* * *
As I approach the shop, I have to smile. I was worried about being late, but we’re right on time, look at that. I’m right on time, I mean. Even with all the dawdling and that phone call from the underworld. I’m here at Belle of the Ball, where I work. Where I’ve always worked, right? Worked with Mother until she died recently. A pretty dress shop right in the heart of… the area. Can’t miss it. Something’s different about the shop front though. Things that used to be here, pretty things, aren’t here anymore. Drawing a blank on what exactly, but I know they’re gone. Where did they go? Does Mother know about this? There I am in the window. Glowing, lifted, eradicated, which may or may not be the word I mean. I’m smiling in the glass though the window display itself upsets me a little, not going to lie. Who cut off the heads of these mannequins? Why are they wearing these sad gray sacks?
In the shop, no one’s on the floor. Well, maybe because my shift’s starting. I walk behind the counter. Place my hands on the glass jewelry case. When did the jewelry in here become so… not pretty? The first chance I get, I’ll have to do something about that. For now, though, I’d better stay here on the floor. Can’t leave the register, Mother would hate that. Yet she used to leave all the time. Loves to leave while I’m forced to stay and watch her float around and disappear into the back for god knows how long. Loved to leave, I mean. Be my eyes and ears, Belle, she’d call over her shoulder. And I was. I am. Her best saleswoman, she always said. My reflection has wandered off, I see. Wandering the shop floor just like Mother does. Like Mother did, what is it with me and tenses today? I’d call myself back but that seems like too strange a thing to do. Call oneself back. And anyway, maybe it’s just this glitch in the glass today. Following me from mirror to mirror like the chimes seem to be following me. They’re playing here now. Right here in the shop, right around my ears. It would make me maybe a little nervous if they didn’t sound so pretty. My reflection seems to be swaying a little to their music as she wanders away. Smiling, though we’re not loving what we see hanging on the racks. With my eyes, I try to follow her from mirror to mirror, Mother installed so many along the shop walls. Where is she going? Where am I going, I should say. Do reflections really wander off like this?
“Hello? Are we here?” Someone’s snapping their fingers in my face.
My eyes focus. A customer right in front of me. Tight, wet-looking curls that remind me of seaweed in a tide pool. A face that screams she’s chosen what Marva calls the Procedural Approach. I can’t tell if she’s angry or frightened or extremely surprised.
“Hello.” I smile at her. “How can I be of hell to you? Help to you.” Funny, these word slips I’m having today.
She looks at me, a little scared maybe. Again, very hard to tell with her face. “You work here?”
I smile like what a question. I’m behind the counter, aren’t I? But sometimes, in retail, one must state the obvious. “I work here, yes.”
She looks at my hands gripping the counter. “I’ve never seen you here before.” In my pocket, my phone buzzes.
“Well, maybe we missed each other. Ships in the night.” I look around for my reflection. Nowhere in sight. Where did she—？
“Well maybe you can help me now.” She already looks like she doubts it. Doubts me, Mother’s best salesperson. I smile like sure I can, of course. My mission. My absolute pleasure to try. After all, how many doubtful shoppers just like her have I asphyxiated over the years? Assisted. She raises her hand, weighed down with the very strange, sad clothes we seem to sell here.
“I want to try these on.”
“Wonderful.”
My phone’s still buzzing. Persephone. Why Persephone? I’m right here, I want to tell her. Would tell her but I’m busy just now. The customer’s still standing there as if waiting for something. “Well? Would you mind showing me to the fitting rooms, please?”
I smile. “I would never mind at all. Follow me.”
The fitting rooms. Surely I know where those are. Surely if I walk toward the back, I’ll find them there. I’m keeping an eye out for my reflection, too, of course, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Where have I wandered off to now? I, she, it… what do I even call that shape I see in the glass? Never really thought about it until now. Maybe my reflection needs a name, my mirror me. Where is mirror me? Nowhere in the nearby glass. Maybe over—