The Turnout(64)

What if he does it, Marie whispered from above, her little hand clawed around her bunk.

He doesn’t have the guts, Dara told her, though she wasn’t sure herself.

You never knew what people would do. You never knew when blood ran hot. That was why it was always best, like their mother always said, to keep it cool. To not let it get to you. To still your heart, or slow it down.

I can’t, Marie said, taking Dara’s hand from above, pulling it to her chest, the beating sound beneath her breastbone like a rabbit’s, fast and out of control.





UNNATURAL


The car ride—five minutes, less—pressing her hands against the heating vent on the dashboard, her breath catching and the air so cold it felt like sharp points against their faces.

Pressing her hands there and Charlie driving, his face blue under the streetlight, fingers clamped to whiteness on the steering wheel. Charlie driving, his arms moving to steer as if they were in an ocean liner, loose and wide, tires caterwauling and that feeling that the car was hovering above the ground, and Dara’s hands against the vents until they burned, the scorch in the air and Charlie telling her it all has to stop, stop, stop.

We have to stop him, he was saying. She’ll let him ruin everything.

He was saying things about Marie, and how they had to get her, had to go in and pull her out like she had fallen into quicksand, but hadn’t she?

Staring out at the darkness ahead, Dara could almost see her there, in the distance. Marie, emerging from the pitch black, waving her hands above her head like an SOS and crying.

Like Clara in her nightgown on the blackened stage, lost in her dream world, no way out, no way home.



* * *



*

    The fog made everything shimmer.

The third-floor window of the studio glowed like a church steeple and below Derek’s truck glowed, too, a brilliant black marble alongside the hot candle of Marie’s car.

Everything looked slightly exaggerated, like the time Dara tried on another girl’s glasses and the world instantly drew into unimaginable focus. (Haven’t you had your eyes checked lately? the girl asked and Dara didn’t dare tell her, No, never.)

She couldn’t wait to take off the glasses, everything too bright, too sharp, everything hurting her eyes. Does the world look like this?

Charlie was ahead of her, a streak of white across the asphalt. His body moving as she hadn’t seen it in years, since before his injuries, since the days their mother would sigh and whisper, comme une panthère . . .



* * *



*

Inside, the gust of sawdust, sealants, spray foam everywhere, the radiators chugging, Charlie called out for Marie.

As they charged toward the back office, Derek emerged from the mouth at the top of the spiral stairs.

“Who’s there?” he called out as he wended down, the staircase vibrating beneath him. Dara feeling it under her feet, up her spine.

And then Marie emerged from behind him. An old cardigan wrapped around her, her legs bare and her feet, too, forever pink and pulpy.

Slowly, slowly she descended, her feet nearly missing every step, her eyes stunned, glossy.



* * *



*

It was hard to believe it was happening, the radiator filling the small space with gasps of heat, the smell of burning things, forgotten cigarettes on the windowsill, mittens left too long on the radiator pipes, the stench, still, of Marie’s tortured space heater, the fire that started it all.

“Now, what’s this all about?” Derek asked, picking up the old metal bill holder from their mother’s desk, spinning the wooden base with his meaty fingers. So much performance, Dara thought. So much stagecraft, this con artist, this swindler.



* * *



*

Did you think,” Dara was asking Marie, who had curled up in a corner, sweater and underpants, her legs red and scaly, “we’d just give it over to you, to him? Our family home. Like you gave away everything else.”

“What? No. That’s not—” Marie started, but then Derek lifted his arm in front of her, and Marie’s mouth closed.

It made Dara, suddenly, so sad. Seeing Marie’s mouth close.

Suddenly, Dara wanted to cry from it.

“Look, let’s just settle down here, friends,” Derek was saying, his thick fingers around the bill holder’s spike. “I think there’s been a little misunderstanding. And maybe a little alcohol.”

He was looking at Charlie and she knew he could smell it on him, all that wine, the jug from the fridge empty when they left. The room so small and Charlie’s face red from it.

“Charlie, my friend,” he said, “you’re the business corner of this little triangle, right? You’re the sweat and spit behind the Durant School of Dance. So I present this to you as a business opportunity. We can make that house of yours into a pot of gold. It’s not too late for us all to partner up. But it will be soon.”

“We’re not interested,” Charlie said. He had an expression that made Dara nervous, his jaw rigid.

“But your sister is,” Derek said. “And she’s the one who gets to decide, right?”

Like that first day, Dara thought. Derek asking them who decides and Marie, mute for the entire meeting, insisting, I do. I decide.