What she wanted to say was, Bailey, steel yourself.
It happened every year. There would have to be a meeting to discuss company loyalty, spirit, healthy competition. Another thing to do.
Marie and the contractor. Maybe it would go away.
* * *
*
Mrs. Cartwright, you knew the schedule before we even began auditions,” Dara was explaining to one of her most frustrating mothers, always swooping in in her camel-hair coat and gold-rimmed sunglasses, striding over to Dara with My life is crazy right now, Ms. Durant, you must understand . . .
“But these rehearsals,” she said, “why, they press right up against Thanksgiving. We always go to Bermuda for Thanksgiving. Iris is counting on it.” Then, lowering her voice, “And, well, she’s just a Candy Cane. Which was, of course, your choice, not mine.”
And there it was. It was never really about the schedule demands, Saturday rehearsals. It wasn’t about the weeknight costume fittings or the shared carpool duties. It was about who was Clara, and who was not.
“Mrs. Cartwright,” Dara said, snapping her fingers at the dawdling Level II students, Marie’s pigeon-breasted seven-year-olds, ushering them into Studio A, “we made it clear that all the parts bring the same demands. Even the Candy Canes.”
Mrs. Cartwright paused, eyebrows lifting.
“You know,” she said, “your sister is more polite.”
* * *
*
Past the gauntlet, Dara finally approached Studio A and Marie. You couldn’t miss her with that garish lipstick she persisted in wearing but also, today, with an improbable scarf flung around her neck. Garish polka dots and fringe, like something she’d dug out of the lost-and-found bin.
“You can’t teach like that,” Dara said. Charlie appeared in the doorway, his posture stiff.
“I can and I have,” Marie said.
“She can’t teach like that,” Dara said to Charlie, making a face.
“I can do anything,” Marie replied, looking at Charlie in a way that irritated Dara. And what was it with that lipstick, like a red gash across her face.
“She can do anything,” Charlie said wryly to Dara, with a shrug.
* * *
*
So Dara threw herself into the day, trying to avoid Studio B, avoid seeing him. Twice, she saw Marie lingering at the plastic curtain between classes, her fingers tangled in the edges of that ridiculous scarf of hers, the little ones scrumming past her. She wasn’t doing anything, but Dara didn’t like it.
* * *
*
No, no,” Dara said, watching dear, long-lashed Corbin Lesterio struggling with his entrechats, his legs scissoring with dizzying speed but no form. “No flapping like a duck.”
“I’m sorry, Madame Durant. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be better.”
He tried again.
“Where is my flutter?” Dara called out. “Your legs should be moving sideways, not swinging back and forth.”
She had no intention of touching him, but he didn’t seem to understand, and when she approached, he stepped back abruptly, his face coloring. His voice, half-broken, stuttering an apology.
“I didn’t know. I mean, you can, but I . . .” he began, then stepped back again, his arms twined around each other, his hands spread as if covering himself, as if Adam with his fig leaf. His eyes darted all around, catching on the plastic curtain to Studio B. “Please, I want you to show me. I just . . .”
Dara looked at him, his radiant blush. His hands hovering beneath his waist.
She understood now. “Do you want to talk to Monsieur Charlie?” she asked.
Every boy ended up needing to talk to Charlie about certain things—the particularities of the male body, puberty. Not all of them felt comfortable explaining to their mothers about needing support, about dance belts, those filmy thongs with the pouches meant to keep everything in place.
It’s the only favor ballet ever granted its men, Charlie once told her. Brushing and pressing up against bodies all day, the heat and closeness, it was impossible to hide anything. Worn under tights, the dance belt concealed every adolescent boy’s secrets. Too slender a garment to protect them from a misplaced foot, an errant elbow, it protected them only from fleeting boy shame.
“Class is over anyway,” Dara said gently, “and he’d be happy to talk to you—”
“Madame Durant,” Corbin said, his face as red as Marie’s mouth, “I don’t want to talk to anybody.”
* * *
*
Moments later, she was in the parking lot, smoking, when Derek appeared, pulling out a drugstore vape. She had the feeling he’d followed her out.
It felt strange being alone with him after what she’d seen. After the things Marie had told her. And the way he was looking at her now. She drew her sweater tight across her chest.
“Can’t be easy for a boy,” he said, shaking his head. “Jesus.”
“What?” Dara said. Then realizing he must have seen her with Corbin. Must have been watching from behind the plastic curtain.
“I almost feel sorry for the kid,” he said, a whisper of a smile. “Quite a spot you put him in.”
Dara felt her face grow hot.
* * *
*
Back in the stairwell, she took three long breaths, shook the forgotten cigarette free from her hand, the ash burning her knuckles.
She would simply have to tell Charlie. Marie had emboldened him, this contractor. Now he felt like he could say anything, do as he pleased. Charlie had to know. She would have to tell him.
Tonight, she resolved, smearing the cigarette butt with her shoe, a black smudge the shape of an X.
* * *
*
But it turned out she didn’t need to.
Just before the late-afternoon crush, Dara was heading to the back office when she heard his voice.
“Who do you think you are,” Charlie was saying, a laugh in his voice, light and delicious like she seldom heard anymore, “Isadora Duncan?”
Dara stood outside the door for a moment. That laugh, that tone—it reminded her of the sneaky elation they once felt, after the grief over their parents’ death, after a year or more of nightly check-ins from Madame Sylvie and quarterly visits from the nice woman with the thick brown shoes from Child Protective Services. Suddenly, they were grown-ups, with an entire big house to themselves, and they’d spend those evenings, bodies loose and muscles springy and hot, making pots of spaghetti they’d barely eat, drinking party-store wine, trying on their mother’s dressing gowns, Charlie wearing that foil top hat from the party-store spin rack.
She opened the door just as Charlie’s hand reached out, his fingers tangling in the fringe on Marie’s scarf.
“Dara,” Charlie said, straightening himself. “You’re just in time. Can you remind your sister of Isadora’s fate?” He made a jerking motion across his neck.
Dara winced. A hangman’s fracture. There were so many ways to injure yourself. Like poor Isadora, one of her famous long scarves caught in the wheels of a car.
“I’m not afraid,” Marie said, smiling faintly, moving away from Charlie, smoothing her scarf, untangling its fringe. “Of that, at least.”
“Your back must be feeling better,” Dara said to Charlie, reaching for his mug and dumping his tea bag into the trash, cold tea splashing.
“Stop!” Marie let out a gasp and Dara looked over in time to see Charlie yanking Marie’s hideous scarf free. (“Free Marie! Liberate the neck!”)
Charlie, teasing Marie like he used to years ago in dance class, calling her Snap-Crackle because of the way her hips used to pop-pop-pop.
Abruptly, Charlie froze, Marie’s scarf still in his hand, drooping and forlorn.
Dara turned and saw too. Marie, the marks on Marie. On her neck this time, and fresh. They were violet and obscene. Dara couldn’t stop looking at them. Fleshy dabs from Derek’s fleshy thumbs. Like little Jack Horner, his finger in the pie.
“Jesus,” Charlie said, voice low. “Did Tessa Shen kick-spin you again?”