His voice was laced with humor and courtesy, yet it demanded instant action, and the dancers promptly took themselves to the stage, shedding sweaters and sweatshirts and other extra layers of clothes. When finally gathered, thirty or so strong, they were silent, standing in tableau, straight, proud, attentive. Erik crammed his eyes with girls—he had never seen so many great bodies in one place in his life.
David bundled up the rest of his sub and stuffed it back into the paper bag. “Come on,” he said, belching behind a fist.
Erik followed David down the aisle and slipped into the center fifth row, sitting down behind Leo Graham. In the row ahead of Leo were Cornelis Justi, the contemporary dance director, and Marie Del'Amici, the ballet director.
“What do we do?” Erik said to his new mentor.
“Listen, observe, take notes,” David said. He had taken two clipboards from the lighting booth and now passed one to Erik. “Write down whatever Leo tells you to, or if you hear him mutter something under his breath. If you have impressions of your own, jot those down. Michael wants everyone included in the design aspects. You’ll see.”
“Hello everyone, I’m Michael.”
The dancers sang back in unison. “Hi, Michael.”
Michael turned back to his crew with a closed-mouth grin. “Aren’t they adorable? All right, my children, we have a week to turn water into wine.”
“First step is admitting we have a problem,” Cornelis said.
“For the benefit of our esteemed tech director, Sir Leo von Graham—” Wild applause from the dancers. Leo raised a fist to the ceiling. “—and his accolades, we’ll go through the program as we understand it to be.”
Erik twirled his pencil and scanned the cluster of dancers on the stage, looking for Daisy. It took a minute, but finally he found her, stage left. She had pinned back those stray curls and donned a blue headband around her hairline. Her earrings were off, as was the sweatshirt. In a purple leotard with the black tights pulled over, she stood with her arms crossed, one foot poised up on the hard block of her shoe. Erik knew ballerinas danced on their toes, but he’d never seen it in action. He leaned forward a little in his seat, squinting at the footwear and wondering how it was made.
“We have a ballet program set entirely to Johann Sebastian Bach. We’ll be using seven pieces in all. In order, they are…”
Erik noticed David was writing. He started writing too, listening and scribbling a rough outline:
“Bach Variations”
Bourée from Suite in E Minor. Ensemble.
Prelude from Cello Suite. Sr male solo.
Prelude in C #. Sr female solo.
Prelude in F Minor. 5 girls.
Gavotte in E Major. 5 boys.
Siciliano from Sonata #2. Dance for Sr couple
Brandenberg Concerto. Finale, feature Sr couple.
He flexed his fingers and reread it all. He liked Bach. His piano teacher had him play a lot of it, back in the day. Back in the long day. His allegiance switched to guitar and he hadn’t sat down at the keys in years. He frowned at his list. Nothing was jumping out at him as familiar. He’d have to wait until he heard it. He didn’t know anything until he heard it. Or took it apart.
He drew a question mark by the Siciliano. Michael used some other term but Erik didn’t know how to spell it so he put “dance.” His eyes flicked to the stage. Daisy had moved next to a tall boy, tallest of all the male dancers, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Daisy’s hand was on his shoulder and she was up on her toes, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Her leotard had elaborate crisscross straps in the back. Her shoulders were defined, as were her arms.
And dear God, those legs.
Erik looked down again, drew a box around “Bach Variations.”
“All right then. Let’s start from the top,” Michael said. “Marie, any last requests?”
Marie Del'Amici stood up, a black shawl swathed around her purple sweater, salt-and-pepper hair in a rumpled braid down her back. Her speech spilled out in bubbles, a thick Italian accent garbling a third of it. “Don’t go crazy with the spacing, darlings, I’m not giving any notes or corrections. Just dance. We want to let Leo here know how this tastes.”
“No notes, my ass,” David said under his breath.