Joe watched Carol perform her master class, and it really was a performance, Carol explaining the benefits of learning from the history of modern dance and performing movement from Isabella Duncan to Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey to Merce Cunningham, Jacquie at the keyboard and Gia and Gio working with her sometimes. She ended up ending with Butoh!
"One more," she smiled. "Mine, though I learned a lot from your resident genius. Lindy?"
"Really?" Lindy reacted.
"You remember our first showpiece."
"Of course."
Years seemed to dissolve for Joe watching those two beautiful and amazing dancers dance to a piece he recognized.
Lindy must have been dancing before the class, dressed in tights under her warm ups, and obviously stretched.
It was an exhilarating piece, twenty minutes long, and gained a large applause afterwards.
"Don't forget the performance tonight at Arnolfini's," Carol announced after the applause died down. "It starts at seven but feel free to arrive later, in fact I prefer if many of you did. A bus will shuttle you there which will bring a few at a time. Those who come later can watch from the beginning or earlier on either Friday or Saturday, just retain your ticket which will be time stamped. Best part, it's free for students."
After that she left with Lindy who had put on her warm ups. Joe left soon after, Jenny busy talking to students she seemed to be getting along with.
The ladies weren't all that far ahead and Carol beckoned him to them. "Hey," said Lindy almost shyly.
"I've always loved that piece," Joe told them.
"It surprised me when you called me up," said Lindy.
"And acknowledged your influence," Carol added for her.
"Yeah," Lindy admitted.
They headed towards Lindy's dormitory which looked like a fancy manor and was even called one. They ended up settling onto the field of grass in front of it which ended at a sharp decline to the Hudson River, the Valley beautifully spread out before them, the soft mountains once depicted dramatically in the Hudson River School during the last century.
The sort of formal happened there during his last year at Bard, in fact about the same time he was presently there, and was his first live exposure to Punk Rock, Richard Hell and the Voidoids being the featured band.
He'd tripped his ass off that day, becoming paranoid at one point due to the intensity of the hallucinations, including him swearing to see sky divers over the Hudson with one seeming to perish, though he figured he'd have heard about it if it actually happened, and then some intense aural hallucinations wherein the faster he walked the faster the tempo from the band and vice versa, the walk leading him to the commons building where this big black student caught him gazing at himself in the bathroom mirror and laughing. But when he bumped into a coed on his way to his dorm, she told him it would pass and to try to enjoy it, which he ended up doing profoundly once in his room, looking out his window and seeing angels bearing a banner, something about Peace on Earth.
"When's the formal?" he asked.
"Next weekend," Lindy told him. "You coming up?"
"Just recalling the last one I attended."
She never heard the story since they were no longer a couple by then.
"Is this a truce?" Joe asked. "Or am I here as arbitrator?"
They'd been silent until they sat.
"It bothered me when you went off with Joe," Carol said.
"It bothered me that you stole my ideas," Lindy returned.
"So this was revenge?"
"No!" both Lindy and Joe said, Lindy adding, "I was horny and Joe was convenient."
"I heard you were with that blond jock," Carol said.
"My ex, though he hasn't got that through his dense male skull. I did want a post relation fuck, but he got clingy and whiny."
"And Joe was convenient."
"Like I said. He was open to it."
"Of course he was."
"I already knew it was a good choice, I could trust him and knew he's a generous fuck, but he's gotten even better. Your doing?"
"He came to me fully formed and actually showed me a thing or two."
"I'm right here," Joe reminded them.
"And you're minding the compliments?" Lindy pointed out. "I already said your head, both your heads, are plenty big enough."
Both ladies laughed.
