The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(77)

Emotional Hamburger


The night of the spring concert, Daisy and Will’s comeback, Kees asked Erik if he would mind having company in the lighting booth.

“I need to be somewhere soundproof so I can cry in peace.”

“You just want to be with me, Keesja.”

“Yeah. And if anyone tries anything the least bit cute, you and I are gonna take their asses out.”

Erik who was a bit of a controlled wreck, could think of no one he’d rather have in the booth with him than Kees, who was a blatant wreck.

Fate was kind, putting the anniversary of the shootings, the nineteenth of April, on a Monday. The ceremonial recognition wouldn’t overlap with the concert, which was scheduled for the following weekend.

The contemporary division had the first act. Daisy and Will’s pas de deux would be the first number in the second act. During intermission, Erik sought out Joe and Francine Bianco, standing with them at the back of the theater, pressed on all sides by the crowd. The space buzzed with conversation and anticipation.

They chattered nervously at each other, laughing too hard and too loud. Adrenaline kept flooding Erik’s chest as the minutes ticked by. It seemed it would never be time. And then it was nearly time. His heart was pounding. He caught Kees’s eye and tapped his watch. Joe tugged his earlobe. Francine kissed him.

Erik went back into the booth and Kees followed. They drew on their headsets. Erik rubbed his cold hands together, chafing his fingers, blowing on them.

“Wat denk je, mijn vriend?”

Erik smiled. “I’m dying. How about you?”

“I am an emotional hamburger.”

Erik’s headset crackled. “Five minutes,” David said. “Flash the houselights.”

Erik reached and slid the master switch down, dimming the house, then up again. Once more. The murmur of the milling audience intensified, then people began filing back into seats. Erik and Kees fidgeted relentlessly, tapping pencils and fingers, jiggling knees, spinning in their chairs, inhaling and exhaling loudly, over and over, trying to whittle away these last, agonizing minutes.

“How we doing back there, Dave?” Erik asked.

“Nobody’s thrown up yet.”

“Great, I get to puke alone,” Kees muttered.

“Where’s Dais?” Erik asked.

“Warming up.”

“Tell her I love her.”

“Tell me first,” David said.

Erik smiled into the headset. “All my enemies whisper together against me,” he said.

“They imagine the worst for me, saying, ‘He will never get up from the place where he lies.’”

“Raise me up, that I may repay them.”

“For my enemy does not triumph over me.”

“Amen,” Kees said.

“Now tell her I love her,” Erik said.

“And grab both their asses for me,” Kees said.

“With pleasure.” Another crackle and David was gone. Erik stared at his own reflection in the booth glass, fingertips rubbing his chin.

“Tums?” Kees offered him a couple from the bottle kept in the booth.

“Thanks, I’ve already had eleven tonight.”

“You guys keep booze back here?”

Erik smiled, but his eyes slid away guiltily. David had cut a couple lines before coming to the theater. Erik had passed. Barely. The idea of being high at Daisy’s return to the stage was unthinkable to him.

But damn, it was hard to pass up.

She was a sick mistress, Lady Cocaine. The rush to the brain, the dizzying clarity, the euphoria of everything being all right. But she got bored of you so quickly, and then left without saying goodbye. In her cold, slushy wake, you crawled, a strung-along, anxious mess. Erik was starting to hate her.

And he was starting to need her.

“Bring down the house,” David said over the headset.

Erik’s chest tightened, released fiery hot waves into his stomach and arms.

Kees held out a formal hand. “Merde.”

Erik shook it. “Merde.” He brought down the master switch with his left hand while his right hand hovered, fingers poised over a section of levers as if he were about to play a chord on the piano.

The curtain rose with a velvety hum.

“Lights up,” David said. Erik pushed the levers forward and the cyclorama began to glow a rich, twilight blue.

“Cue sound.”

Out floated the lush, measured tones of the introduction to “The Man I Love.” From the upstage left wing came Daisy and Will. She in her pink dress, bourréeing in fifth, her hand tucked in Will’s elbow, her head tilted toward but not quite on his shoulder. Tall and tender in black, Will walked beside her, his maimed hand covering her fingers.

And then the auditorium erupted.

Both Kees and Erik jumped in their seats, reared backwards, open-mouthed in shock as the applause came roaring down from the balcony and met with the ovation coming from the orchestra seats, whirling together in a thunderstorm of clapping, stamping triumph drowning out the music.

“Jesus,” Kees said, stumbling to stand up, his hands on top of his head.

Erik stood up as well, leaning over the console to peer out at the audience. “What is happening…?”

He scanned the crowd: on their feet, applauding and whistling.