“Where’s he from, how does he speak fluent French?”
“He’s a Canuck,” David said. “Born in Montreal or something.”
Kees turned around. “Will’s from New Brunswick, dumbass. He went to school in Montreal.”
“Excusez-moi. Why in hell they speak French in a place called New Brunswick is beyond me.”
“Well, you’re in college, David,” Kees said. “Four libraries on campus, why don’t you go look it up? Learn something?”
David responded in Dutch and Kees turned back to face the stage. Erik wanted to know how Daisy was fluent in French but decided he’d ask someone other than David.
The boys’ quintet was finished. Kathy Curran and Matt Lombardi, the senior graduating couple, returned to the stage for the Siciliano.
Erik looked back at his notes and the question mark he had put down. Shyly he leaned forward to tap Kees’s shoulder. “What do you call a duet like this, pah de something?”
“Pas de deux. It’s French, means dance for two.” He took Erik’s clipboard and wrote the words down. “You should come to my class.”
Erik swallowed a slight panic. He wasn’t sure if it was an order or an invitation, but no way in hell was he going to dance class.
But David laughed. “Kees’s most popular course is called ‘Dance Appreciation for the Modern Neanderthal.’”
“There’s a waiting list,” Kees said.
Erik wrote it down.
Interestingly, while the seniors rehearsed front and center, Daisy and Will were upstage, dancing the same choreography. David explained they were understudying, and would get to dance one matinee performance.
The arrangement was for strings, flute and oboe, and against the slightly mournful melody, the pas de deux was decidedly romantic, full of longing. The partnering was difficult—even to Erik’s unpracticed eye. Yet Will didn’t seem to give much thought to what his hands were doing. They lifted, threw and caught Daisy with unconscious confidence, allowing his touch to be both supportive and tender. His fingers lingered on her limbs. He crushed her against his chest as if he loved her. At times, he seemed to be whispering to her. Daisy trusted him implicitly, jumping backwards or turning blind without hesitation, her hand reaching for a precise spot where she knew he would be.
At an especially emotional swell in the music, Daisy fell backwards in the circle of Will’s arms and he laid his head down at the base of her throat. His lips parted. Erik’s eyes narrowed in fascinated jealousy. Will wasn’t kissing her neck, he was just inhaling there, resting, and Daisy’s hand came up behind his head. Downstage, Kathy made the same exact gesture to Matt’s head. Clearly it was part of the choreography, but Kathy’s motion seemed a throwaway while Daisy’s was a definitive human caress. The hair at the back of Erik’s own neck stirred.
When Will brought Daisy back up, the look they exchanged was smoldering. Their faces seemed to twitch with the suppressed laughter of a private joke. As Daisy moved forward into the next phrase, her smile back over her shoulder at Will was laced with affection. Erik felt a crushing despair sweep through his bones.
Beside him, David was chuckling low in his chest. “I swear sometimes I hate the man’s guts,” he said.
“Are they together?”
“Depends. What day is it, Sunday? Yeah, Sunday is Will’s straight day, they could be together.”
Kees looked around, chuckling. “You still think he walks both sides of the line?”
David held up a defensive hand. “I know what I know.”
“Get out of here,” Kees said, snorting.
Erik was starting to feel slightly overwhelmed. He was more than a little sure Will and Daisy were together offstage. Dancing the way they did, looking at each other the way they did, how could they not?