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They pulled away from the quiet house and out onto the dark suburban streets in a silence so profound that Carl almost thought if he listened hard enough, past the chattering of his own teeth after an hour on Bradlee’s front lawn, he could hear the pitter-patter of theories and what-ifs circling through Bob’s silly, anxious little brain.
Carl believed Deep Throat’s warning, of course; just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you. Carl had been paranoid since the first witness had slammed a door in his face and he had seen his own desperation reflected in hers. But he was accustomed to it, had learned to live with it and let it make a home for itself alongside his other worst characteristics. Bob had never gotten used to it.
It would have been no good reminding him that they had been leading their lives as above-board as anyone could for months already, or that realistically, their most incriminating conversations always seemed to happen in a rotating cast of McDonald’s restaurants. Facts, Carl had learned the hard way over his time as a reporter, were generally not your friend when dealing with another person’s fears. And there was no real way to make well, the bugs have probably been there for a while and nothing’s come of it yet sound comforting, anyway.
So Carl opted for distraction.
“You’ve got terrible taste in classical music.”
Bob’s white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel slackened somewhat and he blinked a few times, as if coming out of a trance. Carl wasn’t even sure Bob knew where they were going. “What?”
The stoplight turned from red to green, and in the moment of reflected light as Bob pulled forward, Carl studied his drawn, anxious face, pale in the cool green glow and puffy with lack of sleep. Almost heartbreakingly familiar, and yet, as always, just beyond understanding or reach. Then the car passed below the light and Bob’s face fell into shadow again, and the moment was over.
Carl shook himself, remembering his intent to break the silence that had descended between them again after Bob’s question. For just that second, Carl’s heartbeat in his own ears had sounded louder than the clicking of the turn signal.
“In your apartment,” he said, wincing at the sound of his voice, hoarse and raspy and maybe a little stuffed up from the cold. He cleared his throat. “Rachmaninoff’s third.”
“You don’t like Rachmaninoff?”
The question was spoken with bemusement, which was a step up from not speaking at all, but now Carl was trapped. He did like Rachmaninoff. “There’s better piano concertos, is all I’m saying.”
“Than Rachmaninoff?” Out of the corner of his eye, as he steadfastly watched the road ahead of them and tried not to blush with embarrassment, Carl saw the beginnings of a smile on Bob’s lips. “Well, you’re the music critic. Tell me what’s oh-so-terrible about my music taste.”
It was Carl’s turn to panic as he tried to concoct both a way out of defending an opinion he didn’t actually hold and an excuse to keep Bob in his sights, safe from his dark, lonely apartment where Carl couldn’t be there to talk him down from the rising despair that overtook one or another of them from time to time. Carl had fallen prey to it before, and Bob had always been there to help him out of it. That was just how they took care of each other.
He said the first viable thing that came into his head. “I’ll show you. Take me to your place.”
It was a twofold tactic: if he invited Bob over to his, Bob would make excuses about needing to go home and sleep, which would of course be lies. If Carl could make it in Bob’s door, he could then be an ungracious houseguest and simply refuse to leave. Neither of them would have to be alone. Problem solved.
“Now?”
“Don’t you always listen to classical music late at night?”
The warm yellow light of Bob’s apartment was a welcome change after hours outside in the cold of a late-spring night, and the cozy, familiar atmosphere seemed to calm Bob’s nerves as well. Carl trailed him inside and toed off his shoes with undisguised interest. He’d been in Bob’s apartment before, of course, but never to just hang out. His usual first thoughts on taking his shoes off and hanging up his jacket were about finding enough flat surfaces to spread out his notes.
Bob’s apartment was, as all apartments are, a reflection of Bob himself: sturdy, unpretentious furniture indicating an owner with slightly conservative opinions on home decor, covered in colorful blankets and shirts dangling haphazardly from armrests and coffee tables. The home of a man who tried his best to maintain a buttoned-up, professional exterior in spite of his natural disorganized tendencies, a man who wore bright ties with boring suits and only remembered to schedule his haircuts because the length of Carl’s hair irked him.
Bob’s perfections and his faults shone from every corner of the room, illuminating the man himself as he turned to Carl with a skeptical look. And Carl was smitten with him.
“Well? Wow me with your superior music taste.”
Carl resisted the urge to clear his throat awkwardly and instead stuck his tongue out at Bob in lieu of any sort of mature response. He knew where Bob kept his 45s but allowed Bob to lead him to the turntable anyway, reveling in the closeness and the slight chill still radiating from Bob’s clothes.
Bob stepped back and Carl took his place, crouching down before the side table to thumb through the surprisingly deep pile of records stacked on the floor below it - some with battered, well-worn sleeves and some in stiff, new cardboard. Bob had evidently purchased a fair amount of music recently. “Any preferences?”
“Whatever you like,” Bob said. “You’re supposed to be educating me here.”
Carl kept thumbing, but it was difficult to focus on education. Something else was pushing insistently at his awareness, a series of half-remembered newspaper headlines: Tchaikovsky Quartet No.2, Liszt Scherzo and March, Ravel Le Tombeau, Chopin Polonaise. Unusual choices for someone who claimed to need educating. All new, all perhaps unplayed. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
He said nothing about it; Bob would likely only be embarrassed if Carl accused him of reading through the Post’s archives to find every performance Carl had ever reviewed and then buying the pieces themselves, as implausible as the accusation would be. It probably was a coincidence.
His thumb stopped on one well-loved cardboard sleeve - improbably, one bearing a very familiar black-and-white photo and title. He pulled it free from the rest and turned to Bob, cradling the 45 to his chest with an odd sense of protectiveness. If Bob liked this piece as much as Carl did… well, that meant something, surely. He didn’t know what, but something.
“From the street?” he asked.
Bob’s brow furrowed in incomprehension for several seconds until his eyes caught on the sleeve and he smiled, a sheepish expression passing over his features. “You know it? I’ve never heard his name before, but I like it. I feel like it means something, you know?”
“Yeah,” Carl said, feeling a smile tugging at his own lips. “Yeah, it means something.”
“Well, go ahead and play it.”
“You’ve already heard it,” Carl said, but he pulled the 45 from its sleeve and placed it on the turntable anyway.
Something about a piece Bob already knew and clearly loved felt safer, somehow, than a piece he had possibly bought on Carl’s recommendation, without Carl’s knowledge. The guilty part of Carl that lit up with pride every time he managed to impress Bob whispered insistently that since Bob clearly valued Carl’s opinion, perhaps they could listen to one of the new pieces together. Maybe Carl could even talk about the piece’s history or performances he’d seen, and Bob would listen and watch him with those wide, penetrating eyes.
Instead, Carl lowered the needle and let the record play.
The change that came over Bob was beautiful to watch. His face softened; his shoulders lowered; a small, private smile stole over his lips. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening, and when he opened them again the tight lines lurking at their corners all night had been smoothed away.
Carl forced himself to look away. “You really like this piece, huh?”
“Yeah. More than I like Rachmaninoff, actually. But this wouldn’t have been nearly as good cover.”
“I’ll never be able to listen to Rachmaninoff’s third again without feeling like I’m being watched.”
“I thought Rachmaninoff was overrated.”
“I didn’t say that.”
They stood, facing each other, as the quiet piano filled the room. Carl didn’t know what to do with himself.
“What do you think about? When you’re reviewing music?” Bob asked, voice soft. It was an innocent conversation and speaking softly wasn’t really required even if there were bugs, but it felt appropriate anyway. This time of night was meant for hushed voices and mournful piano.
“What I’m going to write about, mostly,” Carl said, equally soft.
“Do you ever just… listen? Like right now?”
“Well, right now you’re whispering through the whole thing. A bit like a real concert, actually,” Carl said. Bob’s questions were only deepening his suspicion that while Bob clearly liked this particular piece on its own merits, he was also eager to learn why Carl liked it. But it was nice to just stand there and listen for a while.
When the last notes of the piece had faded into silence, Bob made no move to play another one. He seemed stuck, and Carl could see the nerves returning, his shoulders tightening and an awkward half-smile stretching his lips.
Carl turned abruptly back to the turntable. “Let’s play something new.”
He got the sense Bob was only humoring him, but it was also clear that Bob’s mind was still fixed on Deep Throat’s warning and he wasn’t going to turn down any offered distraction. With that in mind, Carl took his time now flipping through records. If he was being given the chance to share one of his more deeply-hidden passions with Bob, he wanted to pick something Bob would like. He also, selfishly, wanted a waltz.
He found it about two-thirds of the way through the collection - stiff cardboard, unplayed. It even smelled new when he pulled it out. “Sibelius. Good choice.”
“Thank you,” Bob said, uncertain and a little wry. “Do I get to know the title?”
Carl didn’t answer as he replaced From the Street in its sleeve and set Valse triste on the record player. “Can you waltz?”
“I had to learn for school dances.”
“Waltz with me, then.”
Bob laughed. Then he took a hesitant step closer.
“You’re serious?”
“When have I ever been flippant with you?” Carl said, to cover for the pounding of his heart, so loud in his own ears he was sure Bob could hear it too as he inched nearer with a trepidation Carl didn’t think was quite warranted - at least on Bob’s part. It was just a silly late-night distraction. It didn’t mean anything more than that to Bob in the way it meant to Carl.
“I’ll be bad at it,” Bob said.
Carl set the needle to the record.
“I’m good enough to make up for it.”
Valse triste started slowly. Carl had forgotten that. It gave him time to cross the small room to where Bob waited, hands by his sides and a bewildered look in his eyes. The strings had started up by the time they were face to face, drowning out Carl’s heartbeat and making his fingers twitch in an unconscious one-two-three rhythm.
He steeled himself and extended his hand, palm down, leaving his other hand to hover awkwardly over Bob’s shoulder. “I’ll follow.”
“Not our usual dynamic,” Bob said wryly. He slotted his own hand in beneath Carl’s in a proper ballroom hold and, after a moment’s hesitation, caught Carl’s waist in a gentle grip. “You never give in to me this easily.”
Carl suddenly understood, with an embarrassing clarity, why women in movies always gasped at that first touch. His hand fell to Bob’s shoulder of its own accord, where, he couldn’t help thinking, it fit as though it had always been meant to rest there.
“It’s only ‘cause I trust you not to step on my feet more if you’re leading,” he said, in an attempt to save face.
Bob’s laugh was perhaps a little breathless. “Touche.”
Bob could waltz, though his movements were far from fluid and he stumbled when the tempo picked up. He was the best dance partner Carl had ever had.
Valse triste was not a long song, and, much sooner than Carl would have liked, the room filled with silence again. But Bob didn’t pull away.
“Seems we’ve got similar taste after all,” he said. Someone’s hands were sweating - probably Carl’s - but Bob didn’t seem to mind. “How did I ever think you didn’t have opinions worth listening to?”
His laugh was shaded slightly with regret, and that combined with the warmth of his hand still on Carl’s waist took all the sting from the words.
Carl opted once more for humor. “You were distracted by my good looks. It’s almost criminal that I’m this beautiful and I’ve got the brains to match. And a good thing, too, ‘cause I know you don’t like me for my personality.”
It had been yet another defusion tactic, an attempt to distance them even as they remained half-embracing, close enough that Carl could feel Bob’s breath on his forehead and knew Bob could smell the smoke on his own. And yet -
Bob’s hand slid from Carl’s waist to the small of his back, breath catching briefly as though he were the film heroine. Backlit as he was in the low lamplight, it was the shine of his eyes that caught Carl’s gaze - and then a flash of white teeth as he licked his lips.
“Can’t I like you for three things at once?”
“I don’t know,” Carl said, too distracted by that tiny, telling motion to give any sensical response. “Can you?”
Bob’s shoulder lifted beneath Carl’s hand in a lopsided shrug. “You tell me. I’d say this is proof enough I do.”
“It’s dangerous to take things on faith.”
“Alright, then - say a man agrees to dance with you, even though his apartment could be bugged and it could ruin you both. Is he looking for a distraction, or does he just want to dance with you?”
It wasn’t fair for Bob to turn Carl’s own argumentative tactics against him.
“You’re a good partner,” Bob said, soft and soothing like Carl hadn’t let himself be even though Bob had needed a similar sort of reassurance earlier. “Dancing, working. Maybe the other sense. If - if it wasn’t a distraction for you.”
“I picked a waltz,” Carl said. He couldn’t seem to swallow properly.
Bob smiled. “That you did.”
“If they’re listening to us,” Carl began, because it was basic caution and because Bob had sounded so spooked.
“You don’t have to say anything out loud. And you can trust what I’m not saying, too.”
It shouldn’t have made sense - Carl shouldn’t have trusted his own hopeful interpretations of what Bob might mean by that. Except that they were still holding each other long after the music had stopped playing, and Bob had spoken words almost as damning as a confession into the silence left behind. That silence had frightened him, before, but now he seemed at home in it as he waited for Carl to respond.
“Well,” Carl said. He twisted his wrist to link his fingers with Bob’s, searching for the right words to communicate what he was now the one afraid to say. “So long as we’re both in agreement. I still want to dance with you. Just maybe to something more upbeat.”
Bob laughed again, a quiet, delighted sound. All traces of anxiety had vanished from his face as if they had never been there, and Carl realized with a thrill that he had done that. He had brought Bob back from the edge and, what was more, he now knew exactly how to do it again in the future.
“We don’t need music. Put your arms over my shoulders,” Bob said.
Carl did as he was told, though he wasn’t quite sure he liked the picture they made with his arms looped around Bob’s neck. He was no WASP-y teenage girl at one of Bob’s high school dances, even if he felt just as liable to swoon at the sudden feel of both of Bob’s hands gripping his waist to guide him into a slow, swaying shuffle.
“This is the only kind of dancing I’m good at,” Bob murmured.
Carl was never one to resist poking fun, even in a moment so precious and fragile as this. “What’s so good about it?”
Bob stilled their swaying and, lifting one hand to tuck Carl’s hair out of the way behind his ear, leaned in.
“This.”
Carl was not ashamed to admit he gasped, just like in the movies.
They kissed until Carl’s lips hurt and then even beyond that, and, when Bob finally and reluctantly released him, Carl realized they had indeed been dancing through the kiss - or at least moving enough to end up before Bob’s old green couch, calves brushing the lumpy front cushion.
“Guess I am pretty good at leading,” Bob said, grinning.
Carl let himself be tugged down to sit, wrapped snugly in Bob’s arms. “Doesn’t count as leading if you’re going backwards.”
“We were going sideways. So, what does it mean? From the street,” Bob clarified, nose pressed to Carl’s hair.
It was an odd feeling, and for a moment Carl couldn’t identify it. But there it was, when he focused a little harder, implausible but undeniable: safety. Carl hadn’t felt safe for longer than he cared to admit. Bob wasn’t the only one who needed comforting.
“It’s about a death,” he said, settling in more comfortably. “The composer, Janáček, was Czech, and he wrote it to commemorate a man who was killed during a demonstration. But he was one of those guys, you know, those writers who are never happy with their work, so he burned it and it was lost for a couple decades.”
“I can’t imagine anyone being that much of a perfectionist. Oh, wait, no, I don’t have to,” Bob. He ignored Carl’s unamused snort in favor of hugging him tighter. “We’re lucky to have found it, then.”
“Nothing ever really goes away. Once you share it with another person, there’s always a chance to find it again.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Belatedly, Carl twisted to hug Bob back. “I’m always right. Especially about music. And you bought all the pieces I reviewed, so don’t tell me you doubt my opinion now.”
“I plead the fifth,” Bob said, and his smile, though tinged with embarrassment, was freer perhaps than Carl had ever seen it.
Carl had no choice but to kiss it off him.
“The truth will come out someday anyway. I’m very persistent.”