Rosethorn (34 page)

When she came out, freshly scrubbed and shy in Elise's terry bathrobe, the velvet dress was waiting for her on the bed, newly steamed into an even richer red. She was placed on the chair in front of the dressing table, Elise behind her with her hands in Sera's wet hair, contemplating how it should be dressed. "Has anyone ever done your hair for you?"

"No one but my grandmother, and not since I was five."

"I'm thinking of pre-Raphaelite waves, half your hair loosely bound up and then cascading in the back."

"That sounds busy,” Sera said wryly. "And complicated."

"Yes," Elise murmured. "That's what we'll do."

20 minutes of mousse being run through her hair and being blow-dried, then being pinned and pulled here and there--then "Voila! The beggar maid becomes the queen."

Sera did not laugh at Elise's extravagant comment for indeed the girl in the mirror in the red velvet dress was not her, her eyes shining like obsidian and her hair a mass of soft waves framing her face.

"Well," she said, trying to sound as if she was not impressed with her reflection, "I'll match the table."

"Would you rather wear, is that a bullet?" Elise asked as she held up a black velvet choker. Sera had forgotten that she was wearing it, had long ago ceased to regard it as ornamentation, not something she remembered to put on for she had never taken it off. She had worn it as she wore sadness, not realizing that it had become part of her.

The smallest hesitation, not unnoticed by Elise, and Sera unclasped the bullet necklace.

Elise encircled her neck with the choker from which hung a red ruby and dangled earrings of black marcasite on her ears, a bit of sparkle in her hair.

"And to gild that strawberry of a mouth," Elise said as she carefully applied a dark red lipstick. "Now press," she commanded as she held a folded tissue in between Sera's wine-stained lips.

"
Ang maganda ka, anak
. You're beautiful, my child," Elise said as their eyes met, and Sera could say nothing, not even thank you, or ask why, why the dress and the jewelry, why her.

"My boys are coming tonight. Be careful you don't break their hearts
,” Elise said, shaking her finger at her as she ushered her out to Marcello, who had changed into a black suit with a silk cravat at his throat, exclaiming, “
Brava! Bellissima
!"

"Now it's my turn," Elise called out over her shoulder as she retreated to the bathroom.

Emerging just in time for the first guest, Elise had changed into a long chocolate suede overcoat trimmed with rich brown sable over a black velvet dress, and wore long strands of black crystal beads and pave diamonds. Diamond clips sparkled in her jet black hair and thick, beaded bracelets circled her wrists.

"Ah,
mi amore
," Marcello said as Elise twirled in front of him like an excited girl.

Her excitement was infectious, as Sera too felt like twirling in her borrowed dress, about to attend her first New York party.

Am I really here, she later asked herself, sitting at the table between Elise's flirtatious 23-year-olds, Erich and Rolf, their German names at odds with their handsome Asian faces, each one battling the other for Sera's attention.

I think I'm flirting, Sera thought, surprised at how easy it was to tease and smile and say witty things and laugh as if she had the lightest of hearts. Is this what it means to live in the moment, but am I really living in the moment when I'm observing myself, with Rolf on one side and Erich on the other?

Feeling that she belonged, no longer the surly beggar maid, Sera succumbed and became, along with the others, a voluptuary for the night, indulging a newly awakened appetite for feasting. I'm happy, she realized, her plate full of food, talking to the boys about books and movies and music, instead of hiding in the shadows of a crowd, with an armor of aloofness.

Someone, Elise perhaps, put on some jazzy music. The boys quickly pushed the furniture to the walls and Elise and Marcello danced in their living room, to be joined by other guests. Erich, or was it Rolf, slipped her some champagne that made her light-headed enough so she let Erich or Rolf take her in his arms and turn her about the room, and she was dancing too, the steps coming to her as if she had been dancing all her life, so easy in the arms of a man who knew how to dance.

It was Erich who led her, she decided. Rolf had the mischievous wit, but Erich was the suave one, irresistible almond-shaped hazel eyes with long lashes looking down on her, not too tall, for she realized were she to kiss him, she would not have to strain and he would not have to lower his head too far to meet her. That she was tempted surprised her. Is that all it took, she thought, to overcome a year-and-a-half of mourning, some champagne and a red velvet dress? 

She danced from Erich to Rolf then back again, once bumping into Elise and Marcello, who leaned over and said as she was whirled away, "Champagne agrees with you," and she replied, over Erich's shoulder, "No, it is I who agree with champagne. In fact, tonight, I agree with everything!"

Everyone laughed at her nonsense but she didn't care. She could not stop laughing, when was the last time that happened?

She was shocked when it was two a.m. and everyone was saying their good-byes and fetching their coats. Sadness started creeping up on her as she saw the remains of the feast, the music turned off, the furniture put back in its place.

"Stay the night, my dear," Elise then said as if sensing her melancholy. "It's too late for you to take the train to Brooklyn."

Sera did not hide her relief, not wanting to go out into the winter night alone. Another hour more of cleaning up, the crystal and china put away, the table stripped of its finery, then Marcello stifling sonorous yawns before shuffling to the bedroom in his slippers.

One by one the lights were turned off and Elise and Sera were alone. They sat by the fire Marcello had left burning in the fireplace.

"You look as if you could keep dancing
,” Elise remarked with a smile.

"I can't believe it's three in the morning. I don't feel like sleeping at all." The beggar maid is reluctant to shed her own finery and so she starts twirling barefoot in the red velvet dress.

"I love this hour," Elise walked to the dark window pane and looked down on the empty street, "when everyone else is asleep and I feel like the whole world is mine."

Sera stood next to her. "You remind me of someone I don't remember meeting."

"Ah, most people say that I'm unlike anyone they know. Sometimes they mean to flatter, but other times they mean I am too strange, my lips are too red, my laugh too loud, my ideas are too much, I am too much. Who do I remind you of?"

Sera stayed silent, her turn to smile mysteriously.

"I take it it's not meant to be unflattering?"

Sera shook her head. "The opposite."

"Thank you, then."

"No, thank you, Elise. Thank you for tonight." Impulsively, Sera hugged her, taking the older woman by surprise.

"The dress belongs to you now." Pleased, she patted Sera.  “Red velvet becomes you and you should wear it every time you feel like dancing."

"Oh, nights like these never happen to me. I go to school and clean houses. That's my life."

"You're just a baby, my dear, countless nights of dancing until two a.m. lie ahead of you. Even at my age I still expect to dance on top of a table or two, so much more a girl of 19."

"Do you feel sorry for me, Elise? Do I seem lost? Is that the reason for this dress, for tonight?" Sera asked, her eyes cast down.

"That's a heavy burden, distrust. Are you sure you want to carry it? Maybe set it down just for a moment?" Elise placed her hands gently on Sera's cheeks. "I gave you the dress because I knew you would look beautiful in it. I invited you to the dinner because I wanted to feed you. And I reached out to you because I sensed that something in you would welcome it. Was I wrong?"

Sera kept her eyes down, remaining quiet. Elise's hands fell away from her face, and then she spoke.

"I went to see my father last summer," Sera began. "I think that's why I moved here. I don't really know anymore, why I'm here. Nothing's turned out the way I planned."

Soon after she arrived, before she started looking for a job or a permanent place to stay, she had taken a walk on Riverside Drive. 1152 was an elegant turn of the century building with a brick stoop that led to ornate glass doors. Heart beating fast, she climbed the steps and looked through the glass at the foyer.  Inside were polished marble floors and a heavy crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. There was an old-fashioned wrought iron elevator on the left and a staircase to the right that curved up to the upper floors. A tall silver vase filled with graceful white lilies adorned a round wooden table in the middle.

She looked at the row of buzzers and mailboxes to the right of the doors. On #3 was taped a small cream rectangle on which was written "Wood." Sucking in her breath, Sera stared at the piece of paper and the buzzer below it, unable to move. Then suddenly, before she was aware of what she was doing, Sera pressed the white button. Nothing for one long minute, then--

"Yes?" A woman's voice crackled through the mesh-covered speaker. "Hello? Speak up, please, I can't hear you." 

Sera backed down the steps and ran across the street. She sat on a bench on the edge of Riverside Park and watched the building, taking note of all the people who came and went, waiting for a man who would be almost 40 now, with blue eyes and brown hair. He would be handsome as the devil with a wife, a girlfriend, or a mistress who sounded young and spoiled. Or perhaps he would look like an athlete gone to seed, a once good-looking man whose dissipation showed in his flabby face, his fleshy body. 

She was sure that as soon as she saw him she would know, something stronger than the pure hatred aflame in her would be set alight. She was charged and ready, but for what she did not know. What do you say to someone who the moment he knew of her existence, before she was even born, wanted all trace of her to vanish with some money he kept in a dresser drawer?

An elderly couple, an older businessman with gray hair, an Asian family, a glamorous woman in stiletto heels and sunglasses emerged from or entered the building at various times, but she saw no one who looked like the man who could be her father for the rest of the summer. And then came fall. She was at her usual place when she saw a man who fit her mother's description perfectly: very handsome, tall, with rich, wavy brown hair and blue eyes. It was him, she was sure. She saw him a few more times before she decided to approach him.

"I thought I would just knock on my father's door," Sera now continued to Elise, "And he would at least recognize me, recognize his own blood before him. I wore my dead mother's dress and stood in front
of his apartment building, waiting for him. He walked right by me. I think it was him. I don't really know. The fact is any stranger could be my father.

“I wanted vengeance. I wanted him to remember her, to feel as bad as I felt. But when that man passed me by a part of me wanted him to recognize me for me. I wanted him to feel regret. But he kept walking. And I didn't say anything, not even to accuse him of my mother's death. Because what right do I have to be mad at him when I’m just as guilty? I came all this way, left everything behind, lost Andrew, for nothing. For nothing. And now I can't ever go back."

Elise couldn't possibly understand the torrent of words gushing out of her, but Sera kept on, unable to stop the tears that fell, the wave of anger and sorrow that she had contained for so long now set free.

Pounding a trembling fist on her chest, "Will this ever go away? Do you know? Because I can still see Andrew everywhere. He's in my head and I can't shake him off. You would think you'd die from pain this great, but I'm still alive. How is that possible?"

Still looking down because she could not face Elise, who was now pushing up the red velvet sleeves to reveal the red gashes she had made with the paring knife she kept beneath her pillow, just a slash every now and then, deep enough to bleed a little of the pain out.

Not gasping, as if she already knew, or lying to her and saying that it would all be okay, Elise just took Sera in her arms and let her cry until all her tears were spent.  

Chapter 22

Six years later...

For the third time that week, fate brought Sera and the English professor together.

She had been busy dashing off notes on her well-worn spiral notebook, with phrases she would later use for her article to describe the luxurious Grand Hotel on the banks of Lake Bled. Then, she surreptitiously started taking photos of the old-fashioned lobby of polished walnut and chandeliers and the lounge overlooking a breathtaking view of the lake and Mount Triglav.

As she took a few shots of the reception area, she had seen the now familiar figure in tweed and corduroys and neat Oxfords, with his back to her, checking in. Although she was no longer surprised that she should run into him again, as she had at first in Venice, then Ljubljana, she was surprised to see him at the Grand Hotel.

No English professor then, she thought. She would have to revise her theory to explain his being able to afford this rather posh hotel. Her own accommodation at Bled was a small room in a humble penzion resembling a Swiss chalet, simply decorated and clean, without a coveted view of the lake.