I HAD some concert-night jitters. This was pretty common; I often got nervous right before I performed, but usually once I was onstage and had played the first note, the nerves melted away. I tuned my violin at a piano backstage while I waited for Costner to give us the go-ahead to assemble onstage. He came over and patted me on the back.
“I’ve got friends in the audience,” he said.
By which he meant there were orchestra scouts sitting out there. That compounded my nerves. Knowing my parents and Peter were in the audience too wasn’t helping. I played middle A on the piano, tuned my A string, and then pressed a hand on top of the piano, suddenly dizzy.
“You all right?” Costner asked.
“A little nervous.”
He handed me a digital tuner. “That piano’s a little flat. Use this. And you’ll be fine. You know this music well. This is your fifth concert with the WMU orchestra, so this is old hat now.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He nodded. I placed the tuner on the piano’s music stand and used it to tune my violin, after which time Costner took it back and went to find someone else to pester.
We got the signal to go out onstage a minute later. WMU orchestra procedure was for everyone to walk onto the stage in random order and proceed to their seats. I waited in the wings while everyone walked out. Ellie patted my arm on her way past me, and we nodded at each other. Once every seat was occupied, I walked out. The audience applauded, but I barely heard it. I stood for a moment, waiting for the applause to die out; then I sat and played a middle A for the violins to tune with. When they finished, I played again for the brass and woodwinds. When they finished and all was silent, Costner walked out onstage.
We played eight pieces in all, with the Bach concerto as our grand finale. As predicted, once the concert got started, I stopped feeling nervous and focused on the music. It was hard to tell what was really happening from inside the orchestra, but to my ear, we collectively sounded very good, and I didn’t make any major mistakes. I could have picked the performance apart—the second violins played part of a Handel concerto a smidge flat, the clarinets came in half a beat too early in a different piece, and so on—but I forced myself to stop focusing on what had happened and instead concentrate on what I needed to do. A lot of muscle memory got involved; I’d played this music so many times that I could do it without thinking very hard. In fact, during the less complicated parts, my mind wandered. I thought about Peter, about my parents, about the scouts in the audience, about what I really hoped the outcome of this concert would be.
Peter in a house in the Berkshires. That’s what I really wanted.
The concert wrapped up. Costner made me stand up first. I turned toward the audience and forced myself to soak up the applause, because I hated this part of it. I felt awkward and a little naked standing up there onstage with a thousand people looking at me. I was glad when Costner invited the rest of the orchestra to stand, diverting everyone’s attention. Finally we filed offstage and I took a deep breath.
“Excellent,” Costner said, walking up to me. He shook my hand. “Fantastic. Really wonderful, Logan.”
“Thank you.”
I walked over to where I’d stashed my violin case. Ellie followed me and gave me a hug once I put my instrument down. “That was brilliant,” she said. “Best I’ve ever heard you play.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think all those extra rehearsals paid off. I’m sure one of the scouts will invite you to play for them.”
“I doubt it. I’m just a junior. I have three semesters of school to finish. No one’s going to ask me.” My heart still raced a bit from the thrill of performing, so I took a few calming breaths and said, “I thought the whole orchestra sounded good. How do you think the whole thing went?”
“Really well! I got that sixteenth-note pattern in the Bach that I’ve been struggling with all the semester. Finally nailed it, like, a week ago.”
“It’s a tough pattern.”
“Like that Handel thing we did last year. Took me forever to master it, but I finally got it right before the concert. I was worried I’d mess it up tonight, but I got it. And the violins stayed in tune, at least from what I could hear.”
“From where I sat too. We do always pull it together in the end, don’t we?”
“I mean, it wasn’t perfect. But it was pretty good.”
We packed up side by side, Ellie chattering on about imperfections she’d noticed in the performance, because she was as sharp and obsessive as I was: the cellos came in a half beat late in one of the pieces but quickly corrected it; one of the oboes was a wee bit sharp, and so on. Normally I would have joined her and critiqued the orchestra. It was hard not to finish a concert without making at least a couple of small mistakes, the kinds of things 99 percent of the audience likely hadn’t even picked up on but that we all knew hadn’t been quite right. Now, however, I only half listened, anxious about my parents and Peter waiting for me in the lobby.
“Your family come?” I asked Ellie.
“Yeah, they drove out from Fall River. We’re going to dinner after. You want to join us?”
“Thank you, but I already ate. Plus I have to worry about the fact that my parents and my boyfriend are both in the audience and about to meet for the first time.”
Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Peter’s your boyfriend now?”
“Yeah, we… yeah.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Whatever. Let’s not make it a big thing. We only really started calling each other that a few weeks ago.”
She punched my arm lightly. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I… I’ve been busy.”
“Busy making out with Peter, from the sounds of it.” She punched my arm again. “You guys are so cute.”
I rolled my eyes.
Ellie and I walked through a side corridor to the lobby, where a lot of people were gathered. Ellie’s parents, not new to this, were waiting for her right near the door we walked through. My parents weren’t far behind them. I looked across the lobby and spotted Peter talking to Noel on the far side of the lobby.
Ellie’s parents each hugged and congratulated me. I spoke with them for a minute so as not to be rude, but was pretty glad when my father walked over to rescue me.
My father was a barrel-chested man who resembled Pavarotti a little if I squinted, and my mother looked elegant next to him, wearing a simple black dress with gold accents, with her coat slung over her arm. “Hello, sweetheart,” my mother said, kissing my cheek and ruffling my hair. I tried to finger-comb it back into place as my dad shook my hand.
I spent the next five minutes trying to make eye contact with Peter so he’d walk over to me while my parents, Costner, the other musicians, and random strangers all praised me. I awkwardly accepted their praise.
Finally Peter and Noel seemed to catch on that I wasn’t capable of moving across the lobby with all these people talking to me, and they started walking forward. The butterflies that had flitted around my stomach before the concert were back with a vengeance.
“Um, Mom? Dad? I need you to meet someone.”
My mother seemed to catch on quickly. My father was happily oblivious. He shook hands with Costner and praised his work. When Peter got close enough to me to hug, I held a hand up and gestured toward my parents with my eyes. No hugs with them so close. Peter nodded.
To my mother, and loud enough for my father to hear, I said, “This is my friend Noel. And this is my boyfriend. Peter. Peter, this is my mom. The guy with the beard is my dad.”
Peter nodded and shook my mother’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Miller.”
I hated this. My stomach churned. It wasn’t even that I wanted my parents’ approval, but I had this nagging fear that my mother would take one look at Peter and… I didn’t know. Take him away from me. But I needed Peter. He made me happy in a way I rarely had been. And the irrational part of my brain cooked up a scenario in which my performance tonight was just flawed enough that my mother would declare my dating was too much of a distraction.
Peter must have sensed my distress, because he reached over and briefly touched my hand.
My mother gave Peter a long look. “Of course. Peter. Logan mentioned you at Thanksgiving. Did you enjoy the concert?”
“I did.” Peter sounded hesitant, like he was afraid to answer lest he say the wrong thing. I couldn’t blame him. My mother was intimidating as hell.
My father came over and shook Peter’s hand. “Logan’s boyfriend, huh?” He sounded deeply skeptical.
“Yeah, Dad. We’ve been dating about a month. I would have waited to introduce you, but since you’re all here.” I gestured at the group.
“Are you a musician?” Dad asked.
“Accounting major,” said Peter, glancing at me.
“Ah, that’s a solid career path. Logan is going to make music for the world, but we need accountants too. I work at the Bank of Western Mass in Springfield, so I know all about that.”
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to Peter. He nodded faintly.
I wanted my parents to leave. We’d had dinner before the concert because my father had a thing about eating dinner early, as if he were seventy instead of forty-nine. I wanted to go back to my room with Peter and hide there until everyone in the universe forgot about this concert and stopped wanting to talk to me about it.
“I am really proud of you, Logan,” my mother said. “You looked great up there tonight. Sounded beautiful.”
“Professor Costner picked a great program,” said Dad. Then he lowered his voice. “He said there were a lot of scouts in the audience.”
“He told me the same,” I said.
“This could mean big things for you, son.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to discuss it further.
“Maybe before the end of the semester, we can take Peter to dinner,” Mom said. “Get to know him better. If you’re serious about this boy, of course.”
“He’s standing right here, Mom. And yes, I’m serious.”
I might as well have told her I’d started snorting cocaine. Her expression went sour, but she nodded. “We’ll call you, okay? Set up a time. But don’t let it take away from your music or your studies.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m your mother. I worry about you.”
She worried I wouldn’t fulfill her dreams, more like. If she was legitimately worried about my welfare, her presence here probably wouldn’t be causing me this much anxiety. But I said, “I know.”
My parents hugged me, reminded me to call them, and took their leave around the same time Ellie exited with her parents for a late dinner. That left me with Peter, Noel, and the remaining stragglers in the lobby.
“Your parents are intense,” said Noel.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Peter looked shell-shocked, but he squeezed my hand. “Did you drive?”
“No. Mom and Dad picked me up while you were at the gym. Then they just abandoned me here.” I sighed. “We can walk. It’s fine.”
“I can see if Dave’s around.” Noel pulled his phone out of his pocket and fiddled with it as he spoke. “I was going to take the bus home, but if he’s around, maybe he can drive you up the hill before he drives me home.”
“Don’t make him go out of his way.”
“He has a test tomorrow. He might be at the library.”
As Noel texted Dave, I hugged Peter. I rested my head on his shoulder and inhaled his scent. He always smelled a little minty—he used some kind of fancy soap—but tonight he smelled like something more. Maybe cologne. He was dressed nicely too, in a crisp blue dress shirt and gray trousers. Like he’d wanted to impress someone. Maybe my parents.
“Dave’s at his place in North Amherst,” Noel said.
“We can walk up the hill in less time than it will take him to get here. It’s fine, Noel.”
“Are you sure? It sucks that your parents abandoned you.”
I suspected that Noel related to that better than anyone, but I shrugged. His parents had actually disowned him. Mine had just driven back to Springfield. They only objected to my being gay insofar as it might interfere with my study of music. “It’s okay. I want to walk. And I’ve got my big strong man to keep me safe.” I nudged Peter with my elbow.
Noel smiled. “All right.”
We walked Noel to the bus stop; then Peter and I started up the hill, hand in hand. The walk from the FAC to our dorm was short but all uphill, over a paved path lined with trees. I did this trip many times a week and had for the two and a half years I’d been at WMU, but I saw it in a new way as I walked slowly, holding my boyfriend’s hand. The moon and an occasional streetlight illuminated our way, and the night was quiet. Romantic.
“I never knew you were so talented,” Peter said. “I mean, I knew you must have been to be concertmaster. You practice so much that all those hours have to add up to something. I knew intellectually you must be gifted, but to see you play was something else.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I mean, it was really amazing.” He paused and dipped his head. “Sexy, even.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You kind of sway and shimmy when you play. Like a dancer. Did you know that?”
“Yes, although no one’s ever put it that way.”
“Seriously, though. I’m a little intimidated.”
“I’m still the same guy I was yesterday. And I wasn’t good enough to get into Juilliard. There are hundreds of kids right now who are even better than me who I’ll be competing for orchestra spots with when I graduate.”
“Really? I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true. And I… I don’t love competition. I just want to play. I love playing. But the rest of it?”
“I get that. If I could sing or play an instrument, I’d do it in a heartbeat. One of the things I love about the Theater Club is that there’s no pressure, you know? It’s not like the drama students who are trying to get acting jobs after college. Everyone is just there to have fun.”
“That’s what I always liked about playing in the pit orchestra. But, you know, nothing can detract from the music.” I imbued a fair amount of sarcasm but added, “I rolled my eyes just then, in case it’s too dark to see me.”
Peter chuckled. “I don’t really know much about classical music. But you definitely don’t suck.”
“That’s a hell of an endorsement.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to be in an orchestra?”
I groaned. “I don’t know anything anymore. I mean, sure, I’ve fantasized about playing on a big stage with a famous orchestra. If the New York Philharmonic asked me to play with them tomorrow, I’d have a hard time turning them down. But it’s such a long shot, and I don’t think it’s really sustainable as a career. I mean, you saw my mom tonight. Me succeeding in music is all she can think about. She doesn’t care what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“I want my little house in the Berkshires, and the husband, and the dog, and hell, maybe a couple of kids. I want… quiet. I want stability. I want to play for fun, not because I’m pressured into it.”
“It’s so funny. I always wanted instability. I want the risk and reward of being an artist, but instead I’m studying for a really mundane career. You want the opposite. Maybe the best spot is in the middle.”
“It’s why I haven’t quit yet.”
Peter squeezed my hand. “You’ve still got a little time to figure it out, right? It’s not like you have to figure it out tomorrow.”
“True,” I said.