Rouge(5)

Appletiser, someone said. Isn’t it lovely? Sylvia thinks of just about everything.

She does, I agreed. And then I said, I need a minute. Excuse me.

And this is what I say to Sylvia now in the door. I say, “I needed a minute. Excuse me.”

I can feel her staring at me in that searching way I’ve always shied away from like a too-bright light. Like she’s hunting for some key to the closed door of my face. She looks at my phone on the counter. On the screen, Marva is paused in mid-stroke of her white throat. I quickly grab the phone and tuck it into my pocket.

“I hope the party is all right?” she says.

“Wonderful, Sylvia,” I lie, nodding. “Thank you. Thank you for putting it together.”

“We could have had it at my apartment, of course, but your mother’s view is just so much better than mine.” And then she looks over my shoulder at the ocean view through the bathroom window. The ocean I haven’t been able to look at since I arrived, though each night the sound of the waves keeps me thrashing in bed until I black out. Then it seeps into my dreams.

I look at Sylvia smiling serenely at this ocean in which Mother met her end. Seeing nothing but pretty waves, a beautiful view, her view if she plays her cards right. Possibly her own reflection beaming back at her. Suddenly an urge to throttle her thin little neck throbs in my fingers. It’s a mottled neck, I notice. Not a serum or SPF user, is Sylvia.

“A beautiful view, don’t you agree?” She looks at Mother’s perfume on the counter, the lipstick, her red jars and vials for the face. “She really loved her products, didn’t she?”

“She did.”

“Well, we all have our little pleasures. Mine are shoes.” She beams at me, then down at her own small feet encased in their boring designer flats. “Of course, your mother loved those too.”

“Yes.” I light another cigarette in front of Sylvia. I can feel her judge me for it. She looks at me through the smoke, saying nothing. I’m the bereaved, after all. I have certain allowances, don’t I? I’m tempted to exhale the smoke in her face, but of course I wave it away, apologizing. She smiles thinly.

“So. How long will you be here?”

I think of the transcontinental flight I took only three days ago—was it only three days ago? How the pills and the airport wine and then the plane wine kept me slumped deep in the window seat. How the beauty videos I was trying to watch kept freezing on my phone so I had no choice but to look at the sky. I kept my sunglasses on even after it grew dark. Even when there was nothing left of the view but one red light on the tip of the wing, flashing in the black night.

“I took a week or so off from work,” I tell her.

“Work?” She looks surprised that I do anything at all. After I left La Jolla, didn’t I just sink into oblivion? “Oh, that dress shop, right? What’s it called? Damsels in Something?”

“Damsels in This Dress.”

“In Distress. How fun. Like mother, like daughter.” Smiling at the thought of her and Mother’s shop. Our little shop, Sylvia likes to call it. She never calls it Belle of the Ball. Doesn’t like the name’s affiliation with me or that it predates her. Sylvia took more of a role after I left, but she was insinuating herself long before. Her crisp white shirt and pearls forever in my periphery, unnecessarily straightening the side merchandise. So organized, Mother always said of Sylvia. The yin to my yang, so to speak. And Sylvia’s smile would tighten. Sylvia, what would I do without you? Mother would ask. Perish, Sylvia said. And only I knew she was half-serious.

“Montreal,” Sylvia sighs now, attempting the French pronunciation. Massacring it, of course. She looks wistful for this place where she’s never once been. “So chic. Where Noelle got her style, no doubt. Your mother had such style.” Little sweep of her gaze around the bathroom. “You’ll probably need help packing up, don’t you think?”

“I can manage, Sylvia. Really.” I say this evenly. Calmly. With infinite politesse.

“I’m happy to drop by,” she insists. “Just say the word.”

“I’ll be sure to. Thank you. In the meantime, I think I might go back to the hotel. Get some rest. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

Didn’t sleep at all. Tossed and turned in the perfumed dark. One eye kept open, always. When I’d checked in, the man at the front desk had said he was giving me an ocean view, like it was a gift. The waves, he said, would put me right to sleep. They always do, he said, and smiled. Trust. They didn’t. The crashing waves made a crashing sound, not lulling at all. And there was the image I couldn’t unsee even in the dark. Mother in her robe of red-and-white silk. Falling into the black water, onto the sharp rocks.

“Of course,” Sylvia says. “You must be tired.” Magnanimous smile. So very sad for me. “Well, be sure to come by our little shop before you fly back home. You mother left some things there. There are also some things… you and I should discuss. When you’re ready, of course.”

Things? Discuss? “What things, Sylvia?” There’s an edge to my voice now.

“There’s a time and a place, my dear. Isn’t there?” She says it very carefully, almost reprimanding, as if I’m the one being hideously inappropriate.

“A time and a place. Absolutely. Excuse me.” I squeeze past Sylvia and duck out into the hallway. A mirror there all along the length of the corridor. A crack in this one too, just like in the bathroom. Another mirror, another crack. Like Mother took a sharp diamond to it and just swiped as she walked. Strange. A coldness whenever I look at these mirrors. More of them in the living room—so many shapes and sizes. A wall of cracked glass, each one in its own heavy black frame.