The Page Turner, copyright 2008, 2009, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
If the idea of two men loving each other and expressing that love in a sexual manner offends you, then you have clearly come to the wrong place. Feel free to leave.
The Page Turner
-10-
For Noah, the period before Christmas was one of constant surprises. He had never felt as totally comfortable with and connected to any group as he did with the choir. They all seemed genuinely happy to have him among them.
Tom had taken him downtown to St. John’s Cathedral for their annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, explaining that it was a tradition that had begun at Kings College Cambridge right after the first world war, and the Cathedral had been following that tradition for some twenty years.**
The service had begun with the choir processing into the Cathedral singing the carol Once in Royal David’s City. Tom had explained that the festival always began with that tune, as it had been done at Kings College Cambridge for all those years. He had found the evening quite moving.
The Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve had been a revelation. The service was as beautiful as the music. He and Tom got up early on Christmas morning to celebrate their Christmas and exchange gifts. In addition to a couple of welcome clothing items, there was a sizeable box under the tree with his name on it.
“What’s this?” he said, shaking it.
“Open it and see,” Tom said.
He tore the wrapping off and found a leather bound scrapbook.
“This looks sort of like the scrapbook you keep your press clippings in,” he said.
“I may have said this before,” Tom said, “but you’re good-looking... and smart. It’s just like mine, except I couldn’t quite match the color.”
“That’s sweet, but I don’t have any clippings.”
“Babe, after the Elijah you will. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that scrapbook will fill up very quickly once word spreads.”
“Then you know something that I don’t know.”
Tom got up off the sofa and said, “Come here.”
He stood, Tom embraced him, and they swapped tongues for a long minute.
“Sweetie,” Tom said, pulling away, “I see a long career in music for you, even if you retain only amateur status. You can take that to the bank.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll look forward to the reviews for Elijah, even if they’re bad.”
“By the way,” Tom said, “thank you again for that CD set of Bach Partitas played by Glenn Gould. He’s one of my favorites.”
After that, he had somewhat reluctantly headed west on I-10 toward Live Oak; and Tom had pointed the BMW South, heading for Orlando.
Christmas dinner with his family was okay, and everyone got along. For once, his Grandfather had accompanied Grandma to his parents’ home. The only bump in an otherwise pleasant day came when he casually mentioned to his Grandmother that he had signed up for the confirmation class and was planning to join the Episcopal Church.
That had prompted a minor tirade from his father. Grandma, bless her heart, put a stop to it.
“Good Lord, William,” she said, “you’re acting as though Noah had just told you he was planning to worship with a satanic cult. There’s nothing wrong with the Episcopal church. In fact, his great-great grandparents were Episcopal, as were their parents all the way back to the time they came over from England.”
He should have kept his mouth shut at that, but something compelled him to say, “Thank you, Grandma. The members of that Church are a wonderful bunch of people, and I’ve never felt so much Christian love and fellowship anywhere.”
“Not even in our church?” his father said.
“No, sir, especially not in your church. Those people are a bunch of phonies compared to the congregation at Good Shepherd.”
“What do you mean by that, young man?” his father said.
“They smile and say nice things when you’re around them, but the minute you turn your back, they gossip about you and say mean things.”
“Explain yourself.”
“I’ve watched it happening most of my life,” he said. “Until recently, I thought that was the way all churches were. Those people aren’t your friends, Dad, and they certainly don’t act like Christians are supposed to act. As I said, they smile and say all the right things to everyone’s face, but the minute anyone turns their back, they get ugly and gossipy.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No,” he said, “I don’t suppose you do. Maybe we should leave it at that.”
“Amen,” Grandma said, “Christmas is supposed to be a happy occasion.”
Mercifully, his father remained silent after that. He reluctantly allowed his mother to persuade him to stay overnight. His father was absent at breakfast, and he was on the road as soon as he had eaten.
He got home an hour or so before Tom, and they spent a quiet day around the house, enjoying each others’ company both in and out of bed.
A couple of days after Christmas, Tom asked him to get in the BMW and go to one of the Malls with him, which was something they almost never did.
“What’s up?” he said.
“Don’t ask, and I won’t tell,” Tom said.
“Okay.”
Tom drove down I-95 to The Avenues Mall and parked near one of the entrances.
“Come on,” Tom said, as he got out of the car.
He followed Tom into the mall, up to the second level, and down the concourse to the entrance of a jewelry store where Tom paused for a moment.
“Okay, what’s going on?” he said.
“I think we should look at rings,” Tom said.
“Rings?”
“You know, those round things you put on your fingers.”
“You mean like matching rings?”
“Bingo.”
“Okay.”
They browsed in the store for a while, and finally found a display of rings that caught their eye. The rings were silver, but with an odd color that made them resemble pewter. They had ornate scrollwork running around their surfaces.
“How about these?” Tom said.
“Oh yeah,” he said, “those are the ones.”
They purchased two identical rings in the correct sizes.
In the comfort of the BMW they placed the rings on each other’s finger.
“That was sweet,” Tom said.
“Take me home, and I’ll show you sweet.”
He and Tom quietly celebrated New Years Eve at home, staying up just long enough to watch the ball drop on Times Square before they went to bed. He had a new class schedule to get used to starting in January, plus the choir had an extra rehearsal every week devoted exclusively to the Elijah, at which they were joined by the extra singers from the other choirs.
After the Evensong service, he said to Tom, “Now I know what you meant about the smells and bells. It was neat.”
Tom was working himself to distraction on his Dissertation and appeared to be worried about it. Every time he asked Tom if anything was wrong, he clammed up and refused to discuss whatever problems he was having with it.
He had listened to the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recording so often that he felt he could sing the part in his sleep, but his somewhat slavish emulation of Fischer-Dieskau had provoked Tom to raise his voice in complaint.
“Babe,” Tom said, “it’s pronounced Is-ray-el, not Is-rye-el. Didn’t you hear me ranting at the choir the other night on that same subject?”
“On the recording, Fischer-Dieskau says Is-rye-el.”
“True, and he is so good at the role that you can almost forgive him for being wrong. Besides, he’s German and doesn’t know that much English.”
“But,....”
“No buts,” Tom said. “Who lives in the country of Israel?”
“The Israelis.”
“You do realize, that you just said ‘Is-ray-lees,’ not ‘Is-rye-lees.’”
“Okay, I get it.”
“Saying Is-rye-el is an affectation,” Tom said, “and like all affectations, it’s both inaccurate and annoying.”
“Okay, I’m convinced.”
“Good, let’s do it again.”
By the time of the dress rehearsal, he was beginning to feel comfortable with the part. The music sounded so different with a small orchestra, and the sounds from the brass instruments were thrilling as they reverberated around the building.
The dress rehearsal concluded and they went home. As soon as the living room door closed behind them he said, “Well?”
“Well, what?” Tom said.
“Don’t play word games. How did it go?”
Tom pulled a small cassette recorder out of his pocket and said, “You tell me, babe.”
They went into the kitchen and sat at the table, enjoying a glass of wine and listened to the rehearsal from beginning to end. Tom had grabbed a pen and yellow pad and made notes from time to time while they listened.
“I repeat,” Tom said, “you tell me.”
“It was good, wasn’t it?”
“Damn straight. All you have to do Saturday afternoon is an instant replay of what you did this evening, and it will be wonderful.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Babe, you know very well that I never ‘just say’ anything.”
He had to admit, the recording sounded pretty good, despite the poor sound quality coming from the small recorder.
They went to bed and celebrated the successful rehearsal.
He woke up Saturday morning in a highly nervous state, and remained so until Tom finally insisted they go swim some laps in an attempt to drain his nervous energy. The swimming helped, but his mind was still on the afternoon ahead.
Finally they showered, donned their tuxedos, and it was time to leave the house. At the door, Tom hugged him and said, “Noah, no matter what happens this afternoon, understand that I love you, and I will always love you. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t know much,” he said, “but of that, I am sure.”
They kissed for a long while, left the house, and got in the BMW. At the church Tom went one way, and he sat in an anteroom with the other soloists, waiting for the moment to arrive. Finally, someone said, “We’re on,” and the four soloists walked to the front of the choir area and took their bows.
They sat patiently while the guest organist played a single note, and the orchestra went through the routine of tuning. Then everyone was still while Tom walked up to the podium, bowed to the audience, turned, tapped his baton on the music rack, and he was on.
That’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, he thought, and I have to be the luckiest man in the world.
Tom made eye contact with him and gave him a wide smile of encouragement. At that moment, he knew that all was well with the world, and he stood ready to perform.
The opening number was a recitative by Elijah, and the minute he opened his mouth to sing the words, he forgot everything else, including his nervousness.
***
Tom had waited patiently in a side room, his mind awash with visions of all the things that could possibly go wrong. Finally, he heard the orchestra finish their tuning drill and it was time.
He walked to the podium, bowed to the audience, and tapped his baton on the music rack. He nodded at, and made eye contact with Noah, who responded by standing with his music held at an angle in front of him, giving him a dazzling smile.
God, he’s gorgeous, he thought. How did I ever get so lucky as to have this wonderful man fall in love with me.
He raised his baton, nodded at the orchestra and the sounds of the first four chords of the piece filled the church. Noah opened his mouth and began the opening recitative. As soon as he heard Noah’s deep and resonant bass flawlessly singing, “As God the Lord of Israel liveth......,” he knew of a certainty that everything was going to be okay.
The first half of the program flew by so rapidly that it seemed impossible that much time had elapsed. He and the soloists took their bows, and everyone filed out for a fifteen minute intermission.
He found Noah in the anteroom, his face flushed with excitement, as various singers congratulated him. As they made eye contact, he gave a ‘thumbs up’ signal, and Noah grinned from ear to ear. He had a brief consultation with his colleague from Riverside Presbyterian Church who was at the organ console for the performance, took a few sips from a small cup of water, and it was time to go back to the podium.
He once again tapped his baton on the music rack, and they were off. This time it was Jill’s turn to begin and the rich velvet tones of her soprano voice filled the church with the words, “Hear ye, Israel....”
Later, when Noah launched into the aria, “It is enough....,” he gave a riveting performance, and he had everyone in the building in the palm of his hand. .
Finally, it was over, and everyone had taken their final bows. John Cullen went up the steps to the pulpit and raised his hand for attention.
When the room was quiet, he said the usual words, thanking the audience for their presence and support, and the musicians for all their efforts. Tom was shocked at John’s next words.
“I have a very special announcement to make this afternoon,” John said. “I learned earlier today that our own Tom Foster has just been awarded his PhD from the University of North Florida.** Tom has been our Organist and Choirmaster for three years now, and I’ve never known a finer young man or a finer church musician. So congratulations, Dr. Foster, but remember this, you may now outrank me in the halls of academe, but I’m still the boss around here.”
He raised his hands in Tom’s direction, waited for the expected titter to run through the crowd, and began to clap, as did everyone in the building.
Finally, John again signaled for silence. When he had it, he invited everyone present to partake of refreshments in the cloister, then he gave the benediction.
He lost sight of Noah in the press of the crowd after that, but managed to catch up with him later out in the cloister. Noah’s parents were with him as was his Grandmother and a teenager whom he suspected was probably Noah’s younger brother. Mrs. Walker spotted him and walked over to where he stood. Her eyes were moist.
“Young man,” she said, “you will never know how many wonderful memories that performance brought back to me. It brought tears to these old eyes.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Got a minute to take a walk with an old lady?”
“Certainly. He took her arm and led her toward Stockton Street, which ran in front of the church complex.
When they were out of earshot of the crowd, she said, “I had no idea my grandson could sing like that.”
“He didn’t either, but I talked him into it.”
Then she shocked him, saying, “He’s in love with you, you know.”
“Yes I do,” he said, “and I with him.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said, “and the more power to you both.”
“Somehow,” he said, “I don’t think his parents would share that sentiment.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” she said. “His father is an idiot, and he’s been brainwashing my daughter with his Baptist bigotry for more than twenty years. Don’t you worry about them, just concentrate on making that boy happy.”
“Mrs. Walker,” he said, “that pleasant task has become my life’s work.”
“And so it should be,” she said. “Just remember, I’m on your and Noah’s side.”
“Does Noah know that?”
“No,” she said, “but I don’t mind you telling him.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
As they retraced their steps down the sidewalk toward the cloister area, a familiar voice said, “Tom, sweetie, I wondered what had happened to you.”
“Hi, Mom,” he said, when she and Barbara caught up to them.
“Mrs. Walker,” he said, “may I introduce my mother and my sister Barbara. Mom, Barbara, this is Noah’s grandmother, Mrs. Walker.”
The women chatted for a minute or two, and the four of them walked over to where Noah stood surrounded by well-wishers, one of whom was John Cullen.
“Well, Dr. Foster,” John said, “congratulations, again.”
“Who told you about that?” He said. “I didn’t expect to have the verdict from the committee until Monday.”
“I have my sources,” John said. “Anyway, you and this young man are the stars of the hour.”
“That’s for sure,” Mrs. Walker said.
Noah introduced him to his brother Bobby, and they talked for a minute.
One of the choir members came up to them and said, “Tom, they need you and Noah inside for some pictures.”
His mother said, “Babs, do you have your camera?”
“Yes, Mother,” she said.
They obediently went inside the church, where he and the four soloists posed for several shutterbugs, including his sister.
In the cloister, Noah’s parents were getting ready to leave.
“We’d like to take you boys to dinner,” Mrs. Webster said, “but we have a long drive.....” Her voice tapered off, and she seemed to fumble for words to say.
“That’s okay, Mom,” Noah said. “We have choir rehearsal, tomorrow morning and right now, I just want to sleep for at least twelve hours.”
“You’ve earned it,” Mrs. Walker said.
When they had gone, Mrs. Foster said, “You boys aren’t going to run off and leave us are you?”
“Certainly not,” Noah said, “we’re going to take you to dinner.”
“What was that about twelve hours’ sleep?” she said.
“Mom,” he said, “Noah’s relations with his parents have been somewhat strained since Christmas.”
“May I ask why?”
“They got a little upset when I told them I was joining this church,” Noah said, “and I just happened to tell them a few home truths about their Southern Baptist crap. My dad didn’t take it very well.”
Barbara and his mother followed them to Biscotti’s, where they were just in time to beat the early dinner rush.
At their table, Mrs. Foster said, “Noah, you were absolutely wonderful this afternoon. I had no idea what to expect when we sat down in that pew, and I certainly didn’t expect perfection, but it was exactly that.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Foster,” Noah said. “Tom’s been giving me lessons several times a week since last summer.”
“I certainly hope you intend to make a career of music,” she said, “and ‘Mrs. Foster’ sounds so formal. Why don’t you call me Cynthia.”
“I’m thinking about a career in music, but haven’t quite decided.”
“As for you, young man,” Mrs. Foster said, “why didn’t you tell me about your Doctorate?”
“Mom, didn’t you hear what I said to John? I didn’t know about it. I wasn’t expecting to know anything until next week, and I still haven’t figured out how he knew.”
“Doctor Foster,” she said. “That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it.”
“Speaking of rings,” Barbara said, “my artist’s observing eye has spotted something.”
“What dear?” Mrs. Foster said.
“Show her,” Barbara said.
Tom and Noah obediently held out their hands for inspection.
“That’s sweet,” Mrs. Foster said, “and they are beautiful rings. May I see one?”
Tom slipped his ring off his finger and handed it to his mother, who examined it closely.
“This is nice,” she said. “It’s clearly sterling, but has a look of pewter about it. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
She handed the ring back, and he slipped it on his finger.
Their food arrived and they ate in silence for a few minutes.
“Noah,” Mrs. Foster said, “I didn’t get a chance to talk to your parents, but I had a nice conversation with your grandmother. Does she live over in Live Oak also?”
“No, Ma’am. She lives down in Gainesville, but she visits my folks a lot.”
“What about your grandfather?”
“He just retried from teaching at the University, and he never goes anywhere,” Noah said, “especially not to my folks’ house.”
“Why not?”
“He doesn’t like my dad at all, and doesn’t try to hide it.”
“That’s too bad,” she said.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” Noah said.
They had been interrupted a number of times by people who stopped by their table to comment on the performance, and two more people did so before their conversation could continue.
On the sidewalk outside the restaurant, Mrs. Foster handed Barbara a set of keys saying, “You can drive us home, Babs.”
“You know you’re welcome to stop by the house for a longer visit,” Tom said.
“Thanks, Sweetie,” she said, “but we’ve got a two hour drive, and I know you boys must be worn out.”
He and Noah stood on the sidewalk and watched until the Jag was out of sight.
“Alone, at last,” Tom said.
“Not alone enough,” Noah said. “Can we go home now?”
They went home, laid their formal attire out on Noah’s bed, and took a long hot shower together.
They were lying in their bed, belly to belly.
“I’ve never been fucked by a PhD before.” Noah said.
“Silly boy, you’d never been fucked by anyone before me.”
“True enough, and you don’t know how glad I am that you were my first.”
“Baby, you were so good today. You have no idea how proud of you I am.”
“I owe it all to you,” Noah said.
“By the way, are you ready for a bit of a shocking news flash?”
“What?”
“Your grandmother knows about us.”
“No shit,” Noah said, “are you sure?”
“From her lips to my ears,” he said. He replayed the conversation he had with Mrs. Walker.
“Grandma is a sharp old girl.”
“And,” he said, “as she told me, she’s on our side.”
“Yeah, that’s something, isn’t it?”
They took care of each other’s needs and slept through the night.
Over breakfast the next morning, Noah said, “It’s kind of a let down, isn’t it?”
“Meaning?”
“We’ve pushed ourselves so hard all these months,” Noah said, “and now it’s over. Don’t you feel sort of let down by that?”
“Babe, you forget. In the next thirty days we have Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Easter Sunday to deal with. Think of them as three more goals to achieve and forget about being let down.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“It helps to keep things in perspective if you can remember that goals are successive. You achieve one goal and go on to the next, and on to the next, and so on.”
***
On the way to church, they picked up two copies of the Sunday paper and Noah anxiously searched for the expected review. He found it, and read it twice.
“Well?” Tom said.
“He raved about the performance,” he said.
“What did he have to say about you?”
“Lots of nice things,” Noah said.
Noah was still in a state of excitement when they started the Sunday morning choir rehearsal, but by the time he attended his first class on Monday, he was more or less back to normal.
The days flew by. He went to class, he studied, he and Tom swam laps, and there was always more than enough to keep them busy. They had a brass quartet assisting with the music on Palm Sunday and again on Easter Sunday, and he thought all of it was wonderful.
He had never in his life heard of Maundy Thursday, but found the service quite moving, and the music was gorgeous.
The music for Easter Sunday was stunning. The choir performed the wonderfully modern Epiphany Alleluias by Weaver, and he and Jill performed a duet afterward.
Spring break followed Easter Sunday, and he had a week free of classes. He did manage to schedule forty hours at work, which meant money in the bank. He was also scheduled to go visit his parents on the Saturday after Easter, and he was dreading it. His father had been distant and cold since Christmas, and he really wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more crap from that direction.
They got up early that Saturday morning and had a quickie before breakfast. Finally, it was time to leave. He clung desperately to Tom for a long minute or two before he walked out the door.
“I wanted us to spend this Saturday together,” he said.
“Babe,” Tom said, “you’ll be home before dark, and we have the rest of the weekend.”
“I guess I just don’t want to go to Live Oak.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Finally, he got behind the wheel of the Volvo and headed out of town.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
**The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols began on Christmas Eve 1918. In 1919, the carol Once In Royal David’s City was used for the first time as the processional carol, and that tradition has never changed.
http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/chapel/ninelessons/history.html
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**I am well aware that the University of North Florida does not offer post-graduate degrees in performance art. This is a bit of artistic license.
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For readers interested in learning more about Mendelssohn’s Elijah, I highly recommend the recording discussed by our boys. It was recorded in 1968, and features Dame Gwyneth Jones, Dame Janet Baker, Nicolai Gedda, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - a stellar cast, to say the least. I had the original LP, and waited many years for it to finally be re-released on a CD in 1995.
The EMI Classics SKU number is 7243 5 68601 2 4.
In my not so humble opinion, this is arguably the best recording ever made of the work - and is indisputably the best ever recorded in English.
The 1995 CD is no longer in print, but still available. That being said, the performance appears to have been re-released in February of 2005, and is available on Amazon. ASIN: B0002XV31A
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-To be continued-
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Your feedback, as always, is appreciated, be it good, bad, or indifferent.
My stories may be found on the following site:
http://tickiestories.us/Etienne_m.htm
My thanks as always to the tireless Rockhunter for editing this material.
Special thanks go to Roger who agreed to become my beta reader in order to keep this amateur musician in line concerning matters musical, and who has also provided many useful and helpful suggestions regarding plot strengths and deficiencies.
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