The Turnout(42)

Another half hour passed before Marie appeared. She was indeed in an ill-fitting skirt, the kind a secretary in a movie might wear, and a new jacket, leather like Derek’s, but with a chic sash. It was two sizes too big and seemed to swallow her.

Dara spotted her watching herself in the mirror, swanning about in it for a minute before she made her entrance in Studio A.

Apologizing to her excitable students (Mademoiselle Durant, you look so pretty!) as she passed them, she stripped the jacket loose, its new leathery smell choking everyone. She unzipped the skirt, letting it fall to the floor, leaving her back in her usual thick tights.

Dara watched from the door. Watched the whole spectacle.



* * *



*

He took me to that Italian place with all the red awnings,” Marie was saying to Charlie as Dara walked into the office later. “We had fried calamari big as curtain rings and a lobster we picked right out of the tank.”

Charlie sat, silently writing checks at the desk, an odd look on his face, like he was thinking of things but wouldn’t say them.

It was surprising, really. All of it. The lunch, the production of it, even that Marie had chosen to tell Charlie about it first. Rather than Dara.

“Is that why you were so late?” Dara asked. “Couldn’t pick your lobster?”

Marie turned and looked at Dara.

“And then you know what we did, Charlie?” she said, her eyes still on Dara. “We went to a luxury showroom and looked at cars.”

“Cars?” Charlie said, looking up. “Why?”

“I think I might need one,” she said.

“It’s ridiculous,” Dara said. “You live where you work. You need a car to come down the stairs in the morning?”

“If you need to go anywhere,” Charlie said, “you can take the Chrysler.”

“You barely know how to drive, Marie,” Dara said. “Remember?”

“Well,” Marie said, her face changing, that fox look it could sometimes get, “I didn’t know a lot of things until I did.”

Dara looked at her, feeling a chill.



* * *



*

As Dara walked away, she could hear Marie returning to her conversation with Charlie. Charlie, pondering the stack of mail in front of him. Charlie looking far-off, unreachable.

“Big, snazzy cars,” Marie was saying. “They give you champagne while you browse. You can sit behind the wheel.” Then, her voice softer, “They all smelled like Dad.”



* * *



*

Whatever had seemed to be turning now seemed turned. Marie and the contractor. They were a thing, together. And it was changing things. Derek’s new cockiness, cock of the walk. Marie dyeing her hair, wearing a skirt, looking at snazzy cars. Marie flagrant and unrepentant, fornicating on the floor above while her seven-year-old students waited below.

“So, what did you talk about at this lunch today? Power tools?” Dara asked, unable to stop herself from returning to the doorway. “Spray tans?”

But Marie, standing behind Charlie seated at the desk, didn’t say a word. And that fox look coming back to her face as she snaked her arm down past Charlie’s cheek and neck and into his shirt pocket, pulling a cigarette from the pack snug there.

Sliding it into her mouth like some kind of femme fatale, disappearing into Studio A, the click of a lighter, a cloud of smoke trailing behind her.



* * *



*

That evening, Marie climbed in Derek’s big oil-slick truck and headed off to parts unknown. Together they went, both in their leather jackets like a motorcycle gang, off into the sunlight, and Dara knew now that something had changed. Marie had shut her out. This was the new stage.



* * *



*

The next morning, her fears were confirmed.

She’d arrived at the studio before seven and he was tumbling down the spiral stairs from Marie’s lair, his hair still gleaming from the stand-up shower, his breath mints blasting—it made her sick.

His smell, his cleanness made her sick.

She so preferred the smells of the studio—sweat and feet and tiger balm, the musk of feet and boys’ crotches and the occasional whiff of ammonia from the little ones, their tights stinging with urine—and the smells of the house, their home—camphor and tea and wet plaster and the burnt furnace stench and, still, in every carpet fiber, every pine whorl, their mother’s scent. Perfume and desperation.

“Morning, sis,” he said, bolder than ever.

“I’m not your sister,” Dara said.

“I guess no one has a chance, do they?”

“Pardon?”

“You three,” he said, his voice wet from sleep, “thick as thieves.”

He was standing before her now, coffee cup half crushed in his big meaty hand.

“I’m busy,” Dara said, on hold with the insurance company, trying to get some answers about their claim payment.

“Hey, I get it. Family is everything,” he said, leaning against the jamb. “Marie explained.”

Explained? Dara thought. What does that mean? And she didn’t like the way he was watching her. It felt like he was poking her with his manicured fingers.

What kind of man gets a manicure, she’d said to Marie.