Will this go in your diary? Piano Man asks me. We’re at his apartment this time. It’s this fucking massive, ridiculous thing. It’s not even the only one he owns. By the way, it’s against my creed to fraternize with landlords, but Piano Man knew me the first time I was queer, when I was DIY microdosing testosterone and getting my ass kicked at Roe rallies. I’m saying old friendships die hard. I don’t think I could shake this guy if I wanted to.
(It’s his birthday. I’m surprised you celebrate birthdays, I tell him, when he invites me to the party. Is this a real party, or will we be morosely and penitently reflecting on the cycle of life? The blessings of mortality? I do appreciate the reflective element, he says, shows teeth. But you should see the guest list.)
I don’t have a diary, I tell him. I’m not twelve. He says, you’re writing in your head, I can tell. I’m always writing in my head, so he’s not wrong, but it’s also kind of a gimme. Are you going to write about this? I wasn’t, I say. Probably will now.
Piano Man’s mausoleum apartment is alive. I think people are dressed to some sort of theme, but I can’t tell what it is. Loud music on expensive speakers, and someone is playing piano jazz, because this apartment is the sort where both those things can happen in separate rooms, heedless of each other’s presence. You can stand in the middle and listen to the baby grand talk to the Bluetooth. I’m doing that: hiding in the bedroom, away from the California-sober art critics and the New-York-sober rockstars (which is to say the nepo babies on coke). Piano Man has caught me snooping, but he’s being nice about it. He says he likes his alias. You should tell them about him, he says. And you should call him Uptown Girl.
Uptown Girl is the guy he’s been seeing. Uptown Girl is a little more grunge than the name suggests. Uptown Girl wears eyeliner and spends a lot of time in dark nightclubs. He wears tight pants. He plays the electric guitar. (You’re richer than him, I remind Piano Man. And just as much of a snob. More of a snob. You’re a horrible fucking snob, you know. He shrugs. I know, he says.) But we call him Uptown Girl because he is hopelessly in love with opera and Gucci and credit card debt. He has annual memberships with a dozen theatre companies, enemies and friends on the Board of Trustees of every major cultural institution, and strong, incomprehensible opinions on Shakespeare. In addition to the electric guitar, he plays about a half dozen other instruments, and sings, classically. He’s French.
(Here’s why I haven’t mentioned him: Yesterday, when I showed up at Piano Man’s apartment, Uptown Girl was already there, scrolling Instagram on the couch. He asked me if I was coming to the party. I asked him why he was naked. He shrugged, got dressed, and left. I’ve avoided mentioning him, because he’s always doing shit like that, and frankly, I don’t want to give him the attention.)
Piano Man throws a good party. Sorry for doubting him. Uptown Girl has invited his friends that are too cool and young for us, along with everyone else he’s ever met, but he keeps them entertained. Those two are on speaking terms, this week, so they dance together. I steal cat food out of the cupboard.
The next day, I’m under a tree in Damrosch Park making eye contact with a dog the size of a tennis shoe. To my right, the decorative fountain outside the Lincoln Center rushes in bursts, bottled cacophonies as the water leaps and then recedes into the paving stones of the plaza. It sounds like a person breathing deeply—fast inhales, slow exhales, the way you breathe when you need to slow your heart. I match my lungs to the rhythm as the little dog spins in its stroller. Too big for it, the size of a human stroller. It has an aluminum icon of the Virgin stapled to its canvas hood, a couple plastic grocery bags hanging off the handles.
If you’ve never been, the trees in Damrosch Park are the Kraft Singles of nature—individually-wrapped, cubicled by concrete, a grid of solitary trees on raised beds. The leaves are waxy. Shiny blue skyscrapers stagger into the sky. But you can find shade, and a place to sit. I’m doing research for my next project, so I bring my books out of the performing arts library and read them outside. The titles range from uninspiring to vaguely ominous. I take photos of the pages which reprint examples of 18th century vaudevillian sheet music and text them to Uptown Girl. I flip the page to a list of major themes in the most performed plays of late-Enlightenment France: Master-Servant Relations, Rustic Romance and Riches, Intrigue and Love.
Julliard BFAs eat food truck halal and discuss competitor brands of violin. The dog’s human is sleeping on the concrete bench that surrounds the tree across from me. He’s only going to be homeless for another month or so, he knows a guy, he has a place lined up. He’s not really homeless. So he hasn’t tried to get help from the city, doesn’t like the idea of shelters, doesn’t want to use up resources. And they might not take his dog, and he’s a little scared of strangers. He can wait it out. He’s just grateful he’ll miss the height of the winter. The first chapter of Theatre, Opera, and Audiences in Revolutionary Paris is called “History of the Problem and the Method of Solving It”.
Later, I’m riding south on the 1, and I get a text back from Uptown Girl, with a video attachment. I put in my headphones to watch. He’s playing an electric keyboard, so it takes me a minute to realize what I’m hearing: it’s the song from the sheet music, an 18th century tune packed sharply into a 21st century machine. He’s singing in French. It does help to hear it. I jot down a few notes. I try to write a little something about what it might’ve been like, to be in those theatres, to watch a comedy about ambitious Harlequins from underneath the shadow of the guillotine. Adding your singing voice to that last death rattle before the Revolution.
B-side: The intimate details of my sex life
Long post this week, so I’ll keep it short. Seems like some of you are going to be very disappointed to hear that Piano Man is taken. Trust me, I’m disappointed in him too.
Aspiring copyeditors can contact my publisher.
I really hope piano man has a sugar baby that's awesome actually. i'm joining the war on age gaps on the side of age gaps
Perhaps you should stick to your initial instincts about not mentioning this Uptown Girl. It sounds as if he doesn’t need the ego stroke. I’m surprised your Piano Man finds him interesting, but maybe it’s a charity project.
Good to know somebody's cat is staying fed.