Rouge(91)

The next step, Tom says, is the trickiest of all.

To go into Mother’s bedroom. To her vanity with the three mirror faces. To find the jar of night cream on the table. The one she uses every night. Rubs tenderly into her face in counterclockwise circles. I sometimes watch from her bed, making wishes in my head until she tells me to leave. Why do I have to leave? I always ask her. Because this is Mother’s secret, Mother says, and her face is suddenly a closed door. The night cream smells like perfume and is named after the sea in French. Because the cream has red algae in it, Mother told me once. Plus a magic sea broth.

Like a potion, I said.

Yes. Mother laughed. Exactly like that. Mother needs all the help she can get these days.

I look at the jar shining on the vanity in the blue light of the moon through the window. I’m supposed to open it, Tom said. Take the dark red powder from Tom’s black bag and mix it in. Easy, Tom said. I picture Mother’s throat closing. I think of the open throat of the rose whose petals I plucked.

This will hurt her, I tell Tom in my mind.

And in my mind, Tom smiles, amused. Didn’t I already know that? Didn’t I fucking know that when I plucked the red petals? When I crushed them one by one by one with the heavy black stone? I’ll have to mix them into Mother’s cream. Your mother’s cream comes with a little gold spoon, remember?

Yes. Of course I remember. Mother using the gold spoon to scoop. How she dabs it on her face dot by dot like she’s anointing herself, she says. I always ask if she can anoint me, too. And Mother always says my skin is young and plump and perfect just as it is, so I don’t need anointing. I won’t ever need it anyway because of my father. That Egyptian blood. It will always save me in the end. How she wishes she had it, Mother lies, so it could save her, too. And she cups my face between her hands like a light she wants to keep lit.

Can you believe that cream actually comes with its own little gold spoon to mix? Tom said in the bedroom last night, delighted. Shaking his head at the ceiling stars like how perfect was that?

Yeah. And I just stared sideways at his so perfect face. Glowing like a sunrise right beside me. If I touched it, would it burn me?

Too perfect, right? Tom whispered, turning to me.

Too perfect, I whispered. I smelled the cold ocean of him. And I thought, how could someone be a sky and a sea and a sun all at once? How could someone be heaven and also the endless deep? Tom, I thought, this is what you are to me. This is what you will always be. Everything all at once.

It’s fate in a way, Tom said, oblivious to my staring. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s why he was smiling. Do you know what fate is, Belle?

I thought of the picture of him I’d torn from Sky. Folded three times then hid like a secret. And now here he was in the flesh, here with me in the flesh.

It’s what’s meant to be? I whispered.

And Tom nodded in the dark. Definitely.

Like you and me, then, I said. Shy suddenly. My turn to look away up at the stars. But I could feel him still watching me. I could feel his fang shining in the dark. The fang was my favorite part of Tom.

Yes. Exactly like you and me, seedling.

But Mother will see, I told the stars. She’ll notice the red powder. She’ll smell the roses.

Which is why you’ll have to mix it well, Tom said. So well that Mother won’t be able to tell. She won’t be able to see or to smell that anything is amiss. It’s a good thing her cream is red, too. Red like roses. Red like blood. Red like the algae she steals from the Deep to make her look young and beautiful forever. But it won’t save her in the end.

It won’t? Why not?

Nothing saves us in the end, Tom said, stroking my hair. Not gods or shadow gods. Not heaven or the endless Deep. Not blood or cream red as blood. Rouge, as they say.

And he smiled his smile that lit me up.



* * *




In Mother’s blue bedroom, I’m quick and light as a mouse. But not like I was in the garden. Not stiff and afraid and waiting for a yellow square of light to fall across the garden, exposing me. I’m not afraid of being caught, even though Grand-Maman’s not sleeping. I can hear her breathing in the living room. I can hear her still staring in the dark. She doesn’t say, What are you doing in your mother’s room? She gives me all the time I need. To open the jar. To tip the red powder in from the black bag. To mix it with the little golden spoon that’s too perfect. To mix it well by the light of the June moon. To not look in any of the three mirror faces. Tom won’t be there anyway. Just me alone in the glass, though I don’t dare look. Three of me mixing in my white dress stained red from the flowers. And my memory of Tom’s voice in the back of my head like a song.

Now you’ll also want to dust some red powder onto her hairbrush.

Which hairbrush, Tom?

Oh, you know the one, Belle.

And I do know the one. I’m reaching for it just as Tom tells me: The gold one she bought for you that doesn’t even work on your coarse dark hair. So she had to take it back. It works such magic on hers. So let’s see what sort of magic it works now, Tom says as I sprinkle the powder on the brush and my hand not at all shaking.

And then her perfume. A few roses for her dead violets and smoke. Just a sprinkle in her jagged star. Very good, Belle. Now shake it up. Perfect. Oh wait. Don’t go just yet.

Not yet? I say.

No, no, Tom says in my head. There’s one more thing.