I open my eyes. I’m a grown woman again. Lying on the floor of my dead mother’s living room. Anjelica’s licking my face with her rough little tongue. I thought she hated me. Maybe she still does and just wants food.
It’s dark now. No more blood-colored sun. No more blackening trees. Now a moon shines whitely through the curtains, which lift in the black breeze. How did it become night? Clock’s ticking quick. Fridge humming its Gregorian chant. I’m wearing one of Mother’s dresses, I see. The silk silver one that falls like such luxe water. Pretty, but how did that happen? When did I take off my plain black dress and put this one on? The red shoes are on my feet now too, gleaming in the dark. I was about to try them on when I went down some sort of memory hole. When something unbidden just floated up and sucked me in. What? Can’t remember now. I stare at the red shoes shining on my feet. They fit, look at that. Suddenly I feel like going for a walk, why not? On a night like this, so black and windy and warm, why not? The air is calling to me. There’s a song in it, it sounds like. I feed the cat, then hurry out the door. I’ll pack later.
* * *
Outside, the roses are swaying in the breeze. So alive, they seem to be breathing, like each one has a little gulping mouth. Can’t see the ocean, but I can hear it. The roar, the crash against the sharp black rocks. So long as I can’t see the water, it’s pleasant, the sound. A kind of music. I’m walking the coastline, snaking right along the winding path beside the beach, the same one I used to walk late at night as a teenager. It’s black as pitch but I’m not afraid, just like I wasn’t afraid then. Back then, we lived farther from the beach, but I’d come here all the time. Knew every turn and groove in the path. Still do, it seems. I guess feet never forget.
I’m walking quickly like I’m late for something, like I’m going somewhere. Funny, because how could I be late for anything? How could I be going anywhere? Nowhere to go at this hour. Just a night stroll I’m taking along the beach in these pretty red shoes. So surprisingly comfortable, despite the high, narrow heel. Feels like I’m wearing nothing at all, really, like I’m floating. And yet there’s a pull to my steps as though something’s carrying me. The click of my heels gets faster, though in my mind I’m walking slowly. Maybe just the wind. Yes. That has to be all it is.
I’ve reached the other side of the cove now. Where the seals congregate on the rocks and stink up the air. I used to visit them, talk to them. Funny to think of myself back then. Lonely teen in black with buds in her ears blasting dark wave. Sunglasses forever over my eyes, even at night just like Corey Hart. Speaking to seals only. Whispering the secrets of my heart to them like they actually heard me. Wearing dresses that hurt Mother’s eyes, they were so black and mournful. Are you in mourning? she’d ask me.
Always, I’d say.
The path beneath my feet is dirt now, not sidewalk. I’m on the dirt path that rims the cliff; I’m on the cliff’s edge. On one side of me are trees, shrubs, tall grass, flowers; on the other side, nothing at all. Just air, and at the very bottom, the dark, whirling ocean. Where Mother must have walked, must have fallen. Don’t think about Mother falling. Keep walking. One foot in front of the other, though it’s so dark, I can’t see a thing. Just black. And yet my feet still seem to know where to go. My feet, or my shoes?
As I turn a corner, something lights up the dark. Houses on the side of the cliff, nested deep into the greenery. Not houses, mansions, really. Glowing with money and architecture. I used to wonder about these places. Who was rich enough to live here? There’s a house I’ve never seen before on the very edge of the cliff. All curved glass and extravagant geometry. Black polished concrete that shines in the dark. What I really notice is the red light. Glowing from the dramatically contoured floor-to-ceiling windows. I’m heading for this house like I was heading there all along. A soft, airy music’s coming from the place like an exhalation. Filling my ears so pleasantly. I’m smiling in the dark in my red shoes as I walk toward the light and the sound.
As I approach the iron gates, they open, look at that. Like they knew I was coming. Knew I would walk the tree-lined path to this front door. The eucalyptus trees look red from the red light of the house. There are roses growing on either side of the path, tall and red too. So pretty. What a very impressive structure this is all around, I think. Which is a strange thought. Why am I walking toward this opulent monstrosity gleaming redly in the dark with such a smile? But even as I wonder, I walk on. Just a night stroll to a strange house I’ve never seen before. Just walking right up to its sleek front doors of obsidian glass. LA MAISON DE M?DUSE, it says on a small black plaque beside the doors in red looping letters. Méduse. Huh. Next to it there’s a symbol. Some kind of squid, it looks like. Or maybe a flower?
The doors open. A woman’s standing there in the doorway, smiling like she expected me. “Bonsoir,” she says.
Bonsoir? But I say “Bonsoir” to her too.
She’s beautiful in a way that destroys me a little. It’s a lot of things about her. Little things that add up. Hair sheen. Eye gleam. Mostly it’s her skin. Not a hair or a line or a blemish. Like actual glass. So very white. She glows, moonlike, Mother-like, against the tall black doors. Wearing a long silver dress like I am, though hers falls like a literal dream. Eyes clouded in glittering smoke. The reddest, ripest lips I’ve ever seen. She could be wearing a very rich lipstick. She could have eaten a bowl of overripe cherries.
“Bonsoir et bienvenue,” she says, in a voice that could only come from that kind of mouth. Impeccable accent. I’m wondering if she’s actually French when she says, “You’re just in time.” American accent. Equally flawless.
“Just in time,” I hear myself repeat. “Oh good.” In time for what exactly? But something about how this woman’s smiling at me keeps my mouth shut tight. I smile too, like I know what she’s talking about.
She looks me up and down, her eyes lingering on my face. I become painfully aware of my own abominations, my many layers of corrective, protective product suddenly sitting so heavily on my skin. Yet she looks delighted by what she sees. When her eyes meet mine again, she beams brightly. Opens the door wider and says, “Entrée.”
And I go right in, don’t I?
Is there a moment where I wonder if I should enter this stranger’s house on the edge of the cliff? No. When I look back at this moment, this moment of going through the spiked black gates, down the path flanked by roses, through the wide-open doors of La Maison de Méduse, everything awash in red light, I’ll remember no hesitation at all.
7
Music. Laughter. Soft voices. Where am I—some sort of living room? No, too grand for that. More like a hall. Giant, coiling staircase. Tall, curving walls of glass all around. No actual ceiling I can see, though there must be one, because a massive red chandelier’s dangling down. A million tiny red lights burning. Beneath it, people in the most elegant suits and dresses swan around in shimmering clusters. A party, must be. A party for the very beautiful and very rich. Not the typical California rich, looks like. No rumpled linen or slapping sandals. No jumpsuits or zombie eyes. This is what Mother would call another fucking level. What she might even call style. Everyone seems to be dressed in black or red or white. All quite pale-faced. That woman at the door probably mistook me for someone else. There’s a drink in my hand now, where did that come from? It looks like champagne, except red. La Maison de Méduse etched on the flute in gold. I take a very long sip. Cold, bright bubbles go singing down my throat. Wow. Like drinking stars, Mother, I think.
“Like drinking stars,” I hear someone behind me whisper dreamily.
I freeze. Turn around. Mother? A young-looking couple. Both luminous, both decadently dressed. They stare at me with eyes like the sky, dripping their dark silks.