The Buffalo Symphony played Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto Number 2, Mozart's Symphony Number 40, and the Suite Espanola by Isaac Albeniz. Duane read the program and tried to understand the symphony. He wondered if Sarah would fall asleep, like Valerie did when he had brought her and Yvonne to the symphony once before. Yvonne had listened, her musical abilities and cultivation apparently enough to keep her interested in this variation. Valerie, however, had laid her head on his shoulder and fallen asleep.

Sarah linked her arm through his and leaned her head against his shoulder in the darkness. But she did not go to sleep. She didn't yawn. Maybe she really did understand classical music. Maybe she really wasn't bored.

When the lights turned up, she stood up, and as they walked out, she didn't take his hand. He realized she let him decide whether he'd look like her date in public.

There was a bit of a crowd bottlenecked at the door getting out. "Hey, Duane," he turned as he heard a voice call his name.

A few feet away, he saw Frederick "Rick" Friel, who he had gone to college with. Rick had been in his wedding and he had been in Rick's. They had seen each other sporadically only over the past ten years or so, however.

"Hi, Rick," he said.

He stopped a little, to let Rick catch up to him.

"This is my daughter Amy," Rick said, indicating a teen aged girl who was with him. "I dragged her here to get some decent music into her head."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Dad, it was great. Like so cool. All the kids at school are jealous."

"You'll thank me some day," Rick said to her, laughing.

"I like the cymbals," Amy said. "They made a lot of noise."

"If you like noise, my daughter Yvonne has a rock band you'll really like," Duane grinned at her.

"Oh, yeah, how's that band going?" Rick said.

"It's going. Loudly."

Rick patted him on the shoulder. He noticed Sarah. "Hey, is this Valerie?" Rick asked Duane.

"No," Duane said.

"Sarah Webber," Sarah introduced herself. "Nice to meet you." She shook Rick's hand.

"Oh, sorry," Rick said. "I haven't seen Valerie in years. Obviously."

At the most expensive restaurant in Buffalo, where you didn't order but just accepted what the chef wanted to create, Sarah poured herself a glass of wine.

"Someday I'm going to drive, so you drink instead," she said. "Or I'll hire a limo. You're the one that needs loosening up."

"Yes," he said. "It is interesting to watch you do the most mundane things. Your hands are so sure. It's like that wine could never spill."

"Thank you."

"You'd have made a good physical therapist, with those hands."

"I'll be your physical therapist," she said, smiling as she put the bottle down.

"Stop," he said.

She just laughed at him.

"You brought your troubles on yourself, Duane," she said. "If you'd just let me take your arm, or hold my hand, your friend would have known I was your date."

"Yes," he said. "I guess you're right." Duane thought Rick had looked shocked. But if he hadn't been so shy about it, Rick would have just looked that way when he'd first seen them, but wouldn't have made the guess that she was Valerie.

"And he had daughters on the brain, because he dragged his own little brat there to improve her mind," Sarah added.

"Yes," Duane said. That was, in fact, very true. Maybe the shock had just been from Rick's own preconceived idea not being the case. Maybe it wasn't shock, but just surprise.

Sarah had a knack for getting him to feel better. It was clever, he felt, of her, to call Amy a "little brat." It emphasized that she was much older than Amy. Really, he thought, Sarah would have been a brilliant lawyer.

"Wonder why he didn't bring his wife?" Sarah was saying.

"He's a widower."

"Oh, that's too bad. She must have been young. What happened?"

"Cancer. Breast cancer."

"Oh, my," Sarah said. "It's a killer. I may end up doing surgery for that."

"You'll be good at it."

She took his hand. "OK?" she asked. "It's a rather secluded place and you don't know anyone here."

"OK," he said. "You're right, anyway."

"It's OK."

"Sometimes it actually feels like you are more mature than I am."

"Men are always babies," she grinned. "No matter how long they live."

"Yeah, right," he said. "Is your father one?"

"Sometimes," she said. "When he gets sick, even though he's a doctor, he's the biggest pain in the neck you ever saw."

"OK, I'll take that excuse for now."

"You don't need one - it doesn't matter how old I am. You'd still have your trust issues. If your wife can leave you for another man after twenty plus years of marriage, no one expects you to trust a new woman, if she's your age, your sign, your nationality, or different."

"You're smarter than I am too," he said. "You just said in five seconds what I should have figured out over the last year."

"Men don't think," she said.

"Onto your male bashing again, eh? We'll see about that. But see, those are bad issues. Maybe they shouldn't be visited on someone as young as yourself."

"I can handle anything," she declared. "If they're your issues. Some guy my age would have his own. Take your time," she said, again. "You may be ready to be seen with me in Port Charles some day."

"That's a good - test. Some things, a person should maybe jump into before they are ready, a little before, or they never are."

"You know something?" she said, her eyes narrowing as she moved her hands moved across his, "The lust I had for you? It just doubled."

"Oh, come on."

"You - never mind. Rachmaninoff's piano concerto has some very haunting melodies, doesn't it?"

"Yes. It really sounds that way to one used to hearing the Dissenters."

"Yvonne's band? No haunting melodies?"

He laughed. "None."

"I like the original of the G minor symphony. Mozart originally wrote it with no clarinets."

"You got that from the program."

"I can read, can't I?"

"Well, that you even tried - I'm sure Amy Friel didn't read it."

She laughed.

"Neither did Valerie, whenever I've taken her. She just goes to sleep. Yvonne listens, but she wouldn't read the program. Only decide for herself."

"Does Yvonne like the cymbals, because they make a lot of noise?"

"Probably."

"Do you really like Yvonne's music?"

"Not always. I'm not sure if that band's music is what I would choose. I just support it unconditionally."

"That's understandable."

"She doesn't listen to my opinion, anyway."

"Are you sure? Maybe she takes it into account."

"I guess she might. We raised her to think for herself."

"That's good. Are they close, Valerie and Yvonne?"

"I like to think so. I'm not sure."

"You think they would be freaked out if they knew you were dating a woman almost their age?"

"No. Valerie thinks it's just fine," he said. Sarah smiled, pleased he had already apparently been talking of her with one of his daughters. "Yvonne would be - she'd be - intrigued, might be the best way to describe it."

"My sister, who is married to a psychiatrist, has always been, unfortunately, compared to me. So we're not always close."

"Maybe he can get her mind straightened out."

Sarah laughed. "He's done wonders, actually. So maybe there is hope. I think it's that she feels left out, because she's different, and my parents didn't always do a good job of making her feel like she was equal and just different. Her grades were always average or poor and she always had to hear about how mine were good."

"So she's an artist, you said? She didn't need good grades. Yvonne doesn't. It might be a liability. Yvonne has two songs about teachers that would - well, artistic types don't need good grades."

"That's a good point, I'll tell Elizabeth that sometime. Or get someone else to tell her, because she doesn't take anything well from me. And Yvonne sounds interesting."

"Hang out with me too long and you could end up finding yourself in a song."

"Really? Are there songs that you're in?"

"Some lines sometimes either refer to me or mean Yvonne turned out to think a lot like me."

"Oh, man, does that sound interesting. Rachmaninoff pales."

"They're your ears," he said, laughing.

Taryn and Toby were walking through the park.

She had such a terrible week. She couldn't tell him anything.

She wished she were with Clay. Then she could talk about what was bothering her.

But Toby couldn't know of it.

Later, they were in bed, but when they were done, Toby didn't say much. He just lay there with an arm around her.

Taryn's mind wandered. Toby was always kind of thoughtful. He seemed to be aware of her, and asked her things. Clay was less so. He was somehow more selfish - sometimes it was as if she could be anyone. He just did things without talking to her. But the strange thing was, that it was more exciting with Clay. More orgasms, too.

Weird. What did this mean?

So long as she was comparing, she tried to remember Jeremy. But it was a blur. He just wasn't good in bed, Taryn thought, smugly. That's why he was dating Branwyn, who had probably zero experience. He'd always do that, she thought. So they'd never know what a dud he was.

"What are you thinking about?" Toby asked her.

There was no way she could answer that truthfully. In fact, what could she be thinking about that wasn't something she just couldn't tell him? Him.

"You," she said.

"How nice," he said.

"And how nice it is to just be here with you. Not having to think about anything."

"What could you have to think about that's bad?"

"School. Grades. Mom and Dad getting a divorce. Dad going off with a bimbo. My injury, flaring up. Yours ever bother you?"