Chapter 18

I'm sitting slumped by the mirror in Mother's closet. I've been waiting here awhile for Tom to show up in the glass, any minute now. I'm in the red shoes and the white dress he loves best. I'm wearing Mother's violets-and-smoke perfume and Mother's lipstick, the lesser red she leaves in the drawer. Although there's nothing lesser about you, Tom always says.

Really, Tom?

Seth, remember. Remember, I'm Seth.

Okay, I say, but he really does look a lot like Tom Cruise. I know that for sure now because I've been watching his movies. I watched them in spite of Mother, behind her back. I asked Mother to rent them for me, I begged her. This was after Mother screamed at me about being in her room. Later, she called me into the living room and said she was sorry for screaming, she was just tired of me not listening, okay? Okay. Also mirrors were not playthings, did I understand that?

Mother was curled on the couch in one of her silk robes Father brought her from Egypt. Egypt was like a pretty robe she could put on or take off. She had a copy of Vogue magazine on her lap and a Matinée smoking in the pointy glass ashtray on the pointy glass coffee table. Everything in our apartment is shiny and pointy and cold, Stacey says. Or it's white and hissing like the wicker. It's what Mother calls style, I tell Stacey, who says whatever. She doesn't like coming to our place because we can't rate each other there. Rating is something we do only in Stacey's basement, where I watch Stacey twirling in her bodysuit in the dark until my eyes water. Sometimes I'll look away from her, through the cloudy basement window near the ceiling, into the endless rose garden. I can't always see the tops of the flowers, just the spiked stems in their beds of dirt, which her Russian mother Alla's always turning. Alla doesn't know how much I come over because we always go through the back door, but she met me a few times when we were cutting through the garden. She was smiling, but her eyes were hard and glittery as Grand-Maman's diamonds, and her hand, when I shook it, was a limp fish. What have we talked about traipsing through the garden, Anastasia? Alla tells Stacey, her eyes still on me. No more back door, okay? Alla's blond like Stacey. Very Stepford, Mother says when she comes to pick me up, making a face, though I know she admires their house, the garden with its gazebo. Still, Mother prefers her own style in all things. I prefer it too. Even the cigarette in Mother's ashtray, idly smoldering, had a pretty mouth of Mother's best red around the filter. She smelled of violets and smoke from her jagged star.

Belle, Mother said from the couch, are you even listening to me?

Yes.

What did I say?

Mirrors aren't playthings.

That mirror especially, understood? Look at me.She was holding my chin, tilting my head up so there was nowhere else to look except Mother's face, shining and pointy and cold. But her eyes were soft. Wanting me to really understand about this, okay? For my own good. Comprends-tu? Mother said, speaking in French the way she did only when she was very upset. And she shook me a little.

Oui. Mom, I said, do you know Tom Cruise?

Tom Cruise?Mother said, letting go. Of course I know Tom Cruise. Who doesn't? He's a big movie star.

Can we watch some of his movies maybe? Can we rent them from the video store?

Why do you want to do that all of a sudden?

And I went red in the face. I couldn't tell Mother that Tom Cruise was my boyfriend. That I felt like he knew me better than anyone. Better than Mother even. Just to see, that's all, I said to the floor. He's a good actor, isn't he? Mother's always talking about who's a good actor. Don't you like him? And then Mother's eyes went a little soft again suddenly. He looks a bit like Monty. I'll say that for him. Like she could see Tom in her mind. I would've been jealous, but Tom had already told me what he thought of Mother. That she was awful. Ugly. Old. Her Beauty a disguise. Just a painted mask. It would slide off her face in time. It was already sliding.

Mother smiled at me. A good actor, huh? She looked amused. Well, all right. Next time we go to the video store—

She's a little young for those movies, don't you think?This from Chip, stretched out on her love seat. Watching some sort of car race on TV. Not even looking at us.

Is she?

No, I'm not!

Think about it, Chip said, ignoring me. Risky Business? He raised his eyebrows at Mother in the way I hate.

Oh right. It's true, Belle. You are a little too young for his movies, I think.

What?!I screamed. But I'm ten already! Ten isn't too young.

And Chip smiled.

Maybe in a couple of years, Mother said.

Mom! You can't listen to—

Darling, there are scenes that are too… adult for you. I'm just remembering.

But you were going to say yes!

Well, I'd forgotten about some scenes.

But what aboutTop Gun? We saw Top Gun together, remember? Can't I at least rent—

No, Belle. There was a scene there, too.And I blushed. I knew the scene Mother was talking about. Tom and Kelly McGillis in blue silhouette. Tom lying on top of her. Sticking his tongue into her mouth and how I hated her. All to "Take My Breath Away," which was our song. It made me hot in the face, thinking about that.

Mom, that's not—

Belle, that's enough. Room!

So I waited. So I waited and rented them with Grand-Maman. Mother doesn't want me to watch Tom Cruise movies, was all I had to say and Grand-Maman immediately rented all of them for me. Risky Business. All the Right Moves. Top Gun. The Outsiders. Legend.

Ooh, a Tom Cruise marathon, the girl behind the video store counter said, and Grand-Maman said nothing, just wrote her a check from her book of checks. We watched them together in Grand-Maman's bedroom dark on her big black box television, even the kissing parts. Even the sex parts. She didn't fast-forward anything. Just sat there in her creaking rose-gold chaise saying nothing at all. Part of me wanted her to fast-forward sometimes. Because I hated watching Tom kiss or touch or even smile at any girl. Kelly McGillis. Rebecca De Mornay. They all looked pretty much the same to me. Their hair, their eyes, their skin. Even the dark-haired, dark-eyed ones like Mia Sara in Legend or Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in The Color of Money were still somehow more of the same. More like Mother or Stacey than me. It burned my face up seeing that. It hurt my heart. I felt a pain to breathe, like someone stuck a knife there, right in the middle of me. Watching Tom kiss Rebecca in Risky Business, I had a feeling that was so many feelings at once. The angriest angry. The saddest sad. A want so big and deep and aching, it made my stomach a sinking pit. The want was like drowning. There was a word for this feeling, I knew. Envy. Mother taught it to me when she first read me Snow White, what the evil queen feels. When someone has something you want so much and you hate them so much for it. Envy is what I felt. I envied every girl who came near Tom in the movie, so I could barely stand to watch. But I watched, through tears sometimes, wanting to run through the screen and push the girl out of the movie, out of the world. Tom doesn't love you, I would scream at them as I hurled them out into space. I would scream and scream until I lost my voice.

Qu'est-ce qui se passe avec toi?Grand-Maman said at one point, while we watched Tom wrap his arms around Rebecca De Mornay's naked body. Her hair was the same strawberry-blond shade as Stacey's, I realized. Her eyes blue as Mother's eyes.

Are you crying?

No, I said. I'm watching. This is how I watch. Grand-Maman?

Quoi?

Do you think he really likes her?

Ben non. It's a movie, cher. He's acting.

Okay, I whispered. I loved Grand-Maman then. I was so close to telling her that Tom Cruise was my boyfriend. That I was the only one who knew his true name, Seth. I was the only one who knew about Tom's eyes. How they could go red in an instant, then back to blue-green again when he was calm and happy. But then I remembered that it was a secret. Our secret, Tom said. There were times when we were watching that I felt Tom looking right at me from Grand-Maman's dusty TV screen, and I thought the screen was a mirror and that Tom would step through it in his varsity jacket or in his pilot jacket or in his white shirt and underwear and sunglasses.

?a va?Grand-Maman asked me. You're breathing very funny.

Because Tom's taking my breath away, I thought. But of course I didn't tell Grand-Maman that. All I said was, ?a va, oui.

Once, in the middle of Top Gun, I saw my face reflected in the screen's glare, right next to his. Tom was flirting with Kelly McGillis in an elevator, so sometimes it was Kelly on the screen, sometimes Tom, both of them beautiful and smiling beside what I saw was my very unsmiling face, which looked hideous, warped with want. What's wrong? Grand-Maman said. She turned off the TV suddenly and then I just saw myself. Close-up and cross-legged on her scuffed floor, Grand-Maman rocking beside me in the dark. My face was dreamy and open like Mother's when she watched her movies. But my dreaminess wasn't at all pretty like hers. It was terrible. It was nothing Tom could ever love. I'm going home now, I said.

After seeing the movies, it really seems like Seth is Tom Cruise. But if Tom Cruise wants me to call him Seth, then I can do that. I'll do anything for Tom Cruise. Seth, I mean. We're getting so close. Every time Mother is out these days, I go to her bedroom closet and he's there, waiting in the mirror. She told Grand-Maman to absolutely not let me go into her room ever again after the last time. It is of the utmost importance, do you hear me? she said to Grand-Maman, and Grand-Maman told Mother, I heard you. But the minute Mother leaves, Grand-Maman always turns a blind eye. I walk right in and surely Grand-Maman hears my creaking footsteps going down the hall, surely she hears the turn of that wobbly doorknob. Maybe she turns a blind ear, too.

The next time I went back to Mother's closet, I didn't see the mirror at first, and for a minute I couldn't breathe. Then I saw it glinting behind her row of dresses red as blood. The glass was turned to the corner like it'd been bad. So I picked it up, I turned it around, it wasn't so heavy really. I always take off Father's golden bracelet first. That Eye of Horus. Father's eye, Mother said. Watching me, it feels like, and I don't like it. The minute it falls to Mother's floor, the mirror begins to shimmer, and he appears on the other side of the glass like a dream. Blurred around the edges at first. Rippling like water.

Tom, I whisper.

And then he comes into blinding focus, his smile a flashing white that burns me. Hello, Belle, he says. Can I come in? He is so beautiful, I have no words, though my mouth's wide open. My breath is taken just like the song. But Tom hears the yes in my pounding heart. And he walks through the glass with a sucking squid-like sound. And the song, our song, is all around us. He asks me if he can have this dance. Even though of course he knows he can have it. He can have anything. And then we dance and talk, for hours sometimes. I'm surprised Tom Cruise has so much time on his hands. Shouldn't he be so busy making movies and doing interviews and things? What is he doing here in the dark of Mother's closet dancing with me? But I don't dare ask. I talk about other things, mostly because I'm so nervous to be slow dancing with Tom Cruise. I think of my face reflected in Grand-Maman's TV screen, ugly and distorted with dreaming. I look nothing like the girls in his movies, and yet he's looking at me like I'm Kelly McGillis in the elevator. I'm Rebecca De Mornay wandering into his living room like a literal dream. Honestly. Tom's hands on my shoulders. Tom's eyes on my face. It's so much. Too much. When I find my voice to talk, I barely know what I say. I tell him dumb things. How much I hate school, I don't want to go back this fall. How Stacey has a boyfriend now, Gabriel Gardner, and he told her she looks just like Christie Brinkley. That my turtle died last spring and I'm afraid I killed him somehow. Tom seems amused but annoyed by my chatter.

Stacey sounds like your run-of-the-mill slut, he whispers.

School is a waste of time, Belle. You'll learn nothing there except lies.

Death is inevitable and the world is full of murder, Tom says, tenderly brushing a lock of hair from my eyes.

If Tom talks, he really only wants to talk about two things: my Beauty and how Mother is evil. A terrible person, Belle. A vile bitch queen. It surprises me that Tom Cruise feels this way about Mother when she looks so much like all the girls he kisses in his movies. But he's so serious-sounding that I believe him. When Tom talks about Mother, his eyes go red. His fang shines in the light more. There's a heavenly glow on his face. He's so beautiful. The most beautiful being I have ever seen.

Mother's Beauty is a trick, Tom whispered last night. Not like yours, Belle. Right now, he says, I'm just a little bud in the grass. Not even a bud yet, a seedling. Deep in the dark earth, among the worms and spiders. That's where Mother's keeping me. But Tom says he sees me down there in the dirt. Sees the green shoots that will soon rise up. The red petals that will unfurl. A rose I will be someday, little seedling. Just like the ones in Stacey's mother's garden. Just wait. Wait and see. And what will Mother be? Rotted. Fallen petals. Dead earth.

Now Mother's still out but she'll be home soon. Grand-Maman is asleep in her chair in the living room. Tom's really late. Maybe he's busy filming a new movie or something. But didn't he say just yesterday to meet him here tonight?

But Mother might come back early, I warned him.

Fuck Mother, Tom said. Did Tom Cruise really say that? He put his cold, sticking hands on my shoulders, and he said, Belle, your mother is a real problem.

I nodded like I knew. Yes. But I really didn't know. It's just that this is her room, I said. And she told me not to go in. So she gets mad when I'm here. In her shoes. And I wanted to tell him if he came into my mirror in my bedroom, we wouldn't have to deal with these issues. We wouldn't—

I don't mean that, Belle.

What do you mean, then? What's the problem with Mother?

And Tom looked at me and smiled in the dark. His fang shone, sharp and white. Surely I knew what the problem was. But I didn't really.

She's taking your Beauty away, he said.

She is?

Oh yes, definitely. And I, for one, won't stand for it. I told you. I hate stealing.

I nodded. I hated stealing too. I thought of Mother's many robes from Egypt. How sometimes she'd line her eyes like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. Wear a blue beetle on her wrist, a scarab. She didn't steal any of it. Father bought it all for her. From Egypt, Mother would say of the jewels and robes. So why was it that when I watched the beetle wink against her light skin, I sometimes thought liar, I sometimes thought thief? Because she was Noelle Nour with creditors only. I'm Mirabelle Nour, no matter what I wear, no matter where I go. Can't take it off like Mother's wrist beetle. Can't even take it off like Father's eye. But was Mother really stealing? Wasn't she born like that and wasn't I born like this? And wasn't I the actual thief, coming into her room where she told me again and again not to go? Little thief. Little bitch, isn't that what Mother calls me under her breath each time she catches me? She says it after I've left, but I hear her through the wall.

Tom—

Seth.

I don't know for sure if she's stealing. Maybe she's just beautiful.I pictured Mother when she took me apple picking last fall. Her face beaming up at me through the branches of a tree fuzzy with caterpillars. I handed Mother the very first apple I picked. The red of the apple was almost the same red as Mother's Chanel lipstick, so it matched. I told her so and she laughed and said, Oh god, I've created a monster, haven't I?

It's a lie, he said, stroking my hair. I see through her. I see the truth. And I hate lies. He closed his eyes. So much. It's true that Tom Cruise hates lies. He has a lot of honor. I saw that firsthand in Legend. In Top Gun, too.

Please take me away with you, Tom Cruise, I begged.

He opened his eyes, which were red now. A flash of anger. I thought surely he would correct me again: Seth, remember? But he just smiled to himself, amused. He sighed. Shook his head of waving dark hair.

I'd love to take you away, Belle. Definitely, I would. You know I'd do anything to keep you close. It's just your mother would be very, very angry at me… He put a hand to his chest just like Tom Cruise would. So suddenly sincere.

I don't care, I whispered. I'll do anything.

Tom's smile flashed white. Anything? He took my face in his hands. His hands were so cold, it was like being plunged in icy water. I gasped. Well. There is one thing.

I looked into Tom's eyes, now blue-green again. Full of the laughter and light I loved. So much like Tom Cruise's actual eyes, I could barely breathe.

Tell me. I was shivering in Tom's hands, but he didn't seem to mind.

It involves Mother, of course.

Of course. I shouldn't be surprised about that. I was afraid, but I tried not to show that to Tom Cruise. What about Mother? I said.

The lies need to be stopped, Belle. She has to pay for stealing your Beauty. And you have to take it back to be able to come with me to California. You'll need it there. Will you do that, Belle?

Do what exactly?I thought. I don't know. But Tom Cruise was so close to me then, I couldn't speak words anymore. His smile a flashing white that made jelly of me. I was lost in the laughing waters of his eyes. He leaned in closer still. Like he was going to kiss me, this was it. Don't be nervous, I thought. Stacey wouldn't be nervous. She wouldn't get stiff. She was leagues ahead of me with her Black Honey lips and her hair a blond swishing curtain like Rebecca De Mornay's. Gabriel Gardner had just Frenched her the other day, apparently. Tom's smile flashed and flashed at me, blinding like an eclipse. His hands on either side of my face, making me shiver. Tom's eyes on my face like he could truly see me. Could see my great Beauty deep down in the dirt. Could he really see it? I felt his breath on my skin like a cold, cold wind. I closed my eyes, not believing this could be. Tilted my head up just like those terrible girls do in Tom's movies, those girls I wanted to push off the screen, out of the world. Except I wasn't one of them, was I? Nothing could change that. Not my slash of lesser red or Mother's sex shoes or the Dior I was drowning in or my stolen cloud of violets and smoke. How could Tom Cruise ever want me? I started to tremble, knowing he was so close now. Then at the last second, I suddenly lowered my head, afraid. Tom ended up kissing my forehead. And where he kissed me, it burned. I felt the fire through my whole body. I felt shame, why had I been afraid suddenly? I lifted my head back up and waited for him to kiss my lips. I parted them even. I was ready this time, though I was scared. Tom Cruise was my boyfriend, after all. This was what a boyfriend did. Tom, you can kiss me now, I thought with my eyes closed.

Nothing.

When I opened my eyes, Tom was gone. Just Mother in the doorway. Looking at me.

My forehead was throbbing, burning where Tom had just kissed me.

Mother didn't say anything. Not about going into her room. Not about wearing her lesser red or her shoes or her Christian Dior dress she'd bought discounted from Ladies Evening Wear. Not about Father's eye bracelet being on the floor. She just stared at me. What the hell is that on your forehead?

Nothing.

Not nothing, there's a mark.

No there's not.

Yes there is, like a bruise. Did you hit your head?

No. It's nothing.

She raised an eyebrow. I was really going to lie like this? Right to her face? That's it, I'm putting a lock on this door.

Mom—NO!

One minute, Mother said through her teeth. One minute to get dressed and come out here. And then she slammed the door. And in the empty mirror, I saw it on my forehead. Glowing like a star. A mark where Tom Cruise had kissed me with his cold red lips. The skin was still burning.

She hasn't put the lock on the door yet, but she says she will. Watch me. Tonight, I have to tell Tom Cruise about the lock. Seth, I mean. I have to find out what he wants me to do before Mother separates us forever. I have to tell him to come to my bedroom from now on, not Mother's. I won't have her shoes or her dresses or her Dior Rouge, but at least I'll have privacy. We can talk about the things Tom wants to talk about. This thing he wants me to do that involves Mother. One thing, Tom said. But the mirror's still empty. Just me in the glass. I hear Grand-Maman leaving. If Mother finds me here, I'm cooked. The sun's going down now. I wonder if I did something wrong. Did I upset Tom? There's still a mark on my forehead. He meant to kiss my lips and I gave him my forehead and maybe he's angry now. I'll let you kiss me next time, Tom Cruise, I promise him in my mind. I mean Seth.

Key in the front door. Mother's home, fuck. Fuck Mother, Tom said. And the mirror is still dark, still empty of all but me waiting.

Tom, you've abandoned me. Because I didn't kiss you? Because I hesitated about Mother?

"Belle," Mother calls out sharply.

Quickly, I get out of her shoes and dress and I stuff them all back in the closet. I wipe my mouth of her Rouge. I look once more in the mirror before I walk out the door. Just me looking hideous as ever. No wonder Tom didn't show. Maybe now he sees what everyone else sees.

In the living room, there is Mother with a man. Not Chip. Not the Troll. A new man.

"Hello, Belle," he says.

That voice. I'd know it anywhere.

I look up. Dark hair like a wave. White crooked smile. Blue-green eyes that could flash red any second.

"Tom," I whisper.

Tom Cruise standing in our living room beside Mother. Smiling at me. "What are you doing here?"

Tom just blinks. He looks at me like he's never seen me before.

"No, darling, this is Bryce," Mother says. "He's a film producer from LA."

"Hello there, Belle. Your mother's told me so much about you." He puts out his hand for me to shake. Like we've never slow danced. Like he never left a bruise on my forehead with his lips. Like he's never seen me before, he's a stranger. I stare at his hand. The hand that touched my cheek, my hair, my shoulders. Acting like it never did.

"Belle," Mother snaps, prompting me.

"Seth," I whisper.

He just stares at me. He looks at Mother. Seth? "Belle, I told you, this is brYCE. Sorry about this," she tells him. He nods like he understands. "He thinks Mommy could be in his new movie, isn't that exciting? And maybe we'll move to LA for a bit."

"Your mother's very talented, Belle," he says. "I think she's a star."

He smiles at Mother. And Mother smiles at him.

"Why are you doing this?" I whisper. Why are you lying like this? I thought you hated lies. Is it because I didn't let you kiss my lips? I was just nervous!

"Why?" Mother repeats. "Because it's an opportunity, Sunshine. Wouldn't you like to move to LA?"

Tom Cruise puts his arm around Mother's white shoulder and smiles at me.

"No!" I shout.

And just like that he turns into someone else. Just a dark-haired man looking at me intently, with a question in his watery eyes. Not blue-green or red. Not Tom's eyes at all.

I run out of the room. I run to my pink bedroom, where I shut the door.

"Sorry about that," I hear Mother say. And she laughs her clucking laugh I hate, that sounds like her anger putting on a face, trying to sweep itself away.

"Don't worry about it," I hear not-Tom say. "She okay?"

"God knows. She might be playing pretend or something. She's been going through a phase of some kind. Maybe because of her father. I don't know. Who knows, you might be an evil wizard in her mind right now. Or a handsome prince."

Not-Tom laughs. "Well, she's uncovered my secret, then. I'm both an evil wizard and a handsome prince."

And Mother laughs again too. "God, I wonder who I am." I hear the sound of her lighter going click, click. The cigarette catching fire. A drag and then a breath. "Probably the evil bitch queen."

And then not-Tom and Mother laugh together.

Dinner with Mother and not-Tom. Bryce. Is he really Bryce? Is he really not Tom? Hard to tell by the light of Mother's candles. I said I wasn't hungry, but Mother said, Do not do this to me, please. She forced me into an ugly green dress she'd bought me from the discount rack of Little Miss. Mother calls the ugly green olive, says it shows off my golden skin. I'm sitting beneath the painting she bought in a Metro station, all red slashes in a white sky. Grand-Maman says she doesn't understand it. The painting or why Mother keeps buying this fancy trash instead of paying off her many debts. I'm watching not-Tom eat a snail Mother has cooked in garlic butter and served on a plate specially for eating snails. He and Mother are drinking wine that looks like blood. Smiling at me.

"Your mother tells me you're Egyptian."

I stare at Mother, who's nodding at me from across the table. It's going to be one of those nights. Where Mother wants to do what she calls show off. Can't I show you off a little?

"Not me," I say. "My father."

"Well that's you, too," Mother says, and her voice is a smiling warning. "That's why she's so exotic-looking," Mother says, her eyes still on my face, telling me, Please. For me? "Aren't you?"

I stare at my plate of snails.

"That's why," not-Tom agrees, smiling.

"And beautiful. If it weren't for the long face."

"Even with the long face," not-Tom offers politely.

"So jealous," Mother says. Liar, I think. She's wearing the scarab necklace and her red Dior. The same Dior Tom Cruise kissed me in. I watch the blue beetle shimmer on her white neck. Egypt is an accessory tonight. There will be honey-and-pistachio pastries later, which Mother will say she made, which she did not. She gets them from the Arab store, taking me with her because this is your heritage. I hate going there with her. Every dark eye on Mother, then on me. And Mother loving every minute.

"You know I visited Morocco recently?" not-Tom tells Mother, who looks at me with such delight. All the lights in her face are shining violently on me.

"Really?"

"Magical place."

"Magical, magical," Mother agrees, even though we've never been there. She beams at me like I'm Morocco, sitting right there in front of her. "Belle and I visited once, didn't we?"

"No."

"Not Morocco, Egypt. Similar. With your father." She lowers her voice on the word father.

"And how was it?" not-Tom asks.

"Oh, interesting. Exotic. Unforgettable, really. Wasn't it, Belle?"

I shake my head. "I don't remember." I remember. Riding a bus with Mother and everybody staring like they do at the Arab store. Holding her hand in what she said was a pyramid but felt like a cave. Walking in a white dress with Father through the Valley of Kings. Sun in my eyes. Dust on my dress. His hand warm and dry. His gold watch ticking by my ear.

Now Mother's eyes flash darkly at me across the table. Then she smiles. "Belle thought the Sphinx was talking to her."

"No I didn't."

"Oh yes you did. It was just a recording, of course. But we let her think it. We said, Oh yes, of course it's talking to you, Sunshine." More laughter. More blood.

"Well, maybe it was," not-Tom offers, accepting even more blood from Mother, who pours and pours.

"You know, when she was little, she would go into my closet looking for Narnia. Or Wonderland, wouldn't you? Or Oz."

"No." Yes. I remember knocking and knocking on the closet walls. Hello, hello, hello? Do you hear me? Are you there? The mirror wasn't in the closet then. It was still hanging on the back of Mother's bedroom door. She wasn't mad at it yet.

"I told her, It's not there, honey. I wish it was. Believe me." Sweeping laughter that sweeps it all away. "She still goes in there. Still looking for something, aren't you?" Now her eyes are sad. Looking at my forehead, still burning where Tom Cruise kissed me.

I look back down at the snails. I'm hot in the face.

"Well who knows, Belle. Maybe it is there. Anything's possible, right? Definitely." This from not-Tom. Something in his voice. I turn and look at him.

Tom. He suddenly looks like Tom again. So much like Tom Cruise that I can't take it.

"I love the movie Top Gun," I whisper into Tom's face.

Tom nods. "Oh, it's a great one. All those fighter planes. Was it the planes that you liked? All that flying around in the sky?"

"No." I'm looking right at him.

"Oh?" He smiles at Mother. "What did you like, then? Tell me." Reaching out for Mother's hand across the table.

"I don't know why you're being like this," I whisper.

"Belle."

And then he's not-Tom again. Just a strange man blinking at me like he doesn't understand. I walk away from the table with Mother calling and calling my name to come back here. And then: "Fine. Go. Go ahead."

I lie in my bed, watching the sun set through the white frilly window. Fiery red. All the rose-gold shades I've seen in Tom's face are in the sky tonight, the same blue as the universe of his eyes. Tick, tick goes my Snow White clock. I let the seconds and minutes and hours go. Go ahead. Through the wall, I hear the laughter of not-Tom and Mother together in the living room, eating pastries, clinking fishbowls of blood, and I think of squids. Not-Tom or Tom? He looked so much like Tom Cruise, and then he didn't. Not even close. He just looked like a boring old man. Bryce. Before I came in here, I went into Mother's bedroom. I was fearless, because Mother's Sting was playing so loudly in the living room, the walls were vibrating with "Englishman in New York." I crept into her closet, took the mirror, and carried it back here. Now it's shining in the corner of my room where it belongs. Empty of all but my silhouette. I stared at it until I couldn't see myself anymore. Until I was just a black shape in the blue dark. Fine, I told myself. Go ahead. Now the sky's black. It happens in the blink of an eye, the movement from blue to black. I stare at my ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars. In each corner, a spider's spinning a web. I was so afraid of those spiders in the corners for so long. Mother, please kill them, I'd beg her each night. But Mother said no. She said this is what happens when you live in an apartment on the ground floor, on an island by the river. Things creep in through the cracks, through the screens. We can't keep them out, Belle. Get used to it. I can't kill every creepy-crawly for you, honey. There are far too many for that. I hear them both walk down the hallway now. Mother's clicking heels, then the deeper clack of not-Tom's shoes. At my bedroom, the clicks and clacks stop. Mother pausing at the door. Should she open it and deal with me? No. They walk past to her blue bedroom, click, clack. Door closes with a thud. Through the wall I hear new music, a song I know. "In the Air Tonight." I know it because it's a Tom song. From Risky Business. When Tom and Rebecca are on the train. The sound of it makes me sick, my stomach sinking, sinking. But it's not just the song that makes me sick. It's the sounds I hear underneath the song, like sighing, like breathing. The breathing of Mother and Tom or not-Tom. Soft. Heavy. Together. Like a knife, I feel it. Right in the middle of me, twisting. I close my eyes but I can't cover my ears enough, not with my hands or my pillow or one of my dumb dolls with Mother's hair and skin and eyes that watch me. My forehead burns. Dumb to cry. To feel this… what? Just sick, I tell myself. But no, not just sick. I know the word I feel. The one Mother taught me from Snow White that is so many bad feelings at once. That I feel when I watch Tom Cruise with any girl, when I watch Mother put on her hat with the wide brim to protect her pale face. The dark, twisting poison one that aches and eats and empties. And wants. All by itself.

Silence now. No creaks, no gasps, no music anymore. I hear not-Tom leave her bedroom, then the apartment. Get in his car and drive away.

I fall asleep staring up at the stars Mother pasted on my ceiling. Because I was afraid of the dark, she put them there. There, she said, better? Like a night-light but less childish.

She didn't even get the constellations right, Stacey told me when she slept over. So each night when you look up at those stars, you're looking up at the wrong sky. You're looking at the wrong heaven.

So?

That's fucked, Stacey said quietly. But it explains a lot.

Still dark when I open my eyes. Woke to a sound like a song. "In the Air Tonight" playing again. Again? But it's midnight on my Snow White clock. Mother is surely asleep. So why do I hear the song still? And a sound under the song again. Not breathing or sighing this time. Footsteps. Maybe it's part of the song? No. Footsteps aren't part of the song. Different footsteps than earlier. Not a click or a clack. Fear in my stomach. Opening up like a black pit.

Then I see the mirror in the corner is shining. I see someone walk through the glass like it's a door. I smile in the dark.

"Tom," I whisper.

"Seth," he says.

His silhouette makes its way to my bed. Putting a shadow finger to his shadow lips. Our secret. Like Beauty, remember? He sits on my bed's edge. Right where Mother sits when she tucks me in. It feels like he sits closer to me than Mother ever sits. My skin is goose bumps, my breath is caught. "You're here," I whisper.

"Of course I'm here."

"I thought you left me. I thought you were gone forever." Tears fill my eyes. I hope he doesn't see.

He leans in and strokes my hair. So softly. His hands are cold and sticky. That's how I know it's him, though I can't see him so well in the dark.

"Why didn't you meet me in the mirror today? I waited and waited for you, but you didn't come."

"It wasn't safe," he whispers under the music. "I knew your mother was plotting something. So I found another way."

"Through her new boyfriend."

Tom nods. "He's a fool. Very easy to infiltrate."

"Was it you drinking and laughing with Mother all night? Did you have…?" Saying the word sex to Tom is impossible.

Tom smiles, shaking his head. His hair waves in the dark. "I just did it to get to you."

"You did?"

"Definitely."

I thought of what Grand-Maman told me when we were watching Tom's movies, Tom and the girls. Just acting.

"Are you really going away with Mother to California? Are you leaving me?"

"Belle, don't you trust me by now?"

"She's going to put a lock on the door, Tom," I whisper.

"Seth," he says quietly.

"Seth. Then I'll never see you again."

He walks over to Mother's mirror in the corner. I watch him stroke his own jaw in the shining glass. There's a dark shape in the glass, I see, doing the same. Tom's reflection.

"Who's that old actor your mother likes again?" he whispers.

"Montgomery Clift."

"Right. Monty." He smiles to himself in Mother's mirror. "How could I forget?"

"She says you look a little bit like him."

"Does she? Interesting. I guess I do, don't I?" He looks lost in his own reflection, shimmering darkly in the glass.

"Only because Tom Cruise looks like him," I whisper. "Only because you're Tom Cruise."

For a second, he looks like he's going to laugh. But then he smiles in the mirror, almost sadly.

"I won't let her separate us," he says to the glass. "Ever."

"How?"

"You know how. But I need your help. We have to get rid of your mother, Belle. There's really no other choice if you want me to take you away to California."

I knew Tom Cruise was going to say this. I knew he was going to say it just as he said it. I might have even said the words with him, like when you sing along to a song.

"But I can't get rid of her," I whisper. "She's my mother. I love her." I'm devastated that this is true. I think of Mother and me in the apple orchard that day. The warmth of her hand in mine, her laughing voice. "I love her," I repeat, but there's a crack in my words.

Tom hears it. He looks at me in the shining glass. "You know I'd really hate to leave you here, Belle. All by yourself on this island you hate, beside your muddy little river. With the spiders that Mother won't kill. With these dumb dolls that look just like Mother's stolen Beauty. Reading your fairy tales rather than living them. Do you want that?" Standing by the mirror, he looks like he's about to leave me right now. Disappear through the glass.

"No." I shake my head. "Please. Please don't leave, Tom. Please come back and lie here with me for a while." I can't even look him in the eye when I whisper these words. A whisper of a whisper. When I look back up, he's smiling at me in the glass. His smile like a sunrise in the dark.

He walks back to my bed. Moves my dolls away carefully, one by one by one. Not making a single sound. He lies right by my side so we're face-to-face, Tom Cruise and I. I've never had anyone lie in my bed before besides Mother. And only when I was sick with pneumonia and couldn't breathe so well in the nights. I opened my eyes and there were her pale eyes staring at me with a crumpled look. That was the last time. Even Stacey, when she sleeps over, sleeps on a blow-up mattress on the floor. Tell me a secret, she always says. And I never had any to tell besides the secret of me and Stacey, that she twirls for me in her basement to "Maniac." Until now. Tom's eyes glow from blue-green to red to blue-green to red in the dark. His face just like the movies I watched on Grand-Maman's box TV. No screen of glass between us now. His smile shines like the stars on the ceiling. So beautiful. The way he looks at me, I can't believe it. Like no one looks at me. Like I'm so beautiful too. Maybe I'm dreaming like Tom dreams at the beginning of Risky Business. The dream is always the same, he says in the movie. If this is a dream, I think, let it always be the same.

"You have to promise me," he says, serious now. "Do you promise me, Belle? In a way, you know, you've already promised."

"I have?"

He nods slowly. His jaw gets so tight, his cheek begins to tick like a clock. The most beautiful clock. "It's the only way." He reaches out and strokes my face softly with his squid hands. It sends such a chill through me. Again, I think of being plunged into cold, dark water. I shiver in the hot June night.

"Is it going to hurt her?"

And Tom just smiles at me in the dark, under the wrong heaven. "Those are pretty stars up there," he says. "Pretty as you are. So pretty you are. God. To be here with you. I definitely feel like the luckiest guy in the world right now." I die inside when Tom says these words to me. Like we're in a movie. The girl's been pushed out of the world, and it's just me and Tom now. I picture her falling off the edge, her honey-colored hair floating behind her, her pale skin glowing like Mother's. Can it really be you saying these words to me, Tom Cruise? Of course it is. This is your face like the sun. These are your eyes like the sea. I watch him turn his smile to the stars. He doesn't say anything about them being in the wrong place. He looks up at the ceiling like everything is exactly where it should be. The stars up there, and down here, me and Tom Cruise. Leaning in so I smell the ocean of him. Cold and blue and deep.

"Do you promise me?" he says.

I watch a red jellyfish float across his face. "If it's the only way," I say.

He kisses me on the lips. Just once. So light, like a touch of a touch. This time it doesn't burn. It burns, yes, but not in a bad way. It's like that wrong heaven of stars up there are all in my body now. Little dots of fiery light. But it doesn't feel wrong anymore. It feels exactly right. Just like the right heaven.

"It is," Tom says, stroking my hair. "Trust me, okay?" He takes my hand, and then sees the gold bracelet on my wrist. A funny look passes over his face as he looks into Father's eye. Like he knows it, though how could he? "What's this?"

"Nothing. Just a gift."

"It's ugly," he hisses.

"I know," I whisper. "Mother makes me wear it."

Of course she would, Tom's face says. "It doesn't belong on your pretty wrist." His voice is nearly a growl. So I slip off the bracelet and push it between the pile of dolls. A twinge of some bad feeling as I slide it away. Like I've abandoned Father. His eye is sad and alone now. I'll put it back on after Tom goes. For now, I push it away.

Tom smiles. Red jellyfish are floating through his body. Not just his body, but the whole room. My whole bedroom is lit up like we're underwater, how strange. There's mist all around us now, like we're in a strange fog. Maybe I'm really dreaming. Or drowning. Doesn't matter.

I'm in heaven with Tom. Seth, I mean.

It's heaven either way.