Gavin was the other. At the very first opportunity, just when the Forsyth Trio was getting recognition and high praise, Gavin left them to take a seat with the orchestra of the Sydney Opera House. It was rotten timing when he left. They’d gotten a great review in the New York Times from Alex Ross, who noted their “distinct sound” and “unparalleled vigor,” saying they were this generation’s Beaux Arts Trio and calling Gavin an artist “of precision and exuberance.” But in spite of the accolades, Gavin would insist on fishing for compliments from Will, even though reviewers usually highlighted him as the star of the trio. Gavin put on an act of being insecure even though he knew perfectly well he had no reason to be, and Will found the charade wearing and pointless. Good riddance, Will had thought when Gavin announced he was leaving.
Their new violinist was a star; Will hoped Caroline’s personality was nothing like Gavin’s.
* * *
Jisoo had reached the end of the piece.
“Well done,” he said. “Really, really nice. Remember: don’t accent the grace note, but rather the quarter note that follows.” He gave her homework for the following week.
“Is the room free for the next hour?” she asked.
“Keep on playing until somebody kicks you out,” said Will. “Hey, we should put that on a bumper sticker.” He turned to leave. “Jisoo,” he said, stepping back in the room, “are you good with computers?”
She looked up. “Sure, I guess.”
“Do you know anything about doing websites?”
“Oh,” she said, “no, I’m not good like that.”
“Yeah, me neither,” he said.
“But I’m friends with a guy who’s super smart. You want me to text him?”
“Who is he?”
“A sophomore in the engineering school at NYU. He’s very techy.”
College kids were usually cheap and brilliant. “Interesting,” said Will.
She was already texting at lightning speed. “I shared your number.”
“My trio has this website, but it’s a little—”
“Brendan answered,” she said. “He says do you need a new website or an update?”
“I need it updated. Or improved. I don’t know exactly.” The whole transaction was moving a little faster than Will was ready for. “Wouldn’t hurt to talk to him, I guess, right?”
She was still texting. “Brendan says he’ll do it. He’s at work right now, but he’ll contact you later.”
“Thanks,” he said, feeling excited about taking a positive step and advancing the trio’s next chapter. “A new website would be terrific.”
He left to the sound of Jisoo practicing scales.
* * *
After a quick trip to pick up Mitzy’s groceries and a few things for himself, he walked down his beautiful tree-lined street toward home, stopping dead in his tracks when he looked up: there beside the cracked sidewalk—directly in front of his beloved building—was a large sign with the words For Sale.
3
Gavin was somehow lost.
It was hard to get turned around in New York City, what with the grid and all, but there was an area around Astor Place, where Lafayette turned into Fourth and Bowery turned into Third and then Third and Fourth went off in different directions instead of staying parallel like all the other avenues in the city, where he always got confused.
Getting lost in Manhattan reminded him of the joke the seniors told him when he first got to Juilliard from a middle-class suburb in Maryland: A lost tourist asks a New Yorker, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The New Yorker says, “Practice!”
Gavin would not ask for directions. Tourists ask for directions, and he was not a tourist. New York had once been his home.
He kept walking south, knowing he could take a right on Great Jones (or what might be called 3rd Street, depending on where he was) and end up at Washington Square Park.
Returning to New York City was a mixed bag every time. Gavin rarely had the time to visit his favorite old haunts (the deli on 93rd above which he’d lived or the café on Columbus where he’d learned to like coffee), but he also managed to stumble across places that held not-so-great memories. Even today, he happened to pass a street corner where he’d tried to make out with a girl who’d turned him down with the old I just want to be friends line; he’d pretended like he didn’t care. And now he spotted a club where he’d been the only one in a group of guys to get carded, and the bouncer had made him leave. Standing on the sidewalk outside that very place, which was now a pop-up clothing and jewelry market, he could still feel the bitterness and embarrassment. Gavin had been only sixteen when he’d started conservatory, and he’d frequently felt like he was playing catch-up to the other students. He had been inexperienced and naive but tried to play it cool. Kind of like he was doing now, pretending he knew where he was going when he didn’t, acting like his shoelace hadn’t untied when it had.
On this trip Gavin made an intentional decision to have lunch at a pizza dive in the Village. A college student he once knew—an attractive soprano who was kind enough to let him lose his virginity to her the summer after he graduated from college—had worked there, back in the day when it was called Rico’s, and she gave him a free slice whenever he came by to say hello. The place had changed since then, unsurprisingly, and Gavin had to decide if he wanted to eat there now that the space housed a Sweetgreen, a restaurant he could go to anytime in LA. Disappointed, he went in anyway and ordered the kale Caesar and a chai tea and took his lunch outside to a table on the sidewalk.
He liked New York, but he wasn’t sorry that he’d left. His life in LA suited him better in every way. Still, this was the place where he’d grown up, where he’d begun the long, painful process of figuring out who he was and who he wasn’t.
A woman walked by his table and then stopped abruptly, slowly turning around. “Gavin? Gavin Glantz.”
He looked up from his salad, his other hand on the brim of his plain, navy blue baseball cap. “Miriam,” he said, putting down his fork and getting to his feet. He kissed her cheek. “Good to see you. What are you doing here?”
“Having a ball,” she said. “I’m an empty nester now, so my life is my own again. I came to see a show, do a little shopping. And now I’ve had my first celebrity sighting of the day. Are you performing?”
“Tonight, yes.” He didn’t want to show off, but she was waiting for details. “It’s just a thing at Lincoln Center. Is Nicholas here with you?”
“God, no,” she said, giving her hair a shake and lifting her shoulders so that her shopping bags were raised in the air. “Haven’t you heard? We called it a day.”
“What, really? I’m sorry to hear that.” He motioned for her to sit. “After how many years?”
“Twenty-nine.” Miriam put her bags on one chair and sat across from him. “I finally got the hell out of England and bought a small house in Westchester. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to be living back in the States.”