3. Trent
Chapter 3
Trent
S omething was off from the moment Trent entered the classroom for his Vocal Literature class. Usually, Anthony breezed in at five past the hour, pontificating about Rossini or Mozart or Britten like a nerdy operatic whirlwind. Not today.
Today, Anthony was there when Trent walked in, scribbling away on the whiteboard. The few students that had beaten Trent there were staring in silence. Mischievous energy poured off his teacher. Anthony practically wiggled as he wrote his list.
It was a lineup of names, some in pairs, some in trios. This wasn’t good.
Previously, Anthony had always let them choose the music they would sing. He’d decide on the parameters. German lieder. Contemporary art song. Baroque. Classical. Romantic. Most people worked by themselves, although occasionally a couple of folks presented a duet. Once a trio sang the finale of Gounod’s Faust .
Trent had only ever performed solo. Until today.
He predicted what it would say before the words appeared. Anthony just couldn’t leave anything alone. Once Trent’s teacher got something in his head, he was worse than a dog with a bone. Anthony was convinced that Trent needed to be brought out of his shell. The man didn’t understand that Trent liked his shell, that his shell had formed around him for a reason.
But that didn’t matter. Right there on the board, in bright purple marker: Trent and Oscar. Dammit.
He knew at some point he’d have to sing with someone else, but he figured he’d get a choice. He thought he’d be able to avoid working with someone who was…well, who was Oscar.
“Alright, friends,” Anthony began, “we’re starting today with assigned groups.”
The whole class stared at Anthony, but the smile never left his face. The tense silence in the room proved that Trent wasn’t the only control freak among the students. Everyone was trepidatious about putting their grade at the mercy of another person’s whims. He certainly was.
To be fair, Trent didn’t know Oscar, and to be unfair, he didn’t like him. He’d dealt with his share of poor little rich boys in undergrad. Everything was a game to them. His college girlfriend had been a trust fund kid, and it’s probably why they broke up. She could never understand his drive, his constant need to do better, to achieve more.
Although, if he was being honest with himself, it might have had more to do with the uninspired sex.
But there were no stakes in this for someone like Oscar. If his career fizzled, hell, if he dropped out of the master’s program, he’d always have the cushion of his privilege. Trent didn’t know much about Oscar’s background, but he knew that he didn’t take anything seriously and threw money around like it was confetti.
Trent couldn’t do that. This career was all he had. His parents couldn’t help him. They were?—
“Trent?”
Anthony’s voice cut through his ruminations. Shit. How had he gotten so distracted?
“Sorry. Yeah?”
“I was saying that you and Oscar will be going first, next week, so you’ll need to learn the piece fairly quickly. Is that okay?”
Trent nodded, fighting to keep the annoyance off his face. “Sure.”
“Great. The two of you will have your private lesson with me together on Friday. We’ll start work on it then.” Anthony winked at him.
Trent shook his head, confused. He’d obviously missed something. “Wait, what are we singing?”
“ Dio, che nell’alma infondere from Don Carlo. ” Anthony smiled. “And no, you can’t do it in French, even though it was written in the language. You’re far more likely to be asked to perform it in Italian in the states. Regardless, you two are both ready to push into heavier rep. This will be a good step in that direction.”
Oh god. Trent swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. It was a beautiful duet, one of Verdi’s best, but it was also a declaration of love between two lifelong friends. It was almost romantic. It was bad enough he had to sing with Oscar. Now he had to pretend to like him? To love him? Couldn’t Anthony have chosen something more antagonistic?
Trent caught a glimpse of Oscar out of the corner of his eye. He turned to Trent with a big smirk on his face and winked .
Oscar was a shameless flirt. Not that it had any effect on Trent, despite the little flip his stomach had just done. Which was nothing. Probably the food truck bacon, egg, and cheese he’d had for breakfast settling. Trent was straight. But Oscar loved to troll the straight guys in class. He was probably delighted at the chance to torture Trent.
Trent understood that he was being ridiculous. He was ascribing all sorts of motives to a man he barely knew. But was it too much to ask to be able to work alone? Group projects were the worst, and Oscar was absolutely the kind of person who would do none of the work and take all the credit. Maybe singing a duet wasn’t exactly like making a grade-school diorama together, but Trent hated the thought of someone else’s blasé attitude tanking his GPA.
And Oscar was one of his main competitors for the Manhattan Lyric program. Maybe the main competitor, although Trent couldn’t understand why everyone liked his singing so much. His voice was fine. Probably just because he was a tenor. Everybody loved a tenor.
Trent forced his attention back to his teacher as Anthony dove into a lecture about the stylistic concerns of the songs. He tried to put the impending musical disaster out of his mind.
Five days later, Trent stood in Anthony’s studio, his score resting on the music stand in front of him. Julie sat at the piano, scrolling on her phone. Anthony tapped on an ornate wooden side table with the cap end of his pen.
Trent couldn’t contain himself anymore. “Do you think?—”
“He’ll be here.” Anthony’s tone made it clear any further argument would be useless.
Trent shrugged. If Anthony said so. He’d had very low expectations of Oscar’s behavior going into today, and he had yet to even meet those. Maybe if he simply didn’t show, Trent could get out of this altogether.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Trent squinted at Anthony. “Huh?”
“I can tell you are scheming, hoping to find a way to work alone. Not going to happen.”
“I wasn’t?—”
Anthony cut him off with an eyebrow raise.
“Fine,” Trent capitulated. Escape wasn’t an option.
He was about to ask Julie to run through his part a fourth time when the door sprang open. Oscar rushed in, babbling as he did.
“Sorry I’m late everyone, the M was running behind, so I tried to take the 1, and that was a disaster, there’s construction down at Sixth Avenue again ?—”
Trent bristled at the stream of excuses, annoyed that Oscar was wasting yet more time with all his justifications. Maybe if the man didn’t spend so many hours getting ready. He wore a plaid Vineyard Vines blazer and a white button-down shirt, and his long brown hair rested on his shoulders as if it had been placed there by a stylist. Even rushing from the subway, Oscar looked handsome and put together, like he’d just stepped out of a photoshoot. It was so annoying.
“—so I ended up giving the homeless guy my sandwich, and then I had to grab a snack because I’ve got a class right after this.”
There was silence as Trent, Anthony, and Julie all stared at him.
“What?”
“Can we start?” Julie said from the piano, her voice flat.
“Of course!” Oscar opened his giant leather tote. “Let me just locate my score. One moment.”
Trent doodled in his music to prevent himself from starting a fight as Oscar rummaged through his bag. Oscar began taking things out and putting them on top of the piano. An unopened pack of pens. A small leather-bound book. A travel-sized bottle of lube.
Trent tried not to react, but his disdain must have shown on his face, because Oscar smirked at him.
“What? You never know when you’ll find yourself in a three-way in a remote, lube-less location.”
Oscar finally pulled out his copy of the duet. It was banged up and much worse for wear. He dragged a music stand over from the wall, setting up next to Trent. Trent’s blood pressure rose as Oscar took yet more time to smooth out his score.
After he was done, Oscar looked over at him.
“Wow. You are big.”
“What?” Trent blushed and was immediately frustrated with himself for the unconscious response. It’s not like people hadn’t been saying things like that to him for his whole life.
“Did you play football? You are very broad-shouldered. And blonde.”
Trent was broader than Oscar. He’d been a big sports guy in high school, and although he didn’t play anymore, he had kept up the linebacker physique.
“I...I’m not sure what my hair color has to do with playing football.”
“It’s the final piece in the Midwestern corn-fed puzzle.” Oscar winked at him.
Trent was not having this. Absolutely not. No amount of flirting would make up for the fact that he’d kept them waiting, was still keeping them waiting.
“Can we sing?” Trent locked eyes with his teacher, sending psychic vibes for him to move this along , but Anthony just sat there with an amused look on his face.
“Oh, of course, doll. Let’s jump in.” Oscar reached out and patted Trent on the arm. Trent pulled away.
“I’m not your?—”
Trent’s sullen response was cut off by Julie’s loud attack on the introduction. If she was trying to shut everyone up, it worked. Trent took a deep breath. He wanted the same, after all.
He started the recitative, the speech-like portion that preceded the aria proper. He was Rodrigo, reuniting with his best friend Don Carlo after a long separation. Despite the passion baked into the words, the melody dribbled limply from Trent’s lips. He couldn’t find the pulse of it. He couldn’t express the fire that he knew should be there.
Oscar wasn’t doing any better. His brows were furrowed with concentration in a way that Trent would have found cute in a less annoying person. He kept his eyes glued to the page, and when he wasn’t singing, he unconsciously chewed his bottom lip. This was the first time Trent had been near Oscar for an extended period, and it was definitely the first time he’d seen Oscar try to be serious.
As they neared the end of the section, both Trent and Oscar turned to Anthony, the unspoken frustration thick in the room. Anthony, though, just smiled and gestured for them to keep going.
Then something changed. They hit the meat of the song. The accompaniment rhythm shifted, became more energetic, and the two of them leaned into the harmony, pledging themselves to the cause of liberty and friendship, and to each other.
Dio che nell’alma infondere
Amor volesti e speme,
Desio nel core accendere
Tu déi di libertà.
God, who instills
love and hope in our souls,
kindle within our hearts
a desire for liberty.
Trent and Oscar were no longer singing at each other, no longer struggling to connect. They were in exact matching rhythm, their tones blended, their tuning perfect. But more than the musicianship, electricity flowed between them. It was the connection the music needed.
Their voices soared as the song built, pouring out sound and emotion into the tiny room as they reached the climax.
Insiem vivremo, e moriremo insieme!
Together we will live, and we will die together.
Julie finished the accompaniment with a grand flourish. Trent’s eyes were locked on Oscar’s. Neither had moved since they’d ended their final notes. Trent couldn’t deny that this duet brought out something magical in both of their voices, Trent’s agile baritone blending with Oscar’s big but lyrical tenor.
No one in the room spoke, as if they didn’t want to break the spell the music had cast. Ultimately, though, Anthony’s voice cut through.
“This is going to be quite something.”
Trent wrenched his gaze away from Oscar, and his common sense reengaged. He remembered where he was. And that Oscar was an annoying jackass.
“That being said, you’ve got your work cut out for you,” Anthony continued. “There are some phrasing issues, and we need to work the whole recitative. Verdi was drifting into verismo here. There’s a lot to talk about stylistically.”
Trent nodded, not saying anything. Anthony’s eyes went to the clock on the wall, a cheap standard-issue black-and-white plastic timepiece.
“I’m going to wrap up early and give you two a few minutes to figure out some things. Discuss the song. The character relationship. Find some times to meet and sing through it together.”
Oscar nodded tentatively. He looked confused. Hell, Trent was confused too. It wasn’t usual for Anthony to end a lesson early.
Anthony slipped out the door, leaving Trent and Oscar standing in Anthony’s studio. This was weird. Trent didn’t look at Oscar. Instead, he scanned the sheet music of the aria they’d just sung, scribbling notes in the margins. Anything to avoid having some kind of conversation with the trust fund baby.
“Okay, you two, that’s enough.”
Shit. Trent had forgotten that Julie was still there. And she was pissed.
“What?” Trent widened his eyes naively. He hoped it was convincing.
“Stop that.” Julie crossed her arms and leaned over the keyboard of the grand piano. “You have to work together, so start talking.”
Oscar sighed, pulling out a red notebook with gold lettering on the front. It was a planner. Who the hell uses a paper planner? No wonder he was so late.
“What time this week are you able to rehearse?” Oscar asked.
Trent grabbed his phone out of his pocket, scrolling through his calendar. “Friday afternoon is free right now.”
“Fine. Let’s do Friday at one.”
“That’ll work,” Trent said, putting the event in his calendar and popping the phone back in his pocket. “Assuming you can get there on time.”
“Trent—” Julie started from the piano, but Oscar cut her off.
“No, no, let the man speak. He clearly has something to say.” Oscar’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Trent.
“Some of us care about being rude.”
“Are you kidding?” Oscar turned to Julie. “Is he kidding? I’m supposed to account for my tardiness to Mr. GoFundMe over there?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Trent’s jaw clenched in anger, but more than that, he was confused.
“You want to tell him?” Oscar smirked, leaning against the side of the piano.
Julie froze.
“Jules.” Trent’s voice dropped down into a low, even tone. “Tell me what he meant.”
“It’s just…” Julie paused for a moment, then launched in. “It’s something that some of the guys called you. They’re assholes, you know, the two other straight guys, Seth and Garrett. It’s just that once they said it, it kind of, well, stuck.”
“Tell me.” Trent gripped his pencil in his hand like a vise.
“They, um, they call you GoFundMe because they said that you would need to start crowdfunding to pay for your surgery.”
Trent’s eyebrows furrowed. “What surgery?”
“The one to have the stick removed from your ass,” Oscar answered, his tone all snark and condescension.
Trent stuffed his music into his bag and headed for the door. He needed to get out of this room. He needed to get away from Oscar.
“Trent, wait.” Julie stood, imploring, but Trent was having none of it.
Trent put up his hand to her. “No, Julie.” He turned to Oscar.
“You know, I come to class on time, I work hard, I’m dependable. What the hell else could anyone want? But for some reason, they all think you’re wonderful, and I’m the stuck-up jerk. You’re a flake, and if you weren’t an Upper West Side nepo baby, you would never even have gotten into this school. No one’s going to hire someone who can’t get to work on time, no matter how good their voice is.”
Trent’s hand found the cold metal of the door handle, and he stepped halfway into the hall before turning back.
“And yours, by the way, sucks.”
He slammed the door and strode away, trying and failing to leave his hurt, his embarrassment, and his shame behind in the studio.