It was the first dress rehearsal, so after warming up she disappeared into the depths of the backstage world: down in the dressing rooms beneath the stage and into the strict governance of wardrobe and makeup. Starting tonight, it was performance mode and the dancers weren’t allowed out in the auditorium during the run-through.
David and Erik were going into their world as well. The cues designed on the temporary board were now programmed into the main boards in the lighting booth. They would be running lights from there, David in charge, in direct contact with the stage manager, and Erik second-in-command. They had their own dress orders, anything as long as it was black.
Last-minute adjustments and tweaks were needed all around the theater, including backstage. Passing through the controlled chaos in the wings, Erik made the interesting discovery that the contemporary girls had to be taped into their short little trunks. Intrigued, he stopped, drew back behind a curtain and stared as the wardrobe techs worked with double-sided tape to secure the edges along all those nether regions. And the dancers, either bent over double, or lying on the floor with their legs thrown over their heads, just chatted away, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.
Naturally he couldn’t ogle in peace—David came along and whacked him between the shoulder blades, breaking the trance.
“Dude, close your mouth.”
“Sorry,” Erik muttered.
“What are you, twelve?”
“No, it’s just my first time walking through a troupe of girls with their cooches waving in the breeze.”
“Yeah, well don’t ruin it for the rest of us, all right?”
Now holding the ladder for David, Erik glanced more covertly at Daisy being secured into her dance dress. The wardrobe tech was kneeling, working from the bottom up with a more civilized needle and thread. The entire back of the dress was open and Erik could see the top of Daisy’s tights and the whole, smooth expanse of her skin, the bumps of her spine and the wings of her shoulder blades. In full stage makeup she was like a porcelain figurine, pale and ethereal, her eyes extended and exaggerated, her lips dark and chiseled.
Over his head, David was singing softly. “Fishy, fishy in the brook, will she ever turn and look?”
As if on cue, Daisy looked over at them. She smiled at Erik, and those amplified features softened back into the face he knew better. The wardrobe tech made a cut with her scissors, then sat back on her knees to inspect. Daisy went up onto her toes, her hands reaching over her head. Out of the flowing skirt her waist rose up, tight and slender. The soft grey material hugged her small breasts, draped her back. Her neck was long and sleek, framed by the curves of her arms.
She is, Erik thought, the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
David came down the ladder, jumping the last few rungs. He retrieved the cup of soda he’d left at the base and took a long, sucking slurp from its straw. “You can fold it up,” he said to Erik, indicating the ladder, and walked off.
“Say please,” Erik said under his breath, peeved. He watched as David passed the free-standing barres where Daisy was up on one foot, deep in concentration as she held a balance. Without breaking stride, David’s hand darted out and back. Daisy let out a yell and came off her pointes.
“David, you little shit,” she cried, seizing a towel and lobbing it as he stepped up his pace and disappeared further backstage. Shaking her head, she reached her hand down between her shoulder blades, worrying at the back of her dress.
Erik walked over to her. “What did he do?”
“Dropped a fucking ice cube down my back,” she said, twisting and reaching.
He could see the lump and the spreading dark spot where the ice was starting to melt. “Hold still,” he said. He pulled the material away, just enough for him to get his fingers in and retrieve the cube, and trying not to linger longer than was necessary.
“How bad does it look?” she asked, peering back over her shoulder.
“It’ll dry, don’t worry.” And entirely without his brain’s permission, he blurted out, “You look beautiful.”
Her eyes lifted up to his. “Thank you.”
“Do a triple,” he said.