3. Andante

Justin nursed his latte and a soggy bear claw for a little over an hour. At last, a car pulled up in front of the Buckingham, and Ethan got out, carrying a violin in a case in one hand and a small, neat briefcase in another. He exchanged a few words with the driver, then entered the hotel as the car pulled away.

Justin forced himself to wait another fifteen minutes, flipping through the program one last time before carefully folding it and placing it in his coat pocket. He left a generous tip for the barista, tossed the remains of the inedible bear claw in the trash, and loped across the street. The trick to this sort of thing, as Brian had taught him, was to show no fear. Simply walk into a place and own it, as though you have every right to be there, and doors will open, as if by magic. Justin straightened his coat, took a deep breath, and pushed breezily through the glass-paneled door into the elegant lobby of the Buckingham Hotel.

He ignored the tasteful, quietly expensive decorations and strode directly over to the flatteringly lit reception desk. A young woman in a polyester blazer turned to him.

"May I help you, sir?" she asked.

Justin gave her his friendliest smile. "Yes, please. I heard that an old friend of mine is in town, and I'd like his room number."

The young woman hesitated for a moment. "What is the name of the guest you are trying to reach, sir?"

"That would be a Mr. Ethan Gold. He was playing a concert at Lincoln Center."

The receptionist gave him a little bit of a fish-eye, but her voice remained polite and professional. "I'm sorry, sir, we do not give out the room numbers of our guests. However, I can call up to Mr. Gold's room if you'd like."

"Please do. Tell him an old friend is here to see him."

She picked up an in-house telephone. "May I have your name, sir?"

"Justin Taylor."

She nodded her thanks, and pressed a few buttons on her switchboard. After a moment, she spoke. "Good evening, Mr. Gold, this is Reception. I have a gentleman downstairs, a Mr. Justin Taylor, who claims that he is an old friend of yours?" She paused to listen to the reply, then nodded. "I see. Thank you, sir. I'll tell him . . . and thank you, too."

She hung up the phone and turned to Justin with a look of disapproving surprise. "Mr. Gold will see you, Mr. Taylor," she said. She was too discreet to mention the room number out loud, but wrote it down on the back of one of the hotel's business cards. Justin gave her another broad smile for thanks, and headed for the elevator.

The Buckingham is not an especially large hotel, and it did not take Justin long to find the correct room. He took a moment outside the door to compose himself. Now that he was here, he realized that he had no idea what to say to Ethan. He wasn't even completely sure what he wanted from the encounter. All he knew was that he had to see Ethan again, to face the first boy who had ever betrayed him. Well, maybe Ethan would be so kind as to start the conversation. After all, he had been warned that Justin was coming. Justin squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and knocked on the door.

He heard footsteps, and the sound of a lock being flipped, and then the door opened, and Ethan stood there in his dress pants and shirt sleeves, rumpled, wary . . . and still heartbreakingly beautiful, even at forty years old. Justin's fears about not knowing what to say melted as hurt, angry words tumbled from his mouth.

"Why didn't you acknowledge me at the reception?"

Ethan closed his eyes briefly. "Justin, I --"

"I know you recognized me! I saw it in your face. Don't try to deny it!"

"Will you come in already?" Ethan snapped, and then his voice softened. "Come in, sit down, and have a drink. We can discuss this like adults."

Much as Justin hated to admit it, Ethan was right. He reluctantly allowed himself to be led into the hotel room. The place was cheerful, the decor managing to be both tasteful and a little bit funky at the same time. Two violin cases lay on a small glass table, and Ethan's briefcase full of sheet music sat open on the desk. Ethan ushered Justin to a small couch. "Have a seat."

"Thanks." Justin sat down and appreciated the cushions, just soft enough to be comfortable. "This is a nice place."

Ethan nodded. "I always stay here whenever I'm in New York. How about a drink? Red wine okay? There's a few bottles of a nice bordeaux in here, I think." Justin nodded, and Ethan disappeared to -- was that an actual kitchenette? Justin revised his inner estimation of the Buckingham up a notch.

Ethan clattered around, and Justin recalled what he had said a moment earlier. "Whenever you're in New York? How often do you come?"

"About once a year, doing different things."

"Why didn't I ever see you before?"

Ethan returned from the kitchen with two glasses of wine. He gave one to Justin, then sat down in an armchair across from him. "Mostly I'm here on business, and I don't have time to look up old lovers. Besides, we did break up rather unpleasantly, what, twenty years ago? It would never have occurred to me that you'd want to see me. Clearly, I was wrong, but . . . " he finished the sentence with a vague wave of his wineglass in Justin's general direction.

"So this is just the place where you take adoring Juilliard students to fuck?" It was a cruel thing to say, but Justin found that he was in a vindictive mood tonight.

Ethan gave a wry smile. "You know, up until a couple of years ago, I would have said yes. Then I got invited to give a master class, and all of a sudden, I just . . . can't. They all look like my students to me now, and I can't fuck my students. I just can't."

"Well, at least you've learned some restraint."

"Justin, don't. I don't have the energy for it." Ethan leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't invite you in to the reception. It wasn't a pleasure party. It was essentially a business meeting, full of managers and orchestra directors and recording executives. The classical music industry is in dire straits, as it has been for a hundred years, ever since wax cylinders gave way to 78s. New, exciting works and faces are needed. That sort of thing. It wasn't the time or the place for you."

Justin had to admit that Ethan had a point. Crashing the reception had been a foolish idea. He took a sip of wine and said nothing. The silence between them began to stretch out.

"You left PIFA," Justin said, when the silence began to grow awkward. "I didn't see you around campus much after we broke up."

Ethan shrugged. "I transferred," he said. "That year was pretty tough for me, for a number of different reasons. You were part of it, but there was other stuff, too. There was the Heifetz competition, that slimeball recording guy, the program in Harrisburg . . . and I was also slowly realizing that PIFA was not a good school for me. Their music department is pretty second-rate, and I realized that I'd gone as far as I could with the best violin teacher there. So I auditioned for the New England Conservatory, got in, and got my degree there. How about you?"

Justin gave a wry smile. "I dropped out. Political reasons."

"I bet Brian Kinney was behind it."

"You could say that."

"I knew it." Ethan grinned. "Well, it doesn't seem to have hurt you much. You look like you've done pretty well even without them."

"I have."

Another awkward silence fell. Justin rose from the couch and went to look at the violin cases. Neither one was particularly new, but he thought he recognized a little heart that he had scratched on one with a pin, almost invisible now. "You've still got Misha."

"Yup." Ethan came over and flipped the case open. The violin gleamed the color of whiskey, cradled in blue velvet. Ethan ran one finger gently over its curves. "I use Misha mostly for practice and for playing with my quartet."

"Right. The Fiddlers on the Roof." At Ethan's startled look, Justin laughed. "I read your bio in the program while I was waiting for you. Five times."

"Ah." A smile curled at Ethan's lips. "We promote works by Jewish composers, and we usually have a big event for Yom Hashoah. Zayde would have loved it." For a moment, his face melted into softness at the memory of his grandfather, then he shook it off. "Anyway, the other one is an endowed Stradivarius. I use it when I'm performing with the Symphony and when I'm doing big-ticket events like this one. I've also got an unaltered Strad that I use with the chamber group."

Justin nodded, impressed in spite of himself. "You've done pretty well for yourself," he admitted.

"I have." Ethan snapped Misha's case shut. "You know, I have a feeling that the conversation we are about to have is going to require far more than a single bottle of bordeaux. I don't like to eat before I perform, and the hors d'oeuvres at the reception were abominable. I am going to order a pizza. Care to partake?"

"Sure." At Justin's age, it would mean a longer session on the treadmill the next day, but it didn't seem right to refuse. He retreated to the couch and waited while Ethan ordered a large mushroom and pepper pizza.

Forty minutes later, the elegant hotel room smelled deliciously of cheap pizza, and the conversation had become much more animated, lubricated by melted cheese and rich bordeaux. They had each described the paths of their lives over the past twenty-one years, and the stories had not been dissimilar. Both men had struggled at first, taking odd jobs to supplement their incomes. Lovers had come and gone, and they had become established in their professions, earning the respect of critics and colleagues alike. Now they were both beginning to accept the administrative tasks that the art world entrusts to those it respects the most.

Ethan described the tours and educational work that he did with both Fiddlers on the Roof and his chamber ensemble, a group called Cecilia that performed on historically accurate instruments for audiences of schoolchildren. In return, Justin talked about the exhibits he had curated, including the Lichtenstein, and described some of his plans to open a gallery of his own. They chatted comfortably around mouthfuls of pizza, and for a golden while, it was as though there had never been discord between them, and Justin could almost imagine that they had parted amicably and been friends ever since.

He took a swallow of wine. "Ethan," he said, ignoring the buzz in his head that warned that this was not the best question to ask at that moment, "you've done so well for yourself. But is there anything that didn't happen? Anything that . . . that you regret, that you'll never have a chance to do again?"

Ethan paused in the middle of biting off a piece of pizza. Cheese strands hung in the air between his mouth and the slice, and he twirled them delicately around one finger. With an air of sober deliberation, he chewed and swallowed, set his pizza slice down, took a sip of wine, and wiped his hands on a paper napkin before he spoke.

"Yes," he said. "Of course I have regrets. You don't get to be our age without regrets, Justin."

"What do you regret?"

Ethan stared at the half-eaten pizza in the box. He appeared to be considering the question seriously. Justin let him take his time, already wondering if the question had been foolish.

When Ethan made his decision, he looked up, but his eyes were still turned inward. "My biggest regret in life," he said, slowly and distinctly, "is that I never had the opportunity to perform with Daniel Barenboim. Our paths never quite managed to cross, and then he died a couple of years ago. That's what I regret the most."

Oh. Of course. The news shouldn't have come as quite so much of a blow to Justin, but he attributed it to the wine he had drunk. Something like that would be important to Ethan, who loved nothing and no one more than his music. It was completely foolish to expect that Ethan would ever regret anything so personal as a long-ago lover, but still, Justin could not help the hollow feeling that seemed to grow inside him, pushing aside the desire for any more pizza.