Freddie was tall for his age and slender as so many young teens are. He had an interesting rather than overtly handsome face, but his habitual smile made it pleasant. He had reddish- brown hair that he kept short and messy. It wasn’t really a style he was perfecting; more, it was just that he didn’t like bothering with it. It took more time to care for it than he wanted to spend so self-indulgently. He had wide-set, blue-green eyes, a small straight nose, and ears that were unremarkable in their ordinariness. If there was any feature that one took more than just a glance at, it was the eyes. They showed a quick intelligence and curiosity, a well-developed sense of humor, and an invitation for someone to get lost in them.
Freddie left his lesson with a smile on his face. Yeah, she’d ragged him about working harder and showing up on time and this and that, but that was just her way. He liked her, liked her a lot actually, even though she did get on him all the time. He knew she liked him, too. It was easy to tell from the amount of time she spent trying to motivate him to work harder.
She also knew the horn backwards and forwards and up and down and was able to pass that expertise on to him. He knew he was a better player because of her, and he liked that.
He got criticism from teachers at school, too, hearing how he was disappointing them because he was capable of giving them more than he did. Well, he did okay. Better than most kids actually, and that was good enough for him. Plus, who had time for studying, for all that homework they kept throwing at him? He’d rather talk to other kids, text anyone interested, play video games, watch good TV shows, see movies, do teenage boy things. He had a mother to do battle with, a cook/housekeeper to keep on his side. Who in the world had the time to study more than he already did? Or practice the horn?
The fact was, he was an independent spirit. He didn’t like to work hard at anything. Most things came easily for him. The horn was a good example. He’d never tell her this, but many, many times he hadn’t worked at all on the assignments Mrs. Ford had given him during the week between lessons. He’d get the new piece he was to work on, play it with her during the lesson and listen to her point things out for him to work on during the week, then simply keep them in mind till the next time he saw her. Basically, he often would sight-read the piece at his next lesson but include the points she’d made in discussing it. He was sure she was unaware of his lack of practice because of the praise she’d give him after hearing him play the piece through; the improvements he made when he played it with her, really only the second time playing it for him, sold her. She’d been unable to tell that he hadn’t worked all week refining the piece, that he hadn’t even looked at it again. Practice was hard work, and who needed that when there were all the other things he had to do with that time?
Freddie was the type who was immediately a friend of everyone he met. Everyone liked Freddie. He was a good-looking kid whose brown hair with red highlights became almost blond in the summer sun, aided no doubt by the chlorine in the pools where he spent much of the summer. His blue-green eyes—hazel is what his mother called them—and perpetual grin that showed his white teeth were selling points, but because he was only moderately handsome, somewhere between cute and handsome, it was this lack of extreme attractiveness that kept him from being someone people were shy around or jealous of. He had thin lips—horn-player lips, Mrs. Ford called them—and an athletic build from how active he was. He was modestly capable at any sport he tried, although he hadn’t gone out for any of the teams his school supported. Sports weren’t something that interested him, nor did the hard work needed at the practices each team was involved in. He didn’t have the time or dedication for that. He was a carefree gadfly and enjoyed being who he was.
He played principal horn in his private-school orchestra, he was part of the cast of many school plays, he was on the school council, and kids at school were trying to talk him into running for the council presidency. Did he really need more on his plate?
He was walking home after the lesson. He lived close enough to Mrs. Ford that he walked to and from his lessons. Mrs. Ford lived in a large, very upscale house in the most exclusive part of town, but then, so did he. He had but one parent, but she was well off; being an affluent kid was perhaps part of his popularity; he wasn’t sure but didn’t care. He just took it for granted, like he did most things.
Walking home that day, however, he was more aware than usual of Mrs. Ford’s comments. She’d looked him in the eye at the end and waited till he’d met her eyes with his own, then said, “Freddie, at some point, you have to decide what’s important to you. That’s a decision every boy in the world has to make. Some don’t have a choice due to their circumstances.
“Some, like you, do have a choice, but they just keep putting it off and just, as they say, keep going with the flow until it’s really too late to do much about it. I really hope you don’t do that. You have so much talent. But talent alone isn’t enough. Dedication to your talent is required.
“This is something you need to decide. This is the time for that—right now. Right now you can get by on most anything you try on your talent and charm and personality. But as you get older, you’ll be meeting people with just as much of those qualities as you have, or almost as much, but with something else as well. They’ll have the desire and motivation to work hard. That’s the one thing you lack: an acceptance of the hard work that’s needed to excel. That hard work will get them places they wouldn’t get without it.
“You don’t have that appreciation now—or the drive. You’re willing to settle. I so hope that soon, very soon, you realize how much more you can do than what you’re doing now. I hope you see how necessary it will be for you if you’re to accomplish everything you’re capable of. You have to include hard work as part of the process of getting there. I know you’re not ready for that yet. But time’s passing, and you’re nearing the point of it passing you by, leaving you behind. Please, Freddie, don’t settle.”
He thought about that, and an uncomfortable feeling came over him. What if she did realize he was sight-reading his lessons? What if he wasn’t fooling her? How embarrassing would that be?
> > >
As usual, Mrs. Ford’s annual summer-ending affair was difficult to pigeonhole with customary labels. Adults, many of them in sports jackets, pressed shirts and ironed slacks, missing only a tie, or in some cases not missing one, mingled with teenagers in the eclectic variety of dress one might expect from them. Then there were the smaller kids, many of whom were in bathing suits. The adults usually had cocktails or beer bottles in their hands, though several flutes of champagne were in evidence. Many of the adult attendees looked uncomfortable when needing to talk to the teenagers, not having much contact with them and often carrying the usual adult suspicions of them.
It was a warm early evening, and everyone was out in the spacious backyard. The older women, dressed in stylish summer frocks, preferred to sit on the comfortable patio chairs and sip their drinks, socializing with each other. A few had glasses of iced tea, but the majority had mixed drinks of all colors, supplied from one of the three portable bars set up on the lawn. The middle-aged and some younger women were keeping one eye on their kids and another on their husbands while gathering in small groups of their own. Many of them were dressed down for the occasion, wearing shorts and casual shoes or sandals.
Four teens, two boys and two girls, were involved playing badminton. Two just-teen boys were throwing a Frisbee back and forth while an eager but well-behaved Yellow Lab was watching intently, standing between them and hoping for a miss he could retrieve and waiting to show how high he was capable of jumping.
It was a noisy afternoon, what with the joyful screams and splashes coming from the pool, the chattering of all the adults—some of it rather loud—emanating from the groups of men talking business and politics and sports. Some of the men, those wearing ties, were talking about investments; some were speaking of matters of law.
The noisiest of the crowd were the teenagers who’d call to each other across the yard: “Hey, Brad, bring me another Coke, will ya, while you’re there?” or “Jesus, Dylan, give it a rest, why doncha?”—that sort of thing. This all added to the background noise—those creating this noise would have been aghast had they heard what they were doing referred to as noise—that came from two different groups of French horn players, spaced as far away from each other as they could be, which in this spacious back yard was some considerable distance.
One group was a sextet. It was playing a set of transposed pieces arranged for six instruments; the other group was a quartet playing horn Fripperies. The makeup of each group of musicians looked a little odd as there was an age range from about 13 to 65. The players were having fun and not worried overmuch about wrong notes or intonation. Whenever they’d stop, there was usually a bout of laughter and chatter.
The aroma of cooking meat scented the evening air. Four men wearing white chef’s gear were tending four large, gas-fired grills. They were cooking steaks to order, and as had been the case all afternoon, had hot dogs, hamburgers, Polish sausages and barbecued chicken pieces being kept warm and ready for all comers. Corn on the cob wrapped in foil and baked potatoes were in two metal pails sitting on one of the grills along with a large pot of spicy-sweet baked beans.
There were two long picnic tables as well as a few scattered tables for four, and people were making their way to the grills, picking out what they wanted, going to the condiment and salad bars, then to the drinks bar manned by bartenders or coolers holding ice and soft drinks. Food and drinks in hand, they ended up at the tables. Cold watermelon awaited them any time they wanted it, as did a dessert table which was needing frequent restocking, as many of the teens couldn’t stop themselves and couldn’t wait.
The adults for the most part seemed to enjoy the open bar more than the tubs of watermelon. As the afternoon waned and the beer and cocktails flowed, the adults loosened up quite a bit. Most of the formal jackets came off. Some of the men even finagled their way into the Frisbee toss, which was greatly enjoyed by Romper. He had many more misses to retrieve once that happened.
Her plate containing a hotdog in a bun, some salad and a baked potato dressed with sour cream and chives, a beer in her other hand, Mrs. Ford walked to the picnic tables. She was above medium height, tall and slender, and there was something about her bearing that spoke of both self-confidence and friendliness. She looked at the people at the long tables, spread out as often happens when groups of people who don’t know each other sit down to eat, and she smiled.
She walked over to where a very attractive woman in her late 30s and a teenage boy who looked very much like a younger, male version of her, a boy she knew well, were sitting and talking to each other as they ate. Mrs. Ford stopped next to them and said, “Mrs. Clausen, Freddie, may I sit with you for a few minutes?”
The woman’s face brightened. “Of course, Mrs. Ford. Please sit down! I’ve been meaning to come over and thank you so much for inviting Freddie and me here today, but you have people around you all the time. I didn’t want to butt in.” She paused to take a breath, then said, “Thank you so much. Freddie told me about this—” she stopped and gestured at the scene around them with her arm “—after coming last year, how you have your students and their families and your husband has his staff and their families for a summer barbecue each year, but I didn’t imagine anything this, this grand. What a beautiful place you have here. This is all pretty amazing! Too bad my husband couldn’t see this.”
“That’s right; I’d forgotten,” said Mrs. Ford, dropping her voice a little. “It’s only been a short time since you lost your husband. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Clausen looked down for a moment, and Mrs. Ford decided to change the subject back to where they’d started. Mrs. Clausen didn’t appear to want to talk about her husband or his passing.
“We do enjoy this day every year. I’m always surprised how complete strangers start mingling and everyone gets along so well so quickly. We really enjoy hosting this.”
The two women chatted for a time. They both lived in the exclusive section of town, they had several acquaintances in common, and both were outgoing. Freddie listened but soon became bored. He’d played horn pieces with some other people earlier, and then his mother had wanted them to get some food. He was fine with that, but this? This adult talk? Ugh. He looked around at the various groups of people and what they were doing. Then, he began fidgeting. Mrs. Ford noticed and inwardly smiled. She knew Freddie well. Anyone who’d spent any time with him ended up knowing him well as he was as outgoing and gregarious as a boy could be. He loved to talk, to joke, to tease, and he spoke to adults as easily as he did to kids. The fact he’d been silent all this time amused Mrs. Ford. She was ready for him to break in, expecting it, and now he did.
“Mrs. Ford, you said you’d play badminton with me or go swimming, and you haven’t done either one. The kids who were playing badminton went to eat. The court’s open. Let’s do this!”
Mrs. Ford laughed. Yep, that was Freddie. One of the very best young horn students she’d ever had, and as irrepressible as a billy goat in a herd of nannies. The boy was always smiling, always laughing, and anyone who spent any amount of time with him ended up doing the same.
She stopped her laughing and put on a stern look. “Freddie, I warned you. I played badminton in college. I don’t bat the bird up in the air to see how high I can hit it. I don’t hit high, arcing shots. I smash the bird. You wouldn't stand a chance. I’m taller than you, stronger than you, more competitive than you, and I’m far more experienced.”
“Yeah, but you’re not as young as I am, probably not as athletic, and I can move really fast. You may be tall and experienced, but just how fast are you? There’s an entire court to cover. I may be small, but I’m cunning, and you’re not. Fast and cunning beats over-the-hill and feeble any day!”
“Freddie!” his mother said, shocked at what she’d heard her son say.
Mrs. Ford burst out laughing. “It’s perfectly all right, Mrs. Clausen. We do tease each other, and if he thought he’d hurt my feelings, he’d be mortified. No, all he’s done is make his drubbing even more painful for him and triumphant for me.” She turned to Freddie. “I will have to change my clothes, however. I’m dressed as a hostess now, and need to be wearing my athletic, beat-the-snot-out-of-the-uppity-teenager outfit for this. I have a couple of those at hand for when I need them.”
“Bring it!” said Freddie, getting up from the table and grinning.
“But first—” began Mrs. Ford.
“Aha,” Freddie pounced. “Backing out already!”
“No, actually what I was going to do was give you something to do while I was changing. It would be a favor for me, and there’s a good chance you might even enjoy it.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” Freddie asked, a little cautious, but not much; caution wasn’t really part of his nature.
Mrs. Ford was enjoying how this was working out. She’d spent some time thinking about Freddie. Everything she’d tried in an attempt to motivate him had failed. Then she’d had an idea, and now it appeared that bringing it to fruition might be a lot easier than she’d expected. Freddie might call himself cunning, and say Mrs. Ford wasn’t, but he had no idea!
Mrs. Ford stepped over to Freddie and put her arm around his shoulders, then half-turned him so he was facing the back of the house and the extended patio. “Do you see that boy sitting in the corner, the corner furthest from the pool?”
Freddie looked where Mrs. Ford had directed and saw a boy sitting by himself reading a book. His chair had been moved so it wasn’t even close to anyone else. It looked strange, seeing all that empty space between him and the festivities, seeing him sitting alone when everyone else seemed to be engaged in doing things with other people, talking to others, giving Romper a rub, getting food, playing music—doing something involving others.
“Yeah, I see him.” There was a question in his tone of voice.
“That, Freddie, is James. James Madison. Not the president. Just a boy, your age, one who also plays the horn. What I’d like for you to do is work your Freddie magic on him.”
Freddie took his eyes off James and looked at Mrs. Ford. “My magic?”
She smiled. “Your magic. The magic you do by making everyone around you happy, making them smile. I almost never see James smile. He’s the most serious student I’ve ever had. What I’d really like is for you to get him to play badminton with us, but you won’t be able to do that. Magical you may be, but some things defy magic. I doubt you can get him to smile, either, but I’d like you to try. Talk to him. I’ll be about five minutes, maybe ten, changing. See if you can get a conversation going with him during that time. Ask him to play with us, and even if he won’t—and believe me, he won’t—he’ll know he was asked. I’ll even give you a way to entice him. Tell him if he’ll play with us for just a short time, you’ll play a horn duet with him. If anything will motivate him to leave the sanctuary of his book and join the world, that would be it.”
“Wait a minute,” Freddie said. “So if I get him to play with us, what do I get? There should be some incentive here. Ah, I know. If I win him over and he joins us, you’ll go swimming with me. But, since I can see this is important to you, I’ll play the duet with him even if he won’t play badminton. If he wants to play a duet, that is.”
Mrs. Ford shook her head and laughed. “You’re on, Freddie. But I’ll tell you right now, I won’t even bother looking for my bathing suit.”
As she walked toward the house, he called after her, “Skinny dipping! Sweet!”
> > >
Freddie made his way to the patio, then moved toward where the boy was sitting. Freddie had no problem meeting and speaking to complete strangers. Somehow, when genes were being doled out, he’d eluded the devil who was giving out the shyness one.
As Freddie approached the boy whose head was buried in his book, he couldn’t see much of his face. About the only thing he could ascertain was that the boy appeared to be very similar to himself in size and shape. Freddie was a typical 15-year-old male: slender, a bit coltish, gangly, a body with the appearance of getting ready to fill out but one that had yet to add muscle and maturity. He had a body that had yet to make much progress in any of those areas, although he’d had a minor growth spurt.
When he was nearing the boy, his quarry seemed to sense someone was approaching and lowered the book, looking up at the same time. Freddie was stunned enough almost to stumble. Mrs. Ford had said that James was a boy his age, a horn student, and very serious. What she hadn’t said, and what Freddie hadn’t expected, was that James was gorgeous. Calling James handsome would be equivalent to dismissing a magnificent sunset bursting with purples and magentas and vivid oranges as an interesting skyscape.
James had an inquisitive look on his face, but there was something else, too. Something that slowed Freddie’s approach. James looked, well, it was difficult to label it, but perhaps ‘defensive’ would be the closest word for it. Guarded. Wary. And not at all friendly.
Freddie, of course, was not to be put off. He’d won over everyone he’d ever met in his life. No one had ever resisted his smile and his sociable personality, his innate charm. Why should this kid be different?
“Hi,” he said, and beamed at the boy. “I’m Freddie. Mrs. Ford asked me to come talk to you. I see you’re reading one of the Twilight books. Pretty good, aren’t they?”
James paused before answering. The pause was long enough that Freddie thought he might not respond at all. But eventually, James did. Not about the book, however.
“Mrs. Ford wanted you to talk to me? Why?”
So much for small talk, Freddie thought. He looked around and saw another chair close by. He pulled it over and sat at right angles to James, thinking that being at the same level might make things less awkward.
“She and I are going to play badminton. She was hoping we could make it a doubles match, probably because she’s old and can’t cover the entire court by herself. She thought maybe I could talk you into joining us. If so, she’d probably find another adult to make even sides. It’ll be fun, and if . . . ” He stopped, not knowing what the effect would be of telling James that if James joined in, he’d win a bet and she’d have to go swimming with him.
James simply stared at him, waiting for Freddie to finish his thought. Freddie decided to wait him out, make him ask what he’d been about to say. He already could tell by the boy’s body language that maintaining a conversation with him was not going to be easy.
James continued to wait. Freddie was the one who broke under the strain of silence. Patience was not one of his virtues.
“Hey, look; it’ll be fun! We can team up against them! How about it? You can read anytime.”
James glanced back at his book, and his face softened while doing so. But when he returned his eyes to Freddie, they were hard again. “I don’t play sports.”
“Really? Never? Well, look, how about this? Mrs. Ford said you played horn. I do, too. Come play badminton, just one game, and win or lose—who cares, it’s no big deal, is it?—then I’ll play a duet with you. She’s got lots of music. If you don’t sight-read well, she probably has something that’s pretty easy for two horns, and we can play that. The fun we’ll have doing that will balance out the gruesome agony of playing a game involving a racket and running.”
Freddie thought the word ‘gruesome’ might appeal to someone reading the book James had open in his lap. He smiled brightly after finishing his speech, thinking that might help with the persuasion. He didn’t expect what he heard next, however.
“What do you mean, ‘can’t sight-read well’? I can sight-read. And it doesn’t need to be anything easy, either. Oh, wait, that’s what you need, isn’t it? That’s why you said that. I get it.”
“Huh? No. No, not at all. I was just trying to make sure there was no reason you’d say no to the idea of a duet. Hey, I can probably play better than you can; I’m first horn in my school’s orchestra. So, anyway, there we are then! One quick game of badminton and then a duet. Maybe we could even play several duets if you can actually play. Don’t worry; I’ll take the high part.”
Freddie had a quick mind. He’d seen the flash of irritation James had at the merest suggestion he wasn’t that good on the horn. This would be easy: he’d exploit, subtly exploit this weakness. Freddie repressed a smile. That ‘if you can play’ ought to do the trick.
James was thinking about it, Freddie could see that. Should he offer more encouragement? From the look on James’ face, Freddie felt that James’ decision was resting on a knife edge and was afraid anything he said might tip things in the wrong direction. Watching James chew this over, Freddie was entranced by the emotions he could see crossing James’ face—James’ really attractive face. The boy had very dark hair, cut long but not messy, and his eyes appeared to be black as well. His face was very white, which made a sharp contrast with his hair and eyes and also suggested the boy didn’t spend much time outside.
Finally, James spoke. “OK, I’ll play a duet with you. I brought my horn. But no badminton. Bluahh.”
Damn! Freddie wanted to swim with Mrs. Ford more than he wanted to play badminton with her. He had a sneaky suspicion she’d clean his clock at that game. If she’d played competitively in college, she obviously knew what she was doing, and she was taller than he was and had a superior reach. He’d never played the game other than for fun. He didn’t mind losing, but did mind not swimming with her. He wanted to go in that pool but really didn’t want to go in alone as the people swimming were all older teens, and they were splashing and dunking each other. He knew they’d settle down if Mrs. Ford got in. Besides which, there was the challenge she’d given him. Damn! He’d been fairly certain he could persuade another boy his age to do anything he wanted him to.
Well, he hadn’t shot all his bullets yet. There was at least one more thing to try.
“Look, I understand. You don’t want to play badminton. But I really need you to. See, she challenged me to get you to play. She said I couldn’t do it. She said there was no way you’d agree. I said I could. I can see now that she was probably right. You just don’t want to play badminton. But if you won’t, then I lose. She said if I could get you to play, she’d come swimming with me. I really wanted to do that. And I could still win that challenge if you agree to play. How about this: you come out onto the court, but then pretend to turn your ankle when we start, and then say you can’t play on it. That would be enough.”
James was frowning. When Freddie finished his appeal, James said, “That would be dishonest. I’d be lying. I’m not going to do that, especially with Mrs. Ford!”
Freddie shook his head. This was going nowhere. He only had one thought left. “Look, I really want to swim, but I don’t want to go in alone. I’d look like a loser if I did that. I love swimming and want to with Mrs. Ford; I never get to swim with her. So, how about this; how about we play a duet, or several if you’d like, and then you go swimming with me? That way I won’t be alone. And you won’t have to play badminton. That’s a good compromise.”
James’ looked at Freddie for a moment, met his eyes, then picked his book back up. “No, thanks,” he said, and started reading again.
Freddie stood up, feeling defeated, a rare feeling for him. Before walking away, he said, “Well, thanks for talking with me, at least.”
James sat a moment with the book flapped back against his chest. He looked to Freddie like he was hesitating, looked like he meant to say something but was having second thoughts. Then, he quite obviously came to a decision because he simply raised his book again and continued to read.