A Tender Thing

by Emily Neuberger

  Until they cast everyone else, Eleanor would rehearse privately with Don in his apartment. Her salary was small—she was, after all, an unknown—but it was more money than she’d ever seen and enough that she could live on her own. Because she could not open a bank account without a male relative, she had to cash every check and hide the money in a drawer. She parceled out a percentage right away and put it in an envelope addressed to her parents. With luck, she could repay the cost of the bonds in six months.

  After the bank, she brought an African violet to Mr. Rabinowitz and broke her news. He kissed her cheek and wished her luck, and she left feeling like a girl in a fairy tale, adored by the townspeople and chosen by the prince.

  Maggie took the news with grace. She even gifted Eleanor a pair of her expensive character shoes that she’d bought in the wrong size. She had expected that Maggie would feel the same rivalry, but she seemed happy for Eleanor. “Every actress dreams of originating a role,” she said. “Good for you.”

  Tommy helped her move into her new apartment, a walkup with a tiny living room and galley kitchen, and a bedroom with a fire escape that she stocked with a tomato plant. He carried her suitcases up the stairs and went with her to buy a bed and dresser, assembling them for her. That night, she finally let him touch her breasts and was surprised again at his fervor, how the moment he touched her skin he lost himself. He bent down and used his mouth, and rather than dying of embarrassment, she began to lose herself, too.

  He slept over that night, which more than anything else made her feel homesick. It was yet another thing she never could have done at home—even Rosie had gone to second base in a boy’s car—and when Eleanor woke up with a man’s hairy leg against her own, she nearly cried. But then he pulled her to him, so they were slotted like spoons, and even with the stiffness of him against her backside she relaxed.

  * * *

  Don already had company when she arrived for her first rehearsal. The doorman let her in, and she heard music coming from the studio. A man was singing. Eleanor waited outside the door, afraid to interrupt and not wanting to stop the sound. His voice was a warm and rich tenor, deep in tone but high in range. Her favorite kind of voice.

  He had a very slight rasp, like she did. She knew that their voices would blend. He must have been playing Luke. He sang with joy, though the song was sad. She could hear that he felt about singing the same way she did. His soul was happiest when he sang.

  When the song ended, she became nervous. She had never had an extended interaction with a black man before but was about to meet a man she would have to kiss in public. Eleanor had kissed exactly three boys before, including Tommy. The other two were wet, nervous memories she wanted to leave in Wisconsin. What on earth would she say to this man? How soon would they have to kiss? She brought her hand up to knock twice before she could give it more thought.

  “That you, Eleanor? Come in.”

  Don was already focused on the music. He was making a note in pencil and barely turned to acknowledge her. “Welcome.”

  The man at the piano was tall and thin. Unlike Don’s steely focus, this man had an easiness to him. He was relaxed in his body, one hand on the music stand, turning to a new piece. He had something of Tommy’s approachability, the same tendency to grin.

  “Nice to meet you, Eleanor.” He held out a hand. “I’m Charles Lawrence.”

  “I am.” Damn. “I mean, yes, I’m Eleanor. Pleasure to meet you.” A thousand thoughts ran through her head, the loudest being that she was shaking the hand of this man whom she would later kiss, and no one was acting like this was strange. What would her parents say if they saw her kissing a Negro? Would they think she was a slut, up onstage kissing a man they wouldn’t even speak to?

  But what did her farmer parents know, anyway? She was a New Yorker now; she would learn to be more modern. “You must be playing Luke?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I hear you’re fresh off the farm.”

  “This is my first show.”

  He whistled. “You must be quite a protégée.”

  “Have you worked with Don before?” Eleanor was unsure whether to use his first name.

  “I snapped him up years ago,” Don said, smiling at Charles with a warmth she hadn’t seen before. She wondered what it would take for him to look at her that way. “When he was seventeen, I put him in the ensemble of Candy Apple. Quite a voice on this young man. I’ve wanted to do something with it for a decade. The moment I saw him, I thought: Romantic lead.”

  “You’re making me blush.” Charles grinned, his humility true but not self-deprecating. “I didn’t think theater was for me, but Don followed me around for a month until I agreed.”

  Whereas Eleanor had followed Don. But looking at Charles, she could see why the situation was reversed. His energy was physical and grounded, magnetic. Eleanor knew immediately he would shine onstage; he had an engagement with his body that great performers had, a physical presence that transmitted emotion with every gesture. An everyman quality, rendering his expressions relatable and accessible, while still handsome. In a thought that embarrassed her, Eleanor noted that he seemed very at ease for a Negro with two white people. She was not similarly at ease.

  “Have you always lived in New York?” she asked.

  “I grew up in Harlem.”

  She noticed a thin band on his finger.

  “Do you like it there?”

  He nodded. “And my wife loves it, and I’m always happier when I’m in good graces with the lady.” He smiled in a way that suggested she should be in on the joke.

  He was bright and brilliant, and Eleanor fought to imagine what woman could be confident enough to be married to him.

  Don nodded at a music stand in the corner. Eleanor retrieved it and took the sheet music from his outstretched hand.

  “Stand there,” Don said, pointing in front of the piano, “where I can see you both. Angle your stands together. Yes. I want you to get used to singing to each other.”

  Don dropped music in front of her, a song called “With You.”

  “This is their meeting song,” Don said, “as well as the finale. It’s about the magic of fitting together, finding each other, and then, at the end, it becomes a song of triumph when they run away.”

  Eleanor scanned the melody. Charles sang his verse first, and hers was a repeat. It was a bright, happy piece; it sonified the effervescence of falling in love. She had never sung a proper duet before. Don had to stop her multiple times for singing too loud.

  “You’re the woman,” he said, slapping his hand on the piano. “Your voice is higher, it carries naturally. Don’t force it or you’ll swallow him up.”

  When they switched to “Morning ’Til Night,” he stopped halfway through the chorus and didn’t say anything at all.

  “What did I do?”

  “You breathed in the middle of a phrase,” Charles said. His words held no condescension. “The line will sound better if you go all the way through ‘Night ’til morning / Morning ’til night’ without a breath.”

  “Right.”

  “You’ll get a feel for it.”

  He was treating her like they were already friends. Somehow this made her more nervous. Was he offended that she was not doing the same? “Thank you.”

  She learned many things in that rehearsal. Some were musical facts, which she noted on the page, thankful that for all her inexperience, she knew how to read and notate music. But most were about Charles and Don. Her greenness was more evident next to Charles, who could apply corrections the first time. Don did not like to repeat himself, and when she made the breathing mistake twice, he raised his voice, asking if she needed her hearing checked. She marked the music with a shaking hand, writing in all caps not to breathe, hoping to frighten her future self out of messing up. Charles was also more comfortable acting than she was. When they sang together, he loo
ked at her like Luke would look at Molly—lovingly, fearful of the power of their connection and all that it meant. He engaged all of his body and mind, unafraid of looking stupid or doing it wrong. Despite how much Eleanor wanted to be good at this, she was terrified, and felt the vestiges of reality tugging at her when she tried to get into character.

  By five o’clock, she was exhausted and had been taught so much that her head felt heavy.

  “Are you hungry?” Don asked when they were done.

  “Do you mean dinner?” she asked stupidly.

  Charles raised a hand in a polite deferral. “I wouldn’t want to keep Gwen waiting.”

  Don gave him another warm look and touched Charles’s back with disappointment. “Say hello to the ball and chain.”

  Charles smiled again, and Eleanor liked him even more, as he allowed Don his joke without laughing at his wife. In that moment, Eleanor knew, in the way that every woman does, that Charles was a good man.

  “His voice is beautiful,” Eleanor said when he was gone.

  “Wait until you see him onstage.” Don looked toward the door Charles had just vacated. “You won’t be able to tear your eyes away. And a real hard worker, too,” he said. “They aren’t always, you know.”

  Eleanor was confused before she understood what he meant, and then, unsure what to do, laughed.

  * * *

  “When I was twenty-three, I met Cole Porter. The poor bastard had just made it through the accident. His legs were in smithereens.” Don reclined, wineglass dangling from his fingers.

  Empty plates of what had been seasonal vegetables and chicken sat between them. Don refilled her glass. The bottle had grown warm over the course of the meal. Her bones felt soft; smiles came easy.

  “I said, ‘Sir, you can write a lyric, but you can’t edit worth a damn.’”

  Don widened his eyes in response to Eleanor’s shocked look, his body shaking with laughter at his past audacity.

  “Was he furious?”

  He waved a hand. “The man’s plots are as rambling as they are ridiculous. He knew it.” He looked at her, winked. “Of course he was furious.” Scraping back his chair, he stood and walked to the refrigerator. Eleanor watched him rummage through it. The intimacy of the act, the way he shouldered the door closed, sent a twist through her stomach. Dining with her favorite composer—her nerves hadn’t stopped jumping for the whole meal. He brought back strawberries, setting the green cardboard basket right on the table. “I learned early on that I couldn’t care what people said. Not even Cole Porter. I would never get anywhere otherwise.”

  Eleanor nodded, but she wasn’t sure. She was an actress. Her career depended on what others thought of her.

  “That’s why I liked you.” He wagged a strawberry at her. “Right away. You wanted it so badly, up there, trembling like a terrier with a bone. No one was going to tell you no.”

  Eleanor smiled. Don might have been a genius, but he was wrong. He had no idea of the doubt she held inside of her, a huge well that threatened to spill over any time someone looked too hard.

  Don was relaxed now. Maybe the wine had hit him too—though he’d stopped at two glasses—but the nervous energy that usually electrified his limbs, fingers, seemed to calm. In the candlelight, even his jaw softened.

  The conversation slowed. Eleanor did not dare look at the clock, in case he took it as a cue to end the meal. She leaned forward, her hair falling over her shoulder. “Why do you write musicals?”

  “The same reason you’re an actress,” he said. “I could never do anything else.”

  That wasn’t what she was asking. Something significant must have set him apart long before he even began writing. Eleanor knew what it was to feel different, to see the world through the lens of stories. But she looked at what Don did and it intimidated her. Even now, as relaxed as she’d ever seen him, his gaze was focused, his fingers precise as they drummed on the table. When he turned his head to speak, she sensed he already knew how she would perceive his words. Everything about him was deliberate but not contrived. His brain was ahead of his body.

  He set down his glass. Finally, after she had started to worry that she’d offended him, he spoke.

  “One summer when I was a boy, I stayed with my aunt in Sacramento,” he said. “She lived next to the zoo there. At night, I could hear the lions roar. It was too hot for them. I had nightmares, thinking monsters were in my room. But once I was awake, I liked to listen.” Don looked toward her, his gaze unguarded. “It’s an incredible sound.”

  She had no confirmation to give. The animals she had grown up with emitted sounds that were so vulgar they turned her stomach.

  “It amazed me. They were agitated and then out came this”—he waved his hands in circles—“sound. Humans don’t do that. We hide everything behind these layers. Our frustration is harder to see, but it’s there. Like right now.” His stare was intense, probing. She felt taken in, like he was aware of every detail on her face. “You cover your mouth when you’re afraid.”

  She dropped her hand. Had she been nervous? She had been so focused on his nearness, the hairs on his arms, the heavy weight of him leaned on the table.

  By the time she’d scrambled for a reply, he had moved on. “We’re not as obvious as the lions, but once I started looking, it was all there. I saw it all, then, back home in Indiana. Whole lives revolved around the factory, the fights for promotions, the wives and the affairs. It doesn’t matter where you are; animals are all the same. You lived on a farm. You know what I mean.”

  Something in the evening had shifted. Don was confiding in her. Eleanor began to shake her foot under the table.

  “Did you date at all, back in Wisconsin?”

  “I didn’t like the boys there.” She worried he was growing bored with her.

  “So you saw what I’m talking about.” His voice was distant. “The animal mating ritual. The boys and their bravado, the girls and their tricks . . . the way people pretend it’s about something more than sex, food, shelter.” He shrugged and looked at her. “You understand.”

  How different was Tommy, really, from the boys back home? “I had to get out of there.”

  “Trouble is, it’s like that everywhere.”

  “You’re not like that.” Her heart was pounding. She felt desperate to cross this line. For years she’d understood this about Don, or believed herself to; suddenly she needed to know if she had been right about him, if what she’d heard in his music had been true or only a pathetic reflection of her own loneliness. “You aren’t.”

  “I’m not what?”

  “Animal. Even talking to you the first time, I could tell you were different. You see it all—it’s in your lyrics—but you’re not enslaved to all that.” He was on another plane; she wanted to know everything in his mind. She realized she was tipped far forward in her seat and returned to the back of the chair.

  Don stood, gestured that she should follow. He brought her to the far end of the apartment, where a floor-to-ceiling window looked down onto Central Park, fifteen stories below. Eleanor had to reach out and touch the cool glass to fight the vertigo.

  “I’ve never been up this high.”

  “What is it about humans, that we love to see things from above?”

  Don stared out at the city. Eleanor sensed his mind was very far away. He was tired; his eyes were red and had circles beneath. It was moving to see something human in him.

  “It’s worse, not to be an animal,” he said. “You, my dear, have one foot in both worlds.”

  She thought of Wisconsin, Rosie’s dates, the pigs, and the way other people could bring themselves to care about the state fair. The memories had a dull brown wash over them, her entire mind rejecting them. “I wish I could live in musicals instead.”

  He didn’t respond but draped an arm around her shoulders. He was heavy, and hotter than she
’d imagined. She was too nervous to lean into the gesture but hoped he would pull her close. He cupped a hand over the roundness of her shoulder, the gesture comforting, opaque.

  She closed her eyes, glad he couldn’t see her.

  “I’ve wished that every day of my life,” he said. “And every day I get closer.”

  “I’ve never met anyone who understands,” she said. “I thought I would, in New York. But they’re the same here. The girls care about their parts, the photographs, and the costumes . . . but I haven’t met anyone who really understands.” She struggled for the words: how her whole being relaxed when she listened to a show, the plot rising and falling with a precise balance, the harmonies, the rhymes, everything accounted for, matched up, perfect. Every single part, from the costumes to the faces of the actors in the ensemble, would enhance another part. It was a perfect construction. “Except you.”

  “The world is never as clean as in a musical,” he said.

  Eleanor exhaled. It was exactly what she had always believed.

  They went quiet again. Eleanor watched cars pass below. After a long time, Don smiled, his walls up once more.

  “Thank you, Eleanor, for saving me from an evening with my thoughts. I’ll get you a cab.” He went to the closet and unhooked her pocketbook, draping it over her shoulder. “You are wonderful company.”

  In the cab going south, Eleanor buzzed. It was ten o’clock and the shows were letting out. She felt the Broadway lights seep inside of her, until she felt bright and full, as if she herself were shining. After their discussion at dinner, Eleanor knew that Don understood this joy she felt. His dreams were parallel to hers and yet unfulfilled; when he saw the lights of Broadway, he was still hungry enough to dream.

  Chapter Eight

  On Sunday, she had the day off. Tommy arrived at her apartment in the morning with keys in his hand.