Midsummer Murder (8 page)

Robert popped a tape into the music system that sat on a trolley next to him. “
There is a Time.
I reconstructed it a few years ago and it was so successful, I decided to bring it back this year.”

Lindy nodded. “It’s one of the great classics.” José Limon, the choreographer, was the protégé of Doris Humphrey and the Rise and Fall school of modern dance. Not only an accomplished dancer, master choreographer, and superb painter, José had been the consummate gentleman. And though he had been dead for twenty years, he had been an inspiration to several generations of dancers, including Lindy’s. She knew that these young dancers probably only knew of him from dance history courses. Perhaps, a few had never even heard his name.

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Midsummer Murder

“They should have a chance to experience where their craft has come from.”

“And you can’t do better than
Time.
It’s my favorite.”

The Della Joio music began. The dancers rose on demi pointe.

Lindy’s feelings rose with them, and her eyes misted over. It happened every time she saw this piece, whether in the theater or on the crackling and slipping old 35-millimeter films that were housed at the Library of Performing Arts.

Robert glanced at her and broke into a smile, a lovely smile that washed away all the tension and nervousness from his face. “I get the same reaction. Every time.” He stood up and moved closer to the dancers. Soon he was moving among the group as they went through their steps and formations, correcting, counting out sloppy passages, moving them bodily to the correct positions.

In rehearsal, Robert Stokes blossomed. His energy was directed and persuasive. He even seemed to grow larger in Lindy’s eyes. She wrote everything he said, every physical correction he made, as quickly as she could, using her own adapted shorthand, writing with one hand, and flipping pages with the other. By the end of the first section she was sweating as much as the dancers.

As the notes of the next section began, Robert walked past her, eyes on the dancer who had taken his place upstage right. “Larry’s understudy,”

he said under his breath and continued to walk in an arch around the front of the studio.

The boy began the series of steps, mechanically, each one executed separately without the flow that should drive them across the floor.

Lindy glanced at Robert. He stood watching the dancer, head tilted to one side. His shoulder pulsed forward with the music, a nonverbal prodding movement, that said “more, more.”

The boy faltered on the next phrase and shot an apologetic look toward Robert.

“We’ll fix it later,” said Robert, just loud enough to be heard over the music. Just loud enough to be heard by the boy and not the other dancers who were waiting at the edges of the studio for their next entrance.

Lindy wrenched her eyes from the soloist and took a quick look around. Every eye was trained on the dancer on the floor, the energy intense and expectant. Lindy felt her own nervousness increase. It was 47

Shelley Freydont

a typical kinesthetic reaction to watching a less-than-prepared dancer. If you didn’t command the stage, the whole audience became uncomfortable.

He continued to struggle through the phrases of movement. It was obvious that he wasn’t sure of the music, much less the steps. With each mistake be became less sure, more nervous, and consequently made more mistakes.

“Come on, come on,” Robert said though he was only talking to himself.

Finally, he waved his hand in the air without taking his eyes off the dancer. The music stopped, and Lindy looked up to see one of the other teachers remove his hand from the tape player, then shake his head.

The room dropped into total silence. The boy halted midphrase and stood looking at the ground, biting one side of his lip, as he waited for Robert to approach him.

“Dylan, do you know the steps?” His voice was quiet and soft like a massage.

“I thought I did.” Dylan’s voice quavered. He rubbed his arm across his eyes. He was sweating profusely. Rings of moisture soaked his tee shirt beneath his armpits and spread in a diamond shape across his chest.

“Try it again. Just clear your mind of everything but movement and music.” Robert held up his hand. The teacher recued the tape.

Dylan listened for a second, found his cue, and began again. He had everyone’s full attention. No one marked steps in the corner. No one reached for a water bottle or a towel. There were not the usual whispered conversations on the side lines. Every dancer in the room was focused on Dylan. Lindy was sure he could feel their attention, and it only made it more difficult to carry on. This was not the opportunity that understudies dreamed of. No dancer wanted a part because of someone else’s injury, and especially not because of a death.

Her heart went out to this boy, who not only struggled with the steps of the dance, but also with the ghost of Larry Cleveland.

Again Robert motioned to stop the tape. The dancers who were watching lowered their eyes, or turned and began stretching on the bar, or leaned over to adjust a leg warmer. It was a situation they all dreaded—not to be up to the part when you at last got the chance.

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Midsummer Murder

“It’s okay.” Robert patted the boy’s shoulder. “You just need extra rehearsal. We’ll do it afterwards.” His voice rose. “Let’s cut to the next section.”

The boy walked slowly to the side of the room.

Robert came to stand by Lindy. “I shouldn’t have pushed him out like that with no preparation. But he knew it perfectly last week.”

Lindy nodded sympathetically.

“I can’t.” The words were painfully muffled. Robert turned slowly toward the voice. Lindy’s head jerked toward the dance floor.

Dylan was standing two thirds of the way across the floor, hands clenched by his sides. He shook his head several times. “I can’t do it.”

“Of course you can.” Robert walked toward him. “You just need more rehearsal.” It was the voice someone used when trying to coax a kitten out of tree. “I should have given you a rehearsal before we began today. But it’s fine. There’s plenty of time. We’ll rehearse this afternoon.”

“I can’t. I’ll never be able to do it as well as Larry.”

Robert reached him and clasped his shoulder. “You’re under a lot of pressure, anyone would be. You can do it.”

“No—he—can’t.” A shrill cry came from the back of the room. It was a slight boy with dark hair that curled over his forehead. His shoulders were hunched over, his arms clutched across his stomach.

“He can’t do it as well as Larry.”

He convulsed forward and vomited on the floor, liquid spattering as it hit the wooden surface. Dancers jumped back. With a groan, the boy ran toward the door.

Lindy recognized him as the boy that she had seen at the pavilion.

The one they called Connie. She jumped automatically to her feet and then sat down again. She wasn’t the director here, but everyone else was frozen on the spot like the final tableau of a period piece.

Then Robert turned slowly around and looked at her.

“Go after him,” she mouthed. He turned and ran. Talking erupted around the room. Someone was sent for a mop. Madame Flick’s voice rose in a rumble.

“Take a five minute break—outside. Get yourselves back into your concentration. This is a woorking break.”

Lindy followed the others outside. She walked to the edge of the clearing and searched each path trying to catch a glimpse of Connie 49

Shelley Freydont

and Robert. Should she call for Dr. Addison? It was probably just emotion that had expelled Connie’s lunch onto the floor.

She peered beyond the trees, but the two did not return to the studio. After a few minutes, she followed the students back inside.

The teachers were grouped around the tape recorder, holding a conference. There was nothing she could do here. She gathered up her things and headed for the theater.

* * *

“At the student rehearsal. Jeremy said he wanted to take rehearsal this afternoon.”

“We’re the ones having to take it.” Paul Duke stuck his head out from the wings and rolled his eyes.

“Paul, you’re late for your entrance.” The voice was Jeremy’s.

Thunderous, directed from somewhere out in the house, but exploding onto the stage. Paul disappeared back into the wing.

Lindy looked at Mieko for an explanation. Jeremy never yelled at his dancers; his speaking voice was authority enough.

“He’s been like this all afternoon. Andrea has already cried twice.

Rebo’s grumbling, and half the company are tripping over their open mouths just getting onto the stage.”

“Yikes.”

“He even snapped at Peter.” Even though Mieko’s face and voice didn’t betray her agitation (Rebo often call her the Ice Queen in reference to her combination of
sang-froie
and Asian inscrutability), Lindy had learned by now to read her body language: the way she pulled her elbows close to her side; just the hint of narrowing of her almond-shaped eyes; the studied calm as if she had withdrawn her energy inward. “I’m surprised Peter didn’t drop him on the spot.”

“I’m on my way out front,” said Lindy. Something was up. Jeremy never lost his temper. In his own way he was as controlled as Mieko, but whereas Mieko seemed comfortable with this undemonstrativeness, Jeremy was not. Lindy often thought that it was this quality that made him such a good choreographer, that sublimation and redirection of energy.

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Only it wasn’t sublimated now, and it was directed at Paul who continued to dance while glaring out into the house.

Jeremy was standing in the center aisle, hands on his hips. Peter sat behind a plywood board that had been placed across the seats in front of him and which held a laptop computer and a book of lighting cues.

His eyes were riveted to the stage as he talked into a headset to the lighting man in the booth at the back of the house. Next to him sat Biddy, scrunched down in her seat, feet resting on the edge of the cushion, hands clasping her knees. If she got any smaller, you wouldn’t be able to see her over the tops of the seats. Maybe that was what she intended.

Lindy walked up the side aisle, then scooted between two rows of seats until she was behind Jeremy and at the end of the row where Peter and Biddy were sitting. Biddy dropped her feet to the floor and straightened up. She jerked her chin for Lindy to join them. Jeremy walked down the aisle to the edge of the stage.

There was no orchestra pit. The house came right up to the apron.

Jeremy placed both hands flat on the stage, but instead of jumping up onto the stage, he stood there looking at his dancers who continued to plow through their steps, faces carved in frowns of concentration.

They were not happy campers, thought Lindy.

He turned suddenly and strode back up the aisle toward the three of them. They simultaneously braced themselves, one-two-three, like soccer players ready to block a kick.

“I’m sorry,” said Jeremy pushing his fingers through his hair. Not the first time he had done that today, thought Lindy. “Can we take it back to the adagio, Peter?” Peter spoke into the headset; the tape stopped. The dancers looked out into the dark house.

“Let’s go from Paul’s entrance again,” said Jeremy, his voice weary.

“Try to settle down.”

The dancers took their places for the earlier cue.

Jeremy ran his fingers through his hair again.

“Why don’t you let Lindy take over for a while?” asked Biddy.

“I don’t—just stay out of this.” He turned and took two steps down the aisle, a movement that effectively cut him off from the others.

It was too dark in the house to see Biddy’s features. But Lindy knew Biddy’s reactions as well as she knew her own. Her face would be suffused with red, and her lips would be pursed to keep them 51

Shelley Freydont

from quivering. They had been friends for twenty years, worked, played, laughed and cried together. Lindy felt an empathetic burn in her gut. Peter merely glanced Biddy’s way and then returned his attention to the stage.

After what seemed an interminable length of time, Jeremy called a halt to the rehearsal. He walked once again to the edge of the stage and stopped. “It’s me, not you.” It was not much of an apology, but it was enough.

“It’s okay, boss. We weren’t at our best either,” said Rebo.

“Just gotta get our focus back,” said another dancer.

“Sorry, Jeremy,” said another.

“Go have some fun,” said Jeremy. “We’ll start fresh tomorrow.” The group started to clear the stage. “Andy?”

Andrea Martin walked slowly downstage. This time Jeremy did pull himself onto the stage and sat with his legs dangling over the edge. Andrea sat down next to him, her legs crossed in front of her.

There was a brief conversation. Andrea gave him a tentative smile and stood up.

Jeremy watched her walk toward the wings, then pushed himself off the stage.

“I think I’ll just get my swimsuit,” said Biddy. “Those icky things in the lake would be better company.” She scrambled over Lindy’s legs and was up the aisle before Jeremy reached them. He glanced up the aisle after Biddy, then turned to Lindy and Peter. The corners of his mouth tightened.

Peter snapped the laptop closed. “I think it’s about time for a beer.

Chi-Chi said we were welcome to use the bar, even though it won’t open officially until Thursday night.”

He grabbed the computer and inched his way past Lindy. She watched the two men pass silently up the aisle. Marguerite and Peter were the only two people that Jeremy didn’t have a nickname for. His formality toward Marguerite was a show of deep respect. He respected Peter, too, but it was their tenuous relationship that prevented Jeremy from breaking down and calling him Pete or Petey or some other silly name of affection. He didn’t know how Peter would react, and he wasn’t willing to take the chance.

Lindy sighed as she once again gathered up her belongings, feeling more useless than ever. The performing arts was an intensely 52