(5, 6, 7, 8!)

It was three days after their actual anniversary and Chase had to spend the morning unloading the truck and fighting beautiful daydreams about the weekend’s possibilities.

Mr. Carmel had asked the crew to haul his busted piano from the forest driveway to the stage. The job was relatively simple with eight men; they loaded the instrument on the company truck, backed up to the loading dock, then dumped it in the right wing of the stage with the body on a furniture pad and the legs on the lid.

Chase saw Janie after moving the piano, but their reunion consisted of a quick kiss, hug and, “We’ll talk on the break.” She was a student teacher now, and Chase understood her commitment to her dancers. The last time they touched was eleven months ago, but they would make up for lost time this weekend; three days of breaks between sets... and two glorious nights of alone time.

The day began poorly when a senior from Kayla’s Studio landed on her knee instead of her foot and ran off stage into Chase’s arms. He pulled up a chair, cracked an icepack from his first-aid kit, and rushed outside to grab her a bottled water from the crew’s snack tent.

Now a pow-wow of Native Americans had the stage. They jumped, twirled and stumbled to a savage-urban beat and Chase bobbed his head to the tempo and scanned his setlist for the remainder of the senior small-groups. The sheet--usually clean and orderly--was unreadable with chicken-scratch X’s, arrows, and add-ins scrawled in kindergarden penmanship. His complex hieroglyphics indicated that the final dance of the set was “Girl’s Just Wanna Have Fun” from Kayla’s Dance Studio. 

Chase sucked on the end of his pen and surveyed the backstage action. He saw Miss Alice with crossed arms watching her boys mutilate their dance... but Kayla’s girls weren’t backstage.

Pauline hated nothing more than gaps in her show. It was Chase’s job to maintain the program’s flow by assuring teachers and dancers were ready at their scheduled time. This was only the first set of the first day, and if Kayla didn’t show, he would fall behind.

A black bowler hat sat crooked atop Miss Alice’s head, mirroring her tattoo-counterpart’s fading ensemble. “Focus Shiloh! Watch your footing!” Her flared gauchos twirled around her ankles as she danced the choreography in exaggerated gestures so the weaker boys could follow along. Sideline assistance was not forbidden by the judges, but when the dancers focused on the wings instead of the audience, points were lost.

Janie never patronized her students in that way. “If they don’t know the routine by the time they get on stage, they’re not getting help from me,” she once said.

“It’s ridiculous,” said a voice behind Chase. 

He turned around to see Miss Kayla’s husband watching the dance with thumbs in his jeans. “Those guys are wearing makeup and spandex, yet they’re cooler in this moment than I’ll ever be.”

Chase nodded. “Tell me about it.”

Though he disliked gossip, Chase had a train-wreck interest in the drama that played out between Mr. Whitaker and Mr. Carmel last fall. As Janie gathered clues about the mysterious speaker, she used Chase to bounce around ideas during late-night phone dates. When the shenanigans led to the separation of Janie’s parents, he felt guilty for his fascination.

Although the drama’s focus shifted away from Mr. Whitaker after Mrs. Carmel left, Janie was still concerned with Chase’s level of privileged understanding. Before he left for Michigan, she made him promise that he’d never let her dad find out that he knew the truth about the speakers. Even more imperative, Mr. Whitaker could never know that Mr. Carmel knew the truth.

Chase assured his girlfriend that he wouldn’t even speak to the people involved, much less ruin their lives with “privileged understanding.” The whole Whitaker-Carmel affair was over now anyway with no hard feelings or talk of retaliation. Chase just liked the fact that Janie confided in him more than her father.

(5, 6, 7, 8!) he remembered the impending gap in the show and his mind dialed back into work mode. “Have you seen your wife?” he asked Mr. Whitaker. “Her girls are on stage in less than a minute.”

“Just got off work. Haven’t seen ‘em.”

“Crap.” Chase stepped to the podium and grabbed his phone. “April May? I’m missing the last dance. Hold the music.”

April responded with her best valley girl impression, “Get it!”

He slammed the phone and turned back to Hyde. “Call your wife and tell her we need her kids backstage.”

“Yes, sir!”

Chase abandoned his post and dashed through the frump of mothers, past the legless piano, hopscotched costumes and props to the back door, opened it, and winced in the afternoon sunlight and Cyndi Lauper’s overplayed tune. The missing dancers were shimmying in pink leotards on the grass below the loading dock. Janie commanded her students by clapping to the fuzzy beat of the portable boom box.

Before he could call to her, Chase saw Janie’s dad sitting on the yellow-painted ledge of the dock, feet dangling, dressed in his usual blazer--green today instead of black--and sucking the salt from a clump of concession-stand sunflower seeds. The man’s beard was a torn tuft of yeti fur, matted, knotted and the color of a muddy cinderblock.

Chase adjusted the collar of his Sparkle Motion Polo and hiked up his black jeans. He looked at Janie, then back to Mr. Carmel who was studying him now with piercing grey eyes. The man used his thumb and forefinger to clean the black shells (like lizard scales, Chase thought) from his teeth. It was the first time Chase saw Mr. Carmel since dating Janie, and if it wasn’t for Pauline’s imminent fury, he would have reintroduced himself right then and there. He nodded instead, but the man coldly turned his attention to the dancers. Crap.

“Miss Janie!” Chase finally shouted.

“Run it again, ladies!” she said and twirled her hand in the air. She jogged across the grass and stopped at the base of the dock. Her nose was level with Chase’s feet; one hand on her hip and one hand blocking the sun from her eyes. “Are the Indians offstage yet?”

“Just finished. We’re waiting on you.” This new dynamic was odd.

“Noah can’t dance so I’m re-choreographing the routine. Give me five.”

Chase looked to the left of the dancers and noticed the girl with the busted knee. She was confined to a folding chair, the icepack still on her leg, watching her friends dance without her. “Baby,” Chase said, “I can’t have a five minute gap in the show.”

Janie glanced at her father, twenty feet away, then back up to Chase. “There’s nothing you can do?”

(Chase wanted to leap to the ground, grab his girlfriend’s cheeks and kiss her on the lips; he missed her more in this moment than ever before.) “Of course,” he said. “I’ll talk to Pauline.”

“No,” Janie said before he could leave. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Are you sure they’re ready?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Within a minute, Chase was leading the girls up the loading dock and through the door with Janie in the rear assuring no one wandered off.

The stage was empty except for Hyde. The audience--roughly a hundred people today--was becoming audibly restless in the sun.

“Kayla’s on her way,” Hyde said as Chase passed.

“Already got the girls. Wasn’t her fault.” He snatched his phone. “April? Go go go.”

“Alrighty, Mr. Manager.” April May’s voice transferred from the phone receiver to the theater speakers: “Next up we have senior recreational open. Please welcome ‘Little Laupers’ performing ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.’”

Janie’s dancers scrambled to find their place in the wings. The music began (5, 6, 7, 8), the girls clamored on stage. 

Miss Kayla galloped inside--more composed than Chase expected--and wiped a pearl of sweat from her forehead. “Looks like you found my ladies,” she said and slid an arm around her husband.

“Maybe Pauline didn’t notice,” Chase said and exhaled relief.

Janie ignored the mess on stage and addressed Kayla. “Noah’s still hurt. I did my best.”

“They’ll do fine,” Miss Kayla replied.

Several months ago, Janie mentioned that Kayla and Mr. Whitaker were having marital problems. Now--as Hyde whispered a smiling secret in his wife’s ear--Chase assumed they had worked through their issues. He’d get the full scoop tonight.

Janie nestled in the nook of his arm, mirroring the adult’s lovebird stance. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Mr. Whitaker,” she said. “You’re always cooped up in your study.”

“You’re lucky,” he said.

“Why is that?”

“You’ll never get to experience the joys of a nine-to-five job with late-night paperwork. The Carmels are too talented for all that.”

Chase wished Janie would spend her moment of freedom with him instead of making small talk with the neighbors.

Noah waddled backstage, hunched over to hold the icepack on her knee, dressed like a normal sixteen-year-old girl instead of a “Little Lauper.” Chase eyed the girl as she made her way to the sideline, just out of the judges line-of-sight. She held the black curtain for support and watched her team struggle with the modified routine. To the untrained eye, Noah’s body was as ridged as her expression, but Chase noticed the minuscule twitches in her calves, fingers and neck as the dancer performed the routine in her head and imagined herself on stage.

Mr. Carmel infiltrated the backstage with a black duffle in hand.

Janie pulled away from Chase and trotted to her dad.

Kayla rolled her eyes and Chase excused himself from the awkward moment, pretending to address some important business back at his podium, but his eyes never left Janie and her father.

She tugged his blazer and he bent to her level. She spoke in his ear and he laughed. He handed her the black bag, fixed a curled hair on her stiff bun, then backed into the shadows beside his broken piano.

(5, 6, 7, 8) The girls danced offstage and collapsed into hugs with Noah crumpled in the center. Miss Kayla released her grip on Mr. Whitaker and congratulated her girls. 

April May’s spunky voice concluded the set. “Ladies and gentlemen, that lovely dance marks the end of our junior and senior small groups! We’ll be taking a short break, then we’ll start back up with solos!”

Janie approached the podium, dropped her bag, rummaged through it, and whispered, “Count to thirty, then follow me to the left-wing.”

“What?”

“Wait thirty seconds then follow me.” She removed a cream tutu from the duffle, walked past her dancers, and disappeared behind the purple set.

Something was different. He felt it weeks ago. A quiet sense of detachment.

There were little things during their phone dates. Sometimes Janie would go to bed earlier than usual even if her voice didn’t seem sleepy. When they did talk late, she seemed preoccupied. She promised to text him on several occasions... but then she forgot. Chase wasn’t a needy boyfriend; it was the break in routine that worried him.

Today’s reunion should have dispelled the fear, but the afternoon was only confirming his hidden dread.

Exactly thirty seconds after Janie walked away, Chase unglued the clipboard from his hand and made his way backstage (avoiding Mr. Carmel’s emanation like one might pass a black cat). Behind the set, he trailed his hand against the rippled black backdrop and hopped a series of angled wooden jacks bracing the fiberglass. Just as he was about to emerge on the other side, a hand shot from a broken seam in the drapery, grabbed his belt, and jerked him into the dark fabric folds.

It was Janie. When Chase was safely inside the makeshift tent, she released her grip on his waist and worked the band of her tights beneath her t-shirt. “Don’t step on the tutu,” she whispered.

“You’re changing?” he asked.

“My ballet starts in ten. Did you stop reading your set-list, Mr. Stage Manager?” She turned from Chase and peeled off the purple cotton tee to reveal her ironed back and crisscross sports bra. “Hand me the leotard?”

“It’s dark. Where--”

“On the ground.”

He knelt down and fumbled the polished cement. When he stood--leotard in hand--Janie’s back was bare. He draped the uniform over her shoulder. “I wish you had more dances,” he said.

“One is enough.”

Even in the darkness of the fort, Chase found enough light to behold Janie’s taut skin across her vertebrae as she stepped--one mesh stocking at a time--into the suit. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“What? Why?”

“You sound far away.”

She snapped the leotard straps against her shoulders, flexed and stretched into the molded costume, then turned back to Chase. “My mom’s in the audience. She wanted to see me dance so she gave Dad strict orders to stay backstage. They haven’t seen each other since December. She hasn’t filed for divorce yet, but Dad’s worried. He tries not to show it, but--”

“We talked for an hour last night. Why didn’t you tell me this on the phone?”

“I help Dad with the theater, I help Kayla with routines, I assure and reassure my mom that I’m safe and happy, and I practice every waking moment in between. Things need to go well today so Mom’ll see how far he’s come. With a little more work, I’ll finally pull Dad out of this--”

“Shh. I know you’re stressed.” Chase stooped again and found the tutu between Janie’s bare feet. He took the center loop in his hands and raised the mesh up her ankles, calves, thighs and waist. “I love you,” he said and touched her chin to tame her scattered mind. “I want you to deal with this however you need to, and I’ll be right here when you need me.”

“Shit,” she said, breaking the moment. “I forgot my makeup...”

“Forget the makeup. Forget the scar. You’re more beautiful today than you’ve ever been.”

“Thanks.”

“I made a deal with Hank this morning. He’ll cover for me if I’m not in my room. If your dad is still sleeping at the stage, we can be together all night.”

“Okay,” she said.

Chase expected more of a reaction. For weeks they devised ways to spend the night together. He sighed. “I’ll take your clothes. You push the bad thoughts out of your head, get on that stage, and do what you love.”

She pecked his cheek. “Give me another thirty seconds before you come out, kay? I love you.” She spiraled around Chase (being careful not to smush her tutu against him) then poked her head through the seam, looked both ways, and pattered away.

The brief sliver of daylight closed across Chase’s cheek as the curtains drifted shut. For thirty long seconds, he was left in the dark to contemplate what the hell was going on.

Happy anniversary, he thought.