“A beautiful view, don’t you agree?” She looks at Mother’s perfume on the counter, the lipstick, her red jars and vials for the face. “She really loved her products, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“Well, we all have our little pleasures. Mine are shoes.” She beams at me, then down at her own small feet encased in their boring designer flats. “Of course, your mother loved those too.”
“Yes.” I light another cigarette in front of Sylvia. I can feel her judge me for it. She looks at me through the smoke, saying nothing. I’m the bereaved, after all. I have certain allowances, don’t I? I’m tempted to exhale the smoke in her face, but of course I wave it away, apologizing. She smiles thinly.
“So. How long will you be here?”
I think of the transcontinental flight I took only three days ago—was it only three days ago? How the pills and the airport wine and then the plane wine kept me slumped deep in the window seat. How the beauty videos I was trying to watch kept freezing on my phone so I had no choice but to look at the sky. I kept my sunglasses on even after it grew dark. Even when there was nothing left of the view but one red light on the tip of the wing, flashing in the black night.
“I took a week or so off from work,” I tell her.
“Work?” She looks surprised that I do anything at all. After I left La Jolla, didn’t I just sink into oblivion? “Oh, that dress shop, right? What’s it called? Damsels in Something?”
“Damsels in This Dress.”
“In Distress. How fun. Like mother, like daughter.” Smiling at the thought of her and Mother’s shop. Our little shop, Sylvia likes to call it. She never calls it Belle of the Ball. Doesn’t like the name’s affiliation with me or that it predates her. Sylvia took more of a role after I left, but she was insinuating herself long before. Her crisp white shirt and pearls forever in my periphery, unnecessarily straightening the side merchandise. So organized, Mother always said of Sylvia. The yin to my yang, so to speak. And Sylvia’s smile would tighten. Sylvia, what would I do without you? Mother would ask. Perish, Sylvia said. And only I knew she was half-serious.
“Montreal,” Sylvia sighs now, attempting the French pronunciation. Massacring it, of course. She looks wistful for this place where she’s never once been. “So chic. Where Noelle got her style, no doubt. Your mother had such style.” Little sweep of her gaze around the bathroom. “You’ll probably need help packing up, don’t you think?”
“I can manage, Sylvia. Really.” I say this evenly. Calmly. With infinite politesse.
“I’m happy to drop by,” she insists. “Just say the word.”
“I’ll be sure to. Thank you. In the meantime, I think I might go back to the hotel. Get some rest. Didn’t sleep well last night.”
Didn’t sleep at all. Tossed and turned in the perfumed dark. One eye kept open, always. When I’d checked in, the man at the front desk had said he was giving me an ocean view, like it was a gift. The waves, he said, would put me right to sleep. They always do, he said, and smiled. Trust. They didn’t. The crashing waves made a crashing sound, not lulling at all. And there was the image I couldn’t unsee even in the dark. Mother in her robe of red-and-white silk. Falling into the black water, onto the sharp rocks.
“Of course,” Sylvia says. “You must be tired.” Magnanimous smile. So very sad for me. “Well, be sure to come by our little shop before you fly back home. You mother left some things there. There are also some things… you and I should discuss. When you’re ready, of course.”
Things? Discuss? “What things, Sylvia?” There’s an edge to my voice now.
“There’s a time and a place, my dear. Isn’t there?” She says it very carefully, almost reprimanding, as if I’m the one being hideously inappropriate.
“A time and a place. Absolutely. Excuse me.” I squeeze past Sylvia and duck out into the hallway. A mirror there all along the length of the corridor. A crack in this one too, just like in the bathroom. Another mirror, another crack. Like Mother took a sharp diamond to it and just swiped as she walked. Strange. A coldness whenever I look at these mirrors. More of them in the living room—so many shapes and sizes. A wall of cracked glass, each one in its own heavy black frame.
The living room is more crowded now, and the mirrors make it look like her mourners are infinite. Did she really know all these people? Most of them are strangers to me. They are saying, “Such a shame, such a shame. So young. Fell into the water? Jumped? So terrible.” And then they turn to look at the ocean and shiver. Or they’re talking about other things. Upcoming vacations. Traffic on the 805. What Trump said yesterday on Fox, he’ll never get elected. “If only we could keep Obama forever.” Everyone’s holding glasses of Sylvia’s fake champagne like it isn’t fake at all. They smile sympathetically as I enter the living room. Whispers and soft words fill the air. “The daughter, I think. It’s hard, isn’t it? Oh, life. A mystery, a mystery.” Shaking their heads insufferably. I need to get away from all their piteous eyes and soft words that do nothing, mean nothing. I put on my sunglasses, keep my mouth a straight line. Make a beeline through the living room, eyes fixed on the front door. I have a plan. I’ll get in Mother’s dark silver Jaguar. Drive to the pink hotel. Take the elevator to my room, bolt the door. Get in the bed and lie there. Hear the clock tick and the waves crash, and then the sun will sink eventually, mercifully, on this day. And night will come, won’t it? That’s a promise.
Are you sure you won’t stay? their faces seem to say as they watch me escape. Going already? They look at the cigarette in my hand, the shades covering my eyes, as I push past, murmuring, “So sorry, excuse me,” in spite of myself.
When I leave the apartment, something quiets. A roaring in my heart. The heaviness lifts a little and I can breathe. I stand there on the veranda and breathe. Palm trees. That bright blue sky stretching on endlessly. Not so alien anymore. But there are a few people outside too, I see, milling. Can’t get away from them. All I want to do is get away from them. These people who don’t know. Who never knew.
Knew what? says a voice inside me.
And then I see there’s someone else there too, standing away from the small, murmuring clusters, staring out at the water. Staring out and smiling. Her hands gripping the rail of the veranda like she’s on a cruise. A woman in a red dress. Red at a funeral? Am I seeing right? Yes. A dark red dress of flowing silk. Beautiful, I can’t deny that. Mother would have approved. Something else about her sticks out, but what is it? Something about her face so sharply cut, her skin smooth as glass. Have I seen her somewhere before? She looks happy. So happy, I can almost hear the singing inside her. She has red hair, too, like Mother. Red hair, red dress, red lips. It makes her look like a fire. A fire right there on Mother’s veranda. As I notice her, she turns to me and her face darkens, then brightens. I feel her look deep into the pit of me with her pale blue eyes. Inside me, something opens its jaws. She is staring at me so curiously. Like I’m a ghost. Or a dream.
“She went the way of roses,” this woman says to me. And smiles. Like that’s so lovely. When she says the word roses, I see a flash of red. It fills my vision briefly like a fog. Then it’s gone. And there’s the woman in red standing in front of me against the bright blue sky.
“The way of roses,” I repeat. I’m entranced, even as I feel a coldness inside me, spreading. “What’s the way of roses?”
She just smiles.