Daisy was willing to bet the civilized questions turning over in Erik’s mind contained the words “suck,” “take” and “ass.” But as for whether or not Erik would ever ask them, she’d keep her money in her pocket.
“HOW ARE YOU, DARLING GIRL?” Daisy said, switching the phone to her other ear. “I miss you.”
“Do you?” Lucky said, laughing. “I thought Erik would be moved in by now.”
Daisy and the boys had started renting off-campus that fall. They had the luck to find two apartments on adjacent streets, the backyards bumping together, and David shared an apartment with Neil Martinez around the corner.
“Oh, being the single occupant has its perks,” Daisy said. “But I miss you. How’s the course going?”
“Tougher than I thought.” A sigh was in Lucky’s voice. “I’ll stick it out but I don’t know if I have the stomach for this. The actual coursework is interesting, but going out in the bus is…pretty brutal.”
“Bus?”
“The ambulance. We call it the bus.”
“Ah.”
“No lack of hot firefighters, however. As you said, it has its perks.”
Daisy laughed and a slight pause flowed over the line.
“I, um,” Lucky said slowly. “I had a date.”
“Really? So you and Will made an agreement?”
“Yeah.” The word was thrown out cavalierly but Daisy could sense a thin veil of uncertainty around it. “I mean, it seemed a natural and sort of sensible time to…”
“See what’s out there?” Daisy said.
“Sort of. We agreed we weren’t going to actively go out looking to get laid, but we didn’t swear an oath of absolute social fidelity either.”
“An experimental, emotional separation while you’re physically apart. See what happens, see how you feel.”
“Right.”
“And?”
Lucky sighed. “I’ve been on a few dates actually. And every guy is… He’s nice, he’s funny, he’s intelligent. We get along. He’s good-looking. But at the end of the day, he’s just not Will.”
“Ah.”
“I know he’s having a good time.”
Daisy spoke carefully, knowing Lucky was no fool. “I get the sense he’s stretching his wings.”
“He keeps talking about this James guy. What’s he like?”
“He’s a great dancer. But personally I find him unpredictable. He’s an attention junkie. The kind with a deep streak of damage somewhere inside, like it’s never enough. When he’s in a good mood, he’s king of the world. But when he’s not, it’s one passive-aggressive ploy after another to get someone to look at him.”
“Sounds like he likes Will looking at him.”
Daisy tapped her teeth together, thinking. “How do you feel about that?”
“It’s not like I had no idea. Straight with a slight bend, right?”
“Do you know that for a fact? I’m not digging for dirt. Just curious.”
“So is he. Curious, I mean. That’s how he explains it to me. He loves women. His long-term emotional relationships have always been with women. But he has this physical curiosity toward men and he’s never been afraid to pursue it. Nothing ever crossed the line and turned into love, though. He said he doesn’t love men. Except Erik. The line gets a little blurry there.”
Daisy laughed. “Really? Since when?”
“I don’t know. Lately the line has a line. You know Will—nothing is off limits and he’s incapable of being flustered. But sometimes if I tease or dig too hard about Erik, he’ll actually blush. And clam right up.”
“Stop.”
“Hand to God. Super delicate subject so please, not a word about it to Fish.”
Daisy drew two lines across her heart. “Entre nous.”
“Good girl. All right, I gotta hit the books. I’m lonely and I miss you like crazy. I miss all of you. Even David.”
“We miss you too. Come home soon.”
“Leave the light on.”
“HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT Will’s relationship with James?”
“Curious,” Daisy said. “Kind of turned on if you want to be blunt about it. I kept hoping I’d see them… I don’t know, at least kiss or something.” She laughed as a bit of heated color swept across her face. “Come on, they were two hot, tattooed guys with amazing bodies. I’ll just watch a little.”
“What about Erik?”
“He had no interest in watching.”
Rita smiled. “But he and Will lived together. How did he handle it?”
“Funny thing about Erik. When he wasn’t entirely sure what the hell was going on, he was a moody, brooding bundle of angst. And then one night, we were at my place and we ran out of condoms so he got dressed and went back over to his place to get some. He walked in on Will and James. Not in flagrante on the living room floor, but he found a trail of clothes going up the stairs and when he opened his bedside table drawer, all his condoms were gone. Then Will came into the hallway wearing only a towel and it was out in the open. Erik went chill. He could finally organize everyone into their places in the universe and figure out how to make it work in his head. Will is Will. I am me. And live and let live. Lucky was away so Erik moved his stuff over to my place. He called it turning all the cheeks.”
Rita turned a page in her notebook. “But in time the relationship between James and Will became tenuous.”
Daisy nodded. “In the beginning, it was euphoric. That fall, Will was choreographing a ballet to Philip Glass’s soundtrack to Powaqqatsi. James became Will’s unofficial assistant and he was brilliant at it. So they were collaborative lovers and Will depended on him. At the same time, Will warned him things had an expiration date. When Lucky came back it was going to be over, no discussion. James supposedly said he was fine with it. But when Lucky came back second semester, James evidently was not fine with it.”
“Did Lucky know?” Rita asked. “About the affair with James?”
“Will told her. I think he suspected James might be the type to use emotional blackmail. Also, both Will and Lucky hated secrets. They preferred the bald truth, even if it was brutal. So he told her. Lucky was upset, but she told me it was more for Will’s choice of partner rather than the actual infidelity. James was clearly unstable.”
She crossed her arms. “It’s clear now. God, Rita, I can look back and see what a giant, emotional tinderbox it was. But, I mean, who the hell thinks it will drive a person to murder? Maybe on TV or in the movies, not in real life. Not in your school. Not in the middle of rehearsal.”
“Was there even an inkling? Any violent altercation between Will and James?”
“Will realized he made a mistake keeping James as his assistant while he was expanding Powaqqatsi for the spring concert. James was being passive-aggressively impossible which drove Will crazy. Like I said, Will had no patience for those tactics. His philosophy was always ‘If you have something to say, say it. Let’s have a conversation.’ And he finally had to ban James from his rehearsals. Then the tension started to spill over and ripple through the rest of us.”
Daisy smiled, but it felt tight around her eyes. “It was a little house,” she said, running her fingers along her jaw. “The walls were thin. And the four of us were comfortable with each other. We heard each other argue and we heard each other make love. We shared the bathroom and passed half-dressed in the hallway at night. So the situation was in a fishbowl. It was our problem, not just Will’s.”
“How did it become your problem?”
“Because I still had to dance with James. He was upset and erratic, which made me crazy when we partnered. So Erik was on edge because I’d come home from rehearsal stressed out and distracted.” She unscrewed the cap from her water and took a long sip. “I was actually looking forward to the concert being over. Which sucked because it was Will’s last one and I should’ve been savoring it. Enjoying it. I was dancing in such a great ballet too—Marie got the rights to stage George Balanchine’s Who Cares?
It’s set to music by George Gershwin. Jazzy and stylistic and romantic. And tough. Balanchine’s choreography is really hard.”
“And you were dancing with James?”
“We had a pas de deux set to ‘The Man I Love.’ But it wasn’t going well. I had no connection with the guy at all and after Will banned him from coming to Powaqqatsi rehearsals, I felt like I had to do something. To make him feel someone was on his side.”
“HERE,” DAISY SAID, SETTING a cup of coffee in front of James.
His hands curled around it. “Thanks.” He took a sip, then shook out a cigarette each and lit them.
Daisy was quiet for a few moments, letting James get used to her companionship and her compassion. Their relationship so far had been confined to the studio and incidental occasions at her apartment. She couldn’t launch into an intense share-and-trust exercise. It had no context.
“I don’t know what to do,” James finally said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could help.”
“You don’t think you could talk to him…” His voice trailed off along with the impossible request.
Daisy made the shake of her head slow and gentle. “Best thing to do is back off. We have a concert in six weeks and frankly, you’re making me nervous.” She touched his wrist and met his eyes, giving him a taste of her concern.
“I know,” he said, running a hand back over his head. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it together. I just… I just hurt so damn much.”
Tears filled his eyes and the wrist under Daisy’s fingertips rolled. The pink of his palm up on the table, vulnerable and empty. Daisy put hers on top of it. It would do no good to tell him what he already knew and beat him over the head with platitudes or told-you-so.
“I feel like an idiot because he told me,” James said. “He told me and I didn’t… I went and fell in love anyway. It wasn’t just the sex, Dais. It was the collaborating. That creative bond. Jesus, it was amazing. And it made me feel like… I really thought we had something. I thought something more was there. Something that would make him think twice or make it not so easy when she came back. But it’s like he flipped a switch. Like none of it happened. I feel so fucking stupid. I feel used and thrown away, which is the story of my goddamn life.”
His face dissolved. “I love him, Dais.” He brought his hand up to hide it, keeping the other around Daisy’s. She stroked his fingers and let him be. The campus center was largely deserted. They were tucked into one of the rear booths, with no one around to disturb or pry.
“What’s it feel like?” he asked.
“What?” She let go his hand to rummage in her dance bag for some tissues.
“To always be happy. Thanks.” He blew his nose.
“I’m not always happy.”
“You’re such a positive person. Nothing bothers you. Nothing upsets you. Everything comes so easily and you and Fish are in love like nothing I’ve ever seen. You’ve got like this charmed life. Do you even know it?”
Her life, charmed or not, wasn’t the issue. Daisy decided it was time for some firmness. “I’ll tell you what I do know,” she said. “I know you love him and I know you’re hurting. But sulking around when your work needs to be done isn’t attractive. Being confrontational, dramatic and needy isn’t attractive. Lucky’s my roommate. Will’s one of my best friends. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by acting like you don’t know where my allegiance lies. That said, I’ll tell you one thing you have that Will doesn’t.”
“What?”
She sat back and crossed her arms. “Me.”
James’s eyebrows drew down in confusion. He looked at her. She looked back, letting him think it over. And slowly his forehead smoothed out and she saw it sink in.
“I don’t have the man I love,” he said. “But I have ‘The Man I Love.’”
She nodded. “And I won’t further insult your intelligence by acting like I don’t miss him. That not being partnered with him for Who Cares? isn’t disappointing.”
A little life was coming into James’s eyes.
“You know the expression ‘looking good is the best revenge’?” she said.
A smile began to stretch out the corners of his mouth.
“He’ll have more respect for you if you get your dancing into shape. You have more chance for some kind of relationship with him if you get your shit together. You’re perfectly capable of dancing ‘The Man I Love’ well. As good as if not better than him. And I’ll help you. Because if it looks like I get everything I want, it’s because I work my ass off for it. Now what are you going to do? Die? Or dance?”
He inhaled, exhaled. Tilted his head and looked at her as if truly seeing her for the first time.
“Your eyes are so pretty,” he said.
She smiled at the irrelevance but said nothing. Only held his gaze, holding the flame she’d coaxed alight.
“Marguerite,” he said. “That’s your real name, right?”
“Yes.”
“Funny. My sister’s name was Margaret. I suppose Fish told you about her.”
Daisy nodded. She knew Margaret was the buffer between James and the homophobic, verbal abuse of his father and brothers. The comfort for the alcoholic neglect of his mother. She was his champion. She was also a soldier. She was deployed to Saudi Arabia and died in a scud missile attack on the army barracks.
Daisy took her own deep breath and took a small risk. “What touched me most about her,” she said. “It’s just a little thing that stuck in my head. How she was in a water purification unit.”
“What of it?”
“She died bringing people water in the desert. I don’t know what I’m exactly saying, but it stayed with me. Like the opening line to a story. She died bringing water to the desert.”
“I’m a desert,” James said. “Something in me dried up when she got killed. She was blown to pieces. Only things the army could send home were her guns and her dog tags.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He crushed the paper cup in his hand and attempted a weak smile. “You got brothers? Sisters?”
“I have a half-brother,” Daisy said. “My father’s son from a previous relationship. But I’ve never met him. Maybe someday he’ll come…”
She stared over James’s shoulder, an idea taking shape in her mind.
Someday he’ll come along.
The music for “The Man I Love” swelled in her head. Her feet shuffled on the ground, marking choreography.
“Let’s go find a studio,” she said.
“Why?”
“I have an idea. Come on.”
“I don’t have my bag.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She stood up. “Come on, James. Trust me. For an hour.”
They found some empty space. In their street clothes and socks, with their rehearsal tape on a boom box.
“Let’s not dance this romantically,” Daisy said. “Let’s do it as siblings.”
James’s expression became interested. “Lost siblings,” he said, nodding. “Like separated twins.”
“You be the desert. I’ll be water.”
It took time, but as they marked through the steps, a current began to crackle. James started to look her in the eye. Instead of gazing back with longing, she made a face at him. Trying to get him in trouble at the dinner table. He laughed and gave her a shove.
Sometimes his eyes went distant.
“What are you thinking?” Daisy asked.
His mouth opened and closed around a wistful smile and a little chuckle in his chest. “I dared her to eat a stick of butter once.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. And spent about eight hours trying not to puke. I told her to get it over with. She’d feel better if she threw up. But she wouldn’t. She was tough.”
“So are you,” Daisy said.
He looked down at her. “Kees Justi said something when he found out you and I were partnered for the concert. He said, ‘You’ll like dancing with Daisy. She’s g
enerous.’ I really had no idea what he meant. I do now.”
“Now you’re gonna make me puke,” she said. “Shut up and dance.”
THEY WORKED HARD. Long hours of sweat and practice, finding a common thread to sew together the choreography of “The Man I Love” and make it their own. Daisy pushed James to imagine, to narrate his memories of Margaret out loud as they danced. In return, she listened to his advice and deferred to him on certain partnering decisions.
“What do you think?” she asked. Or, “What am I doing wrong here?”
His talent was immense. She got him to trust it again.
She started to trust him.
In the middle of the piece, she did a whirling chain of turns upstage to where James was waiting, the last one tilting off-balance to fall back into his arms. James waited for her to reach him with his hands behind his back. It was a schoolboy stance, but a teasing grin lifted a corner of his mouth. A hint of a dare in his eye. They weren’t dancing: they were playing chicken.
Daisy spotted his face to keep her trajectory straight, whipping her head around with each revolution to focus back on him. As she turned faster, she pulled his expression into her, letting fear spiral off her like the contents of a centrifuge. She let her vision blur as she fell back, laughing out loud when James’s arms seized her at the last second.
“Gave me a heart attack that time,” she said, upside-down.
“Wimp.” James brought her up into an arabesque, turning her in a tight circle, round and round. If it were Will, she would wind her arms about his shoulders and lay her head down in romantic surrender. With James she kept her chin up and her eyes locked on his, and gave him a playful swat on the jaw before she moved into the next phrase.
“This feels good,” James said when they took a break. “I never dug into the story behind a pas de deux this way. Even if no one else gets it, it’s cool.”
“I think they would.”
He paused. “My sister would have liked this.”
“Did she come see you dance?”
“You kidding? She was the only one who came.”
As they headed into the first studio run-through of Who Cares? Daisy prayed the connection would hold. She was eager for their work to be seen.
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