The Stars That Tremble (11 page)

“What?”

“You made a face when I mentioned Miss McPhee. Is she not working out in your class?”

“No, she’s wonderful. Best student I’ve had in a long time.”

“Then what’s the problem.”

“If Emma auditions, I don’t think I can be on the audition committee.”

Dacia tilted her head, but then she straightened as if a lightbulb had flipped on. “So things with you and Mike….”

“Reached their natural conclusion.” Gio closed his eyes, but all that did was remind him of what being with Mike had been like. He’d thought of Mike almost constantly all weekend.

Dacia smiled. “It’s all right, you know. You are allowed to have relationships.”

“Not with my student’s father. Not if it looks like I’m giving her favorable treatment.”

“So you are not available the weekend we do auditions. Who else?”

Gio mentally ran through his roster of students. “Amelia Quinlan will most certainly audition.”

Dacia frowned. “She’s the mezzo with the curly brown hair?”

“
Sì
.”

“She sings like a horse.”

Gio laughed, not entirely able to parse Dacia’s simile but knowing full well what she meant. “
Sì
, but the Quinlans are such dedicated contributors to the arts, and that includes putting forth their children to make beautiful music.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s not terrible. She was good enough to make my workshop. I’d put Amelia in the middle of the group.” Although that wasn’t really true. Tracy Quinlan had not heeded Gio’s warning, and Amelia often came to class unrehearsed and unprepared. Perhaps she was used to being placed wherever her parents demanded, so she’d never really had to try. She often showed up without having learned the words to her homework songs and her knowledge of music theory was hazy at best; there was a lot you could do with raw talent, but the student had to want it too, and Gio wasn’t entirely sure Amelia did.

He didn’t really blame Amelia, though. He’d seen students like this before and doubtless would again. The blame for her situation rested entirely on the shoulders of her overzealous parents.

“All right.” Dacia nodded and backed away from the desk. She sat in the guest chair and leaned back. “I imagine the Quinlans are the sort who would make trouble if their daughter did not make the cut.”

“Tracy Quinlan came to visit me a few weeks ago and implied that. Or, more accurately, tried to bribe me. ‘Anything I need,’ she said. Money for studio space, new costumes, a piano tuner, whatever we want is ours for the taking in exchange for selling our souls so that an above-average but not great singer can get into the Olcott Young Musicians Program.” He sighed. “I suppose there are worse crimes.”

“We’re not exactly starving, though.”

“Also true.”

Dacia looked over at Gio’s bookshelf and nodded thoughtfully. “I came here this afternoon to talk you onto my audition committee, but I will take your point that you are somewhat biased as far as the McPhees go. I do not imagine you could be accused of favoritism, however. Anyone can see how talented that girl is.”

“Still. I feel strange about the situation.”

“Not enough not to get involved.”

“True. In my shoes,
cara
, you would have done the same.”

“
Naturalmente
. I have seen him with my own eyes.”

“It’s not just that. If that were all, I could put it aside. That night, though, it was… romantic. He is turning out to be not at all what I expected, in a wonderful way.”

“I am happy for you, then.”

Gio looked at his watch. “Well, I should get to my class. Might as well try to get Amelia up to snuff so that her parents don’t feel they have to buy and endow a building to get her into the program.”

G
IO
thought perhaps the worst part of teaching was watching the expressions on the faces of the kids when they had the epiphany that they weren’t good enough.

He didn’t like to sugarcoat things, though. Some of these singers did not have the inherent talent to make it to the world’s finest stages. That didn’t mean the situation was hopeless; one of his first students had a record deal and a pop song burning up the charts. Maybe these rejected kids would go on to sing something other than opera. But the sad truth was, the odds were good that about half of the students in any given workshop would either keep trying but never do anything better than singing at a sibling’s wedding, or they would give up and do something more practical with their lives. He hated to be so harsh with teenagers, but this was how the world worked; Gio had received the same treatment when he’d trained in Italy. The students in those classes either succeeded or found another dream.

Yet when Gio dismissed half the class a little early during the penultimate week of classes, he saw the realization dawn that they would not be asked to audition for the Young Musicians Program, that they would not be pulled into Giovanni Boca’s inner circle of successful voice students. It broke his heart. But better for them to find out now than to carry on with the hope that one day they’d sing at the Met.

Now he stood before his six best students plus Amelia Quinlan. He resented the latter’s inclusion somewhat, but he knew better than to think she wouldn’t show up at the YMP auditions anyway. He figured he’d play along for now. Not all of the other kids would make it, either, although he had higher hopes for them. Then again, he’d had a student two years before who had a voice that could bring down the rafters, but she had promptly quit singing upon leaving for college. Opera was dying, she’d told him. That was actually a more common outcome than Gio would have liked.

He didn’t want to dwell in his pessimism, though. He looked at seven young faces and chose to see the future of opera instead.

“As I’m sure you know, auditions for Olcott’s Young Musicians Program are coming up,” he said. “There are not many slots open, but I think all seven of you have the potential to earn one of those spots, if you’re interested. I wanted to keep you all behind today to discuss what the audition process is like and help you pick out a piece to sing.”

And so he spent an extra hour and a half with the kids, dismissing each as they decided on their audition piece. He deliberately finished with Emma McPhee.

It was hard not to look at her in a new light given his relationship with her father. Maybe it was a quick thing, a summer fling, this situation he had going with Mike. They’d only slept together that one time, and Lord knew if they would again any time soon. But then Gio thought of that night, how magic it had been, and it was impossible to deny there really was something between them. Even just the few times they’d had lunch had shown there was definitely something between them. Gio had never dated a man with a child before, and he found himself in the odd position of not knowing how to act around Emma. He adored this girl, found her intelligent and insightful, and that voice was the very thing he had gone into teaching to find. But he also barely knew who she was outside of the class.

Because class was letting out much later than usual, Mike was unable to pick up Emma that afternoon, so Gio had agreed to escort her home. “You don’t have to do that,” Mike had said. “She’s fourteen and capable of taking the crosstown bus by herself.” But his relief had been a palpable element in his voice when Gio had pushed the point. Mike then shocked the hell out of Gio by inviting him to dinner.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had dinner with a student’s family, although the unspoken agreement there was that a nice family dinner was their kid’s ticket into one of the special programs Gio was affiliated with. That didn’t always work out for the families; Gio had become somewhat famous in the department for not being swayable by fancy meals or gifts of money. But this was hardly unprecedented. It certainly didn’t stop the Tracy Quinlans of the world from trying.

And still Gio kept Emma last in class that day because he felt the need to sneak around. Mike had no interest in bribery. So maybe this was unprecedented in a way.

Gio walked with Emma one block south to the bus stop, and they chatted about her audition piece. She still hadn’t settled on anything definitively, but he liked the song she was leaning toward and told her so. He knew the song was a favorite of Dacia’s, though he did not tell Emma that. He was trying to keep the situation as ethical as possible, he supposed. He wanted to help Emma and thought she deserved it, but he felt like he couldn’t help her
too
much.

“I’m sure you’ll do splendidly at the audition,” Gio said. “Do you play piano at all?”

“Only a little.”

“Tell your father that, while it’s not a requirement, most students in the YMP voice track are encouraged to take piano lessons. It’s an added expense, but you can usually find a college student to teach you for not too much money. They advertise on the bulletin board on the fifth floor.”

The bus pulled up and they boarded. Gio was not a fan of city buses and would have taken a cab if Mike hadn’t specifically said they should take the crosstown bus. He’d said something about sticking with Emma’s usual routine, which sounded like good advice at the time. The other patrons on the bus all stared at him as if he were an alien, however. Or maybe that was his imagination; Emma seemed totally unfazed. She directed him to a pair of seats toward the back.

“Thanks for the tip,” she said as they sat, “but you’re talking like I’ll definitely get in.”

“You’ll get in,” Gio said. He didn’t add that half the department was already buzzing about her. Partly that was because Gio had been talking her up since her audition for his workshop, but Dacia and a number of other faculty members had heard her sing and were excited about having her in the program. The audition was mostly a formality. “That is, it’s good to be worried about it because you’ll try your best at the audition and do us all proud. If you sing like you did for my audition, you’ll get in, no problem.”

“Are you on the audition committee?”

“Not this year. But Ms. Russini will be there.”

Traffic was rough, even through the park, and the bus crept along at a snail’s pace. They spent most of the trip chatting about music. Gio discovered this was a girl who lived and breathed music, who followed opera singers’ careers and knew the Met’s schedule and saved her allowance money to go to performances. She reminded Gio a lot of himself at that age. This was good; it meant she had the drive to do well.

He was starting to wonder if she had normal teenage concerns when she got a text message. She fiddled with her phone while rambling to him about her friend Isobel and some boy—“I think he’s cute, but don’t tell Dad about this, because he will never shut up,” she said—and Gio couldn’t help but smile. At least a normal teenager was underneath all the poise.

The McPhees lived in a large apartment building on York just off Sixty-eighth Street. Emma led the way inside and escorted Gio to the elevator. Gio found he was nervous as they rose up to the twelfth floor. He and Mike had been speaking on the phone frequently and had managed lunch twice since their night out, but they hadn’t been able to spend any time together otherwise. Suddenly dinner with Mike and his daughter seemed significant.

He followed Emma down the hall, and they paused in front of a door. Music floated out of the apartment, a steady beat with some terrible singing. “What is
that
?” Gio asked.

“Lady Gaga.” Emma smirked. “The hazard of having a gay dad is that he likes to listen to dance music when he cleans the apartment. Come on.”

The music was loud enough in the apartment that Mike must not have heard them come in. Just as they walked through the door, he danced his way across the living room with his back to Gio and Emma. Gio was struck again by the way Mike moved, fluid and graceful and confident. Music poured out of every step.

Mike noticed them and stopped dancing abruptly, but he smiled. “Hi! Come in.”

Emma didn’t know about their relationship, which was going to make dinner a heartbreaking exercise in restraint, because all Gio wanted to do was get his hands on this man, to dance with him and touch him everywhere and kiss the silly grin right off his face. But Emma was there. She bounded toward her father and presented her cheek for kissing. Mike gave her a peck.

“I was just finishing up,” Mike said. “There’s chicken in the oven and veggies on the stove, and I’ve got salad stuff too, if you want.”

“You cook?” Gio asked.

“Dad’s a great cook,” said Emma.

Something in the kitchen beeped. “Oh, I should check on that,” said Mike. “Em, why don’t you show Gio around?”

It wasn’t a big apartment. The living room walls were painted bright blue, probably Mike’s choice. The room was dominated by a huge sofa and a TV and most of the walls were lined with bookcases or framed art or knickknacks. The space was clean if a little cluttered, mostly with the detritus of the people who lived there—sheet music, a baseball cap, CDs, unopened mail, a pink hoodie sweatshirt. Emma pointed out her school photos on one wall, but Gio’s attention got snagged by a photo of a very young Mike standing next to a handsome man, both of them wearing military dress uniforms.