Read Online The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O'brien - Free Book Online Page A

was a costume designer
     we found ironing fabric in the drama department. Then I filmed a dancer who was working
     solo before a bank of dusky mirrors.
    Despite their lowest blip ranks, they weren’t losers at all. The whole system was
     an arbitrary, capricious farce, and with each artist I met, I felt my biggest mistake
     had been in not trying to get to know more of the people here, and I felt a growing
     disgust for the fifty cuts.
    Finally, we located Ellen Thorpe, a singer, in the girl’s bathroom of the chapel.
     When I heard retching in one of the stalls, I fingered my camera but didn’t turn it
     on. Janice softly backed out the door, beckoning me, but I shook my head.
    “Do you need anything in there?” I called through the stall door.
    There was no immediate reply. I glanced around the bathroom. Cameras in the sink area
     weren’t aimed to view in the stalls once the doors were closed. The mics picked up
     voices, but as long as Ellen was silent, she was essentially invisible to the show,
     and I had to think that was by choice.
    Janice signaled to me again. Leave her alone , she mouthed silently.
    “No,” Ellen said.
    “You sure? Some water?” I asked.
    The rush of a toilet flush came from inside. “No, thank you,” she said. Her voice
     was low and husky. Not what I expected for a singer. “It’s just the nerves. I’ll be
     okay.”
    “It’s getting late,” Janice said quietly to me. “We’re supposed to meet in front of
     the auditorium by quarter to five.”
    It was a decent enough excuse to leave, but I hesitated when Ellen’s voice came again.
    “They’re putting everyone’s profile up on the outside of the building,” Ellen said.
     “I saw them there.”
    “On the big screens?” I asked. “Is that something new?”
    “Yes,” she said. “It’ll be extra humiliating.”
    I glanced again at Janice, who was still bracing the door open to the hall. I could
     see the last pews of the chapel around the corner.
    “Come with us, Ellen,” I said. “We’ll go together.”
    “I’m dead last, aren’t I?” Ellen asked.
    Janice glanced at her phone and then nodded to me.
    I didn’t know what to say, but I couldn’t just leave her there. “Come on out,” I said,
     tapping the stall door again. The beige was an industrial, impersonal hue. “We can’t
     talk to you through the door.”
    “I’ll be okay. Just go,” she said. A choking, stifled sob came next.
    Crap , I thought. I tiptoed nearer to Janice. “This isn’t good.”
    “I know,” Janice said.
    “Go get somebody.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know. A teacher? Someone from the infirmary? Anybody.”
    “What are you going to do?” she asked.
    “Talk to her, I guess. But hurry.”
    Janice slipped out.
    “Ellen?” I asked. I propped my dormant camera on a shelf by the sink and tapped the
     door again, trying to listen inside. “You still in there?”
    “You don’t understand,” she said. “I’ve got nothing after I’m cut.”
    I had a flash memory of our refrigerator back home, with two eggs and a jar of horseradish
     inside.
    “Tell me,” I said.
    “My mom,” she began, and then her voice strangled off again.
    Double crap . I gave my skirt a hitch. Then I dropped to my elbows and knees so I could peek under
     the door. Ellen was sitting on the tile floor before the black-seated toilet with
     her knees drawn up and her head buried in her arms. By her feet, a pink purse with
     a kitty on it rested beside a paring knife.
    “Ellen,” I said softly.
    She wouldn’t look at me. She shifted to press the heels of her hands against her eyes,
     and her mouth stretched in a grimace.
    “This is so stupid!” she said.
    I didn’t know this girl. She terrified me. But nobody deserved to be this unhappy.
     I ducked my head and crept bare-kneed under the door to squeeze into the lonely space
     beside her. I wished I knew what to say, or if I should touch her. I’d been unhappy
     before, but not this