“I don’t understand. How could she forget she’d sold it to you?”
“I’m sure she didn’t actually forget, Mirabelle. Probably just seller’s remorse. Not that she had anything to be remorseful for. Your mother was never much of a saleswoman, as you know, and the shop was in excellent hands. She knew that, of course. She just had to learn to let go.”
She looks at me meaningfully. “So what do you say? Do we have a… deal?” When she says this, she glances over at Mother’s windows. I keep calling them windows, but they aren’t really. They’re a wall. A ceiling-to-floor wall of glass wrapping around the living room and the dining room and the kitchen. I see a hunger in her eyes at the sight of all that ocean, which I know she can’t see from her own apartment facing the street. I hear the scraping sound of some kind of tool in the bedroom. Tad most likely. I look at the red shoes gleaming by the front door. Didn’t I kick them off in the bedroom?
“I don’t know, Sylvia.”
“What?”
“I’ll need to think about it.”
“Well, forgive me for saying this, but you don’t have much time, do you?”
The red shoes wink at me by the door.
“You’re right,” I say. “I don’t.”
9
Evening. I’m in the living room, staring at the red shoes by Mother’s front door. Just sitting there. Shining there. Almost like I never wore them last night. Never walked along the shoreline, then along a dirt road to the house on the cliff’s edge. We hope you’ll come back, they said. A visitor would be coming, they said. Someone important. Very important to my mother. Who? I think of those strange jellyfish swimming in that massive tank. The woman in red waving at me from the landing of the grand stair, beneath the blazing chandelier. Shouldn’t go back to that house. Was it a spa? Some cult or pyramid scheme too, probably. Rich eccentrics peddling red jars. For the face, dear, for the face. Unlike you, I need all the help I can get. Mother was such a sucker. Probably they were going to try and sell them to me. Mother knew some very strange people, it’s true. People who wore gloves in the summer. People who owned rare exotic pets. People who always smiled at me with far too many teeth. Pointed and white and shimmering.
We know so much about you, the twins said. And that shudder I felt. Deep in the pit of me. What do you know?
All a scam, surely.
Sylvia’s long gone. Left in a huff after I told her I’d think about her offer. From the door, I told her again. I told her thank you, and she waved back at me like she was batting away a fly. Tad’s just left too, after a day of handymanning around the apartment. This is so satisfying, I heard him whisper to the walls, running his hands over them lightly.
Today, I did some things myself. Didn’t I?
No. There’s still just the open box sitting there in the middle of the room. Anjelica’s sleeping in a sea of dolls, eyes opening and closing. All day I ignored the endless ringing of my phone. First, Chaz wondering if I’d made a decision about selling the house, if he could bring in a real estate agent later today or tomorrow? Then my boss, Persephone from Damsels, checking in. She was looking forward to seeing me for my Sunday-afternoon shift, to hearing how I was doing, too, of course. We’re all here for you, she lied. Then the funeral director called. Mother’s ashes were ready to be picked up. Whenever I was ready.
I did an extended version of my morning skin routine to make up for the fact that I had somehow, unbelievably, missed my evening routine the night before. The morning ritual is all about protection. Each morning we must arm ourselves, Marva says, against the many free radicals and pollutants that assail the air, leaving their unsightly oxidizing marks on our epidermis, that most porous of membranes between our souls and the world. After Sylvia left, I went into Mother’s bathroom and triple cleansed, then doused myself with a copious amount of snail slime. I then used my NuuFace followed by my MasknGLO. Then ten skins of a green tea, algae, and rice essence for much-needed hydration and luminosity. Then an antioxidant serum specifically targeted toward my free radicals, followed by the Lumière Pigment Lightening Correxion Concentrate because an even skin tone is next to godliness. Then the Alchemie Liquid Lift followed by the Brightening Caviar for Radiance, followed （of course） by the Diamond-Infused Revitalizing Eye Formula. I misted diligently between skins with the rosewater and birch milk Moon Juice to create what Marva calls a moisture mille-feuille. I then anointed myself with the Marine Collagen Regenerating Day Soufflé using her patented seventeen-dot technique. The Day Soufflé not only brightens, firms, and plumps, but seals in the hydrating Moon Juice skins, preventing any transepidermal water loss. I patted it in with the recommended upward, counterclockwise strokes. Like an overcoat for the skin, Marva says of the Day Soufflé, and I have always loved this idea. And then of course the most crucial step, an overcoat for the overcoat: Glowscreen, physical and chemical. I applied both in Mother’s unlit bathroom, staring at the dark outline of my reflection, repeating the seventeen-dot technique, which works so well for the Day Soufflé. Why don’t you turn on the fucking light at least, Mother might have said if she’d caught me. So you can see what you’re doing to yourself? I’d turn to find her standing there in the doorway. Morning cigarette in hand, flawless face watching me as if to say, This is my daughter? This is mine?