Dark Turns (20 page)

“Stabbed?” The word didn’t make sense. “But why?”

“Police aren’t sure. Apparently, she was driving an expensive car in a bad neighborhood in Brooklyn. The police found it someplace in Miami a few months later with different license plates.”

Peter’s wife had been killed during a carjacking? And he’d never said? She had to talk to him. She reached into her purse for a twenty.

Dimitri placed his hand atop hers. “I got this. Are you really going back?”

Nia glanced at the time on the meter. She’d already stayed too long. “I have to ask Peter about this.”

“Who cares what he says? He’s lying to you. He told you his wife left and she didn’t.”

“You don’t know that. There must be some mistake.”

“I’ve never lied to you.” Dimitri’s eyes were deep pools, sucking her in. Again.

“You said you wanted to be together forever, remember? Before you changed your mind.”

“Nia, come on. That’s not the same.”

A line of taxis crawled in the opposite direction in front of the station. People hurried from passenger doors into the massive building, running for their trains. She glanced again at the clock. It was 9:02 p.m. She’d already missed hers.

“Stay with me.”

Dimitri’s voice pleaded, but his face betrayed a satisfied confidence, as if he knew that he’d damaged her relationship.

She had to go. She couldn’t trust herself with him, especially not after this revelation.

She freed her hand from Dimitri’s grasp and handed the twenty to the driver. Dimitri grabbed for her fingertips.

“No. I can’t.”

She slammed the door behind her.

T
he BMW’s lights cut through the darkness. They flashed as she exited the train into the frigid air. It had grown colder. The wind ripped through her tights and sliced into her skin, penetrating her bones. Nia hurried down the steps from the platform to the parking lot, desperate to get into the warm vehicle, burning with questions.

She yanked the door handle. It didn’t budge. She wrapped her arms around her torso and hopped, generating heat any way possible. The figure behind the tinted windows pressed a button. The lock clicked. She jumped into the passenger seat and shut the door, barring the cold outside.

The BMW’s interior was only slightly warmer. She rubbed her legs as though trying to light them on fire with friction.

“Thanks for picking me up. I’m so sorry that I missed the earlier train. You wouldn’t believe the traffic.”

“You said on the phone.”

“Would you turn on the heat?”

Peter’s eyes rolled over her chest. His mouth set in a tight line. He didn’t touch the dial. A sweatshirt hood bunched around his jacket collar. Maybe he was hot.

“Funny that it took so long. It should just be a ten-minute taxi ride. You can walk it in thirty.”

Nia rubbed her arms, still trying to shake the chill from outside. “I couldn’t walk in this cold.”

He pinched the thin, knit fabric on her arm. Even in the dark, she could see the fire in his narrowed eyes. “Not really a cold weather dress.”

With all her obsessing over Peter’s ex, she’d forgotten to change back into her sweater and leggings. She could imagine what he must think.

Her lips parted, ready with an explanation. She shut her mouth. If he wanted to accuse her of lying, he could say so. She’d love to have a conversation about honesty given that he’d apparently lied about his ex’s murder.

She reached over the gearbox for the heat dial. She turned it to maximum. Hot air blasted into the car, smothering all other sounds. She fiddled with the vent on her side, angling it so the air hit directly on her torso.

Peter’s hand curled around the steering wheel. He grabbed the stick shift. Nia buckled her seat belt, prepared for him to peel out of the lot. She looked out the window into the black night. Claremont was such a small city that
ambient light from buildings didn’t illuminate the train station.

Peter’s palm slammed into the edge of the steering wheel. The horn sounded. “Damn it. Did you fuck him?”

“What?” Her head snapped back toward Peter.

“Your ‘friend,’ who we both know isn’t a woman and isn’t just a friend.”

Guilt at kissing Dimitri and her unspoken feelings for her ex heated her insides. She wanted to apologize. But she couldn’t admit what had happened. She quenched the feeling with anger.

“No! How could you ask me that? And Dimitri,” she said the name for the first time, confirming her friend’s gender, “is
just
a friend.”

“Guys don’t want to be friends with girls that look like you. So unless he’s gay—”

“He’s not gay.” Nia crossed her arms over her chest. “But I’ve
never
given you any reason to distrust me.” She sounded like Dimitri.
I never lied to you
. Technically.

“Really? So you two never had sex?”

“We dated for a bit at SAB.”

He slammed his palm into the steering wheel again. “I knew it.”

She grabbed his arm. “It’s been over for a long time. I went to see him perform because I love the New York City Ballet. It used to be my dream to dance with them, and I am still trying to keep up my contacts to get in with other companies. That’s all.”

His eyes burned into her. He looked like he wanted to hit her.

“I left right after the show. It took a bit to get a cab and then, with traffic, I didn’t make the train. It was tight. You know it.” She reached out to touch his shoulder.

He recoiled from her. “You lied to me.”

“No. I said Dimitri is a friend. That’s all he is. I just didn’t want to make a big deal of the past.”

“A lie by omission is still a lie.” Peter growled the words under his breath. He palmed the stick shift and pushed it into drive, as if that would end the conversation. She couldn’t let him act so high and mighty.

“Really? Then what about your wife?”

His head snapped around to face her as though rebounding from a hard smack. “What?”

“Dimitri looked you up online. He found an article about your wife’s murder. You said she left you.”

Peter’s voice assumed an icy calm. “Why did he look me up?”

“He’s protective.”

“Of course he is.”

She hardened her tone to match the man in the driver’s seat. “Dimitri and I were together over a year ago. We are just friends now. I told you the truth. Now why did you tell me your wife divorced you?”

He raked his hands down his cheeks. Breath steamed in the air in front of his face.

“We were separated when she died. She’d moved back home with her family in Manhattan. I guess she was robbed coming back from seeing a friend somewhere in Brooklyn. The cops said her car was spotted on a traffic cam parked near Prospect Park.”

He looked out the window. “She always just assumed that if there was a ritzy high rise, then the area had to be as safe as her parents’ place on Park Avenue. She didn’t realize that it was crazy to park a Bentley on some side street in Brooklyn.”

He rubbed his temple, as if warding off a headache. “When you asked me why I was in the dorms, I didn’t want to say, ‘Oh, well, I got pretty depressed after my wife left me and was killed before we could patch things up, and I needed to be around people.’ You would have run right back out into the rain.”

The memory of their first romantic meeting intensified her guilt over kissing Dimitri. She lowered her head in contrition.

“I’m a writer. Sometimes I invent a little fiction for myself where she’s happy in a new life in a fancy house to avoid the fact that I drove her away and she ended up dead.”

Nia winced at the description. Of course he hadn’t wanted to tell that story at their first meeting. Some people would never want to tell that story ever.

She met his gaze. His blue eyes still looked hard, but his mouth had softened. She leaned closer to him. “I am so sorry.”

Peter looked up at the car’s interior, rolling his eyes or blinking away tears. She couldn’t tell. She touched his arm. “And I am very sorry about not telling you about Dimitri and my past. I should have. It was wrong.”

“I don’t want to be the guy always asking where you went and what you did. I’m not that possessive.”

“I know. I wasn’t upfront with you. I’m sorry I made you have to ask.”

Peter settled back into the driver’s seat and pressed the gas.

“Let’s just go home.”

N
ia peeked from behind the curtain shielding the dancers from the bright auditorium. More than a hundred tickets had sold, enough to fill the orchestra and pack the balcony. Moms, dads, and grandparents, most brandishing flower bouquets big enough to adorn a casket, filled the first three rows. Behind them sat Ms. V, Battle, and other faculty. The next two rows were reserved for school alumni, retired-looking couples wearing Wallace blazers over dress pants. Students filled the remaining seats.

Nia spied Peter in an aisle seat before a row of students, mostly girls. Her limbs tingled at the sight of her boyfriend in the audience, there just to support her. Dimitri had always been backstage, gearing up for his own performance.

Nia tried to identify her students’ families. Two sets of parents that likely belonged to the T twins chatted with one another. She guessed June had brought the large Asian group
in the front row. A statuesque couple resembled Alexei. Joseph’s mother had the female version of her son’s face.

Nia scanned for Aubrey’s family. No one matched the mother in the old law firm photo. No one had a little boy. Nia reminded herself that the article listing Philip Byrne’s survivors had been nearly a decade old. She searched again, looking for a twelve-year-old towhead and a woman with platinum or gray hair and piercing blue eyes.

She paused on a bottle blonde in the front. Nia realized a moment later that the woman belonged to Suzanne after seeing a middle school–aged girl beside her raise a “We love you, Suzie” poster board. A heavyset woman with Kim’s broad shoulders stood next to the group.

Beside them sat a woman with Marta’s big brown eyes and formerly heart-shaped face. Rapid weight loss had since cinched Marta’s visage into a pointy oblong. Still, the woman was likely Marta’s mother. A dark-haired man stood near along with an older boy. An elderly pair, each with Marta’s deep brown eyes, flanked the boy.

Nia had accounted for everyone in the reserved rows. Aubrey’s family hadn’t come to the recital.

A tap pulled her attention from her game of parent match. Nia turned to see Battle standing behind her. The expression on his face advertised a problem. Nia braced herself for news about Lydia.

“Ms. Washington, I need to speak to you.”

Had the toxicology report come back? Battle’s stiff posture and taught face hinted that it might have. If he knew Lydia had been drugged, he might want to discuss her suspicions about Aubrey.

“Now?”

Battle glanced over her shoulder at the crowd. The show would go on in just a few minutes.

“No. Right after the show. Please meet me in my office.”

“Of course.”

He hurried away. His usual gliding walk appeared harried.

The overhead lights dimmed, cueing the stragglers in the audience to take their seats. The students in the balcony hollered, ready for a rock concert. Nia ducked backstage where the dancers stretched in golden skirts. She air-clapped and pointed to the wings. Showtime.

Battle’s musical voice rang through the auditorium’s speakers. He discussed the dance department and how fortunate the school was to have the dedication of parents and alums. The “wondrous work” the audience would soon enjoy would not be possible without “such continued, generous support.” The appeal for money could only have become more transparent if Battle sent a basket through the rows.

The students sashayed to the wings. They assumed preparatory stances: left legs pointed, arms outstretched in fourth position. Nia glanced down the line. June appeared ashen.

“You’ll be great,” she whispered.

June brightened. Her posture lost some of the stiffness that made her more like a ballerina statue than an actual dancer.

Light piano drifted into the room. The dancers swirled onto the stage. Soft lights sparkled overhead, warm and yellow like sunlight slipping into a nighttime sky. The students performed in unison, bending and rising, turning and swaying. Aubrey and Suzanne took center stage. The girls tipped to their toes as the music assumed a triumphant march quality. They spun in beautiful, mirrored pirouettes that landed in arabesque. Aubrey kept her leg lower to match Suzanne’s lesser flexibility. She would have gotten to show off if Lydia
had danced. But it didn’t matter. Aubrey would have plenty of opportunities to flaunt during the solo.

The singer’s voice cried over the music, shredding the lullaby quality it held moments before. The students’ movements sharpened on cue. Stage lights flickered red and gold, an explosion of sunshine breaking through clouds. The dancers performed a series of pique turns on a diagonal line with the boys leaping behind them like horses pulling twirling sunbeams across the sky. The students converged in the center of the stage as the music strode toward the finale. The girls dipped to the ground, revealing the two boys holding Aubrey and Suzanne at their heads in arabesque. The girls raised their arms high above their heads, ballet’s version of a victory cheer. The sun had risen. The song ended.

The audience erupted in applause. Though she had not danced, Nia felt she owned some of the hooting, hollering, and clapping. She had demonstrated the dance, corrected form, aided with choreography, and helped the ensemble come together. The audience might not know it, but they applauded her efforts too.

Nia looked across the stage to Peter’s aisle seat. One of the female students said something to him. He nodded as he clapped, agreeing with the girl’s statement. He said something back. Nia imagined the words
My girlfriend is one of the instructors.

The pas de deux followed the opening. Both pairs danced on stage at the same time. The boys demonstrated all the moves they would need to showcase in a company audition—lifting the girls in bent-legged arabesques, turning while holding their partner, rotating their girl in front of them while she posed on her toes. The dance provided visual confirmation for any informed parent that Wallace
Academy provided the same dance preparation as the famed Bolshoi Ballet Academy or SAB.

Nia found Suzanne and Alexei’s pairing more beautiful than June and Joseph’s combination. Alexei faked attraction to Suzanne as he danced. His lifts were tender. His movements showed care and gentleness, as if he were awed by her beauty. Joseph couldn’t pretend. Though his performance was technically competent, his face betrayed annoyance whenever he turned from the audience. When Joseph pulled June from a bent knee position to his shoulder, he yanked too hard, nearly sending her flying over his arm. It was as though he wanted the audience to know he had an inferior, slightly off-balance partner.

If the audience detected the performance problems, they didn’t show it with their applause. The final notes were barely audible through the clapping. June and Suzanne had brought the loudest cheering sections from home. Nia stole a glance beyond the curtain. A row of young men and women in the balcony held up a rainbow sign with Alexei’s name on it. The school’s LGBT community supported him. She was glad that they hollered for Alexei and not Joseph. Alexei deserved more recognition.

The couples hurried off opposite ends of the stage. The auditorium lights went out. The stage darkened. The clapping stopped, silenced by the change of mood.

A bony hip hit Nia’s side.

“Break a leg,” Nia whispered to Aubrey. She intended the encouragement to have hidden meaning. The phrase was part of the old performers’ superstition that wishing someone bad luck on stage had the opposite effect. But dancers never said it. Instead, custom held that they wished each other “shit” in proper French. No one ever wished a dancer’s legs ill will, even in jest.

“Lydia already did,” Aubrey hissed.

Aubrey tiptoed to center stage and coiled on the ground, a spring set to explode with compressed energy. Nia didn’t want to watch. But she didn’t have a choice.

Nia stared at the faint outline of the figure in the center of the floor. Aubrey hid in the darkness, camouflaged by the black bodice wrapped around her torso like a second skin. Aubrey’s dance would be the antithesis of the first piece. The company work celebrated sunrise. The solo reveled in shadow: the way it stretched, contorted, consumed the light. Battle intended the choreography to be intense and dark, fitting the apocalyptic soundtrack. But it had moments of comfort. Lydia’s performance, though not lacking ferocity, had hinted at the softness in darkness, the repose brought by the night’s stillness. Nia doubted Aubrey’s version would contain such nuance.

The sound of a bow cutting across guitar strings screeched from the speakers. The spotlight hit Aubrey. She slithered from her position on the floor, rising like a hatched creature from the future—part human, part reptile. The beat pulsed. She attacked, executing a series of fouetté turns. Ms. V had apparently changed the choreography to suit her favored student. Aubrey finished the opening with her impressive standing split, made all the more startling by the shimmery black stockings encasing her legs.

Nia scrutinized the performance for mistakes. She failed to find one. Aubrey danced like the devil played fiddle. Every turn hit its mark. Every angle was spot on. When jumping, her legs never failed to part into a full split or perfect stag’s leap. When en pointe, Aubrey’s feet held an insane arch, as if they were naturally shaped like boning knives.

Nia had expected Aubrey’s technical precision. What she hadn’t anticipated was the emotion. Each move engendered a
feeling: tortured, angry, aroused, triumphant. Aubrey didn’t display vulnerability like Lydia, but Nia had to admit that her interpretation didn’t require it. Aubrey’s shadow was violent and voracious. It consumed everything like a giant funnel cloud, beautiful and terrifying, a force of nature.

When the music stopped and Aubrey stood in the center, holding a pointed foot to her head, the crowd sat in stunned silence, as if movement would startle the creature on stage. Tears burned behind Nia’s eyes. It wasn’t fair that someone so horrible could be so damn talented.

Ms. V started the ovation. The rest of the audience followed suit, rising in height and volume, like a passing sound wave. Even Peter took to his feet. Nia tried to tell herself that he was applauding the whole company’s efforts. But it wasn’t true. Peter applauded Aubrey.

Aubrey spun out of her position and curtsied. The auditorium lights rose on the standing crowd. The rest of the company joined Aubrey from the wings. The applause didn’t increase in volume at the addition of the corps. It already thundered.

Lightning strikes followed the claps. Flashes ignited as parents put pricey cameras to work. Students rushed off the stage to accept flowers and hugs from family. Joseph’s father and mother embraced him. Marta accepted a rose bouquet from her grandma. Aubrey wasn’t with them.

Nia stepped onto the stage to better view the crowd. Battle and Ms. V chatted with alumni. Students filed out the doors. Parents drew closer to the stage, composing album shots with the performers. Aubrey didn’t appear in either direction. The star performer had somehow slipped away.

Nia shrugged off her sympathy. If Aubrey weren’t such a terrible person, maybe she would have friends to congratulate her instead of faceless applause.

She stepped off the stage toward Peter’s seat. He wasn’t there. He couldn’t have gone far. Perhaps he was looking for her among the teachers. She needed to tell him that she’d meet up with him after talking to Battle.

Nia scanned for her boyfriend as she walked down the aisle.

“Ms. Washington.” Anger seethed in Ms. V’s tone. “You’re wanted in the director’s office.”

Nia had expected Ms. V to be ecstatic after such a performance by her favorite pupil. Instead, she appeared red-faced. She must have known what Aubrey did—or she’d heard of Nia’s accusations and was angry with her.

Nia held herself up straighter. She would stand by her claim that Aubrey spiked Lydia’s drink, even if Ms. V didn’t believe her.

“Follow me,” Ms. V snapped.

Nia didn’t dare argue. The woman wanted a fight and she would have to give her one. Someone had to stand up for Lydia.