Roses and Rot (28 page)

“It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot were,” I said. “I think it would be weirder if no one had ever tried to talk about it before, than if a bunch of people had, and we just didn’t realize it.”

“That’s what I think,” Ariel said. “Because come on. I could send this show to one of the producers who danced with the Fae on New Year’s, and they wouldn’t see this as a true story. But if you came and watched it, you’d know right away. So I want to read the fairy tales, and see if I can guess at what else I’ve been missing.”

I’d heard the knock on the door and hadn’t thought anything about it until Marin texted.
Come down. Now. Mom emergency.

Marin was sitting on the porch, folded up small, arms around her knees. There was a brown cardboard box next to her. “It’s for us. From Mommy Dearest. I didn’t even want to take it inside.”

“Do you think there’s a head in it?” I asked. It was, in a coincidence almost as disturbing as its origin, exactly the right size for that particular horror movie trope.

“You know that could actually be a more pleasant alternative to whatever it is she did send,” Marin said. She looked almost sick, green at the edges.

“We could just throw it away.”

“I’m all for that,” Marin said, pushing the box farther away from her. “Why would she do this?”

“Because whatever is in there is something that will upset us, and it’s been too long since the last time she shoved herself into our lives. Because even though she’s not here, it will make her happy to imagine us doing exactly what we are right now, and she assumes that we will open it, and so she’ll get whatever hideous reaction she’s hoping for.” I could hear my voice going higher and faster, like a hysterical child, and I forced myself to breathe, to relax. To remember that I wasn’t a child, and she wasn’t here. That I had the choice, and she couldn’t force me to do anything.

Marin stood, picked up the box, and started pulling at the flaps.

“What are you doing? I thought we were going to throw it away,” I said.

Marin peeled the tape away. “We will. But I’m not going to be able to relax until I know what’s in there, and I don’t want to be digging through the garbage at three a.m. so I can sleep.”

“Fine.” I stood behind her, watching as she lifted out packing materials, revealing what was underneath.

It was a picture of us. Me, with brutally short dark hair hugging my head like a shadow, next to Marin in a tutu. A dance recital. Then I remembered which one. “God, I hated that night,” I breathed out, just as Marin said, “That was one of the worst performances of my life.”

And so of course, of course, that was why she had sent it. A frame full of misery, that to anyone else would look like a lovely memory, but was chosen to make us feel small and sad, unworthy of where we were.

“I was just starting to get breasts and hips,” Marin said. “Which, weird for any girl who does, because your body is suddenly this alien
thing, but it threw off my center of gravity. So all the spins and turns and balances that had been like nothing for me went all wonky. It seemed like it happened overnight, too, and of course I was worried it was because she was right, and I was getting too fat to dance.

“Eventually, I figured out how to cope, and my dancing went back to normal, but I fell onstage that night. Over-rotated, and wiped out. Right in front of everyone. With this enormous thud that sounded exactly like ‘fat ballerina’ in my head.” She brushed at her eyes, mashing the tears from them.

I put my arm around her. Marin’s bra strap was visible in the picture, having worked itself free from the hiding spot beneath the thicker strap of her costume. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“That was the year my teacher had recommended me for a young writers’ conference,” I said. “I had written an essay for the application, and I had just found out that I had gotten in. The day after the acceptance letter came, Mommy Dearest wrote to my teacher saying I’d plagiarized the essay. That she had written my essay, as a model, of course, but that I had simply copied hers and turned it in. That even though it would be hard for me, I needed to be made to face the consequences of my actions.

“I couldn’t go to the conference after that, obviously. And I had to give an apology in front of the whole class, for cheating and taking the spot that should have been one of theirs. That was what I did that day.”

The worst part had been the look in my teacher’s eyes. Mrs. Keith. She had believed in me, encouraged me. Our mother had gone in to see her, so embarrassed at what she’d claimed I’d done, so full of talk about the pressures I put on myself to succeed in the wake of Marin’s talent, and called me a liar. Took my writing from me, and took away Mrs. Keith’s belief and support, too.

“Our happy family,” Marin said. She tossed the picture back in the box. “Do you think there’s any photo, from growing up, that doesn’t have some hideous memory attached to it? There has to be, right?”

I didn’t think so.

Marin stuffed everything back in the box, folded the flaps closed. We threw it in the trash. Marin shuddered. “She’s always going to be there, isn’t she?”

“I’m just glad she can’t be here,” I said. “It’s the one safe place.” Though not as safe as we had thought, not with packages that could show up to knock us off our feet one more time. No place had ever been as safe as we thought.

Marin adjusted her necklace, settling the hourglass back at the hollow of her throat. “We can make ourselves safer.”

Marin had been away for the past couple of days at an audition, so I was surprised to see her in the studio as I ran past. Instead of continuing home, I opened the door and went in. Stepping inside, I was struck again by the beauty of the space. One wall was all windows, the opposite all mirrors, and the room seemed to open up forever, all golden light and silver gilt and Marin spinning in the center of it.

“How did it go?” I asked.

She finished a sequence of turns across the floor, checking the angle of her leg in the mirror. “Awful.” She sounded choked, on the edge of tears.

“What happened?”

“I’m a disloyal fame whore, apparently. For leaving my old company and coming here to dance with Gavin. Which, as they explained, also makes me the other kind of whore. After the fellowship is over, I can expect a year or two of roles from companies who don’t mind that sort of thing, if it means Gavin on their stage, but once he gets tired of me, I’m finished.

“Then they offered me a role in the corps.” No, not tears in her voice. Fury.

It was a huge insult. Marin had been a principal dancer in her last company, someone who danced major roles. The Snow Queen, not a snowflake. The least she should have been offered was a position as soloist, and even then, only at a better company.

“What a horrible bunch of people,” I said.

“It felt like the only reason they gave me the audition was to humiliate me. They were so gleeful as they explained why I wasn’t a good fit.” The series of turns again, and then again across the floor, each time with adjustments I couldn’t quite see, each time smoother and more powerful.

“Fuck them. You’re better than that. You’re better than they are.”

“But what if I’m not?” She stopped the spin. “It’s completely possible that I will never get a job dancing with a major company. That everyone thinks I’m just Gavin’s latest whatever. I never should have come here.”

“You have other auditions,” I said. “Anyone who sees you dance knows you’re good.” It felt like saying nothing, like offering a Band-Aid to someone with a chest wound.

“Except that’s clearly not the only thing that matters. Because I danced great yesterday. I was on. And still. The fucking corps.” She sat down, took her pointe shoes off. “I’m starting to feel like the only chance I have for anything when I get out of here is to be chosen for the tithe.”

And there it was, the needle in my heart. “That’s not true.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re a writer. You’re supposed to do stuff like this, fall off the map and hide away. You’d still be a young writer if you make a ‘Forty Under Forty’ list. If I’m still dancing at forty, it would be a miracle.”

“I wish I could help,” I said.

“You can. Take off your charm.”

“Marin, there are forty fellows here. Sure, some of them don’t have charms right now, but theoretically, any one of them has a chance to be the tithe. My deciding not to wouldn’t do anything.” The worm in my brain that told me to use this, to play on her weakness, her
emotions, to break her. I had, after all, promised. And besides, it would be for her own good.

“It shows you support me. That you have my back. That you understand why this is so important to me.”

“I do, Marin, but . . .” Her own good. My hand shook.

“But what?”

“Isn’t it better if we both try? That way there are two chances for us to be able to get away from our mother?” The words sounded weak, an excuse, even to me. But I couldn’t. Even to save her, I couldn’t hurt her, not like that.

“But it’s not just about that anymore. I need to know there will be something for me when I get out of here.”

“I’m there for you, Marin. You have me.” Liar, liar, liar. And not even a good enough liar to keep her safe.

She sagged. “I know that. I do. I’m just so scared, Imogen. I knew there was the possibility I might not be able to find a new ballet company, but I never imagined something like that, you know?”

I did know. She was good. Great. She belonged at a major company. To dance like that, and then be called nothing but a whore, must have been awful. “You’re a spectacular dancer, and they’re idiots, Marin. You’ll get the next job.”

But things got worse. Two nights later, I walked into the kitchen to find her easing her way into a chair, a pack of frozen peas pressed to her hip. “Hand me the other one, too, would you?”

“Marin, what happened?” I passed her the bag from the counter.

She pressed it to her shoulder, winced. “Gavin dropped me. Well, he fell, and so I fell with him.”

“Are you okay?” Falls weren’t great for any dancer, but falling
while being partnered, the extra height from the ground, made it even more dangerous. She’d been injured that way before.

“I will be—nothing’s broken or sprained. But I’m worried about him.” She lowered her voice. “I mean, that sort of thing, it just doesn’t happen to him. Because of who—what—he is. And when he apologized, he said he was tired. Tired. I’m worried.”

“Maybe it was just a bad day?” But he had said Faerie was weaker because of Evan not always being there, the tithe not being the source of whatever it was that it had been in the past. Maybe Faerie being weaker made him weaker, too.

“The worst part is, once I realized he was okay, all I could think about was what would happen to me, if he couldn’t dance. What if no one wants me without him?” Tears smeared Marin’s face.

I reached out, took her hand. “He’ll be fine. Everyone gets tired. And you’re brilliant. Of course they’ll want you.”

Except her next audition was canceled. The company didn’t give a reason, so she assumed the worst—not that they no longer needed a dancer, but that they didn’t want her.

“You have to promise me that you won’t compete against me for the tithe,” she said, flushed and furious.

“What if it were me, Marin? What if I were sending out a book, and all I was getting were rejection letters? Tell me honestly that you would step aside, and I will.”

She turned away. “It’s different. You have time.”

“When we applied here, we promised to go. No matter what. Even if the other one of us didn’t get in. I don’t understand why this is different.”

“Because I might be nothing without the tithe. Nothing. I literally cannot even get an audition right now. And you don’t even seem to care. You just want to go, and leave me alone again.”

Again? “What are you talking about, Marin?”

“Just like when you went to school. A great opportunity that only you could go to that left me behind. To be nothing. Alone with her.” She spat the words.

“I had to go, Marin. You know what she did to me! I wasn’t leaving you, I was saving myself. You’re the one who never answered my email, my letters, anything. You could have told me what it was like, living with her. You didn’t.” It had been like writing to a black hole. “I would have come back for vacations if I had thought you wanted me there. If I’d thought you needed me at all. But you never answered me, and I thought you were glad I was gone.”