Madeline’s urn had a pearlescent surface. It was topped by gold filigree and encircled by a ring of low candles. Thin flickers of the flames reflected in golden streaks that hopped up and down the curved lines of the porcelain, illuminating it in bursts as if it were a holy object.
Elaine knelt on the floor, hands clasped, knees bare.
Madeline would have come behind her to compliment her on her dress, an elegant black number she’d brought over from London last year.
You look very sophisticated, darling.
With a drink in her hand, she would have twirled Elaine around to dance.
She had tried many times to twirl Elaine.
To release her.
But Elaine had accepted only a few times. Now it was too late to dance.
Madeline had just one family member who could be located, an elderly aunt, who had paid for the public wake. Madeline would have hated it. It was in a stark hall with heavy black curtains, and there was a layer of dust on everything. Madeline’s aunt couldn’t afford much, and there was a horrific smell; nobody could breathe too well. The ladies kept filtering in, and every time another arrived, Elaine would shake uncontrollably.
Fred had made an appearance at the wake. He’d knelt in front of her coffin and said something in a voice nobody could hear. Elaine unknowingly asked Harriet if he was another one of Madeline’s relatives, but Harriet gave her a horrified look—the man was Fred.
He stood in the corner of the room, in the pretense of looking at the memorial program. He stroked his waxy moustache and glanced up at the ladies in the room; Elaine even felt his eyes examine her body. He seemed to be sizing them all up, and they edged to the other side of the room, skittish, grouping together.
He left after a few minutes, and none of them could even talk about it.
They couldn’t talk about anything.
When everything was said and done, the service wasn’t enough for Madeline.
They took up a collection and rented a hall for another memorial service not too far from Green-Wood Cemetery, where her ashes would be interred.
None of the regular Starlite ladies had much money, but Cynthia donated to pay for the headstone, using the money she had saved to move out of her parents’ apartment.
The ladies chose Elaine to write the inscription. Elaine ground her pencil to a nub and wrote a bunch of empty words throughout the night, barely breathing.
She fell asleep in the early morning.
She awoke an hour later, and there was something at least—a Hamlet quote she had memorized at age twelve.
Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move.
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt that I love.
The women of the Starlite stood and knelt in lines behind the urn, their faces streaked with red that wouldn’t fade.
Their tongues were dry from their stilted speech.
Harriet came forward and wrapped the urn in a piece of cloth. It was an unfinished dress, a shimmery piece of cloth, intended for an unknown customer. Now it served as a shroud for the vessel that held Madeline’s remains.
They were silent, vibrations passing through and between them. The past revelries of the Starlite throbbed as a taste in their mouths, echoes of what had been lost in the rose-scented air of their last event, their entire group together, laughing, Madeline in her beautiful dress.
They trembled and shook.
Nobody was ready to act.
After the time on the hall rental expired, they left. Harriet and some others blew out the candles. The candles and urn went into a beautiful rolling valise that someone had once purchased from the Starlite.
The women huddled on the wide patch of concrete, under a green awning. They grouped together like shaky tree branches tied together with ribbon.
“Maybe we could get together again sometime.”
They all said the same, though no one could mention a place or time.