“Yeah, but who am I going to choreograph?” Gretchen was saying as I approached the fire. “You can’t just anoint yourself a choreographer. I need dancers.”
“Don’t you have a whole school of them?” Danny asked.
I hovered outside the circle, eavesdropping.
“Sure, but you know that’s not what I mean. I used to do some choreographing at local high schools, for their musicals. I’d come in and teach the Von Trapp Family Singers or the Munchkins in Oz to do their dances. I stopped when the studio really started to take off, but maybe I should get back into that.”
“But is that any different from what you do at the studio?” Maiv asked gently.
“No. It’s less, in a way. At least at the studio, I pick the music, and the theme.” Gretchen, who apparently had supersonic hearing, or eyes in the back of her head or something, turned toward me. “That you, Knight?”
Busted. I stepped into the light, sheepish, conscious of disturbing their cozy circle, of derailing the conversation. If I wanted to be in the circle, I should have been less standoffishearlier. I should have said yes to a swimming invitation when they were still being issued. I should have gone to a sunrise circle.
To my shock, though, Gretchen slid over on the log she was sitting on to make room for me. The circle absorbed me without comment, and the conversation continued.
“What if we did something together?” Caleb asked Gretchen.
“What do you mean?” Gretchen asked.
“A theatrical piece, but one where the movementisthe theater, or at least part of it. Where the movement is integral to the story.”
“But who writes the story?” Gretchen asked.
“We do.”
“Well,that’sterrifying.”
“That’s probably a sign that you should do it,” Maiv said, and Danny murmured his agreement.
Gretchen sighed, and Maiv turned to me. “What do you think, Teddy? Don’t you find that when you’re terrified of something artistically, it usually means you should do that thing? Run toward the fear?”
I immediately thought of that G note. Of “Lemon Tree.” “Jeez, I don’t know, I just thought we could sing some campfire songs. This shit is too deep for me. But you guys carry on.”
“No, no, let’s sing!” Gretchen said. “What’s a good campfire song? ‘Kumbaya’?”
I started strumming it even as I said, “No way.” Everyone laughed. I was startled by how easy it had been to summon collegial laughter from the group.
“I heard you playing some Dylan the other day,” Caleb said.
“Yeah, I guess I’ve been revisiting the music of my youth.” I switched to strumming “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”
“Your youth?” Caleb exclaimed. “Dude, how oldareyou?”
“Revisiting the music of my mother’s youth. She was really into 1960s folk music, and, I don’t know, it’s been front of mind lately.”
“That’s weird,” Caleb said. “Weird in a good way.” I must have made a face that contradicted his assessment, because he added, “Or not.”
Everyone was looking at me. This was my cue to explain. I wasn’t sure I knew how to, even to myself. But I’d just been wishing I’d taken opportunities when they were presented. “I grew up in this unofficial artists’ colony in a falling-down warehouse in Brooklyn.”
“Sounds cool,” Danny said.
Gretchen stiffened beside me. Yeah, she already knew about the ways in which my childhood had been very much not cool. “In some ways, I guess. It definitely made me into who I am as a musician.” I left out that I didn’t actuallyknowwho I was as a musician. Not anymore, anyway. “But in other ways, it sucked. It wasn’t the starving artist, Bohemian paradise you’re probably imagining.” The starving part, yes, but I wasn’t going to say that. I didn’t mind Gretchen knowing that part, but I didn’t see the need to trot out my childhood junk for everyone. I summarized: “It was actually pretty miserable. But my mom…” I thought about how to make sense of it—to myself, even as I was trying to explain it to them. “We never had money for rent. Or utilities or any of that. But instead of getting a job, she threw herself into organizing the tenants. She made the fact that most of them were artists into this big moral statement. We shouldn’t have to pay rent because we made art. So she’d get these rent strikes going, get companies to donate generators for when the power was cut off. She was a pretty good amateurmusician, and my sister and I were both musically inclined, so she taught us all these 1960s protest songs. And she’d organize the neighbors for these… well, rallies, I guess, and everyone would sing those songs.”
“It was her theme music,” Gretchen said. “The way she defined herself.”
That was exactly right. How had I ever thought of Gretchen as annoying? I swiveled to look at her. The fire was making her face glow like some kind of Renaissance painting of the Virgin Mary—if the Virgin Mary had pink-tipped hair.
“Let’s hear one of her theme songs,” Danny said.
