Sub Rosa, page 31
“You should be there when Isabella hands her dowry to the Dowager. Don’t you want to lead the family into its new fame?”
“I’d like to see the Dowager’s face,” First said. “Little, maybe I shoulda followed the light.”
“You could still catch up with her, First. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” I wasn’t sure if I was having a selfish moment, or a selfless one. I did want First to have her moment of fame, not wander the threatening Dark with me. But there was this other yearning, the urge to meet Jellyfish alone. Somehow I understood that what Jellyfish had to show me could only be seen if I was alone.
“You think I can catch up? My legs are good and longer than hers,” she laughed, nervous. “I’m not like you, Little. I don’t have enough faith to turn my back to the light.”
It wasn’t faith that drove me. It wasn’t anything I could name. Or if I did name it, I would name it after myself. The name had called from some far-off place since I arrived on Sub Rosa. The right way wasn’t toward the beautiful light, it was toward my name. First nearly encased me with her body as I told her this. If I had held on, she would have carried me like that. But realizing I wasn’t going to change my mind, First’s hug was swift. She was eager to get back to Sub Rosa. I savoured the ache of her embrace for the last time.
I gave her phantom hand to hold. “Phantom hand will lead you back if you get lost,” I said. “It’s magic. It knows the way.”
“Yes, give me phantom hand. That way I know you’ll be coming back for it soon,” said First.
“That’s right,” I played along.
“I’ll tell everyone to expect you.”
“Don’t tell them anything,” I said. “Keep them guessing. The suspense will stir up wild gossip.” It was the closest I could get to saying goodbye.
She hurried off after Isabella. It took only a moment for my skin to grow cold without her touch and the Dark to grow dead quiet without her voice.
XXX
A row of greeting cards sits along a windowsill; each has the words birthday and girl written in pink curly cursive.
The yellow tulip-pattern kitchen curtains smell like cigarettes and fried onions.
A hole in the screen door has been patched with silver gift-wrapping ribbon.
A red plastic mailbox leans back, askew, on a wooden stake at the end of the driveway.
Maple keys are sprouting in the un-mowed grass.
There is a tire swing hanging in the backyard, even though no children live there anymore.
Again, there are the red-painted steps of my grandmother’s stucco bungalow. Why is it that I now ache for red peeling paint more than the perfumed rooms of the Wifey Wing? I would sooner sit on those steps until chips of that paint stick to the back of my jeans. Maybe I already have. Maybe I’ve spent hours on those steps, watching sunsets or passing cars or neighbour kids playing street hockey.
“The first thing you forget on Sub Rosa is yourself,” her voice whispers, close by.
I know that as soon as I turn around, I will see Jellyfish. “I’m here,” I say, preparing to face her. She is misplaced moonlight standing beside me. I gaze at her in awe. The world is reborn in the wondrous halo above her head.
“I’m here,” she echoes, even though she is in plain sight. Her woman’s voice is gentle. She brightens so that I can see my arms and hands in the Dark. I step toward her.
“You are ready?”
“Am I’m going to the place in my memories? To my grandmother’s?”
“I only know my own memories. I can’t see yours.”
“Can’t you tell me anything about what’s going to happen?” I ask. “This is big. I thought I’d stay on Sub Rosa forever. And now, how do I trust that all these memories are real? I mean, I’m missing from every single memory I’ve seen. I’m not even in the picture.”
“You are missing yourself?”
“Yes, I’m missing myself,” I say. Jellyfish’s light suddenly dies out, leaving me to stand alone in utter darkness. “Oh,” I sigh after a minute of silence. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I’m missing myself.”
Jellyfish exhales. Her breath lights up the Dark just like breath mists the winter air. There’s another memory, I think to myself—walking to school during the first cold snap of November. I reach for her, ready. “The only memory you need for this journey is your name,” she says.
“I have my name. It’s Leila. I’ll say it. I promise,” I tell her. And I will say it. I will say it even if I don’t yet understand what meaning it has attached to it or if this name was passed to me from other women or from a motherland, from a tradition or a legend. I don’t know, but I will say it. It’s meaning I can learn in time, I hope. And I hope it will only take my name to connect me back to all the city scenes I’ve imagined. Now, now all there is to do is say it.
There are stars in Jellyfish’s belly. And space enough for bigger worlds than Sub Rosa. I wonder where I’ll say I’ve been all this time and who will listen. I wonder if I’ll find Second, or the Night Watchman, or even the Widower—someone who knows me as Little. Or maybe they won’t exist in this new world. Maybe I’ll never find another place where I’m known as Little.
Jellyfish doesn’t need to use force to bring my hand to her belly. Her skin is cold and melts at my touch. I feel air. I get the urge to stick my head inside her—and so I do. It is too late after that. There isn’t a second left to reconsider. When my feet lift off the ground I already know my high heels are gone. When I reach instinctively for something solid, I know my ring is also gone. I fall and I fall and wait for what will come.
AMBER DAWN is a writer, filmmaker and performance artist based in Vancouver. She is the editor of Fist of the Spider Woman and co-editor of With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn. Her award-winning, genderfuck docu-porn, “Girl on Girl,” has been screened in eight countries and added to the gender studies curriculum at Concordia University. She has toured three times with the infamous Sex Workers’ Art Show in the US. She was voted Xtra! West’s Hero of the Year in 2008. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Currently, she is the Director of Programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
Amber Dawn, Sub Rosa
