Dark Turns

by Cate Holahan

  17

  En Avant [ah na-VAHN]

  Forward. Used to indicate that a given step is executed moving forward.

  Joseph stretched alone on the far side of the classroom, glowering at his reflection in the mirror. An aura of angry energy surrounded him. It warned against approach as clearly as bared teeth.

  He’d ignored Aubrey all class—not that the girl had exactly tried to talk to him. Word traveled fast on campus. Maybe he’d heard about Aubrey’s night—or, at least, that she’d left campus without him. Nia wondered who would have ratted her out. She and Peter certainly weren’t sharing a story about bringing back a drunk, underage teenager and then failing to report her behavior to the dean.

  Aubrey had surprised Nia by sweeping in five minutes early, arranged like a perfect bouquet of cream and pink, skin rubbed clean, a hint of gloss moistening her lips. She had walked toward Joseph, as usual. He’d immediately crossed to the other side of the room. Aubrey had then continued on toward Marta, as if the virtual stranger had been her intended target the whole time. She’d settled down beside the girl and said something to make her smile. During class, she’d whispered what appeared to be pointers, resulting in one of Marta’s better practices. Aubrey would say something and the girl’s stomach would tighten in, her butt would lift.

  Aubrey had also been extra nice to Lydia. After Ms. V left the room in Nia’s care for stretching, Aubrey had offered to push Lydia’s leg higher to aid with the arabesque. Lydia had eagerly taken her up on the offer.

  Aubrey’s helpfulness annoyed Nia. She wanted the teen to be so overtly disrespectful that Battle or even Ms. V could easily believe their prima-in-training’s self-destructive behavior. As it stood, Aubrey’s in-class attitude made the prior night’s events sound like exaggerations at best and fabrications at worst.

  Nia glanced at the clock. Two more minutes until class ended. She wouldn’t have to stomach Aubrey’s false alter ego much longer.

  Talia struggled with a full split against the wall. Nia knelt beside her and pushed her palms against the girl’s back, forcing Talia’s long legs to spread along the painted cement. “You almost have it.”

  The girl grunted as her pelvis pressed closer to the wall. Her breathing quickened. A small “ow” escaped.

  Nia patted her shoulder. “All right.” She looked around the room for anyone else that needed her help. Alexei and June gossiped as he pushed a bony knee into her back, forcing her legs into a wider split against the mirrors.

  “It’s the lamest excuse. You’re in Claremont to meet with some girl during move-in weekend? I don’t think so.”

  “Well, maybe he was. She was killed Saturday evening, right? Her roommate last saw her around four, I think. Saturday night is date night. Theo could have gone to Claremont, even though it’s a bit far. It’s a cute town. It has nice restaurants. The train from the city goes straight there.”

  “You are hopeless. If he was there meeting someone, don’t you think they would have come forward?”

  Nia moved away from them. She could only hear so much about Theo’s arrest. The media loved the case, but Nia had yet to watch a program that really delved into the facts. Most flashed pretty photos of Lauren and let “experts” pontificate about teenage privilege and rage. To her knowledge, the police hadn’t released an official time of death. But Saturday made sense. Peter had said that Theo’s inability to prove his whereabouts Saturday evening had been one of the reasons for his arrest.

  Nia glanced at the clock. The next period would start in ten minutes. She clapped her hands. “All right. Good practice, everyone. Good stretching. See you all tomorrow.”

  The students rose from various positions on the floor. They put away their ballet shoes and began shuffling from the room. Joseph went first. He clearly didn’t want to spend any more time in Aubrey’s presence than necessary. Surprisingly, Aubrey followed him. She sped up, squeezed in between the T twins and ran out the door behind him, as if late for a class.

  Marta watched, undoubtedly aware she couldn’t slip between the twins fast enough to catch her new friend. She fidgeted with her pointe shoes, bending the front of her foot as if breaking them in, as if she’d never expected to walk out next to the girl with whom she’d spent nearly the entire class.

  Lydia, Kim, and Suzanne followed the T twins out the door. June and Alexei whispered as they walked behind. The boy folded to say something in June’s ear as they entered the doorway. She responded with a glance around the twins’ shoulders and then pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Nia wondered whether it was about Aubrey and Joseph. Anyone could sense the tension between them. Alexei would probably know why by morning. The boy was a node in the gossip network.

  Too bad Theo hadn’t been nice to him. If Theo really had gone to Claremont Saturday—and not the boathouse—Alexei would be able to sniff out someone who’d seen him. But he wasn’t motivated to confirm Theo’s alibi.

  Marta finished swapping her toe shoes for navy trainers. She started out the door. She looked thinner now than three days ago. Still not like a dancer, but much less swollen. Amazing how fast the weight came off. When had she had the abortion? Just Saturday.

  The realization tingled through Nia’s body like a coming cramp. Marta had been in Claremont at the same time as Theo. He’d been the student she’d seen at the bus stop outside the clinic.

  “Hey, Marta, can you wait a second?”

  The girl stopped feet from the doorway. She pivoted just enough so Nia could see the side of her face. “Um, I have class.”

  “I know. I just have a question.” Nia lowered her voice. Ms. V sat in her adjoining office. The instructor’s door remained open.

  “Did you see Theo that Saturday night when—”

  “What?” Marta’s eyes darted around the room. She grabbed her forearms and rubbed as though she were cold. “Why would you ask that?”

  Nia stepped closer and dropped her voice another decibel. “He says he was off campus on Saturday when Lauren disappeared, and some people are saying he went to Claremont. You’d told me that you saw a classmate at the bus station that night so you had to walk to a farther one. Did you see Theo?”

  Marta’s eyelashes fluttered. She shook her head no. The jitteriness of her movements said otherwise.

  “Marta, if you saw him, you really should come forward.”

  The girl’s bottom lip trembled. A hinge creaked somewhere behind them. Ms. V had opened her door wider.

  “Did you see him?”

  Marta stared in the direction of the dance teacher’s room. “I’ve really got to go to class. Can I talk to you later?”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Around seven o’clock? When people are at dinner.”

  Nia tried to read Marta’s tense face. Had she suggested a meeting because she wanted to confess to seeing Theo or because she feared any mention of the abortion in public? Nia looked over her shoulder at Ms. V’s cracked door. She wouldn’t get the answer now with the dance instructor able to poke her head into the room at any moment.

  “I have a choreography meeting during dinner. How about eight?”

  “Fine. Eight.”

  Marta ran into the hallway. Nia turned back to the cubby where her duffle bag lay and sat beside the stack of wooden boxes.

  Ms. V emerged from her office. “Marta was here late.”

  “She’s trying hard to get back into shape.”

  “And she wanted pointers?”

  Nia pulled off her pointe shoes. She examined her toes through the white dance stocking. “She hopes we will give her a few more weeks before we make any decisions about casting the fall show.”

  Ms. V frowned. Her skin fell into deep crevices around her mouth, as though practiced in the expression. “I’m afraid that, after we cast, that’s it. She shouldn’t have let herself go during the summer. Dance isn’t an elective. It’s a lifestyle.”

  The teacher returned to her office. Nia slipped her fingers in the nyl
on’s oval opening beneath the arch of her foot. She pulled the stocking back over her toes, exposing her foot to the air. She separated her scrunched toes from one another.

  Nia relished the familiarity of the tights and leotard. Dance pants and tank tops didn’t allow the same freedom. She’d run out of clean leggings and hadn’t had time to do the laundry. Fortunately, when she’d shown up to class in the traditional gear, Ms. V hadn’t said anything about it being too revealing. Hopefully, she wouldn’t say anything to Battle.

  She slipped the stocking back over her foot and shoved it into a sneaker. She put on its mate and then stood, ready to return to her lonely dorm to eat a solitary salad. Maybe she should invite Peter to grab something with her. He would be awake. He taught that poetry elective on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Of course, if he didn’t want to see her romantically again, suggesting lunch risked face-to-face rejection. She imagined how he would do it. Sorry, Nia. All of Aubrey’s talk last night made me realize that it’s not wise for us to date. It’s a distraction for the students. But I really like you and want to remain friends.

  Nia caught her reflection in the mirrored wall. She admired her long, defined legs and tiny waist, the ample chest pressed between sloping shoulders. She wanted someone to appreciate her body as Dimitri once had, someone who would be excited by the sight of her lean muscles and what she could do with them. Not Dimitri, but someone like him. Someone more mature. She wanted Peter.

  She pulled the pins from her bun. Waves cascaded down her back. She tousled her mane until it took on the unkempt yet done appearance of lingerie model hair. She headed out the door. Maybe Peter didn’t want to see her again. But she’d do what she could to make that hard on him.

  Last night’s warmth had melted into a cool morning. She jogged to shake the chill.

  The stone buildings of the boys’ quad resembled a fortress. She walked into the grassy square. A few male students rushed across the lawn, backpacks weighing on their shoulders. They were nearly late. First period would start in five minutes.

  Nia approached the boys’ dorm. As she ascended the stairs, she realized a flaw in her plan to surprise Peter: she couldn’t open the door and there was nobody around to let her in. She had to phone him.

  She dug into her purse. Her fingers passed a compact, lip gloss, and eyeliner, all thrown in last night. She touched the hard plastic of the wallet that held her ID, credit card, and a single folded twenty-dollar bill. Finally, she hit the smooth screen of her phone.

  The door flung open. A young man burst from the entryway and shot past her. She caught the door just before it closed.

  The inside of the boys’ residence was only slightly less dim than she remembered. A few artificial lights lay embedded in the ceiling like insect eyes. They couldn’t make up for the lack of natural light. She navigated down the hallway from memory. Peter’s room was on the right, just before the hallway ended in a T.

  A girl’s giggle echoed somewhere beyond her. The ID rules really did fail to separate the sexes.

  A familiar male chuckle answered the young laugh. Peter rounded the corner with a student behind him. The girl looked maybe fifteen, with long dark hair and a body that Nia swore could fit inside her own. Puberty had yet to spread the girl’s hips and widen her torso into anything resembling adult sized. The girl tilted her head as she gazed at Peter like he was a teen pop star instead of an unpublished English professor, nearly two decades her senior.

  “When Emerson writes, ‘Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, / Of thee from the hill-top looking down,’ he is saying that animals are not thinking about how others will see their actions and implying, of course, that neither should we. We should enjoy the beauty around us.”

  The girl stopped and tossed her hair. “I totally agree,” she said.

  “Now what do you think he meant when he said, ‘Beauty is unripe childhood cheat’?”

  The girl’s tongue peaked from above her bottom lip, a deep-thought reflex or, perhaps, another Lolita gesture. Either way, she held Peter’s attention. The girl glanced away while she searched for an answer. Nia met her blue eyes.

  The teen almost blushed. “Oh, um, I think my RA is here.”

  Nia didn’t know the girl. But she wasn’t surprised at the recognition. A JPEG of her ID photograph had been included in the grief-counseling e-mail.

  Peter’s head snapped in Nia’s direction. She became aware that her hands rested on her hips. She wondered whether anything besides her stance betrayed her disapproval.

  “Well, think about that, Megan. We’ll discuss next class.”

  “I think he meant—”

  “You better get going.” Peter stepped away from the student toward Nia. “Class has already started.”

  The girl’s tongue retreated. She gave each RA a hard stare and then tossed her head back in Peter’s direction. “It’s cool. I have your note.”

  “The note excuses a little lateness, not a missed period. We’ll talk in class.”

  The girl’s head straightened from its coy tilt. She raised the book bag strap from her forearm to her shoulder. She strode past Peter.

  He smiled. The expression had a sheepish quality. “Hey, you,” he said.

  The door slammed. He rubbed the back of his neck. His bicep flexed from the short sleeve of a navy shirt. The color, coupled with the light khaki pants, made him resemble the students. Was that his goal? To appear like just another Wallace kid?

  “I hoped I might see you,” he said. “I didn’t get to say a proper good-night.”

  “I wanted to ask if you could grab a bite before your afternoon classes. But I can see you’re busy.”

  Nia pivoted like one of the Nutcracker’s toy soldiers. She headed toward the door.

  “Don’t be that way. That’s not fair.”

  Fingers curled around her bicep. Peter pulled her toward him. The pressure of his hand nearly hurt.

  “Come on. What? You think I like prepubescent girls?” Two lines cut into the space between his brow. “Poetry class attracts some young romantics, and some of them develop little crushes on the male teacher reciting their favorites. That’s all.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  He winced. His hand fell from her arm. The anger melted from his face. He looked sad.

  She’d made him that way. Why? What had she really seen? A teacher doing his job? Guilt swelled inside her. “Peter, I—”

  “You know what? Just go.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His brow lowered as if waiting for some sarcastic punch line: I’m sorry you’re such a terrible person. I’m sorry I’m such a bad judge of character.

  “I get that she was the one flirting. After last night with Aubrey throwing herself at you—”

  “I don’t want little girls.”

  “What do you want?”

  He grabbed her waist. His lips pressed against her mouth. His tongue forced its way inside.

  She closed her eyes as she returned the kiss. He tasted of bergamot and black tea. His skin smelled of grass, herbs, and a citrusy-mint. She didn’t recall the cologne from the prior night.

  His hands slid beneath her butt and lifted. She wrapped her legs around his waist. They continued to kiss as he carried her to his room.

  Her back hit the door. Light enveloped her as the wood gave way. He pulled at the fabric clinging to her skin, searching for a button or a zipper. She lowered a pointed foot to the ground and then unwound the leg remaining around his waist. His hands fell on her shoulders. He pushed the leotard to her forearms. Her breasts burst from the Lycra, assuming their full, round shape. His thumbs brushed her ribs and then slipped beneath the seam of the tights. His lips grazed her neck as he pushed the clothing to her hips.

  She stepped back from him into the free space between the couch and the bed. She slipped out of the clothing, leaving only a black thong covering her nakedness. His eyes rolled over her body then returned to her face.

  “God, yo
u are beautiful.”

  His fingertips caressed her chest, then her stomach. They traced her ribs and the sharp indent of her waist. His hands slipped beneath the strings fastening the thong to her body.

  “You’re still dressed,” she whispered.

  He unbuttoned his collar and ripped the shirt over his head, exposing a defined chest with developed pectorals, more pronounced than those on the average male dancer’s body. He unzipped. His boxer shorts, pants, and shoes fell to the floor in one fluid motion. A line cut into both his thighs, dividing the lateral muscle from the thick femur.

  His hands returned to her thong. He pulled down the flimsy material and kissed her where it had covered. The act electrified her body. She moaned.

  His hands pressed into her buttocks. She threw her head back as his thumbs moved to her inner thighs. She ran her fingers through his hair, freeing the strands that always fell into his eyes. Her body shuddered as he continued to work between her legs.

  She touched his face and pushed against his chin, encouraging him to rise before dropping to return the favor. Her breasts pressed against his muscled thighs. She didn’t need to excite him. He was ready.

  “No,” he said. “I want you.”

  She draped herself on Peter’s bed while he ripped a condom free from its wrapper. A moment later, he was on top of her. The first time was a release, after the prior night’s sexual frustration and Nia’s year of forced celibacy. The second round was for showing off. Nia got him excited and then tried out different positions, displaying the flexibility she’d earned from fifteen years of dance.

  When they’d finished, Nia felt girlish, giddy, and tired—the good kind, like after a particularly satisfying workout. Peter touched her hair, a goofy look on his face. His lips pecked her nose.

  “You must have class soon,” she said.

  Peter kissed her neck. “I’ll call in sick. I’m sick.”

  She rose from the bed and onto the floor. She bent to retrieve her thong. It lay just under the bed, discarded like a dust cloth. A hand squeezed her butt.