Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore

Author:Margarita Montimore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

Sasha

February 21, 2018

I can’t get comfortable. My hips and shoulders try to dig into the mattress, but there’s zero cushioning and—

I wake up but keep my eyes closed.

Please please please let me be on my kitchen floor or my bathroom floor or the floor of any room of my house.

I open my eyes.

Shit.

As I adjust to the darkness, I can’t bring myself to my feet, not yet.

This isn’t any room of my house. In fact, my entire house could fit into this room. A chandelier the size of a school bus is suspended from the multistoried ceiling of this room, and the red emergency EXIT signs in the back look like they’re a mile away.

Oh Jesus, so now I’m inside the Witkin Theater? I get to my feet.

Just like last time, I’m in nothing but pajamas, but at least this time I’m not outside in the cold. So that makes it … better?

On either side of me are roped-off curtains. Oh, cool, center stage. A few more feet and I would’ve fallen into the orchestra pit. Above me, a lighting rig. Farther out, I can make out balconies with elaborate gold leaf trim.

No, this is worse than when I woke up outside. Definitely, definitely worse. I can think of three reasons why off the top of my head.

One: The trespassing factor.

Two: The embarrassment factor if someone finds me.

Three: Sleepwalking once beyond the confines of my home is a fluke. Twice means it’s becoming a pattern.

“That’s so inconvenience stores,” Violet would say, referencing a Far Side cartoon we both loved. In it, a retailer kept his merchandise stocked on shelves along a high ceiling, way out of reach. When Quinn was three, we visited Violet in Las Vegas and saw her show at the Kintana. Afterward, we went backstage, and it made me smile to see the cartoon taped to her dressing room mirror.

Pounding footsteps in the distance snap me back to the Witkin.

“Is somebody in here?” A flashlight beam zigzags down the center aisle.

Crap. I need to get out of here.

I turn around and make my way upstage as quickly and quietly as possible. In my haste, my body collides with a heavy curtain. I claw at it, trying to find an opening. It’s like swimming through fabric and I get more and more tangled up in it until I break free only to run headfirst into another curtain and lose my balance. I fall onto the stage, landing with a thud.

From the direction of the orchestra pit, a male voice shouts, “Come out before I call the police!”

Oh hell no. I crawl around in search of an exit and my fingers brush against some kind of braiding. It’s the hem of the curtain. Great, I’ll just follow this into one of the stage wings—only I’m hyperventilating because tight, enclosed spaces are not my favorite, and I’m cocooned in heavy curtain right now and it brings back terrible memories of being trapped in a mining tunnel as a kid, memories I don’t care to revisit now or ever.

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