“Oh my god,” I whisper into the glass, “is it really you?”
“It’s really me,” Tom Cruise whispers. Tom Cruise. Standing in Mother’s mirror. Tom Cruise, in the flesh. Right there on the other side of the glass, his smile white and blinding. Looking just like the movie except for his clothes, which are all black. Like the picture I tore from Sky magazine while Mother was getting her hair done into an S. I don’t know why I did that, just looked into his sky-colored eyes and ripped. Quietly, carefully, so Mother wouldn’t hear or see. Folded it three times, then tucked it deep into my dress pocket where it is still. Tom’s smiling at me. His lips are a little redder than I remember. But he sounds just like Tom Cruise sounds. Smiles just like Tom Cruise smiles. Suddenly, I feel very hot in the face.
“What are you doing here? What are you doing in Mother’s mirror?”
Tom keeps smiling with his long white teeth. One is longer than all the others, like a fang on one side. His eyes say some things are secrets, right? Best kept that way. Something inside of me catches fire. My skin goose bumps right down to my feet. I know why he’s here. I know before he even says the words: “I’m here to see you, Belle.”
Me. Tom Cruise is here to see me. Of course he is, though part of me thinks, It can’t be. I notice he’s holding a red rose pointy with thorns.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Hollywood?”
When I say Hollywood, I think of Mother, even though she’s the last person I want in my head right now. Hollywood’s where she wants to go eventually. Because how is she ever going to be the star she’s meant to be in Montreal, for fuck’s sake? Doing theater? A commercial here, a film there? She’s tired of being a big fish in a small pond, making peanuts in Ladies Apparel. Someday we’ll get there, Sunshine, she whispers to me at night, gripping my hand in the dark like it’s my dream, not hers.
Tom Cruise shakes his head. He’s still smiling at me. “I had to see you,” he says.
“You did?”
“Definitely.”
The rose glows in his hands. The rose, I know, is for me. My heart flutters, brightens. We’re swaying to this music that’s suddenly playing. That song I love from the movie, the one about breaths being taken away. Tom takes a step closer to the glass that separates us. He looks serious now. His jaw tightens, just like it does in the movie when he feels the need for speed.
“Can I come in?” he whispers. Tom is asking like the mirror is a door I can open. Will I open the door for him?
“Yes,” I hear myself say. “Please.”
And then? Tom Cruise walks through Mother’s mirror. The mirror is like jelly. As Tom walks through, it makes a sucking sound that reminds me of squids. And then he’s here. In Mother’s closet with me. Standing on the same floor I’m standing on in Mother’s very high-heeled red shoes. So high that Tom’s eyes are only a little above my eyes. His face is inches from my face. And everything seems to happen in slow motion then. Like a movie. A movie I’m inside of. He smells like the ocean, like the sky over the ocean, the breeze the water brings. My body is swimmy. I can’t breathe because Tom’s taking my breath away. He’s smiling at me just like he smiles at that blond woman in the movie, like Chip smiled at Mother just now. I’m fire. I know no words but his name. There are no eyes but Tom Cruise’s eyes, which aren’t blue-green anymore. They’re red. Red and shining like the shoes on my feet, like the rose in his hands.
What’s wrong with your eyes? I want to ask Tom. But I don’t want to be rude. And maybe very close-up like this, Tom’s eyes were always red and I just didn’t notice before. But wouldn’t I have noticed before?
“Here,” Tom says, handing me the rose. “For you.”
“Thank you.” No one’s ever given me anything like this. I can’t wait to tell Stacey—
“Don’t tell anyone,” Tom says, knowing my thoughts. Knowing my heart. He looks very intense.
“I won’t,” I whisper. And though I’m sad about Stacey, I love that Tom doesn’t want me to tell. That it’s a secret.
“Our secret,” Tom says. “From Mother, too.”
“Mother, too?”
He nods. Takes a step closer to me. He cups his hands around my face. Tom Cruise does. His hands feel slightly sticking and cold. I shiver at his touch. “You know about secrets, don’t you, Belle?”
“Yes,” I tell Tom.