When I reach the shore, just sharp black rock slick with seaweed. A swelling ocean, hissing spray. The red light on the water is flashing, flashing. Mother, where are you?
In here, says the voice in the water. Closer.
Now I’m on the tip of the black rock where the shimmering red waves crash. Mother’s in there somewhere. I’ll have to go into the water and look. Mother will carry me in the red wave, and in the wave, we’ll talk. I’ll ask her, Why did you leave me? I’ll tell her a lot of things seem to be leaving me, even myself. But I’m glowing, just like you did. Or at least I seem to be when I catch myself in the mirror. Now I close my eyes. Let the wave rise, taking me with it. The cold water shocks my body, freezing the air in my lungs. Her voice is all around me now. Belle, Belle, Belle. But there’s nothing down here. Just dark water. Do I know how to swim? Surely Mother taught me once. A picture in my mind’s eye as I thrash in the waves. A little girl and her mother on a beach long ago. The girl is on the shore and the mother is in the water, waving at her to come in, join, don’t be afraid. But the little girl is afraid. Doesn’t wade into her mother’s arms. Doesn’t trust, even though Mother’s hands say, It’s okay, trust. The little girl shakes her head from the shore. Don’t feel like it now, she lies. And Mother drops her extended arms. Giving up. Disappointed. Oh, a coldness then. A shame, too. Drowning in it. I’m drowning now.
I see Mother on the rocky shore. “Mother!” I cry, my mouth filling with water.
She doesn’t move. She’s watching me drown because I never went out into the waves to meet her long ago.
And then she’s gone.
I’m alone and sinking in the black. Is this where Mother went, the black? Is this where the roses are? Is this the way? My lungs fill with cold darkness.
A hand grips my arm.
Pulls me up out of the water.
I’m gasping, lying on the rocks, looking up.
A man framed by a night sky full of stars. He’s got a hat on. The brim is dripping water onto my face like cold rain.
“Caught you,” he says.
* * *
When I open my eyes, I’m no longer by the ocean, on the dark shore. No longer wet, though still cold. I’m dry and in a bed. A hotel room with pink walls. Is it morning or afternoon? Can’t tell by the light from the half-drawn curtains. THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING says a little sign on the cherrywood nightstand. Someone’s watching me lie here. I feel it in the prickling of my skin. The hairs on my neck are standing on end. I see a silhouette in the dark. Who are you? What am I doing here?
The silhouette turns on a soft light. The man in the hat from the beach. Sitting and watching me from the desk with his feet up, wearing a white shirt that opens to a white undershirt. Red suspenders. A silk tie around his neck in a loose noose. His hat’s not on his head, it’s on the desk. His hair is wet, slicked back into a dark wave.
“Good afternoon,” he says. So it’s afternoon, then.
“You caught me.”
He smiles. “And you wet my hat,” he says. “It may never dry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have other hats.”
I see he’s got a glass of Scotch in his hand. Looks luminous, like liquid gold. If I drank that, maybe I’d be warm again. Maybe I’d fill with light. As if he can read my mind, he walks to the edge of the bed and hands me the glass. As I sip, a fire sparks. All the way down to my toes. He stays on the bed’s edge, watching me. Face half in shadow. Quite pretty, really. If pretty had a shadow side, it would be this man’s sharply cut face. Telling me he can order room service if I’m hungry. I should probably eat something, he says. Fine for now, I tell him. Thank you, sir. Sir, I call him, which seems to amuse and disturb him. It amuses me, too, sort of. Because I know him, of course. I saw him at a bar once. I saw him once too through a red fish. And of course, I met him on a bridge only yesterday, though his name’s slipped my mind just now. What’s your name, sir? What am I doing in your bed, wearing a man’s silk robe the color of midnight?
“That’s mine, by the way,” he says of the robe. “You were drenched.”
Now I see Mother’s red dress hanging over the mirror on the bureau by the open window. Oh god, did we—?
“We didn’t,” he says. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Didn’t what?”
“I would never take advantage like that. I’m not a monster. Well, not that kind of monster, anyway. We’re all some kind of monster, aren’t we, Belle?”
I look at the mirror covered by Mother’s red dress, the only mirror in the room. The skirt obscures my reflection, the entire glass covered in a bell of red silk. There’s a vase full of red roses on the bureau. Some red jars and vials.
When I look back at the man, he’s smiling at me. “That was quite the swim you took.”
“I can’t swim.”
“If you can’t swim, why go in the water, Belle?”
“I forgot that I couldn’t.” It’s actually true, I did forget. Though how could I forget? Suddenly I want a cigarette. He gives me the one still burning in his mouth. Bringing it to my lips, I taste his rose lip balm. A whisper of a green tea essence or a cloud jelly he must wear on his face.
“Funny thing to forget,” he says, watching me puff on the cigarette, a little longingly. “Seems pretty important to keep that in mind, don’t you think?”
But there are roses in my mind, I want to tell him. Freshly cut in a tall black vase. A white, red-nailed hand arranging the stems to best advantage as we speak.
“Been a bit scrambled lately? Forgetting names, faces, places? Mixing past and present?”
How does he know that? “How did you know that?”
“Oh, a wild guess. But it’s worth it, right? For the Glow,” he whispers.
I feel myself flush now under his gaze. “Excuse me?”
“Quite the Glow,” he says. He raises his glass as if to toast my face.
“Who are you?”
He feigns looking hurt. “Oh Belle, am I really so forgettable?”
“I remember you walked me to the house last night. For my free treatment.”
“Wasn’t that nice of me?”
“You were also at the hotel bar the other night. Then I saw you at the house. You had a black beard then.” And you kissed me, didn’t you kiss me?
“I did.” He smiles. “And I still have the beard, by the way.” He points to his desk, where I see there are a number of mannequin heads lined up, each of them sporting different configurations of wig and eyewear. I see the black beard hanging on a white face. Those strange spectacles. I look back at him and he puts a finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he whispers. “It’s resting.”
I should be afraid, maybe. Ask him why he has all these heads. Also, why do you seem to be following me, Hud Hudson? Hud Hudson, that’s his improbable name. But by catching me he did save me, remember? Can’t forget that. Although maybe he saved me so he can kill me, that’s possible. Still, I’m not afraid. He’s very pretty, for one. Like an ad for some beguiling perfume, something with leather in it. Something with dark woods. He has a Glow himself, maybe marula oil is responsible or some sort of snail. It’s nice to watch, anyway. Also, I don’t seem able to speak accusing words just now. Something to do with Mother’s dress over the mirror. Feels like it’s muffling me in red silk. Without the mirror, I’m not quite oriented, not quite… myself, if that makes sense. The only mirror in the room is really Hud Hudson’s face. How it’s staring at me with such… what?
“I have to say that Glow is really something, Belle.”
“Is it?”
Sitting on the bed in his suit, he really looks like he belongs in Mother’s old movies, her fascist magazines. Fashion, I mean. The nefarious gentleman gloating after his nefarious night out. God knows what happened among the stylish shadows. Only Hud Hudson.
“Oh yes,” he says. “There’s a dewiness.”
“There is?”
“A luminosity. Some might even say a Lift. An eradication of free radicals. We should talk.”
“So talk,” I whisper.
“You first. How long are you going to keep me waiting?”