Quiver (24 page)

A moment later, the floodlights went dark and the music stopped. The crowd was silent for a couple of seconds, then someone to my right started clapping and the rest of the people joined in. The applause was thunderous, and as my eyes readjusted to the darkness, I saw some audience members clapping with a serious, pensive look on their faces, as if they had been greatly moved by what they had viewed. Others were smiling, one or two were pumping their fists in the air, and still others were making yelling, whooping noises. I could make out the figures moving away from the scene, disappearing into the corners of the set.

“There, Dani,” said Maria. Her long crystal earrings glimmered. “Your questions are now answered?”

“How often do these things happen?” We had begun to drift with the crowd towards the door to the staircase.

“You must learn to
absorb
these events,” she said. She walked ahead of me slightly. “The effect will be ruined if all you think of are questions.”

“But I can’t absorb anything if I don’t know what I’m seeing.”

She sighed. “Did you like it?”

“They did a good job of creating, you know, an atmosphere.” I tried to think of an insightful comment. “The audience was really into it.” Maria ignored me. We jostled down the stairs with the crowd. The thick scent of the roses hit us as we re-entered the main room.

Now Maria turned to me. “That is all you have to say?”

Her annoyance was palpable. “It was...” I stammered. “What did you think?”

“They should have staged it in the winter. The girls’ flesh barely turned red. It was not very impressive. The weather, it needs to be freezing, there should be real snow, the water should turn to ice on them.”

Maria continued on for a few steps, then turned around.

“Dani, do not pretend that I shock you.”

“Maria, that would be cruel.”

“Cruel? Why did you come here and help search for the diaries? You are not as dedicated to these things as I am?”

“That’s completely different.”

“I have, I think, misjudged you.” She walked towards me.

“You want a story. You want to watch, but you want, at the end, things to be pretend. You fear risk. And that, what is the point? That is useless.”

“Useless? What are you talking about?”

She stood inches away from my face. “I do not know if you really understand.” Her blue eyes, rimmed with black liner, scrutinized my face. “If, really, you are what I look for.”

I was silent. She put one hand on my waist, the other on my cheek. My heart felt like I’d taken a shot of epinephrine. Her eyes hardly blinked.

“What?” She leaned close to my ear. “Still, you have nothing to say?” Her nails dug through my dress, into my waist. She gripped my chin with her other hand, then roughly pushed me away. “You don’t know how lucky you were. What I could have shown you. Pathetic!” She started to walk away.

“Where are you going?” I ran after her.

“I am leaving. I am going with my friends.” She walked out of the room. I kept following her.

“Maria! You’re leaving me here? I don’t even know where we are. How do I call for a taxi?”

“I cannot have your ridiculous things, your pathetic self, near me any longer. I will call my doorman. He will put your suitcase downstairs,” she called over her shoulder. She caught up with a group of people filing out of the building, and started laughing and talking with them, piled into one of their cars and drove away.

On Saturday, I meet Maria for shopping. “You will love this place, Dani.” The storefront’s two large display windows are filled with mannequins dressed in short, sparkly, black cocktail dresses, thick, metallic-gold, patent-leather belts and magenta bobbed wigs. There is a large security man dressed in black, arms folded, standing at the door. He nods at us as we walk in. The walls of the boutique are covered in black, silver and gold sequin-like discs, the lights are dimmed, and heavy electronica broadcasts from speakers suspended from the ceiling. It’s like I’ve stepped into a club, except that instead of cocktail bars, racks of clothing line the perimeter of the irregularly shaped space. Maria heads for an alcove on the right of the store, and I follow.

She flicks through the clothes with precision; in ten minutes, she’s got a fitting room started and three outfits to try on. I’m still trying to figure out whether the garment I’m holding, which has one fringed shoulder, is a dress or a shirt. I finally just hand it to one of the impeccably coiffed salesgirls and head into the fitting room, where the light is dimmer still.

As I change, I catch the looped fringe of the dress/shirt on one of the shiny discs that line the cubicle wall.

“Dani, your outfit, do you have it on?” I hear Maria call from outside my curtain.

“Uh, yeah, I’m almost ready,” I reply, trying to unhook the loop from the disc. The back of my left shoulder is caught on the wall, and it’s difficult to reach my right hand around to free it.

“You all right in there?” the salesgirl asks.

“Oh, yeah, fine, thanks.” I wait until I hear her walk away. “Uh, Maria?”

“I am ready for my next one, and you have not seen the first,” she answers.

“Yeah, I know. Can you come here?”

“What is it?” She’s standing right outside my curtain. I pull the material aside a bit and try to step away from the wall. The fringe holds me back, and I clatter into the discs.

“What are you doing?” laughs Maria.

“I need some help,” I say, motioning her into the cubicle. “I’m stuck.”

“Yes, I see that you are. There,” she says, as she leans in and unhooks me. “Much better. Now, come out—tell me what you think of this,” she says, as she walks out of the dressing room, twirling a little. She’s wearing a zebra-print spaghetti-strap cocktail dress, with a wide silver belt held together by three tightly fastened straps. The belt cinches her waist tight; she is a tiny hourglass.

“Too much?” she asks, piling her hair on top of her head and twisting to look at herself in the mirror over her shoulder. She lets her platinum waves fall and turns to face front, hands on hips.

I’m momentarily mute. It’s not that she looks stunning. She does, but it’s not only her physicality that impresses me. It’s an indefinable element, the sum of her thoughts and her movements, the way she sweeps around me, the jingle of the silver hoop bracelets she’s worn today. I’m tethered to her.

“Yes,” she says, answering her own question before I recover from my reverie. “But only a little. I will try the next one.” She takes a look at me in the fringed monstrosity. “I do not think that suits you, Dani,” she says, before she disappears behind the curtain.

I look in the mirror. The “dress” I have on barely comes below my bum, and the material is so sheer across my tummy that you can plainly see my belly button. A tight, wide band runs around the bottom, and the material balloons from there, taut and translucent from front to back and very roomy from side to side. When I hold my arms out straight, it looks like I have bat wings. With fringe hanging down one side. I take it off and pull on my jeans and sweater.

“Now this, this is good,” I hear Maria say. “It is not right for the ball, but perhaps I will buy it anyway?” I collect my jacket and purse and pop out. She’s kept the silver belt, but put it over a tight, strapless black dress that hits just above the knee. It’s an outfit you’d notice come into a room, I tell her.

“It is not always the outfit, Dani, it is whether the woman wears it properly. And this,” she says, turning her shoulder to the mirror, tossing her hair, “I can.”

“Is it for anything special?” I ask, once she’s back in the change room.

“Oh, there is always someplace, something, and you will need a new outfit.”

“Or do you mean someone?” I say teasingly. “Edward, perhaps?”

Maria sweeps aside the curtain and steps out with the outfit draped over her arm. A salesgirl hurries over, confirms with Maria that she should take it to the cash. “Dani, you do not choose your fashion for a man.” She looks at me seriously, puts a hand on my shoulder. “You are not a doll. If you do, you will likely be both ill-dressed and pathetic.”

“Yes, of course,” I say, unsure exactly what has triggered this lecture. “I was just trying to be funny. You know. It’s just that you and Edward are usually together, so I assumed you’d wear the outfit around him.”

“Usually together? That is not so.”

“Oh, I guess it just seems like it. And at the Tate, he mentioned to me that you two were getting serious.”

“Oh, Dani,” she sighs, “so adorable. But this is really what you think? I believe it is true, yes, that you know me better than that? I have other interests.” She walks me out of the change area to the cashier. There is no cash register on the large, smooth desk where the girl is folding the dress and belt into a little parcel. Maria slides her credit card across the shiny surface.

“Yes, I know, your work and everything.”

“See, it is as I said.”

“But he seems very nice. And he’s completely in love with you.”

She signs the bill, collects the red-ribboned black bag and heads towards the door. “They always are, to begin.” The security guard nods at us as we step out to the street. “But it changes, yes? If they think you love them back.” She links her arm through mine and picks up our pace.

“Well, that’s not true. You’re too cynical,” I say.

“Am I?” She pulls her arm back and begins to walk faster.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend—”

“What you say, I do not take offence. I think only you are wrong. Listen,” she turns towards me, “you start to try to please, to need them to be pleased. Soon, you are won, and the game is over.”

“What about being in love? You said you were married when you were younger, right? So you must have been in love then, to go through with it.” I know I’m pushing her.

She prickles. “To you, marriage equals love? You are more naive than I thought,” she says, sighing loudly. I’m taken aback by the dramatics, but now I feel bad that I’ve said something to make her react so strongly. I start to apologize again, but she beats me to it.

“Forgive me, Dani. It is nice, in a way, that you are still able to believe things like that. Perhaps I am only jealous of it.”

I want to say something kind, to make up for upsetting her. “But Maria, maybe Edward doesn’t think of you as a thing to be won.”

“Yes, now he may not know he thinks like that. But if you are wealthy or powerful or very smart or very beautiful—especially if you are all of these things—you always are something someone will desire to possess. To win.”

I am not sure what to say. Her comment about my naivété aside, for the first time ever I feel I want to comfort Maria. Maybe she’s more vulnerable than I think.

“But let us talk of something else,” she says. “Maybe you are right, I am only too cynical. Your Henry, things are good there?”

“Sure. Henry is doing very well in his residency. He’s always at his studio, and his work is going well.” This, at least, is true.

“Yes, he has a very nice studio—you have been?”

“Yeah. It’s a great space for him. And great for him to have Andreas close by, too—they seem to get on well.” I’m babbling a bit now, and don’t factor in the tension that seemed to erupt between Henry and Andreas after the review business. But it feels good to talk about something positive that’s come out of our move here.

“Andreas? That man that had the show on the same night as Henry?” says Maria. “But he has moved—Henry has not told you? When I went by a couple of weeks ago, a girl, I think her name was Nicola, she had moved her things there.”

Nicola. “Ah, no, he hadn’t mentioned it.”

“Yes, it was something to do with Andreas’s next project, he needed a bigger space or some such thing. But the switch agrees with Henry. Nicola seemed very friendly.”

“That’s great,” I say, looking down at the pavement.

An hour later, I’m standing in front of a well-lit three-sided mirror, in a meadow green strapless party dress. Sweetheart neckline, tight waist. The skirt is made of layers of tulle, falls just above the knee and is covered with tiny pink satin roses. The dress swishes and flutters when I do a twirl.

“Here, with the shoes.” Maria motions to the saleslady, who sets a pair of shiny lilac pumps in front of me. I slip them on. “Perfect,” says Maria. She moves behind me and scoops up my hair in one hand. “Hair up, definitely. Then you will see the back,” she says, tracing the edge of the bodice against my shoulder blades. “Look,” she says, gesturing with her head. I turn and see the reflection in the mirror and nod, as much as her grip on my hair will allow.

“This colour, it is perfect for you. The green, with your hair. You glow, a wood nymph.”

“It suits your skin tone,” says the saleslady.

‘Very elegant,” says Maria, letting my hair fall. “Yet still youthful. Yes.”

The dress is about the same price as my share of the rent, but I’m swayed. I let the saleslady box it up and hand her my credit card before I think too hard about it.

“You wear it very well,” says Maria, as we exit the store. “I cannot wait to see you at the ball.”

“Me, too,” I say, swinging the carrier bag as we walk down the street. I feel like skipping. I can’t wait to put it on. And for Henry to see me in it.

“Now that is taken care of, I have some business we need to discuss,” says Maria. “Shall we have a coffee?”

Ten minutes later we’re ensconced in a booth at the back of a café. Maria hands me a large envelope. “This is the last entry now.” She sips at a tiny cup of espresso, then sets it down.

“Thank you. Maria, I haven’t decided about this project.” I expect her to give me another lecture. I want her to convince me completely.

Instead, she says simply, “But you will. There is no question.”

“There’s something that’s come up. Foster’s lawyer, he’s offered to hire me to consult on the case.”

“Danica, you see? You are meant to work with him! Think of everything you will learn, everything you can put into the book. You can tell everyone his story. You, not those silly tabloids, will know about him, if he is part of a cult, how he became obsessed with Báthory.” She doesn’t seem surprised or excited by this news; she talks about it like it was inevitable.