Page 41 of Exquisite Things

I’m a session man now. I’ve graduated from playing in Tube stops and on street corners to accompanying artists as they record

the albums that will make them famous. The Blitz is not only where I find liberation through music. It’s also where I find

work. Word gets around that there’s a young kid who knows how to play the synthesizer like he’s an avant-garde Rachmaninoff.

Lily urges me to dream bigger. To be more than an invisible name. But she doesn’t understand that I can’t be famous. Fame means being seen. It invites questions. Besides, I like the background. Staying in the shadows suits me fine.

And I love the music I’m playing. Love the way the world sounds right now. I’m exhilarated by the way music, culture, fashion,

and life itself is being reinvented in real time.

I feel inspired as I leave a session with George’s band. He never did steal my synthesizer, but he’s stolen my heart with

his melodies and lyrics. He has something to say on behalf of us all. I don’t know if the world is ready for him, but it’ll

be a real shame if it’s not.

I turn the key to our house. Lily just had an extra bolt installed. Too many cops arresting Blacks and queers for nothing

but their suspicions. Too many young gay kids disappearing without a trace. I open the door and hear—

“SURPRISE!” A chorus of sound. Baritones and sopranos and tenors and contraltos.

They’re all there. My new family. Bram, Lily, Maud, Archie, Poppy, Azalea, Blossom.

Friends from the Blitz and friends from Brixton.

The lonely kid who tried to talk to me when I first arrived is here.

He’s not lonely any longer. Neither am I.

He has a name to me now. Charlie from the squat up the street.

“I— How did you know?” I blush as I look around. Balloons everywhere. A large banner that reads Happy Birthday, Oliver . A full spread of Poppy’s greatest culinary hits. Brightly colored fabrics rain down from the ceiling. All for me. “It’s

amazing, but—I didn’t tell anyone when my birthday is.”

“You told me when we first met.” Bram approaches me with a gift in his hand.

“I did?” I race back in time, but it’s been too long. My mind is a clutter of memories. Flickers of loneliness in Buenos Aires,

despair in Tokyo, solitary strolls through the streets of Madrid, seclusion in Berlin.

“You certainly did. I remember it all. Every moment we’ve shared. You not only told me your birthday, but you told me what

you wanted for your birthday. Of course, I had to leave Boston so I never got to celebrate a birthday with you.”

“I haven’t celebrated my birthday in a long time,” I murmur, my eyes fixed on Bram.

He seems to know what I’m thinking. Does it even count as a birthday when we don’t age?

“You deserve to be celebrated,” Bram says.

“What did I say I wanted? For my birthday? All those—I mean... Back in Boston.”

“My memory isn’t perfect, but I think you said all you wanted was to be in my company, speaking the truth to each other. You said you were so tired of hiding.”

It all comes back to me now. Brendan and Jack’s dorm room. Boston. 1920. The camaraderie. The merriment. The carefree youth

that fooled me into thinking it could last forever.

“Hmm,” I say. “Now that I’m in your company, I want more.”

“Ask and you shall receive,” Bram promises. “What else do you want, birthday boy?”

“A puppy!” I declare. “Or a kitten. I’ve always wanted a pet, but Mother said they were—”

“Too expensive!” Lily blurts out.

“Exactly,” I say. I take the gift Bram is holding. “This is for me?” I ask.

“Open it.”

“Let’s do gifts later,” Lily announces. “It’s bad luck to open gifts before you eat the birthday cake.”

“That is a completely made-up superstition,” Blossom says with a laugh.

“Every superstition is made up by someone,” Lily replies. No one argues with that. Lily pulls me to her side. “Tonight, you

must share him, Bram. Everybody here wants to give the birthday boy some loving.”

We all take turns choosing music from the record collection. Lily has even more crates than usual. She must have asked every

DJ she knows if she could borrow a piece of their collections for the party.

We cycle from genre to genre. The sound of right now .

How I love it. How I wish Mother and Brendan could hear the evolution of music.

We play it all as we eat, laugh, dance. The Cure.

Kate Bush. Blondie. Bob Marley you’re open to new sounds and ideas and experiences. But people like my parents have decidedly old souls.”

“That makes them sound very wise,” Maud observes.

“Then let me rephrase.” Archie thinks for a moment, then, “My parents have eternally decayed souls.”

“My point is this,” Lily says. “Souls don’t age. They can’t. Perhaps all of us have souls that are fixed at one age. Mine

is eternally young. And Archie’s parents are eternally decayed.”

“I think I might be eternally middle-aged,” Azalea blurts out, and everyone laughs.

“I think I’m in an eternal midlife crisis,” Poppy cracks.

“Eternal life would be nice,” Charlie says. He’s still so young. He has no idea what wishing for immortality can lead to.

“No, it would not,” Lily says firmly. “Who wants to be some decrepit one-hundred-year-old anyway?”

“Eternal youth, then,” Poppy suggests.

Lily shrugs. “Doesn’t sound so great either. The only thing worth living for is discovery, isn’t it? Of the world... Of

our selves... Once we know everything, once we’ve seen everything, what’s left?”

“This is why I hope to always be a little unsure of myself,” Bram declares, his eyes on me.

I realize that Bram and I have not stopped looking at each other since this conversation about time and age began.

“Because if I’m not, then life is over. The interesting part of it, at least. And I never want life to end. Not when it’s this beautiful.”

“Can Oliver open the gifts now?” Maud asks. “All this talk of getting old is freaking me out.”

“Gifts!” Bram squeals happily.

I tear open wrapping paper and fling it across the room. After six decades of solitude, it feels so extravagant to accept

so many presents. A pair of Levi’s from Archie. A Claude McKay novel from Maud. It’s called Banana Bottom , which inspires a round of hilariously dirty jokes about what a bottom might do with a banana. A Walkman from Azalea. Unbelievable

that you can carry music with you now, in your pocket. You can score your own life like it’s a film. Azalea and Lily must

have coordinated their gifts, because Lily gives me cassette tapes as well as records. All classical. Tchaikovsky. Chopin.

Rachmaninoff. Schubert. All my favorites. I’ve embraced the new without discarding the old.

“I wanted to make sure we played your favorite music once in a while,” Lily says.

“Thank you. I’m so... touched.” I give Lily a meaningful hug. She’s not Mother. She never can be. But she is a mother. And like Mother, she understands what music means to me. Not revolution, but salvation.

“Which one should I play?” Lily asks.

I unwrap Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet .

It wasn’t long ago that I was masked. Telling Bram that the only love stories anyone’s interested in are the ones that end tragically.

He told me he’s had enough tragedy for one lifetime.

I have too. I choose hope now. I choose life.

Perhaps that’s why I choose this record.

Because being this happy allows me to enjoy tragedy as entertainment.

As something that won’t catch up with me again.

Lily carefully positions the record on the turntable. The modern sounds that have filled our home give way to the haunting

fantasy overture written by a man who I know with all my heart was never allowed to love as he wanted to.

“Mine now,” Bram says, handing me his gift again.

I unwrap it carefully. There’s a leather journal inside. Lined paper, empty but for an inscription on the first page. Let’s never hide from each other again. If there’s ever anything too difficult to say to each other, let us write it in this

journal instead. I love you. I will forever.

I look into Bram’s eyes. It feels like we’re finally picking up where we left off sixty years ago. I give him a kiss. I find

a pen on an end table and jot seven words on the next page. No more hiding. I love you too.