He was saying things about Marie, and how they had to get her, had to go in and pull her out like she had fallen into quicksand, but hadn’t she?
Staring out at the darkness ahead, Dara could almost see her there, in the distance. Marie, emerging from the pitch black, waving her hands above her head like an SOS and crying.
Like Clara in her nightgown on the blackened stage, lost in her dream world, no way out, no way home.
* * *
*
The fog made everything shimmer.
The third-floor window of the studio glowed like a church steeple and below Derek’s truck glowed, too, a brilliant black marble alongside the hot candle of Marie’s car.
Everything looked slightly exaggerated, like the time Dara tried on another girl’s glasses and the world instantly drew into unimaginable focus. (Haven’t you had your eyes checked lately? the girl asked and Dara didn’t dare tell her, No, never.)
She couldn’t wait to take off the glasses, everything too bright, too sharp, everything hurting her eyes. Does the world look like this?
Charlie was ahead of her, a streak of white across the asphalt. His body moving as she hadn’t seen it in years, since before his injuries, since the days their mother would sigh and whisper, comme une panthère . . .
* * *
*
Inside, the gust of sawdust, sealants, spray foam everywhere, the radiators chugging, Charlie called out for Marie.
As they charged toward the back office, Derek emerged from the mouth at the top of the spiral stairs.
“Who’s there?” he called out as he wended down, the staircase vibrating beneath him. Dara feeling it under her feet, up her spine.
And then Marie emerged from behind him. An old cardigan wrapped around her, her legs bare and her feet, too, forever pink and pulpy.
Slowly, slowly she descended, her feet nearly missing every step, her eyes stunned, glossy.
* * *
*
It was hard to believe it was happening, the radiator filling the small space with gasps of heat, the smell of burning things, forgotten cigarettes on the windowsill, mittens left too long on the radiator pipes, the stench, still, of Marie’s tortured space heater, the fire that started it all.
“Now, what’s this all about?” Derek asked, picking up the old metal bill holder from their mother’s desk, spinning the wooden base with his meaty fingers. So much performance, Dara thought. So much stagecraft, this con artist, this swindler.
* * *
*
Did you think,” Dara was asking Marie, who had curled up in a corner, sweater and underpants, her legs red and scaly, “we’d just give it over to you, to him? Our family home. Like you gave away everything else.”
“What? No. That’s not—” Marie started, but then Derek lifted his arm in front of her, and Marie’s mouth closed.
It made Dara, suddenly, so sad. Seeing Marie’s mouth close.
Suddenly, Dara wanted to cry from it.
“Look, let’s just settle down here, friends,” Derek was saying, his thick fingers around the bill holder’s spike. “I think there’s been a little misunderstanding. And maybe a little alcohol.”
He was looking at Charlie and she knew he could smell it on him, all that wine, the jug from the fridge empty when they left. The room so small and Charlie’s face red from it.
“Charlie, my friend,” he said, “you’re the business corner of this little triangle, right? You’re the sweat and spit behind the Durant School of Dance. So I present this to you as a business opportunity. We can make that house of yours into a pot of gold. It’s not too late for us all to partner up. But it will be soon.”
“We’re not interested,” Charlie said. He had an expression that made Dara nervous, his jaw rigid.
“But your sister is,” Derek said. “And she’s the one who gets to decide, right?”
Like that first day, Dara thought. Derek asking them who decides and Marie, mute for the entire meeting, insisting, I do. I decide.
Except now she was silent, her head bowed, her cardigan slipping, her bare body beneath smeared with acid-bright bruises, baggy blisters, stage scars, a painter’s palette.
Oh, Marie, but you wanted it . . . you let him in. You whispered all our secrets in his ear.
“She’s a partner in the business,” Charlie said. “But not in the house. She sold her share.”
“She sold her share, you say?” Derek asked, wrapping his hand around the bill holder again, splaying his big jointy knuckles.
“You know she did,” Dara said.
“Are you sure?” he said. “Because, from what I hear, you gave her an itty-bitty amount of money. A few table scraps to get her out of your hair, but are you sure that was all aboveboard? I’m just curious because, according to the county register, there’s no record of a transfer of property.”
Ah, Dara thought, here it is. The call from earlier that day.
“Are you talking about your attempt to defraud us?” she said.
Derek’s eyebrows lifted.
“I know you called them,” Dara continued. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Not me,” Derek said, looking over at Marie. “She.”
Dara’s eyes darted to Marie, her head still bowed. Dara wanted to strangle her.
“You need to leave,” said Charlie, his face flushing now. His body tightening before Dara’s eyes.
Derek smiled grimly, shaking his head. “I read up on this. A little legal concept. Undue influence. Do you know it? It’s when a trusted person uses said influence to get another person, a vulnerable person, to sign over their rights.”
“I’m sure you know everything about undue influence,” Dara said. She could feel herself ramping up to something, an excitement in her chest. “You saw how she was that very first day. You saw your mark and you swooped in. And look at her now.”
They all turned to Marie, her bare-legged crouch. Her hands flew to her face like when she was ten, shutting her eyes, plugging her ears like they were still in their bunkbed, hearing everything, seeing everything, their father yelling, their father crying.
“They’re doing it again,” Marie said, turning to Derek. “They’re doing it.”
“What are we doing?” Charlie asked Marie, a stunned look on his face. Stumbling toward her now. “Jesus Christ, Marie—”
And Marie’s face folding ever so slightly, her hand trembling toward Charlie just as Derek swooped in.
“I don’t think you get it, friend,” he said, moving in between them as if Charlie were threatening Marie, as if Derek were the gallant. “What belongs to Marie belongs to me. You steal from her, you steal from me.”
“Jesus, Marie,” Dara said, “don’t you see what he’s doing?”
“Don’t talk to her,” Derek said. “Talk to me. If you’re not interested in a partnership, then we’re gonna have to make a deal. Some kind of arrangement. A reparation of sorts. For how little you paid Marie the first time.”
So that was it, Dara thought. Right in the open at last.
“No,” Marie said, turning to Derek, voice rising, her hands fisted. “This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted out. Out. Out. Out. It took me thirty years to get out of that house. Thirty years and I . . .”
Dara moved toward her. “Marie . . .”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Marie said, moving toward the spiral staircase, Dara following. “I think I’m going to be so sick.”
* * *
*
On the third floor, Dara stood over Marie, Marie retching rusty saliva into a wire trash can, her voice scraping.
It was so strange being up there again after all these months, her eyes scanning the dark space—all their mother’s things from when this space was hers, her hideaway: the gooseneck lamp, the brittle old futon, their father’s pilling Pendleton flung across.
“Dara, I didn’t know. I didn’t know how bad it was. I . . .”
“Stop it,” said Dara, her ears ringing, all of it too much.
She didn’t want to be up there anymore, or ever, the heavy scent of bodies, of Derek’s body. Of Marie’s. Like sharing a room all those years, knowing even the smell of her tampons, stuffed in the trash. And most of all, the smell still of their mother’s Blue Carnation perfume.
Mother . . .
“Stop it,” Dara repeated, turning away, “while we clean up your mess.”
* * *