Rouge: A Novel

Mira has returned to California from Montreal for her mother’s funeral. Noelle was found dead, having ostensibly fallen off a cliff during a walk at night. Mira remembers receiving the phone call from the police, which she received while working in a dress store in Montreal. She packs “seven ziplock bags full of skin products” (16), many of which are lauded by her favorite online skincare guru, Marva, but forgets to bring a dress for the funeral. Sylvia, who ran a dress shop with Noelle, loans her one and annoys Mira with her intrusive sympathy.

At the funeral, Sylvia tells Mira to come to the dress shop before returning home because they have some things to discuss. Before she leaves, Mira sees a redheaded woman on the veranda wearing a red dress. The woman tells Mira that her mother “went the way of roses” (21).

Mira has a drink in her hotel bar and reflects on her last conversation with her mother. Noelle was distraught and confused, saying she was “wearing a dread of liquid gold” and “going the way of the roses” (28). Mira was concerned about her confused speech (saying “dread” instead of “dress”) but wrote it off as eccentricity or aging.

In the hotel bar, Mira gets a phone notification from a sender called “Rouge” with a message about grief and the skin barrier. She feels suddenly as if she is being watched. She clicks the link, and it is a video of the woman in red from the funeral. The video is interspersed with images of a red jellyfish and before and after images of a woman who looks haggard in the first video clip and is glowing in the second. The woman in red holds up a red jar of cream and says that the secret is inside the human soul, and the viewer can see for herself if she goes the way of roses. Mira continues to hear the video’s background music after she puts her phone down, and wonders if the man a few tables away is watching the same thing. He looks angry, then smiles at her.

Mira meets her mother’s lawyer, Chaz, for breakfast. He tells her Noelle took out three significant loans over the past year. He suggests selling her house and car to possibly break even, though they are both in rough shape. Mira asks about the dress shop, but Chaz tells her Noelle sold it to Sylvia.

Mira goes to the dress shop, Belle of the Ball. She remembers its beautiful, intimidating aesthetic but is surprised to see that Sylvia has changed it, removing its characteristic eerie mannequins and catering to a different consumer with generic clothes and costume jewelry. Mira confronts Sylvia for stealing the shop, and Sylvia replies that she thought Noelle told Mira about her decision to sell it. Sylvia and the shop assistant, Esther, go to the basement to collect some boxes Noelle left behind. Mira is surprised because she was always told that there was nothing beyond the basement door but the boiler.

Mira goes to her mother’s apartment to begin packing up her belongings. She meets Tad, her mother’s landscaper, whom she is surprised to find in the house watering the plants. He is clearly at home there, helping himself to a beer and sitting with his feet on the coffee table. He asks about her plans for the apartment. When she tells him she’ll be selling, he suggests renting it out on Airbnb instead. He offers to help her renovate the place. She asks him about the cracks in all the mirrors, and he says that he tried to replace them for her once, but the cracks came back.

Mira assesses the apartment more closely and finds that it is, as Chaz said, in disrepair. She finds red bottles like those in the Rouge advertisement in every room. She unpacks the box from the dress shop and finds her old dolls and clippings of Tom Cruise. She looks away, and when she returns to the box, she sees her mother’s feathered red shoes, which she didn’t see when she first looked in the box. Mira becomes lost in the childhood memory of trying on her mother’s shoes and seeing a male figure in the mirror. When she comes to, she is wearing the shoes and one of her mother’s dresses. She feels compelled to go for a walk along the cliff path and wonders if the shoes are leading her. She goes toward a black cliffside mansion with a glowing red light. At the door, she sees a plaque that reads La Maison de Méduse. A beautiful woman opens the door and welcomes Mira, telling her she is just in time.