The Stars That Tremble (3 page)

He sat beside Emma on the crosstown bus. She sounded even more taken with the great Giovanni Boca than Mike was. “So he played us this famous aria,” she said, “and it’s really tough. Like, only a handful of sopranos in the whole world can sing it. And I thought, ‘That will be me someday.’ I want to sing that aria when I play the Queen of the Night on one of the world’s great stages. I think Mr. Boca can help me get there.”

“So it’s going well?” Mike asked with a smile.

She grinned back. “Yeah, so far. Although, he implied that the
real
work will start in our next class.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “What’s for dinner tonight?”

“Not sure. Sandy wants to come over to watch the game. I told him he could only come if he brings dinner.”

“So, pizza, probably.”

“Is that all right?”

She yawned. “That’s fine, Daddy.”

She had grown up so fast. It felt like just yesterday she’d been his little girl and he’d been crying over her starting kindergarten. She was a young woman now, starting high school in the fall. She squeezed his heart every time she called him “Daddy,” because he knew the days of her doing that were numbered. He was enormously proud of her too, amazed by the person she had become.

When they got home, he put her to work on her chores, which got him a bit of whining in return, but she did them. He changed out of his work clothes, showered, and settled on the couch to watch that night’s Yankees game. He picked up the remote and thought of Gio and how weird it would be to have the man sitting here with him, watching the game. Then again, Mike did occasionally put on a suit and go with Emma to the opera, so he supposed anything was possible.

Sandy showed up a short time later with a grin on his face and a pizza box in his hands. Mike let him in, and Emma, probably having been alerted to Sandy’s arrival by the squeak of the door, zoomed into the room and threw her arms around him.

Sandy’s real name was Alexander, but he’d been given the nickname years before because of his sunny good looks, and it had never occurred to Mike to call him anything else. They’d been best friends, brothers, since high school in south Brooklyn, seeing each other through the army, through Evan’s death, and through Sandy’s romantic ups and downs.

Sandy danced free of Emma and slid the pizza box onto the coffee table. “So,” he said. “Yankees.”

Emma sat on the couch while Mike grabbed plates and cups from the kitchen. She rattled off some trivia about the game, and Mike couldn’t help but smile. That sponge brain of hers had absorbed every bit of sports knowledge he had ever imparted, and even though opera was her greatest obsession at the moment, she could talk to Sandy about baseball just as easily as she could talk to Mr. Boca about Puccini.

During the third inning, Sandy said, “So. I’m dating a doctor.”

Emma perked up at the potential for gossip. “Is he cute?”

“Yes, very. Here’s the issue. He’s an ER doc at Roosevelt Hospital and apparently he’s on call all the time. So although I like him, I’m not sure if we should really date. He doesn’t have time for me.”

Mike nodded. “You do need a lot of attention.”

Sandy tossed a throw pillow at Mike’s head. Mike caught it deftly.

Sandy sat back on the couch and sighed. “I don’t know if I can be a doctor’s wife. All those crazy hours. And isn’t working in the ER kind of dangerous?”

“Probably not in that neighborhood,” Mike said.

“Hmm.” Sandy seemed to consider that. “Yeah, I guess it’s not like being a cop.”

A wave of panic went through Mike, cold sweat breaking out everywhere.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Sandy said. “I wasn’t even thinking.”

“It’s all right,” Mike sighed. “It’s been more than ten years. You’d think those memories wouldn’t hit me that way anymore.”

“But sometimes they do,” Sandy said softly.

“Yeah.” He was aware of Emma staring at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look back. He had to fight not to retreat into himself, to dwell in some of the darker spaces within. He took a deep breath.

“Anyway,” Sandy said. “Being a doctor also requires all that school. You know I ain’t never been much for book learnin’. One of these days, he’s going to figure out I’m not that smart.”

“Don’t need school to be smart,” Mike said. It was a refrain, something he and Sandy had told each other plenty of times. Mike hadn’t been college material, and he was all right with that because he’d made a good life for himself and Emma. He turned to Emma. “You’re going to college, though.”

She laughed. “Juilliard.”

“Right. Just so we’re clear.”

That she didn’t remember Evan was sometimes troublesome to Mike. She’d still been in diapers when Evan had died, leaving Mike a single parent to a precocious little girl. He still thought of her as their daughter, his and Evan’s, even though Evan had missed nearly all of her life.

He still got angry sometimes. Those moments were becoming few and far between, but as they watched the game and Sandy prattled on about his doctor, Mike felt that wave of anger at Evan for abandoning them, for putting himself in a position that would cause harm. He knew that was irrational, that nothing Evan could have done would have made that night any less horrible, that Evan was a hero, in fact, because he’d stepped between a bullet and a kid, but, God, sometimes… sometimes he resented the hell out of Evan for leaving him alone.

“How’re your singing lessons going?” Sandy asked during the sixth inning.

“First of all, it’s Giovanni Boca’s opera workshop, not just singing lessons,” Emma said.

Sandy held up his hands. “Oh. Well, excuse me.”

“It’s going well. We’ve only had the one class so far, but I like Mr. Boca. He says our future classes are going to be much tougher, but I like the challenge.” She grinned.

“Who is this Boca guy?”

“He’s a famous opera singer,” Emma said. “A tenor. He’s sung all over the world. Now he teaches at the Olcott School.”

Sandy nodded. “All right. So. On a scale of homely to dreamy, where does he fall?”

Mike put a hand over his mouth to hide his reaction, which was somewhere between horror and amusement. He didn’t want to explain his attraction to the man to Sandy.

Emma raised her eyebrows. “That hardly seems like a fair question.”

“Turnabout is fair play,” Sandy said.

“He’s pretty cute. Daddy, you agree, right? You talked to him for a while after class today.”

Sandy smirked. “Oh, really?”

Mike felt the heat come to his face. “About Emma. We talked about Emma. And then I embarrassed myself because he asked me to call him ‘Gio’ and I didn’t know how to respond, so I just… left.”

Emma turned to him abruptly. “He asked you to call him Gio?”

“Yeah, I just figured—”

“Daddy, he likes you!”

Mike guffawed. “Honey, that’s crazy. What reason on God’s green earth could a world-famous opera singer have to be interested in a guy like me? Also, why am I having this conversation with you?”

“A couple of other teachers stopped by the workshop today. Everyone called him Mr. Boca. They seemed kind of afraid of him, actually. But he asked you to call him Gio.”

“He was probably buttering me up,” Mike said. “Oh, hey, look who’s at bat!”

The game went into extra innings, and Mike ordered Emma to bed when it was over. Sandy helped him clean up. Mike was showing him out the door when Sandy suddenly turned around and said, “I still miss him sometimes too.”

There was that wave of panic again, making Mike feel a little nauseous. “I know.”

“It’s been so long that I almost forget sometimes. I really am sorry for what I said.”

“I know. I almost forget sometimes too. Don’t worry about it.”

“He’d be really proud of Emma. And you. You’ve done great things with her.”

Mike forced a smile through the sadness that threatened to weigh him down. “Thanks. I think he’d be proud of her too.”

They hugged and Sandy left.

Mike lay awake in bed for a long time that night. This was nothing like the profound loneliness he’d felt just after Evan’s death, when Evan’s clothes were still in the closet and his scent still on the sheets. This was a whole new apartment, in fact, in a different neighborhood, with different furniture, different linens, different scents. Evan’s death didn’t weigh on Mike like it used to. He missed Evan, sometimes deeply, but he’d moved on with his life. He’d raised a great daughter without Evan, built a thriving business without Evan, carved out a life for himself without Evan. Evan was now nothing more than a memory.

Mike’s thoughts drifted to Gio as he finally started to fall asleep. Gio, who was alive and not eleven years dead. Gio, who was handsome and interesting and completely unlike any man Mike had ever been with. Gio, who was Emma’s teacher. Gio, who was worldly and rich and not building kitchen cabinets to pay the bills.

A fantasy, in other words. But if thinking about that fantasy got Mike to sleep at night, then he was willing to embrace it.

E
VERYONE
at the Olcott School knew Tracy Quinlan.

The Quinlan family was widely known to be extremely generous when it came to supporting the arts in New York City. Tracy had once been a ballerina with the City Ballet. This was apparently before she caught the eye of her husband Eric and together they saw to populating all of the music and dance classes in the city with their offspring. Well, Gio acknowledged as he watched Tracy Quinlan pace in the music department’s common room, that might have been a slight exaggeration, but they did have five children, including the unfortunately hawk-nosed Amelia, who was now enrolled in his summer opera workshop.

Gio hated dealing with the stage parents. He’d been dealing with people like Tracy Quinlan for most of his life, but he’d never appreciated how nefarious the overzealous parents were until he started teaching.

He took a deep breath as he walked into the common room. “Mrs. Quinlan,” he said.

“Ah, Mr. Boca. A word, if you please.”

“
Sì
. Come to my office.”

She was expensively dressed and her heels were impossibly high, though she still walked like a ballerina as he escorted her across the common room.

“So pleasant to see you again,” Gio said as he settled into his office chair. He thought he sounded rather like he meant it. He’d taught Amelia’s older brother Tony during his first workshop. Tony had a decent voice but had hated opera. Gio had heard he was studying engineering in college now.

After she sat at the edge of his guest chair, she said, “I’m delighted that Amelia is thriving in your workshop.”

Gio nodded, although “thriving” seemed like a strong descriptor given that she was one of the weaker singers in the class. She was still better than 95 percent of the teenage singers in the city, probably because her parents had forced talent on her by putting her in voice lessons since she’d been a toddler, but certainly in a different league from the top singers in his class.

“I saw the auditions,” Tracy Quinlan went on. “Quite a lot of talent in your workshop this summer.”

“I agree. One of the better groups I’ve ever assembled. I’m having a great deal of fun teaching them. Some of the singers need some refinement, but the raw talent is remarkable.”

“I’ve been considering making a substantial donation to the program this year. Ms. Russini told me that donations fund most of the workshop’s expenses.”

“Part of them, anyway,” said Gio. “I do appreciate your generosity, Mrs. Quinlan. You and your husband are both clearly devoted to the arts.”

“My youngest daughter Jennifer has been taking lessons too. She wants to sing opera just like her sister.”

“That’s wonderful.” Gio wondered what Tracy was getting at.

Tracy crossed her legs primly. “Amelia’s success is very important to us. I wanted to impress that on you.”

“Indeed. I imagine many parents feel that way about their children.”

She tilted her head. “You do not have children of your own, Mr. Boca.”

“I do not.”

“Perhaps, then, you are not so familiar with the lengths some parents will go to make sure their children get everything they deserve.”

Gio didn’t like the sound of that. “Ah. I’m not sure I follow.”

“Amelia wants to get into the Olcott School Young Musicians Program this fall. She auditioned last year but didn’t make it. I hope that with your influence, she will not confront the same fate this year. She really was terribly disappointed, as were my husband and I.”

There it was. Part of Gio wanted to ask to what lengths Tracy Quinlan was willing to go, but he didn’t dare. He had no doubt this was a woman who was used to getting what she wanted, or at least was used to throwing money at people until what she wanted came to pass.

Gio was not especially moved.

“My colleague Ms. Russini is the chair of the audition committee for the Young Musicians Program. I don’t have much of a say in who gets in.” Dacia had been leaning on him to volunteer for the committee, but he didn’t especially want to, so he’d been kicking that decision down the road.

Not that it mattered, because Tracy Quinlan plowed forward. “You are Giovanni Boca, and if you told the faculty you thought a student was good enough, that student would get into the program.”