Page 5

Belle of the Ball is in the heart of the village. Mother made sure you couldn’t miss it. How it gleamed there redly on the street full of shops, flanked by palm trees. Display window full of diabolically beautiful women. The sign featured a girl in a ball gown reclined in the crescent of a silver moon, swinging from an iron hook over the door. The shops nearby couldn’t really hold a candle to it. You’d walk right past their windows full of Turkish rugs and Chihuly glass, ignoring the salesmen lurking in the doorways.

Hello, they’d whisper, grinning desperately in the shadows.

Welcome, said the bolder ones, bowing their heads.

Mother never did that. She never lurked in her own doorway, grinning. The mannequins in the window did all the luring for her. The way they’d stare at you, through you, from behind the glass. Pointy white faces. Red lips curved in slight smiles. That strange color of eye—topaz—that glittered. All of them had Mother’s dark red hair. She’d put them in whimsical, sometimes sinister configurations. To catch the eye. Have a little fun. One day they might be waltzing. Another day they might be throttling one another. Or sitting for afternoon tea. They wore fanciful dresses, vintage-looking and shimmery as dreams. They oozed a formidable glamor. You’d become afraid, looking at the mannequins in their finery, even as desire filled you like darkness. Bitches, you’d think. Yet you’d want to buy whatever they were wearing. You’d go in and hand Mother all your money, the little shop bell jangling softly when you finally figured out the scissor-shaped door handle and pushed open the door. She had that handle installed just to make it that much harder for people to come in. But inside, oh inside, the air would be bright and sweet with her violets and smoke. Music played, too, something French or classical usually. Beautiful but intimidating. You’d be intimidated. You’d wonder if you made a mistake, coming through the scissor door. But you’d gather yourself. Remember the dress you saw, the dream of yourself it gave you. I want that, you’d say, pointing at the mannequin’s swanlike back clad in whatever dress. And Mother would size you up with her shop woman’s eyes. She was like a living mannequin behind the counter, oozing her own glamour. Looking so bored by you. Everything from her half-buttoned silk shirt to her loose curls to her lips red like a perfect stain said, I only give the very slightest of fucks. And maybe she’d oblige you or maybe she wouldn’t. Sorry, she might say, though she never once looked sorry. Last one, even if it wasn’t. Even if there were a row of these very dresses hanging right behind her. Shrug of her silk shoulders. Can’t be helped. A question of destiny.

I used to feel so much envy for the window mannequins. I’d imagine that they were Mother’s true children, that they tortured me like Cinderella’s evil sisters. Their whiteness glowed beneath the moon of my dreams. In these dreams, Mother also loved them more.

After I check out of the hotel, I drive over to the shop, bracing myself. A little afraid to see it all again. But when I pull up, there are no sinister sisters in the window. No scissor door handle anymore. No girl on a crescent moon above the door, either. The storefront is all chrome and glass. Behind the window, there’s a row of gray torsos under track lighting. Drab dresses hang from their headless bodies like sacks. Dark gray columns of fabric that show no shape at all. There are the odd embellishments at the collar and cuffs. Some absurd rhinestone swirls—are they meant to be galaxies? Eye-catching! I can picture Sylvia thinking. Eclectic. I see my own face reflected back in the window, between the torsos. My own face looming over my black sack, looking punched. There’s a furrow in my brow. The scar on my forehead’s throbbing darkly. The one I’ve been trying to lighten and brighten, exfoliate away. The one I barely noticed when I used to live here. Back now with a vengeance.

Tsk, Belle, Mother would say, patting my shoulder. Don’t frown or your face will freeze that way. You’ll thank me later.

When?

And Mother smiled. When your soul starts showing, of course. Sooner than you think. I remember she looked excited by this.

The sun goes behind a cloud, and I see Sylvia through the glass. Standing behind the counter. Mother’s counter. Once artfully arranged with scarves and brooches and a few choice perfumes. Filled now with what appears to be shitty costume jewelry. Sylvia’s talking to a customer. The customer’s back is to me, but I know the type, I can see her face in my mind’s eye, hear her awful voice in my head. Sylvia’s palms are pressed into the counter, so at ease in her terrain. Ingratiating smile. I feel my furrow deepen, my scar darken. My heart beating more quickly now.

When I burst through the shop door, ready to scream, ready to shout, Sylvia just looks at me out of the corner of her eye. Smiles with one side of her face, a saleswoman trick. I see you, I’m with someone, I’ll be with you in just a bit. Then she goes back to talking with the customer. “Oh yes. Hahaha. Absolutely. And with a blazer, you’ll be all set.”

I stand there, feeling like a ghoul, waiting for her to finish. Michael Bublé’s playing softly. Hideously. Gone is the scent of Mother’s perfume from the air. The customer turns around to look at me. A woman in capris and Nine West flats. Coral lip gloss. Chunky jewelry. Smiling tersely. She would never have come in here if Mother were behind the counter. Driven away by the pointy-faced mannequins, Mother’s beauty, the sex-and-death scent of the room atomizer. Bonjour, Mother would have said, smiling coldly. And what brings you here today? Meaning well, possibly, but she still would also have scared the living shit out of this sort of woman.

Sylvia isn’t like that. Hers is the wily face of the sycophant. Greasily beaming. Doesn’t mind being walked all over. Walk over me, her face says. I love it.

“I was going to go to J.Crew,” this woman is telling her, telling us both, “but then I thought I’d come here instead.” And then she looks around with a proprietary smile. So pleased with herself for shopping local.

“Well. We’re so very glad you dropped in.” Sylvia smiles, folding up the woman’s purchase. Some sort of brown sack dress. Wrapping it in tissue paper like it’s worth something. Winking at me. See? Customer service. Something your mother didn’t understand.

“Please come see us again sometime,” she urges the woman. She slips the turd-colored dress into a plain brown bag. Mother used to use glossy red paper bags, I remember. Belle of the Ball embossed on them in loopy gold. Some gold stars swirling around the words. Belle, like my daughter, she might explain, her hand on my neck, softly throttling me. I could feel her red nails sinking into my nape flesh as she beamed at me. And the customer would smile. How sweet, they’d think. What a beautiful example of mother-daughter love.

“Now, Mirabelle,” Sylvia says softly. “What can I do for you?”

I look around the place, at the headless torsos in their sacks, the swell of soft hits like an aural lobotomy.

“You stole Mother’s shop,” I hear myself say. My voice is calm, flat, polite, though I’m trembling. Did I really just come out and say it like that?

Sylvia looks at me, horrified. “Excuse me?”

The customer who bought the turd dress turns around on her way out. Looks at us. Oh, now this is interesting. Some drama!

Sylvia turns pink. Something like anger flashes in her dark eyes.

“I didn’t steal anything, Mira.” Now it’s Mira. “She sold it to me.”

“That’s impossible. If she’d sold it, she would have told me. I know she would have.” I can hear the crack in my voice. The Formula stings my eyes. I’m thankful for Mother’s dark glasses. But Sylvia sees through them. That searching gaze of hers.

“Esther,” she says softly to a joyless-looking clerk hovering nearby. The clerk, Esther, is clutching a few hangers heavy with sack dresses to her chest like a shield. She observes my grief wordlessly, through thick glasses with whimsical red frames. The glasses are attached to a red chain around her neck. “Mind the register for a minute, will you?” Sylvia says to her.

Esther just blinks.

Sylvia leads me to the back room, Come along with me, dear. More shitty, shapeless dresses back here hanging in sad rows. A few of Mother’s old mannequins are in here too. The white, red-lipped ones from my nightmares. One is standing up, two are lying down. The standing one beams at me with her golden eyes. She’s naked. A purse hangs absurdly from her shoulder, shaped like a glittery black swan. A bit of fun, Mother would have said of the purse. A reminder to fuck function. Embrace form.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Mira,” Sylvia begins. “I really thought you knew. I thought surely she would have told you.”

How’s the shop, Mother?

The shop? What are you talking about?

Belle of the Ball? Your shop?

Oh right. The shop. Fine, fine. ?a marche.

“To be honest, she left me in a bit of a lurch, too, doing that,” Sylvia says. “But I wanted to help. I wanted to be a friend. I’m honestly very surprised she didn’t share her decision with you.” There’s an accusation in there. Estranged from each other toward the end, weren’t you? Not so terribly close after you moved away. If you ever were. Whose fault is that?

Behind Mother’s glasses, my vision goes swimmy. The Formula has gone rogue, I guess. I find myself telling Sylvia everything about the meeting with Chaz. Mother’s multiple loans to repair god knows what. It all comes gushing out of me like the tears I don’t shed. I can’t stop the tide of words.

“All that money,” I whisper, sinking to my knees. “Where did she spend it? Where did it go?” As I say this, I flash to her bathroom full of red bottles and jars. Mother’s unlined face behind the wheel of her Jaguar, expressionless. Pale, empty eyes fixed on the windshield.

“Well, your mother never really thought too much about things like money.” She crouches down beside me, pats my back.

“Was she in her right mind?”

“Right mind?” Sylvia looks confused. “What do you mean?”

“Was she… going crazy?”

“Crazy? No. No, no, no, not crazy. Eclectic, maybe. And of course…”

“What?”

“Well, you know your mother. She never had much of a filter.” Embarrassed laughter. “Not with me. Certainly not with the customers. You know she was French,” she adds, lowering her voice.

“What does that mean?”

“Just that maybe she was getting a little more… French. In her old age is all.”

“More French?”

Sylvia shakes her head. “Look, Mirabelle, I really wouldn’t worry yourself about this now. We all get more eclectic in our old age, don’t we? Although sixty-one’s not so old. She wasn’t even a senior citizen yet, right? Too young to get a discounted bus pass! Not that your mother would ever ride a bus.”

I stare at the naked mannequin. Shorn of all but her little swan handbag. Her topaz eyes staring at me sadly. “Why did you move the mannequins back here?”

“No one liked these but your mother. And you know,” she says, lowering her voice again, “I never found them to be very… inclusive.” She looks at me meaningfully. Surely this word, inclusive, will get me on her side. I stare at her.

“So pale,” she insists. “And those red lips. Those weird eyes.” She looks up at the mannequin and makes a face. “They always creeped me out, to be honest. I don’t know where the hell she found them. Anyway, you really mustn’t work yourself up like this, my dear. You’re already dealing with so much.”

I look at her pleading face. So very dehydrated. In desperate need of glycerin. Same age as Mother, but you’d never know. Sylvia looks her age. Older maybe, from a life in the California sun. No sunscreen regimen—probably sees it as vanity. I could send her some Marva videos. She might benefit from a replenishing miracle seed essence or a regenerating human stem cell serum. Marva tells us self-care is telling yourself you matter every morning in the mirror. You should talk to it. Become friends with what you see there. And when she says this, I feel my neck skin prickle. Nervous suddenly to look in the glass. Whom will I see there? Can I really befriend them?

“You’ll sell the condo,” Sylvia is urging. “The car, too, I’m sure. Surely someone will want to buy the place. Such a beautiful property. And with that view, that view!” I see the mouth of her soul water a little.

“But the debt. The debt,” I whisper. “What am I going to do?”

“We’ll sort it all out,” she whispers back. “You’ll see,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Someone will come and snatch that place right up. Save you from all this. It’s too perfect. Just like your mother. Which reminds me,” she says. “She left some things here.”

“What things?”

“A few boxes in the basement. She sort of treated this place as her own personal storage, even after she left. I never said anything, of course. You know your mother.”

Why do people keep saying that to me? I don’t know, I want to tell them. Even as a voice inside me hisses, You do.

“I’ll just go down and grab them and meet you out front, okay? Esther, can you grab the dolly? Oh good, you’ve got it.”

I turn and there’s Esther standing behind me, staring blankly. She’s gripping a dolly with both hands. How long was she standing there? She wheels the dolly around my kneeling body and follows Sylvia through a door I always thought was locked, that Mother said led to nothing but boilers. You don’t want to go down there, she’d said, trust me.

I look back up at the mannequin. Smiling at me mysteriously, cruel sister. “Why didn’t she tell me about the basement?” I whisper.

“Excuse me.” A woman standing in the doorway, holding one of the sack dresses limply in her arms. “Sorry, I was just looking for someone to help me, but there’s no one out front.”

“They’re in the basement,” I tell her.

“Oh.” She stares at me kneeling on the floor before the mannequin like I’m praying. “Well, if now’s not a good time…”

“No, it’s fine. I can help you. You wanted to try on that dress, right?”

She looks at me hesitantly. Even a little afraid. “Yes.”

“The dressing rooms are just out and to the left. I can take you.”

Her face brightens. “Oh. That would be lovely, thank you.”

“No problem,” I say, smiling a little as I stand up, wipe the shop floor dust off my knees. “This way, follow me.” Behind me, I can feel the mannequin gazing coyly at me. Like Mother used to whenever I handled a customer for her. My best saleswoman, she always said. Making up for her coldness. The good cop to her bad.

“Any particular occasion?” I find myself asking, slipping into the mode. Like I’m interested. It’s a throwaway question. I can intuit the needs of the customer with one look in their stranger’s eyes. Guess the event, the existential crisis behind the potential purchase.

The woman smiles. She enjoys this question of an occasion, though there is none. “Oh, just this and that.”

“Of course,” I say. I picture what this and that might look like for this woman. A three-hour prosecco lunch on a patio with her fellow blonds. Long drunken nights on rooftop terraces overlooking a roaring ocean they ignore. Lots of loud talk about personal journeys. When we get to the dressing rooms, she asks me would I mind terribly waiting here? She’d love to get my take. Of course I mind. Now that I’m back in the shop, I want to get the hell out of here. But I just smile at her placidly. “Not at all.” And I stand outside the door with my smile still on my face. I stare at the dress forms in their sacks. Watch a few women paw through the racks. Still the swell of soft hits all around. I bought this place for both of us, you know. Besides, what else are you going to do, Belle? A French literature degree is all well and good but come on. And you can’t be Princess Jasmine forever. I mean, can you? You tell me.

“Well,” the woman says, emerging at last from the changing room door. “What do you think?”

It’s hideous. A taupe halter-neck dress that bells out straight from the clavicle in a strange, asymmetrical triangle. It hangs on her like a poorly pitched tent. The taupe washes her out.

“Tell me,” she says, a little pleading.

But she doesn’t want me to tell her. Not truly. I can tell by the twitch in her lip, the hopeful shine in her eyes. She’s brimming with it: a longing for delusion. She’s not looking at the giant gilt-trimmed mirror Mother nailed to the wall, though it’s right beside her. She’s looking at me. An entity capable of reflecting back exactly what she desires to see. Like how Mother used to look at me instead of a mirror sometimes. Slavering for just the right adjective. Well, Belle? What do we think?

“It’s a little too, I don’t know… look at me, isn’t it?” the woman says, and then laughs, embarrassed.

I smile. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“What do you think?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

I can feel her holding her breath. For a moment, I savor the power, the true words right on my tongue. Unflattering. Unfortunate. I could speak them and crush her.

“I think it’s wonderful.”

“Really?”

“Sophisticated,” I offer. “Avant-garde, even,” I add, over-enunciating the French.

“Avant-garde,” she repeats dreamily. Another language. She likes that. “You really think so?”

“Never hide your light,” I tell her. She smiles. She’s prone to hiding her light, her eyes say. She looks at herself in the mirror. Now it’s safe. Her face brightens at what she sees.

“It is sort of elegant, isn’t it? Cutting edge, even.”

I nod. Absolutely. It could be those things if she likes. “And versatile,” I add. “A daytime sharpness that could translate easily into a nighttime chic.”

Where are these words coming from? My lips, apparently. It always comes so easily. Telling people what they want to hear. Divining the perfect words with one look at their waiting faces. Giving them their dream of themselves. I did it in a spangled bra for ten years beneath the arch of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Aren’t you as pretty as a princess? I’d say, even to the homely ones. Especially to the homely ones. I do it now at Damsels in my dark, high-necked dress. And, of course, I did it for Mother. In this shop and all my life, I’d have my slew of words ready to hand out like candy. You always have the magic words, Mother said, grateful but also suspicious. How do you always know exactly what to say?

The woman smiles more broadly. “I should take you with me everywhere. Normally I shop with my daughter. She’s very cruel. She calls it being honest, of course.” Laughter.

I smile. “Of course.”

“And how are we doing here?” Sylvia says, suddenly appearing at my side out of nowhere. “Oh my, that looks fantastic. Aren’t these halter necks just the cutest things? Just got them in from Sweden.” It has the ring of falsehood. Of too much.

The woman smiles tightly. “Your saleswoman was just helping me.”

“Was she?” And Sylvia’s face darkens, looking at me. “I see. How wonderful. Thanks so much, Mira. I’ll take it from here.” She pats my shoulder and leans in. I catch the scent of her: an insidious freshness spiked with citrus. She whispers hotly, “We left the box by the car. Just the one in the end.” Prim smile. “I’ll come by and visit later, okay? See how you’re getting on.”

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.