A BUTCHER’S THUMB
The next morning, Dara and Charlie arrived at seven and saw an unfamiliar car in the lot, its girth straddling two spots. So new it still had the window sticker.
Low slung and burnt orange, it was impossible to miss. It looked, obscurely, like a big, wide thumb. Like Derek’s thick tanned thumb, a butcher’s thumb. That’s what their father would have called it. Outsized and curved like a scythe. There was something obscene about it.
“Derek,” Dara said, approaching the car.
“But he drives a truck . . .” Charlie started, his voice trailing off.
“He told her to do it,” Dara said, peeking in the car windows, smoked and ridiculous, “and she did it.”
She looked up at the building, all the way up to the third-floor dormer window.
“Marie!” Dara called out. “Sister dearest!”
“Dara,” Charlie cautioned, hand on Dara’s shoulder. “Dara, don’t—”
“Marie, explain yourself!”
Explain yourself, the words echoed in her head, their mother’s old dictum—to tardy students, to disruptive ones. Sometimes, when she was feeling dangerous, to their father. That time she found him passed out in the garage, seated behind the wheel, having driven home from his local, high on Molson and maple whiskey. The car still on, the garage full of exhaust.
Explain yourself, she kept saying over and over, pounding the car window with the heel of her hand. Dara, standing behind their mother, watched him shake himself awake, his handsome chin and jaw streaked with vomit, something.
Explain yourself and nearly crying as she said it and Dara would never forget the look on her father’s face: One of bewilderment and shame. One that would turn in moments to something else, jumping out of the car, pulling their mother by the hair—her long, shining swoop—even as she didn’t stop. Explain yourself, explain yourself.
Who, Marie once said, an aside to Dara, could ever explain oneself?
“This car,” Charlie was saying, walking around the vehicle, “looks really expensive.”
But Dara was barely listening. Neck arched, she gazed up at the third floor again, feeling suddenly drunk in the frigid morning, her wool cap covering her ears, the heat in her face and the dizziness of gazing up, up, up.
“Explain yourself!”
Bam! The dormer window popped open at last and Marie’s bombshell-blond hair shaking itself loose, Marie’s fox face eyeing her. The look on it, gloating.
It’s mine, she seemed to say. All mine.
“It’s mine,” she then said, smiling proudly. “All mine.”
* * *
*
There’s no way she can afford this,” Charlie said. “Is there?”
“No,” Dara said.
* * *
*
Maybe it was in the air, Dara would think later. The feeling of recklessness, profligacy. Because that afternoon, Dr. Weston took Dara aside to bemoan The Nutcracker fees, larger this year to account for new costumes to replace the most threadbare ones, some of the tulle stiff and cracked with age, for the repairs to the backdrop and the elaborate and tumescent Christmas tree. The increase in the facility agreement, the payroll.
Operating the wet-vac nearby, Benny gave her a sympathetic look as Dr. Weston went on and on about how the fees should be a sliding scale based on the roles their children were granted.
After, she found Charlie at his desk, making a list of delinquent parents who had yet to ante up for some holiday magic.
“Good thing Dr. Weston doesn’t know this,” Charlie said, looking at his paper. “Our Clara’s mama hasn’t paid her share.”
“Mrs. Bloom?” Dara asked.
“Mrs. Bloom of the emerald-green Mercedes,” Charlie said. “I’ll call her.”
“No,” Dara said, “I will.”
Charlie looked at her. “You’re not going to ask her about last night, are you? We need her to pay up.”
“She’ll pay up,” Dara said, swiping the number from his hand.
Besides, she needed to talk to Mrs. Bloom anyway, about Bailey. Nervous, fearful Bailey, who began Nutcracker season with a throng of friendly classmates happy to braid her bun, to invite her for hot chocolate at Dreusser’s after class, and who now faced straight pins in her shoes, ketchup on the crotch of her stowed leotard, cold stares around the rehearsal space.
Poor Bailey, who now stood, like Clara, on the dark stage alone.
* * *
*
But when Dara tried to call Mrs. Bloom, a recording asserted, The number you have dialed is not in service. . . . On some old paperwork, she found a landline number from years ago. But when Dara tried it, a recording announced, This number is no longer in service or has been disconnected. . . .
* * *
*
After rehearsal, Dara asked Bailey if she could help her get in touch with her mother. But the girl kept insisting she didn’t have the number, didn’t know it. She looked embarrassed.
“Bailey,” Dara said, “we need to be able to contact her.”
“But why?” Bailey said, twitching in the costume, Clara’s filmy nightgown, which she would have to wear in the nightmare scene. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” Dara said, and from the corner of her eye she saw a shadow in the doorway. Smelled that thick, sweet smell of his aftershave, the menthol snap of his vape.
“I’m still gonna be Clara, right?” Bailey asked, her eyes glossy.
“Of course,” Dara said, her eyes on the shadow. Why is he hovering here?
Bailey nodded cautiously, then shook the staticky nightgown from her tights and began spinning, pirouetting, her hair coming loose from its pins.
Dara looked over at the doorway, but Derek, if he’d been there, was gone.
* * *
*
Within the hour, Dara’s phone illuminated with a private number.
It was Mrs. Bloom, her voice slight and careful.
“I understand you’re trying to reach me,” she said quickly. “If it’s about my . . . obligation . . .”
It was all a little embarrassing. Dara assured her that everything could be settled simply.
“Surely it’s just an oversight because you’re such an ardent supporter of The Nutcracker. But it seems you’ve also missed the last billing cycle for classes too.”
There was a pause on the other end. Dara could hear Mrs. Bloom breathing. Little, short breaths like a nervous animal.
“Yes, well,” Mrs. Bloom said, clearing her throat, “I’m a little cash poor right now. The house—there were repairs.”
“Yes, I know. We have the same contractor, remember? You rec—”
“How long will he be there?” Mrs. Bloom said. “Is he . . . how long do you expect it to go on?”
“The dust, I know,” Dara said. “I’m sorry about that. We’ve had some setbacks. A flood. So we’re a little behind. But I assure you, we want it over as soon as possible.”
“Is he there now?” Mrs. Bloom said, her voice newly low, husky.
“Um, yes,” Dara said, finding herself lowering her voice too.
“I should go,” she said abruptly. “I have to go.” Her voice almost forlorn, like her daughter’s. I’m still gonna be Clara, right?
“Mrs. Bloom,” Dara said quickly, “did I see you last night? In the studio parking lot?”
There was a choked sound from the other end of the phone.
“Me?” Mrs. Bloom said. “Oh, no.”
“Because I thought I saw you. At Derek’s truck. You were—”
“His truck,” Mrs. Bloom said bitterly. “Hardly.”
“Pardon?”
There was a brief silence, Mrs. Bloom breathing antically.
Then saying softly, “Is it true about Mademoiselle Durant?”
“Is what true?” Dara said, her head throbbing now. Afraid of what Mrs. Bloom might say, might mean.
“That she . . . she went blond?”
At that moment, the thundering wet-vac in Studio B started up again, the lights flickering with the surge.
“Mrs. Bloom,” Dara said, raising her voice, holding the earpiece close, “is there something you want to tell me?”
The whisper came frantic, tight, the words sliding together: “Listen to me. Listen.”