Circle of Stones by Suzanne Alyssa Andrew Page B

Converse high-tops. Laces undone. The man’s arms occupy both armrests. He belongs in a tattoo parlour. His sizeable legs splay to either side and push right up against the seats in front of us. He breathes heavily, tosses his program on the floor, and taps his foot without a discernible rhythm. I lean toward the seniors on my right. They’re reading their programs.
    â€œMake sure you try to understand what it’s about this time,” the elderly woman says. She gives her partner an elbow nudge. “I don’t want another interrogation on the drive home.”
    â€œBah,” the man says. He shakes his grey-haired head. “That last one was strange, but I think this one will be nicer. We saw them last year, remember?”
    I glance at my program. The names of the performers are like class attendance: Terrance Cho, Alexandre Chouinard, Jennifer Alleyn. I immediately forget them.
    The house lights go down and the deep, slow notes of a stand-up bass and piano rumble from the orchestra pit. There’s a tension-building pause that feels interminable in the dark. Then the curtains glide open to reveal an empty stage lit in deep twilight blue. A thin man in black pants, white T-shirt, and bare feet walks slowly onto the stage, moving back and forth in large, wistful movements. Soon, like a shadow, the other male dancer begins dancing behind him. The large man seated beside me edges forward when the female dancer appears. I think I hear him sigh. He smells pungent and dank like a basement. The aged couple to my right is small and silent, obliterated by the dark except for the blue-tinged reflections that bounce off their glasses. When I glance in their direction I catch the slightest fragrant whiff of maple syrup.
    The couple onstage begins a complicated pas de deux with lots of lifts, but the female dancer keeps gazing at the man in front, who begins spinning in a series of spectacular turns. Her story seems obvious. She can’t keep her eyes on the partner who dances for her, supporting her at every lift and turn. He is desperately in love. He reminds me of Mitchell, my former fiancé. Mitchell used to make me coffee and breakfast every morning, ask me how things were going at school, keep our shared condo clean.
    I gaze at the young woman. She is fragile, compact, and absolutely stunning. A mystical muse to enrapture poets and cause men to obsess. The kind of dangerous beauty I never possessed. She circles the lavish, turning, twisting man, becoming transfixed, while the other male dancer retreats downstage. I wait for her to jump, like I did, for the magical intellect of the linguistics professor I’d once admired. Except I leapt into his arms and he dropped me. My face flushes, even now, hidden in the dark.
    But the young woman dancer instead launches out on her own, dancing solo as the two male dancers disappear into the wings. She flicks her long dark hair in every direction and extends each limb at impossible angles, filling the entire stage with movement. The large man next to me fidgets nervously as he watches the dancer whirl across the floor. She makes no mistakes. I am awed, jealous. It took me a long time to be able to perform in my field with this level of skill and authority.
    The piano and bass music crests toward a crescendo. The backlights turn crimson. The dancer leaps. Her back arcs and legs extend in a tremendous grand jeté, like flying. But upon descent her ankle seems to give way. Instead of landing she crashes onto the stage, collapsing to the floor in shudders and violent trembles. The large man beside me gasps and stands. The music stops. The curtain closes. The man pushes past me and the aged couple, shoving knees and elbows to reach the aisle. He jogs toward the exit closest to the stage, making wheezy huffing noises. The audience sits in silence as the house lights come up. A smattering of applause infiltrates the confusion.
    â€œWhat just happened?” the