Glee: The Beginning (6 page)

‘Do you think Quinn ’s okay?’ a girl with mouse-brown hair asked Finn shyly. She was a freshman on the Cheerios squad.

‘She’s never late.’

‘I don ’t know,’ Finn answered, glancing

over his shoulde r.

He
did
know that if she didn ’t show up, he was out of there. Then it hit him – this was the perfect excuse to leave. ‘But, uh, I’ll go look for her.’ He quickly disappeared into the hallwa y, grateful for a few more moments of freedom. Finn wandered halfheartedly through the now-empty hallways, glancing around for Quinn. He bent to take a drink
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from the fountain outside the auditorium. A piece of pink gum floated in the drain, but he ignored it. Just as the cold spray of water hit his lips, someone started to sing. Beautifull y. He forgot to keep his mouth open, and the water splashed off his face.

Finn stood up and wiped his mouth. He walked toward the open auditorium doo r. A girl was singing an oldfashioned-sounding song, and it sounded beautiful. He didn ’t talk about it, ever, but Finn really loved to sing. In the shower at home – even in the locker room if there weren ’t a lot of guys around – he was always singing. He tended to belt out early Springsteen songs while he lathered up with shampoo, and it was Air Supply as he rinsed off. When he was singing, he forgot about the muscle aches and cramps he got from being knocked around, like a bumper car, on the football field. When he sang, he felt like someone else.

Who was singing like that? It sounded almost like a record

– the voice was so confident and skilled. Finn quietly stepped

through the doo rway and stood in the shadows of the audi-torium. In the middle of the stage, all alone, stood Rachel Berry. Huh. She sat in the front row of his histo ry class and always answered Mr Tucker’s questions in a know-it-all voice, as though she was surprised he’d even bothered to ask. The football guys who clustered around Finn in class often flung bits of crumpled paper at her, trying to make it stick in her
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shiny hair. She always wore kneesocks and sweaters and plaid, as if she were attending a Catholic girls’ school and eve ryone else had forgotten the dress code.

This girl onstage seemed like a completely different person. Yeah, Finn had heard her on the morning announcements,

and her voice had sounded pretty good, but he hadn ’t actu-ally put it together with the image of her yet. Finn was completely spellbound, watching as Rachel wove her way across the stage, singing her heart out as if the auditorium were full of thousands of awestruck fans. She sang as if the whole world were watching, and she looked like she was having the time of her life. Finn squinted, glancing around the auditorium to see if she really was singing to someone, but it was empt y.

Rachel Berry looked really hot.

‘
What you are, what you do, what you say . . .
’ Rachel sang, stretching out her hand. Part of Finn wanted to reach out and take it. He didn ’t know what the hell was going on, but he felt like his insides were shaking as he listened to Rachel

– like he was, crazily, falling in love . . . with her?

Rachel stopped singing, but the song hung in the air like an echo. She was murmuring softly to herself now, maybe commenting on her performance. Finn shook himself out of his trance. It was just Rachel Berry up there again, the girl in his histo ry class. But now that he’d heard her sing, it was hard to imagine her with that know-it-all voice again. Rachel hummed a little to herself as she stared out at the
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empt y auditorium . She’d naile d the song, whic h wasn ’t surprising, as she’d been singing since she was in diapers. When she closed her eyes and sang, she wasn ’t standing on the stage in the McKinley High auditorium. She was on the darkened stage of the biggest theater on Broadwa y, singing to thousands and thousands of mesmerized men and women with tears in their eyes (even the men!), and her name was the biggest one on the posters outside.

All she needed to do was whip the school ’s lame Glee Club

– ignored and rejected over the years as people rushed off to cooler activities, like cheerleading and math club – into fine fighting shape. How hard could that be?

She opened her eyes. She saw Finn Hudson right awa y, standing next to the side stairs that led off the stage, staring right at her.

Her heart thumped. Had he been watching her the entire time? Finn Hudson, with the broad shoulders, those dreamy brown eyes, and that tiny beauty mark on his left cheekbone that made Rachel long to kiss it. Had he been
watching
her?

She hadn ’t realized he even knew she existed, and now he had this strange look on his face like he . . . thought she was something special.

‘Hi, Finn,’ Rachel bubbled. She felt funny standing on the stage while he was down below. She stepped toward the stairs.

‘What are you doing here?’

Finn’s backpack banged against a drum set that was sitting, abandoned, in the orchestra pit. ‘I was at this, uh, Celibacy
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Club meeting . . . and, uh, I heard you from out in the hall.’ He gestured toward the hallwa y.

‘Oh?’ Rachel smoothed the sides of her pink-and-white plaid skirt. Finn Hudson was actually
talking
to her! Her pulse raced. Even though just seconds ago she’d imagined thou sands of people watching her, she felt nervous when it was
him
. Of course, the first time he talked to her, he had to be telling her she was too loud. That was it, right? ‘I’m done singing now. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’

‘No, I didn ’t mean that. The meeting hasn ’t started yet.’

Finn fidgeted and looked up at her shyly. ‘I couldn ’t help stopping. I mean, you have an incredible voice.’

‘
Oh.
’ Rachel sounded relieved. ‘Thank you. I’ve been told that before.’ She walked down the stage steps, moving closer to Finn. She might not ever get the chance to talk alone with Finn Hudson again – he was so busy playing football and being popula r, he probably couldn ’t afford to spend much time talking to people from Rachel’s social stratum – and she wanted to get a good look at those eyes of his. She could neve r tell if they were brow n or hazel or somewher e in between.

It felt weird to talk to Rachel, but Finn couldn ’t stop. ‘I think it’s really cool that you can just get up there and, you know, sing like that.’ He shrugged. ‘I could never do that.’

Rachel’s eyes widened. She was at the bottom of the stairs, but she stayed on the first step, because Finn was super-tall and she didn ’t want him to think that her own five-foot-two
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frame was too diminutive for him. In case someday he grew tired of dating cookie-cutter blonds

and wanted more of a

challenge . ‘I don ’t know. You go out every week on the football field and throw the ball at people, with eve ryone watching.’

‘Yeah, but they all expect us to lose, anywa y, so it’s no big deal.’ He looked up at the stage lights, which were nearly blinding. ‘I guess there are bright lights on the field, too.’

Rachel inched closer to him. She could smell Irish Spring soap. She wondered what the boys’ locker room was like after a practice and how all those guys could stand to shower togethe r. ‘Are you ready for the homecoming game?’

Finn groaned.

‘It can ’t be that bad,’ Rachel said. She couldn ’t believe her conversation with Finn Hudson was lasting this long. He’d already said, like, a hundred words to her.

‘No, it’s just . . . I get tired of talking about football.’

Finn kind of hated that eve ryone associated him with football, as if he were The Quarterback and nothing else. Football had its moments, but it wasn ’t eve rything to him. There had to be more, right? ‘It’s just that it would, maybe, be nice to be good at something else. Something that means something. Like you and singing.’

Rachel shrugged, but her cheeks flushed with pleasure. She never got tired of compliments, but they seemed extra special coming from Finn. ‘I was just practicing for the music recital on Friday. We already had Glee practice after school, but I
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like the acoustics in here bette r.’ Finn turned his head slightl y, and the light caught his eyes – they were definitely brown, with tiny flecks of green in them. She opened her mouth to say something – what, she didn ’t know. The way he was looking at her made her nervous. . . .

‘What are you doing here, Finn?’

Quinn ’s icy voice cut through the room. She stood in the doo rway, wearing her Cheerios hooded sweatshirt over her

short practice skirt. Her eyes shot daggers at Rachel. ‘I thought you wanted to come to Celibacy Club with me.’

‘I did,’ Finn said, his face flushing pink. ‘I mean, I do.’ He glance d at Rachel . How muc h had Quin n overheard ? Suddenl y, he was embarrassed that he’d come in here in the first place.

‘Let’s go, then.’ Quinn strode up to Finn and placed her han d calml y on his forearm . He stare d at her pale pink fingernails. They looked kind of alien to him. ‘I don ’t want to be late.’

She pulled him toward the door just as Puck stepped in. Quinn crashed into Puck, her head bumping into his chest. They quickly jumped away from each other as if they’d been burned.

‘I thought you were catching a ride with Merino?’ Finn asked, embarrassed for Puck to see him here as well. Puck was his friend, but if he knew that Finn liked singing, he’d staple a tutu to the quarterback ’s forehead.

Puck cleared his throat. He’d been following Quinn, hoping for a chance to talk to her again, but now Finn was looking
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at him suspiciousl y. Did he have Quinn ’s lip gloss all over his face or something? To cover, he quickly retorted, ‘What are you doing in this dog kennel? Community service?’

Quinn burst into giggles as Rachel pretended to look at a piece of sheet music from her backpack. With her straight blond hair, long eyelashes, and tiny ski-jump nose, Quinn Fabray made Rachel feel like a schnauze r. ‘Seriousl y, Finn.’

Quinn ’s voice was ice. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Nothing,’ Finn replied, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He glanced back at Rachel, giving her an apolo-getic smile but not saying anything else. ‘Let’s just go.’

Rachel watched as the three of them disappeared out the doo r. Her heart sank. Quinn Fabray had absolutely eve rything, including Finn. Did she really need to insult eve ryone else, too? And Puck was just a jerk; eve ryone knew it. He’d punched a kid in the nose just because he was wearing a University of Michigan T-shirt. Normall y, insults from the stupid popular kids bounced right off her. After all, when she was a famous Broadway singer, she might get a bad review or two by a clueless critic, and she had to remain unfazed.

She would have taken it all in stride if she hadn ’t felt as though she and Finn were having . . . a moment. They really were. She knew it. She hadn ’t imagined it. Something about him was opening up to her. Maybe Finn was bored with his perfect yet predictable life.

As hurt as she was, she couldn ’t blame him too much for snubbing her the second his cool friends walked in. Rachel
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Berry might be a star-in-waiting, but she was still close to the bottom rung of the McKinley High social ladde r. It wasn ’t Finn’s fault if he cared a little too much what his friends thought. He was McKinley High royalt y, and while he could afford to spend five minutes talking to Rachel, he couldn ’t even imagine what the view from the bottom rung was like.
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seven

Me rcedes ’s house, Tuesday night

inner at the Joneses’ house was always a noisy affai r.
D
Besides Mercedes’s immediate family members, there always seemed to be at least one family friend and a

couple of her cousins over, too. Me rcedes ’s mom was a firm believer in the old saying ‘the more, the merrie r.’ Her father owned his own dental practice and slapped his wife playfully on the butt when he came in every night, to Mercedes ’s eternal embarrassment. After eve ryone else’s daily dramas, there was rarely time for Mercedes to talk about her own. Dinner usually meant a mixture of leftovers, last-minute casseroles with daring combinations of vegetables and cheeses, or takeout from one of the local Chinese, Indian, or pizza

restaurants, all of which were on the speed-dial of the Joneses’

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kitchen phone. That night, it had been deep-dish double-cheese pizza from LaPaloma ’s, and the guests included two women from her mom ’s hip-hop aerobics class and Mercedes ’s second cousin.

It felt good to be back in her room, alone. Her family believed eve ryone had the right to say something, and so all of them ended up talking at the same time. Her room was quiet and peaceful, with its pale gray walls, chocolate-brown comforter, and thick magenta rug and curtains. Rhinestone encrusted letters spelling DIVA hung on the wall, above her dresser and next to a brilliant blue lava lamp that Mercedes liked to watch when she was trying to fall asleep. At that moment,

though, the only thing that

would make her feel better was singing. She stood in front of her full-length mirror and turned to look at herself from different angles. She was what her mother called a ‘fullfigured girl’, and she liked her curves. Most of the time . All the great African-American singers had som e boot y. Aretha . Ella Fitzgerald . Beyoncé. Mercedes looked over her shoulder at her behind. It was definitely star qualit y. She started practicing the Glee song ‘Tonight’. But now all she could hear was Rachel’s bossy voice drowning out her own – something that was pretty hard to do, since Mercedes had a set of lungs on her. Rachel probably expected to sing lead, as if that weren ’t Me rcedes ’s God-given right. It was crazy the way Rachel had flounced into practice in her little kindergartener outfit