Blue Notes (18 page)

 Twenty-Four 

T
he following Sunday, sometime in the early afternoon, I finally catch up on the classwork I missed and get around to putting away the clothes Clair washed. I even drag together enough energy to fire up my Mac. Janissa’s hard at work at her desk. I try to get up my nerve twice before finally tapping her on the shoulder. She’s jumps, then yanks out her earbuds.

“Sorry,” I say. “You got a minute?”

She spins on her desk chair, then stirs a half eaten yogurt, giving it a sniff as if it might’ve spoiled since she got it out for breakfast. She must decide it’s okay, because she spoons some into her mouth. “You’re going to distract me, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Thank God. Go for it.”

My hands shake as I click the track pad to hit Play. The Sibelius program is awesome because it plays back the music you feed it. Out from the Bose speakers Clair and John gave me as a September going away present comes the music I made—music that originated that night onstage.

Janissa takes her glasses off. Her eyes go soft as she listens. She’s barefoot, wearing a gold striped tank top from PINK and a pair of capris. Her hair is barely brushed and loose. It looks great on her, all wavy and auburn. She’s too pretty to hide behind her glasses, but she tries.

Faces give away a lot. It’s like how I watched Brandon, feeling a little off about him. A hint of something beneath the surface. And damn it all, I was right. Too bad I wasn’t able to read Jude that way. Especially after how things turned out, I would’ve been happy to have Brandon as a nice, good-looking fallback. He clearly isn’t.

Two disillusionments for the price of one. Only, the way Jude disillusioned me hurts a helluva lot worse, like having my eyes burned out. Crying for most of a week will do that to a girl.

So I watch my roommate’s face. After a few minutes, I know she loves my budding sonata.

A soft smile tips her full lips. She’s tapping a gentle rhythm on the armrest. Her posture has relaxed. Then the music picks up tempo where I launched straight into a legato-on-speed section, full of fast minor chords and a restless melancholy that moves me even more than Janissa’s wide, bright eyes. When I get goose bumps about my own music, it makes me feel pretty silly.

The computer goes silent. Janissa blinks. “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“Yeah.” She blinks again and shakes her head, then runs her fingers through her hair.

I duck away, save the work, then close the program.

“Is it going to be your December recital piece?” she asks.

I shrug, wanting to fold into myself. I’m so tired. “Maybe? I like it, but something’s still missing. It’s just not there yet, and even when it is, it won’t be pretty. Too wild. I’m trying to get a job, not blow their hair back.”

“That sounds exactly how to get a job.” She tosses the empty yogurt container in a bin. “You’re really gifted, Keeley. I hope you realize that.”

My impulse is to take a nap, but it’s not even lunchtime. The day is hot as hell, even though it’s the second week of October. The whole residence hall is keeping fans on and praying the air conditioning keeps going. The heat adds to the fever in my brain. I want to be magically clearheaded about all I have to do and all I’m scared of and all I’m working toward . . . and free of Jude Villars.

Who ever said we’re dating?

“So, look at us,” Janey says. “Sunday and stuck in here.”

“All work and no play . . .”

“. . . makes Jack Nicholson put an ax through a door.”

“Sounds about right,” I say with a thick sigh. “I’d rather scream in terror than cry anymore.”

Her face is overwhelmed with sympathy, but—
thank you, thank you, thank you, Janey—
she doesn’t say anything. She blinks and puts on a cheeky smile. “We reinforce each other’s negative habits, you know.”

My head feels thick and cottony. “How’s that?”

“I stay in to work, so you stay in. Or vice versa. We eat leftover takeout and barely leave the room. The best we do at socializing is leaving the door open and hoping for a bit of gossip to walk past.”

“Look how well that turned out the other night.”

Janissa makes a sour face. “Yeah, that wasn’t cool. But now the door’s shut. We don’t even get the chance to hear more reasons why we should be disappointed with the male species.”

“I don’t want another reason.”

She slumps heavily onto her bunk. “Yeah, but I want a life.”

“You sure? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’m a junior taking eighteen credits plus lab hours. I work four nights a week at the student outreach center, just to keep my loans down. You sure I can’t have a
little
bit of a life?”

Her expression becomes more imploring. My heart heats up, knowing she’s trusting me with this personal talk. It feels good to know things aren’t totally one-way with us. She’s put up with a lot from me since waking up to me curled into sobs.

“When does the fun stuff happen?” she asks. “I’ve had one disastrous relationship, a few friends, and one roommate who wouldn’t stop eating goddamn cheese. I’m surprised she could take a shit.”

“Oh my God. Did you just say all that?”

She nods emphatically. “Freshman year. I thought everybody went through that hazing stuff, you know? Getting lost and feeling overwhelmed. Or bad luck with roommates. Eventually she moved off campus when she was dumb enough to get pregnant by her grad assistant. We don’t have much ‘let’s get out of here’ between us, and then with you meeting Jude . . .”

“You don’t need to worry about that so much anymore.”

She stares at our industrial walls and sighs. “We need posters. Mine got ruined this summer when my parents’ basement flooded. You?”

“I have one of . . .”
Ah, screw it.
She won’t judge—especially as long as I keep it on my side of the room. “I have one of
Doctor Who
.”

She actually gives a little clap. “Which Doctor?”

“Number Ten. I love David Tennant.”

“And you’ve been hiding him in the closet? You’re mean and terrible.”

So I dig out the poster and we hang it at the head of my bunk.

“He’s like a dream catcher,” Janissa says. “For good dreams.”

“I wish.”

“You know what this means.” She nods at the Doctor, then grabs her purse and heads to the door. “We need to hit the union. Our room needs personality.”

“The union? You think they have anything other than LOL Cats and Imagine Dragons?”

“
We. Have. To.
Then we’ll keep walking ’til we find something worthy of our discerning eyes.” She makes toodle-oo fingers at the Doctor and then waves me along to follow.

Possessions. Things I can lose in a heartbeat. That meltdown with Jude took only a moment or two. A reactor core gone critical.

That I’d eventually make love with Jude had been a certainty that night. A scary, wonderful certainty. Now it was gone. How could any experience with a gropey, inexperienced coed be any more disappointing?

I shove my pain—because, damn it all, I am in pain—away to a distant place. Following Janey is self-preservation.

We spend three minutes in the union gift shop, about forty in the university bookstore, and two hours in a chill out dive that sells LPs and proudly proclaims that it refurbishes turntables. Janissa surprises me by picking out a framed eight by ten of John Lennon. It’s the iconic picture of him with a sleeveless New York City T-shirt and long hair, with round sunglasses and a magically enigmatic expression.

“I didn’t know you were a fan,” I say.

“Not really. I just think he’s cute. And that the world lost a cool soul when he was killed.”

“He can come live in our dorm any day,” I say. “It’s perfect, Janey.”

By the time we finish with the collector’s place next door, I find a print of one of Alphonse Mucha’s renditions of the four seasons depicted as women. Don’t ask me which foursome, because he did about eighty sets of them. Talk about a guy who stuck with what he liked. I also slip in a three by two stretched canvas painting of the Chicago skyline. I only shrug when Janey asks me why.

“Because I’ve always wanted to visit,” I say, hating to lie to her.

We move on to a trendy boutique that’s ten minutes from closing. Janey finds a bedspread quilted with the entire periodic table in neon colors. She has this look of stupidly cute longing across her wide cheeks and soulful eyes. I know what it is to want things that are frivolous and silly, then have to walk away with a tiny hole in my heart, leaving them behind, cussing at myself for being so petty. I don’t want that for her.

I force money on her so she can buy it. I literally
shove
bills into her hands. “It’ll make the room incredibly ironic-nerd. My stuff’s just purple. This’ll help balance the purple infestation.”

“You do have a lot of the damn stuff,” she says, her hands closing around forty bucks.

Then, ta-da, she owns a periodic table for her bed.

One more shop, and I give in to a picture of a piano.

It’s not just any piano.

The room looks like a restored Victorian ballroom. The baby grand is impeccably beautiful. Beneath it is a couple huddled together, legs artfully posed in the most amazingly passionate embrace. He’s practically devouring her, but with a steadying finger beneath her chin. I imagine that the kiss started light enough. Maybe just a taste, but it exploded before they could stop themselves—that moment Jude talked about, when all the planning in the world doesn’t prepare you for when magic happens.

I shouldn’t be buying it. It’ll hurt to look at it.

Only, this couple . . . They’re enveloped within one another. Some touch of wishful thinking says they’d have a happy ending.

I need to believe that’s possible.

 Twenty-Five 

J
ude hasn’t called.

Brandon hasn’t stopped texting.

I’m fed up with nine days of both.

On Wednesday, I wind up having lunch with our so-called residence hall hero. Jude’s been a thorn in my brain, and to see Opal so misguidedly happy—I want to smack Brandon in the face. He’s not Jude. I don’t have to be a psych major to understand displaced anger. But seriously? Brandon watches me whenever he’s sitting at the front desk. If I make eye contact, I get double the texts for the rest of the night. It’s creeping me out.

It’s such a shame. He’s got a great jaw and a strong chin, like Superman. We sit together at Dudley’s, where Adelaide and I had milkshakes. He’s busy noshing away on a burger with bacon and barbecue sauce. I’m picking at a Greek salad. Mostly I just like the olives.

“I heard you have foster parents.” I could just open up a hard core grilling, but I don’t have it in me. Mostly I want to fill dead air.

“You heard that?”

The restaurant is crowded. Students are everywhere, some socializing, some with their noses buried in books and their eyes glued to glowing screens. I want to be in the practice room. I’m supposed to meet Adelaide for a tricks of the trade session tomorrow night. I’m worried she and Jude talk about things. I’m worried the whole rest of the year is going to be as awkward and disappointing and agonizing as the last few stupid, endless days. Maybe if things don’t go well for Adelaide and me, I can ask to be assigned as a mentor to someone else—the music department’s version of irreconcilable differences.

“You know how fast rumors move through tight spaces,” I say.

“Can’t get tighter than our rabbit warren of a dorm.” He smiles. I could be totally taken in by him, if I didn’t know any better. Besides, one run at playing the fool for a good-looking guy was way more than enough.

But I was a complete moron to think Jude was just another good-looking guy. What we’d done. What we’d talked about doing . . .

He was so much more.

And he never called.

“Anyway, yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. “So was I. Foster parents. State custody. The whole deal.”

Great. I should be grilling him, being all badass. Instead I’m ready to spill my life story in ways I’d been too embarrassed to with Jude. I spear a chunk of feta and chew it down, not saying anything more. Let him fill the quiet.

“Sucks, don’t it? The whole system. How many did you have?”

“How many what?”

“Foster families?”

“Just one.”

He snorts derisively. “One? You’re shitting me.”

“No. They were good to me.” I don’t mention that they’re my legal guardians, not just temporary foster parents anymore. No one deserves to know that much about my past. It was dangerous back then, anyway. I was warned repeatedly that even with my dad locked up, he could hire someone to come after me. Sometimes I have nightmares about that too, but they feel more speculative. Unrealistic. After all, why would I tell
anyone
? The bad stuff I’ve already lived through is fodder enough for bad dreams.

Yet, I must feel the need to connect on some level. Or to find a reason to think Brandon isn’t a complete dick for how he’s been treating me and Opal.

“I know I got lucky,” I say, leaving my words vague—the exact opposite of my thoughts.

“Lucky?” He sets the burger down, wipes his hands. The forceful way he smacks the napkin back down makes the utensils rattle. “That’s a helluva understatement, Keeley. You got a winning lotto ticket. Congrats.”

“Hey, don’t get so upset. You asked.”

“Yeah, well, now you get the truth too.” The handsome face turns twisted and mean—but sad too, felled by Kryptonite for reasons he’s about to lay on me. I
really
don’t want to be here anymore. “I had six foster families, from age eight on. Mom had a side business that consisted of collecting baby daddies. My bio dad left after my younger brother turned out half black. Fast forward, and I was out of school more often than I was in it. Then, hey, say goodbye to Mom, kid.”

“Brandon—”

“Six families. They shuffled me around. I was a paycheck and a pain in the ass. You probably know I’m older than other juniors, but do you know why?”

I shake my head. Beneath the table, I’m shredding a paper napkin.

“I had to take my GED twice. There’s a reason I work the damn front desk to make ends meet. If I don’t depend on myself, there’s no one to depend on.” He scowls hard. I’m getting really nervous, and I’m glad we’re in a public place. People turning to watch as his voice gets louder and louder—that’s bad enough. “So, yeah, we were both in the foster system. You think we have something in common because of that, don’t you?”

“I thought we might. I was wrong.”

I could come back at him with worse tales of woe is me, but no way. This was already skating on thin ice. He seems so . . . placid on the outside. Maybe that’s his way of coping, like I have my ways. The truth is way different. And kinda scary.

“Yeah, you were wrong. You got here on, what, a fellowship? Little Miss Prodigy. Did brand-new mommy and daddy buy you a pony as well as a piano?”

“Keep your bullshit to yourself,” I snarl. Forget scared. I’ve been storing up eleven days of pissed off. He’s got about as much right to talk to me that way as I have to throw plates and glasses around the restaurant. “I admitted it. I got lucky. That’s something I won’t ever deny. But it doesn’t mean you get to shit on me and make assumptions.”

“I can think what I want, like how I got it way wrong when I asked you out. I didn’t know you were some brainwashed little princess.”

“Brainwashed? You have some nerve. And you sure as hell got it wrong by asking me out. Does Opal know about that? Does she know you text me on the nights you take her out? Is she your backup plan, or am I?”

“Shut up. You know what, just shut up.” He stands abruptly and glares at me. I’m transported to that morning when he stood over me, when he reminded me for a split second of my dad. Maybe my subconscious was onto something. “I like Opal,” he says, sneering. “If you say a word about this to her . . .”

“What? What will you do, Brandon?”

He smiles in a way that sends chills up across my scalp. “I was in juvie when I finally passed my GED. Assault and battery charges. I can’t smack you around, princess, but I can find ways to make you regret getting up in my shit.”

My heart is slamming. The heavy flavors of my salad are pressing up on the back of my tongue. I’m frozen and freaked, and, crap, do I wish I’d told Janey about seeing him today. She’d have come with me, and I’d at least have a witness. But her being here wouldn’t have changed that Brandon is so totally not what he seems. In fact, it might’ve delayed finding out the truth.

“You can pick up the check,” he says just before he turns tail and storms out. Curious eyes follow his exit. Then I bet some of them shift to look at me. But I’m frozen, looking at what’s left of his cheeseburger. The grease is congealed and cold now.

My hands are numb with shock, but I manage to dig my phone out of my purse without dropping either. I don’t call Janey. I call Adelaide.

“Hey,” I say, grateful that she picks up.

“Hey. Shit, did I mess up? Are we supposed to meet today?”

“No, we said tomorrow. But I wonder if you could meet me anyway?”

“Um, hold on.” I hear the muffled sound of her hand over the phone’s mic. And, oh shit, the voice that answers her is Jude. I’d know that low, rumbling accent anywhere, even with Adelaide trying for some half assed privacy. She couldn’t have hit mute? Then again, maybe he’s kept his mouth shut. She might not know there’s any reason to keep Jude and me apart.

Which would be worse? Her knowing everything, or us having to go day by day through the rest of the year with
What happened between you and Jude?
as an unspoken question between us? Again that idea of getting reassigned jumps to mind. It’s sounding damn reassuring right now.

Yet I called her in a crisis. I don’t understand it, but I go with it.

A rustle and rasp, then she’s back. “Sure. How about an hour? You’ll have to reserve a rehearsal room, though.”

“Why?”

“Because I keep forgetting to show up when I do. They don’t trust me anymore.”

“That’s why you have a mentor,” I say, trying for a joke despite the icy lances in my throat.

“Same reason Jude has a secretary. So he won’t forget his head when he goes into meetings, let alone his notes.”

“I don’t believe that.” My voice is quiet.

“No?” Her curiosity is like a megaphone in my ear. She shushes someone—obviously Jude. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he knows exactly what he’s doing. All the time.”

Adelaide’s laugh is that Tinker Bell sound again. It’s so pretty and light despite the burdens that life has layered underneath her outward playfulness. “Oh, honey,” she says, her drawl an extra layer of thick. “You’ve got it
so
wrong. I’ll see you in sixty. Text me the room number, ’kay?”

Then she’s gone. Brandon’s half eaten cheeseburger looks even worse, if that’s possible. I gather my things and try not to think about Adelaide’s words. I try not to make sense of them or read into them, but isn’t that what we do? We’re here in college, trapped in a bubble that looks like real life until you stroll off campus and see how people really live. I keep forgetting, although Jude never did.

Maybe Brandon had that much right. I’m not brainwashed, and I know I’ve been really lucky with my foster parents, but I’m losing perspective here. I don’t go home at night to eat dinner with Clair and John. I don’t see how tired Clair is after being on her feet all day, working as a pediatric nurse at a children’s hospital. I don’t see how John’s hair is turning gray, slowly, as he nears his thirtieth year with a manufacturing supply company. Those things used to ground me. I was constantly in touch with the outside world, even while I devoted myself to my music at the satellite campus.

Now I’m in a fish tank. The biggest financial decision I’ve made since being here was helping Janey buy that quilt. I’ll probably talk to Opal tonight—she sure as hell needs to know who she’s dealing with—then relive that drama by filling Janey in with all the details.

No wonder Jude made such a distinction between his life and mine. He’s out there every day, earning God knows how much money because of his decisions—and he risks losing just as much with those same decisions. My big choice this morning? Whether it was going to rain and should I bring an umbrella. It’s pouring outside, so I called that one wrong. For Jude to make a wrong call could mean lost jobs and angry shareholders and negative press.

There was no way he and I could ever be together. Dating. Or whatever fanciful notions I’d let creep into my head and heart. He was right to keep me in the dark. The literal dark.

But could he have been right without it hurting so much?

I need to vent. I need piano keys beneath my fingers and pedals beneath my feet. I shoulder my bag, wipe a surprising sheen of tears off my cheeks, and leave the restaurant.

Jude and I . . .

We could’ve had a really amazing time. If I’d been able to keep it simple, I could’ve walked away smiling, knowing he’d treated me to an experience few women ever knew: how to be slowly, surely, completely seduced.

That was the problem. His version of seduction had felt too real. He’d made it way too easy to imagine becoming his one and only.