Her hand twitched and she jammed the mascara wand into her eye. Pain shot through her and she knocked the lit cigarette to the floor. Not the floor, the floor was no longer visible; a crust of garbage an inch or two deep at its thinnest covered the hardwood. The smoldering butt fell into a stack of magazines and rolled behind the toilet. Bourbon got her as she bent down, and she fell into the toilet, banging her hand against the bowl.
She’d accidentally gotten tipsy.
Grunting, she dug the cigarette out and pounded the place it had landed in case anything had ignited. Dropping the butt in the toilet, she saw the acrylic nail of her right index finger had snapped off, exposing a scabby stub where the real nail had been filed down to take the epoxy.
“God damn it!” she hissed as she levered herself back to her feet. Her nails were fake, but they were pretty, the prettiest thing about her. Upright, her finger in her mouth, she turned to the mirror once again. Sucking had smudged her lipstick and black tears poured down through her makeup leaving gray runnels that would be a bitch to cover up.
“Fuck!” She threw the mascara wand at the mirror. Leaving a black smear, it bounced off the glass and fell into her half-empty bourbon glass. “God damn it!” she shouted and started to slam her fist into the mirror.
Bad luck, seven years of it. That was all she needed!
Sucking in her breath, she closed her eyes and began to mutter. “Seventy-eight cards, twenty-two major arcana, trumps, cannot be changed, fifty-six minor arcana divided into four suites… ”
When she’d gone to read in Jackson Square, she’d memorized the paragraph marketers put on the card boxes for the tourists. That was the extent of her knowledge when her first customer sat down. The oft-repeated litany calmed her. As a little girl she’d used the Lord’s Prayer. It had never paid off in nearness to Mr. Marchand, let alone twenty-dollar bills like the tarot did.
“Okay. Okay.” She opened her eyes but didn’t let them veer to the mirror. “We’re moving slowly, carefully,” she coached herself, as she picked up the bourbon, fished out the mascara wand, and let it fall to the floor. “Both hands, that’s my girl.” Holding the tumbler as a believer might hold the grail, she took a long sip. Later, when her hands were steadier, she’d fix her makeup. That way it would be fresher for her date.
Date.
That cheered a smile from her. He would laugh if he heard her use that word. That, or he’d get mad. Lately, since Mr. Marchand’s wife had come into the picture, he’d been on edge. Before she’d come along, he’d made fun of her but he didn’t get so mad so much. He didn’t pace and hit. Polly Marchand and those little girls kept him upset. He was going to do it again. Mr. Marchand had told her that.
A shame. Ms. Pollyanna seemed nice, but it was hard to tell; the cards told a lot, but they had their secrets.
Tonight she didn’t want to think about Polly Marchand. There was another thought she’d liked. For a moment she couldn’t remember what it was. The grail made another trip to her mouth, and it came back to her.
A date. The Woman in Red has a date, she thought and laughed. Nobody had to know she used that word. If he could keep secrets, so could she.
All night she’d think of it as a date, a real date. He thought he could read her mind but she didn’t think he could, not most of the time.
“Date, date, a date, I have a date. So there to you, Mr. Marchand. We are on a date,” she sang as she threaded her way through the crap on the floors to the cupboard in the next room. She was running low on bourbon.
Mr. Marchand paid for her to have air-conditioning, and she kept it turned up high so the apartment didn’t smell too bad. He’d promised he’d get her a nicer place if she’d clean this one up. She was going to do it soon. Lots of valuable things, though. It would be crazy to just throw them out. She’d make time to go through it. Things kind of kept getting away from her these last few years.
Two bottles left of the cheapest stuff. “Neat, straight up,” she said to an imaginary bartender as she poured three fingers. A swallow soothed the pain in her eye and her disappointment over breaking a nail. Refill clasped to her chest, she returned to the bedroom.
“I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date,” she sang as she rifled through red in her cramped closet, and more red, each garment more tired than the last. Over half of them no longer fit, but she kept them. As soon as the weight came off she’d be wanting them. Finally, she settled on a red polyester caftan. The fabric didn’t breathe in the heat, and there were tiny irons and coffee pots and mixing bowls in black on it but it fit and, if she wore it backwards, it didn’t look too stained. Back or front, what did it matter? The thing was shapeless.
Dragging it from the pile, she wondered when the clothes had migrated from the hangers to the floor.
Two winters before there’d been ice and she’d twisted her knee. Healing took a long time. The place had gotten out of hand while she was injured. The closet was one of the places she would start on first. There were probably some nice outfits in there, new shoes. As soon as she got squared away, she would organize the closet, she decided. Could be there was a whole new wardrobe just waiting for her.
The caftan had been squished, so she spread it over the stuff on the bed and ironed the wrinkles out with her hands as best she could. A small slop of the bourbon got on it but that would dry fast. Alcohol dried fast. Congratulating herself for remembering to mash her lips together so she wouldn’t get lipstick on the dress, she pulled it over her head. Too late she remembered she had planned to put on a brassiere and panties.
Didn’t matter. Sexier this way.
Dressed, she looked at herself in the full-length mirror screwed to the back of the closet door. Really looked. Days, weeks, years went by when she didn’t. She’d fiddle with her makeup or her hair, buy cheap rings and arrange them in different ways on her fingers, file the acrylic nails or paint them, but the territory between lipstick and toes she didn’t address except to drape it with ever-growing yards of fabric. Red fabric. By the light of a single-shaded lamp she’d thought it would be okay-red light, red dress: romantic.
The shock of what she saw sobered her unpleasantly.
I don’t fucking fit in the mirror.
Maybe she was standing too close. Piles of clothes and shoes spilling out from the closet had held the door open for God knew how long, but she pushed it anyway. An inch or two was gained.
“I am not this fat. This is like a circus sideshow. Shit!”
With relief, she remembered the bourbon in her hand and took a healthy swallow from the cut-crystal tumbler. It was real crystal; she’d picked it up in a junk shop. Drinking out of a nice glass was okay. Swigging it out of the bottle was what alcoholics did. She was no alcoholic.
Another pull lowered the bourbon half an inch. Careful not to dislodge the unstable stack of unopened mail and socks from a scarf-draped phone table, she set the glass down. That mattered too. Alcoholics never set their drink down, just carried it with them all the time.
Shuffling backward, bulldozing dirty clothes, old newspapers, and two empty Diet Pepsi cans into an eight-inch berm of refuse with her heels, she gained a couple more feet. Still the mirror showed only her face and neck. And red, red from one side of the frame to the other. No arms, hands, hips, just red and fucking red.