Rouge(64)

You’ll find life is full of lovely little surprises this way, said the Lord.

The opportunity to live moment to moment, in the present tense, like never before, said the Lady.

They pushed me closer still to the mirror, so that I was inches from my reflection in the glass. And though I was afraid, I was smiling at myself the whole time. Of course, we’re not quite there yet, are we? the woman in red said, over my shoulder.

Not quite, not quite, the twins whispered, staring at my face in the mirror.

But that’s why you’re back here, isn’t it, Daughter? Because Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Or a treatment, offered the Lord.

It was built in three treatments, the Lady said.

But didn’t Rome fall? I heard myself ask. I recall it crumbling.

Look at our Daughter, recalling things! And they smiled at me with their eyes. Please don’t worry about a little mental reshuffling here and there. A little rearranging in your head.

I thought of that white hand arranging the roses in my head.

A small price to pay for this level of collagen regeneration, n’est-ce pas? Speaking of which…

And then the woman in silver came and ferried me down to the basement. In the waiting room, I drank the blood vessel water. The pomegranate seed water, I mean. It was very cold, vaguely sweet, with a bitter finish that surprised and delighted me. I stared up at the horrified white face masks on the red walls. Twisted in varying degrees of terror. As if each face had been frozen confronting its worst nightmare, really. It was lovely. The glowing woman I met last time was sitting there beneath them, reading her red magazine. The one who I thought might be mixed, like me. Ethnically ambivalent. Ambivalent, is that the word I mean? Hello again, I said. We must be on the same treatment schedule.

She looked up at me like she’d never seen me before. I’m sorry, she said, have we met? I didn’t want to confuse her, so I said, Sorry, maybe I have it wrong. I’ve been confusing names and faces lately.

And she said, Funny. I’m confusing them too. I’m told it’s a harmless psychotrope. Side effect.

I was also told that.

But worth it for the Glow. Don’t you think?

She looked in the infinity mirror and I looked there too. I stared at thousands of her. Between us, she really was the one to look at. Paler than last time. As if the color had been leached out of her skin a little. She had a whiteness. A Brightness, call it a Brightness. There was a Glow greater than before. I envied it.

I envy, I said.

And she smiled. Thank you.



* * *




Now in the Treatment Room, the black discs are on my temples, the cold white paste’s on my face. “Is this a marine algae mask?” I ask the whisper woman.

“You could call it that,” she whispers.

I’m strapped to the bed, why strapped this time?

“So you can relax. These extractions can be quite visceral,” she says. “Memory lives everywhere in the body. Down the back. In the neck and in the hands. Even the feet.”

The feet, I think, and then remember that it took a while to get down here to the Treatment Room. Because of my red shoes. Again, I had to take them off. I had to follow the woman in silver barefoot, with the red shoes gasping in my fingers. It was so silly. I really shouldn’t wear them to the house anymore. And yet if I didn’t wear them, I don’t know that I would know how to get here.

Dark in here now. I’m alone. Such a warm feeling spreading through me. So there are straps, it’s fine. Don’t fuss. Don’t struggle. The straps are meant to protect me just like the whisper woman said. From what?

Yourself, of course, says a voice inside. The roses in my mind seem to have vanished now. Nothing in my head but a dark, scented fog, the sound of chimes. Who is speaking in the fog?

I look up and see the ceiling is being retracted to reveal another ceiling of glass. A sky of water, the red jellyfish floating by, pulsing. Someone recently told me they weren’t jellyfish. Who? What someone? Some silly person. They’re obviously jellyfish. Look at those red tentacles. Look at those pulsating heads. Like translucent hearts beating in the water, aren’t they? So pretty. And again I feel my body floating up, up to the ceiling, which is weird, what about the restraints?

But your mind has no restraints, says the voice inside.

Now I’m so close-up to the ceiling glass. I’m right near the jellyfish. I see a pattern like flowers on their bodies, beautiful. The aquarium glass becomes a screen where a movie plays. Oh god. Good, I mean. It’s very good. I love movies. Which one is this?

On the glass screen, I see a little girl. She’s standing in the closet of a blue-and-white bedroom, in front of a large oval mirror. She’s dressed in her mother’s clothes, waiting at the mirror like it’s a door. She’s ugly, I think. Jellyfish swim through her little ugly duckling body. Look at her intense face. Pained. Familiar.

Huh. What film is this again? Don’t think I know this one.

Oh, but you do, says the voice. Definitely. You know this one well. Trust me.





18


I’m sitting slumped by the mirror in Mother’s closet. I’ve been waiting here awhile for Tom to show up in the glass, any minute now. I’m in the red shoes and the white dress he loves best. I’m wearing Mother’s violets-and-smoke perfume and Mother’s lipstick, the lesser red she leaves in the drawer. Although there’s nothing lesser about you, Tom always says.