Rouge(36)

At last, Mother would appear in the doorway to pick me up. Belle, are you all right? Why do you look so pale?

Mother, are the Four Horsemen really coming?

And Mother would frown. Whisper something to her mother in rapid French, something I wouldn’t quite catch. About filling my head. About religion. And Grand-Maman would hiss back. My granddaughter. The truth. Deserves. What did I say?

“Belle,” Tad says. And then I’m back in the shop, standing still in the aisle full of glass animals and urns and end tables. Tad’s looking at me worriedly. “You coming? It’s just back here.”

At the very back of the shop stands Al, behind a tiny antique register. He’s wearing a sailor’s cap and a sky-blue Hawaiian shirt patterned with obscenely red flowers that look like vulvas. He does not look up at me and Tad. Instead, he eyes the items that Tad has just set on the floor. He picks up the lady lamp. Lifts the hem of her dress in a bored way, exposing her coils and wires.

Don’t fucking touch her, I want to scream. But I just stand there letting him fondle Mother. Mother’s lamp, I mean. His fat fingers. Assessing eyes. He picks up the butler statue and puts him back down. Strokes the gilt frame of the painting. Hundred already like it in the shop, says his face. Then he turns to the black antique chest. My heart starts to pound as he grips the lid. But it won’t open. Al looks at Tad, raises an eyebrow.

“Belle,” Tad whispers. “Do you have a key?”

I look at the chest, Al’s hands on the lid. I shake my head. “No key.”

“Well maybe a screwdriver could—”

“No screwdriver!” I shout. They both look at me. “It could damage the wood,” I add quietly. “Or the lock. Best to leave it locked.”

Al and Tad exchange another look. “Well, maybe we could—”

“Look, I’m very sorry, but if it’s locked, it’s locked, okay?” I bend down, tugging on the lid. And it comes right open.

I can feel Al looking at me with new interest. Tad beaming like he knew this would happen. “Magic touch.”

I look in the chest. Empty, of course. Just a blackness. What was I expecting to find?

“Oh hey,” Tad says, reaching down into the chest. He holds up a key. Tiny and golden. The size of a penny. “The key was inside the chest all along. How about that?”

“That’s not the key to the chest,” Al says.

“Sure it is.”

“Too small,” Al says, his hand still under the lamp lady’s skirt. “Looks more like the key to a cheap jewelry box. Or a diary.”

The red diary I found in the basement box flashes in my head. “I’ll take that,” I say, snatching the key from Tad.

Behind us, the shop bell rings.

“Cool,” Tad says, clapping his hands. “Well, the chest’s open, anyway. Now we’re in business, aren’t we, Al?” He’s looking at Al like he’s an oracle. “Al?”

But Al’s looking at the shop door, suddenly pale. “Fuck,” he whispers.

“What is it?” Tad says, turning toward the door.

“Her,” he says.

I turn to look. But even before I turn, I know whom I will see. Maybe it’s the way he said her with such contempt and fascination and fear. The woman in red. Dressed in drapey velvet like she belongs to another century, another world. Red parasol crooked in her wrist. Clutching a pair of—is it opera glasses? Yes, actual opera glasses, the long golden handle in her red-gloved fist. “Freak show,” Al whispers.

We watch her wandering the aisles like a bride. Touching each item she passes. Stroking it, really. Right beneath the signs that say DO NOT TOUCH! But Al’s not clearing his throat. Not reminding her about the signs. He’s just staring at her.

“She comes in here all the time,” he murmurs, his hand still under the lamp lady’s skirt, gripping now.

“Huh,” Tad says. “What’s with the glasses?”

“I don’t ask,” Al says.

“She must love antiques.”

Al shakes his head. “She loves something.”

I watch her zigzag more quickly through the aisles now, as if she’s hunting. Stroking a gilt frame here, then a glass animal there. Picking up a pewter goblet and clutching it to her chest, then putting it back hastily. Bringing a glass figurine up to her face and… sniffing? No, she couldn’t possibly be sniffing. I blink and she’s moved to the next aisle, holding up an urn now, a giant one patterned with vines. She’s turning it in her gloved hands as though marveling at its design. Holding it up to the light. Bringing it terribly close to her face and… yes, sniffing. Her nose is twitching now like a dog’s. I watch her take what looks like a hit from the urn. She shudders with ecstasy. Gasps a little. Now she’s bringing it to her lips, her long tongue protruding.

Al clears his throat loudly. She whips her head toward him, urn still in hand. Icy stare. Looks through her glasses, then lowers them slowly. She’s seen me. Just like that, a light goes on behind her eyes. She’s all teeth now. White and shining.

She puts the urn down and glides toward me. Throws her arms wide. Suddenly I’m crushed in her velvet embrace. I smell oceans and roses, and beneath those scents, something else… sulfury and mammalian that recalls my placenta serums. But fresher, riper. I’m aware of Tad and Al watching us, exchanging looks.