The Performers

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

WHEN TOM AND Noah landed at Reagan National Airport late one afternoon in early April, they were really looking forward to having a few days off, even though they’d both have to miss a few classes. They’d decided not to rent a car, given that their hotel was only a short distance from Washington Cathedral and one of the hotel’s amenities was a courtesy van that would transport them back and forth as needed.

“I’m glad we brought our umbrellas,” Noah said as they stepped out of the cab at their hotel.

“No kidding.”

The rain was blowing under the hotel marquee, so they hurried inside. When they arrived at the cathedral the next afternoon for the first of two scheduled rehearsal sessions, the sun was shining brightly and everything was pretty and green. Tom had visited the cathedral before, but it was Noah’s first exposure to the vast and serenely beautiful structure, and he was mesmerized for a few minutes by the grandeur of it all.

The director of music had been unexpectedly called out of town for the day, but an assistant organist named Paul Carpenter had been assigned to them. Paul led them to the console, where he and Tom consulted at length over the registrations for the various pieces. The details had been thoroughly discussed through a series of e-mails and telephone conversations, but hearing the actual sound of some of the stops caused one or two slight changes in Tom’s final decisions.

“It’s chilly in here,” Noah said, rubbing his hands together.

“Don’t forget that we were advised to dress warmly,” Tom said. “It would be prohibitively expensive to heat a space this size.”

“Tom is correct,” Paul said. “There’s some heat radiating up from the floor, and nothing more. That being said, when you get several hundred warm bodies in the nave, things do get a bit more comfortable.”

The sound of the organ in that vast space was wonderful beyond belief, and it switched from wonderful to thrilling when Tom used the horizontal trumpets at one point. They’d just about concluded the nearly three-hour session when two men approached the console. They were both rather good-looking, appeared to be in their late twenties, and looked enough alike that they could almost be brothers. They were of medium height, and their well-tailored suits showed them to be very fit.

“I’m William Lane,” one of them said, “and this is my partner, Henry.” He handed them business cards. The cards read, respectively, William Cabot Lane and Henry Lodge Lane. The firm name was Cabot, Lodge, Lane, Attorneys at Law, and their address was Boston, Massachusetts.

“What can I do for a couple of Boston lawyers?” Tom said.

“You can come and perform in Boston,” William said.

“Where in Boston?”

“The Church of the Advent.”

“Wow,” Tom said, “you have a celebrated organ in that church. I’ve read a lot about it and I even have a couple of recordings.”

“We’re starting a new performance series this summer,” William said, “and we want you to do the opening concert.”

“You must be on the music committee,” Tom said.

William chuckled at that, and Henry said, “Not exactly. One of Grandmother Lane’s foundations is providing the funding for the series, and we sort of hold the purse strings.”

“Anyway,” William said, “we don’t want to interrupt your practice, but we’d like to take you out to dinner this evening to discuss our offer.”

“Sure,” Tom said. “I assume my partner and page turner is included in that invitation.”

“Certainly,” William said.

“How did you hear about me?” Tom said.

“We have a client in Atlanta who’s also a good friend,” William said. “He and his partner heard you perform at St. Philip’s Cathedral—they’re communicants there—and have been talking about it ever since. He purchased several CDs after the performance and sent us one of them.”

“Yeah,” Henry said, “the partner was particularly taken by the improvisation on ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’.”

“He made it sound so wonderful that we wished we could’ve been there to hear it,” William said.

“Would you like to hear it now?” Tom said.

“Certainly.”

Tom slid back onto the bench and selected a few stops. He played the tune and ran with it for a few minutes. Toward the end, he started playing the basic tune on the pedals, using mostly 32-foot and 16-foot stops, and played the improvisations on the keyboards, using the brightest stops on the organ, finally working a fanfare into the music using all the trumpets. The music stopped and there was silence as the last note faded away.

“Wow,” William said. “That was amazing. Thank you.”

“Awesome,” Paul said.

“That’s it for today,” Tom said. “Same time, same place tomorrow, Paul?”

“Yes, Sir,” Paul said.

Noah gathered up the music, placed it in the ever present briefcase, and they walked toward the entrance, accompanied by William and Henry. “Did you drive?” William said.

“No, we used a courtesy van provided by our hotel,” Tom said. “It’s just down the street. I’ll give them a call in a minute or two.”

“No need,” Henry said, “we can drop you off.”

“Okay, thanks,” Tom said.

The two men led them to their car and drove them back to the hotel. Before they exited the car, William said, “We’ll pick you up at seven thirty, if that’s okay. No need to dress up.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “We’ll see you then.”

They went up to their room. “Those guys must be loaded,” Noah said.

“Do you think?” Tom said.

“Even I know about the Cabots and the Lodges of Boston,” he said, “and based on their middle names, they’re related to both families.”

“Yeah, and I picked up on ‘one of Grandmother Lane’s foundations’. I happen to know that the Church of the Advent is on Beacon Hill in Boston, and that’s where the oldest of the old money in town resides.”

“They seemed like nice ordinary people,” he said.

“Babe,” Tom said, “the old money people usually do. They don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

He looked at the clock on the nightstand. “We’ve got a couple of hours or so to kill. Any ideas?”

“A nap would be good.”

“Fool,” he said, “how about we screw each other’s brains out, then take a nap?”

“That’s what I thought I said.”

At the appointed time, they were standing under the marquee of the hotel watching for their hosts. When the Lanes pulled up in their rental car, William Lane got out, opened the rear passenger door, and said, “Ready to go?”

Inside the car, Henry said, “We couldn’t decide who should be the designated driver, so we finally decided to eat at our hotel.”

“Yeah,” William said, “not to mention the fact that parking in Georgetown can be a real pain.”

“True,” Henry said, “but compared to Boston it’s a breeze.”

“Where we live,” William said, “there are something on the order of five or more cars competing for every available parking spot.”

“How in the world do you manage?” Tom said.

“We have two parking spaces in a parking garage a couple of blocks from our town house,” William said. “It’s sort of a condominium for cars. We own the spaces and pay a monthly maintenance fee.”

“On the other hand,” Henry said, “Boston has an excellent subway system. Most people, including ourselves, use it extensively. Our office is within easy walking distance of our home, unless it’s raining.”

“Or there’s a blizzard,” William said.

They pulled up under the marquee of the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, and Henry turned the car over to an attendant. “We decided to eat in our suite so we could talk as much as we wanted without distraction,” William said.

“Yeah,” Henry said, “they have a great room service menu and wine list.”

They followed their hosts to the elevators and up to floor containing their suite, which it turned out had a good sized sitting room. A door was open, revealing a pair of queen-size beds in the adjacent bedroom, and there was a table in the living room already set for four. William took their trench coats, folded them carefully, and placed them on one of the wingback chairs.

Henry handed them each a menu, saying, “Order whatever you like.” When they’d made their selections, Henry called room service and placed their orders. A bottle of Zinfandel sat on the table already open.

“I hope you guys like good wine,” Henry said.

“Definitely,” Tom said. “A major part of our social life revolves around gathering at a neighborhood wine shop every Friday evening and tasting different wines.”

“How does that work?” Henry said as he handed each of them a glass.

Tom explained the process of selecting and dividing bottles of wine. “We often go to dinner in a group, usually to a restaurant that has a liberal corkage policy.”

“Unfortunately we don’t get to participate every week because of Tom’s performance schedule,” Noah said.

“Speaking of concerts,” William said, “before the food gets here, let’s talk about our proposed concert series.”

“Sure,” Tom said. “What exactly do you have in mind, and when?”

“We want the first concert in the series to be over the top in terms of quality and quantity,” William said. “As presently contemplated, the concerts are set for the third Sunday of every month at four o’clock. We’d like to hold the first one on the third Sunday in June, if that meets with your schedule. We know that’s rather short notice, but as far as we’re concerned, you can use the same program you played in Atlanta if you can expand the list just a bit. Our friend sent us a copy of your Atlanta program, and the organist at Advent said it looked good to him.”

Tom took out his BlackBerry and consulted his calendar. “We don’t have any commitments in June,” he said, “and school will be out for both of us.”

“Both of you?” William said.

“I teach at the University of North Florida,” Tom said, “and Noah will graduate at the end of May. I have a few concert commitments and my normal church duties for the summer, and Noah won’t start graduate school until the fall term begins.”

“Excellent,” William said. “If you could spend a few days in Boston, we’d love to show you our city. There’s lots of history there.”

“Several days in a hotel would run up quite a bill, wouldn’t it?” Tom said.

“Our town house is right across the street from the church,” Henry said, “and a couple of doors up. You’ll be our guests, and you’ll only have to walk less than half a block to practice.”

William told them what the stipend would be and said, “Of course we’ll take care of your airfare and expenses.”

“You won’t mind having a gay couple stay with you?” Noah said.

“Not at all,” Henry said.

“I’m impressed that you guys obviously came to Washington today looking for me,” Tom said.

“After our friend in Atlanta mentioned your performance and sent us that CD,” William said, “we talked to the director of music at our church, and he called his counterpart at St. Philip’s and got a rave review of your performance there. He also happens to know the music director at the cathedral here in Washington, and the minute he learned that you were scheduled to perform in Washington, he told us about it, and we made our travel plans.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of their dinner. After the waiters had departed, they settled down to a very nice dinner and the conversation continued. Later, after they finished their meals, both Noah and Tom were beginning to yawn. “Sorry, guys,” Tom said, “the company’s been great, but it’s been a very long day and I have to be well rested for tomorrow.”

“No problem,” William said, “one of us will drive you back to your hotel.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Tom said. “None of us should be driving after all that wine. We’ll take a cab.”

“I think we can do better than that,” William said. He picked up the telephone and asked for the bell captain on duty. He identified himself to the person at the other end of the line and continued, “We need transportation to take our guests back to their hotel.” He hung up the phone. “The hotel van will be at the front door in five minutes.”

They thanked their hosts for a pleasant evening and went down to meet the van. When they were back in their own hotel room, they crawled into bed and cuddled for a while. “That was an interesting evening,” Noah said.

“Yeah,” Tom said. “I’ve always wanted to visit Boston. Just think, we’ll have our own personal tour guides.”

“Yeah, they made it clear that they love showing off their city, didn’t they?”

Their hands had begun to progress from cuddling to fondling, and further conversation became impossible. They swam laps in the hotel’s indoor pool the next morning, followed by a leisurely breakfast.

The afternoon practice session was little more than a run-through of the program, the only difference being that Dr. Morgan, the director of music, had returned from whatever crisis had called him away, and had taken Paul’s place as Tom’s advisor. The man made one or two suggestions regarding registration, which Tom gratefully accepted. When the last reverberation of the last note of the final piece faded away, Tom said, “I think that does it.”

“I agree,” Dr. Morgan said.

“Have you any idea what size crowd we’ll have tonight?” Tom said.

“There’s no way to accurately predict attendance,” Dr. Morgan said, “but my experience tells me to expect at least a thousand, perhaps half again that many. We’ve been promoting the concert and spreading the word among the other music directors in town. Your ability to improvise on a telephone number will draw a certain number of people over and above the usual crowd.”

“I’ve prepared a couple of encores, just in case,” Tom said.

“You’ll definitely need them,” Dr. Morgan said, “our audiences always beg for more. I can submit one or two tunes for improvisation if necessary. Paul was awestruck by your rendition of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’.”

“Oh, Lord,” Tom said, “that tune is turning into my leitmotif. I did it in Jacksonville a couple of years ago and somehow the word has spread.”

“Perhaps you should set it down on paper and publish it,” Dr. Morgan said.

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it,” Tom said. “Anyhow, we’ve taken up enough of your time. I want to go back to the hotel and take a nice long nap so I’ll be fresh for the performance.”

“Fair enough,” Dr. Morgan said. “See you this evening.”

They called the hotel and asked that the van be dispatched to the cathedral; then they went to the side entrance and waited for its arrival. Back in their room, they left a wake-up call in case they overslept, crawled into their bed, and after a pleasant session with their bodies they succumbed to sleep. They were up with plenty of time to have a very light supper before they showered and dressed for the concert. William and Henry had offered to pick them up and transport them to the cathedral, and they’d accepted the offer. The Lanes drove up under the marquee of their hotel about a minute after they’d walked across the lobby to the front door. William was driving the car and Henry turned around to chat with them for a minute.

“You guys look very spiffy tonight,” Henry said.

“Thanks,” Tom said. “By the way, when we get to the cathedral complex, there’s a particular side door near the choir room that we need to use. I’ll point it out when we get there.”

“No problem,” William said.

Inside the cathedral they went to their assigned spot to wait until it was time for the concert to begin. A few minutes before Tom was scheduled to walk to the head of the steps that faced the crossing, Noah slipped into the choir area from a hidden side door and put the music in place. He was tempted to peek at the audience to see how full the building was, but decided not to do so. Since his page turning for this event was out of sight of the audience, he would remain anonymous for the evening.

Tom walked down the aisle between the choir stalls and stood for a moment in front of the crossing before taking his initial bow. He walked back to the bench, slid in place, made himself comfortable, and began to play. As had become his custom, the last number on the printed program was an improvisation on a telephone number. Tom carried a small yellow pad with him when he went to the crossing to ask for a number. This time, instead of selecting a child, he chose a little old lady in the front row. He wrote the numbers down as she gave them to him and repeated them into his wireless mike for Noah’s benefit—Noah had a larger yellow pad, and by the time Tom had returned to the bench, Noah had converted the numbers to notes and had the notes written on the pad.

Something about the lady’s number lent itself unusually well to the substitution, and Tom quickly found a tune in the notes and ran with it extensively. Near the end, he started playing the melody on the deepest pedal stops just as he had done in practice the day before. He kept the improvisation going with his left hand in the upper registers and threw in a few fanfares on the trumpets with his right hand. When it was over, the applause was heartfelt and deafening.

Tom took a bow and was called back twice before he played the first encore and the second encore. Dr. Morgan submitted a tune after that, and Tom improvised on it. Finally, he went to the crossing again to take his final bow.

The dean of the cathedral left his seat in the front row and walked up the steps to where Tom stood. He thanked Tom profusely for an amazing evening, then he said, “Before I give a benediction, I would like to ask a favor of Dr. Foster.”

Tom raised an eyebrow in question, and the dean said, “A little bird told me earlier that you are well-known for improvising on a particular nursery rhyme, and I’d like to ask you to do so for us at this time.”

Tom nodded in acknowledgment, returned to the bench, picked out the simple little tune and ran with it. For some reason, Noah had glanced at the clock that was built into the console. When the piece finally came to an end, he was surprised to see that Tom had managed to stretch it out for a full ten minutes. Tom took several bows and, after the last one, the dean came back up to where Tom stood, shook his hand, and publicly thanked him. The dean gave a benediction, and the concert was over.

Noah gathered up the music and returned it to the briefcase, then he and Tom settled down in the front row of the choir stalls. A steady stream of people came by to either shake Tom’s hand or chat with him for a minute. He recognized the old couple who’d spoken to them after Tom’s performance in The Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village. When they’d finished talking to Tom, they asked Noah about Dr. Ambrose, and he promised to remember them to her. They also shocked him when they congratulated him on his success in Atlanta.

“Thanks,” Noah said. “I didn’t think anyone knew about that outside of Atlanta.”

“Young man,” Dr. Janovitch (the husband) said, “word travels rather quickly in musical circles.”

Dr. Janovitch (the wife) said, “Especially when there’s a fresh new voice in the offing to be talked about. Agnes should be very proud of you.”

“Thanks again,” he said. “Dr. Ambrose has been tutoring me privately for the past two years and she’s been wonderful.”

“As long as you do what she says,” Dr. Janovitch (the wife) said.

“I know. Tom warned me about that. He told me that her tantrums are legendary when you don’t follow her instructions.”

“That about sums it up,” Dr. Janovitch (the husband) said.

The Janovitches said good night and excused themselves. Finally the line of people ended, and they were left with only William and Henry Lane standing by to drive them back to their hotel. As they got in the car, Noah said, “We did almost as well with CD sales here as we did in Atlanta.”

“Good,” Tom said. “It all helps.”

In the car, William said, “All I can say is that you’re going to wow them in Boston and I can hardly wait.”

“Ditto,” Henry said from behind the wheel of the car.

“Thanks, guys,” Tom said. “I appreciate the encouragement, but right now, all I want is a hot shower and bed—in that order.”

“No room for TLC?” Noah said.

“Babe,” Tom said, “that’s a given. I didn’t think it was necessary to state the obvious.”

The car pulled up under the marquee of their hotel and before they exited the car, Tom said, “We’d invite you up for a nightcap, but frankly, I’m bushed.”

“No need to apologize,” Henry said. “We’ll make your travel arrangements Monday or Tuesday and get the information to you.”

“Thanks for everything,” Noah said. “Come on, Tom, I think we need to get you upstairs and to bed. Don’t forget, we have a plane to catch in the morning.”

They said good-bye to the Lanes and went to their room. After a long hot shower together, they went to bed and almost immediately to sleep.