What I’ve danced, no one can take from me.
I felt the sentence land in the part of me that still reached for the studio on Kennedy Boulevard, the part that still felt the half second between wanting to move and allowing myself to move.
What I’ve danced, no one can take from me.
He had a tattoo about dance as permanent record, as something that lives in your body even after the body can’t do it anymore. Whoever this man was, he understood something about what it meant to be a dancer that most people never got close to.
“I’m Benji,” I said. “I bartend. You’ll be wagging your kibbles and bits above my workspace, so we should probably be on a first-name basis.”
“Adrian.” He reached out and took my hand. His grip was warm, the handshake of a person who understood that first contact communicated something important. “Your workspace is a good stage. It’s a solid surface, the right height, and with enough room for a full range of movement as long as nobody puts the garnish trays too close to the edge.”
“You assessed the bar’s dimensions during a three-minute audition?”
“I assess every surface I might dance on. Call it an occupational habit. Your bar is forty-two incheshigh, approximately eighteen feet long, with a slight forward cant near the beer taps that I’d want to be aware of during any lateral movement. Also, your Modelo tap has a smear on it that looks oddly tongue shaped.”
“That was candidate number two.”
“I don’t want to know.”
He collected his bakery box. It was empty because Rod had emerged from the kitchen at some point during the audition and consumed everypastelillowith the quiet, methodical appreciation of one who recognized quality when it arrived in a grease-spotted cardboard container.
“Your cook ate all myabuela’spastelillos,” Adrian said, more amused than offended.
“His name is Rod, and he ate them because they were excellent. Rod doesn’t eat things that aren’t excellent.”
“Tell Rod myabuelathanks him. She judges people by how they eat her food. Fast means hungry. Slow means respectful.”
“Rod ate them very slowly,” Jacks said.
“She’ll love him. I’ll bring more Saturday.”
He headed for the door, passing Mark’s booth on the way. Mark, who had been in his corner with his laptop throughout the entire audition process, had looked up exactly once (during the Modelo taplicking, to cite the health code violation, then immediately returned to his spreadsheet). He did not look up as Adrian passed.
But Adrian looked at Mark.
It was barely a glance, brief and curious, the automatic eye-flicker of a person who reads rooms for a living noticing someone who wasn’t reading the room at all. Adrian’s eyes moved across Mark’s profile, taking in his laptop, the spreadsheet, and his intensity. Something in Adrian’s expression shifted, a small recalibration, perhaps, the kind of adjustment a dancer makes when the floor isn’t quite what he expected.
But he didn’t stop. He walked out, and the door closed behind him.
“I like him,” Rod said from the pass-through, which was Rod’s version of a standing ovation.
Dante, who had been at the door for the entire audition with his book open on his knee, looked up for the first time.
“He’s good,” Dante said. “But more importantly, he’s honest. You can see it in his movement. Dishonest dancers are technically perfect. Honest dancers are technically themselves.”
Everyone stared at Dante. Even Mark looked up.
Dante looked back at everyone with mild confusion.
“That’s incredibly perceptive,” I said.
“I read a lot of Chekhov.” He shrugged. “Chekhov understood performance.”
“So,” Jacks said, after the bar had settled back into a post-audition calm. I’d reclaimed my workspace and sanitized the surfaces that various candidates had occupied with their feet, their bodies, and in one memorable case, their tongues. “Are we going to talk about the Peter situation, or are we going to pretend I didn’t notice that you’ve been smiling at the garnish tray for twenty minutes? No one smiles at maraschino cherries like you do.”
“I’m not smiling at the cherries.”
“You looked like you wanted to make out with them. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good cherry as much as the next guy.” His face blanched, and he blinked a few times rapidly. “That didn’t come out like I meant. Shit. Never mind. You’ve been smiling ateverything, not just cherries. Hell, Benj, you smiled at the ice bin and a bottle of Angostura bitters.”
