Dev Dreams, Volume One Read Online Free Page B

been under one of
those boards they used to kill women in the Salem trials, with
rocks piled on top of her chest. One enormous boulder had been
removed and she was surprised how much easier it was to
breathe.
    “Thanks,” she said to James.
    “No,” he said, “that was all you. This is not
going to be easy.”
    “We’ll make it work.”
    James smiled. He said, “Come give me a
kiss.”
     
     
    Mariann, Dancing Alone
     
    Mariann woke up with her fingers tapping the
Cha-cha against the blanket. She turned her face off the pillow and
looked at her little purple clock. Hrmph, she thought, and blinked
blearily. She sat up on her bed and ran fingers through her mass of
red hair and let it fall back against her shoulders. She stretched
forward, touching her toes with her fingers. Her fingers were
strong and defined; so too were her feet. Sticking out at the
bottom of her sweat pants her feet showed every one of their
muscles. Mariann rolled off the couch on which she had slept, her
feet tapping out the Cha-cha rhythm on the floor. She went to the
bathroom and looked at herself for a few moments in the mirror. She
had a youthful appearance, even some freckles left over from when
she was twelve dotted under her blue eyes. But the last few months
had been rough on her and her appearance. This morning she could
feel herself aging. Her skin was looking a little drawn, she had
two gray hairs above her right ear which blended into the red
curls. Mariann splashed cold water on her face and brushed her
teeth.
    She grabbed her dance shoes and put them in
her bag. She pulled her feet into sneakers and put on a sweatshirt
that fell over her knee-length leggings. She grabbed her pile of
red hair, snapped a clip around it and shoved her sunglasses over
her eyes. She threw her bag in the passenger seat of her car and
pulled out of the garage. Mariann was living with her mother now,
ever since Mariann and her husband had had The Fight. She didn’t
know what was going to happen next, but for now all she could do
was go to work and pretend nothing was different. It was not what
Mariann had expected from life, to be living with her mother at
this age. “I told you it was crazy to marry him,” her mother had
said when Mariann arrived at her door last month.
    That's what everyone who met her husband
seemed to think. Why would a dancer marry a paraplegic? They didn't
know him, though, if that's all they saw. They had so much in
common when they met, both pursuing careers in the arts. Kevin was
a gifted actor.
    Over the years, though, her career had grown
and his had withered. It broke her heart as much as his when he
went to auditions and was dismissed without even reading. She had
not been fair, though. She had wanted to keep her life with him
separate from her life as a dancer. Her excuse to herself was that
she was tired of answering the question why had she married him. If
her coworkers never met him, they couldn't wonder about the husband
in a wheelchair. It was more than that, though, there was some
terrible superstitious part of her mind that was afraid his failure
could drag her down too.
    Then he had asked the question himself. Why
did you marry me? She wasn't sure, she couldn't remember, she
didn't have an answer to the one question that followed her around
where ever she went.
    Traffic wasn’t bad on the highway. Mariann
drove absently past red, orange and yellow trees. She exited, going
through the same familiar routine. The sign for the dance studio
came up quickly and she pulled into the parking lot. She parked her
car and hopped out, her fingers tapping out the Samba rhythm. The
Samba was all about percussion and it had a beat that felt as
though it was your heart pounding against the inside of your
chest.
    She put her sunglasses on top of her head as
she pushed open the door to the studio and walked down the cool
white hallway. Through a swinging glass door a fake wood floor
spread across a huge room. The ceiling was high