they don’t know is that Toby checked the competition website last month and brushed up on the compulsory pieces, two of which he’d played in recital years ago. He studies the group for a moment, noting their eager faces, understanding that they see him as a kind of secret weapon they’ve been holding on to all these years. Maybe he sees himself the same way.
Toby pulls his guitar onto his lap and tunes while Guitar Choir members grab coffees and find their seats. He waits, as he’s taught them to do, for the room to quiet down. Anticipation creates the silent beats before music begins.
“You’re not going home?” Pamela asks, puzzled by the change in plan.
Toby nods “no” while others shush her.
Hands hovering over the strings, he lowers his eyes, then unrolls the opening arpeggio, launching into a neo-classical sonata, pure juicy pleasure, each phrase ducking into the next, the rise and fall of breath twinned to the cadence of sound. The piece is in his hands, has been since he was a teenager. A relief to send it into the world again.
Hardly pausing, he wipes his palms and starts the second piece of the compulsory program, this one a lush Spanish waltz, direct from Andalusia. He ignores the snap of basketballs overhead as the teenagers arrive. Not too fast, for a waltz is graceful, lifting off the third beat.
“Well done,” Matthew booms, but he’s too soon, for Toby isn’t finished yet.
Their parking meters have expired, kids need to be picked up from school, and someone has a dental appointment, but no one leaves, no one dares.
The third piece is a tricky tour de force he learned at age seventeen. It’s sewn into his mind; he could play its stampeding runs in his sleep — and has. He holds it now as a living creature, both tame and wild.
The last note rings a full four beats, then fades to a dot on the horizon. Toby lifts his head and exhales, thrusting his shoulders back. Glance at the clock; he’s been playing for twenty-five minutes.
No one applauds at first, then an amazing thing happens: each member of Guitar Choir rises and claps.
Toby feels his whole body vibrate, the residue of performance clinging to his skin.
Jasper and Toby live at the end of a lane downtown in the lee of a factory that once produced soap and is now waiting for a loft conversion. Half a dozen Victorian-era houses press cheek to jowl opposite a squat cinder-block building that contains a walk-in clinic. This clinic is an eyesore but buffers traffic noise and makes the lane invisible to passersby on King Street West.
Toby digs out his key, but it isn’t necessary; Jasper has left the door open. A thoughtful touch, but faintly irksome: are Toby’s habits so predictable? It didn’t used to be like this. Once upon a time he was about as dependable as a puppy. He kicks off his sneakers and moves through the front room of the flat with its off-white walls and Ikea furniture, past the jumbo-sized chair that until recently belonged to Klaus. Klaus is Toby’s father, now a resident for unknown reasons at Lakeview Terrace. It’s not as if he wasn’t fending well at home. Toby sniffs the air: leek and potato soup, one of Jasper’s specialties.
“You look different,” Jasper says, glancing up as Toby enters the kitchen area. He carefully places the spoon across the rim of the pot.
Toby slides his guitar case into the corner and drops his jacket on a chair. “I feel different.”
The two men approach each other, for this is their ritual, to pause before the welcoming kiss, no silly bear hug, just lips and tongue, bodies held a whisper apart. Jasper, being shorter, has to tilt his head.
When they pull back, Jasper says, “Cough up. Tell Jazz what’s new.”
Toby peels off his shirt, which doesn’t smell exactly floral, and shoots it in the general direction of the laundry hamper. Jasper frowns as he watches the garment flop to the floor.
“I had a sort of attack at Guitar Choir,” Toby says.
“Attack?” Jasper jumps on the word. “How so?”
“Like what used to happen. Only less severe.”
“Did you pass out?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Jasper visibly relaxes, pressing his lower back into the counter, then reaches to turn down the burner under the soup. A fresh baguette sits on a cutting board, the heel torn off and demolished.
Toby goes over to the sink and pours a glass of water, aware, as always, of Jasper’s gaze. He moves his hips a bit more than needed and peers out the window onto the concrete patch where buses idle before heading north toward the subway station. Since they live on the ground floor of the townhouse, views aren’t exactly optimal.
“I don’t like the sound of it,” Jasper says. Neatly dressed in chinos and trim cotton shirt, he has a small head, his features tidy and undramatic. He hates the swell of his stomach, a recent development.
“I ate a crap lunch,” Toby says. “It was probably a blood-sugar dive.”
“Maybe.”
“I recovered quickly.” Toby rinses out his glass and dumps it in the sink. He’s bored with the topic, even though he brought it up. He knows it’s mean to seek concern, then slough it off. Leaking a cautious smile, he says, “Big competition coming up in Montreal.”
“What kind of competition?”
“One of those guitar things.”
Jasper isn’t fooled by his breezy tone. “And?”
“I may toss my hat in the ring.”
“Really?” Jasper knows better than to make a fuss.
Toby prowls the flat, past Klaus’s hulking chair, past the Matisse numbered print — Jasper’s pride and joy — and the shelf of Toby’s house league hockey trophies. He’s never been the sort of musician to baby his hands.
“Chances are I wouldn’t make it to the semifinal,” Toby says, returning to the kitchen. “Hell, I may not make it past the first cull.”
“When did this idea occur to you?” Jasper asks, his voice a little sharp.
“Not long ago. I forget.”
Jasper nods, pretending to believe this. “I would never hold you back from attempting —”
“You can’t,” Toby points out.
“Quite so. But let me remind you that all did not turn out well last time.”
“Eleven years ago.”
“The consequences were fairly dire.”
“Eleven years ago.”
Jasper clears his throat, a picture of calm, as if dealing with one of his clients at work. “Do you really want to subject yourself to that kind of pressure?”
A reasonable question. Toby looks at his partner, feeling his cockiness bleed away.
