The Price of Beauty

Chapter One: Darkness

"Goodbye!" Nina waved to Alicia as she made her way out of the four storey building where the Elliot Ballet Company practiced everyday.

"You're coming to Matt's party, right?" Alicia yelled from afar.

"Yes," Nina said without turning as her eyes searched for her fiancé, Adrian. She saw him sitting in his convertible, across the street, texting on his phone. He looked up as she came and leaned over to open the door for her.

"Somebody's been practicing late," he commented as Nina took her place beside him.

"Oh, you know we're doing performing at the Royal Art Theatre next month," Nina pouted.

"Yes, I do know," Adrian laughed, "You've only mentioned it like fifteen times per day." He drove off as Nina leaned her head back.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Surprise," Adrian smiled.

***

"I'm home," Nina announced as she dropped her bag on the table. A low grunt from the next room told her that her sister Faith was alive and well. She washed her face and peered into the master bedroom. Her mother, Mrs. Thorne sat gazing out from the window, her eyes blank, registering nothing.

Pausing for a moment, Nina steeled herself as she knocked lightly. "Mom?"

The lady turned around, stared at Nina for a moment before turning away and gazing off in the distance again. Nina sighed. Not today, either.

She came in and cleared the eaten plate from the table and dusted the bed of crumbs.

"Honey, when you're done will you clean the toilet as well?" Mrs. Thorne said suddenly. "It's been clogged since yesterday. I'll leave a huge tip for you."

Nina kept the plates down and opened the door to the attached toilet. A stench as bad as three decomposed corpses hit her before she could slam the door close within two seconds.

"Mom! Why didn't you tell Faith! You're not supposed to use a clogged toilet," Nina sighed heavily.

"Oh dear, stop calling me your mom," Mrs. Throne said blankly, "I don't know what's gotten into you girl but you better do your job or else I'd like to speak to the manager."

Without a word, Nina gathered the plates and left the room. Faith was setting the table for dinner.

"She didn't recognize you either, did she?" she asked.

"It's not her day," Nina shrugged.

"She wouldn't let me in. She thinks I'm some intruder who wants to mug her," Faith sighed and sat on a chair. "Please Nina, once I leave for college, there is no way you can look after her alone. You're out fifteen hours a day."

"Faith!" Nina glared at her, "You do not leave your mother just because she has Alzheimer's!"

"We can't look after her," Faith said. "I am eighteen and I am tired of looking after some...some decrepit."

"She's your mother!" Nina said aloud.

"Well, she doesn't seem to remember that at all!" Faith yelled. "Do you know how hard it is for me to get her to eat when she doesn't even want to see my face? She's happy and bubbly one day and grumpy and suicidal the next. How many times do I have to wrench a razor away from her hands? I'm sick of it!"

Nina sighed. Their father had passed away when Faith was 16 and Nina 22. Soon after their mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but Nina was adamant that she would not leave her under the care of some institute that made a commercial business out of the weak. But with Faith leaving this fall, it seemed unlikely that she alone would be able to manage the dysfunctional household. Her work hours were strenuous and leaving their mother alone would always result in her playing with dangerous objects. She had attempted suicide twice in the past year alone.

"I – I will look into it," Nina said slowly. I'll ask Adrian, he'll know something.

***

A week passed as preparations for the rendition of Nutcracker increased threefold.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" Matt asked as Nina prepared to leave the institute. "You look dead beat."

"I am," Nina smiled, "But nah, I'll get a cab. Alicia needs he ride though."

"Sure," Matt said as he jogged away.

"Skater Avenue, please," Nina said as she got in the cab. The driver nodded dutifully, if a little drowsily and revved up the car. Nina placed a call to Adrian who didn't pick up.

Some meeting again, she thought. Adrian Felton had known each other for seven years and had started dating three years back. He had been with her through everything, her father's sudden death, the announcement of her mother's condition, her failure to get into Eliot Ballet Institute on the second try (she made it in the fifth). Adrian was her rock and she was glad to have him. They had been engaged last month and while Adrian's parents were worried about their different lifestyles, especially his father, they weren't opposed to Nina simply because they liked her. Adrian was in line to inherit his father's construction company and for the most part, the Felton's lived their lives in luxury. Nina on the other hand was a hardworking girl from a middle class family. Her father had been a professor and had been appalled when Nina had decided to pursue ballet as a career. But he had supported her nonetheless and Nina wished more than anything for him to see how successful she had been.

Nina smiled as she thought of Adrian and how they had met, at a weekend party in high school. She had been the nerd and he the quintessential popular kid and they had clicked together instantly. Yet it had taken him four years to finally muster the courage to ask her out, partly because he was afraid of what his strict father would say if he knew he was dating someone well below their social status.

Her reverie was interrupted when she felt the car lurch and she smelt a lingering trace of alcohol. She looked up to see the driver snoozing at the wheel.

"Excuse me!" She yelled in his year but he was knocked out cold. Panicking, she swerved the steering wheel to avoid hitting a tree as the car took a dangerous turn. The driver's foot was firmly pressed against the accelerator and the car kept speeding even as Nina bent forward to remove his foot. The next few things happened very slowly. There was blinding flash of headlights in front, she made a dive towards the wheel, pushing the cabbie away with all her strength and felt for the brake. She grasped it with her fingers and pressed it downwards when the window splintered, there was the sound of metal against metal, the screech of a woman, a shower of glass shards, the smell of burning rubber, a splatter of blood against her face and something crashing against her with the force of an elephant crushing a can.

Darkness.

***