“Don’t ring no bell.”
“Next mirror: Carla Moore. Christmas, 1925.”
“Hey,” said Henry. “Silent film but a sighted friend spoke her to me one matinee. Carla Moore! She was something!”
I guided the flashlight.
“Eleanor Twelvetrees. April ’26,” I read.
“Helen Twelvetrees was in The Cat and the Canary.”
“This might’ve been her sister, but so many names were fake, you never know. Lucille LeSueur became Joan Crawford. Lily Chauchoin was re-born as Claudette Colbert. Gladys Smith: Carole Lombard. Cary Grant was Archibald Leach.”
“You could run a quiz show.” Henry extended his fingers. “What’s this?”
“Jennifer Long: ’29.”
“Didn’t she die?”
“Disappeared, about the time Sister Aimee sank in the sea and arose, reborn, on the Hallelujah shore.”
“How many more names?”
“As many as there are mirrors.”
Henry tasted one finger. “Yum! It’s been a long time but—lipstick. What color?”
“Tangee Orange. Summer Heat Coty. Lanvier Cherry.”
“Why do you figure these ladies wrote their names and dates?”
“Because, Henry, it wasn’t a lot of ladies. One woman signed the names, all different.”
“One woman who wasn’t a lady? Hold my cane while I think.”
“You don’t have a cane, Henry.”
“Funny how your hand feels things not there. You want me to guess?”
I nodded even though Henry couldn’t see; I knew he’d feel the rush of my bobbing head. I wanted him to say it, needed to hear him speak that name. Henry smiled at the mirrors, and his smile beamed one hundredfold.
“Constance.”
His fingers touched the glass.
“The Rattigan,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Again, Henry leaned to brush a reddish signature and then touch it to his lips.
He moved to the next glass, repeated the gesture, and let his tongue figure.
“Different flavors,” he noted.
“Like different women?”
“It all comes back.” His eyes squeezed tight. “Lord, Lord. Lots of women passed through my hands, through my heart, came and went unseen; all those flavors. Why do I feel stopped up?”