But Dara was in no mood, her phone hot in her hand.
“I saw you,” she said. “In my sister’s car this morning. I think you saw me. That’s why you drove off.”
He paused a second, then seemed to gather himself, to put on something like a mask, his features softening, a smile forming itself—easy and winning.
“Guilty as charged,” he said, hands in the air. “Your house interests me.”
Dara’s hand shook, the cigarette ashing. She wished she hadn’t started things. Now it was too late.
“We’re not interested in your thoughts about our house,” Dara said.
“Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I know that house is special to you. But it could be so much more. Maybe you’re too close to see it.”
“We fell for your upsell once,” Dara said. “Not again.”
Derek smiled, his teeth like an accordion, unstretched.
“No upsell. I promise. You know, I own some properties downriver. It’s in my interest to keep my eye on the market. I did some research. A hobby of mine. That’s a house with marquee value. High ceilings. Original plaster, that big old fireplace, louvered doors, good light if you ever pulled back those Addams Family drapes over there,” he said. “Sure, we’d have to knock down a lot of walls—that house is all walls. We build out a big open modern kitchen, en suite bathrooms . . .”
“We’re not knocking down any walls,” Dara said, throwing her cigarette to the ground. “And how do you know so much about our house? You’ve never been inside it.”
“I know what Marie’s told me.”
“What did she tell you?” Dara demanded.
But Derek was already talking over her, insisting, “I’ve been in other houses just like it. You lift the ceiling, lose those old beams, strip out the wooden window sashes and panes, install modern ones. Strip out the knotty pine and all this old-fashioned gingerbread trim. People don’t want that. They want things new and shiny, like the wrapping’s still on. We take that big old drafty coffin and make it look new and shiny, you know what happens?
“We all get rich as cream.”
Dara felt something cold pass up her body, her cigarette tightening in her hand.
“There is no we here,” she said.
“No?” Derek said, moving closer to her. Moving very close and lowering his voice, a sudden confidence. “Because there’s only room for three in a marriage?”
Dara felt herself stumble back one, two steps.
“If you’re under the impression that we have any interest in ever working with you again—” she started.
“I know it’s tricky,” he said quickly, smiling again. “Family stuff always is. I didn’t mean to step on any toes. Excuse the pun.”
Dara threw her cigarette to the pavement and moved past him.
“Worked out pretty good for you and Charlie, though,” he said, his smile going flat now. “Marie moves out and now you two are sitting on a pot of gold, aren’t you? Why not work together, make that pot even bigger?”
Dara began walking away.
“Hey, I don’t judge,” he said as she walked to the fire exit. “And I respect a smart dealmaker.”
Dara pulled open the old metal door, a gust of steam-heated air in her face. She could picture Marie, her lips pressed to his ear. What had she told him; it could be anything.
“I don’t judge,” Derek repeated. “I only look for new opportunities, new partnerships.”
Inside now, she rested herself flat against the door, the cigarette stealing her breath.
* * *
*
Where is she?” Dara asked, moving among the seven-and eight-year-olds spilling from the changing room, little-girl sweat that smelled oddly sweet, their mouths open and aching for air. “Where’s Mademoiselle Durant?”
“She let us go,” a braided redhead lisped. “She said we’d worked hard enough.”
A dubious look fell across her face and Dara sighed, moving toward the back office.
* * *
*
Why are you doing this?” she said to Marie, finding her perched on the fire escape.
“Doing what?” Marie said.
“He was in your car this morning.”
“My car is his car,” she said, her hand on her thigh, a new bruise there, red and tight. “He can do anything he wants with it.”
“Like stalking our house?”
Marie paused, clamping her fingers over her toes. This was news to her sister. Dara could tell.
“What did you tell him about the house?” Dara asked. “He seemed to know an awful lot about it. You know there’s no way we’d ever hire him to do anything after this. You know damn well we’d never sell that house.”
Marie was looking at her thigh, pressing her fingers into the bruise. Her fingers where his had been, her eyes closing.
“Marie,” Dara said, “he’s using you. He wants something.”
He has something he wants. He’ll hold it close until he’s ready.
“Everyone,” Marie said, staring at her bruise, stroking it with one finger, “wants something. Even you.”
“What did you tell him?” Dara said, more loudly now. “About the house.”
“I tell him everything, Dara,” she said. “I tell him everything he wants to know. Everything he asks.”
“He’s a thief.”
“And what are you?”
The question felt like a sharp smack. “What does that mean?” Dara said. “Marie, you wanted out. You wanted the money. And you don’t even live there anymore.”
But Marie only smiled mysteriously, smugly.
Dara reached out and grabbed her sister’s face in her hand. She held it tight, Marie’s eyes big with surprise, fear. It was something their mother had done, and only a few times but enough that they never forgot it.
“You’re lucky,” Dara said, her voice strange and heavy, “I don’t throw you down those stairs. You’re lucky I don’t kick you out of this studio, our school. Our life. Everything you have is because of me. You don’t have anything of your own. You have nothing.”
The words kept coming and both of them couldn’t wait for them to stop.
* * *
*
After, Dara locked herself in the powder room, her shoulders shaking. She couldn’t leave, couldn’t let anyone see.
She hated this feeling, this wild thing inside. Something was inside her.
Control yourself, she thought. For god’s sake, control yourself.
* * *
*
He’s brainwashing her,” Dara said that night. “Trying to convince her we . . . took something from her.”
“Dara,” Charlie said, touching her wrist, “he can’t do anything we don’t want to. It’s our house.”
She looked at him. She was thinking of the things she hadn’t told him. The implication that Marie somehow had the house taken away. And those insinuations. For years, the three of you playing house. Kinda an odd setup.
“He said other things too.”
Charlie paused a second, his body stiffening. “What kinds of things?”
Dara paused, looking at Charlie’s back, its beautiful shape, its secret fragility.
“Never mind,” she said. “I don’t remember.”
But Charlie was no longer listening, staring at a piece of paper.
“What is it?”
“I called to see why we still haven’t received any checks from the insurance company,” he said, brow tight.
“And?”
“Apparently,” Charlie said, not looking at her, “we did.”
“Apparently? Did you deposit them?”
“The money doesn’t go to us,” Charlie said, still reading the paper in his hand. “In these cases.”
“What cases? Who does it go to?” even as she felt a sinking feeling inside.
“To the contractor.”
“Wait, why? We would never agree to that.”
But it turned out they had.
Charlie handed her the piece of paper. A copy of a form that read “Assignment of Benefits.” Dara recognized it. Remembered telling him to give it to Charlie. Charlie signed for everything.
“He said it was standard,” Charlie said, shaking his head helplessly.
“So it all went straight into his pocket,” Dara said, feeling her body sinking, too, a weight hovering inside. “All the insurance money so far. It’s all his.”