The Man I Love

by Suanne Laqueur

  Here, half the male student body of the conservatory was out. Not just out but confidently out and accepted. Erik was still getting used to it. It evoked in him a confusing blend of fascination and defensiveness, which he approached the way he would anything unfamiliar: he hung back and observed until he could figure out how to take it apart and put it back together in some way that made sense.

  “How long is this show?”

  “Concert,” David said. “It’s a concert. They’ll fine you a dollar if you call it a show or a recital.”

  “Concert,” Erik said, pretending to write it on the palm of his hand.

  “It’s two acts. First act is for the ballet company, second for the contemporary dance theater. Some dancers have a foot in both camps. You’ll see them here all day.” David swiveled in his chair, looking out at the activity in the theater. “All right, a few faces you should know. Guy standing on the apron with Leo is Michael Kantz, the director of the whole department. He’s God. Woman in the long purple sweater, standing in that group over there—Marie Del'Amici. She heads the ballet division. She’s from Milan, you can barely understand a word she says but she’s a ton of fun. Then see the tall, black guy with the bald head? That’s Cornelis Justi, he runs the contemporary dance division. He’s from Amsterdam. And he’s crazy…”

  Erik’s eyes had been flicking around the auditorium, following David’s brisk narrative, recording names and quick impressions on mental index cards. But then a wind was blowing through his mind, scattering the cards, drowning out David’s patter. A girl in black tights and a navy Lancaster hoodie, the neck cut into a deep V, was coming up the aisle. Her hair was pulled up loosely, a couple of thin, spiral curls dangled across one eye. She carried a paper bag in one hand and a Coke in the other.

  “Who is that,” Erik said.

  David looked. “That’s Daisy.”

  Daisy, Erik thought. Seriously? A daisy was a sunny little flower. A girl named Daisy should be pert and blonde, shades of yellow and white and pink. A girl named Daisy was a cheerleader, athletic and peppy. Daisy was the screwed-up chick in The Great Gatsby. Daisy was a stupid cartoon duck, for crying out loud.

  The girl coming up the aisle, however, was none of those things. She was dark-haired and exuded a cool sexiness, moving along with the lithe grace of a cat. Waving to the left. Smiling at someone to the right. Nothing was sunny or pert about her errant curls, her dangling earrings or dark lipstick. This was not a screwed-up cartoon. Whoever this girl was, she was coming up the aisle and coming, it seemed, right toward the lighting booth.

  “She your girlfriend?” Erik asked, dry-mouthed.

  “I wish,” David said. “Took her on a couple dates but—” He threw out an arm, palm flat to Erik. “—she gave me the Heisman. If I’m nice she brings me lunch sometimes.” He got up from his chair and patted Erik on the shoulder. “Try not to look her in the eye. We got a lot of work to do today. Yo, baby, what’s up?”

  Erik spun in his own chair, too far and banged his elbow against the console. The girl with the wrong name was in the door of the booth. He should get up. He couldn’t move. She had come in and was standing by him. He smelled her skin, a light, clean candied scent, like sugared soap. If you tasted her she would be sweet.

  He abruptly spun his chair the other way, as if trying to reverse something, direction, polarity. Now his mouth was watering, imagining the sweetness of this girl so vividly, he felt his face flare with heated blood.

  Daisy was handing the bag and soda over to David. “They didn’t have the chicken parm. I got you a meatball sub.”

  “What are you doing walking around barefoot? Marie will kill you.”

  Erik glanced down. Her tights were rolled up and her feet were indeed bare, every single toe encased neatly in what looked like surgical tape. Guiltily, she hooked one foot behind the other calf. Her legs were thin, but lusciously curved, a strong saber of quadriceps in front, and a smaller arc of hamstring opposite, both lines disappearing up under the hem of her sweatshirt. Erik swallowed and looked away, looked up at her face. Too late he remembered David’s warning.

  Jesus.

  Her eyes were astonishing. No other word sufficed. A blue he had never seen in eyes before. A blue iris shot through with green and rimmed with an even darker blue. Her lashes were a black fringe, her eyebrows two chiseled bows. Eyes like those were impossible, they just didn’t happen in real life. But there they were. There she was. She was looking at him. As if she knew him.

  “This is Daisy Bianco,” David said. “Rising star and bringer of sustenance. Dais, this is Erik. He’s running your follow spot so be nice to him.”

  Daisy looked at David, then took the bag and the soda from his hands and handed them to Erik.

  “Shit,” David said.

  Clutching his prize, Erik felt his face widen. She smiled back at him. Neither of them had said so much as hello yet she was looking at him with those eyes. Deep in the cathedral of his young being, Erik felt a bell toll, a peal of recognition. And for the rest of his life, he would swear, he would swear to anyone who asked, although nothing was said aloud, he heard Daisy Bianco speak to him. She said it with her eyes, he heard it clearly in his head, and it wasn’t hello.

  It was, “Well, here you are.”

  Here I am, he thought.

  Her expression grew expansive. The green in her eyes deepened.

  David cleared his throat. “Go put some shoes on, honey. Nails are all over the damn place.”

  “See ya,” she said, looking at Erik. Her voice was soft, a secret meant only for his ears.

  “Bye.” His mouth formed the word with barely a sound. It rose like a shimmering bubble and followed Daisy out the door.

  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.

  The Modern Neanderthal

  “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 h
e 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.