Rouge: A Novel

Mira and the other woman, whom she decides to call Lake because of her face’s smoothness, find themselves in a long line with other women in white silk robes. They speculate about whether the woman in red and the twins in silver at the front of the line are handing out their possessions so they can leave. Lake points out that one of the jellyfish in the tank beside the line is following Mira. The woman in red gives Mira a bag of clothes, who says they are not hers. The woman says they are, and that Mira is home. There will be a feast, and those who just received their treatments are the guests of honor. She tells Mira to remove her red shoes and Eye of Horus bracelet, but they won’t come off.

The post-treatment group puts on their new clothes for the feast. Mira’s dress is white with red roses, but she thinks it looks like “[t]entacles or tangles of blood and guts” (326). Lake emphasizes that the women are all on their “individual” beauty journeys, but Mira silently notes that they all look the same. Lake asks if Mira saw that the jellyfish was distraught when it couldn’t follow her and tells her, “It loves you. Love is funny, I guess” (326). She asks Mira how she looks. Mira thinks, “Dead” but says beautiful. Lake tells her she is beautiful, too.

The women walk toward the feast, carrying platters, which makes them wonder if they are the servers rather than the guests. They haven’t yet paid for their treatments and decide there’s been a misunderstanding. They talk about being Perfect Candidates, and Lake again observes that the jellyfish is following Mira. It seems to be trying to tell her something.

The group enters a dining room, where the jellyfish tank is open at the top. There are people in black sitting at the table, and the women speculate that they are the ones who “make creams and sprays” (331), and “architect our dreams” (330). The woman in red and the twins hold nets. The woman in red announces the presence of a special guest who “planted” one of the roses in the room. Seth enters, and Mira drops her tray. He hands it back to her, addressing her as “seedling.” She calls him Tom Cruise, and the people at the table and the woman in red laugh, telling Seth he is brilliant.

Lake begins to panic and asks Mira to help her get home. The woman in red asks if Seth wants to select the night’s catch. He points at Lake, and she is suddenly happy to have been “Selected.” She goes to the tank, where she is given red petals and instructed to drop them into the tank. A jellyfish comes up, and she catches it with the net. Delighted, she sets it on the table. Before the woman in red can carve it, the people in black rip it apart with their hands and teeth and consume it. Lake screams as they do so, “as if she is the one being eaten” (338). Mira realizes eating Lake’s jelly has made the diners radiant. They say they are still hungry, and the woman in red announces that that was an amuse-bouche. She tells the story of an intriguing “Vessel” who began as a paying customer but whose extractions revealed an intergenerational repressed rose. However, she wandered away and died before the harvest. Fortunately, the Vessel’s daughter has come, a rose Seth “planted with his own hands” (341). She says that she hopes the Daughter Vessel will be able to catch both the mother and daughter roses.

The twins select Mira and instruct her to drop rose petals into the tank. The jelly that followed her rises up, followed by a second one. Mira is handed a net to catch them, but when she puts it in the water, the jellyfish move closer to each other, seeming to embrace, and the larger one absorbs the smaller one. Seth angrily instructs Mira to get it out, but she refuses. The woman in red tells the diners that it is just a bit of dinner theater.

Mira backs up against the tank, and the twins come toward her. She hears a voice behind her telling her to come, and she falls backward into the pool. Noelle’s jellyfish helps her breathe and swim, and the others join it, assisting Mira through the tank as the others pursue her from the outside and try to break open the tank. The jellyfish take her to a locked grate that leads to the ocean. They tell her to open it, and she does.

The jellyfish all escape into the ocean, and Noelle’s helps Mira to the surface. Mira wakes up lying on the shore, Noelle’s jellyfish lying next to her, and it transforms into her mother. Noelle and Mira each express their love for each other and apologize. Noelle remembers being in an apple orchard with Mira and her worry that she won’t be able to protect her daughter from herself and the dark places she goes. They say they love each other, and Mira closes her eyes. When she opens them, Noelle is gone.

Mira wakes again and realizes a dog is licking her face. Words and memories begin to come back to her. Sylvia runs down the beach and finds her, then calls an ambulance.

Mira stays at Sylvia’s house for the next week, sleeping and dreaming of the jellyfish, black veils, Lake, Hud Hudson, and her mother. Sylvia tells Mira she heard there was a flood at the house on the cliff, and people drowned. She tries to get in touch with Hud but doesn’t succeed. She tries to watch Marva’s videos but only sees the jellyfish when she does. Sylvia tells Mira she could use help at the shop, and Mira agrees to take the job.

Mira goes back to Noelle’s apartment. Tad is there, and he tells Mira he fixed everything. He asks about the mannequins, of which only two remain, though there is a hole in the window. She asks what she owes him, but he says he did it for Noelle, who was good to him.

She sees a man on the beach dragging a mannequin and runs down toward him. It is Hud, dancing with one of the mannequins. His skin is glowing, and he is confused. Mira begins to dance with him, and he tells her he is saving her, saying he didn’t mean to “love—to lose you there like that” (369). The sun is setting and the moon is rising, and Mira reflects, “We’re still deep in the dark, shining water, but I’m dancing us slowly, surely, to shore” (369).