He has something he wants. That’s what Mrs. Bloom had said. The house. The things he seemed to know about it. And then there’d been Marie, just the day before: People have cars. That’s what they do. They move away. They buy a car, buy a house.
“It was just strange because we also got a call yesterday,” Charlie said, more awake now, more alert. “Some woman called for you. Something about the house.”
“What about the house?” Dara said. “Wait—”
“She was from the city or something,” he said. “I wrote her number down.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t important. I mean, it didn’t seem important.”
“Where’s the number?”
“At the studio.”
Dara sat down beside Charlie, the Nutcracker head between them. Both saying nothing.
* * *
*
She couldn’t tell what Charlie was thinking. She couldn’t tell how he felt. His eyes were cool blue and empty. It was how he’d always been as a dancer. All those years, all those bone spurs and labral tears, the stress fractures and torn tendons. Grinding his body to a fine powder. He didn’t let himself feel it, or anything. Or at least he never showed it.
You’re dancing yourself to death, his doctor said once, under his breath.
But Charlie wouldn’t stop. Until his body stopped for him. Until the hangman’s fracture that, surgery by surgery, forced him to stop dancing at all.
But it wasn’t that he didn’t feel things. When their parents died, Charlie was the one who broke the news to Dara and Marie. The state trooper punted it to him. And Charlie, older than his years, told them so gently, so cleanly.
A day later, while Dara and Marie were upstairs dressing for the funeral, he drove his hand through the kitchen window. He still had a scar the shape of a seashell in the meaty bit between his thumb and forefinger.
And, once a month, he still put lilies on their mother’s grave.
RICH AS CREAM
I need to talk to you later,” Dara said as she watched Marie slip down the spiral staircase that morning, her face blurry with sleep.
“Sure, boss,” she said, brushing past Dara. “But do we really have time? Don’t we need to get cracking those nuts?”
Insolent, Dara thought.
Even her voice didn’t sound like Marie’s voice. It was more gruff, throaty.
It was the things he was saying to her. The ideas he was putting into her head.
He’s like a mesmer, Dara thought. It’s like mind control.
It reminded her of those ads they used to have in the backs of her father’s magazines.
want the thrill of imposing your will on someone?
how to control women’s minds!
* * *
*
The only succor the day offered was that Derek didn’t appear at all.
“Where is he?” Dara asked Benny, who shrugged, his face dark with sweat.
“He makes you do all the work,” Dara added.
Benny took off his cap, wiping his face.
“Madame Durant,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Dara asked.
Gaspar, working the belt sander in the corner, looked at Benny, who then paused. Taking a breath.
“For this,” he said, shaking his head.
And it was unclear if he was referring to Studio B, a space that now looked as if it had swallowed itself, the floor sunken and the air above heavy with grit, or something else, something larger, and deathless, of which Dara could only see the dark corners, the creeping edges. The growing thing that had sunk its claws into the studio, into Marie, into everything.
* * *
*
All day, Dara waited for a chance to get Marie alone, but they were both consumed with rehearsals, with the one-on-one and small-group work as they slowly stitched the ballet together.
The older ones were truly Dara’s now, giving themselves over to the throbbing feet, the blistered blood, the smell everywhere of bandages, rot.
Mademoiselle, entendez! Swiftly, Dara moved from correction to correction. Tailbone down! Over toes, not over heels! There was no more room for error. They were all hungry for correction. Desperate to be stretched, yanked.
All eyes on her all day, all those eager faces, those plaintive expressions, those hungry looks. The twitchy neediness of the girls, their bodies never leaner, never stronger, but a darkness hovering behind their eyes. This is what happens, Dara thought, when you’ve entered the ballet. When you’ve finally gone beyond your old ideas of your body’s limits, of what you would push yourself through.