The Lonely Hearts Hotel(57)
“Well, I’ve got to go find her.”
“What! Why?”
“Because I never explained anything to her. Because I never told her that I loved her.”
“She goes with men for a short while, and then when she leaves them, they go completely mad. This rich fellow stopped being able to see prostitutes. He used to see two of them at a time. He just cries after having sex. And he paces back and forth. He can’t sit through a movie. And he just wants to talk about how awful Rose is. The only way that you can get his attention is if you insult Rose. It’s really boring.”
Poppy saw Pierrot’s expression and realized she had just made things worse.
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PIERROT LEFT THE HOTEL, saying that he was going to wait in the work line. Twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door. Poppy flung it open, expecting to see Pierrot, but there she was. She was looking at the girl with the black bob. The girl with the pale skin. The girl who had grown up in the same orphanage as Pierrot. It was Rose. She wondered if she was dreaming. It was as though she had willed her into existence, like some sort of genie.
But Rose didn’t act as if anything supernatural had occurred. She was looking for her fortune to be read again. Poppy led her into the kitchen, saying that her husband was out but would be back soon. Rose sat at a chair at the kitchen table, took off her gloves and said she wouldn’t stay long. Poppy placed five cards on the table in front of Rose. They were all cards that had hearts on them.
“I think there is love on the horizon for you.”
But Rose waved her hand as if waving away that useless fortune. “You can see the future, can’t you? Do you think that it’s possible in the future for a woman to start up her own company and for it to be successful?”
“Yes, it will be possible, but not for a long, long, long time.”
“I mean, if it’s possible in the future, then I might as well go ahead and get on with it now.”
Poppy shrugged. “Nobody gives me anything and I’m a woman.”
She looked at Rose. When Poppy had first met Rose, she looked like any of the other underweight girls who walked up and down the street. Now she noticed how pretty Rose was. She was the most beautiful girl. Poppy looked at her pale skin and the two pink spots in her cheeks that looked as if they had been painted with a thin brush.
Underneath the table, Rose put the tips of her toes on Poppy’s toes. Rose had grown up in a room filled with sixty other girls. She was used to the intimacy of other female bodies. When a girl reached out a hand to her, Rose always instinctively grabbed it. Poppy was not used to touching other women. Poppy was that strange thing: an only child.
What could Poppy do but turn over another card? Every time she flipped over a card, it revealed itself to be one that foretold love. Each one was a heart card. Poppy almost felt as though the cards were hot to the touch. When she turned over a card, it was though she were opening the door of a stove. The hearts seemed to tremble on the cards like little butterflies.
Rose put her knees against Poppy’s knees. Rose reached under the table and put her hands on Poppy’s thighs. Poppy was burning with a strange desire.
When Poppy turned over the joker, she put her hands up in the air. There was Pierrot in his fantastic multicolored suit, with material of such fantastic color that it would never fade.
Rose sighed. “I’m making an ass of myself, I suppose.”
Poppy said nothing, still aghast that Pierrot was in Rose’s future. Rose put on her gloves, handed Poppy a dime, kissed her on the forehead, got up and walked out the door.
Poppy poured boiling water into her teacup. The tea leaves swirled around the bottom of the cup like a group of sharks in a feeding frenzy.
29
IN WHICH ICARUS LANDS ON SAINT DENIS STREET
Poppy was in love with Pierrot and she would not let him go back to Rose. She always encouraged him to get high. If he cleaned up, he would be able to do all sorts of other things. He could be a great lawyer or a politician or a writer or an ambassador. He should rightfully be with educated and articulate people, but she loved him too much to let him become any of those things.
The girl next door came over with a black eye. Poppy took her hands and asked her what had happened. She sat the girl down at the kitchen table and spoon-fed her a watery egg. She gathered from the girl’s hand movements and the few words she uttered through sobs that her beau had done this to her for dancing with another man at the dance hall.
Poppy’s eyes filled with tears. She was jealous. Poppy wanted Pierrot to yell at her. She wanted him to be outraged. There is no love without fury. There is no beauty without ugliness. She needed a proof of love.
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WHEN POPPY WAS YOUNG, she lived in a stinking, squalid apartment in Mile End with her parents and grandparents. Everybody in her family treated her with contempt. They criticized her every move. They were always disgusted with her because she was a growing girl.
When Poppy was ten, she and her mother were on their way home, carrying groceries from the market. As they were crossing through the park, a group of traveling puppeteers arrived. They didn’t have a theater to host them, but they didn’t need one. They had a small caravan attached to a white horse with black spots. The words Puppet Master Puppetry Spectacular was painted on the side of the caravan in glittery golden letters the same color as shooting stars. The back of the caravan folded down and transformed into a stage.