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| panda-like calm through fiction | |||||||||
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Black Widows Ball
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Note: This story was a bit experimental, using images from a friend’s make-up blog as the starting points for characters: http://thepaintedmask.wordpress.com/
Anis Her father named her “Faith.” Years later, his buddies at the plant teased him that he’d given his daughter a stripper’s name, and he balled his fists in anger, but didn’t let them know how much it worried him. He was attentive all the rest of that day, worried over what she might become if he was a bad father, but by the time he kissed her good night and tucked her under her favorite blanket, blue with dragonflies on it, he’d convinced himself she was perfect, and always would be. When she was old enough, and jaded enough, she stopped using her name; for a while she borrowed her mother’s, but it was always a temporary loan. Eventually, she took the name Anis, from her favorite creature, the anisoptera- the dragonfly. Her first husband made the mistake of assuming it came from the anisoptera tree, and that the tree was where anise tea came from. He drank the pink tea regularly for his rheumatism, and he said she did the same for his soul that the drink did for his joints. But anise comes from the star anise tree, called illicium verum, “enticing, alluring truth.” She liked that, so she never corrected him. He didn’t live very long. Her father still called her “Faith,” though he’d lost his conviction that she was perfect. He didn’t like her new name, or the way the painted mask around her eyes shimmered like an oil slick, how it seemed to seep into her eyes and change even the way she looked at him. He only liked it when she closed her eyes, and the soft blue of her lids made him feel calm, made him remember the color of her favorite blanket from her childhood, and her sleeping and young and perfect. When she opened her eyes it shattered his illusion, and it always made him sad. She had become ephemeral, and he didn’t know one day to the next who she’d be; neither did she, but it didn’t bother her the way it bothered him. Because of this, it pained her to see her father. It had been almost two years, she realized. Something about the large, oak door she was standing in front of reminded her of him- though this home was far grander than any he’d ever lived in. She pulled the heavy knocker towards her, but before she could push it the door opened. “You’re expected,” said a woman’s voice, though she did not immediately see the speaker. “Straight ahead.” Anis walked through the entry towards a candlelit dining hall. An elaborate collection of silver candlesticks and ware were spread across an elegant and long table. There were place settings for seven, three to each long side, and a single seat at the head. She was the first to arrive. Suddenly there was someone behind her, too close, she thought, because she felt the crush of their clothes against her back. “Let me take your coat,” the same woman said, and Anis wriggled out of a fur her first husband had bought her the month before he died. She tried to spin around to see the strange woman, but only managed to glimpse a shadow as it ferried her coat away. Anis stood a moment, awkward. She wasn’t entirely certain why she was here, other than the cryptic invitation she received, formal, polite, dainty, but without context. Her third husband was a homebody who wasn’t one for fancy parties or dinner; it had been an age since she’d had a reason to go out in a beautiful dress, so she leapt at the chance. But now a sense of foreboding hung over the quiet dining hall. She sat down, in the chair furthest from the head of the table, with her back facing the front door. 
Terra Terra had followed the little silver sports car up the hill. She remembered being young and desired, and deserving things like it. But she was satisfied behind the wheel of her sedan, red and clean and pristine save for a small scrape along the side where she'd brushed against a bush; it was hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it, but the same could be said for her crows' feet, and in both cases she hated when anyone noticed them. Terra was close enough behind the first guest that she got the chance to knock before the door opened. A moment passed, where she imagined the invitation an elaborate prank, from some old "friend" who thought it funny to cruelly point out her lack of social standing, before the heavy door swung open. She stepped inside, and before she realized she hadn't seen whoever had opened the door, she felt a soft breath against her neck. "I'll take your coat." Terra hesitated a moment. A moth had eaten through the left underarm of her jacket, something she hadn't noticed until she grabbed it on her way out this evening, but she knew there was no way to shield her fragile pride, so she slipped it off her shoulders. "Straight ahead, if you would," the woman said, and Terra took three steps forward before her curiosity got the better of her, and she glanced back, only to see that the woman had already disappeared through a door. As Terra approached the table in the dining hall her shoulders slumped. The table was set with magnificent flair, and there were glasses and cups of many kinds and sizes, but no champagne glasses. She hoped there'd be champagne; she missed champagne. Her husband was a simple man, who worked with steel. He could afford some of the things she wanted, but not champagne. Even on their anniversary, when he lavished her with gifts and food, no champagne. He hated the fizzy drink, because he said he could feel with every burst bubble the fruits of his hard labor deserting him. In her youth, she'd never had the audacity to call herself "Champagne," like some rap video dancer, but she held it close to her. "It's my signature," she'd tell people when she ordered it, then bat her eyes to draw attention to the champagne artwork surrounding her smoky eyes like a halo. Suddenly, a girl seated at the table whirled around, startled, and Terra realized she was not alone. She was younger than Terra, though not as young as their faces implied; the girl had lived an easier life, and it showed. Terra considered the wisdom of sitting next to the girl, and inviting the comparison, but while Anis was young and pretty enough, there was no telling who else might fill the other seven seats. Better the devil before you, was her thinking, so she sat down across from her. 
Dani Danielle had never felt pretty, at least, not naturally so. There were small things about her she loathed, her nose that was too wide, her love handles. She'd always secretly wished to be beautiful, but knew that by her standards at least she would not. So she endeavored to be fun. She enjoyed man things like sports and hard work and filthy jokes. At first blush she appeared to a man dainty and quiet, but as an evening wore she would tailor herself to him. Her playfulness hid her observation, as even when quiet she was flirtatious, bordering upon lewd. In her quietest moments she felt sinister for her manipulations, but she was rarely internally quiet enough to muse, or perhaps she would have found the pastels and sherbets she colored herself in to symbolize her own lost and longed for childhood. She nearly had such a moment for reflection standing at the large front doors, but a car pulled into the drive behind hers, and instead she found herself concerned over whether to wait to knock or wait for the next guest. The decision was taken from her a moment later when the door opened. “Come in,” said a woman's voice. Dani was hot already, and had removed her coat the moment she passed the threshold. She glimpsed the woman, slightly taken aback at the disruption of her routine, but Dani was caught up in comparing her nose to the other woman’s to notice anything else before the other woman snatched her coat and disappeared through a door. “Straight ahead; there are kolachies beneath the central dish,” the woman said from the dark room. Had Dani known that this was the first time the woman mentioned the pastries, she might have taken it as a slight against her weight, which she was sensitive about, but the mention of the Czech food reminded her of her fourth husband, Václav. Dani walked straight into the room, and scarcely realized that two seats already were full, she was so preoccupied. She might have actually loved her late Czech husband, and at the thought of the pastries she was consumed with the idea of regaining something of him again- if only a tiny bite. She removed a silver cover from the dish. Anis' eyebrows shot up, and Terra regarded her with mild interest. There were seven orange kolachie cookies. Dani, realizing there was one for each chair, lifted the platter and offered them first to the other seated women, who declined, before taking one for herself. Realizing that, for politeness, it would be her only kolachie tonight, she nibbled at its corners, savoring every crumb that rolled over her tongue. 
Ms. Allerdyce By the time the forth guest reached the porch she was already huffy. The guest before her should have waited. The host should have waited. Decorum was being breached hither and yon, and her old bones were already weary from her long drive. She preferred to be called Ms. Alderdyce, even by her husbands (none of whom had been Mr. Allerdyce), and touched her silver hair to be sure neither the drive nor the weather had disheveled it; she considered it a point of pride that she had never dyed it. She daintily tapped the knocker; it would have been impolite to smash she door with all of her pent up irritation. The door opened almost immediately, and Ms. Allerdyce stopped one step inside. “You'll take my coat,” she said, and turned around so the woman could help her remove it. “Of course,” the other woman replied. “Dinner will be in the hall straight ahead.” Ms. Allerdyce took offense that she was not escorted to the dining hall, and would have been offended that the host was not present had she not recognized two of the women seated in the hall. She was older, but from a distance you would never have suspected it, as she'd become quite good with colors; even her silver hair at a glance looked blond. She approached the head of the table, and for an instant the other women believed she was their enigmatic host- until she spoke. “Terra, my prodigal daughter, how's your vow of poverty done for you? And Anis, the last woman I ever taught; there have been girls, since, but modern women don't understand how to be feminine. And you, well, you look to be old enough to be not a protege but a contemporary, so my apologies for not recognizing you, but I assume you're in the same profession.” “Ms. Allerdyce?” Dani asked, her voice quavering, humbled by the woman enough that she didn’t show her displeasure at the implication they were in any way contemporaneous. “Danielle? My lord, you have gotten fat.” It was a reflex; Ms. Allerdyce couldn't say for certain Dani had put on weight, but she knew the younger woman always thought so. “And still stuffing your face? A bold choice.” Ms. Allerdyce was about to lower herself into the seat at the head of the table when she noticed a teapot still steaming in the center of the table. She walked around the far side. Ms. Allerdyce lifted the lid on the teapot and sniffed at it: Earl Grey. She despised its selection for its lack of originality. But now the pomp had gone from her taking the seat at the head of the table, so she sat beside Terra, who she knew would be uncomfortable about the shabbiness of her clothes, particularly when comparing herself to the Ms. Allerdyce’s conservative but expensive attire. Ms. Allerdyce sat up straight, and when she looked to the side, her talent for make-up failed up against simple geometry, as the folds of her face made her resemble a buzzard eyeing a potential meal. But she wasn’t hunting for meat, as was her usual. Ms. Allerdyce believed, rightly or wrongly, that the invitation was a sign of danger. She could feel it in the prickling at the back of her neck. 
Felicia Felicia stroked back her wet hair with the back of her hand, like her cat, Selina, and she was sad she’d left the beast at home. She’d always loved cats; her mother worked in a mine and refused to be feminine, so they provided a female role model. Or at least, they taught her how to be slinky, wily and wild, and that made her feel feminine. Her father named her Belle, but her mother refused to call her that, though she never settled upon a suitable replacement; he died or left, the way her mother talked it could have been either. But he left his comic books behind, old Batman and Spider-Man. She had to hide them from her mother, who would have been furious to find anything remaining of him in their home. She fell in love with the feline femme fatales in those books. She was still young enough she didn’t know then whether she lusted for them, or merely wanted so hard to be like them that she was confused. The heroes were boring, so moral, but their catburglar confidantes were fascinating. They were conflicted, between their desires to be loved and their love of shiny, pretty things. Felicia liked Catwoman best, but hated her name (which she eventually gave to her cat); so she took the first name of the Black Cat, instead. She never considered herself a fan, and in fact bought another book beyond the ones her father left behind, but she did contemplate marrying Tom Hardy, even though he was poor, just to take his name and keep it. As the front door opened she caught a purr in her throat; she was excited to be out, in unfamiliar terrain. She let the woman sneak behind her, felt the thrill of being hunted, then slithered out from beneath her boa with a panther’s grace a moment before the other woman expected, and she nearly jumped as the older woman turned to her and smiled; she couldn’t be sure whether Felicia actually licked her lips or simply looked like she would. The other woman scampered away like a scared dear, and Felicia fought back the urge to pounce. She to wear her Tyger lady make-up; it made her feel like the beast in the Blake poem, stalking the forests of the night, delighting with her symmetry. She preferred the role of predator, aggressor; many men were scared prey waiting to be swallowed whole- and she loved the hunt, even if she wasn’t sure she cared to eat what she killed. She slinked straight ahead, towards the dining hall. Immediately her eyebrow raised at the first face she spotted, above a steaming teapot in the center of the table. “Miriam,” she said. The woman preferred- no, demanded- to be called Ms. Allerdyce; and that’s why Felicia refused to do so. The old woman shot her a hateful glare, and Felicia gave a noncommittal smile, and slid into the last seat on the near side- near enough to torment the old woman, she thought, though not near enough to have to smell her. The quiet woman returned, pushing a cart of covered platters. “May I offer anyone tea?” she asked, and walked towards the pot in the center of the table. “Do you have anything other than Earl Grey?” Ms. Allerdyce asked with a sour turn to her lips. The quiet woman smiled, as patient as anyone could be with the old woman. “Earl Grey is what is made,” she said, and poured some into Ms. Allerdyce’s cup. Without waiting for anyone else to speak, she poured tea into every cup at the table, even the two empty spots at the end. Then she set the teapot down, and sat in the seat beside Ms. Allerdyce. 
Cirro “And what do you think you’re doing?” Ms. Allerdyce asked through lips caught between a gasp and a snarl. “Sitting, actually,” the young woman said with a smile; her eyes were kind, and like the sky, empty and blue. “I will not dine with the help!” Ms. Allerdyce said, her voice strained and grating, rising to her feet and puffing up like a bullfrog as her voice grew louder, and strikingly more bullfrog-like. The young woman kept her composure, the way a patient mother does with a petulant child. “Please, sit down,” she said. The words hung in the hall a long moment, then Ms. Allerdyce collapsed into her chair and slumped. She looked to all the world to be pouting. The young woman, realize that all other eyes had turned to her, blushed, and the redness on her cheeks only served to underscore the purple mists around her eyes that splashed into the colors of a rainbow on an overcast day. She had been instructed not to ruin the surprise, but she couldn’t keep herself from saying something. “My mother should be with us shortly,” she said. Felicia, who felt her challenge moments before to Miriam had preceded her unpleasantness felt compelled to speak, though even when she tried to be gentle, she felt like she was pawing at a mouse, “And what’s your name?” The girl’s eyes made no change as she retreated into her memories, but like white shapes in the sky each of the other guests perceived something else in them. Her father, who had died, had wanted to give her the name of an angel, because she was his, and bandied about names like “Urial” and “Raphael.” Her mother refused, and told him, “If we have to name her something on high, I’d prefer something beautiful I can see.” So she named her after clouds. Her full name, technically, if not on paper, was cirrocumulus, but for everyone’s peace of mind they called her Cirro, or as often as not, their cloudlet. “Her name is Cirro, Felicia- and don’t get any ideas.” They recognized the voice instantly, but none of them could place it, and before the disembodied sounds became linked with the woman’s face as she walked into the room, Terra gasped, knocking over her fork. Ms. Allerdyce had not moved from where she slumped in her chair, and her eyes, unblinking, still stared towards the front door. 
Sally “I don’t think she’s breathing,” Terra said. Cirro started to move towards her, but her mother’s hand pushed down on her shoulder, keeping her seated. She picked up the spoon from Ms. Allerdyce’s place setting and held it beneath her nose, and after a moment, she set it down. “She’s still breathing.” She slipped a glove off her hand and put her middle and pointer finger to the woman’s neck. “She isn’t dead, though her heart rate is noticeably slow. I suspect,” the woman lifted the teacup beside the discarded silver spoon, “she put something in the tea.” Dani, who had been swishing a mouthful of the dark liquid in her mouth to wash away the kalochie suddenly spit it out in a spray that drifted over Felicia like a lazy fog. The other woman sharpened her eyes on her a moment, before she softened, and had to stifle a laugh. “What I meant is I believe Ms. Allerdyce put something in this cup. I asked my daughter to move the cup she’d touched at the head of the table, though I hadn’t thought anything so sinister as poison.” Ms. Allerdyce’s lipstick was smudged on the lip of the cup, though no one had seen her drink from it. Cirro’s mother tried to smile at her guests, then picked up Ms. Allerdyce’s handbag. “I know it’s terribly rude, but I’m curious if she’ll require an ambulance.” She produced a small vial of white powder, still mostly full. She smelled at it, and its scentlessness confirmed her suspicion. “Iocaine- though not enough to kill her.” Her brow knitted. “I didn’t want this. I was secretive, because I worried some of you might not come, but I didn’t think-” she paused for a moment, then corrected herself, “I should have known better from her. Ms. Allerdyce always was one to poison first, and leave questions for a follow-up note at a later time.” A smile spread across Anis’ face, from ear to ear. “May I?” Terra asked, her hand outstretched for the vial, and the other woman placed it there. She looked at it a moment, before handing it back. Terra closed Ms. Allerdyce’s eyes, to prevent them from drying out. “Miriam’s like an old, blind wolf, lashing out at everything because she can’t sense danger anymore- so she assumes it everywhere. She’s lucky that her teeth aren’t as sharp as they were once.” She placed the vial in Ms. Allerdyce’s handbag, and set it back in her lap. Dani, recovering from her spitting and Felicia’s wilting bemusement, asked, “Should we know you?” It was a question she’d asked herself many times in the previous week, mulling the wisdom of her invitations. She’d had many names, but the only one she wanted anymore was Sally. She leaned across the table, and touched Dani’s hand. “You should,” she said, and something in the woman’s plain face, and the warmth of her hand, made her remember. Sally walked around the table to Felicia, whose eyes were as wide and full of excitement and dread as a kitten’s. She stood, and they kissed. After a long moment the older woman released Sally, and she fell back in her seat, her face flushed. For a moment Sally stood there, and one by one she walked out of the shadows of their memories in some recognizable form. The guests murmured a handful of names Sally would have preferred to forget, but which she knew, as well, to be a part of her. “Let me dispel your fears, lest any of you leap at shadows as Miriam did. I have not asked you for revenge, or to bury the secrets we share.” She paused, breathless, and not a woman breathed, as if the air had gone out of the room. “I’m neither old, nor dying. But I’ve had enough time to reflect. Our lives have been often solitary, and tragic, often by design. Some of you have found love; some of you some day will; one or two love what you can never have, but chasing it is the closest you’ll ever get,” her eyes lingered for a moment on Felicia, and they both knew what she meant by it. “You all are, or have been, important to me. I needed your comfort, and maybe your ire. And I wanted to know how you fared. To set aside pride, I missed you.” Instinctively, Sally reached towards her glass, only to release they had not poured the wine, and she smiled. “Allow me to serve the food,” she said, and walked towards the cart. “Should we,” Anis began, “shouldn’t we take her to a hospital?” Sally sat a covered dish in front of Terra, and removed the cover, then replied, “They would certainly ask how she came to be poisoned. And the police would like to know why. But if we wait until midnight she’ll have metabolized enough of it that they’ll never find it, and the effects should be no worse than drinking too many bottles of wine.” “I would have thought ‘bottles’ was always too many,” Anis whispered, though loud enough to be heard at the table’s other end. Felicia grinned. “Not Miriam. I saw her put down two, and still drive straight- not that she should have been driving at all.” Dani laughed, then so did Cirro, and Terra joined them. The hall was not quiet for the rest of the evening. |
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