Chapter 5: Eight O'Clock
Marcus arrived at seven fifty-five.
Arthur was already there.
A small corner table, two cups on it, steam still rising from both.
Arthur had ordered for him.
Marcus didn't ask how he knew how he took his coffee.
He sat down and looked at the cup and decided that was a question for another time.
"You came," Arthur said.
"Did you think I wouldn't?"
"I thought it was about sixty-forty."
Marcus wrapped both hands around the cup.
"In whose favor?"
"Yours." Arthur picked up his own cup.
"You struck me as someone who needs to know things.
Even when knowing them is uncomfortable."
"My father used to say that," Marcus said.
Then he stopped, as if he hadn't meant to.
Arthur said nothing.
"The document," Marcus said.
"Tell me what it says."
Arthur set his cup down.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket — the same simple dark jacket he had worn to the studio — and produced a folded sheet of paper.
Not the document itself.
A summary, handwritten.
He slid it across the table.
Marcus read it.
The fourteen works were listed by name.
Marcus knew all of them.
He had grown up watching recordings of them.
He had studied them, taught from them, built entire sections of the academy's curriculum around them.
Three of them were the foundation of the advanced program.
One of them — the Whitmore-Renard Composition, though it had never been called that — was considered a landmark of mid-century classical choreography.
Beside each title, in his father's handwriting, were two columns.
One labeled R.W.
One labeled A.R.
The division was not equal.
On several works, Arthur's column carried more.
Marcus set the paper down.
"He kept records," he said.
"He kept everything.
Notebooks, correspondence, rehearsal notes.
Forty years of it." Arthur's voice was even.
"He gave it all to the solicitor."
"And the solicitor — what does he do with it?"
"That depends on what you and I decide."
Marcus looked up.
"Your father's instruction was specific," Arthur said.
"The correction to the authorship records should happen.
He was clear about that.
But the manner — public, private, legal, institutional — he left to us.
To you and to me, together." He paused.
"He trusted that if I was willing to sit across from his son, and his son was willing to sit across from me, we could find a way to do it that didn't destroy what you've built."
"That's a great deal of trust," Marcus said.
"Given what he did to you."
"Yes," Arthur said.
"It is."
Marcus was quiet for a moment.
Outside, the street was filling with the ordinary sounds of morning — a bus, someone's phone, a child being hurried along by a parent.
"Can I ask you something personal?" Marcus said.
"You can ask."
"Did you hate him?"
Arthur considered this with the seriousness it deserved.
He didn't answer quickly.
"For a long time," he said finally, "I was angry in a way that didn't leave much room for anything else.
I stopped dancing.
Not immediately — I taught for a few years, privately, small groups.
But the work we had done together, the work I had believed in — I couldn't touch it.
Because every time I did, I heard his name attached to it instead of mine." He turned his cup slowly on the table.
"That's a particular kind of loss.
Not grief exactly.
More like being erased."
Marcus said nothing.
"And then time passed," Arthur said.
"And I got old.
And I realized that being angry at a man who was also getting old was taking up space that I needed for other things." He looked at Marcus directly.
"So no.
Not anymore.
But I won't pretend it didn't cost me."
Marcus picked up the summary sheet again.
He looked at the column marked A.R.
"The Renard Sequence," he said.
"That's entirely yours?"
"Entirely."
"We use it every day."
"I know."
"Every academy in the country uses it."
"I know that too."
Marcus set the paper down again.
He picked up his coffee.
He drank some of it.
He put it back.
"If we correct the records," he said slowly, "the academy's licensing agreements change.
The curriculum attribution changes.
There will be questions.
From the board, from partner institutions, from the press if it gets out."
"Yes."
"It will be difficult."
"Yes."
"And you're asking me to do it anyway."
Arthur looked at him steadily.
"I'm not asking you to do anything.
I'm telling you what your father wanted.
What I'm willing to agree to." He paused.
"What you do with that is your decision."
Marcus stared at the table.
"I need to see the full documents," he said.
"Not a summary.
The notebooks, the correspondence.
Everything the solicitor has."
"I expected that."
"And I need to speak to the solicitor directly."
"Also expected."
"And I need—" Marcus stopped.
He pressed his fingers against the edge of the table.
"I need to understand why he waited.
Forty years, and he waited until he was dying.
Why didn't he come to you sooner?
Why didn't he tell me?"
Arthur was quiet for a moment.
"He wrote about that," he said.
"In the notebooks.
Quite a lot, actually." He looked at Marcus with something that was not quite sympathy and not quite distance — something in between.
"I think that's something you should read for yourself.
Not hear from me."
Marcus nodded slowly.
He looked out the window at the street.
"My best student," he said, almost to himself.
"Claire.
The one who recognized your name yesterday.
She's been accepted to a program in Vienna.
She leaves in three months." He paused.
"She grew up doing the Renard Sequence.
She told me once it was the reason she understood her own body.
The reason she knew she could dance at a professional level."
Arthur said nothing.
"She doesn't know your name," Marcus said.
"She knows the work.
But she doesn't know whose it is."
"No," Arthur said.
"Most people don't."
Marcus turned back from the window.
"I'll meet with the solicitor," he said.
"This week if possible."
"I'll arrange it."
"And Arthur—" It was the first time Marcus had used his name.
He seemed to notice it himself.
"The class.
Yesterday.
You said you wanted to teach one class."
"I did."
"Did you mean it?
Or was it a way to get in the door?"
Arthur considered this honestly.
"Both," he said.
"But I did mean it."
Marcus looked at him for a long moment.
"Thursday," he said.
"Ten o'clock.
The advanced class."
Arthur picked up his coffee cup.
"I'll be there," he said.
Marcus stood to leave.
He had his coat half on when Arthur said, quietly, without looking up from his cup:
"He was proud of you.
What you built.
He told me that in the letter." A pause.
"I thought you should hear it from someone other than paper."
Marcus stood with one arm in his coat and one arm out.
He didn't turn around.
"Thank you," he said.
May you like
He finished putting his coat on and walked out into the morning.
Arthur sat with his coffee and watched the street through the window for a long time after he was gone.
