Rouge(6)

The living room is more crowded now, and the mirrors make it look like her mourners are infinite. Did she really know all these people? Most of them are strangers to me. They are saying, “Such a shame, such a shame. So young. Fell into the water? Jumped? So terrible.” And then they turn to look at the ocean and shiver. Or they’re talking about other things. Upcoming vacations. Traffic on the 805. What Trump said yesterday on Fox, he’ll never get elected. “If only we could keep Obama forever.” Everyone’s holding glasses of Sylvia’s fake champagne like it isn’t fake at all. They smile sympathetically as I enter the living room. Whispers and soft words fill the air. “The daughter, I think. It’s hard, isn’t it? Oh, life. A mystery, a mystery.” Shaking their heads insufferably. I need to get away from all their piteous eyes and soft words that do nothing, mean nothing. I put on my sunglasses, keep my mouth a straight line. Make a beeline through the living room, eyes fixed on the front door. I have a plan. I’ll get in Mother’s dark silver Jaguar. Drive to the pink hotel. Take the elevator to my room, bolt the door. Get in the bed and lie there. Hear the clock tick and the waves crash, and then the sun will sink eventually, mercifully, on this day. And night will come, won’t it? That’s a promise.

Are you sure you won’t stay? their faces seem to say as they watch me escape. Going already? They look at the cigarette in my hand, the shades covering my eyes, as I push past, murmuring, “So sorry, excuse me,” in spite of myself.

When I leave the apartment, something quiets. A roaring in my heart. The heaviness lifts a little and I can breathe. I stand there on the veranda and breathe. Palm trees. That bright blue sky stretching on endlessly. Not so alien anymore. But there are a few people outside too, I see, milling. Can’t get away from them. All I want to do is get away from them. These people who don’t know. Who never knew.

Knew what? says a voice inside me.

And then I see there’s someone else there too, standing away from the small, murmuring clusters, staring out at the water. Staring out and smiling. Her hands gripping the rail of the veranda like she’s on a cruise. A woman in a red dress. Red at a funeral? Am I seeing right? Yes. A dark red dress of flowing silk. Beautiful, I can’t deny that. Mother would have approved. Something else about her sticks out, but what is it? Something about her face so sharply cut, her skin smooth as glass. Have I seen her somewhere before? She looks happy. So happy, I can almost hear the singing inside her. She has red hair, too, like Mother. Red hair, red dress, red lips. It makes her look like a fire. A fire right there on Mother’s veranda. As I notice her, she turns to me and her face darkens, then brightens. I feel her look deep into the pit of me with her pale blue eyes. Inside me, something opens its jaws. She is staring at me so curiously. Like I’m a ghost. Or a dream.

“She went the way of roses,” this woman says to me. And smiles. Like that’s so lovely. When she says the word roses, I see a flash of red. It fills my vision briefly like a fog. Then it’s gone. And there’s the woman in red standing in front of me against the bright blue sky.

“The way of roses,” I repeat. I’m entranced, even as I feel a coldness inside me, spreading. “What’s the way of roses?”

She just smiles.

“What’s the way of roses?” I ask again. “Who are you?”

But someone pulls me away. A sweaty man I don’t recognize. His grim wife. They want to tell me all about how sorry they are for my loss. The man has his hand on my shoulder. It’s a heavy hand and it’s squeezing my arm flesh. “We saw your mother in a play once,” he’s saying. “And we never forgot, did we?” he asks his wife, who says nothing. Well, he never forgot, anyway. The wife nods grimly. “She shone,” this man says, his eyes all watery and red. So there is alcohol at this party somewhere, I think. “Like a star on the stage,” the man insists. And she was so nice to them afterward. That’s what he’ll never forget. How nice Mother was. So gracious and humble. No airs, despite her great beauty, her great talent. So down-to-earth. I can imagine her feigning interest in their lives. Sucking his admiration like marrow from the veal bones she used to enjoy with parsley and salt.

I want to laugh in their faces. My mother, down-to-earth? And then I think of what’s left of Mother. Soon to be in the literal earth. Suddenly I can’t breathe again. “Excuse me,” I say, and push past them.

But she’s gone, the woman in red by the railing. Where that woman was standing is just empty space. I stare at the rosebushes planted along the other side of the railing. A red so bright, it hurts my eyes. Petals shivering in the blue breeze. Shining so vividly in the light.





2


At the pink hotel by the sea, there’s a bar right on the water. Don’t know why I came here. Can’t afford this place, not at all. And if the lawyer’s tone on the phone is anything to go by, that isn’t going to change. We’ll talk tomorrow morning, Chaz said when I asked him to tell me the worst of it. Please tell me, I said. Tomorrow, he said. I’ve been staying at the hotel ever since I landed. Of course I’m afraid of the bill. But I’m more afraid of being alone in Mother’s apartment. Have to face it tomorrow, of course. Pack up the place. But not now, not yet.

“Table for one, please,” I tell the waiter at the bar. Because I may as well go down in style. You would have approved, wouldn’t you, Mother?