Sub Rosa, page 18
At Spa Rosa, Eartha and Astrid had already turned off their rose-bulb marquee. Eartha was at the door before we knocked. “You want to know how long this will go on for?” she said, holding the door open for us. Inside there was a row of candles along the cosmetics counter. “Long enough for the Dark to settle on Sub Rosa like dust.”
“Stop it, Eartha. You’re scaring me,” said Dearest, her mouth full of pastry. Eartha beckoned me over. From inside her white apron she drew a bottle of glowing green nail polish. She cupped it in her hand so that its strange light didn’t attract Dearest’s attention.
“Glow-in-the-dark top coat,” she told me, grabbing my hand to run the brush across my nails. Astrid distracted Dearest with a free astrology reading. I listened in as Eartha finished my nails, impressed that Dearest remembered her own birthday. I wondered if mine was in August or if I was confusing it with the month that I came to Sub Rosa. The nail polish dried clear, undetectable. “Wait until night.” She slid it back into her apron pocket.
While daylight lasted, the Mayflower was almost fun. Shirley and old Maggie gave us a round of root beer floats on the house. The triplets took turns reading aloud from a romance mystery, The Hellion Bride: “Ryder looked up at her then. She was standing there, silent as a stone, swathed in one of her voluminous white nightgowns, her hair loose down her back, her face as white as the Valenciennes lace at the collar of her gown.”
“Only time a man know what kind of lace a lady’s dress is made of is in books,” First commented.
“Oh, I can tell you all about lace,” said Second Man, spinning around in his seat to address the room. He started listing types of lace—and that became the next way we passed time. We made lists of spices and fragrances, cheeses, flowers, and movies we’d seen. Fauxnique suggested we make a list of places we’d been, and that pretty much killed the game. We played along for awhile, stumbling together through a list of city locales: shopping malls, movie theatres, bus stations. The triplets sneered throughout the game. The orphans fell silent; it was obvious they hadn’t been outside of Sub Rosa for a while.
When dinner was served, the room-wide conversation ended and we divided up into our respective Houses. Shirley didn’t bother taking orders. She just served us all from the same soup pot. I watched the way the orphan children delicately ripped their cracker packs open, trying not to make any noise with the cellophane wrappers. It must have been a challenge for them to be so nondescript all the time.
They occupied themselves with quiet activities after dinner, knitting and needlepoint and reading. The Dowager read an old hardcover book with gold-leaf-edged pages so thin that I kept imagining I saw a white moth fly up each time she turned the page.
Unfortunately, she and the orphans somehow set the tone, and everyone else found solitary things to do. The triplets rearranged their collage of heartthrob pictures on the window. They lent their back issues of Vogue to the House of Man, warning Dearest not to ruin them with her sugar-sticky fingerprints. Ling brushed Treasure Anne’s hair, untwisting the tight red curls and wrapping them around her finger. The two had been inseparable since the blackout began. Ling had covered Treasure Anne’s knee with pink bandages, and every hour or so checked her wounds. “You’re healing so fast, Treasure,” I heard Ling chirp. I wondered if Second had got out of the car, if she’d be receiving the same prodigal daughter treatment. So far no one had mentioned Second. No one questioned why she would have wanted to leave Sub Rosa. Instead, we acted as if she had never existed. The blackout had absorbed all our thoughts and actions.
Arsen checked Advent Alley every fifteen minutes to see if the cop car was still there, then every ten. Finally, he stayed outside on the curb, constantly watching. I put my head down on the table and imagined asking him to his car. The fantasy began dreamily enough, with kisses and a well-executed shedding of clothes. But fantasy soon gave way to revenge plots again. My favourite was lifting the safety brake on his car so it would roll down Sub Rosa into the Dark. Desire and vengeance locked horns for so long in my mind that I began to get lightheaded. I had too much emotion without a clear way to respond to it; I squeezed my eyes shut and blocked the sound of Glory chatter from my ears. When I jerked my head up, it was well past sunset. My fingernails were dimly green from Eartha’s polish. I hid my hands under the table where it was darker, and they glowed. No one had noticed; they were all too occupied with their own restlessness.
Right about then, Sub Rosa should have been hopping with live ones. We all felt the absence. Al shoved some candles into empty soda pop bottles and brought one around to each table. “Thank you, Al, my love,” Portia said as he offered her a book of matches. The triplets were the first to start pacing. During their initial laps around the room, they pretended they were interested in what each of us was doing, asking about books, squinting at the orphans’ needlepoint. Eventually, their laps became unfettered from any niceties and they just shuffled drone-like, around and around.
First took up pacing next, and I understood just how long the night was going to be. Did she have to break so quickly? She masked her nervous laps better than the triplets though, taking a rag from the kitchen to polish Shirley’s already polished surfaces. She dusted every bottle, except for the jug with the ruined ship that had nearly hit her, but each time she passed it she looked over at me and smiled, as if to say thanks again. We made our own game of it, seeing if we could make eye contact at the exact same time. I figured out how many steps it took her to loop around the room and get back to our jug—forty-two, give or take. This kept us relatively amused and able to ignore the other Glories’ restlessness until Second Man stood up and announced, “I’m going to visit Mr Saragosa.”
“You’re not!” Dearest rushed over and clung to him. “We can play Crazy Eights! We can play Go Fish.”
“You’ll have to play cards with Fauxnique,” Second Man told her as he pried her from his pant leg. He lit a candle, shielding the flame with his hand as he walked out. We all rushed to the window to watch his little flame sputter in the darkness then go pitch black. We wondered if he’d made it inside the Pawnshop before the candle went out. The night pressed hard against the glass as if parts of the Dark were getting closer, creeping in while the lights were out. I could feel the weight of it pushing back at us, as if warning us away from the window.
After that, everyone was climbing the walls. First grabbed a chair to dust the crown moulding. I crossed my fingers for luck as I watched her teeter on the thin-legged wooden chair. The last thing we needed was for First to fall. She threw the rag down dramatically when she was done, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But just as soon as I quit worrying, Arsen stormed through the front door to report that the squad car was still there. “They’ve got something on us for sure. They’re trying to smoke us out of here.” This was the kind of bad news that made First want consoling. She pawed at him until his smile returned. He kissed her in the doorway of the Mayflower, and every Glory watched with envy. The two of them retreated to the ballroom together. Arsen stole a candle from my table to light First’s way into the empty room. I sat in near darkness, too stubborn to ask Al for another candle.
I waited to hear them through the long, wood-panelled wall. When I heard nothing I knew it was only because they were being polite. I pictured Arsen’s hand cupped over First’s mouth. Her sighs dampening his palm. I had the length of Arsen’s wrist to the tip of his middle finger memorized. It was the same distance between my hip and bellybutton. I was even more than familiar with just how soft First’s lips were. I knew both so well that I could have narrated their sex without even seeing or hearing it, so well their hands and mouths haunted me. I got the urge to pace, storm the room with the triplets. But I forced my body to be even more still.
Dearest pestered Fauxnique to play another, then another, then yet another game of cards. Her appetite for Go Fish could not be satiated. Fauxnique eventually threw down the deck. “This is why I taught you solitaire,” she said sharply. Dearest collected her cards and retreated to an empty corner of the Mayflower, then started reciting each card aloud. “Seven of hearts,” she whimpered, making sure we knew that she was offended.
The triplets—so weary for live ones—decided to proposition Shirley, Al, and Maggie. It was a welcome distraction to hear their little noises, the clanging of the silverware in the drawer, the bubbling of food left in the deep-fryer, forgotten. “We just got free burgers for everyone until this thing is over,” they bragged as they came out of the kitchen.
It was around midnight when we ate a second dinner. The food tasted better after the triplets’ romp in the kitchen. Al put garlic salt and chili pepper on the fries. Shirley added lime cordial to the water. “Eat,” ordered Portia. “The triplets just worked to put this food on the table.” First tsk-tsked at me for not touching my food. She and Arsen had returned from the ballroom with an appetite. Even though Arsen would have gladly eaten whatever I couldn’t finish, I gave Dearest my leftovers. Her stomach was puffed out so far she looked like she was having a baby Dearest of her own.
The last person to cave into the blackout anxiety was the Diamond Dowager. She’d been too composed through all of this, practically motionless for the last nine hours, and so it only made sense that her fall would have to be something more than simply pacing the restaurant or bumping around in the kitchen.
She struck as old Maggie was clearing our plates away. I noticed her wandering in circles close to our table. I was proud to have outlasted her. For nine hours, I hadn’t had as much as a book, much less sex, to distract me, and I was still handling the blackout better than everyone else. Unlike the older Glories, uneasiness was still somewhat fresh with me. I was still accustomed to sitting out a bad city situation. Arsen tugged at my arm from across the table, trying to get me to come sit beside him. I was sure my composure made him uncomfortable. His touch was warm and soft, but I sensed neediness at the way he grabbed at me, and I wouldn’t go.
“It will make you feel better,” First suggested, motioning me over to Arsen.
“Who says I need to feel better?” I crossed my arms in front of my chest so neither she nor Arsen could take up my hand. “I’m perfectly fine.” They wore the same puzzled expression. First clapped her hand against her cheek.
“She doesn’t care for you, does she, Arsen?” said the Dowager. “She’s immune to you without your charm, then? I knew she was a smart one.” This is the way the blackout finally got to the Dowager. She turned her frustration on Arsen. Confrontation, I thought, must be comforting to her. She went directly in for the kill, put her whole body into it. She faced Arsen, her arms outstretched to box us into our booth.
“It’s none of your business,” I told her, defending myself, not Arsen. My palms grew hot. This was the second time the Dowager had raised the question of Arsen’s supposed charms, and this time it was more than a raised eyebrow, it was right from her mouth. Was it all just charms—right down to the powdered doughnuts? Were Arsen’s affections as authentic as a caress from phantom hand?
“But your well-being is my business, Little. Once upon at time, I saw to the needs of all Glories on Sub Rosa, even Arsen. So if he is bothering you now, you can always sit with us.”
“She’s staying with her House.” Arsen slammed his fist on the table. I jumped; the Dowager didn’t.
“Yes, yes, you’d better hold her tightly. You’ve already lost two. That makes two for two, doesn’t it? You’ve certainly proven yourself apt at running your House into the ground. Lucky for you that Candy darling is so loyal. Blindly loyal.”
No Glory magic, I reminded myself as First got up to meet the Dowager. I put my left hand over my right to keep phantom hand contained. Everyone held their breath. Dearest even put down her bag of cookies. By the way the bag crumpled, I’d have said it was almost empty, anyway. We waited, but First had no poignant comebacks. She just locked her tired eyes with the Dowager’s for an uncomfortable minute and walked past her out of the Mayflower. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought I detected a twinge of sympathy from the Dowager, either that or she was disappointed to have missed the opportunity to fight. I rushed out after First, knowing that Arsen was left behind to bear the brunt of whatever condemnation the Dowager had yet to deliver.
I found First quickly in the darkness, running smack into her a foot outside the door. “Do you think Second told them police ’bout us?” she asked. “I shoulda never been so hard on her the way I was.” I wrapped my arms around her. The fabric of her nightdress scratched my cheek; I never understood why she put up with such uncomfortable clothes. Before I could offer any kind words, she changed the subject, asking if I smelled the lingering sugars and florals, if I could see anything past the curb.
“I smell old roses, but I can’t see a thing,” I told her.
“If you’re ever unhappy, please, please, Little, you tell me so I can make it good again.” I just hugged her quietly. “Old witch is right, we oughta be the most powerful House on Sub Rosa. We got the most magic—what with your hand and my size. I don’t get why we keep losin’ family.” She bent down to me and returned my hug, too tightly. The blackout was about to hit me. I felt it as sure as I could feel First’s giant hands on my back. “Well, I’m not leaving you,” I said. Our kiss was a contract. I delivered a row of kisses along her big bottom lip, assuring her that I intended to keep my part of the bargain.
“It’s true, isn’t it, that Arsen has Glory charms?” I asked First. “That’s how come he could lure me to the Rosa so easily?” First rocked slightly, shifting her weight
“And what does ‘two for two’ mean, First?” I continued. Her body was too hot against me. I was certain that my question would make her uneasy, but maybe because I couldn’t see her face, I had the courage to ask. “I saw a Glory in the Dark. Was it Jellyfish?” It was a relief just to say Jellyfish’s name. As soon as I said it I realized how desperate I was to talk about her. I repeated her name several times, “Jellyfish, Jellyfish, Jellyfish …”
“What’s gotten into you, Little?” First gave my shoulders a strong shake. “I been wantin’ you to come out and ask me about her for a long time. But I knows Jellyfish is not somebody to be askin’ after. This blackout got things stirred up that normally I put out of my head.”
“Then tell me, First,” I pleaded. I wrapped my arms around her tighter than I ever had before. I believe, for the first time, I hugged her as tightly as she hugged me.
“I always try to give you good advice, Little, plain and useful truths, not gossip. But what I’m tellin’ you now, it’s a story. A story that no longer gets told.”
XVII
“By now, you caught on that the story of Sub Rosa is a story of love. Least, when Mr Saragosa is tellin’ it, it is. He likes that story, jewels bein’ love’s business and all. He probably told it to you the very same way he told it to me many years ago. I suppose he thinks we’re girls, and what we wanna hear is love stories, right? Royal and Diamond, oh my! Maybe you’ve caught on that I’m not much for storytellin’. I tried to spare you stories, Little, which isn’t so easy on Sub Rosa. The ugly truth of it is, we all find ourselves here ’cause we got stories we wanted to forget.”
First’s story—as she told it to me that night—had no timeline. No places or dates to legitimatize it. How she and Arsen found one another, what her life was like before Sub Rosa, and other hows and whys were absent. When she came to Sub Rosa, she simply came.
“There are ways we can speak of Sub Rosa in the city, you know what I’m sayin’. Hints. Whispers. ‘Oh yes, sir, I live right beside No’s Smoke Shoppe,’ like that. We never come out and ask, ‘Do you know the way to Sub Rosa?’ Same goes for wanna-be Glories—you can’t tell ’em much ’til they done their Dark Days. But Arsen, Lord love him, told me less than nothin’. I’d say he brought me here with a deficit of knowledge. I had to earn my way into the black.”
First, as much an ingénue then as I was when Arsen first brought me in, only knew that she had fallen completely in love with a man who promised her the good life, and for that love and that life she would do just about anything. The heated conversations she heard between Arsen and the Dowager made no sense to First. She just sat in Arsen’s car, as he had instructed her to, and waited, taking in the strange sights of what seemed to be a ghost town from an old Western film. Storefront windows were all dark and closed signs hung in every door. Street lamps were dim. Sidewalks vacant. And the great house in front of which Arsen had parked his car looked like it had survived a fire. First despairingly marvelled at the charred visage. Each brick and shingle, each windowpane and each fence picket was perfectly in place. But every inch of the property was uniformly grey. Like ash had rained on it for days. The lady who angrily gestured and raised her voice at Arsen didn’t offer the scene any colour, either. When Arsen finally called Della O’Kande out of the car, she felt garish and stupid walking up the gloomy path in her pink leopard-print jump suit and gold running shoes.
First’s Dark Days were set at $2,000. “All our dowries go to her. We all buy our way in to Sub Rosa,” said First. “But Diamond made me pay the most. I bet she carries my dowry in her purse to this very day. I bet she still counts it.” Hers was the highest Dark Days dowry to date because she really was the First, the first girl to be recruited from the city.
The Dowager refused to look at First when Arsen presented her. She kept her back turned as she spoke sternly, facing the Darkness in the distance. First was told that the only way Arsen would be allowed to keep her was if she went into the Dark and returned with the Dowager’s fee. The Dowager’s finger directed her to the vanishing point in the distance. A forceful wind pushed First’s back as she walked. She wanted to look back and see the face of her banisher, but she didn’t dare. When she had earned $2,000, then she would look, then she’d stare the Dowager down.
