The Stars That Tremble (4 page)

That was probably true. Gio sighed. “
If
a student does exceptionally well in the workshop, I will recommend her for the Young Musicians Program. But she can’t rest on her laurels. She should practice as much as possible and come prepared to my class. She cannot rely on her talent alone, because she’s competing with the best young singers in the region for those spots, some of whom live and breathe opera.” He took a deep breath so as not to come off as combative, even though this whole conversation irritated him. “I appreciate your coming to talk with me and I will do what I can to help Amelia, but she has to do her end of the work as well.” He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of the workshop, it is beginning shortly. I don’t mean to cut you off, but I have to track down my assistant for the music for today’s class.” He stood.

Tracy mirrored his movement, rising slowly to her feet. “Thank you for meeting with me. And if I can assist you in any way….” She smiled.

He understood what she was doing. That smile might as well have been a twenty-dollar bill pressed into his palm. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch, Mrs. Quinlan.”

She shook his hand and then slid out of his office.

D
ACIA
came to that afternoon’s workshop—the fourth class of twelve, as they met twice a week for six weeks—to work with the female singers. She still had an amazing voice, though she preferred teaching to performing. Gio liked working with her. They came from the same place, for one thing; she grew up not far from his childhood home near Florence, and they’d met while performing together in Italy before Gio had made a name for himself. Dacia had also been instrumental in getting him this job. She’d been on the faculty at Olcott for a few years before he’d lost his voice. She had stuck with him from when he was on top of the world until he hit rock bottom, and she’d helped pull him out with the offer of another way to use his skills. He appreciated that and loved her for it. Plus, she sang like a dream.

Dacia’s rich mezzo-soprano voice filled the studio as she sang the opening bars of “Habanera” from
Carmen
. He handed out music and had the kids sing some of the chorus parts from the opera. There were mixed results, although most of it wasn’t good. They were butchering the French pronunciation, for one thing. One of the tenors was flat. Tiny Emma McPhee overpowered all of them.

“All right,” he said when Dacia finished. “This is an important lesson. I know you aspire to greater things than the chorus, but it showed me what’s going on with you all in general. A lot of you, if you’re serious about singing, will get your start in the chorus and work your way up to being prima donna. That means balancing your voice with those of the other singers. That also means pronouncing the words right even if you don’t know what they mean. So, let’s try this.”

He handed out new sheet music, a movement from a Bach oratorio, and then he had Dacia write a basic Latin pronunciation guide on the white board he’d wheeled in earlier. The rest of the class was intense and the kids clearly struggled, even Emma.

Then he broke the kids into groups and had Dacia take the girls while he worked with the boys.

The class wound down and the kids gathered up their stuff. He walked over to Dacia. “Thank you for your help today.”

“My pleasure. This is a great crop of students you’ve got.”

“I know. I made the right choices.” Although he now had his doubts about Amelia Quinlan.

Dacia laughed. “Don’t let them hear you say that.” Then she smirked. “Did you know there is a handsome gentleman standing in the doorway?”

Gio tried not to jerk as he turned his head. Mike was there and shooting Gio an odd look.

“That’s Emma McPhee’s father.”

“I see.”

Gio wondered what Dacia saw. They stopped talking as they watched father and daughter greet each other. Both smiled and Mike asked Emma something Gio couldn’t hear from across the room.

“
È bello
,” Dacia commented.

He
was
quite beautiful. “
Sì. Lo so.”

“
È sposato?”

Gio was curious about his history, but at least they’d established that he wasn’t married. “No.”

“Gay?”

“
Non lo so. Forse.
” Maybe he was. Gio couldn’t really tell. It seemed unlikely that a girl would have a single gay father, but this was New York and stranger things had happened.

And now Mike was coming right for them.

“Hello, Gio,” Mike said with a smile.

“
Ciao
,
Mike.” Gio smiled back and took a moment to appreciate being in Mike’s presence again. Then Dacia cleared her throat. “
Sì.
” He threw a frustrated glance at her before looking back at Mike. “This is my friend and colleague, Dacia Russini.”

Mike held out his hand. Dacia shook it and smiled at him.

“
Buongiorno
,” Dacia said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” said Mike. “I just wanted to say hi. Emma is trying to make plans with a few of the other girls and doesn’t need me hovering.”

Dacia reached over and patted Gio’s shoulder. “I must be leaving. I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow, Gio.”

“
Molto bene. Ciao
,” he said.

Mike rocked on his heels as Dacia walked away.

“Girlfriend?” Mike asked.

That struck Gio as so ridiculous that he laughed. “Oh, no. Very old friend. We performed together many times, but any romance between us was kept on the stage. She’s married to a choreographer.”

“Oh.”

“And she’s, ah, not my type.” He raised an eyebrow.

Mike’s eyes widened. It occurred to Gio to worry that a blue-collar guy like Mike might be homophobic, but he just nodded and said, “Good to know.”

Gio second-guessed himself in a way he usually didn’t. He was used to going after and getting what he wanted, and he wanted Mike, but he held himself back. He got kind of a gay vibe off Mike but wasn’t certain, for one thing. He thought fraternizing with the father of one of his students was probably unethical, and that it could be a thorny situation. But he had to know more about this man. Part of it was curiosity about Emma, yes, and wondering where that amazing talent came from. But part of it was just this beautiful man who seemed so unlike anyone else in Gio’s life.

He said, “I don’t suppose you would be interested in having lunch with me some day this week. You work in the area, right?”

“For now, yes. Lunch?” Mike’s eyes went wide again, which made Gio think his instincts might have been wrong. He thought he’d sensed some mutual interest, but maybe his gut feeling was not quite accurate.

“To discuss Emma,” Gio said. “She has the potential to do some really amazing things. I thought I might talk that over with you.”

Mike’s relief was a palpable thing. Gio couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad sign. “Oh. Yes, of course. Just tell me where or when. I usually take lunch around one.”

“There’s a little cafe on Sixty-third.” Gio gave Mike directions. “Tomorrow?”

Mike nodded slowly. “Tomorrow is good.”

Emma poked her head into the studio. “Dad? I need to run by the music store on the way home. Are you ready?”

Mike smirked at Gio. “I never know who is in charge here anymore. I guess I’d better go.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mike.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

M
IKE
suspected an ulterior motive but wasn’t disappointed to find Gio already seated when he got to the restaurant. He’d even taken the time to change clothes so he wouldn’t be sitting down to a nice lunch in his old jeans and ratty T-shirt. So, wearing one of his nicer shirts and a crisply clean pair of jeans, he sat across from the man and smiled.

Gio smiled. “I’m glad you could make it. How are you?”

His voice had a rhythmic cadence to it, even with the rasp. Something about the Italian accent and that rough quality to Gio’s speech was incredibly sexy.

“I’m good,” Mike managed to say. He was distracted by how good Gio looked. He was wearing a dark-green shirt that looked great against his olive skin and had a shadow of dark scruff against his jaw. He had really incredible eyes, Mike noticed for the first time; they looked almost green in the dim lighting of the cafe. To keep from staring, Mike knew he had to say something. “How are you? I assume the workshop is going well, since that’s all Emma has been talking about for the past week. Do you teach other classes too?”

“College voice classes at the Olcott School during the regular school year. I also teach a seminar on the history of opera in the spring. Every now and then I teach a couple of Young Musicians Program students. That’s the after-school program for high school students.”

“Okay.” Mike felt a bit at sea. “That’s… that’s good. So, um, you wanted to talk about Emma?”

Gio smiled. “Your daughter is extraordinarily talented.”

“Thanks. I think so too.”

Mike knew he was squirming. He had a hard time accepting compliments on Emma’s behalf. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and tried to calm down. He had no reason to be nervous, even if he was sitting across from a devastatingly attractive man.

Emma. They were here to talk about Emma.

“And you don’t really sing much,” Gio said. “Sometimes it does skip generations, as they say, but it’s unusual for a girl this disciplined to come from a family with no musical experience.”

Mike felt like his skin itched everywhere. He shifted his weight on the chair. “Well, I used to sing her little nursery rhymes and things when she was a baby. We always had music playing at home. The opera, though… I have no idea where that comes from. When she first started showing an interest, I managed to get some tickets to the Met. We were way up in that top mezzanine, the one that’s about three miles from the stage, but she was in love. I’ve never seen such amazement on her face.” Mike laughed to himself, trying to calm down. “As for skipping generations, well, her parents could be the most musically gifted people on the planet, but I wouldn’t know. She was adopted.”

“Oh.” Gio tilted his head as if this confused him. “Interesting. I never would have expected.”

“I get that a lot. But any resemblance is coincidental.”

“I suppose genetics don’t matter as much as care and love and those things.”

Mike felt like he was being patronized a little. Mildly annoyed, he looked over the menu. “Did you invite me here just to praise Emma or my parenting?”

“Not exactly, and before you ask, no, I don’t do this with all the parents.” Gio shook his head and stared, unfocused, at something on the table. “I should be frank, then. I do think Emma is a rarity. I’ve been running this workshop for six years now and I’ve seen maybe three singers like her in all that time. Honestly, it would give me great joy to continue to work with her after this workshop is over.”

“Are you serious?” Mike wanted to laugh at the absurdity of a world-renowned singer wanting to work with his little girl. “Well, I’ll be frank too, and tell you that I had to scrape together the money for this class. I’m not sure I can afford—”

“We don’t have to decide right now. If the rest of the workshop goes well, maybe we can work something out.”

“I… okay.” It seemed so unlikely. People never handed things like this to Mike.

“But I didn’t just want to talk about Emma. That wasn’t the only reason I invited you here. I… ah… well.”

Gio laughed, although it seemed to lack humor. He rubbed the back of his head with his hand, which pushed some of his dark hair up into spikes briefly before it all fluttered back into place. Mike hadn’t really noticed before, but Gio had a hell of a head of hair, thick and a bit unruly, the sort of hair one could really run his fingers through. He flexed his fingers under the table as he thought about doing just that.

Luckily, Gio didn’t notice because he was too busy staring at the table. He laughed again. “
O mio Dio
, I do not think I have been this nervous since I was a teenager.”

“What are you nervous about?” It dawned on Mike suddenly that Gio was perhaps on edge for the same reasons Mike was. That also seemed absurd—how could a man like Gio possibly be interested in a man like Mike?—but maybe the situation wasn’t so strange if you stripped it down to its essence. Gio was worldly and knowledgeable and so very Italian. Mike had no more education than a high school diploma and came from a South Brooklyn lace-curtain Irish family, and the only reason he had ever been outside of the greater New York metropolitan area was because the army had sent him there. And yet hadn’t Gio been implying the day before that he was not interested in women when he said Dacia wasn’t his type? That meant Mike and Gio were just two men with some kind of attraction zinging between them, both nervous and a little awkward.

It made Mike laugh.

Gio let out a breath and looked up. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking, you know, here we are, two guys having a casual lunch. And yet we’re both as nervous as if we were on a first date.”

Gio let out a little burst of laughter. “I… yes. Honestly? I invited you to lunch because I thought that the handsome father of one of my students might be a man I’d like to get to know better. It’s probably somewhat unethical, but—now why are you laughing?”