Page 96 of Theo of Golden

Watched.

Walked home.

Full.

CHAPTER 53

April 12. Willa Francesca’s birthday.

A feather, the pale gold of butter.

Theo placed it in a card to Ellen with a handwritten note.

Ellen,

I found this bit of blonde feather by the river today and thought of your Willa. Beautiful things sometimes get separated from their rightful place.

I wish you a pleasant Golden day and Willa a happy 31st birthday.

Grateful,

Theo

Well intentioned? Entirely.

Affectionate? Unquestionably.

Heartwarming? Perhaps.

Upsetting? Possibly.

Wise? Maybe not.

“Should I send it?”

Theo removed the feather and tore up the card. Maybe next year.

CHAPTER 54

With springtime, the sound of birdsong returned to Broadway, as did a chorus of other familiar noises: chatter at the sidewalk tables, children’s laughter, outdoor music, lawnmowers and trimming tools.

Longer, warmer days allowed students from the university, many of them dress-rehearsing for upcoming year-end performances, to set up in the school’s outdoor courtyards and play selections for anyone willing to listen. In addition to street sounds and buskers and car stereos, one heard fragments of bassoon, viola, or clarinet. If a musician could survive there, the rationale seemed to go, it would be easy to perform in a beautiful, acoustically perfect, quiet room with attentive listeners.

Hearing the odd mixture of sound one afternoon, Theo imagined a Philip Glass-esque composition of “Duet for French Horn and Leaf Blower.” There had been odder pieces, after all.

It was the season of recitals at the college.

Most evenings, some student seeking “partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts in Music Performance” paced nervously backstage, awaiting their moment in the spotlight. Months of study, hundreds of hours of rehearsal, and moment after moment of sometimes torturous isolation, all came down to this — the recital. In the span of a mere hour, give or take a bit, it would be over. An ocean in a thimble.

Student recitals were held in Bettye Hall, a small, opulent venue that dignified every performance by the sheer power of its elegance. A student who took center stage there could boast ever after that he or she had been somewhere truly special.

For audience members disinterested in music — keep in mind, many came to recitals purely out of obligation — the beauty of the hall itself was reason enough to be there.

The focal point of the room was an Opus 60, LeTourneau organ — a musical and visual work of art, fifty-eight tubes of tin-and-lead alloy, the smallest a mere twelve inches high, the largest thirty-two feet. It was positioned at the back of the stage and hovered ten feet above the floor, overlooking performers like a guardian angel. Everything about its shining presence suggested royalty, significance, order, and airiness.

The room held 250 cushioned seats, all close to the stage, on two levels. A balcony wrapped like a half moon around the upstairs, and a high ceiling provided ample space for the movement of sound and silence. Above the stage and the house, twenty-six large retractable lamps, in a motif of pine cones, floated like hot-air balloons and dispersed dimmable light through the room.

Music majors referred to the room as “the Bet.” “New York’s got the Met. We’ve got the Bet.”