I used to feel so much envy for the window mannequins. I’d imagine that they were Mother’s true children, that they tortured me like Cinderella’s evil sisters. Their whiteness glowed beneath the moon of my dreams. In these dreams, Mother also loved them more.
* * *
After I check out of the hotel, I drive over to the shop, bracing myself. A little afraid to see it all again. But when I pull up, there are no sinister sisters in the window. No scissor door handle anymore. No girl on a crescent moon above the door, either. The storefront is all chrome and glass. Behind the window, there’s a row of gray torsos under track lighting. Drab dresses hang from their headless bodies like sacks. Dark gray columns of fabric that show no shape at all. There are the odd embellishments at the collar and cuffs. Some absurd rhinestone swirls—are they meant to be galaxies? Eye-catching! I can picture Sylvia thinking. Eclectic. I see my own face reflected back in the window, between the torsos. My own face looming over my black sack, looking punched. There’s a furrow in my brow. The scar on my forehead’s throbbing darkly. The one I’ve been trying to lighten and brighten, exfoliate away. The one I barely noticed when I used to live here. Back now with a vengeance.
Tsk, Belle, Mother would say, patting my shoulder. Don’t frown or your face will freeze that way. You’ll thank me later.
When?
And Mother smiled. When your soul starts showing, of course. Sooner than you think. I remember she looked excited by this.
The sun goes behind a cloud, and I see Sylvia through the glass. Standing behind the counter. Mother’s counter. Once artfully arranged with scarves and brooches and a few choice perfumes. Filled now with what appears to be shitty costume jewelry. Sylvia’s talking to a customer. The customer’s back is to me, but I know the type, I can see her face in my mind’s eye, hear her awful voice in my head. Sylvia’s palms are pressed into the counter, so at ease in her terrain. Ingratiating smile. I feel my furrow deepen, my scar darken. My heart beating more quickly now.
* * *
When I burst through the shop door, ready to scream, ready to shout, Sylvia just looks at me out of the corner of her eye. Smiles with one side of her face, a saleswoman trick. I see you, I’m with someone, I’ll be with you in just a bit. Then she goes back to talking with the customer. “Oh yes. Hahaha. Absolutely. And with a blazer, you’ll be all set.”
I stand there, feeling like a ghoul, waiting for her to finish. Michael Bublé’s playing softly. Hideously. Gone is the scent of Mother’s perfume from the air. The customer turns around to look at me. A woman in capris and Nine West flats. Coral lip gloss. Chunky jewelry. Smiling tersely. She would never have come in here if Mother were behind the counter. Driven away by the pointy-faced mannequins, Mother’s beauty, the sex-and-death scent of the room atomizer. Bonjour, Mother would have said, smiling coldly. And what brings you here today? Meaning well, possibly, but she still would also have scared the living shit out of this sort of woman.
Sylvia isn’t like that. Hers is the wily face of the sycophant. Greasily beaming. Doesn’t mind being walked all over. Walk over me, her face says. I love it.
“I was going to go to J.Crew,” this woman is telling her, telling us both, “but then I thought I’d come here instead.” And then she looks around with a proprietary smile. So pleased with herself for shopping local.
“Well. We’re so very glad you dropped in.” Sylvia smiles, folding up the woman’s purchase. Some sort of brown sack dress. Wrapping it in tissue paper like it’s worth something. Winking at me. See? Customer service. Something your mother didn’t understand.
“Please come see us again sometime,” she urges the woman. She slips the turd-colored dress into a plain brown bag. Mother used to use glossy red paper bags, I remember. Belle of the Ball embossed on them in loopy gold. Some gold stars swirling around the words. Belle, like my daughter, she might explain, her hand on my neck, softly throttling me. I could feel her red nails sinking into my nape flesh as she beamed at me. And the customer would smile. How sweet, they’d think. What a beautiful example of mother-daughter love.
“Now, Mirabelle,” Sylvia says softly. “What can I do for you?”
I look around the place, at the headless torsos in their sacks, the swell of soft hits like an aural lobotomy.
“You stole Mother’s shop,” I hear myself say. My voice is calm, flat, polite, though I’m trembling. Did I really just come out and say it like that?