The Turnout(45)

At last, Dara thought. At last he sees.

He looked at her. “We made a terrible mistake.”



* * *



*

    Mrs. Durant, we are very sorry,” Benny told her later, pulling up the subfloor with a crowbar. Everything smelled marshy, waterlogged. “We did everything we could.”

Dara said that she was sure he had.



* * *



*

Marie didn’t want to talk about it.

She told Charlie that Derek had nearly been hurt while trying to stanch the leak, a pipe hitting his head, spraying scalding water over him, his arm pink and blistered.

“What a shame,” Charlie said dryly. “You would think a contractor would know better.”

There was something thrilling about Charlie’s new chilliness.

But Marie didn’t seem to notice, plundering the ancient metal first-aid kit for ointments, salves.

As the day wore on, however, Dara noticed a new contentment on Marie’s face as she led her students through their barre work, through sur le cou-de-pied, Marie crouching beside her seven-year-olds, reaching over and manually adjusting their pink feet, squeezing the toes around the ankle.

“Wrap that leg, that foot. Like a scarf, you see? Rotate from your hip to your toenail. And no sickling, mes anges. Pristine pointed toes, s’il vous plait.”

Of course, Dara thought with a chill. She thinks now he’ll stay longer. She’s trapped him here in her sticky Marie web.



* * *



*

These things happen,” Derek explained to Charlie later. “But that’s what insurance is for.”

Dara could hear them in the back office, Derek’s big-man voice, his reassurances. She stood at the door, listening.

“Is that so?” Charlie said. “Because we don’t have that kind of insurance. We’re just a small business.”

“Don’t you worry, friend,” Derek said. “Between my liability insurance and your policy, we’ll be rock solid. I’ll talk to your adjuster myself. Bambi and I go way back. Hasn’t everything worked out so far?”

“What, like the flood?”

“Listen,” Derek said, “I hear your worry. But I’m gonna do you right, friend. That’s a promise. I’m gonna do you right. And your wife. And, of course, your sister-in-law. All of you.”

It felt like a sucker pledge, a con man’s guarantee. But then also something else.

And your wife. And, of course, your sister-in-law.

Charlie didn’t say anything. Dara thought she could hear him through the door, breathing.



* * *



*

We have to fire him,” Dara said later. “You see it now. How he is. We have to fire him.”

Charlie looked at her, then leaned back into his chair.

“In the middle of Nutcracker season?”

“That’s exactly why we need to fire him,” Dara said. “Fires, floods. Why wait for the locusts? We can’t get through the season like this.”

“I’m not any happier about it than you are, but I don’t see what choice we have. Do you want to spend the day calling up new contractors? Getting bids? Starting from scratch?”

Dara didn’t say anything. She was looking at the new raft of Nutcracker bills on the desk. The costume rentals, the tailoring services, the backdrop rental, the photographer, a new sound technician this year, the heaping mound of pointe shoes and on and on.

“He says he’s going to front us all the expenses,” Charlie said.

“To pay for the damage he did?” Dara said. “And why would he do that?”

“Because he quote-unquote trusts us,” Charlie said wryly. “That’s what he said.”

Dara’s head was still throbbing from last night’s yellow-and-green pills, from Marie’s impish laughter all day, that mood she’d been in, flittering around her six-year-olds like she was one of them, loud and silly as she showed them how to scurry, paws in the air, as the Nutcracker mice.

Marie, who seemed elated at the setback that would keep her lover on-site for even longer, for what seemed to Dara to be an infinite time. She could nearly picture Marie taking the hammer she used to demolish her pointe shoes and punching it into that pipe itself.

“He trusts us,” Dara said coolly. “Lucky us.”



* * *



*

The flood became an excuse for chaos, for falling behind. For a huddle of Level IVs dawdling in the changing room, for the Neuman sisters sneaking out for a donut from the deli, for the contraband gum Dara found stuck to her studio floor, purple and obscene looking and leading to a fruitless sweep of all students’ cubbies that took another twenty minutes from their day.

This was why you needed routine, rigidity, timeliness. One slip, a wrist turned too far, a pointe shoe sliding from a dancer’s heel, a faulty space heater, and everything could change in an instant. Everything could fall apart.

“Eyes in front! Attention!” Dara said firmly, her ten-year-olds distracted, whispering to one another between exercises. Grave looks and rolling eyes.

“Is this it?” Dara said, folding her arms, giving them all a look, walking alongside them, their legs like pink pistils trembling. “Is this what you intend to do onstage, with hundreds of audience members, all dressed up in suits and ties and holiday velvet? Because I have a studio full of Level Threes who would be happy to take your spots.”