The Brandywine Prophet

10.2 Young Love (Reprise)

(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.