The Performers

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

FOR NOAH, THE first few months of the year rushed by in a blur of activity. He went to class; he was still being tutored twice a week by Dr. Ambrose; he went home and studied; there were choir rehearsals and weekly Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra chorus rehearsals; then there were the endless rounds of practice and more practice—on top of which, he’d driven himself mercilessly to achieve perfection in his senior recital.

The choir’s late February performance of the Duruflé Requiem came and went, but he hardly took notice as it was just one more item on a long list of things that had to be done. In the midst of everything else, Tom had performed in concert in St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville and in a church in Savannah, among other venues, and their respective scrapbooks were growing. Well, Tom’s scrapbook was actually bulging—and Noah’s was growing.

On a Sunday afternoon in February, they invited Tom’s mother and sister to Jacksonville. Mrs. Foster had been wanting to see what they’d done to the house, but conflicting schedules had postponed her visit. She and Barbara were planning to come to church, then meet them at Biscottis afterward.

When they arrived at the restaurant, Mrs. Foster and Barbara were already sitting at a table, and with them was a man whom neither Tom nor Noah recognized. The man stood when they arrived at the table, and Barbara introduced him as her friend Jonathan Payne. Jonathan was tall, trim, and good-looking. Over lunch, they learned that he was a tax attorney.

They finished their lunch, and Tom said, “Do you remember how to find the house, Mom?”

“Of course, sweetie. We visited your grandparents there fairly often when they lived in the house. You were just a baby when they moved away from Jacksonville.”

They drove to the house and let their visitors in through the front door. Tom’s mother was amazed at what they’d done to the house. “The floors look great,” she said the minute she was inside.

“Thanks, Mom. We did all the work ourselves.”

They walked through the living room, then into the studio, and Tom said, “This old sunroom makes a nice studio, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it does,” Mrs. Foster said.

“I hope you’re taking full advantage of your home office deduction,” Jonathan said.

“You bet,” Tom said. “One of our friends is a CPA and he’s very much on top of that sort of thing.”

As they entered the kitchen, Mrs. Foster said, “Goodness, you’ve done a great job on the kitchen. It was looking kind of outdated last time I was in this house, and that was more than twenty years ago.”

They led their visitors upstairs and settled down on the comfortable furniture in the former sleeping porch. “This is a cozy room,” Barbara said.

“Isn’t it?” Tom said. “We probably spend more time up here than we do in the living room.”

“I have something for you in the way of a belated housewarming gift,” Mrs. Foster said, “but I left it in the car. Babs, do you mind?”

“No problem, Mother.”

Tom followed his sister downstairs and to the car. “Well, Barbara,” he said, “it’s been a while since you’ve introduced me to one of your gentlemen friends. Is he the one?”

“He could well be,” she said. “We’ll see.”

“How long have you known him?”

“A year or so.”

“I hope it works out. You deserve to be as happy as Noah and me.”

“Thanks.”

She retrieved the package, and they carried it back upstairs. After an hour or so, their visitors left, pleading a long drive.

THE LAWYER WORKING for Noah and Bobby’s Uncle Joe had contacted their lawyer, Mr. Cooper, literally at the eleventh hour, and the negotiations for a division of the assets owned by their late father’s partnership with his brother were plodding along. They’d demanded, and finally gotten, a full accounting of all the real estate holdings and other business affairs that were a part of the two brothers’ partnership. Jim Williams, their CPA friend, had spent a Saturday morning in Live Oak at the office of the partnership’s accountant, examining the books, and a fair market value based upon his report had been placed on the business by a consultant.

Noah was beginning to be concerned about the cost of it all, but Mr. Cooper had assured him that the partnership had ample liquidity, half of which was technically his and Bobby’s. “The cost of all this will be borne by the partnership before it’s dissolved,” Mr. Cooper said.

His mother had gotten the house in Live Oak sold in record time. In fact, it had sold before she’d gotten around to writing the checks she’d promised. After the closing, she presented each of her two sons with a check for half of the proceeds, and Noah had immediately deposited his check into the fund he and Tom had established for the purchase of a mountain cabin.

Their tenants moved out of the garage apartment a few days before their lease was up, and Carl Johnson and his partner Jim Williams came over to begin fixing it up to suit their particular tastes. They painted the walls and the ceilings, and their friends George Martin and Mike Foster helped them refinish the floors. After Carl and Jim moved in, the rest of the gang gave them a nice housewarming party. They’d already installed a privacy fence in the backyard, positioned just inside the thick hedge of viburnum that ran along both sides of the lot and across the back. When warmer weather arrived, they’d be able to indulge in nude sunbathing just as they’d done at their old house.

During the first two weeks of March, they flew to Atlanta three times for rehearsals with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus. They were in and out of the city the same day on each of those occasions, but when performance time rolled around, they had to stay in a hotel for three nights. The two performances were a breeze compared to the somewhat grueling recording sessions, but it was finally over and they flew home late on a Saturday evening.

“I don’t want to ever do anything like that again,” Noah said as he buckled his seat belt, “at least not anytime soon.”

“You’d better get used to it,” Tom said.

Noah was prevented from replying immediately as an announcement from the cockpit made it impossible to talk. “What did you mean by that?” he said finally.

“When that recording is released, and possibly even before it’s released, you’re going to get offers. Count on it.”

“What kind of offers?”

“Offers to sing here and there, offers to cut another record, who knows?” Tom said. “Word will spread, you’ll be in demand, and you’ll want to take maximum advantage of any opportunities that come along. A large part of your future career will derive from being in the right place at the right time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Word of mouth, babe. Word of mouth. You got invited to Atlanta because somebody heard you perform in Jacksonville. For that matter, I performed in Atlanta not too long ago because the music director at St. Philip’s Cathedral heard me perform in Biltmore Village. That’s how reputations grow and reputations lead to opportunities.”

“Yeah,” Noah said. “That makes sense.”

Bobby and Chad were waiting for them at the airport, and as soon as they got home, they went upstairs and crawled into bed. They managed somehow to get up the next morning in time to make it to church, after which they went straight home and back to bed. On Monday, they quickly settled back into their regular routine. For the next two weeks they focused on classes, rehearsals, and getting through the various services of Easter week.

On the weekend after Easter, Tom performed on the Father Willis organ at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Live Oak. They had, by then, driven over to the church two or three times for rehearsal sessions and, during the course of the rehearsals, they’d recorded enough material for a CD featuring the only Father Willis organ in the USA. They planned to donate one hundred copies of the CD to the church, and to allow the church to obtain additional copies of the CD at cost with the understanding that proceeds from their sale would accrue to the endowment fund for maintenance of the organ.

During one of Tom’s rehearsals, the priest in charge, Father DeVaney, had surprised him, saying, “Noah, your little speech at your father’s funeral service has had some unintended consequences.”

“How so?”

“Several young people your age have been coming to services here at St. Patrick’s. They did so because they were impressed by the beauty and simplicity of the burial office, as well as by what you had to say.”

“Really?”

“It gets even better than that. Two of those couples are going through our confirmation class right now.”

“I don’t know what to say to that, except, ‘Wow’.”