Page 22 of Darling

She followed him into a hallway with five bedrooms. The doors were all open, and she could tell whose belonged to who pretty quickly. The twins’ room had doubles of everything; one half of the room was messy and the other was cluttered, but neat. Prentis’s room was very tidy but didn’t have many personal effects—which made sense, as she remembered him saying he was new. Curly shut the door to his room before she was able to see inside. Nibs’s room had a few weights in it and a pull-up bar in the doorway. The last room had the door firmly shut, so Curly had to knock.

“Peter sent Darling to ask you about clothes or something, I don’t know,” Curly called through the door.

Tinkerbelle pulled the door open just enough for Wendy to slither inside, and then she shut it hard.

“I’m not really sure I want to go to this party anymore,” Wendy said immediately.

Tinkerbelle scoffed and rolled her eyes. She opened her closet and started riffling through it. “Don’t you think I know that?” she asked. “Something is going to happen tonight, and you really shouldn’t be here. Not that you listened to my warning back at your house or anything. Too busy being dazzled by boy wonder out there.”

“I wasn’t dazzled,” Wendy shot back.

Tinkerbelle stopped and turned around completely. “Yes, you were. I was, too. You’re not special for pretending that he isn’t sexy and interesting. He just is. And now he has you somewhere you didn’t know you would wind up, doing something you don’t really want to do, and it gets harder to remember that you don’t want to do things when you’re right there beside him. Come on, Darling, no one in this room is stupid. How the fuck do you think I got here?”

Tinkerbelle looked Wendy up and down. “Size ten or twelve?” she demanded.

“Ten, but wait, wait, go back. You said you were trying to warn me about something? Why didn’t you just say what you meant?” Wendy asked shrilly.

“Keep your voice down,” Tinkerbelle hissed. “And because he was right there. I promise you, the less you know, the happier you’ll be.”

Tinkerbelle threw a couple of dresses on her bed, then started rooting around at the bottom of her closet in her giant pile of shoes.

“Now. You had three chances to get out of this: first, when Peter asked; next, when I told you to leave; and last, when you got separated from us at the train station. You might have another couple opportunities before the night is over, and if you’re clever or really lucky, you might be able to take them. But for now, let’s just get you presentable and follow this to the end.”

Tinkerbelle pulled a large trunk out from the back of her closet and pushed it over to the vanity she had set up against the wall.

“Then afterward,” she continued, “you can go back home to Lincoln Park—and the life you were planning on having—and sincerely focus on being happy to never see any of us again.”

Wendy looked at the pile of clothes, then back at Tinkerbelle. “I don’t think they’ll…,” she started.

“Dude, they’re your size. Just pick something you like and try it on,” Tinkerbelle said, sitting down at the vanity. She pulled out her cell phone and started typing.

Wendy looked around Tinkerbelle’s room as she slowly pulled off her sweater. It was more normal in here than she would have expected. Tinkerbelle had a small twin-size bed, with a stuffed tiger and a few finger-knit quilts (courtesy of Nibs, most likely). There were band posters on the wall, surrounded by pictures of her and the boys, and she’d also tacked up concert and movie ticket stubs and cutouts from magazines. Her room had an overhead light, but instead of using it, she’d taped Christmas lights all around the perimeter of the ceiling and crisscrossed them overhead so the room was lit with a soft glow.

The dresses Tinkerbelle had picked out were indeed Wendy’s size, but she felt weird about wearing someone else’s clothes. She held a long-sleeved gold sequined minidress up to her nose and sniffed. It smelled freshly cleaned, if a bit dusty, like Tinkerbelle didn’t wear it often. Or like the last time she’d worn it was ages ago, back when it probably fit. That was probably for the best, all things considered. The other two dresses were black and not exactly to her taste, so she shimmied into the gold dress and zipped up the back. Tinkerbelle had also laid tights out for her. Unlike the stringy beat-up tights Tinkerbelle was wearing, these were so new they still had the cardboard inside. They were also fleece-lined and warm. Wendy looked at the back of Tinkerbelle’s head and thought about her long white arms gripping both sides of the train car, leaning back into the night so Wendy would feel secure as she crossed. She thought about Tinkerbelle pulling warm new tights out for someone that she just met.

She had never in her life known a girl like this.

“Hey,” Wendy said when she’d finished dressing.

Tinkerbelle looked up. She pursed her lips and then shrugged one shoulder. “I liked that dress when it fit me. It looks good on you,” she said brusquely. “When you go home, you don’t have to worry about returning it.”

“I don’t think I would even have anywhere to wear this, after tonight,” Wendy said, looking down at the clingy fabric.

Tinkerbelle snorted rudely. “Probably not. But it works well on you, just the same. Now, do you want anything done with your hair and makeup, or are you just leaving it like … that?”

Tinkerbelle didn’t even have much hair, so Wendy wasn’t confident in her skills regarding that at all. At least with the clothes, she could tell Tinkerbelle had a higher than average understanding of coordination.

“My hair is fine,” Wendy said firmly. “And I don’t wear makeup.”

Tinkerbelle cocked her head to the side and considered Wendy’s face. “You don’t need it, either. But you might like to look less like yourself tonight,” she said quietly. “Trust me on that.”

Wendy realized that she’d been having a feeling off and on all night that she couldn’t quite name, but was growing in urgency. It was like a brush of regular anxiety combined with the sort of thrill you get when something incredibly dangerous is about to happen. She’d felt a whisper of it in the alley, but she’d brushed it off as nerves from sneaking out. She’d felt it on the train platform, though it had gone nearly as quickly as it came. She’d also felt it the moment before Peter had held her in the kitchen, but the warmth of his body had chased it away. But all of those instances were spaced out. Now, Wendy had felt it twice in the five minutes she’d been alone in this room with Tinkerbelle, and that was significant.

Tinkerbelle had already said that Wendy wouldn’t want to know what the source of that thrill was. Tinkerbelle also didn’t seem like the type of person to rescind things she had already made a decision about, so maybe it wasn’t the best idea to demand clarity on the situation.

Wendy looked down at her tights, then back up to Tinkerbelle’s determined little face. Whether or not this person valued her or liked her was immaterial. Tinkerbelle had cared about her safety in a way that was important: If she wasn’t allowed to know what was going on, perhaps Wendy could leverage the needs of the one person who wanted her to get home as much as she did.

“No one in this room is stupid,” Wendy echoed Tinkerbelle’s words from earlier. “So, I’d like to make you an offer and ask you some questions that I think you can answer without creating problems.”