She turns her attention to the woman in the taupe tent. Time to reel her in. “Now, are you looking for a little bolero or blazer to go with or…?”
I walk quickly away toward the door, the sound of Sylvia’s voice, a pitch too high, ringing in my ears along with the insipid adult contemporary. The store is an alien landscape, nothing of Mother remaining. Just the mannequins alone in the dusty back room. Smiling mysteriously in the dark.
5
Afternoon. A reapplication of sunscreen, physical and chemical, which I can already feel melting in the light. I’m standing outside Mother’s apartment, gripping the basement box. Staring at her doormat, which reads Wipe Your Paws. On either side of her front door, pots of spiky plants and flowers assail my eyes with their bright shades. Don’t want to go in. Want to check back into the pink hotel. Lie down in a dark room watching Marva videos until I fly back to Montreal. Three days from now. But the flowers need to be watered, don’t they? And her cat, Anjelica, needs to be fed. Her things need to be sorted through, packed. The place needs to be cleaned up, fixed up, Chaz said. Before I can sell it and get out of here. Never come back again to this sunny place she loved despite her enmity for the sun.
Took me a while to get out of the Jaguar. Stared through the windshield at the chrome cat on the hood in mid-pounce, practically ablaze in the light. What happened to you, Mother? I asked the cat. Did you fall down some well of madness? Am I following you now into the dark? The cat just shone there quietly like a sphinx.
From outside, the apartment looks impeccable, like Mother herself. Windows sparkling. Flowers bright. The place seems alive, awake, even. Like she might still be in there, she never fell from the cliff. Can’t I picture her inside, singing to herself right now? At her vanity table, maybe, before her three-paneled mirror. Smiling as she powders her face with her little white puff. Strangely, I hear music then. Coming from inside Mother’s place. Doesn’t sound like Mother’s music though. Not the ?dith Piaf variety. This is heavy, loud, psychedelic-sounding. And then I notice that the plants have already been watered. The soil in which the roses grow is black and damp and slick. The pots are going drip, drip onto the concrete floor of the veranda. I put down the box and grab one of them—a heavy pot, just in case—and open the door, already unlocked. Oh, I’m awake now. Heart beginning to pound. Potted plant raised.
Inside, the music’s so loud, Mother’s windows seem to tremble. No one in the bright living room apart from Anjelica on the couch, licking her paws.
When I get to the kitchen, I scream.
There by the sink stands a man with his shirt off. Bopping his head to the earthquake of sound.
For a minute I watch him, transfixed. The pot must have slipped from my hands, because there is a crashing sound. He sees me standing there in the shattered clay. He smiles. Lowers the volume on a little speaker on the table. “Hey,” he says. “You must be Belle. Nice to meet you.”
I just stare at him.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” this man says. He reaches out his hand. I stare at that, too. On his wrist is some sort of braided leather bracelet. Two black twisting cords. A feeling in my body. Coursing through it. Not the first time I’ve encountered a half-naked man in Mother’s kitchen. Not the first time they’ve known my name, said it’s nice to meet me while I just stood there like a psychopath. I almost expect Mother to come sauntering in now in one of her silk robes, glowing from sex and reeking of smoky violets. Oh good, looks like you two have met.
The man reaches forward and hugs me. Suddenly I’m enveloped in hard, beach-scented flesh. I can feel him patting my back with a large, friendly hand. There, there. He really wants me to feel this, but I’m rigid in his embrace.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Who are you?”
He pulls back, still gripping my shoulders with his very warm hands. “I’m Tad,” this man says softly.
Tad, I think. Of course he is. Did Mother ever mention a Tad?
“I clean your mother’s windows,” Tad says. “I water the plants and things too. Do a bit of landscaping.” He waves a hand vaguely at the rosebushes outside. I stare at tall, broad, shirtless Tad. Leonine hair. Tanned torso. Impossible biceps covered in oceanic tattoos. Apart from the tattoos, all of Mother’s favorite man-traits.
“My mother’s dead,” I say, a little shocked at myself.
But Tad just nods somberly. “I know,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” He’s got a beer in his hand now. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine, thank you.” I nod. But there’s a crack in my voice. My lip twitches. I look away.
“Cool,” Tad says. “I lost my father a while ago. And that really knocked me out.” He shakes his head. Dirty-blond hair. Sandy, really. “So I get it. You can just tell me to fuck off if you want to.”
He pauses here. I should say, Of course not. Thank you though. Sorry about your father. “Don’t fuck off,” I say.
“Honestly?” Tad says. “I just came over today because I didn’t know what else to do with myself, you know?”
On the table, I notice two roses floating in a martini glass filled with water. Tad must have done this. Clipped the flowers and set them afloat in the glass. There’s a bowl full of floating roses on the coffee table, too. Also Tad’s handiwork. Mother hated roses, I could tell him. For as long as I can remember. She even used to be allergic. I’m still allergic to cheap apologies, easy bribes, she always said. But shouldn’t Tad know that? I try to imagine him clipping the roses, whispering to them, perhaps. Cupping them in his hands like baby birds. Setting them afloat in a bowl to die. I’m going the way of roses, Belle.
“And I didn’t know if anyone else was going to water the plants and the bushes,” Tad is saying. “And I didn’t want them to… you know…” He lets the word die hang in the air, unspoken.
“I appreciate it, thank you. I was actually coming by to start packing up.” Your cue to leave, Tad, but Tad just looks at me. He puts a hand on my shoulder again. Squeezes meaningfully without breaking eye contact.
“That fucking sucks,” he says. He walks over to Mother’s fridge and opens it. Reaches down to the bottom shelf where there are a row of beer bottles gleaming. When did Mother start drinking beer? Beer, she’d mutter if it was offered, making a face. I just don’t get it.
He opens a kitchen drawer—he knows which drawer, I notice—and grabs the bottle opener. I watch his biceps come into relief as he cracks open the bottle. Some faint stirring of lust visits me briefly like a ghost. He hands me the beer. Clinks his bottle against mine. “To Noelle,” he says. The sound of Mother’s name in his mouth conjures her up briefly again. Silk-robed and smiling in a light that loved her. I watch him take a long sip. I take one too. It’s surprisingly refreshing. Crisp. I gasp in spite of myself.
“I didn’t come to the party,” Tad says. “No disrespect to your mom or anything.”
What party? I think, then realize he must mean the funeral.
“I’m just not really a death person, you know.”
“Right.”
“Also, I don’t really dig her crowd.” He frowns as if recalling something deeply unpleasant. I think of Mother’s crowd. Mostly wolfish gentlemen of a certain age and their wives. Sylvia, of course. That strange woman in red outside.
“But I paid my respects, in my way,” Tad says. “I want you to know that.”
“Thank you,” I say. I wonder what this looks like, Tad paying his respects. Tad on his knees in a room decorated with conch shells, maybe a framed poster of white stones on tilled sand, lighting some sort of scented candle. Tad at an outdoor tiki bar, raising a beer to the bloody sunset. Taking a somber sip. It tastes bittersweet.
“Did a one-man paddle-out just yesterday,” Tad tells me.