Dominic raises his hands, palms facing up, as though making an offering to the gods, and the velvet is pulled off, shimmying like the glossy leaves of the buttonbush shrubs bordering our ground floor apartment. The fabric pools to the side of enormous glass cubes in which various pieces of furniture have been deposited: chairs, desks, a bar, a human-sized hamster wheel. One’s even filled with dirt.
“Contestants, your stages!” Dominic bellows, his voice rife with delight. “Herrick Hawk, for the next eight hours, you will be a carrot. You will stand in dirt. You will not talk. You will not move. But please, don’t forget to breathe,” he adds with a bark of laughter.
The green makeup does little to hide Herrick’s revulsion. When he finally moves, it’s in slow motion. One of the stage hands props a ladder against the side of his dirt-filled glass cage to help him scale the wall. He lands noiselessly on the thick earth. He doesn’t insert himself in the hole they dug against one of the sides. He’s probably waiting until he has to.
“Maria, my dear, I hope you enjoy knitting,” Dominic continues, wrapping one arm around the former beauty queen’s waist.
“Not especially,” she says.
“Well that’s too bad, because”—he shoves her toward a cube with a chair in the middle and a basket full of electric blue yarn—“you will be knitting a scarf for the next eight hours.”
“ Que bueno ,” she mumbles, advancing toward her box.
“Daisy. Darling Daisy,” he tells Maxine. “Guess which stage I’ve had readied for you.”
She points to the one with the bar.
“Good girl. You’ll pretend to pour yourself shots and drink them.”
He grins. She doesn’t.
He turns to Lincoln, who’s smoothing down her gold hair. “You see that stage with the wooden vat and all the wands sticking out of it?”
She nods.
“That’s all yours, sweetheart. You will enchant us with bubbles of all sizes. It will be beautiful.”
She smirks as she leaves. I wouldn’t have minded blowing bubbles dressed as Lolita for a few hours.
I stare at what’s left: the hamster wheel, a desk with a stool and a thick leather-bound book, and a glass cube with two chairs facing each other. I hope I get the desk, but I don’t. It becomes Nathan’s. He must read the entire book. I’m jealous until I hear it’s an encyclopedia on plants and seeds.
J.J., unsurprisingly, is awarded the hamster cage. The whiskers gave it away.
“Chase and Ivy, you will look at each other for the next eight hours. You may blink, but no looking at anything or anyone else. Studies have shown it’s extraordinarily intimate when it lasts for four minutes,” Dominic says, which makes me grunt. “No one’s ever studied the effect of eight hours, though.”
I’m sure it will have the opposite effect. When I spot Lincoln toying with her bubble wands, I’m envious. Why didn’t they stick her in here with Chase? I walk ahead of him, threading myself through the thick crowd, and take a seat on one of the transparent chairs, bracing myself for complete boredom.
“Can I get a countdown?” I hear Dominic ask.
I stare around me one last time before I’m stuck with Chase’s pale face. The crowd starts counting down from ten to one. My gaze locks on Brook’s. He’s standing right outside our cube, his arms folded in front of his chest.
“Three…two…one…show time!” everyone chants.
Cara seals the door of our cube, and then, it’s just me and Chase. There’s no more noise except that of my breath whooshing past my parted lips.
The first hour is the most painful. My eyes are sore, and my bottom, in spite of relentlessly shifting around in the plastic chair, smarts. My nostrils keep flaring from Chase’s oily, green smell that makes me think of muddy grass after a rainfall. But the physical agony is nothing compared to the displeasure of being scrutinized by him. His eyes feel like the sheets of icy rain that fall over Kokomo in
“Contestants, your stages!” Dominic bellows, his voice rife with delight. “Herrick Hawk, for the next eight hours, you will be a carrot. You will stand in dirt. You will not talk. You will not move. But please, don’t forget to breathe,” he adds with a bark of laughter.
The green makeup does little to hide Herrick’s revulsion. When he finally moves, it’s in slow motion. One of the stage hands props a ladder against the side of his dirt-filled glass cage to help him scale the wall. He lands noiselessly on the thick earth. He doesn’t insert himself in the hole they dug against one of the sides. He’s probably waiting until he has to.
“Maria, my dear, I hope you enjoy knitting,” Dominic continues, wrapping one arm around the former beauty queen’s waist.
“Not especially,” she says.
“Well that’s too bad, because”—he shoves her toward a cube with a chair in the middle and a basket full of electric blue yarn—“you will be knitting a scarf for the next eight hours.”
“ Que bueno ,” she mumbles, advancing toward her box.
“Daisy. Darling Daisy,” he tells Maxine. “Guess which stage I’ve had readied for you.”
She points to the one with the bar.
“Good girl. You’ll pretend to pour yourself shots and drink them.”
He grins. She doesn’t.
He turns to Lincoln, who’s smoothing down her gold hair. “You see that stage with the wooden vat and all the wands sticking out of it?”
She nods.
“That’s all yours, sweetheart. You will enchant us with bubbles of all sizes. It will be beautiful.”
She smirks as she leaves. I wouldn’t have minded blowing bubbles dressed as Lolita for a few hours.
I stare at what’s left: the hamster wheel, a desk with a stool and a thick leather-bound book, and a glass cube with two chairs facing each other. I hope I get the desk, but I don’t. It becomes Nathan’s. He must read the entire book. I’m jealous until I hear it’s an encyclopedia on plants and seeds.
J.J., unsurprisingly, is awarded the hamster cage. The whiskers gave it away.
“Chase and Ivy, you will look at each other for the next eight hours. You may blink, but no looking at anything or anyone else. Studies have shown it’s extraordinarily intimate when it lasts for four minutes,” Dominic says, which makes me grunt. “No one’s ever studied the effect of eight hours, though.”
I’m sure it will have the opposite effect. When I spot Lincoln toying with her bubble wands, I’m envious. Why didn’t they stick her in here with Chase? I walk ahead of him, threading myself through the thick crowd, and take a seat on one of the transparent chairs, bracing myself for complete boredom.
“Can I get a countdown?” I hear Dominic ask.
I stare around me one last time before I’m stuck with Chase’s pale face. The crowd starts counting down from ten to one. My gaze locks on Brook’s. He’s standing right outside our cube, his arms folded in front of his chest.
“Three…two…one…show time!” everyone chants.
Cara seals the door of our cube, and then, it’s just me and Chase. There’s no more noise except that of my breath whooshing past my parted lips.
The first hour is the most painful. My eyes are sore, and my bottom, in spite of relentlessly shifting around in the plastic chair, smarts. My nostrils keep flaring from Chase’s oily, green smell that makes me think of muddy grass after a rainfall. But the physical agony is nothing compared to the displeasure of being scrutinized by him. His eyes feel like the sheets of icy rain that fall over Kokomo in
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