My turn to stare now. Is he serious?
He doesn’t flinch. Oh yes, he’s serious.
I forgot this about America. How they card the very obviously over thirty. I give him my driver’s license, and he stares at it forever, squinting. My mother’s dead, you know, I want to tell him. I just left her funeral. This drink, it’s deeply important to me. My fingers begin to twitch to show him the birthdate on the license. It’s a Canadian license, so he probably has no idea where to look, and I should be patient, I should help. But I’m a little mesmerized by how long this is taking. How many times he looks at me, then at the license.
Finally, he hands it back. “Miss?”
Miss? “Yes?” I steel myself for his words. That he can’t take this kind of international ID, sorry. He’ll need to see my passport, please.
But he just looks at my face, sort of dreamily. “Whatever you’re doing?” he says in a low voice. “It’s working.”
A smile in spite of myself. A vile flush of shallow happiness. “It is?”
“Definitely,” he says. “Definitely.”
Shouldn’t matter at all. What this stranger makes of my skin. But there’s my hand on my cheek, there’s me looking up at his well-meaning expression.
“Thank you,” I whisper, thinking of my bathroom counter cluttered with Marva-recommended jars and bottles and vials. My purse full of sunscreens and rejuvenating mists. “I have a whole thing that I do,” I tell him, surprising myself. I never speak of what I do, with anyone. Because it’s for you, isn’t it? Marva says. A secret between you and the mirror.
He smiles. “Let me get you that champagne.”
* * *
It comes in a chilled glass, bubbling like a cauldron. Like drinking stars, Belle, Mother would have said. I always rolled my eyes when she said that, but now look at me with my glass. Marva says alcohol is a collagen destroyer. Dries you up, dries you out. If you want good skin, you must stop drinking immediately, she says sternly. And when I watch Marva say this, I usually have a coffee cup full of champagne in my hand. Sometimes a cigarette in the other, also verboten by Marva. And I feel scolded, hideous, guilty. But Marva also says, We are human, aren’t we? We all have our little fixes, our little indulgences, balms to this mortal coil, don’t we?
We do, I agree. And there are tears in my eyes at Marva’s compassion. Her understanding of the paradoxes. You should be kinder to yourself, she says to me softly, her eyes staring right into my eyes. Like they know. They know exactly how cruel I can be.
First one glass, then another. Not going back up to the hotel room to start my evening routine, though I can feel the grit and dust and debris on my face. The many free radicals that are burrowing their way through my skin barrier, oxidizing my flesh as we speak. I’m in desperate need of a clarifying cleanse, followed by a regenerating cleanse, followed by a triple exfoliation, after which I’ll likely baste my face in some barrier-repairing zinc. But not just yet. The sky is an unholy pink fire, the palm trees blackening. I feel the waves roaring at my back. Not too many people at the bar tonight. Just a man nearby staring hard at his laptop, clicking away. Working late, I guess. A breeze blows through the terrace. Warm. Gentle. I forgot that about California. How even the breeze is a dream. Where would I be right now if I were back in Montreal? Working late too, probably. Staring at the checkered black-and-white store floor. Avoiding the mirrors on the walls. Not wanting to see my face ravaged by a day of smiling falsely under bright lights. Smiling still, just in case anyone should push through the doors at the last minute. That ring of the little silver bell. I hear it in my dreams. I hear it now. People coming into the dress shop so hopeful. Wanting what? Never just a dress. Mother taught me that. What they want, she said, is an experience. A transformation. A touch of magic.
Can’t happen, I want to say to them. You are who you are who you are. Trust me, I know. There’s no escape. In my dreams, I tell them this. I tell them all the awful truth. But in reality, I just smile. I say it looks wonderful even when it looks hideous. Wow, I say. And if you paired it with this blazer, it would really finish the look. And I’m lying. There is no look. The blazer will finish nothing. But they always believe me. They thank me, still frowning at themselves in the mirror. And I stand beside it, another mirror, smiling. My hands folded over my crotch. Waiting for them to look at me instead.
At this time of night, in the empty shop, the mask that is my face would be coming off. My smile would be slipping. I’d be playing music for myself and not the customers. Something dreamy and dark, with distortion. Something I could close my eyes and drown in beautifully. Mother used to describe my music taste as Otherworldly Funeral. Or Bleakest Party. Can you please turn down Bleakest Party, darling? Some of us have chosen to embrace life. It’s the hour when all the shop mannequins conspire to look menacing. When they all appear to be smirking a little. Reminding me, with their flawless whiteness, of Mother. I might even have called her out of guilt. Or because I missed her. Those last times we talked, she’d sounded strange. Hello? Hello? she’d call into the phone. Like she was calling out into a dark night with no idea where she was.