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LISA AND I waited in a long line outside a nondescript brick building on a seedy Manhattan sidewalk. It was a warm night in late March, the first springlike day of the year. I glanced at my roommate and linked my arm through hers, glad she’d pestered me into fraternizing. Lisa was the closest friend I’d ever had. She was an art major who wanted to run a gallery someday. She loved karaoke and dogs and Greek food. She didn’t laugh when I told her I wanted to be a magician. We’d known each other only two months before she invited me to her family’s house in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and then Christmas, so I didn’t have to go home. She didn’t say that was the reason, just explained her little brother drove her crazy and I’d make a good buffer. When her dad asked about my major—psychology—and what I wanted to do after school, I hesitantly admitted I was an aspiring magician. Her family didn’t laugh either. “She’s not aspiring,” Lisa butted in. “She’s been doing her own shows for four years. She is a magician.” She winked across the table. Over and over she insisted none of the labels Sir had assigned me fit. She was the first person I’d ever heard call him an asshole.
I hadn’t been home since starting college, would never again have to eat bologna sandwiches or puffed rice. I talked to Mother every couple of weeks and had gotten Jack on the phone once or twice a semester. Each time, she ended the conversation after five minutes, citing homework or parties. I could tell from her awkward, clipped tone that she didn’t want to talk, that she had looped me in with the dysfunction of our childhood. She was ashamed of us, I realized. After a while I stopped trying. I would not beg her to act like my sister.
Sir I had not spoken to since move-in day. By the end of high school I’d shaved seven seconds off my backstroke for him, but he’d still chewed me out for not being good enough. He didn’t know that I’d won the high school talent show with my magic routines sophomore, junior, and senior years. He wouldn’t have cared.
By the time I moved out, I was six feet tall, same as him, with arms ropy from swimming. I had gradually come to understand my father was neither wise nor brave. I stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt, quit hoping his punishments would somehow empower me. I admitted to myself what he was: a sadist, a man so pathetic that the only power he successfully wielded was over two little girls who wanted nothing more than to please their daddy. I was finished counting points for him, couldn’t get far enough away.
Remnants of his control lingered. I still found it difficult to relax. If I heard footsteps outside my dorm room, I’d jump off the bed and pretend I’d been organizing my desk or cleaning the room. I had to remind myself, or Lisa would, that no one was going to yell or call me lazy. I didn’t have to earn the right to relax. I hoped that impulse would wear off.
A door to the brick building opened. The line of people began shuffling through the entryway. Lisa clapped giddily. I smiled at her excitement.
“Sometimes her shows are interactive,” Lisa said as we filed inside.
Was that a good thing? I studied the space: concrete floor, white walls, high ceiling. Other than the warm bodies filling the gallery, the building was empty. Usually when Lisa dragged me to art installations, there was . . . art.
I nudged her and gestured at the barren walls. “Isn’t something missing?” Lisa shrugged, eyes flitting around the room, trying to take in every inch.
The bouncer closed the door. As the minutes ticked by sans any action, reverence faded. Voices crept higher. Then the door opened again. In walked a woman I assumed was the artist.
She was petite, in her sixties, had waist-length, unkempt jet-black hair with a thick silver streak. She wore a billowing rainbow-colored dress that resembled a parachute. Her expression was solemn, even grave. She drifted barefoot to the middle of the room as if in a trance. She held a black piece of fabric in one hand.
Lisa elbowed me. “That’s her! That’s Evelyn.”
I patted my friend’s hand.
Evelyn stopped in the dead center of the room. When she spoke, her tone was hypnotic. She turned in a circle, making eye contact with every patron. “We have become accustomed to violence. When we hear that more than one million people have died in a war, we hardly flinch. Are we proportionately more upset over one million than one hundred thousand casualties? No. Should we be?” She paused. “What number would it take to make us put an end to this senselessness?”
She stopped turning and locked eyes with me. “What about one? What if we make violence personal by putting ourselves on the receiving end of it?”
Evelyn looked away from me, fingering the black cloth in her hand. “I invite you now to insult me. The criticisms may pertain to anything. My art, my physical appearance, things you imagine to be true about me. Whether you believe the things you’re saying is immaterial. Do not hold back.” She bent her head. “Please begin.”
People in the crowd exchanged glances, shifting their weight uneasily. Some of them must have known what they were signing up for. I glared at Lisa, who already looked guilty, was undoubtedly aware of the ribbing she’d take from me back in the dorm tonight. Who was this deranged woman asking people to denigrate her?
No one spoke.
“I thought that might be the case.” Evelyn tugged the black fabric over her head and around her eyes. “How about now? Is this better?”
Another twenty or thirty seconds passed, the room holding a collective breath. No one wanted to throw a punch, but no one wanted the awkward silence to continue either.
Finally, a man across the room timidly offered, “You could use a haircut.”
Several people sniggered. Evelyn bowed, as if in thanks.
“Your nose is too big.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Your smock is hideous.”
“I can’t believe I came all the way out here for this.”
On and on they came, like a dam had burst. I glanced at Lisa again. She bit her fingernails.
“Are you on drugs?”
“I find your beliefs offensive.”
“My father died fighting for your freedom to do this show. Sometimes violence is necessary.”
“Your husband doesn’t love you.”
“No one likes you.”
I froze, then craned my neck to locate the source of the barb, half expecting it to be Alan sneering at me onstage again: No one likes you.
The jabs at Evelyn continued, but I no longer heard them. My face burned as I remembered Sir’s shame in the front row while Alan high-fived his friends in the back. Show after show he had taunted me. He was merciless.