The Stars That Tremble (14 page)

“Oh, I am so sorry, darling. Just these Americans have such silly names. What does he do? I assume with a name like Mike he is not a singer.”

This was why he never told his mother anything. He felt like she should know that he was serious about someone, but she had always been controlling and judgmental. “He remodels apartments.”

“Eh?”

Gio had to take a moment to explain Mike’s job, as if Elisabetta assumed kitchens fixed themselves by shedding their skin like snakes. “He owns his own business,” Gio concluded.

“That’s nice, darling.”

“So what I hear you saying is you won’t come to the wedding,” Gio said, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. The comment was intended to be flippant and he knew his mother would take it that way, even if it was far too soon to know if this relationship would ever head in that direction.

“Is it really that serious? Because it sounds like a whim. Isn’t that what you gay men like? Working-class men? For affairs, darling. You don’t marry men like that.”

Gio regretted that there wasn’t a good Italian word for snob. “That’s an outdated opinion.”

“I once seduced a man who came to fix the pipes in the bathroom.”

Gio was glad she couldn’t see him wince. “I don’t want to know about it.”

“Then why must I endure this discussion of your affairs?”

“Because I’m trying to tell you that I’m entering into a serious relationship with a man. You could at least congratulate me and leave your judgment out of it. He’s a good man,
Mamma
.”

“As you say,” she said.

“I’m working on something, so if you’re done making fun….”

“I am sorry, baby boy, but you have never wanted to tell me about your relationships before. How am I to take this?”

“That I’m honestly telling you I have strong feelings for this man? Take it at face value.”

“Ah. You’ll tell me how it goes, yes?”

“Yes, of course.”

They exchanged farewells, and Gio was thankful when he put the phone down. He leaned back on his sofa, sinking into the plush, overstuffed cushions, and rubbed his eyes. He loved his mother, he did, but she was a lot sometimes. He supposed he should be grateful she’d never given him any grief over his homosexuality, probably due to the fact that she’d spent her whole life in theaters, where gay men were not exactly scarce. But just as she’d thrust him into a career in opera—which he’d loved, so perhaps she’d made the right move there—she wanted to control his love life also. When his home base had still been in Italy, and even when he’d moved to Milan, she had been constantly trying to set him up with men she knew, mostly other opera singers. Gio had argued that two singers was too much ego for one relationship, but Elisabetta persisted in trying to marry him off to some elite tenor or baritone. The nonsense had only stopped when he made it clear he was staying in America for good.

Dio
, he was tired. Perhaps he’d take a nap before finishing his notes.

M
IKE
maintained an office on East Eighty-third Street, though he was rarely there. It was a necessary expense, however. Some clients got squirrelly about allowing a contractor into their homes before meeting him first. Mike at least got the office space at a steep discount; he’d remodeled the building owner’s house in Westchester, and the man—or his wife—had loved the work so much that negotiating down the cost of the space had been relatively easy.

Mike and Sandy sat together in the office one afternoon.

“Brooklyn, man, I don’t know,” Sandy said.

“Dad has a nice roster of clients, but he mostly does small projects on new buildings in Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge. I think you could change the focus of the enterprise. We have a larger vision than Dad had. I want McPhee Interiors to be the company you call to gut renovate the historic Park Slope brownstone you overpaid for.”

Sandy raised an eyebrow. “And you want me to be in charge of the Brooklyn arm?”

“You can do this, Sandy. At least be in charge of a few of Dad’s clients. He’s got a couple of jobs lined up for the fall that I think you could do well with. And I will, of course, be around to help.” Mike tapped a couple of keys on his laptop to pull up the information he needed. “One’s a kitchen in Bay Ridge, but Dad says it’s easy, mostly superficial changes—no rewiring or plumbing work needed.”

“They always say that, and then there’s a pipe so rusty and old it’s about to burst.”

“Yeah, well, Dad assured me he’d checked it out himself. The other job is refinishing a basement. That probably will need some work. I think they want to add a bathroom, but Dad’s notes aren’t that clear.”

They spent a few minutes hashing out details and talking about supplies they needed to order, and generally Sandy was so on top of things that Mike sat back and said, “See? Do you see what you’re doing?”

“What am I doing?”

Mike smiled. “A good job. You know all this stuff. You can remodel a kitchen in your sleep.”

Sandy didn’t look convinced. He shook his head and then yawned.

“Is the doctor keeping you up at night?” Mike asked.

“If only. No, I had to get up early this morning to get my fucking car inspected. Why I still have that bucket of rust is a mystery, but the mechanic says it’s sound, and they gave me a shiny new sticker, so I guess I’m stuck with it a while longer.”

“It might come in handy if you’re working in Brooklyn.”

“Don’t remind me.” Sandy sat up in the chair. “But, see, they have this thing called the subway. Maybe you’ve heard of it? You get into these giant tin cans and they whisk you away to far-off corners of the city. I can go see my parents without even getting the clunker out of the garage.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“My mother will be delighted that I’m working in Brooklyn now. Hell, she’ll probably bake cookies and bring them to the job sites.”

“So you’re taking the job?”

Sandy winced. “Yeah, yeah, I guess I am. I don’t know where you’ll be without me, though. Who else are you gonna get to paint trim and screw in lightbulbs and tighten bolts for you?”

“Somehow I think I’ll manage.” Mike shut down his computer. He was glad Sandy was taking this job, both because he wanted more for Sandy and because he didn’t want to work in Brooklyn. Too many memories of doing jobs for his father in those early years, when Mike was working out how to break it to his very Catholic parents that he was queer. Somehow it had never been a question that he would tell them. And here they were, twenty years after he’d come out, their relationship polite but strained. Sandy had argued earlier that Mike’s dad giving him the Brooklyn business was a sign the rift was healing, but Mike saw it more as a way for his father to continue to control the company after his retirement. He wasn’t really looking forward to being under his father’s thumb again. So he was pawning it off on Sandy.

He rubbed his eyes, tired suddenly. He decided to focus on happier things. “Do you want to be my date to Emma’s class show? Every kid gets two free tickets, and Becky can’t make it.”

“Sure, although I’m disappointed I was not your first choice. Just because Becky is a blood relation….” Sandy grinned. “Do I have to wear a tie?”

“Probably.”

“You have time to buy me lunch this afternoon?”

Mike glanced at his watch. “I just put you in charge of an entire branch of my company. Have I not done enough for you today? Maybe you should buy me lunch for a change.”

Sandy’s grin widened. “We still have that appointment with the Grangers?”

“They moved it to two, so we have plenty of time to eat. Any preferences?”

“Mmm. Indian?”

“It’s too hot out for something that heavy. What about that salad place on Lex?”

“Ugh, salad? We’re men, Michael, not rabbits.”

“Fine. Sushi?”

“That’s acceptable. Let’s go.”

Mike locked up the office and they took the rickety elevator downstairs. Once they were outside and out of the air conditioning, Sandy said, “It’s hotter than an elephant’s balls out here.”

Mike laughed. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Elephants live in, like, hot places, and it’s fucking hot outside, and… shut the fuck up, okay? It’s hot.”

On the walk to their usual sushi place, Sandy’s phone chimed. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Ah, will you look at that? Booty call via text message.”

“The doctor?”

“Yep. He gets off his shift at four. And then I will get him off.”

Mike groaned. “Thanks for that.”

Sandy winked and turned to his phone. Mike admired his ability to text and walk at the same time. Then Sandy put his phone away and said, “By the way, James is interested in some sort of cheesy-ass double date thing. I think he’s starstruck by Gio.”

“Really?”

“You’re fucking a minor celebrity, if you didn’t know. You
are
fucking him, right?”

“It sounds cheap when you say it that way.”

Sandy rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re
making love
.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just… argh, yes. I’m fucking him.” He didn’t want to get into it with Sandy, but it certainly felt like a lot more than fucking. He thought of the long Sunday afternoon lingering in bed, how he’d already opened up to Gio more than he’d opened up to anyone in years, how his attempts to stay away had utterly failed. He thought about how nonjudgmental Gio had been when Mike needed to get away briefly, how comforting he’d been afterward, without pressuring Mike to explain what was going on in his head. And, yeah, once Mike calmed down, he and Gio had made out and gotten each other off, but to frame it that way really did seem cheap. What Gio had done for Mike was a hell of a lot more than a few orgasms and some cuddling.

“No need to get defensive,” Sandy said. “It was just a question. So, if that’s still a thing, we should all go out next time James has a day off. That’s all.”

“All right.”

“Good. Let’s order the chef’s special and eat some weird fish. I’m feeling daring.”

W
INDING
down a workshop was always bittersweet. Gio was tired after six weeks of working with teenagers and putting them through their paces, but he would definitely be sad to see a few of his students go. Three were shoo-ins for the Young Musicians Program, so he might see them around. Probably Amelia Quinlan would continue to plague him. But Gio’s focus that fall would be on his college students, a promising senior tenor, in particular, so he was unlikely to see most of these kids again unless they wound up at Olcott for college.

First, though, he had to worry about the final show.

The last week of class was rehearsal for the show. Gio felt good about it. He was running it like a gala performance: all twelve students would dress up in their Sunday finest and perform at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center to friends, family, Olcott faculty, and random strangers who just liked the arts. He always enjoyed watching the awe on the kids’ faces the first time they walked onto that stage; it reminded him of the first time he’d sung in front of a large audience, way back when he was seventeen years old. Or he’d think of the first time he sang at the Met or La Scala or the Sydney Opera House, the first time he set foot in a studio to record, the first time he brought a house down. Nothing compared to those moments, and he enjoyed experiencing them again vicariously through his students.

But now he was still in the studio, warming up with the kids and then tasking them to perfect singing their final pieces. Marie butchered the Italian, Greg couldn’t quite hit the high G, Justin forgot half the words. But this was all normal and to be expected. He was hard on each kid, but in the name of trying to get them to do it right next time.

Then Emma got up to sing.

La voce
. She was just… the voice. A voice like that should not have come from a girl so young, a body so tiny, and yet it did. It was a high, bright soprano, and she had the technical skill to sing coloratura if she really wanted to. She totally nailed her aria, one sung by Liu in
Turandot
. Her Italian was like a native speaker’s, even though she was still mostly imitating the sounds of each syllable. She finished on a flourish, and her classmates burst into applause.

No denying it. Emma was a prodigy. She would sing on a great stage one day.

And Gio was dating her father. There was no escaping that fact. It was clear to Gio now that his interest in Mike went far, far beyond his interest in Emma. After that Sunday afternoon they’d spent in his bed, Mike undeniably had something unique that Gio wanted badly. It was obvious, too, that they’d crossed an important threshold, that Gio had done something to poke at one of Mike’s sensitive places. For all he presented a calm exterior, there was a lot of turmoil in Mike, and he’d let Gio see that. It was a lot to take in, and Gio had never wanted to get that deeply involved, and yet here they were. That dark place in Mike terrified Gio, and he wasn’t prepared to get involved with all of it, but he wasn’t ready to step away, either.

Despite the fact that the workshop was ending soon, hence removing the main obstacle to a real relationship with Mike, the situation had begun to feel even more fraught and tangled than before. Could Gio mentor this girl and still maintain a relationship with her father? Was it completely inappropriate? Would it all blow up in his face? Did he really want any of it?

He did.
Dio
, he most certainly wanted it. He wanted to soothe the hurt places in Mike, to explore those dark places that terrified him so, to really get to know this incredible man he’d stumbled over.

Since he’d lost his voice, Gio had come to expect the worst. Nothing, not even nature’s greatest gifts, lasted forever. He’d once had a voice everyone talked about, the way people would soon be talking about Emma’s. Gifts like that were fleeting. One had to make the most of them.

As he wound down the class, he said sternly, “Miss McPhee, can I see you before you go?”

She walked over to him with some amount of trepidation on her face. Luckily, Mike hadn’t arrived to pick her up yet, so Gio reasoned he had a little bit of time. He waited for most of the other students to clear the room before he spoke to her in hushed tones.