The Man I Love (2 page)

Pointedly David retrieved his lunch. Erik surrendered it, and through the glass of the lighting booth he watched Daisy walk back down the aisle of the auditorium. Sat and watched her as the atoms in his body slowly rearranged themselves.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”

The glass of the lighting booth was no match for the vocal power of Michael Kantz. Straight through it came, clear and resonant.

“He’s got some set of pipes,” Erik said.

“Double degree dance and voice,” David said around a mouthful of sandwich.

“With the usual opening festivities concluded,” Michael said, “let’s get this show on the road.”

“Foul,” someone yelled, at the same time the bald-headed Cornelis Justi stood up and bellowed, “Illegal.”

Erik looked at David, eyebrows wrinkled.

David chewed and swallowed. “I told you,” he said. “It’s a concert, not a show.”

The theater had erupted in hoots and catcalls, shouts of “Dollar, that’s a dollar…”

“I didn’t realize they were so touchy about it,” Erik said.

“You learn to carry a lot of singles during Tech Week.”

Michael tucked his clipboard under his arm and reached for his wallet, extricating a dollar. He waved it about until one of the dancers plucked it from his fingers.

“Buy yourself a Snickers. All right, all right, indentured servants to the stage, please, let’s get this concert on the road.”

His voice was laced with humor and courtesy, yet it demanded instant action, and the dancers promptly took themselves to the stage, shedding sweaters and sweatshirts and other extra layers of clothes. When finally gathered, thirty or so strong, they were silent, standing in tableau, straight, proud, attentive. Erik crammed his eyes with girls—he had never seen so many great bodies in one place in his life.

David bundled up the rest of his sub and stuffed it back into the paper bag. “Come on,” he said, belching behind a fist.

Erik followed David down the aisle and slipped into the center fifth row, sitting down behind Leo Graham. In the row ahead of Leo were Cornelis Justi, the contemporary dance director, and Marie Del'Amici, the ballet director.

“What do we do?” Erik said to his new mentor.

“Listen, observe, take notes,” David said. He had taken two clipboards from the lighting booth and now passed one to Erik. “Write down whatever Leo tells you to, or if you hear him mutter something under his breath. If you have impressions of your own, jot those down. Michael wants everyone included in the design aspects. You’ll see.”

“Hello everyone, I’m Michael.”

The dancers sang back in unison. “Hi, Michael.”

Michael turned back to his crew with a closed-mouth grin. “Aren’t they adorable? All right, my children, we have a week to turn water into wine.”

“First step is admitting we have a problem,” Cornelis said.

“For the benefit of our esteemed tech director, Sir Leo von Graham—” Wild applause from the dancers. Leo raised a fist to the ceiling. “—and his accolades, we’ll go through the program as we understand it to be.”

Erik twirled his pencil and scanned the cluster of dancers on the stage, looking for Daisy. It took a minute, but finally he found her, stage left. She had pinned back those stray curls and donned a blue headband around her hairline. Her earrings were off, as was the sweatshirt. In a purple leotard with the black tights pulled over, she stood with her arms crossed, one foot poised up on the hard block of her shoe. Erik knew ballerinas danced on their toes, but he’d never seen it in action. He leaned forward a little in his seat, squinting at the footwear and wondering how it was made.

“We have a ballet program set entirely to Johann Sebastian Bach. We’ll be using seven pieces in all. In order, they are…”

Erik noticed David was writing. He started writing too, listening and scribbling a rough outline:

“Bach Variations”

Bourée from Suite in E Minor. Ensemble.

Prelude from Cello Suite. Sr male solo.

Prelude in C #. Sr female solo.

Prelude in F Minor. 5 girls.

Gavotte in E Major. 5 boys.

Siciliano from Sonata #2. Dance for Sr couple

Brandenberg Concerto. Finale, feature Sr couple.

He flexed his fingers and reread it all. He liked Bach. His piano teacher had him play a lot of it, back in the day. Back in the long day. His allegiance switched to guitar and he hadn’t sat down at the keys in years. He frowned at his list. Nothing was jumping out at him as familiar. He’d have to wait until he heard it. He didn’t know anything until he heard it. Or took it apart.

He drew a question mark by the Siciliano. Michael used some other term but Erik didn’t know how to spell it so he put “dance.” His eyes flicked to the stage. Daisy had moved next to a tall boy, tallest of all the male dancers, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Daisy’s hand was on his shoulder and she was up on her toes, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Her leotard had elaborate crisscross straps in the back. Her shoulders were defined, as were her arms.

And dear God, those legs.

Erik looked down again, drew a box around “Bach Variations.”

“All right then. Let’s start from the top,” Michael said. “Marie, any last requests?”

Marie Del'Amici stood up, a black shawl swathed around her purple sweater, salt-and-pepper hair in a rumpled braid down her back. Her speech spilled out in bubbles, a thick Italian accent garbling a third of it. “Don’t go crazy with the spacing, darlings, I’m not giving any notes or corrections. Just dance. We want to let Leo here know how this tastes.”

“No notes, my ass,” David said under his breath.

Erik smiled. He expected Marie would be out of her seat in two minutes, going crazy with the spacing.

The dancers took up positions onstage and the Bourée started.

Sure enough, Marie was already down by the apron, jumping around and waving her hands, yelling directions. Leo kept calling her back to talk to him about the design. She would come back, effusive with apology. After engaging with Leo for barely a minute, the dancers would distract her and she would wander off again.

This happened several times, and Erik found it more entertaining than watching the dancing. Cornelis was no help. He made a thing of holding Marie’s hands behind her back, seeing if she could talk without moving them.

“David, my love,” he said, after setting Marie free. “Introduce me to your disciple?”

“Erik Fiskare, chick magnet,” David said. “Cornelis Justi, gypsy queen.”

“Call me Kees,” the black man said, shaking Erik’s hand. “Or Keesja, but only if we’re dating.”

“Don’t scare the child,” David said.

Erik wrote
Cornelis—Kees
in a corner of his notes.

In the midst of all this clowning, Leo was muttering either to himself or over his shoulder, and Erik was scribbling anything he could pick up, making more lists:

Both low and mid shins.

Blue cyc on opening.

Cut new gels for bars.

Pink wash for first transition, poppy red for first male solo, maybe. Definitely maybe?

Remind Leo to inventory Fresnels.

Back to blue for second female solo.

Remind Leo to fix lens on follow spot.

Start of the duet needs to be in silhouette.

The dancers gulped water and ran the Bourée again. This time Marie stayed by Leo, keeping only a token knee on the seat of a chair, but at least she held still. Leo had less to say, so Erik was able to watch.

Despite the invitation for artistic input, he had nothing. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at or for, except Daisy. It took some time to be able to pick her out of the group, but during the third run-through, he’d gotten a general feel for when and where she was on the stage. Even then, he only watched her as a male attracted to a female. He had no true interest in or appreciation for what she was doing. He simply liked how she looked doing it.

Ironically, it was during the section of the Bourée which featured all the male dancers when Erik was finally moved to speak up. He leaned into David. “The guy with the ponytail. Front row, far right, who’s he?”

“Will Kaeger. He got the Brighton last year.”

“The what?”

“Brighton scholarship. Full free ride for two incoming conservatory freshman. Daisy’s got one of them this year. Not that she needs it—little rich girl from Gladwyne.”

“Don’t be a bitch, David,” Kees said.

“What? It’s true. Her father made a killing laying pipe along the Main Line, now he owns a zillion-acre farm out in Amish country.”

“It’s an orchard, dumbass. And her father working hard is not her character flaw.”

With half a mind, Erik recorded all these details about Daisy. But he was still looking at Will, squinting beneath wrinkled eyebrows. Will had the moves. Erik didn’t even know the moves but at a rudimentary level he could still grasp Will’s talent. Observing the other boys dance, Erik felt a prickling defensiveness, some primal affront to his own masculinity. He watched as though a pane of glass were between him and the stage.
Fine, I’ll look at you, but it doesn’t mean I’m enjoying it.

With Will, the barrier dissolved. He was approachable. He didn’t demand your attention, but he made looking somewhere else not as interesting. Something about his style was distinctive, powerful, yet controlled and percussive—he cleverly caught little accents in the music, making Erik wonder if he were a drummer. An adjective dangled just beyond the edge of Erik’s mind, a proper metaphor to capture this way of moving. He tried to pin it down, along with all these other impressions, feeling a little puzzled Will Kaeger was the one to provoke them.

The Bourée rehearsal finished and the senior soloists took to the stage. Leo passed a few dollars over his shoulder and dispatched Erik to the soda machine in the lounge. He came back to find Kees and David having a heated discussion in another language.

Benignly excluded, Erik sipped his soda and observed the two men. David was olive-skinned, good-looking in a scruffy way with long sideburns. He wasn’t much taller than Erik, but he took up far more space. Not fat, but a bulky weight slapped in chunks on his frame. Kees, on the other hand, was tall and lean, broad-shouldered, distinctive with his bald pate and single diamond earring. His deep voice slid gracefully around the guttural lingo Erik was trying to identify. German, maybe?

A rustle behind him, a waft of sugar, and Daisy Bianco sat down, leaning her elbows on the back of the empty seat between Erik and David. With the blue headband drawing her hair back, her face was a palette of soap-and-water loveliness, her eyes two splashes of aquamarine. Erik wanted to dive into them, plunge like a dolphin through their warm, salty depths and surface somewhere inside, shaking her from his wet head in spraying arcs of—

“Can I have a sip?” she said.

He blinked and passed her the soda. “What are they speaking,” he whispered, leaning his head toward her, motioning to David and Kees with his chin.

“Dutch,” she said, capping the bottle and returning it. “Kees is from Amsterdam. David was born in Belgium.”

It got worse. Will dropped in next to Daisy, muttering something in yet another language, possibly French, and Daisy was answering him. And then, gee whiz, David and Kees jumped right in, switching tongues with ease. Erik sank in his seat and moodily drank his soda, feeling dull and uninteresting in the midst of this cultured, multi-lingual conversation.

Leo Graham, who had been quietly sitting and sketching, turned around in his seat. “Enjoying the United Nations conference?”

The cross-talk dwindled away, almost guiltily. “Where you from, Erik?” Kees said.

Slowly, the blond Erik turned his head. All eyes were on him, but he looked only at Kees and answered. “The Philippines.”

He got a laugh and Daisy touched his shoulder. He passed her the soda again and their fingertips brushed. He watched the pull of her mouth at the bottle. The rise and fall of her throat. Her tongue quickly brushing her lips. The flash of her straight, even teeth as she laughed at something Kees said. She gave the bottle back to Erik and smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, wanting to kiss her. He thought about sliding his palm along her smooth neck and smelling the skin of her face. The first touch of her mouth on his. The edges of her teeth against his tongue. The last drops of Coke lingering sweetly there.

The intense vision sideswiped him, left him mute, stupid and staring as Daisy got up and went back to the stage to rehearse the Prelude in F Minor.

The all-female quintet was set to a simple piano arrangement, one Erik finally recognized. His fingers moved in chords on the armrest. He’d played this once. Unfortunately he didn’t get to watch the dance, for Leo sent him on a thousand errands just then, and he missed the entire segment.

He returned to the auditorium when the male quintet was finishing up. He sat down by David and watched Will again, trying to take apart his distinctive style. Such disciplined mastery of his body, and yet effortless at the same time, jumps and turns coming out of nowhere. The energized fluidity reminded Erik of something, what the hell was it?