Rouge(87)

Part V





23


“Tom,” I’m whispering. “Oh god, Tom. Don’t go.”

But Tom leaves me. He holds me once more and then he becomes smoke in my arms. And I’m holding nothing. Air. But he promised that if I do what he says, we’ll see each other again. He’ll see me on the other side if I do it exactly. Exactly like he said.

I’ll do it, Tom, I promise.

Not Tom, Seth.

Alone in my bed, I look up at the wrong stars that were just the right heaven when Tom Cruise was here. What did I just promise him? What did Tom ask me to do?

There’s a garden, he said. Whispered in my ear only minutes ago. You know the one. Behind your so-called friend’s house across the way.

And in my mind, I saw the bright red petals. Stacey’s hand leading me quickly through the thorny beds, toward her back door. Alla smiling hard at me, a spade in her gloved hand. I nodded.

Her Russian mother doesn’t like you coming over, does she? Doesn’t want her daughter playing with the Egyptian girl. Not even a Christian. Never baptized.

I nodded again. I hated that Tom knew this. I was so ashamed.

It’s not you that should be ashamed, Tom said, knowing my every feeling as I felt it. Can’t hide anything away. They should be fucking ashamed, he said. But they do grow the most beautiful roses, don’t they, Belle? he said, smiling at me under the stars.

Yes. And I pictured them through the cloudy glass of Stacey’s basement window. Red flashing in my eyes while I watched her dance.

So you’ll go to the ripest bed. So you’ll pick the blooms off the stems, he said.

I looked at Tom in the dark. But that’s stealing.

Not stealing, Tom said. Stealing back.



* * *




Now I’m standing in Stacey’s garden alone. Still in my white nightgown, which lifts in the breeze. The moon is red and full and low in the black clouds. No stars I can see like the ones in my bedroom. I guess the right stars are too far away to see tonight. Or the clouds are too black and thick. I’ve never been outside at night alone before. The wind is soft on my face like a hand. I’d like it if I weren’t stealing.

Stealing back.

Tom was right about the gate latch, very easy to lift. The house is dark. A pretty brick house in a line of pretty brick houses, the nicest on the island. I think of Alla meeting me in her garden. How I knew by her eyes that she hated me. She just doesn’t know any better, Mother said when I told her. Small-minded people, Sunshine. You’ll find them everywhere. Yet when Alla invited Mother for tea once, Mother said why not? They sat in the solarium off the garden, sipping tea from gold-rimmed cups patterned with roses and smoking long, thin cigarettes. They laughed and laughed; I heard them from where Stacey and I sat in the den watching Degrassi. No way could we rate each other with our mothers there, Stacey said. Listening to Mother’s laughter, I felt angry. I thought she said Alla was small-minded, but apparently not to her face. Maybe because Alla was a fellow Christian. Mother, why can’t I be Christian too? I asked her when we left. Because I promised your father, darling, Mother said. He had a different religion, so we made a deal. And I said, But Grand-Maman thinks you’re leaving me open to dark forces. And Mother laughed. Dark forces. Do you believe that woman?

In the garden, my bare feet make no sound. The grass is spongy and soft, and the earth smells green and sweet beneath my feet. Some people have gardens, Mother said when we came home from Stacey’s. We will too someday, Belle. In a much better place than this. She sounded drunk. Maybe Alla’s tea wasn’t just tea. We’ll have a garden with fruit trees. And we’ll have fucking flowers. Not roses, though. You know Mother’s allergic.

I know.

I’m supposed to pluck thirteen petals, Tom said. From the bed of roses in the farthest corner, whose throats are the most open. So very pretty this place is where I’m not supposed to be. Where Mother sat drinking alcoholic tea with the woman who thinks I’m godless. Who looks at me with eyes of ice. I’m creeping toward the roses and my hands are closing and opening at my sides. Don’t even need the light of the low red moon to lead me there. The smell would lead me, like the most alive perfume. What Mother calls heavenly, though never about roses. It opens something inside me, the scent. The same thing Tom opens whenever he looks at me. Don’t wake anyone, Belle, he said. Be quieter than quiet. As quiet as a mouse, my mouse. Remember, it’s a secret. Our secret. And the universe of his eyes was shining in the black. In my head now, I can feel Tom smiling at how quiet I’m being. My footsteps are nothing. I’m barely breathing. My heart’s hammering inside me, but hearts don’t make noise, do they? I remember Stacey has a white cat, Luba, that’s always slinking around out here, hissing. God I wish Tom were with me. But Tom’s gone. He’s smoke. The only way back to him is through these roses. Why roses, Tom?

Oh, you’ll see, Tom said.

I see a bed of them growing by the basement window, glowing under the moon just like he said they would be. Sharp and red and shining in the dark. Long snaking stems. Petals that curl open prettily like bells. And inside, a tight swirl like a secret, the secret of Beauty itself. I hear them breathing quietly in the soil. The same cold, damp soil I’m standing in with my bare feet. They look like the word no. Don’t touch. Don’t pluck. They look like the word forbidden. These are the words I said to Tom in the dark about these flowers. And he smiled his white smile and said, All the more reason. His eyes like the sky the roses were trying to reach, his face glowing like the sun that made them bloom.