The Turnout(12)

“You have a little inconvenience, but after, you throw a big champagne-busting, get a little notice in the local paper, you got more new customers than you got tutus.”

He smiled at all three of them. Dara folded her arms.

He paused a moment, eyes on Dara. Then he began talking again, but this time he looked only at her.

“I’ll be honest: What I know about ballet you could fit on the head of a nail. But I do know this: Every little girl loves it. They’re all born with it—the same big pink dream. And their mommys have it, too, and will pay big bucks to walk into a place that feels special. That feels, well, magical.”

Charlie cleared his throat, sneaking a glance at Dara.

“You’re not just businesspeople. You’re artists,” the contractor continued, eyes still flickering on Dara. “I’m just a guy who works with his hands, but I like to think there’s a creativity to what I do. An art, maybe.”

Charlie nodded politely. Dara was looking over at Marie, whose eyes were fixed on the ceiling, the king rat stain.

“Bottom line,” the contractor continued, “I don’t think artists should have a limit—a timeline, a dollar figure—on their dreams. I don’t think you should.

“So why not dream bigger?

“I can give you all the things you want.”



* * *



*

As he talked, their Studio B—the smallest of the three—seemed even smaller. Maybe because he’s so big, she told herself, twice as thick as each of them and dwarfing even Charlie. And now that he’d directed their eyes to the ceiling’s brown weeping corners, it reminded Dara how, the prior year, the eaves leaked into the studio all winter long.

He knew how to talk. He knew how to flatter, to play the humble service worker, the clumsy male amid a space so . . . female, he noted, nodding respectfully at Dara and Marie. Dara, who kept her arms folded across her chest.

Marie, who turned her head away.

Marie, who seemed even quieter than usual, more recessed, head bowed, like an empty bowl.



* * *



*

They ended up in the back office, the strong smell of the cigarettes all three of them snuck there between classes and at day’s end, the rickety wooden desk, its blotter studded with errant scorches. Mingling still with the distinctive scent of their mother’s Gauloises, like burning tires on a black night, she once said. A relief from the contractor’s aftershave, like pressing one’s face into a bucket of limes.

“This,” the contractor said, reaching out, wrapping his hand around the rail of the narrow spiral staircase that snaked up to the third floor, the dormer space. “This should be the first to go.”

“No,” Dara said immediately. “Absolutely not.”

He looked at her, and then at the staircase—iron, spiky, relentless.

Dara could feel Marie watching her intently.

“We’ll get you a new one,” he said. “With a warm wood, real nice. Smooth on your feet, smooth like a baby’s bottom.”

“No,” Dara repeated. “That stays.”

Charlie cleared his throat, shifting his feet uncomfortably.

“It’s unsafe,” the contractor said, sliding his finger along the slender rail, the pad of his index finger landing in the sunken dent that had been there a decade, more. “And busted.”

He gave it a hard tug, the railing rattling in his hands.

A gasp—quick and high—escaped from Marie’s mouth. Marie, who had not said a single word since the contractor arrived.

And one more tug, as if he might tear the whole staircase loose like a fairy-tale monster.

“The staircase stays,” Dara said.

It was the only time she saw his mask drop, the contractor. That little slash of something—overreach? Irritation? Anger?—stamping his brow.

It was there, then it was gone, the smile returning. The big teeth.



* * *



*

Dara excused herself. Said she needed to take a call.

Walking to the lobby, she felt her breath catching, but she didn’t know why.

Their mother loved that spiral staircase. Their mother said it was cosmopolitan. Bohemian. Recherché.

Their mother, that swan neck, those elegant arms. Her dark hair gathered up tightly with her grandmother’s dragonfly combs. So dignified, so refined, carrying so much inside all the time. Surrounded all day by mirrors and never letting anyone see.



* * *



*

When she returned to the office, the contractor was writing something on a pad of paper, looming over slight Marie and slender Charlie as they waited, two pale figurines, cut like glass.

“I got a tight, lean crew that works like beasts,” he was saying as he wrote. “Sweetheart deals with the best suppliers. They trust me. Your insurance company trusts me. Your claims adjuster, Bambi, we go way back.”

“That’s fine, but—” Charlie started.

“You can go cheap and easy,” he said, slapping the paper into Charlie’s hand. “Or you can transform your little school into that ballet palace you always wanted. Make every little girl’s fantasy come true.”



* * *



*

Suddenly, he had to go, he was in a hurry. His phones were ringing, his beeper. He shook his head like, What can I do, so popular, everyone wants me.