Reckoning with Change
The apartment was quiet, but I knew he was there. Even from way down the hall, I could feel his presence. And something else—perhaps how he smelled, young and vital, or the echoes of his daily vocal practice and precise speech. Drew’s essence filled this place already, although we hadn’t lived here long.
I closed the door silently and paused again to listen, not wanting to disturb the air. I set my bags down, slowly without a sound, hung up my coat, and took off my shoes. I tiptoed past David’s bedroom, but our roommate's door was open, a sure sign he was, in fact, not home. I slipped on back to the smaller bedroom Drew and I shared, and got undressed as quietly as I could, leaving my clothes draped over the office chair pushed up against the desk under the elevated bed platform.
I felt shy about my return home from the theater so late. (What had I been to see, alone, without Drew?) I wanted to protect his sleep, since I knew he would be up early to do his vocal preparation and get packed. Where was he headed? Some obscure college in Pennsylvania or upstate New York where he was getting the chance to be the guest soloist. Of what? One more Messiah? Some little-known baroque aria that he or the conductor had unearthed? A gig with an early music ensemble? Wherever it was, I wasn't going with him this time.
Did he no longer want me tagging along, or did I decide that being only a companion and cheerleader for him without any official artistic role was no longer enough for me? Probably some of both.
I climbed up into the loft carefully, slowly. We had built this ladder ourselves and it creaked unmercifully at each rung. He gave a soft sigh as he rolled over and gave me space to slide in beside him, then rolled back against me and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close. My favorite position for sleeping. But sleep didn’t come right away. My mind drifted back to the awkward conversation we’d had at dinner a month ago, right after we both got back from St. Louis.
I’d flown out to be with Drew during the final rehearsals and for the opening night of a period production of Handel’s opera, Orlando, with Drew singing the title role. We’d gone over each rehearsal in detail, and I’d given Drew not only my take on what I’d heard—strong places and strained passages, problems with balance with the orchestra, ragged tempos—but also copious notes on his costume, the staging, and his highly stylized gestures. I loved being his assistant, and fancied myself a “special assistant director for the star”. After the well-received performances with their many standing ovations for the cast and orchestra, I’d flown home alone the next day so Drew could finish the run on his own.
By the time Drew got home a week later, the review in The New Yorker had come out. Andrew Porter, the well-known opera reviewer, had, by chance, been there that week at Washington University to give some other lectures, and had attended the opening night of Orlando. Mr. Porter was not only impressed by the authenticity to Baroque style of the whole production and the precision and liveliness of the orchestra and singers, but also by the young countertenor in the lead role. He lauded Drew’s stage presence and command of his vocal instrument and especially his understanding of the musical nuances of the genre and period.
“This is great.” I said after I read the review. I glowed with pride. How could I not be proud of him? His success was our success. It didn’t occur to me that conflating our emotional states would be a bad idea in the long run.
Every day at the piano, every day on the floor with his diaphragm exercises, he’d worked hard honing his placement—the delicate alignment of vocal folds, larynx muscles, head angle, mouth shape—the bright smile behind his eyes—the concentration of all his joy, passion, exactitude on a thin thread in the middle of his throat, pulled taught. Pushing the edge, or rather insistent that the top notes not sound edgy, and that the young boy’s ringing soprano could still be heard in the adult’s contralto, a contralto that he now blended into his baritone for speaking. So when he went into a long, apologetic explanation about how he needed to strike out on his own, the power of his vocal precision cut through me with perfect pitch.
“I don't mean to hurt you, Roger. I'm not cutting myself out of your life. I just need to follow the path that's mine—the one I've trained for all these years. Your work is great, but it isn’t my work.”
An inner urgency, he said, and now this golden review, were propelling him into the career he was destined for. He saw the look in my eyes, my effort to hold back tears. He stiffened against my slide into an emotional swamp, then fought to hold onto his forward charge, his joy in claiming his own future. He must, he said, extricate himself from my work. It's not that he didn't love me, or my creative process. It's not that he shied away from the hard work of structuring beauty out of our little group’s graceless vocal improvisations. He assured me over and over he would continue as musical director for my dance-theater company. But he just couldn't put all his creative energy in that direction any more.
We’d finished dinner that night in a strained silence. My body was tense, my jaw set. I couldn’t make eye contact. I cleared the table and set about washing the dishes, hating the bars on the window behind the sink, bars that were proving inadequate to hold our shared life together.