Deena dances to remember a family she never met. Ancient movements, tribal: Swirling, wrapping around herself - her legs kick and turn, her arms entwine and twist, her hands cock at the wrists, palms out palms up fingers straight. Every fiber moving stopping folding refolding into itself, then unfolding going off to start again.
She grew up in Central Illinois, and her extended family was flung across the upper Midwest - Illinois, of course, and Indiana, as well as Minnesota, Wisconsin, even Michigan. She didn’t see them much - once each summer, when they vacationed at a cabin in the North woods. Lazy days of sunning on docks, listening to the radio, painting her nails (fingers, toes), while watching boys be boys. Night in front of bonfires or off in the trees. Harmless flirtations with her boy cousins, not so harmless flirtations with their friends. And the question at the end of every adolescent summer ("Do you love me?") answered by silence - no calls, no letters - from over the horizon.
And so that solemn ever-present line always depressed her, When she went away for college, she went as far as she could - geographically, culturally, occidentally - to New York City, and stayed there.
Marbell watches from the window in the studio door. He knows she’s the one. The most genuine person he’s ever met. Driven but not ambitious, direct but not mean. Kind actually, ever so kind. He watches, but doesn’t knock. She’s working hard, and he’s spellbound.
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