The Mermaid’s Shadow Lamp

by Nora B. Peevy

conclusion

An ethereal scene of trees and fairy lights drew her attention onstage. Stage-hands bustled about, getting ready for opening night as tension and excitement dripped from the air like rain, the mood in the auditorium wound tighter than a clock with the unseasoned actors ready to deliver their best performance.

Miriam felt a twinge. She needed to use the bathroom. Oh dear, so close to the opening scene. She checked her jeweled watch and tapped Tom on the shoulder, who busily chatted with the parents in the seats next to theirs.

“Tom, where’s the ladies’ room?”

“It’s through the doors we came in and down the hall on the left, second door.” Tom thought Miriam looked a bit peaked as she left. If she didn’t return quickly, he thought he would go check on her.

“Thank you,” she said, rushing out of the suffocating auditorium, panicked by the crowd and hurrying to the quiet sanctuary of the ladies’ room. It had been a long time since she’d been around so many people, and she was nervous. She hoped Tom and his friends didn’t find her rude. Her knees started to ache with the telltale pain of arthritis as she staggered, clutching the white vanity. Her face looked pale and yellowed, lit by the bad lighting in the scratched mirror.

“No,” she moaned.

Her hair bled streaks of grey into the upswept brown waves pinned and gathered in back. Her eyes looked weak and watery, flanked by bands of wrinkles marching across her lids and over her brow, and her lips drooped with no memory of their seductive youth. Miriam stared at her liver-spotted hands, faded and graying with age, and the image shimmered as her eyes filled with great tears. She cried silently, her evening bag hanging at her side, as she watched old age settle back into her bones and flesh. She wanted so badly to be loved for her beauty, for Tom to see her as she saw herself. It wasn’t fair.

Time slithered cold in her belly as she left, forgetting she needed to use the bathroom. She needed to go home and be with her shadow lamp — her lovely shadow lamp, faithfully spinning back the harshest frosts of time and replacing them with the balmiest breezes of youth.

How could she face Tom like this? She couldn’t. He would know. He would know she was old and used and he would not want to be with a woman like her. He would not. She shook her head. She would not want to be with a woman like her, either. What use was she as a cruel faded shade of her youth and power, a wisp of her former glory? What good was she, when she could not control her body and make it do what she wanted any more, when she could not swim or play tennis or go out dancing, when she was trapped in this broken, withering husk that betrayed her? She sank down on the wide sill of the bay of windows overlooking the front of the high school, ignoring the concerned looks of the ushers in their snappy black tuxes and bow ties, tears running down her face.

Tom found her that way. He rushed to her side as the doors slammed shut, punctuating the teary silence of the hallway. His brow wrinkled with concern, reminding Miriam of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. But she wasn’t Stella. Tom wouldn’t want her like Stanley wanted Stella; she wasn’t a Stella any more. Tom sat down beside Miriam and took his hand in hers. His hand looked so comfortable wrapped around her fingers.

“Miriam, what’s wrong?”

“I tried to be young for you, Tom, and it just wouldn’t last.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at me,” she sobbed. Looking into his face, she saw only confusion, not disgust, which puzzled her. She held her shaking hands out to Tom, covering her face and smearing her eye makeup.

“I am looking at a vibrant sexy woman.”

“But I’m not, Tom. I’m in my late sixties now.”

“I know that.”

“You do?” Miriam stopped crying, digging in her purse. How could this be? Had he guessed because of the way she talked, or had he seen something when he came to pick her up? A letter for retirement insurance or one of those annoying advertisements for burial plots? Had she left one out on the front table in the foyer?

“Of course, I do. You’re a beautiful woman, Miriam, but I certainly know that you don’t look like you’re in your forties any more.”

“But you’re in your forties, Tom.”

He snorted and slapped his knee. “Miriam, you flatter me, but I know I look my age.”

She pulled back from Tom, wiping her nose, shocked. “Just how old are you, Tom?”

“Why, I’m sixty-six. I thought I’d mentioned that to you.”

“That’s impossible.” Miriam shook her head, a few stray hairs spilling out of their pins in dull locks around her shoulders.

“Well, it’s true. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry if I disappointed you, Miriam.” He wanted to keep on seeing her, to see if there was something more to her, but he wasn’t sure she wanted his company.

Miriam remained silent and caught sight of his reflection in the windowpane as dusk seeped into the skyline, her breath freezing in her throat. His face, his lips were slipping in old age, his eyebrows were grey and worn, his hair thinning. Why had she never seen this before? Ah. She raised her eyebrows in understanding. The shadow lamp. She beamed all of a sudden, confusing poor Tom even further. It must enchant her outlook on others as well as her own.

“Miriam, what is making you so happy all of a sudden? One minute, you’re upset and the next you’re smiling. Was it something I said?”

“No. It’s just a thought. Something I’d like to share with you, Tom. Would you like to come back to my place after the play?” She started, realizing that seemed awful presumptuous and bold for a lady of her social standing. “I have something to show you. Something I bought the other day.”

She continued in a tsunami of words. “I think it will change your outlook a bit on things. But it’s fading fast. Each time I’ve used it, it seems to work less and less, but it’s my secret — my beautiful secret. And I think I could find another one, if I needed to, if this one stops working.” She sighed, watching the wind whip through the maples. A storm was rolling in off the lake. The colorful sunset had become muddied. “Will you come back to my place, Tom?”

Silence stood like an awkward child between them.

Tom felt a prickle of uncertainty or was that fear tapping on his shoulder? If what stopped working? He shifted on the windowsill, his heart beating fast as though he’d just gone onstage in the spotlight for the first time. Maybe it was just the storm, but a little bit of Miriam’s beauty was missing, just a little bit lost for a moment and replaced by hysterical glee or an insatiable hunger devouring her green eyes. Tom wasn’t sure which.

Hesitant, he answered, “Yes. I will come by your place.” He shrugged, wanting her to not be what everyone in town said Miriam was, because he genuinely liked her. She was the first person he’d asked out since his wife’s death, and that was a big step for him to open up to someone. If nothing else came of it, he would at least get to see what the inside of the supposed “witch’s” mansion looked like. The town couldn’t be right about Miriam. They just couldn’t. There wasn’t anything weird about her at all. She was just a lady with a lot of money who lived alone in a big house. And that was all.

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