, I thought. I have to be back at work Sunday. Three days from now.

I’ll think about it, I said.

I thought he would leave, but he just kept standing there, so I said, What? It was rude. I heard the rudeness and winced at how Mother would have frowned. Tad didn’t notice.

I was just going to grab some dinner, he said. Did you, uh, want to join?

I looked at Tad’s face in the dark. Sandy hair. Eyes like the Pacific on the clearest day. Looking like he belonged on the screen of Grand-Maman’s old box television, her world of daytime soaps. More beautiful than any of my lovers apart from the twins. And can I tell you I saw it all? Saw it all, saw it all. The levity he would make me feel, briefly, over shared tacos at some outside hut. The beers we would sip in the palm tree–filled dark. The coolness bubbling crisply down my throat. The sense of rebellion. The brief escape from my own pain. Maybe I would cry. Actual tears, not Formula runoff. Maybe Tad would comfort me with some Zen philosophy quote. About how we are all drops in the river of time. How that river flows backward and forward. The sex we would likely have later in his apartment in Pacific Beach, on his futon. Surely he had a futon. The smell of Tad would be thick in the air, would be lovely. Beachy and young. How many times had Mother breathed it in greedily? From his neck. From his chest. The dolphin winking at her from his arm with each thrust. Hands gripping her white waist, her red hair. Hands that stroked her perfect face with such wonder at its—

No, I said. Not hungry. Thanks.

And Tad half smiled.

He left, closing the door so quietly it felt like a stroke of my hair.

And now here I am. Alone. Sitting in the dark, hands clutching Mother’s bowl. Staring at the red shoes glowing by the door. Which I won’t put on. Of course not.



* * *




One foot then the other on the dark path along the shore. First the path by the water, then the dirt path along the cliff’s edge. Tonight, it feels like the path I’ve walked all my life. The blackness is like an old friend. Lovely to hear the ocean roar, the grass hum and twitch. I’m whistling to myself as I click along. I’m at the spiked gates before I know it. They open for me again like they knew I was coming.

As I walk up the path to the house, the roses sway gently in the black breeze, seeming to nod their red heads in welcome. I feel such welcome. It’s good I came, I think. They were expecting me. Then I see the front doors are closed. No woman in a silver dress with eyes of smoke waiting there. Smiling at me and my red shoes.

I stare at the closed doors and my heart suddenly sinks. Someone important to Mother. Even if it is just a scheme, I need to meet this person. I knock. Nothing. Knock again. Nothing. I notice there’s a peephole in one of the doors. I try to look through. Black. But I feel an eye looking right back at me. An eye I don’t see so much as sense. And then the door opens.



* * *




Tonight, the hall is shimmering grandly. Empty. No radiant rich people in red, silver, or black. No one there behind the door. Just the sound of my own footsteps clicking along the marble floor. Just that chime-y music, that airy spa drone. The boutique in the corner is dark, all the glass cabinets unlit. I look at the great coiling staircase where the woman in red stood on the landing, waving. No one on the landing tonight, though on the wall, a screen still plays the video of that blissed-out white woman with the black discs on her temples, ocean waves lapping endlessly over her face. Tonight her eyes are open. Smiling at me, it seems.

Above my head, the red chandelier blazes brilliantly. Though I crane my neck, there’s still no sign of a ceiling. In my mind’s eye, I see myself as a child, Mother reading me a story in the dark. About a beautiful maiden. A castle by the sea. This castle by the sea, I asked Mother. What did it look like inside?

Oh, you wouldn’t believe this place, Mother said. Great halls like labyrinths. A ceiling so high, you could look up, up, up and never find it. Only the chandelier blazing down. The grandest chandelier you ever saw. Dripping with honest-to-god crystals.

“Hello?” I call now. Nothing, no one emerges. I walk a little farther down the hall, toward the Depths. Tonight, the red curtains are drawn around the tank. Behind them, I feel the jellyfish float. I notice there’s a single champagne flute on a small silver tray on a lacquered black table. Filled to the brim with that red champagne. It’s bubbling in a way I’ve never seen before. Like it’s excited. There’s a little black card beside the flute that reads Santé, in elegant red scroll. I lift the glass to my lips. Cold bubbles course down my throat, sweet and sharp. In my head, I can almost hear the house applauding me. So many silk hands clapping. I look up at the video of the woman with the black discs, still smiling at me through the waves. Why do I feel as though I’m being watched tonight? As though the house is watching? Not just watching, but holding its breath. A particular person is holding their breath.

I take another sip and sigh. The whole hall seems to sigh with me. It’s strange but pleasant. The red curtains are drawn suddenly, quickly, in one velvety swish. And there are the red jellyfish in the great glass tank. Pulsing in the blue-green water. I’m surprised that I’m delighted at the sight of them. Delighted or horrified? I drink more of the excited champagne. Walk up to the tank, though I don’t want to come any closer to those creatures, beautiful as they are. So red. Bigger than they were last night. Do jellyfish grow that quickly? My face is right up against the glass now. The water’s cloudy tonight. A little darker, though still blue-green. I’m noticing one jellyfish in particular. Floating away from the cluster of floating spheres. Drifting toward me, close to the glass now. Like it can see me.