The Lonely Hearts Hotel(26)
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SHE JUST WANTED HIM to admit that he was cheating. She needed some sort of absolute proof. He always denied it. She smelled it on his clothes. Rose stood next to her as she smelled all his clothes. And then the lady of the house collapsed to the ground.
Rose took all the clothes and smelled them herself. They were wonderful, those smells that had upset McMahon’s wife so much. They were the smells of beautiful women on the other side of town. That was the side of town away from all this domestic life. Where all the theaters were. All the cabarets. All the traveling performers.
Rose inhaled deeply. She imagined she was on a train with a brass band arriving from New York City. One of the singers, a beautiful black woman, laughed so hard she spilled her drink on her fur collar. Rose could smell the gin.
She smelled cigars. That was one of her favorite smells. Maybe because it was a generous one. She imagined all these businessmen sitting around a table, smoking cigars and talking about work and making money.
She would find herself fantasizing about being at that table. Which was a peculiar fantasy for a young girl to have.
Rose thought McMahon’s wife was a psychic genius. She was able to tell what he had been up to on any given night. You could tell by his expression that she was right. She had no business being a housewife, really. She probably had a mind built for being the world’s leading criminal investigator. She could be out in the world tracking down society’s most heinous criminals or cracking enemy codes. Instead she was stuck in the house, focusing all her intellectual acumen and perspicuity on piecing together exactly what her husband had been up to that evening.
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TO COMPENSATE HERSELF for the horrific treatment she had to endure at the hands of her husband, she bought herself the most expensive outfits. She was always shopping to remind herself that she had acquired some sort of power by being married to a rich man. All the fantastic couches covered in flowers. The paintings on the walls, the display cases filled with delicate china tea sets, the rich carpets that swallowed sound like quicksand, the closet filled with clothes—they were all beautiful evidence of her betrayal.
And she would boss around the staff to feel as if she had servants. So that she wouldn’t have to feel like a servant herself.
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ALTHOUGH ROSE WAS NOW SEVENTEEN, Mrs. McMahon wasn’t afraid of the girl stealing his affections. McMahon, she knew, wasn’t attracted to girls without large breasts. He had never been attracted to odd birds like Rose. She couldn’t understand how any man would be attracted to Rose. She didn’t act delicate or attractive. Rose kind of disgusted her. She had no feminine qualities, and yet the child went around acting as though she were a girl.
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MRS. MCMAHON HAD ROSE COME and scrub a burgundy stain on the wallpaper, caused by having thrown a wineglass at it. Mrs. McMahon was sitting in an armchair covered in patterns of ships and anchors and mermaids as if she were in the fat arms of a tattooed sailor.
“Does it bother you?”
Rose just looked back at her, confused.
“Being ugly, I mean.”
“No, not at all.”
“I mean, maybe you don’t realize you are ugly. Because if you look in a mirror you can’t really see yourself. It’s what men think about you physically that counts.”
“I know, ma’am. But I’ve come to terms with it.”
“I can never decide whether or not you talk too much.”
“Oh, it depends on the forecast. My conversation is probably something like the rain. On some days it pours, and then on other days there’s just a clear sky—not a word in sight.”
“I’m surprised they let you talk like that at the orphanage.”
“I was sometimes punished for it.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re safe around the children.”
“That’s up for you to decide, ma’am.”
Mrs. McMahon sighed, for a moment relenting. Rose kept knocking back the insults as though she were playing tennis.
“Oh, hush. You know those two monsters will go into hysterics if I send you away. You’ve cast a spell on the two of them. Tell me, have you ever known a woman cursed with two such contrary brats? They’re spoiled rotten. There’s no redemption for either of them. It’s not as though I don’t love them, but I just don’t have a lot of hope for them. It’s because their father has made me so miserable. That’s why they are the way they are.”
She reached over and grasped Rose’s wrist, her grip like a handcuff. It was as if she had no intention of letting go until Rose agreed with her.
“I should have married somebody else. I’m in the wrong marriage. I have the wrong children.”
Instinctively Rose stepped back from Mrs. McMahon, as if her employer were a deep hole she might fall into. She was alarmed and confused by the older woman’s grief. She could sense the enormity of what had been taken away from her but could barely comprehend it.
15
PIERROT’S SAD CAREER AS CASANOVA
After three years of sending unanswered letters, at eighteen years of age, Pierrot could only conclude that Rose was eternally annoyed with him. He wished she would just write one letter back that confirmed his suspicions. But it seemed absurd to continue to write to her, and so in that third year he stopped. The lack of closure bothered him a little bit more every day, until it somehow became a part of the fabric of his being.