And not one checks to make sure Rina Bestler is following them.
Rina sinks to the floor, alone. Her stomach swells with anxiety as the group heads down the hall. Her fairy princess costume is too tight and she can’t catch a breath. With a desperate grunt, she widens a hole in her shredded sleeve and tears along the seam until she can fill her lungs. She isn’t supposed to be here. She’s supposed to be four hours into her rink time. She’s supposed to be bruising the hell out of her ass trying to add another rotation to her double axle. Never mind she was thinking the same thing during morning line-up. And on the drive to the house overlooking the park. And every single goddamn minute since the accident.
Whenever Rina thinks about medals and trophies in dank basement boxes, or how magical it would’ve been in South Korea under fresh snowfall, a new bloom of self-hatred opens inside her. It’s nearly a garden now, reeking and tangled as she fantasizes about Olympic glory while her peers bob facedown in the water.
Her knee is skinned to shiny meat, but she rests her forehead on it, savoring the sticky sting all the way through her body. It might be the last thing she feels, so why not indulge in it?
Covering Rina’s toes with her wet slippers, Tiffany extends her hand, and Rina recoils so hard she knocks her head on the wall.
The actress, who said barely a word to her over the last month, drops to a squat and curls her hand around Rina’s head. “You okay? I know this can’t be easy for you.”
Rina didn’t let the best skaters in the world touch her when she couldn’t remove a warped blade guard, so she shrinks away from Tiffany’s touch. Rocking to her feet, she thanks her and starts away, eyes to the floor.
“Would this help?”
When Rina swivels around, the local actress slides a mini bottle of Southern Comfort from her pocket and dangles it in her face. “I found it in the kitchen right there. Plenty more like it too. Must’ve been Harlan’s secret stash.”
Rina desperately wants a drink. She had sips of champagne here and there growing up, but in contrast to the rumors flying around the park, she never had more than that before the night of the accident. She never craved it, never thought it was an easy way out. It was all a mistake, exacerbated by the fight she’d had with her parents that night. She told them she wanted to go to college, but they wouldn’t even discuss it. Her life was skating and competition. Her life was gold. Her life was theirs.
Sensing her hesitation, Tiffany laughs. “I don’t think you’re gonna crash any cars down here, honey.” She apologizes but doesn’t look like she means it. “I’m just saying.”
“I wish you hadn’t.” Rina pushes past Tiffany to the kitchen, but the actress follows close behind.
When Rina opens a random cabinet, Tiffany giggles.
“You really got a nose for it, huh? That’s where I found it,” she says, twisting off the cap. “Hand me some more, would ya?”
Reaching past a stack of paper towels, Rina discovers an incomplete pyramid of mini liquor bottles.
“We’re going to be stuck here a while. Come on. Help me make the best of it.”
Rina passes the SoCos to Tiffany and shakes her head. “No thanks. Being drunk off my ass when we’re rescued probably isn’t what I need right now.”
Tiffany laughs. “You say that like you actually think we’re getting out.” Spinning on her toe, she dances to a moldering sofa that spews squelchy debris when she flops down. “Don’t you know? We’re all gonna die down here.”
“What makes you think that?”
Tiffany laughs as she twists off another cap and lobs it like a basketball into the scummy sink. “Well,” she says after a guzzle, “if this was the first time, I’d say sure, Ms. Fell needs as many of us to survive as possible. She would still be able to salvage her reputation. But there’s no coming back from this. She failed on Wall Street, she failed at the family business, and now—” She drinks the rest and hurls the bottle at the sink, narrowly missing. “Dang!” She opens a tiny gin and sniffs cautiously. “Anyway, she doesn’t plan on surviving, so why should we?”
“That’s a bleak outlook.”
Tiffany lifts her eyebrows. “Did you see the same shit I did? All those people? All those dead people? And that storm… it… ” She drinks the gin and shudders as she swallows. “It was alive. It was… fuck, I don’t know, some kind of monster.” When Rina stares blankly, Tiffany rolls her eyes. “Anyway, don’t tell me that you, a disgraced Olympian, want me to look on the sunny side. That ain’t happening, sister.”
Rina wipes sweat from her brow and it stings; she must’ve cut her scalp. With a wince, she sits beside Tiffany on the crusty couch. “I thought you didn’t believe in monsters.”
“I said I don’t believe Vic.” Swinging her gaze to Rina, she says, “I absolutely believe in monsters.”
“Okay. So what do you think she saw when she was a kid?”
Tiffany shakes her head. “If we’re getting into this, you can’t make me drink alone.”
Rina sighs as she opens her palm and Tiffany slaps on a mini whiskey. Twisting off the cap, she says, “Bottoms up,” and takes a sip. She gags and coughs, and Tiffany smacks her on the back.
Leaning back, the actress huffs. “Look, I have no problem admitting I wanted to work here, but it was just because of my mom. I wanted to play the part that made her career. The part that… ” She rolls her focus to the ceiling and shakes her head. “I wanted it, okay? But I almost didn’t audition at all because of the rumors about Ms. Fell. She went crazy after the Ghost, started telling people her father was an impostor.”
Swallowing another mouthful of whiskey, Rina flinches. “Why would she do that?”
“He fell out the northern exit,” she says, having too much fun as she jumps her fingers off the imaginary cliff again. “Right into the bay. I guess she thought he was dead or swept out to sea, cuz they didn’t find him after. Not until a few days later when some hikers found him on the beach.”
“You’d think she’d be happy he was alive. Why would she say he was an impostor?”
Tiffany grabs Rina’s shoulders, howling as she shakes her, “Because she’s crazy! Why else would she reopen this hellhole?” She shoves Rina a little too hard and the girl tumbles off the lumpy couch with a shriek.
Someone shouts from the main corridor and footfalls echo in crescendo. Ben jogs into the break room, his face flushed with fear when he asks Tiffany, “Everyone okay?” But the fear vanishes, sours to a twitchy pit, when he sees Rina.
She hides the mini bottle behind her back, nodding as she stands and dusts off her gown.
“She’s fine,” Tiffany says, joining her side. “Though she’s much more of a lightweight than I would’ve thought, especially for someone who carries around little baby boozes.” She kicks an empty bottle and winks at Ben.
“Me? You’re the one who found them!”
“Well, yeah, after you told me you held onto a bunch during the storm. That was pretty impressive. All those people getting killed and you held onto your booze.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look! She’s trying to hide one right now!” Tiffany tugs on Rina’s arm, exposing the half-consumed bottle, and the skater’s face burns in humiliation.
Ben forces an amiable smile. “It’s not a big deal. I was coming to check on you anyway and wanted to make sure no one was hurt. And the break room down the way is in pretty good condition if you want to join us, Tiff. Better digs than this. Bunkbeds, cots, the whole nine yards. There’s even some bottled water from the 90s.”