Mistress of the Game

Afterward he waited at the stage door for hours. When Cozmici finally emerged, tired, grumpy and more than a little drunk, Robbie found to his horror that he was completely tongue-tied. Staring mutely, like an idiot, he watched as his idol began to walk away.

"Arr??tez! Monsieur Cozmici. Je vous en prie..."

"I don't do autographs," Cozmici barked. "Please, leave me alone."

"But I..."

"Yes? What?"

"I love you."

Paolo Cozmici looked at the boy properly for the first time. Even through his drunken haze, he could see that Robbie was extraordinarily attractive. On the downside, he was clearly a lunatic. A sexy lunatic was not what Paolo Cozmici needed in his life right now.

"Get away from me. Understand? Leave me alone, or I shall be forced to call the police."

The next morning, Paolo found a handwritten note in his mailbox.

"I'll be playing piano at Le Club Canard tonight. My set starts at eight P.M. I'll understand if you can't make it, but I hope you can." It was signed: "Le garcon de la nuit passee. RT."

Paolo Cozmici smiled. He had to admire the boy for his tenacity. It was what he was famed for himself.

But no, he wouldn't go. The whole thing was crazy.

Sexy lunatic would have to find someone else to harass.

Robbie peered into the gloomy half light of the club, searching for Paolo Cozmici's face.

He's not coming. I scared him off. Man, of course I scared him off. What kind of fruit loop yells "I love you" in the street to a man he's never met before? The loneliness must be getting to me.

Madame Aubrieau was becoming impatient. It was time for Robbie's set to start. Launching into Bill Evans's soulful "Waltz for Debby" followed by a passionate rendition of "My Foolish Heart," he was embarrassed to find himself fighting back tears. Jazz was not Robbie's preferred genre, but no one could deny that Bill Evans was a genius. The fact that he'd been a heroin junkie, like Robbie, dogged by addiction and self-doubt for most of his life, made the emotional connection even stronger. Robbie closed his eyes and gave himself up to the music. He thought about Lexi and his mother. He thought about home. He wondered how long he could bear to continue in this half-life in Paris, with no friends, no family, no hope.

He heard the applause dimly at first, as if waking up from a dream. He had no idea how long he'd been playing. As so often with Robbie, the music had transported him into a trance-like state where time and space dissolved. But as the cheers and clapping grew louder, he realized that the usually somnolent Canard crowd was on its feet, roaring approval, begging him for more. Robbie smiled, nodding in shy acknowledgment. As soon as he stood up, he found his hand being shaken and his back slapped by a sea of strangers, men and women alike. Some of them pressed notes into his hand.

"Incroyable."

"Absolument superbe!"

"Twenty percent of those tips go to the house," Madame Aubrieau reminded him tersely. She considered Robbie her property and disliked seeing him mobbed by other, more attractive women.

"Good evening."

Paolo Cozmici looked even shorter and squatter than he had last night, scurrying away from the stage door at the Salle Pleyel. In a crumpled suit and tie, an incipient paunch spilling over the waistband of his pants, he could easily have been a decade older than his thirty years. But none of that mattered to Robbie. He was so awestruck he could barely force the words out of his mouth.

"I didn't think you'd come."

"Nor did I. You play beautifully."

"I...thank you."

"You realize you are wasting your talent in this dump?"

Paolo glared at him aggressively, as if accusing him of some sort of crime. Robbie could see why they called him Le Bouledogue.

"I need the money. I'd love to play classical, but I have no formal training. At least, nothing that's recognized in France."

"?a ne fait rien." Paolo waved his hand in the air dismissively. "You will play for me. You will play with my orchestre. Where do you live?"

"Ogrement."

Paolo looked at him blankly.

"epinay. It's a suburb..."

For the second time in as many minutes Paolo narrowed his eyes, his face alight with disapproval.

"People with your gift do not live in the suburbs. Non. You live with me."

Paolo turned and headed for the coat check.

"Qu'est ce qu'il y a? Tu viens, ou quoi?"

"Oui." Robbie laughed aloud. Was this really happening? "Yes. Yes, I'm coming."

The next morning, Paolo introduced Robbie to the Orchestre de Paris.

"This is Robert Templeton. He is the finest pianist in Paris. He will be playing with us tomorrow night."

A sea of bewildered faces looked quizzically at Robbie.

"But, Maestro," Pierre Fremeaux, the regular piano soloist, interjected meekly. "I am supposed to be playing tomorrow."

Paolo shook his head. "Non."

"But...but..."

"It is nothing personal, Pierre. Listen to Robert play. Then you tell me which of you should be onstage tomorrow night. D'accord?"

Fifteen minutes later, Pierre Fremeaux was packing his bags.

He was good. But Robert Templeton was out of this world.

"I told you, Paolo, I don't have time for this. I'm not gonna meet some unknown friggin' jazz pianist you met in a bar just because you've got the hots for him."

Chuck Bamber was an A&R man for Sony Records. He was responsible for the label's European classical list, and it was his job to discover and sign new talent. A fat, loud Texan with a passion for T-bone steaks and drag racing, he was as out of place among the Parisian musical elite as a hooker in a nunnery. Everybody in the classical world knew that Chuck Bamber had no soul. They also knew that his commercial ear and instincts were second to none. Chuck Bamber could make or break a pianist's career with a tip of his ten-gallon hat.

Paolo Cozmici was determined to have him meet Robbie.

"You will meet with Robert, or I will walk out of my contract."

Chuck Bamber laughed. "Right, Paolo. Whatever you say."

Two days later, Don Williams, head of the legal department at Sony's classical division, phoned Chuck Bamber in a panic.

"Paolo Cozmici's agent just sent me a fax. He's quitting the label."

"Relax, Don. He's bluffing. We've already paid the guy a three-hundred-thousand-dollar advance. He can't leave without paying all that money back. It's breach of contract."

Don Williams said: "I know. They wired the funds last night."

"Cozmici? What the hell is going on?"

"I told you, Chuck. I want you to listen to Robert play. If you refuse..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, you'll quit. You're a fucking prima donna, you know that, Paolo?"

"So you'll see Robert?"

"I'll see him. But I'm telling you, Paolo, he'd better be good. A tight fanny and a set of six-pack abs are not gonna impress me the way they impress you. If this kid ain't piano's answer to Nigel friggin' Kennedy..."

"He is, Chuck. He is."

Robert signed a two-album deal with Sony.

The combination of his talent, film-star good looks, and famous family name was every marketing department's wet dream. The only question was in which direction to take him.

"I'd like you to consider a jazz piano album," Chuck Bamber told him over champagne in his palatial office overlooking Notre Dame. "It's sexier than straight-up classical. With your face we could easily brand you as the new Harry Connick Jr."

"Non." Paolo Cozmici shook his head. "We will not do jazz." He practically spat out the word, like rotten meat.

"Jeez, Paolo. Can't you let Robert speak for himself?"

"That's okay," said Robbie. "I appreciate your offer, Mr. Bamber, really I do. But I trust Paolo's judgment. I'd rather stick to classical, if it's all the same to you."

"Eighty percent of Robert's time will be devoted to live performances."

"Paolo!" Chuck Bamber lost his temper. "Give me a small break here, okay? I need him in the studio for at least six months. He should come back to America."

"Out of the question."

"Goddammit, Cozmici. What are you, his manager?"

"No," said Paolo simply. "I am his life."

It was true.

For the next five years, as Robbie's career blossomed and he became a bona fide star, his bond with Paolo grew ever closer. They synchronized their various concert schedules to make sure they traveled together whenever possible. When apart, they were resolutely faithful, calling each other on the phone six or seven times a day. Paolo was the best friend Robbie had never had, the strong, constant father he had lost. Robbie was the breath of life in Paolo's cynical, battle-worn, middle-aged body. His elixir of youth. They adored each other.

"You're really serious? You want to go to Maine for a teenager's birthday party?"

Paolo took a sip of his coffee and instantly spat it out again. Froid. Degueulasse.

"She's not 'a teenager.' She's my sister. I love her. And you know, it's been years."

"I know, my darling. And I also know why. You know how your father feels about your lifestyle. About me."

Peter Templeton was proud of his son's success. But he had never fully come to terms with Robbie's sexuality. Now that Robbie was famous and gave interviews in which he spoke openly about his love for Paolo, Peter's disapproval had intensified.

"It's your life," he would tell Robbie grudgingly, during their increasingly rare phone calls. "I don't see why you have to be so flagrant about it, that's all."

"I love him, Dad. The same way you loved Mom. You were flagrant enough about that, weren't you?"

Peter was incensed.

"Your involvement with that man bears no comparison to my love for your mother. The fact that you think it does shows just how far off course your moral compass has drifted. I knew it was a mistake, letting you go to Paris."

Paolo had never tried to come between Robert and his family. He didn't have to. Peter's attitude, combined with Robbie's own hectic life in Europe, made the growing distance between them inevitable.

"I wouldn't be going for Dad. I'm doing this for Lexi."

"But Lexi stays with us every summer. Can't you throw her a second birthday party in Paris, after the tour?"

Robbie shook his head. He didn't expect Paolo to understand about Dark Harbor and Cedar Hill House. About what those places meant to him and to his sister. How could he? But the time was right. He had to go back. Lexi's sixteenth was as good an excuse as any.

"You're sure you won't come with me?"

Paolo shuddered. "Quite sure. Je t'aime, Robert, tu sais ca. But a Blackwell family get-together on some godforsaken American island, making small talk with your homophobic father? Non merci. You're on your own."