Unravel

by Renee Fowler

  The end of this show, and the subsequent gala can’t come soon enough. A couple of states, and a few hundred miles away, and perhaps Penny won’t have this hold over me.

  “You could actually even have quick costume changes back here. Like…” Penny taps a finger against her chin. “Okay. In the beginning of a relationship, everything is perfect, you know? You show each other your best selves, but the more tangled up you get, the more real it gets.”

  “Right.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be anything too elaborate. A few tear-a-way layers. Maybe brighter colors in the beginning that get stripped back until we’re both bare, or in nude colors, I mean. It would add visual interest.”

  “Where were you at when I wrote this thing?”

  “I was probably right here.” Penny smiles warmly, then quickly averts her eyes. “But every time you’ve directed it, things have changed. You’ve varied it a bit in every city.” She pauses to shake her head. “It’s just an idea.”

  “A very good idea. If we weren’t less than two weeks out from the first show, I’d love to implement something like that, but I doubt there is time to have something made now.”

  “I might know someone that can whip then up, if you were seriously interested.”

  “Thank you, Penny.”

  “It’s no problem.”

  “No, I’m serious. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being honest with me. It’s not something I can count on from people a lot of the time.”

  “You’re welcome.” Penny cocks her head to the side and scrutinizes my face. “So, what happened?”

  “With what?”

  She waved her hand around. “How did it unravel? What caused it?”

  “My marriage?”

  She nods.

  “You’re really nosey. Has anyone ever told you that, Ms Abbott?”

  “You’re the one putting it all out there. You made a whole show about it.”

  “It was a lot of things. We were married for thirteen years, so… I’m sure you can imagine.”

  “You don’t think people can stay married without it all falling apart?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then what was it?” Penny fixes me with a sharp stare. “Were you unfaithful?”

  I almost want to lie, but for some reason I think she’d see straight through that deceit. I nod slightly. “We were both hurtful to each other. The last four or so years were a struggle.”

  “She cheated on you too?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Who cheated first?”

  Laughing under my breath, I shake my head. “You really are nosey.”

  “Just curious.”

  “She did,” I admit after a long pause. “But you were right the other day. I’m no prince, and I was even less of one back then.”

  “So you think she was entitled to cheat on you because you weren’t behaving as a prince?”

  “No, but we were already both a bit miserable together by that point.”

  “Why didn’t you leave? Why stay and torment each other for so long?”

  I point to the ribbon laid out in a jumble across the stage. “We were together a lot of years. Our lives were completely enmeshed, and… Have you ever heard the term, sunk cost fallacy?”

  “I’ve heard it, but I’m not sure I know what it means exactly.”

  “It’s throwing good money after bad, or like... if you go to see a movie, and an hour in, you realize it’s awful. You’ve already wasted an hour of your life, an hour you can’t ever get back, so it feels illogical to get up and leave. But what’s truly illogical is wasting another hour of your life to see how it ends.”

  “But that’s an hour. You’re talking about years.”

  “I’m not saying it makes sense. That’s why it’s called a fallacy. It’s a flawed way of thinking. I suppose I hoped things would get better, or go back to the way they were. It’s hard to walk away from an entire decade, or more of your life, even when it would’ve been the best thing for both of us.”

  Penny appears deep in thought. She blinks rapidly, and meets my eyes. “That makes a lot of sense. It makes almost too much sense.” She pauses to address the empty theater seats. “It’s what Andrea is doing here, isn’t it?”

  “Personally, I think so.”

  “But you’re helping her anyways.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she asked.” I shove my hands in my pockets, and rock back on my heels. “I met her when I was younger, and she had some very kind and encouraging things to say to me. I came to ballet late, later than most anyways, and I was at a bit of a crossroads, trying to decide if I should continue or not.”

  “You looked up to her.”

  “Yes, a great deal.”

  “Well, it’s good she was kind to you then.” Penny gave a small, disgruntled laugh. “What would you have done instead, if she wasn’t kind enough to encourage you to stick it out.”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. My father was a pig farmer, so maybe I would’ve done that.”

  Penny gives a loud throaty laugh that echoes in the empty space.

  “Is it so hard to imagine?” I ask.

  “A little.”

  “I did it when I was younger. What about you? What would you have done if not for ballet?”

  Penny sighs. “I never gave it a lot of thought.”

  “What do your parents do?”

  “Welp… My mother was a trophy wife, which is the very last thing I would ever aspire to be. My father, my biological father, was a teacher of some sort, I think. She never told me much about him. My stepfather is...” Penny shakes her head and laughs. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “Because I asked? I thought maybe you were just an open person.”

  “I’m not. Usually I’m not. Or it takes me a long time to open up.”

  “We’ve known each other for a while now.”

  “We don’t really know each other at all.” That familiar, icy edge had crept back into her voice. “And you’ll be gone before long, and I won’t have to see you again. That’s probably why.” Penny turns to go, and gives me a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry, Liam. I won’t miss rehearsal again.”

  Staring at the empty spot she just occupied, I try to piece together what happened. I’m starting to fear Penny is one of those mysteries I might never unravel.

  Chapter 9

  Penny

  I thrust the pin cushion into Seth’s hand. “Hold that, and don’t move unless you want to get stabbed.”

  “Getting stabbed is the last thing I want to experience this early.” He grumbles.

  I do a quick whip stitch along the bottom of his trousers. Once I’m finished, I stand up and have him move around a bit. Seth does a short jeté and a deep plié to test out the holding power of the snaps. I’ve never made anything like this before, and some adjustments will need to be done later, but it turned out pretty well for a first attempt. “Alright. Test it out.”

  Seth gives me a big grin, and tugs at the costume pants with one hand until the snaps give way. “That’s fun. I feel like a stripper. Maybe you’ll have to make me a few pairs of these up. I bet Evan would love it.”

  “I bet. Okay, put those back on, and we’ll try the move out I was talking about.”

  “You can do it for me,” Seth suggests, waggling his eyebrows down at me.

  Shaking my head at him, I rise up to standing. “I’ll let you handle it,” I say, about the snaps that run the inseam of his legs.

  “Prude.”

  “Pervert. You know there are plenty of girls here who would love to fondle your crotch, but I’m not one of them.”

  “Why?” he whined.

  “Because… You know why.”

  “It’s because you don’t think I’m ‘manly’ enough, isn’t it?” Seth hooks his fingers through the air around the word manly. “Tell me the truth.”


  Honestly, that is part of it. Seth has a sort of prettiness about him that doesn’t do much for me, but we’ve been friends for so long, I can’t imagine him as anything else regardless. “I’m taking a well deserved break from men for a while.”

  “I can pretend to be John Wayne if that’s what you want,” Seth offers, then proceeds to give a rather poor, bow-legged cowboy impression, waving his hands around with forefingers and thumbs cocked out like guns.

  I laugh so hard I snort. “Tempting, but I don’t like to share, Seth.”

  “Maybe you could be the one to tame this stallion.”

  “Wait, are you a cowboy or a horse?”

  “I can be whatever you want.”

  “The only reason you want me is because I said no. The second I say yes, you’ll lose all interest.”

  “That’s not true.” He pauses to consider, then shrugs. “I don’t think that’s true. We could always test your theory and find out?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. Are you ready?” I adjust the waist of my calf-length, romantic style tutu. “We’ll have to figure this out. We need to get both of these off each other in one motion, ya know? Quickly. We only have a few seconds while we’re passing behind that middle cube.”

  The quickest, but far from easiest solution to this dilemma in my mind, is for Seth to tear away the tutu from me, and I tear away the trousers from him.

  He goes down on one knee, lifts me up onto his shoulders, a maneuver we’ve rehearsed so many times it is second nature at this point. I show him where to hook his finger in the hidden loop I’ve sewn on the waistband for just this purpose. Seth swoops me down in front of his chest, and back onto his shoulders in one continuous, fluid motion. At the same time we remove each other’s top layers.

  That’s the idea anyways. The first time I don’t yank hard enough on his trousers to pull all the snaps free. The second time his finger slips out of the loop on my costume.

  I lose track of how many times we run through it, but when we’ve finally perfected the sequence, we’re both breathing heavy and a little sweaty. Now we will be able to manage it quickly and effortlessly, outside of view of the audience, if Liam even wants us to do this. Maybe he was just being kind last night when we talked about it. For all I know he thinks it’s a dumb idea, but in either case, I don’t care what he thinks.

  Which is why I spent hours last night making these mock up costumes? It’s also why I coerced Seth into arriving early, because I didn’t care. I sigh miserably to myself. Okay, maybe I care what he thinks a little, even though I’m trying desperately not to.

  Liam is nothing like the egotistical asshole I imagined him to be, or the one he used to be. Sometimes I almost wish he were. It would make not caring far easier.

  “I think we should do it one more time,” I say, panting slightly.

  Seth groans and wipes a hand across his sweaty forehead. “We still have rehearsal after this.”

  “Lazy.”

  “You two come with me,” Liam says briskly.

  I jump at the sound of his voice, and whirl around to see Liam posted up inside the furthest door. How long has he been standing there?

  Seth leaves the tear away trousers hung over a nearby portable barre, but Liam asks him to bring them along.

  “Who did you get to make these so fast?” he asks me as we’re walking along the hall.

  I take a sudden interest in my nails. “I threw them together last night, but they’re just mockups. We can do other colors. It was just fabric I had laying around.”

  He runs his fingers lightly over the skirt draped across my forearm. “Where did you learn this?”

  “Uh, my grandma.”

  “You never told me that,” Seth says from nearby.

  No, I hadn’t, and after blabbing so much to Liam last night, I’m beginning to wonder why this keeps happening. Everytime I open up to someone, I get hurt. I should know better by now. Of all the people I should not be telling things to, it’s Liam Thibault.

  Liam stands on the edge of the stage, and has us go through the sequence again, but this time he wants us to run behind the center cube, and undress each other in view of the audience on the second pass.

  “That’s how we’ll do it,” Liam says abscently, almost like he’s talking to himself. “I like it better like this.” He gives me a smile that is so devastatingly beautiful, I have to look away. “Keep this up Penny, and I’ll have to put your name next to mine on the program as a choreographer.”

  Seth clears his throat. “Uhm, hello. I helped too.”

  Liam laughs and gives his shoulder a little pat as he passes. “You two wait here. I’ll go gather everyone. It’s going to be a stage rehearsal today.”

  Seth fans himself as Liam disappears along the side of the stage. “He touched my shoulder.”

  “You are pathetic.”

  “And you are a frightened little chicken shit. He wants you, and you are going to let him have you so you can report back to me. I want to hear all the nasty details.”

  “He doesn’t want me, and even if he did… He doesn’t.”

  He rolls his eyes dramatically. “He wants you. He looks at you like he wants to gobble you up.” Seth pantomimes shoveling food, or something else, into his mouth while he lets his cheeks puff up with air. “What I wouldn’t give to be gobbled up by that man.”

  “You are a disgusting pervert.”

  “And you are an idiotic prude. If you don’t take this chance, you’re going to regret it, Penny.”

  Shaking my head at him, I wander away. Sometimes it was easier to ignore Seth than try to rationalize with him.

  After rehearsal Liam pulls me aside to discuss the costumes a bit more in depth. Is he standing a little closer than necessary? Does he look at me like he wanted to gobble me up? I really can’t say.

  I’ve always been completely incompetent at flirting. There’s a subtle art to it that eludes me. The only reason I even ended up with John in the first place is my former dance partner Damien spelled it out for me. John hadn’t been hanging about after performances because he had no where better to be. He didn’t invite me to his gallery showing, and later ask to photograph me out of politeness. But look how pathetically awful that turned out?

  And Liam will be moving on sooner or later, and I will be staying right here. Plus he’s a jerk. He called me a fat cow. Try as I might to convince myself, the insult doesn’t resonate the way it used to. But he did cheat on his wife, even if she cheated first. Once a cheater, always a cheater, right?

  Why am I even thinking about this nonsense? His words fly right past me as my thoughts drift. When I try to refocus, all I can concentrate on is the way he smells. Lemons and leather, a peculiar and oddly intoxicating combination. Of course I’m sweaty from rehearsal, and still in the nude colored leotard that is practically see through. I really might as well be nude, so I keep the long tutu bunched up in my arms and pressed against my chest, wishing for a more substantial barrier between us.

  “Penny! Do you ever pick up your phone?”

  My head snaps up at that familiar voice. Paige’s long and colorful bohemian style dress flutters behind her as she walks briskly in my direction. Despite having different fathers, we resemble each other quite a lot, but she is a bit heavier. Not heavy, just not waifishly thin like me, and her eyes are more blue than grey. Her blonde hair is fashionably short and angled around her face now. She’s had it cut since I’ve seen her last.

  “How did you get in here?” I ask.

  She flops her hand out. “Someone was leaving through the back and they let me in. It’s nice to see you too by the way.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t notice you called.” I make hasty introductions between Liam and my sister. She gives him a weak smile, having no clue who Liam Thibault is.

  Our mother tried to get Paige interested in ballet when she was a child, but my younger sister was allowed to quit when she grew bored with it. Foster wasn’t going to have his darling daughter do something she
didn’t want.

  “Can we talk?” Paige asks impatiently. “It’s important.”

  Liam’s hand is huge and warm on my shoulder. He’s not touching me any differently than he touched Seth earlier, I tell myself. It’s just a friendly goodbye pat. It’s nothing. He smiles at me as he turns to go, and I’m blinded by the curve of his mouth.

  My god. At this rate I’m going to be starting a new scrapbook about him before long.

  Paige watches me as I watch Liam walk away. She makes a sound that is halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “I hope you have enough good sense not to check guys out like that in front of John.”

  “I’m not checking anyone out,” I say in a low voice. “And I’m not with John anymore.”

  “You’re not?”

  “We broke up.”

  Paige’s bottom lip puckers out into a pout. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It was for the best.”

  “Can we talk somewhere? I have news.”

  I suppose she wants to tell me about her new boyfriend, but as soon as we are alone in my dressing room, I learn that’s not the case. “So, dad has a girlfriend,” she blurts out.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, and she’s barely older than me. I bet she’s younger than you.”

  “Oh, wow.”

  “That’s all you have to say about it? Oh, wow? This is messed up, Penny. He’s sixty five years old.”

  I try to muster up the appropriate rage, or whatever Paige thinks I should be feeling at the moment, but I come up short. “Well, to each their own, right?”

  Paige collapses in my chair and lets out a disgusted sigh. “It’s gross.”

  “Mom has been gone for four years. Maybe he’s lonely.”

  “Then he should go find someone closer to his own age. What the hell would they even talk about?”

  I doubt Foster took up with a woman in her mid twenties because she’s a superb conversationalist. “What is she like? They might have something in common. Maybe she’s a history buff.”

  Paige laughs and rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how much history she knows. She looked like an air-headed, big boobed skank to me, but it’s not like I stood around long enough to get to know her. I pretty much stormed out, right after I told him how gross and disgusting he was being.”