Chapter Thirteen

Jack was surrounded by music.

He and Meg had season tickets to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and they had box seats hanging over the stage, and Meg was in a pretty dress, long lines and bare shoulders. He’d taken off the clothes he’d bought this afternoon and armed himself in one of his nondescript suits, the customary polka-dotted bow tie snug at his neck. He remembered a pale hand, collaring him.

As they dressed for the symphony, Meg still teased him about his clothes, and if there was a little sadness in the routine—a little heaviness between her eyebrows—it was just a part of this new life. Some necessary stage between the past and the future. An intermission.

Tonight was the Piano Concerto No. 5, E flat major, Beethoven. He could almost feel the pianist’s fingers as they made precise love to the keys. The conductor was energetic, dynamic, and the violinists’ arms were cutting through the air, tight, practiced. These seats invited them into the overwhelming frenzy, into the lulling sweetness, and he was a part of it, experiencing an auditory climax. He thought about the DJs at Danny’s, the way they had woven in all of those electric sounds like some elaborate approximation of fucking.

Meg moved her hand on the chair to grasp his. She pulled it back, frowning. Set her shoulders, offered it again. He wrapped his large fingers around her own. It did feel like friendship, and nothing more.

How long had that been the case?

Forever, the music sang out. For all of time.

He couldn’t help but lose himself and his control in the music, sucked into it and thrumming, and he imagined being here with Theo instead, his impeccable clothes, his soft hair. Sneaking over dirty looks. A life he’d been so scared of. Cocktails in the lounge, all of those experiences between them, taking their youth in the clubs forward into this, adulthood, music to enjoy which hurt in a new way.

Sliding a hand up his lithe leg. Wondering how much they could get away with, here, on display.

He felt a thin sweat on his hand now, and gave Meg a squeeze before he let go. She closed her eyes, surrendering. Such a world he had built.

He knew other people in other box seats, faces he’d smiled at, names he’d made himself remember, important people whose money he managed. He and Meg had dined with them, charity dinners, and danced; they were married within the scope of a society he didn’t, after all, want to be in. They looked good. They loved each other.