“Of course,” he says. “I was just very surprised. I was under the impression… I was under another impression… about your finances.”
“Another impression.” I stare at his face in the mirror. Definitely he looks more like a goblin there. And his mouth movements don’t quite sync up with his words. Sort of like there’s a lag, if that makes sense, how funny. Maybe I’m still a bit out of it from last night. Or maybe there’s a glitch in the glass. My eyes or the glass? Can’t be my eyes, because I can see myself so incredibly clearly. And what I see. What I see is so—
“So you cleared her debts, then?” goblin man asks.
And the answer that comes to me right away is Yes. Definitely. I cleared them. In the glass, I feel my reflection nodding. Definitely, we cleared them. I’m nodding with her, of course. Nodding at both men because they’re looking at me like they can’t believe my face, let alone my words. “Definitely I cleared them. If not me, then who, right?”
“You really did?” the pretty squeegee man asks me softly. He looks incredulous. “When did you do that, Belle?” He knows my name, so I really must know his.
“Who is this man?” the goblin says, pointing at squeegee man, who’s still staring at me like he’s enchanted, a little afraid. Mouth open. Eyes wide. Really very like a merman if he weren’t wearing jean shorts. What is he doing out of the sea? Nothing to be scared of, Tad. Tad, that’s right.
“That’s Tad, of course,” I say, like I knew all along. “He’s Mother’s boyfriend. He cleans the windows.”
The goblin frowns. “Boyfriend?”
“He does a wonderful job, don’t you think? Each day he washes the dust and the spray and the grime that collects over the course of the day before. Washes it all away—right, Tad?”
“Yes,” he says quietly.
“So that everything is always wonderfully clear. So that it doesn’t even look like there’s glass there. Nothing at all between you and the sea.” I smile at Tad in the mirror. “Which creates such a pretty effect. But also a little scary. Maybe that’s why you look a little scared.”
He’s still staring at me like he’s in a trance.
The goblin’s still frowning. “Belle, about the debt. Can I ask where you got the money?”
“The money?” In the glass, I can still feel my reflection smiling, though she’s getting a bit annoyed with these questions now. So am I. “I found a chest of black pearls,” I tell them. Yes, I can feel her thinking. Funny that I can feel her thinking.
The goblin and Tad exchange looks. “A chest of black pearls. Where?”
“In the lagoon,” I say, staring at my face in the glass. Shining and nodding. Definitely. It’s a little joke, of course. A pretty way to say, Stop asking me ugly money questions on this lovely morning, please. Because I don’t know the answers, sirs. I only know cleared is a good thing. I only know this Glow I’m seeing in the glass is really quite something, can you go away so I can look more closely, more freely at this Brightness? Like someone turned a light on inside me. Right beneath my skin. No wonder I’m smiling like that. Haven’t smiled like that in a long time, I think.
“The lagoon,” the goblin says, so suspiciously. “I see. So you’re saying you forgot that you had hundreds of thousands of dollars. You forgot that.”
“But then I remembered. Which reminds me.” And it really does remind me. “I’m late for work.”
“Work?” they both say.
But I’m really too late to explain. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“So wait,” the goblin says. “Then your plan is to keep the apartment?”
And it’s when he says it that I know. Suddenly the floor beneath my feet solidifies. I feel something soft slinking around my ankles. The pretty white cat walking circles around my legs now. Beside me in the glass, I feel my reflection nodding and nodding.
“You are?” Tad says.
Of course you are, she mouths.
“Of course I am. I’ll have to fix it up. Tad’s going to help me with that, aren’t you, Tad? Sell some of these things. Get a very nice price.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to sell her things, Belle,” Tad says. “I thought you said you had an emotional attachment, remember?” He’s pointing to some sort of black chest on the floor. I look at it and feel nothing. Just an old box of wood. Taking up space.
“Not attached at all,” I say, a smile in my voice. “We can’t form silly attachments like that.” And my reflection’s shaking her head as if to say, No, no. Can’t do that. “Have to cut things out. Cut things off. When they do us no good. Letting go is so worth it, n’est-ce pas?”
He’s just looking at me.
“Are you all right, Tad? You look like you’ve seen… someone dead.”
“Just surprised,” he murmurs. “By the change in your…” He trails off, staring at my face. “Feelings,” he says at last.
“Belle, can I talk to you for a second?” This from the goblin, trying to look fatherly. It’s hard with his evil sprite face. He pulls me away into a corner of the living room, a pretty room now that I really look at it. “Are you all right?” the goblin whispers. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be overheard by the merman. “You seem a little… off.”
“Off?” Over his shoulder, in another one of Mother’s mirrors, my reflection smiles at me. A smile that warms my heart. “Not off at all. Roses.”
“Roses?” he repeats, staring at me. Like he’s not so sure about that. About my smile in the morning light. He’s looking for cracks. “Maybe you should talk to someone,” he says.
In the mirror, I see my reflection is laughing at him now. I laugh with her. It is funny. Talk to someone. “I am talking to someone. I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” the goblin says softly. This is true. He can’t deny it. He’s staring so deeply into my face, like he’s lost in some kind of dream.
“And I wish I could talk more,” I lie. “But I really am late for work, I’m afraid.”
“Where do you work, Belle?”
But the answer to that isn’t one I have just now. Not in my head or on my tongue. Just roses beaming in the thickening mist. Just the lovely sound of those chimes from the Treatment Room, I can still hear them vibrating all around. Just my bright reflection smiling at me in the glass.
It’s then that I notice it. Just beyond the goblin’s hunched shoulder. The many mirrors in the living room. All of them sealed back up. All of them uncracked and shining now. All of them reflecting me back to myself. All of these selves smiling. All of them glowing. Well, more than a glow, really.
Way more than just a little glow, isn’t it?
15