Disclaimer: Characters belong to Showtime and CowLip. No money is being made off of this work.
Hi there! Poking my head into a new fandom to write for. I have to confess that I've always had kind of a soft spot for Ethan, but then, I'm a music student, so it's not such a strange thing. I think the producers didn't do nearly enough with him, so here's a glimpse twenty years into the future, on Justin's fortieth birthday.
A note about the title: A Rondo is a musical form, in which the principle theme alternates with several contrasting secondary themes -- for instance, it might go A B A C A D. "Rondo Alla Americana" simply means "A Rondo in the American style."
1. Concerto
Click.
"And it's WCBS-AM 880 in the morning!" the radio announcer sang out. "Headlines, sports, business, and traffic and weather together on the eights! WCBS news-time now is eight o'clock." This was followed by the unusually annoying music sting that was the reason Justin had selected that station to rouse him from his bed in the mornings.
He let the announcer's officious voice drag him from between the sheets, and half-listened to the headlines as he smoothed the covers and headed to the bathroom for a piss and a gargle. Hostilities had flared between Israelis and Palestinians, and Justin snickered as his inner Brian remarked that that particular conflict had been going on for seventy-five years now, and therefore didn't really qualify as "news." The Knicks had lost last night, the weather was to be expected for this time of year, and Manhattan was a traffic jam, as it had probably been ever since Peter Stuyvesant had first set foot on the island.
Justin decided that he had been oriented enough, padded out of the bathroom, and clicked the radio off. What next? Kitchen. Coffee. Another few minutes of fussing with beans and machinery, and soon the comforting smell rose as the coffee machine chugged away. It was a perfectly reconditioned old-fashioned diner model that Brian had bought and shipped from Pittsburgh for Justin's thirty-ninth birthday . . . God, could it possibly have been a year ago today?
Justin pulled on his bathrobe and headed for the door. The Times lay just outside in its little plastic wrap, and the date on the masthead made it impossible to lie. If the New York Times claimed it, it had to be true. Today was indeed Justin Taylor's fortieth birthday.
"God, I'm old," he told the newspaper with a chuckle, and carried it back into the kitchen. The coffee was ready, and Justin poured a cup and put a bagel in the toaster. There was a stack of Justin's birthday mail carefully saved up and waiting for him on the kitchen table, but certain rituals take precedence even over birthdays. Coffee and the Times crossword, and then the mail. Everything in its proper order.
Forty-five minutes later, the coffee was gone, the bagel was eaten, and Justin had to admit that he was hopelessly stumped with only two-thirds of the crossword solved. Oh, well. He'd never been much good at crosswords. It was time for the mail.
Deb's card featured a naked man with only a strategically placed birthday cake rendering him fit to be sent through the mail, as well as a check that was probably more than she could afford, but that Justin had the good sense not to turn down. Michael had sent a hastily typed short story about Rage and JT (did it count as fanfiction if it was written by the creator?), to which Ben had appended a short note. The envelope with the Canadian postmark contained an exquisite handmade birthday card with a properly thoughtful inscription from Mel and Linds. Brian, of course, could not be bothered to sign a card, but would probably e-mail later in the day. Mom and Molly's cards both included wry commentary on the significance of one's fortieth birthday. The final card was from Barry Schneider, an old ex who had become a surprisingly good friend.
Sorry I can't be there to congratulate you in person, the note read, but here's a night out with a touch of class for your fortieth. Love, Barry.
Justin looked into the envelope again and found a single ticket to the New York Philharmonica's Tribute to Tchaikovsky. He smiled. Barry was always trying to interest Justin in non-visual art. Usually they compromised with shows at the Roundabout and dark jazz clubs, but the Phil? Clearly, Barry thought that the "occasion" merited something fancier.
Still chuckling, Justin moved to his computer to learn what the world required of him today. To his surprise, Brian's birthday e-mail popped up right away. A closer look at the date stamp and the typos revealed that it had been sent the night before, probably while Brian was under the influence of God only knew what. Well, Justin would simply have to save the return call for later in the day, after Brian had slept off last night's debauchery. There were the usual requests for meetings, one formal request for a speaking engagement at a college somewhere upstate, and some communiqués from the co-curator of the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective that Justin was arranging at the Davidson.
After he finished replying to his e-mail, Justin decided to check the Phil's schedule for the evening. He already had plans to have dinner and drinks with his latest flame, a sculptor by the name of Daniel Born, but it couldn't hurt to see exactly what Barry had wanted for him.
As stated on the ticket, the program tonight was a tribute to Tchaikovsky, and the splash page promised a selection of works that spanned the length of Tchaikovsky's career. Normally, Justin would not have cared about the composer one way or the other, but he had designed sets for some local ballet school's recent production of The Nutcracker the previous Christmas, and the name stuck in his mind. The first three works on the program, The Storm, the Capriccio Italien, and Mozartiana, meant nothing to him. Following the intermission, the Phil had programmed the apparently legendary D Major Violin Concerto, featuring the special guest soloist -- Justin's stomach plummeted, and his mouth went dry -- Ethan Gold of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Justin's first instinct was to grab his cell and call Barry to scold him for his tactlessness, but he thought better of it after a moment. He had never discussed Ethan with anyone after he had gotten back together with Brian the first time
Twenty-one years ago, Christ, even the memory is old enough to buy a drink
so there was no possible way that Barry could have known just what his gift would do to Justin. And, to be honest, even Justin wasn't sure. The memory of Ethan's betrayal
Half a lifetime ago, just let it slide
still stung, but the sting inevitably came accompanied by memories of passion and picnics, and secrets whispered in the dark, and all that he had wanted that Brian could not give
Maybe that twenty-one-year-old memory really needs a drink
Justin shook himself in irritation. Well. It wasn't like he could go anyway. He had plans with Daniel. He would write Barry a nice thank-you e-mail explaining that he hadn't been able to use the ticket but that he appreciated the thought, and he would go out with Daniel, eat a lovely, overpriced dinner, drink something highly alcoholic, and, with any luck, end up fucking Daniel's brains out to end his special day. No need to resurrect past loves at all, not when the present beckoned.
As birthdays went, this one was fairly pleasant. A bouquet of flowers was waiting for Justin at his studio from his assistant, who thoughtfully deflected all his calls so that Justin could have the morning to work in peace. He was working on a new series of paintings that involved minute detail work. While this had gotten easier over the years, his right hand had never completely regained its dexterity, and fine work always meant slow work. But Justin was patient, and allowed himself to sink deeply into the fine mechanics of brush and paint, and time expanded, approaching eternity.
A gaggle of colleagues from the Lichtenstein retrospective arrived before eternity did, but they brought the promise of a birthday lunch at a swank new café in Midtown, so Justin forgave them. Though it was the middle of the day, and he had more detail painting to do, Justin allowed himself to partake in the champagne toast that his co-curator offered. These were still colleagues, not yet friends, but he was pleased to discover that he enjoyed doing something social with them, and decided that he might be inclined toward more such events if the opportunity presented itself.
They adjourned from the lunch to the gallery for a brief meeting. When it was over, Justin took a few minutes to head to a park and call Brian. Amazingly enough, Brian actually remembered sending his drunken birthday e-mail, and followed it up with a few words of veiled congratulations that were, as always, exactly what Justin expected and yet not quite enough. Kinnetik was making money hand over fist, and there was probably a naughty pun in there somewhere, but both Brian and Justin let it hang unspoken in the air.
"When are you moving to New York?" Justin asked, as he always did.
"When I feel the need to," was the equally traditional reply.
"You could make so much more money here."
"I'm already making more than I know what to do with. Why give up a good thing?"
"The challenge?"
"I get plenty of challenge even in the ol' Pitts." Brian chuckled a little. "It is a global economy, Sunshine. New York isn't the center of the world. Nowhere is anymore."
"How about the boys?"
"Fresh crop at Babylon every year."
Justin snorted. "Aren't you a little --"
"Old?" He could just imagine Brian's smirk. "Don't you know what Michael said to me? I'm Brian Kinney. I'll never grow old."
"So fifty-two is the new thirty?"
There was a pause, and Justin knew he had touched a nerve. "How about you? You going out tonight?"
Justin nodded out of habit, though such a gesture was useless on the phone. "Yeah. Guy I met at a gallery opening a couple of weeks ago. We're going to do dinner and drinks."
"Fuck him good for me."
"I will."
"Time for my two-thirty with the Pasta People," Brian said, as breezily as ever. "Gotta go make the dough from selling their dough. Take care of yourself, Sunshine."
"I love you, too."
With a press of a button, the call ended. Justin sat on the park bench and allowed himself precisely two minutes of mingled joy and melancholy, then turned the phone off and went back to the studio.
He allowed himself to slip into the timelessness of his work, and was startled to discover that six o'clock had come. He was supposed to meet Daniel at six-thirty, and it would be a bitch and a half getting across town in rush hour traffic. A bit of hasty cleanup, a comb dragged through hair that was mostly still blond, sport coat grabbed from its hook, and Justin was out the door. As he waited on the corner for the traffic light to change, his phone beeped at him to indicate that he had a new message. The number was unfamiliar at first, but then Justin remembered that it was Daniel's.
"Hi Justin," came Daniel's recorded voice. "It's me. Listen, I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to take a miss on tonight. I am so sorry to have to miss your birthday, and I was really looking forward to that club you were telling me about, but I just got the news that my mother is sick. I'm taking the next plane out of LaGuardia to go be with her. I will call you the moment I have news, and I swear I will take you out the moment I get back, but tonight is a no go. Really sorry."
Well, shit. As excuses went, "I-have-a-sick-parent" was getting more believable as Justin and his friends waded through middle age, but still. It was only his goddamn birthday, and Daniel had only been (if Justin was being honest with himself) the big birthday present that Justin had been looking forward to giving himself. In one fell swoop, his evening was gone, and nothing to do but go home and heat up leftover jambalaya or something. Justin turned around and headed for the subway station, consoling himself with the thought that jambalaya was always better on the second day.
Back in his apartment, he dragged out a pot from the cabinet from under the sink, and poured himself a glass of wine. As he did so, his eye fell on the stack of birthday mail. Sitting on top was the envelope from Barry that contained the single concert ticket. In the morning, Justin had pushed it from his mind with thoughts of Daniel, but now . . .
The concert was at eight. If he skipped the jambalaya and just ate a quick sandwich, he could be at Lincoln Center just in time for curtain. What the hell? It wasn't like anything was going to happen. Ethan would be just as forty-years-old as Justin, and probably not nearly so magnetic as he had been to a love-starved nineteen-year-old. What could it hurt? And then he could write Barry and say that he had actually used the ticket.
Moving as if in a dream, Justin put the pot away and reached for bread, peanut butter, and jelly. There was just enough time left to change from studio clothes into nice pants and a dress shirt. He skipped the tie, and was out the door just in time to catch the train.
