Sawyer
The afternoon sun was high when I climbed out of bed, and I was hungry as hell. I heated up a huge portion of Darlene’s casserole and ate every bite. After, I took my best gray suit to the dry cleaners and told them to rush it. While it was being cleaned, I wandered into Macy’s on Union Square and bought a new tie.
After, I picked up my dry cleaning, showered, changed, and at a quarter to seven, I headed out. At the florist on 14th, I started toward the red roses, but a stand of daisies in brilliant yellow and orange caught my eye.
“Gerber daisies,” said the florist with a smile. “In Egyptian times, the gerbera daisy represented light and sun. In the Victorian era, they came to represent happiness.”
“In the Victorian era…” At the word, my photographic memory conjured my house; Darlene’s house too.
The florist smiled. “They’re my favorite.”
I touched one of the soft, bright petals. “Mine too.”
With a bouquet of two-dozen Gerber daisies wrapped in green tissue paper under my arm, I jumped on the Muni for the Mission District; an artsy, bohemian part of the city.
I walked along a busy street lined with shops and cafés, and one too many new condo complexes. The tech industry was sucking some of the life out of the old San Francisco. The Brown Bag Theater was a hole in the wall; a holdover from before the tech boom, and that still existed by the city’s sheer force of will, though I wondered for how much longer.
I paid a $10 ticket at the rickety box office and stepped into the shabby interior. The wallpaper was faded and covered in posters from previous shows. The lobby was nonexistent; a small space where one wall was heavy with black curtains. A handful of people loitered in the space, talking and drinking wine from a tiny bar stand. I was the only one wearing a suit.
At ten to eight, a nervous-looking guy in black passed out programs and told us to take our seats. I filed in to the fifty-capacity space with the rest of the audience; we filled maybe twenty seats.
I laid the flowers across my knee and watched the stage—a small rectangle of scuffed black illuminated by a single light in the center. My stomach twisted as if I were the one about to perform, and I scanned the program—a smudgy Xerox folded in half.
Most of the dances were as a group, but Darlene had a solo, halfway into the show.
She never told me.
Then the house lights dimmed and the show began.
It wasn’t good.
I was no dance connoisseur but every number felt amateurish and overly dramatic. Trying to make a statement, somehow. Except for Darlene. My considerable bias aside, she was riveting. Stunning. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. The dumbass director shoved her in the back of every ensemble dance, and still she shone brighter than the lead dancer we were supposed to be watching.
Three routines later, and Darlene took the stage. She moved gracefully into a cone of light in a simple black dancer’s dress with billowy material that floated around her long legs. Her hair was tied up on her head in a loose ponytail, revealing the long lines of her neck and shoulders. Like my favorite shirt of hers, the back of her dress crisscrossed her shoulder blades—highlighting the lines and lean muscle. The sleeves were long but sheer, also giving elegant definition to her arms.
God, she’s so beautiful.
The program said she’d be dancing to a song called “Down.” I’d never heard it before, the first notes—a lone piano—descended like downward steps. Darlene remained frozen until a woman began to sing. A lonely voice, yet bright and clear.
I stared at Darlene, watched the play of her muscles under her skin as she moved, filled the small space with her presence, flowing like shadows and light; slow with the piano, fast and precise with the techno beat.
As the song came to an end, Darlene collapsed onto her back, braced on one elbow; the other arm reached for the unlit space above her, her hand grasping at nothing. On that final note and last haunting lyric, her back arched and her head fell back, as if she were being pulled upward by an unseen force, and then left there, suspended in the silence.
The moment hung and then the meager crowd caught their breath. I broke free from her spell and my hands slammed together over and over. A few other audience members whistled or whooped where they had only politely applauded every act that had come before.
My chest swelled with pride. She was the best and they all knew it.
Then the next and final dance came, and Darlene was once again relegated to the back of the stage. I didn’t know what kind of hierarchy this dance troupe had but it was painfully obvious Darlene deserved to be the lead.
I watched her make-do in the back with her partner—the clumsy schmuck who’d bruised her head in rehearsal a few weeks ago. She struggled with him now. I saw her correct mistakes, or cover for him when he was off-time. A sneer curled my lips, and I tried to focus on her. Just her.
And then it happened.
The pairs of dancers in the back came apart and then flew together, and Darlene’s klutzy partner stomped on her foot with his heel. I shot halfway out of my seat as Darlene’s face contorted in sudden pain. No one else seemed to have noticed—the lead dancer had executed some sort of gymnastic feat to capture their attention.
Darlene put on a stage face and I sank down slowly, watching in awe as she powered through the rest of her dance—about ten more seconds. She favored her right foot, but subtly, and the only real sign of her pain was the sweat the glistened across her chest.
As soon as the dance ended, the dancers bowed, and Darlene’s partner shot her an apologetic look. She stared straight ahead, into the lights that blinded her to the audience, but I saw the tears in her eyes and the clench of her jaw. She kept her right foot behind her left as she bowed to the smattering of applause, but as soon as the black curtain began to drop, she limped off.
The lights came up and while everyone else filed toward the exit, I raced down the small aisle with the flowers and jumped onto the stage. I had to paw at the heavy material for a moment but I found the split and stepped through it.
It was dim, but backstage lights guided me to a small anteroom where the dancers were laughing with post-show nerves and being congratulated by their director.
“Where’s Darlene?” I demanded.
They all stopped and exchanged glances. Her asshole partner had the good graces to look chagrined but said nothing.
“Probably in the dressing room,” the lead dancer said in a bitchy tone I didn’t like. “She kind of…does her own thing.”
I remembered how Darlene had told me they didn’t welcome her with open arms, but made her feel like an outcast.
Even though she’s the best of them. Because she’s the best of them.
I snorted in disgust and turned back the way I’d come. I found the tiny dressing room. Empty. A short corridor led behind the stage. I heard the muffled crying first, and followed it to her, picking my way carefully through the dimness.
Darlene sat on the floor, her back against one of the movable backdrops that had been used in show. Her right foot was propped up on a coil of rope and even in the dark, I could see the swelling and bruising around the last two toes.
“Darlene.”
She lifted her tear-stained face, taking in me and my suit, and the flowers in my hand. And in one glance, I felt how she appreciated all of it more than she had words for. More than I deserved. Because her every emotion lived in her body, in her eyes, and beautiful face that couldn’t keep anything a secret.
She smiled through her tears, her voice whispery and tremulous. “You came.”
I knelt beside her, examined her foot to conceal the sudden rush of emotions that swept through me. I had too many and didn’t have the first clue what to do with them all.
I’ve never felt this way about a woman before…
And she was hurt. That clumsy asshole hurt her. I channeled my feelings into anger at him and felt more in control.
I set the flowers down, and carefully pulled her foot onto my lap. Her last two toes were swollen, and the bruising was spreading down the outside edge of her foot and across the top in purple splotches. “This isn’t my specialty, but it looks broken.”
“I think so. It’s hurts. A lot.” She sniffed and shook her head. “So much for my dance comeback.”
“For now,” I said fiercely. “You’ll heal and get out there again. You have to. You were the best damn part of that show.”
Darlene smiled, or tried to, for me. But it crumpled under the weight of her tears.
“I try so hard…and it all just slips out of my grasp. My best friend…now this job…” She tilted her head up to look up at me, her blue eyes brimming and her cheeks stained with the trails of dark makeup. “I can’t hold on to anything…”
I swallowed hard, Henrietta’s words filtering into my thoughts. I put my arms around her.
“Not this time.” I said, gruffly. “Hold on to me.”
She raised her eyes to mine, uncertain. “Sawyer…”
“And I’ll hold on to you, okay?” I said. “Just as tightly.”
A little sob escaped her and she wrapped her arms around my neck. I held her for a long, selfish moment, until her body in my arms tensed with pain, pushing a little whimper from her. I set the flowers in her lap, and lifted her off the ground carefully, holding her around the back and under her knees.
“The daisies are beautiful,” she said, with a sniff. “They’re so bright and cheerful.”
I nodded. In the dark, and in pain, Darlene was still giving, still generous and vibrant. I held her closer, and carried her through the theatre, her head tucked under my chin and her hand on my chest. We passed through the green room, and the troupe stopped their small celebrations.
“You broke her damn foot,” I snapped at her partner.
“It was an accident,” Darlene said, clinging to me tighter.
“Accident or not, he should have known better. Been better to her,” I said, still pinning the guy with a hard stare, then sweeping it over the room. “You all should have. You should have taken care of her.”
I should have taken care of her.
I gritted my teeth. “Whoever you find to replace her won’t be one tenth the dancer she is.” I looked down at Darlene. “You have stuff here?”
She nodded. “In the locker.”
“I got it.” A small woman in glasses brought Darlene’s bag and her ratty old gray sweater. Darlene added them to her lap, beside the flowers.
“You were great tonight,” the woman said, her eyes darting to mine and back. “He’s right. I hope you get better quick. Some other company’s going to be lucky to have you.”
“Thanks, Paula,” Darlene whispered.
I carried her out of the theatre, onto the street, where the night was cold and the wind made Darlene’s black dance dress slide up her legs. She shivered, and then let out a little cry.
“God, it hurts,” she whispered.
“Do you mind calling me an Uber or a cab?” I said, trying to take her mind off of it. “I’d do it, but my hands are tied.”
She smiled and fished her phone from her purse. “You can put me down. I must be heavy.”
“You’re not,” I said.
I’m not letting you go.
An Uber arrived within minutes, and I was glad the driver had the heat turned up. In the backseat, I kept her against me, holding her. And the way she molded herself to me, I felt like she was mine, and never in my life had I known such happiness. A bruised happiness, given what I faced with the Abbotts, but a happiness I hadn’t ever experienced. It felt like too much to ask for more, but in my mind’s eye, I tentatively reached for a future that had both her and Olivia. A real life.
A family?
“Thank you for coming to the show,” Darlene said, pulling me from my thoughts. “It meant so much to me, I can’t even tell you.”
Shame ripped through me at how I almost hadn’t. At how close I came to letting my own fear keep me home. I wouldn’t have been there to witness her dance, or be there for her when she got hurt.
I said nothing but held her tighter.
“I called my parents a few days ago,” Darlene said against my chest. “I waited so long to tell them about the show because what if I gave them plenty of notice, and they still said no? I thought it would hurt less if I told them at the last minute. Then they could say no, and it would make sense. Kind of like insurance, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And I didn’t even tell my best friends back home at all. But I wished I had. I wish I’d been braver.”
“You are brave, Darlene,” I said. “You’re braver than anyone I know.”
“My best friend Beckett told me that once, too. I don’t know if I believe it but I feel like I’m getting closer. This may not be the best show, but it was my first since I started using. My first since I’d been clean.”
She craned her head to look up at me. “Tonight was a disaster, but it was also better than anything I could have imagined. I needed someone there.” Her eyes shone. “You were there.”
“It wasn’t a disaster. You were incredible.” I swallowed hard. “And I showed up, yeah, but I should’ve been there for you a hell of a lot sooner.”
She shrugged and smiled, her fingertips touching my cheek. “You’re here now, Sawyer. That’s all that matters.”