George was expecting the girl’s ghost long before it finally showed up.
Since it was the age of invention, there would soon be no more ghosts. The houses were raised and fell apart so quickly, they were not at all appealing for ghosts. But the brothel was an older house. It had the types of nooks and crannies that ghosts enjoyed finding themselves in. Ghosts liked history. They also liked beautiful things. They had chairs they liked to continue to sit on. They had mirrors they liked to look in. Ghosts were truly in love with architecture. They got fixated on certain spots. And there was no one in the world who could convince them heaven might be a better place.
The ghost of the girl in the green coat would be in the strangest places. One morning George looked up and saw her lying on top of the kitchen cupboards. Another time, she was in the small backyard standing in the snow. She was sitting at the top of the stairwell and George was terrified to climb it.
George opened the bathroom door and the ghost was sitting on the toilet. She was on a chair in the parlor, holding a book in her hand, weeping: “I can’t get past the first page, I keep reading it over and over again.” She was sitting at the kitchen table with an egg in her hand. “Shhh,” she whispered. “I’m waiting for it to hatch.”
Each time George saw the ghost, she was utterly devastated. She had never been this upset. She found herself trembling in bed at night. It was as though she herself were lying at the bottom of an unmarked grave. Why did the girl seem to blame her? She didn’t seem to blame her only for the abortion but also for getting pregnant in the first place. Did that make any sense? How was she responsible for this whole girl’s life and any bad thing that had befallen her?
But reason would not let George off the hook. She decided the only way to have the ghost be at peace was to act as though she were responsible for all the young girls who were dying on tables and beds throughout the city.
It occurred to her that many of the girls who arrived at the brothel, either for work or for abortions, were in large part completely ignorant. They were so surprised by their own ruin, as though it had hit them like lightning and not through an inevitable path the world had set out for them. She thought they should at least know their story was a familiar one. Instead of helping girls once they were in this situation, wouldn’t it be better to help them avoid it in the first place?
* * *
There was a time in a young man’s life when he paused and looked around at the world and determined how he wanted to be in it. And set forth on that adventure. George took off all her clothes and looked in the mirror. And all she saw there was a young man looking back at her. And the young man said, “You need to follow your path. You have to try to change the world and the way women live. That is who your true self is. That is where your talents lie.”
CHAPTER 34
The Lady from the Mirror
Marie climbed into the back of her carriage after visiting the factory. It had been a full year since she had spoken to Sadie on the telephone and she had continued her ascension in the business world relentlessly. She had fired one of the overseers who had worked at the factory for fifteen years, and it had caused an emotional ruckus. But he was not implementing her decisions with enough efficiency and was second-guessing her choices. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe because of the pollution. In the carriage she felt as though she were suffocating, and she opened the window as it was pulling away from the factory even though she knew this was quite a foolish idea. The streets down here stunk so badly, they always made her feel as though she were going to puke.
To her surprise, she smelled something quite splendid and lovely. It was coming from the bakery next to the factory. It smelled like cake. She was overcome by a deep craving to stuff her mouth full of cake.
She banged on the carriage to make it stop. She meant to send the driver in to commission some cakes. But when they pulled up in front, Marie was intrigued by the window display and decided to climb out and have a look herself. When she got up close, she saw, to her amazement, the roses on the cakes were actually icing.
Marie had heard about Robespierre Bakery. It had once been independent but was now affiliated with the factory. She could not recall whether this was her doing or not.
As Marie gazed closely into the window, she saw the reflection of her own face. Her hair was out of place, as a blond curl hung down on her forehead. She pushed the hair on her forehead to the side, but the curl didn’t budge. She realized she wasn’t looking at her reflection at all. She was looking at another woman. The woman looked so much like her it was quite startling. She stepped back from the window. The woman disappeared and the reflection of the street appeared immediately on the surface of the window where she had been.
Marie stepped inside the shop. The woman she had seen was standing there as though awaiting her. She was dressed in a white baker’s dress with a large apron over top. Her hair was up in a messy bun and had a small white cap pinned to the back of it. Their clothes and social position were so different, no one else in the bakery was able to see the resemblance. But the women both saw it. Whereas it seemed to clearly amuse the baker, Marie was startled.
Her body knew information that her mind didn’t. Her body sensed danger. Her nipples were erect. There was an electric current running through her body. She felt like she could touch an incandescent bulb and turn it on with her finger. She wasn’t sure how her reflection had climbed out of her mirror and had escaped down here. Her reflection had always been so faithful.
“You are the baker?” Marie asked, hoping that speaking to the girl would break this spell.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Why would you be?”
“Am I the baker?”
“I am interested in looking at those roses.”
“Those roses are of interest to you?”
“May I commission some of these and have them sent to my home?”
“You want to commission these and have them sent to your home?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Marie couldn’t make any sense of the conversation. The young woman took a small notepad out of a pocket in her apron.
“What is your name?”
“Marie.”
“I am a Mary too. But you probably know that.”
“How would I know that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Marie made a purchase, almost as if to have an excuse to leave the shop. She left with a box of cupcakes that were covered in blue waves. She opened the lid of the box. It was as though the waves were moving back and forth. She was like a giant holding the ocean in her arms. She had a peculiar feeling. It was the feeling of being lost at sea. The feeling was so big. She closed the lid of the box and hurried back to the carriage.
* * *