The Turnout

by Megan Abbott

  Marie. Marie. What did he do to you?

  Marie. What have you done.

  * * *

  * * *

  Dara hid in the stairwell, palms clammy, mind racing, until she heard a door closing, the fan in the powder room burring to life. Marie’s footsteps like a feral cat’s claws on smooth wood. She imagined it. Marie in the powder room, its fan wailing now, a spin and tug of the towel dispenser. Marie cleaning herself, running a scratchy towel between her trembling thighs. Marie dirty. Dirty Marie.

  I like the pink, she thought suddenly, then covered her mouth. She might be sick.

  Minutes passed. Dara hurried, head down, to the back office. Then came the sudden, piercing fuzz of a drill, and, moments later, the hum of Benny’s motor scooter outside, the chattering of arriving students, some mild changing-room teasing of Bailey Bloom, that slippery whiff of a girl, now dubbed Bailey Boom after falling three times yesterday while practicing jumping from Clara’s bed, and, somehow, everything kept going.

  Within an hour, Dara was standing amid the whorls of smooth-haired girls in their pattering pink slippers, the “Waltz of the Flowers” plinking through the speakers, the crush of parents in overcoats with phones and tall cups of takeout coffee and hands reaching to smooth their daughters’ hair, to unstick the leotards from the clefts of their bottoms.

  * * *

  * * *

  All day, Dara taught in Studio C, barking instructions (I see rubber legs. They should be scissors!), adjusting the girls with her hands, shaping a foot, turning a leg, as the power saw next door thundered, the floor shaking from it. We can’t have this. We can’t do this. We must correct this.

  The girls’ teeth rattling, and their laughter, giddy and confused.

  All day, Dara taught, she made corrections, she issued commands.

  Get that leg behind. Eyes up. Rib cage closed. Chin up, lift, lift . . .

  She vowed to think about none of it, focusing instead on the rhythm of class, the unending, unbending flow of repetition. Tendu, front, side, back. The same Nutcracker movement, strings echoing jollily through the speaker. Il faut le répéter, as their mother always said, pour affiner.

  Still, it sat in her brain like a spider.

  Sneaking glances into Studio A. Sneaking glances at Marie, standing before her bumblebee throng of six-year-olds, their errant hands always running up and down the soft front of their leotards, their downy skin quilling beneath.

  Marie, with what seemed a slight curl of her lip as though smiling to herself. A slight tremor to her hands, the way she kept touching herself discreetly, her hand on her neck, her arm across her chest, brushing against her breasts.

  When Dara passed her at one point, she caught a whiff of it, of them. She covered her nose, her mouth.

  Marie at the mirror, teaching the little girls. But all Dara could think of was Marie in Studio B that morning, with her red, rubbed-raw knees and her plaster-spackled palms and that sly little smile on her face that made Dara feel hot and enraged.

  In Studio B, Benny and Gaspar had covered all the mirrors with some kind of protective film that looked like smoke. Like there was smoke everywhere from some kind of fire no one could see. Was that how Marie could do it? Could let her body—make her body—do those things with that man? She, who was trained, raised to make her body only do beautiful things.

  If she had caught a glimpse of herself, of him, could she have possibly let herself participate in such animal horrors?

  Her body crouching, his tan-mottled hands on her, his chest a big coffin, twisting and turning her, swiveling her around so roughly. Turning her inside out. Turning her out. That impeccable body—a golden hummingbird, she was called by the director of the regional ballet company they were invited to join and then, after two years of uneventful service in the corps, asked to leave—that exquisite body humiliated and grotesque. Revealing itself, laying itself so bare. Her golden throat stretched, her mouth open, begging for it.

  * * *

  * * *

  Madame Durant, like this?”

  Corbin Lesterio’s face pinched as he stood at the mirror, unhappy with himself, his perennial weakness a slight swayback, his pelvis tipped forward ever so little.

  “Tilt that tailbone down,” she said. It was her usual correction for him. Often, he corrected himself the minute he saw her head turn.

  “Can you,” he said, his voice cracking, “show me?”

  Dara paused, looking at his hips, his hips pressed too far forward. It would be so easy.

  “You know what to do,” Dara said. “Do it.”

  That was how their mother had been with her students. Aloof, remote. A marionette does not become a dancer, she used to say. She never touched her male students, their bodies, after age seven or eight. Never touch them once they’re old enough to know better. And, most of all, Never touch the ones who want to be touched.

  She stepped back to watch Corbin start again.

  It was only then that she saw Derek standing in the doorway. She wondered how long he’d been there, shaking soot from his hair.

  He had a look on his face she couldn’t place. Something smug, insinuating.

  I like the pink, she thought suddenly.

  “I need a signature,” he said, smiling a little. “For the insurance papers. Last one, I promise.”

  She caught a fleeting glance of the pages, another template agreement. This time titled “Assignment of Benefits.”

  “Ask Charlie,” Dara said, as firmly as she did with Corbin. “He’ll be back tomorrow. I told you to ask him.”

  * * *

  * * *

  I thought you said he wouldn’t be here much,” Dara said to Charlie, calling him after cutting her final class short, the hum of the power saw thundering through Studio B, setting the nervous twelve-year-olds on edge, their teeth chattering from the vibrations.

  “He’s always here,” Dara said. “Always.”

  “I guess he likes to be hands on.”

  Dara paused. No, she told herself. He couldn’t know. Because if he knew, he would feel like Dara felt. Except worse.

  “It’s just been a long day. The girls are picking on Bailey Bloom,” Dara said, dumping Nespresso into her chipped coffee cup, her hands shaking. “Usual Nutcracker bullshit.”

  “Fuck that Tchaikovsky guy,” Charlie said, making her smile, promising her he’d be back to help her tomorrow, that day’s PT session leaving him “liquid-y and grand.”

  It was hard not to marvel at the magic Charlie’s PT seemed to conjure. Dara remembered Mrs. Bloom raving about her once, later recommending her to Charlie.

  No, she couldn’t tell Charlie. She couldn’t bear it, to have him know. Charlie, who loved Marie like his sister, and protected her—from assailing parents, from telemarketers, from aggressive drivers, from street leers when they’d go into town, Marie in her cropped top, her bodysuit. Like his sister.

  No, Charlie couldn’t know.

  Besides, it was probably already over, an impulsive act, like so many of Marie’s impulsive acts. Like that first time she’d left five years ago, her big “trip around the world.” Once she’d landed on the idea, she wanted, needed to go immediately. The Acropolis could be gone one day. The Spanish Steps in Rome might close. And wasn’t Venice sinking? She would not be stopped. Don’t you dare, she kept saying whenever Charlie tried to reason with her, to caution her against rash decisions. Don’t you dare stop me.

  They didn’t stop her and, less than a month later, she came back. Marie always came back.

  * * *

  * * *

  Standing at the office window, Dara watched the final straggling students scurry or limp off to waiting cars, their tailpipes pluming exhaust, followed by Benny and Gaspar, hurrying to their motor scooters. And finally, Derek himself walking to his truck, that slightly limpy gait—like John Wayn
e gone to seed, Dara thought. She could’ve sworn that before disappearing inside that truck, he looked up once, to the studio, to the office window open just enough for Dara to sneak a smoke. To watch.

  “I’m staying late tonight,” Dara told Charlie, having decided something. “I have one more thing I have to do.”

  ME AND MY SHADOW

  Dara waited outside the powder room, pouncing on Marie as she opened the door, pulling her wrap sweater across her chest.

  “Oh!” Marie said, startled. “I thought you left.”

  For a moment, Dara couldn’t speak, her eyes fixed on two vivid bruises between her sister’s collar bones.

  The bruises were yellow, like she’d run a buttercup across herself. Like when they were little, standing in the weedy yard, hold the buttercup beneath your chin . . .

  In an instant, she pictured the hard thrust of the contractor’s fingers and thumb that morning. That very morning.

  Except, Dara thought, except. It took more than a day for a bruise to look like that. It took many days for a bruise to fade to yellow. Every dancer knows that, always one or more toenails gone black and blue, forever spreading arnica on the starburst over an elbow that hit the floor.

  What she’d seen behind that plastic curtain had not been the first time.

  “What have you done?” Dara said so loudly Marie instinctively backed against the powder room door, her head hitting it hard. “What have you done, sister?”

  * * *

  * * *

  Oh, the look on Marie’s face. Dara had never seen it. Thirty years of watching her sister’s face and she’d never seen this look.

  Her skin. Like it was radiating. Like it was on fire. Like it had been pressed in acid and shorn itself and formed itself anew.

  * * *

  * * *

  It’s been going on for days,” Marie was saying, rubbing her wrists, a smile creeping up her face.

  They were in the back office now, Marie seated on top of the desk, red knees, her legs hanging like the limbs were all broken.

  “Your exploits don’t interest me,” Dara said.

  Dealing with Marie was like dealing with a disruptive student, a student who demanded all the attention and would do anything to get it.

  “It’s happened three times,” Marie said, grinning. “My god. I bled the first time. I bled.”

  Dara gave her a cool stare and began packing her bag, her misty water bottle, bobby pins, toe pads, her calf compression sleeves.

  Inside, though, Dara could cry from it. From seeing Marie on that desk, saying such filthy things. Their family desk, black cherry mahogany with three cigar marks on the top and front edge from their grandfather’s Cohibas. From the sight of Marie sprawled so crudely on that desk, no tights, only her bare thighs so lately used by rough hands.

  “I could barely walk after,” Marie said, her legs swinging off the desk like a metronome. “I can barely walk now.”

  “Did you think I’d be shocked,” Dara said, her face growing hot, zipping her bag shut, then unzipping it again. The bag was packed.

  “I didn’t think about you at all,” Marie said, a vague shrug.

  “Nothing you do shocks me. You’re really very boring.”

  The truth was Marie had shocked her many times.

  “It’s unprofessional. Déclassé,” Dara went on. She couldn’t stop the words from coming. “Couldn’t you control yourself at all? A half hour later and children might’ve seen.”

  Marie looked puzzled, dazed.

  “I never thought of that,” she said. “I never thought of that at all.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Dara could have left, could have plugged her ears. She had already unpacked and repacked and unpacked her bag three times. She wanted to leave to show Marie how little she cared.

  In the end, though, she merely stood there, watching Marie pull two cigarettes from the secret stash in the potted snake plant because there was no smoking at the Durant School of Dance, their mother’s oldest rule.

  The matches shook in Dara’s hand.

  They both lit up and Marie told everything.

  * * *

  * * *

  It started two mornings ago, just after six. Unable to sleep, Marie had slunk down the spiral stairs.

  She didn’t know anyone was there. No one should have been there.

  She started warming up in Studio A, circling her ankles, hips, and shoulders, stretching herself.

  First, she heard the echoey sound of a phone vibrating on the floor. It was coming from Studio B, from behind the plastic curtain.

  Then she heard the contractor saying something, talking to someone. Talking about how he’s got a lock on something and no one’s going to fuck it up for him and she can say whatever she wants and play the holy martyr, the virgin bride, but he has the texts to—

  There was something in the gruffness of his tone that set her pulse racing, that sent her on her feet. Sent her skittering to the pocket powder room, where she set her hands on the corners of the vanity and took a breath.

  She could still hear the voice, his voice, and it was making her feel funny inside, like that time she stuck her hand in the hole in the wall at a haunted house and felt a snaky tongue reach her fingers.

  But the voice was swiftly louder: Hold up, I’ll call you back, I think one of the sisters is here . . . and his footsteps like a monster movie.

  She pressed the toilet handle gently so it barely flushed.

  The cheap door popped open like a cork and he was suddenly there.

  She thought maybe she let out a sharp cry of surprise, but maybe she didn’t.

  It was so fast, after all, the smile on his face, his blistering cologne, the heel of his hand on her shoulder.

  What —she started.

  I can’t wait any longer, he said, or she did.

  He twirled her around like they were dancing.

  Tugging her sweatpants down, hand pressed on her leotard, and her heart going like a chop saw.

  The mirror, limescaled, showed her herself and she had never seen herself look like this.

  She grasped the vanity edges, bracing herself. It was so exciting, she couldn’t bear it.

  When he hooked his finger around the loop of her leotard crotch, tearing it cleanly, she gasped.

  Everything was going and the vanity shook and she felt so strong like she might tear it loose from its foundation.

  The feeling of him, so immense, ten times too big for that tiny pocket, for tiny her, and he pushed himself into her, growling in her ear, Is this what you want?

  And it turned out it was. It was, it was.

  * * *

  * * *

  He assaulted you,” Dara said, her voice throaty, the cigarette blooming.

  “No,” Marie said. Pausing, trying to find more words. Giving up. “No.”

  * * *

  * * *

  He left first, smiling and grabbing her face for their first smeary kiss. The kiss felt more intimate than anything else, the smack of his bristle, the heat of his breath—mint and tar.

  (“Oh, that kiss, wet and rough,” Marie said now, tightening her legs, her hands on her thighs.)

  The door shut behind him soundlessly, the pocket open, then shut.

  She sat down on the toilet seat, her right leg shaking so hard she couldn’t do anything.

  Her right leg shaking like a newborn foal trying to stand, trying to make the limbs work.

  The paper towel up and down her thighs, the smell of everything in that tiny space.

  She sat down again.

  She couldn’t stop grinning.

  * * *

  * * *

  When she came out a few minutes later, she heard him tell Gaspar to go and fix the bathroom vanity. It got busted and you go
t no idea how.

  She saw him through the plastic, a red curl on his neck, which she knew was the red curl from her own fingernail, pressing into him, gouging.

  * * *

  * * *

  You’re burning.”

  “What?” Dara said.

  Marie reached out with licked fingers and snuffed Dara’s burning cigarette. It was only then Dara felt it, shaking it off, sitting up straight.

  * * *

  * * *

  There was something wrong about the story—or a hundred things wrong, but also something missing. Dara couldn’t figure it out until she did.

  “Why were you wearing a leotard?” Dara said, remembering Marie’s white leotard the other day, and that very morning. Pearl white, bone white. Degas white.

  “What?”

  “Nearly every day this week. You never wear one to warm up. Or to teach. You wear leggings, shorts. Not a leotard. And not a white one.”

  Marie looked at her, blinking her eyes.

  “You wanted him to look at you,” Dara said. “You wanted to entice him.”

  “It’s just a leotard,” Marie said, averting her eyes.

  * * *

  * * *

  Dara was thinking of something else. The day before, after an exhausting fouetté demonstration, a dozen whipping pirouettes, for all the potential Sugar Plum Fairies (Leg higher, whip, whip, whip, relax that hip), she’d seen Derek staring at her from the doorway, the plastic curtain draped over one shoulder like a counterfeit cape. The stare was hard and insistent and it was only later, turning, that she saw what he’d been looking at: the sweat on her leotard, under her arms, between and under her breasts and blooming darkly between her legs. And, as she turned again, a slow fouetté, a dark line between her buttocks.

  It reminded her of something. How when they were twelve, thirteen, fourteen, Dara and Marie would sweat so much down there their mother would only let them wear black leotards so you couldn’t see it. So it looked not like a stain but a shadow.