“You taste so good.” He groaned it one trembling night when he finally got into her sweetness, a tart rush along the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue. Her palm heavy on his crown, her fingers threaded in his hair. Her shoulder blades plowing furrows in the mattress and her calves warm and smooth on his shoulders. He practically hummed with contentment as he drank her in, feeling her unfold and shiver, closing his eyes as she came against his mouth.
“Let me get this straight,” she said a little while later. “I’m supposed to leave this room, dance thirty hours a week, earn a BFA and get an education… All the while knowing you can do that to me?”
“Mm-hm.” Her body limp in his arms and her taste lingering on his tongue, Erik was swaying in a hammock of perfect contentment. “Any time you want.”
Daisy rose up on her elbow, eyebrows wrinkled. “I’m so fucked.”
Staring up at her, he felt his face widen in a grin of wicked delight. He reached his hand into her tangled hair and pulled her face to his.
“Me, too,” he whispered.
Prince Henry The Navigator
The month of December brought what Will called Nutcracker Mercenary Season. Private ballet schools around Philadelphia were getting their Nutcrackers ready, and they needed experienced dancers for the more difficult roles in the second act—always Sugarplum and Cavalier, sometimes a Dewdrop for the iconic flower waltz. They came scouting around the conservatory, looking for hired guns.
“It’s a stupid easy gig,” Will said. “One or two rehearsals a week, a few on weekends. The choreography is never complicated and you’re only doing the second act anyway. In and out. It’s good exposure and you earn a couple hundred bucks. Win-win all around.”
Daisy and Will landed Sugarplum and Cavalier at a school in Ardmore. The whole entourage—Erik, Lucky, David, Marie and Kees—turned out to watch the Saturday evening performance, which happened to coincide with Daisy’s eighteenth birthday.
Daisy’s parents came, too. They all stood around the lobby at intermission, talking and chatting easily. This was Erik’s second time seeing them, the first back at the fall dance concert. He felt it had gone well, and tonight Francine Bianco had hugged and kissed him, which was an encouraging sign.
Francine had once danced with the Paris Opera. She now ran the orchard, raising chickens, ducks and organic produce, but she still looked and carried herself like a dancer. Her posture was impeccable. Her black hair, elegantly threaded with silver, was drawn up in a bun, showing her long neck. Standing with turned out feet, she was talking vigorous shop with Kees and Marie, switching effortlessly between French and English.
Erik and David stood apart with Daisy’s father.
“My mother kisses everybody,” Daisy had said. “But with my dad, approval is all in the handshake. First time meeting, it’s single hand.” She shook Erik’s hand, demonstrating. “But if he likes you, you graduate to a shake with the other hand on top, or better, on your upper arm. This is acceptance. If the other hand comes up like this—” She patted Erik’s face gently but heartily with her palm. “—you’re family. But here’s the carte blanche: handshake, palm pat and tug on the earlobe.” Her fingers gave Erik’s ear a single, brisk tug.
“Then I’m in?”
“Then you’re behind the velvet rope.”
Erik’s ears had gone untouched tonight but he had received the single handshake with upper arm grasp. He was satisfied.
Joseph Bianco had gained American citizenship by joining the Army and doing two tours in Vietnam as a combat engineer. Poised and observant, with a dry humor, Joe didn’t say much, yet he was fully present. His reticence wasn’t awkward or exclusionary. Rather he put out a companionable sort of silence, much like Daisy’s. Erik was instinctively drawn to it. And he couldn’t help but appreciate a man who could dismantle land mines. He suspected Joe Bianco had a plan K, minimum.
“Is it true sappers are the only ones in the army who can wear beards?” David asked.
“In the French Foreign Legion, yes,” Joe said. “And they’re allowed to carry an axe, too.”
“What did you carry in Vietnam?”