Sitting in the first row of the balcony, arms crossed on the ledge, Erik was indeed mesmerized. He looked at Kees. “Do you think she’s good?”
Kees nodded slowly. “She’s unquestionably talented in her own right. Her technique is superb. But what she has with Will is extraordinary.”
“Why? What makes it extraordinary?”
Kees was quiet a while, watching. “One thing I notice is Daisy seems more interested in making something beautiful together with Will than being adored as the prima ballerina. She is a much more forgiving partner than Kathy.”
“Forgiving.”
“You have to understand in ballet, there’s an unspoken code of chivalry for the danseur noble.”
“What’s that?”
“The male dancer. Same way you’d use prima ballerina for a woman. Anyway, he’s expected to always present the woman in the best light. So you can see this little flicker of annoyance on Kathy’s face if Matt bobbles something. But Daisy, she’s conscious of Will as a dancer, not just someone propping her up. She doesn’t betray his mistakes.”
Squinting at the couple on the stage, Erik made a quantum leap. “She partners him. As much as he does her.”
“Exactly. If he’s not where she needs him to be, she covers and she moves on. She doesn’t stop and blame. She incorporates the rough spots into the whole. Strikes me as interesting.”
“Why?”
“She’s a generous dancer. Makes me wonder if she treats all the people she loves the same way.”
“Oh.”
Kees smiled. “You like her?”
Erik glanced at him, then back to the stage. “I do.”
“She’s a lovely girl.”
“It’s weird, Kees, at first I just liked how she looked. Now I’m starting to like who she is. And a lot of it, maybe even all of it, is coming from watching her dance.”
“Like I said, my friend, she seems the type who likes to make something beautiful with her partner, rather than just be carried around and adored in the spotlight.” He patted Erik’ shoulder and got up. “So I imagine she’s generous and forgiving in the dark.”
He left then, and Erik looked back at the stage, rolling the words “in the dark” around his mouth like hard candies. He watched Daisy dance, illuminated and suspended in the sidelight coming from the booms.
In the dark.
What are you like in the dark?
Natural Spin
Wednesday afternoon, they came to the theater together again, communing in the quiet of the empty auditorium. Daisy sewed her shoes and Erik played the piano. He played more confidently today, and when his hands coaxed from the keys a competent version of the F minor Prelude, Daisy had begun to dance parts of it.
“Do the last part of your solo, with all the turns.” He stopped playing as she first circled the stage, then headed down the diagonal in a blur of turns, moving fast, foot-to-foot, up on her toes, into a double pirouette to end the phrase.
“Keesja dared me to do a triple here.”
“Can you?”
Daisy backed up a few feet, moved into the chain of quick turns, then into the final spin, one revolution, then two and a third. She finished soft, her arms the last to melt down, a small smile on her face.
“Nice,” Erik said.
She did it again and flubbed, falling off balance after the second turn. “See, I’m turning to the right, and it’s not my strong side. My natural spin is to the left.”
“Can’t you just change it, then?”
She smiled at him, shaking her head. “I have to do it the way it’s choreographed.” She tried another, again wobbling off the final revolution. “I don’t trust myself. If I’m turning right then a triple happens by luck, rather than me controlling it. Two and a half turns with a fudged ending looks like shit. I’d rather just do the double.”