Sub Rosa, page 11
“Tragically, Royal’s mortal body could only live so long, even on Sub Rosa. He passed away long before your time.” He patted my back, as though I was personally grieved by Royal’s death.
“Royal knew he couldn’t stay forever and so he bought Diamond the biggest diamond ring in the shop, because diamonds are forever, as the saying goes. Since then, no Glory has received a diamond. You must respect this, just as you must respect Royal’s spirit, which still remains and protects Sub Rosa today.
“Well, now, you have your own story. And what a little legend it is! Two days in the Dark. When I heard the news, I put this aside for you. It’s as dark and captivating as the sun-forsaken streets you so quickly mastered.” This was the moment I’d been waiting for. I held my breath, and he held up a ring. It was an eclipse. It punctured the Pawnshop’s hot white light. I wanted something girlish and pretty—it was neither. Mr Saragosa had to pull up my hand and reel it into the ring. “You have no idea what this is worth,” he said, struggling to put the ring on my finger. “Platinum band and a South Seas black pearl. Lucky girl,” he told me. I looked down at it, and the ring stared hard back at me. A heavy band of metal, almost as thick as the bulbous pearl sandwiched precariously in the centre. A hint of green luminosity gleamed in the pearl. I guessed that was something. And it fit. It fit my unusually tiny finger so, of course, ugly or not, it had to be mine. I left the Pawnshop.
“Show it, baby girl,” said Arsen. He was posed a few feet shy of our track patch—probably a pose he’d practised for ages, body arched forward in a way that made his handlebar hipbones knob under his pants. A pose that drew all my attention to his groin; there may as well have been arrows pointing at his zipper. He had come to see my ring. I stalled for a moment, arms folded behind me, embarrassed at the band of gloom on my finger. Second crowded me, circling behind my back. First wrung her hands in anticipation, and so I reluctantly lifted the ring above my head to their eye level. “Black pearl,” First announced.
Arsen’s face crumpled. Play by play: his mouth dropped, a brief— very brief—trembling of the chin; the chin then stiffened, tongue peeked out to wet his lips; and he forged a smile to cover his brief unravelling. “I can’t take my eyes off it,” First said. “It’s haunting. I think I’ve dreamed ’bout this ring before.”
As First admired my ring, Arsen clapped his hand over mine to hide it. I waited for First to say something; she could get an answer out of him faster than I ever could. Before she could say a word, however, Arsen directed her attention toward someone else altogether. He raised his finger to his lips, then pointed behind him. “The Dowager?” First whispered. No one moved from our tight huddle. I squatted down an inch or two; from between Arsen’s legs I saw a wall of black lace moving in.
“Diamond, Sadie, and company. To what do we owe this visit?” said Arsen, turning to face the funereal gaggle. The black-lace clad orphan dollies, six of them, formed a perfect line in front of us. I noticed each wore a cameo ring, blue or pink coral backgrounds with a ghostly lady’s face carved in the centre. All of them resembled the portraits in their rings; their hair twisted into complicated buns and braids, their mouths painted pale. In unison, they stopped, and the Diamond Dowager stepped forward. It could only be her, the legend I’d just learned about. There was the telltale flash of fire on her finger, and then the Diamond Dowager’s hand was at my cheek. She was nowhere near as rare and extraordinary looking as First. Oddly human for a Glory; her eyes had crow’s feet. But behind her, a wind gathered that made her undone hair flutter around her shoulders. Her long black dress twirled up and then hugged her legs again, as if it was breathing. No one else was affected by this wind; the dollies’ layered crinolines were absolutely still. First folded her arms around me. Her heartbeat knocked on the back of my head.
“There was a time when a new Glory went door to door to introduce herself. My girls certainly take the time to call upon our neighbours,” said the Dowager. Her voice was like that of an actress in a play, polished and, without being raised, loud enough to hear from a hundred yards away. “Since all manners have been traded for the almighty desire to start earning profits, I took it upon myself to make whatever brief introduction you can afford to receive.”
First’s palm grew warm against my shoulder. I felt fighting words rattling up toward her lips and wondered under what condition rule number three could be broken. “Nothin’ wrong with lettin’ her settle in with her kin and find her feet before she goes paradin’ around the Rosa. ’Course, most anything can seem rude if you lookin’ for a quarrel.”
The Diamond Dowager waved her hand to dismiss First’s oncoming argument. “Oh, she is still getting acquainted. Is that right, tiny Glory?”
“Little,” I introduced myself and offered my hand to shake. Our rings clanged together. First gathered me in even closer. I looked up to see the mandible muscles on the underside of her jaw tighten on her otherwise stone-calm face.
“It would seem that you’re quick to adjust to your surroundings. You see, I’ve come to congratulate you, though I am also curious. Very curious about how you got out of the Dark so quickly, Little.”
“That is the question on everyone’s mind,” laughed Arsen, his voice sounding too casual, too slapdash. He was nervous and so was I. As the Dowager turned my hand over to inspect my ring, a cool current ran from my fingertips up my arm to my shoulder, where First pressed her protective weight on me.
“Strange,” said the Dowager. “Jellyfish had a black pearl, too.” The line of black dollies began to retreat as if that was their cue. First’s hand grew slack for a second.
“Jellyfish?” I asked. “Isn’t that the name of the girl I saw in the Dark?”
“What’s this you’re saying?” The Dowager’s question sent ripples of wind across my dress.
“She’s saying nothing,” Arsen told her. “She got a typical case of Dark delusion, that’s all. They all see things in the Dark, as you know. Especially the more triumphant Glories. Their visions help guide them. This one saw a girl. She hallucinated a girl, that is.”
“You mean to tell me that Little, now wearing a black pearl, imagined up Jellyfish as a symptom of the Dark? Tell me, little one,” the Dowager said, turning to me. “What was this vision you saw?”
“The dark girl, you mean?” I shrugged. There was a pause in which I waited for someone to fill in the blanks about my mysterious angel.
“Don’t encourage her Dark madness. She’s on the mend still and don’t need to be thinkin’ about Dark creeps,” First said loudly.
The Diamond Dowager came at First with such cruelty on her face it made me nuzzle into First’s tummy rolls. “Creeps! Show some respect,” the Dowager boomed. “Real or imagined, she still was your First!”
Arsen jumped in between the two just before they collided. There was a scuffle of heeled shoes against the pavement. First tried to get in a low swing before she got a hold of herself. She reigned in her rough fist with a sigh, and returned it to its place on my shoulder. For a moment the thrill of the near-fight stirred me. I got the urge to topple the line of orphan girls. I bet my sucker punch would have been mean with my new bulbous ring on. My hand twitched with the thought of it. I stared hard at the line of orphans and one of them did stumble. Her footing faltered as if an imaginary hand had pushed her. No one seemed to notice except me and the orphan, who recovered with a hasty step back into line with the others. “This scene has become disagreeable, my children. Let’s leave House of Arsen to their own quarrel,” said Diamond.
After the Diamond Dowager and her orphans were well across the street, First loosened her grip on me. I eased away, straightening my clothes and hair. On her stretch velvet dress was the outline of my head. She rubbed at it unconsciously as she started to cry. Not tears. But dry sobs that trembled on her lip. Arsen was so taken aback that it took him a minute before he thought to hug her and shush her.
Second slipped up beside me. She’d been tucked behind a streetlamp this whole time. “Nice work,” she said in my ear. “No one ever cries on Sub Rosa.”
X
I was sure my ring was jinxed. It cast a mood as dark as its oversized pearl. Thankfully, it did not jinx our track patch. We saw back-to-back live ones right until sunrise. But First’s dim spirits never broke. She never really perked up as we worked. She’d be jumbled up with a live one, going through her usual motions of bouncing and clucking, and her breath would catch. Maybe to a live one it came across as passion’s hiccups, but I was the one who’d been studying her night and day—I knew she was gulping down some kind of worry. I blamed the black pearl. When my right hand wasn’t busy, I cupped it over my left, concealing my ring guiltily.
Second did nothing to spice up the working room. Her lousy performance could only be indifference. I had her figured out, too. Her signature positions, which she’d crafted to appear as though she was overcome by pleasure, really were nothing more than her putting distance between her and the live ones. To me it was obvious that her screams into the pillow were not of ecstasy; she just didn’t want to look at the men. Seeing her made me think of how I would intentionally tangle my legs up in sleeping bags as I rolled around with city boys so that half of me could be spared their adolescent probing. I felt sorry for Second; she was still clowning around sex even though she’d been a Glory much longer than I had. And for some reason, maybe the funk was contagious, I started feeling sorry for myself too. Not my self as a Glory, but for that girl with the unicorn belt. And I wondered if Second was thinking about some former incarnation of herself, and why, after all this time, she would still want to. Myself, I couldn’t wait for those city memories to fade away. They made me sluggish and unable to keep up with the work in front of me.
What was worse was that Arsen paced the sitting room like an expectant father the whole night. Waiting for a better mood to be birthed, I suppose. He mumbled something about trading in my ring when it wasn’t so busy. But the live ones were lined up along our stairs. I’d run in between them to give Arsen an update. “We’re fine,” I kept telling him. “We’re busy.” I wanted to tell him to go home, but each time I passed him I ended up firing off some chipper reassurance before I ushered in the next in line.
I realized it was up to me to keep morale up. I had to be the cheerleader-seductress-vixen-goddess-baby-doll-centrepiece. I changed my flavour with every new live one and their assortment of tastes. I don’t know how I managed to keep my “yes, sirs” and “bad boys” from getting confused. It was like dreaming, the kind of dream where you figure out you can fly just before falling to your death, or you’ve dropped into the ocean only to realize you can breathe under water. I was delirious, blowing kisses in the air to the last couple of live ones to leave our track patch. The work it took, pleasing all those men, made me appreciate First and her skills more than ever.
I was unsure of just how much money I had made until we had closed our doors and I began to pull dollars out of my bra. Hundred-dollar bills stuck to my feet as I took my boots off. There were fifties tangled in my hair. The work bed I had used that night was sheeted in money. My palms grew hot as I counted it.
I showed First my earnings, hoping she’d gush over me. I had certainly outdone myself; I was sure I’d outdone most Glories, new or old. I even wondered if attracting money was my Glory power. I wanted it to be. If Ling could enchant flower petals, why couldn’t I attract money? That would be the best Glory power ever. I hinted around at it: “Cash and I have this symbiotic relationship, eh, First?” I was vaguely remembering a nature program I’d seen where tiny oxpecker birds flocked to the backs of zebras and fed on the ticks that live on the zebras’ skin. First didn’t explore the metaphor with me at all. She was so tired, a flat, “I’ll tuck some cash away for us,” was all she said before Arsen put her to bed. He sat in our room with us, rubbing First’s feet until she fell asleep. I snuck my foot over to him too, touched him with my big toe under the covers, but he shifted over an inch or so, and I knew not to expect any attention for myself.
Second smiled smugly at me from under her pile of stuffed animals. This whole situation was probably fantastic as far as she was concerned: First was miserable and I was being ignored. I could hardly sleep under her stare.
Then, once I did, I couldn’t stay asleep. I woke up to what must have been Arsen finally pulling away in his car. The sound of his car made me want attention all over again. I squirmed in bed, my thoughts involuntarily concentrated on a sensory collage made up of his leather upholstery, the gold stud in his perfect earlobe, the lazy curl of his fingers on the steering wheel. The wanting baffled me. I wasn’t living in his house; I had my own. He no longer cooked for me, or sang, or found me in the Dark. Yet I still wanted. I was too wound up from the night, was my excuse. My body didn’t know to stop Glorying for the night. I would have settled for another roll with a live one; after the relay race of their pleasure my body felt deserted. I turned to First, but didn’t dare disturb her for fear that she’d wake up just as glum as she’d fallen asleep. For a long while, I lay very still and waited for the urges to pass. When they refused to, I quietly reached under my scalloped-cotton nightie with my own hand. I rubbed myself as wet and spent as I could without making noise, but my hand refused to slow down. I grew frustrated. I had relived a procession of live ones, but I couldn’t satisfy myself. The black pearl felt cold between my legs. For the first time I wasn’t repelled by my ring. Instead, it was like a reset button; each time it butted up against my flesh, I began again. Nothing was a turn-off. Hearing First breathing, the cotton pillow sham against my cheek—ordinary things—kept me up and stirring. Even the air was needling me.
I looked at Second’s slender wrist, her fingers twitching with dreams, with irrational desire. It made me hate her more. She didn’t deserve to have me watch her as she slept. I should have been sleeping peacefully, while she tossed and turned and wanted.
As soon as I thought this, Second did start tossing in her bed. I quit moving my hands and held my breath. My vision was starry and exhausted, and the room was very dark. Still, I was sure I saw something. Something hovered over top of Second. I covered my mouth, my uncontrollable masturbating finally over. It was a hand that I saw, faint as a watermark emblem, but definitely there, inches above Second’s face. It dipped down and poked Second’s forehead. I gaped and cupped my hands tighter to my mouth. The phantom hand froze, as if it realized it suddenly had an audience, fingers stiffly pointed up. It wore a ghostly pearl.
A horrible feeling seized me. I wore a haunted ring, I was sure of it. It was worse than any jinx—it was possessed. I tried to wrench it from my finger, but my hands were clumsy with fear and still slippery from masturbating. Desperate, I hid my ring finger inside my mouth. My finger tasted like salt: the ring, like blood. An electric shock ran across my front teeth as I attempted to bite it loose. No ring was small enough to get stuck on my finger, no ring but this black pearl. The phantom hand left Second and hung near my own face. I pushed my finger deeper in my mouth, gagging a little. The phantom hand’s ring finger was missing. It twitched beside me; its middle finger searched the space where the ring finger should have been. I was choking as I slid my ring finger out of my mouth. The ring finger on phantom hand rematerialized. I repeated this twice, watching the phantom finger vanish and reappear as I stuck my ring finger in my mouth and pulled it out. I balled my hand into a fist. Phantom hand copied me. I pointed at the ceiling and so did phantom hand. I lay my hand palm up in a gesture of offering. Phantom hand did the same.
XI
Many widowers visit Sub Rosa, but only one is called the Widower. His title wasn’t earned because his grief was any greater than the others; he paid more, much more, and he visited often. He bought himself the name.
“He’s no one’s regular,” First told me. “He don’t wanna be gettin’ close to any of us. Most times he picks one of the Dowager’s orphan children. Probably he can’t tell them apart. None of them got a drop of personality.”
The Widower was the first live one to take me off Sub Rosa.
I wasn’t even on our track patch when he picked me up. First had brought me to the Mayflower for soda floats and to introduce me to a few of the Glories. I suspected that the Dowager’s visit the night before had something to do with First suddenly wanting me to make friends.
A wooden ship’s figurehead of a windswept woman hung above the Mayflower’s door to make it look like the prow of great ship. “Is that bust supposed to be you, First?” I asked, pointing above our heads. First took my hand and pulled me through the entrance, saying hurriedly, “She’s whoever you want her to be. If folks say she resembles me, I don’t tell them different.”
Inside the Mayflower Diner smelled of orange-oil wood polish and pan-fried meats. It was difficult to clearly see who anyone was in its oak and stained-glass lit interior. The floors were thick and soft, like railroad tie wood. As I stepped in after First, the floorboards seemed to sink slightly around my feet. The booth seats were old church pews, each strewn with handmade pillows. The tables were topped with such a thick coat of shellac, I made a palm print while leaning against one. What wasn’t wood was glass. Glass bottles, to be specific. The walls were covered with ships in bottles, little sailboats in Coca-Cola bottles, and large war vessels in glass jugs. Each protruded out of the wall on precarious wooden arms. First and I sat under a large pirate ship, sharing onion rings and drinking from frosted glasses that were brought to us (without her having to take our order) by a slouching waitress. We waved at Ling as she sat down with a live one for a dinner date, but besides her, First didn’t greet anyone. After a minute or two of silence she started talking about Glorying again; briefing me on all the Sub Rosa regulars and their various tastes and wants.
