Give Me Your Answer True

by Suanne Laqueur

  “More than good, it’s my life.”

  Bach soothed Daisy’s crackling nerves. She found the hole in her own book and tumbled into it, grateful to leave the world behind. Lucky, however, seemed to grow more agitated. Sighing frequently, casting murderous looks at the phone until finally she tossed the book aside and fired a throw pillow across the room.

  “Ring, dammit,” she cried. “Call, motherfucker, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Jesus,” Daisy said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t believe he won’t call you today.” Lucky smacked her feet down on the floor and began pacing again.

  “Who won’t call?”

  Lucky whirled around, her curls snapping like they were filled with electric rage. “Fish.”

  Daisy stared.

  “Jesus Christ, he can’t let down his veil of stubborn pride and call you in the wake of another shooting? Can he stop being your cuckolded ex for ten seconds and just be a human being, a fellow survivor?”

  “Luck,” Daisy said.

  But Lucky was unleashed now. “Is he that heartless? What the fuck, Dais? I don’t understand and it pisses me off. I’m so angry with him.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No it’s not all right. You had sex with another guy. It was shitty and hurtful but for crying out loud, you didn’t murder his mother. This relentless silent treatment is bullshit.”

  Spent and deflated, Lucky sank back into her chair, viciously gnawing at her thumbnail. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

  “A sweet boy with a bitter palate,” Daisy said, staring at the darkening windows. She closed her eyes and the tender core of her heart unfolded and reached soft tendrils into the coming night, where wolves were lurking. Hungry for the kill.

  Erik, where are you, she thought. Are you safe?

  A hound’s snarling exhale replied. She raised her chin a little, refused to be afraid.

  You don’t have to answer, Erik. Just be safe.

  Behind her closed eyelids, her mind’s edges began to soften. Her palms, of their own volition, rolled upward in her lap. She came in peace.

  Sweet boy, be safe.

  APRIL 23, 1999

  I was interrupted before by the news from Columbine. It took over everything for a little while, as you can imagine. I’m not all right. I’m heartbroken and haunted but and I’m letting myself feel it. And reaching out to talk about it. So many people called me the day of, wanting to know if I was okay. They wouldn’t have if I hadn’t let Lancaster become an ordinary part of my history. If I hadn’t learned to share my scars and my story. I see that now. It’s easy to see so many things now.

  A candlelight vigil and service was held in Damrosch Park. Orchorale performed Rakewind at the band shell. At the end of the Lacrimosa, when the corps filled up the stage with their candles, and I looked out over the sea of candle flames filling up the park, I felt such a sense of serenity. Peace caught me up under my ribcage and lifted me out of myself. I was floating, rising over the park and New York and the world. Remembering how Trey translated the text for me. Lux aeterna luceat eis. Lux perpetua luceat eis. Let eternal light shine on them. Let perpetual light shine on them.

  And qua resurget ex favilla: from the ashes shall rise again.

  I’m thinking of having it tattooed over one of my scars.

  Next time Lucky goes up to Canada, I’m going with her. I want to see Will, and I was also invited to audition for New Brunswick Ballet Theater. Maybe it’s time for a change. I can’t lie and say the thought of dancing with Will again has no appeal. The daydream of him, Lucky and me being together in one place makes me feel incredibly happy, too. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll go up there and audition and see what comes of it.

  I’m not quite all right. But I’m mostly right. I hope you are too. Talk to you soon.

  Daisy

  THE SAINT JOHN Telegraph Journal

  September 26, 1999

  “New Brunswick Ballet Theater: Goodies From Oldies”

  The debut of New Brunswick Ballet Theater’s nostalgia ballet Standard Saturday night was the feel-good sensation of the year. A joyful night around the radio with songs from the golden age of Big Band to highlights of the Grand Ol’ Opry. Ballet met ballroom and NBBT’s dancers stretched both their styles and their hearts to create a celebration of music, lyrics and movement.

  Dinah Shore’s “Shoo Fly Pie,” The Andrews Sisters’ “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” Tommy Dorsey’s “Opus One,” and Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” are a few of the gems embedded in the necklace of this delightful ballet.

  William Kaeger’s rollicking, caffeinated solo to Frank Sinatra’s “The Coffee Song” is not to be missed. Neither is Rosemary Clooney’s “Come On-A My House,” danced by NBBT’s newest principal, Marguerite Bianco. If you don’t walk out of the theater in love with this blue-eyed American ballerina, you have no pulse. Kaeger and Bianco together in Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” is nothing less than magic. They have known each other since college and their offstage friendship lends itself to an onstage partnership of the highest order.

  The ballet ends with Louis Prima’s “Buona Sera.” The company goes from tango to swing and blows the roof off the Imperial Theater. The audience is left crackling with infectious joy and a bittersweet longing for the good ol’ days.

  MONCTON TIMES & Transcript

  April 10, 2000

  “Kaeger and Dare Joined in Marriage”

  William Maurice Kaeger and Lucia Grace Dare were joined in marriage on April 8, at the Algonquin Resort in St. Andrews By-The-Sea.

  The groom is the son of Maurice and Ségolène Kaeger of Moncton. The bride is the daughter of Thomas Dare of Riverside, California, and Judith Dare Millerton of Pearl River, New York.

  The best man was the father of the groom. The bride was attended by her close friend, Marguerite Bianco.

  Both Dare and Kaeger are graduates of Lancaster University in Pennsylvania. Kaeger was a Brighton Scholarship winner in 1988 and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance. He was a corps member with the National Ballet of Canada and a soloist with the Frankfort Ballet. He joined the London Festival Ballet for a year before returning to his native Canada and becoming a principal dancer with the New Brunswick Ballet Theater.

  Dare holds a master’s degree in physical therapy and works in a private practice in Saint John.

  By request, the couple stayed in the resort’s infamous Room 473 which, according to legend, is haunted by a jilted bride who died there in the early 1900s. They plan to honeymoon in the Caribbean.

  APRIL 11, 2002

  Dear Rita,

  I’m going back to Lancaster this weekend. It’s the ten-year anniversary of the shooting and the university planned a memorial ceremony. They’re re-dedicating the auditorium to my ballet teacher, Marie. The conservatory invited Will and I to perform, so we contacted the Balanchine Trust and asked permission to dance “The Man I Love.” They not only gave it to us but one of the trustees told us anytime and anyplace we wanted to dance it, we may. A beautiful gesture, but as we’ve been rehearsing the past few weeks, Will and I pretty much agree this will probably be the last time. It’s too much.

  But never say never, right? After all I am going back and I swore I never would.

  “How does that feel?” I can hear you say.

  I am, honestly, a little bit of a wreck. Like refill-the-Xanax wreck. I don’t know who will be there. Translation: I don’t know if Erik will be there. He might. Or he might not. And I don’t know which would be more difficult, frankly. Of course I want to see him. But if he’s there and he’s cold or distant or avoids me or…(Be brave, Dais. Say it out loud.) If he’s married…

  Ugh.

  Then again, there’s something to be said for finding out. If he’s cold, he’s cold. If he’s married, he is. If I know, then I know and I can go from there. It’s best I go in with the expectation of being aloof-ly avoided at worst, or introduced to his beautiful wife at b
est.

  Actually, reverse those.

  Cause of death: ugh.

  On the positive side, it’s not like I’m walking in there alone. I’m flying down with Will and Lucky on Thursday. John is coming as well, from Boston. And I’m beside myself knowing I’ll see my old teacher, Kees Justi. I’ve talked to him on the phone a few times, making arrangements, and he’s the same wonderful, wonderful soul. So full of love and energy. A total emotional hamburger with fries on the side. I can’t wait to see him.

  Another exciting thing is that National Public Radio is covering the ceremony. The segment will run on their show “Moments in Time.” I’ll give you a heads-up when I find out the date.

  So off I go to war. If it’s bad, I will divert the return trip through Vermont and throw myself against your office door. I’ll warn you by phone first, promise.

  Take good care and I’ll talk to you soon.

  Daisy

  ARMS DROPPED TO HER SIDES, Daisy stood in wings of the theater, letting the waves of sensory nostalgia crash onto her head. The distinctive backstage odor of sweat, sawdust, musty velvet curtains and damp concrete walls engulfed her. Taped-down cables were underfoot and the catwalk was overhead. The disorderly order of everything hadn’t changed. The same haphazard stacks of sets, the cubicles for quick costume changes, the stage manager’s station. And the memories. Everywhere. Waving wildly, rushing up to throw arms around her neck, bury their heads in her shoulder and sob, “Remember me? Remember me?”

  Daisy held them. Patted and caressed them. Of course I remember. Of course.

  She ran her hand along the two freestanding barres where she warmed up countless times over the course of four years. She put her feet in a loose first position and closed her eyes, breathed in again, her heart pounding. She knew it would be hard. Just let it be hard, she thought. It’s hard. It’s sad. It’s emotional. Let it be what it is.

  Leaving the barre, she walked over to a wall of wooden pigeonholes, each little compartment labeled with a name. Daisy reverently touched the fourth cubby from the left, third row, now labeled Browning but once upon a time, Bianco.

  This was mine. I lived here. I danced here. I loved here.

  I was shot here.

  A rectangle of white had been painted on the wall above the mailboxes. The memorial plaques for the shooting victims would be hung here on Sunday. At dinner last night, Kees said some disagreement between the families and the school surrounded the placement. Administration wanted them hung in the lobby. The families insisted their fallen loved ones would have wanted them here, in the thick of production. Not alone and isolated in the cold, formal lobby. Their lives and passions had been backstage, where they died doing what they loved.

  I lived here. I died here.

  She crossed to the stage left wings. The Mylar floor hadn’t yet been rolled out and the heels of her boots were loud and hollow on the wood planks. Will and Lucky were crouched in the curtains, in silent reflection together.

  Five shot dead here. Eyewitness accounts from survivors differed slightly but one was undisputed: Trevor King, the assistant stage manager, was first to fall.

  “When he has a squad in his crosshairs, a sniper almost always shoots the communications man first,” Joe Bianco once told his daughter. “He takes out the voice. Then he’ll go for the smallest man in the squad because, psychologically, the other men view him as the baby. No matter his age, rank, strength or personality—the shortest man is the kid brother. Shoot him, and you shoot the heart of the squad. So first the voice. Then the heart.”

  James Dow, whose sister was a soldier, took out Trevor, who died still wearing his headset. Then James turned and shot Manuel Sabena, five feet, five inches tall.

  Allison Pierce, one of the stagehands, fell next. Then Taylor Revell, with her knitting stuffed down the front of her shirt. And last, Aisha Johnson.

  One by one they fell to the scuffed planks. And just like in the movies, the police outlined them in tape. The bodies were taken away. The tape stayed. And in the days after the shooting, the students crept back into the theater and began to fill in the white outlines with signatures and messages. When the tape was pulled up, five bodies remained memorialized on the floor. The custodial staff varnished over them every year. Dancers, actors and musicians gathered around them before performance.

  “And still do,” Kees said at dinner. “Ten years later, when nobody who was there is here. It’s legend. It’s lore. They pick a shrine and pray to it.”

  Kees was forty-seven now. His eyebrows were shot through with grey. His eyes were circled but they still sparkled with an undefeatable spirit. And his hands couldn’t get enough of them. Over and across the table at the restaurant they darted and swooped. Patting Lucky’s five-month pregnant belly, rubbing circles on Will’s back and sandwiching Daisy’s own trembling fingers.

  “So good to see you,” he kept saying. “God, you’re beautiful. Look at you. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “I’m here,” Daisy whispered now, crouching down by Taylor’s outlined body. Tracing a finger, she found her own farewell words: K1, P2—Don’t 4get IU.

  Lucky knelt beside her, silently passing a tissue.

  “Jesus.” Daisy mumbled thanks.

  “My hormones can’t take this,” Lucky said.

  Daisy stood up, her knees popping. Wiping her eyes, she went back onto the stage and exhaled heavily as she finally looked the maw of the theater in the face. Cavernous and solemn. Stretching up high and wide. Lanterns lined up like soldiers along the bars, their cables neatly coiled and taped. Industrial. Productive. Yet the rows of seats curved toward her like arms, making the space intimate. Draped in soft curtains. Two worlds meeting to create a third universe where magical things happened.

  Like me and Erik, she thought, looking toward the lighting booth. Its windows shining and intact, but dark and empty within.

  Isn’t it time? Can’t we talk about it?

  He was either coming or he wasn’t. And she’d wait and look for him until he showed up or until she went home. If only she could know, then she could stop surfing this awful wave of anticipation.

  Even now, her heart lurched sideways as a man who certainly wasn’t Erik came into the theater, looking left and right. Hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. His gaze stopped on Daisy. Then his hands pulled free, his arms flung wide. Like a hero he came running down the aisle. Daisy’s face turned warm with pleasure, pulling wide toward her ears. Without thinking she ran to the edge of the apron and jumped.

  John caught her. Crushed her to his chest and spun in a circle.

  “Oh, John,” she said against his neck.

  “I love conversations that start this way.”

  “Thank God you’re here.”

  “It’s terrible to see you.”

  She laughed, rubbing her wet face on his shoulder. “This is brutal.”

  “Tell me about it. I parked my car and started crying.”

  He set her down and stepped back, hands on hips. His copper eyes looked her up and down, a corner of his mouth twisting. “I think we should set some ground rules. Are you dating anyone? Because if not, I’m going to be shamelessly clutching you all weekend.”

  She wrapped herself in his handsome appeal, letting it be what it was. “Fuck rules. Clutchez-moi.”

  His arms scooped her up again and hugged her tight. She pressed her lips against his jaw. Over his shoulder, she saw another man had come into the theater. Standing in much the same way, hands in pockets, looking up and down as well as left and right. He wore a black watch cap pulled low. Daisy’s heart didn’t bother with a lurch. This man’s build was far too slight and lean. Still, something about him made her tilt her head and squint, the hair on the back of her neck stirring.

  “Who’s that?” she said.

  John turned, still holding her. His arms loosened and Daisy’s feet touched the carpet.

  “Dave?” John said.

  The air reared back in Daisy’s thro
at. She pulled from John’s embrace and started walking up the aisle. It couldn’t be. David was a burly and solid bear. Not this rail-thin, stoop-shouldered person with jeans that bagged in the legs. As she drew nearer, the facial features coalesced. It was David, and yet not. As if he’d been disassembled and put back together backward. A David avatar. Something was almost alien about his features. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Not until she was five feet away and he reached up and slowly drew off the watch cap.

  His hairless pate shone under the lights. A bit of stubble was growing in his sideburns and it sparkled silver. As the gap between them closed, she realized what was so disturbing about his face. He had no eyebrows or eyelashes.

  “David,” she said. “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

  He smiled. “It looks worse than it is,” he said. “And it’s better than it was.”

  “Oh my God,” she said under her breath, and put her arms around him.

  He seemed to jump in his skin. Laughed as if her embrace surprised him.

  “Marge,” he said. “Goddammit, you’re still the prettiest thing I ever saw in my life.” And finally he hugged her back.

  A stampede of footsteps behind Daisy. John was there. And Lucky and Will. They piled on in the aisle, arms weaving around and through in a wreath of welcome.

  “Opie, you prince,” David said. “Look at you, all grown up. And Lulu. Holy shit, you’re knocked up. Who got lucky with Lucky?”

  “Get your hands off my wife,” Will said, kissing David’s bald crown.

  “Get your hands off my ass.”

  Lucky ran her palm over David’s face. “What happened to you?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said. “Life kicked me in the kidneys but I’m all right.”

  “Cancer?” Daisy said.

  David nodded. “What a bitch, huh?” He looked around and sniffed. “I survive cancer only to be killed by this place. Jesus, it’s the same. It’s all here.”

  “Still here,” Will said.

  “What, am I the only stagehand representation?” David asked. “No other rats came?”

  A voice boomed from the lobby doors. “This rat came.”