Page 7 of Steadfast
That’s when Jude hadgrinned, and I became even more addled. That hundred-watt smile of his made all the girls stupid. I was so astonished to find it pointed my way that I frowned back at him like an idiot.
Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he slid past me and into the auditorium. I closed the door, all huffy, and the new breeze chased another ten programs off their metal chairs.
He surveyed the mess with a frown. “You need a hand?”
Did I? Probably. But I wasn’t going to ask. Jude made me feel jumpy. “I got it,” I said, diving toward the nearest row of chairs, plopping programs onto the empty ones as if my final grade depended on it.
Where I was frantic, Jude moved like a cat—all confidence and no hurry. That sleek body slid into the row where I’d begun. He bent over, showing off a very fine ass, plucking programs off the floor and putting them back onto the seats.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye, trying not to be obvious about it.
He paused to glance at the front of a program. “A band concert? I didn’t know you were in the band.”
“I’m not.” My brain snagged on the notion that Jude had noticed me. Sort of. Well, noticed the band and my absence in it. I filed that away to worry about later.
“Then why is this your problem?” he asked, holding up the program.
“Good question,” I grumbled. “If you want something done by someone who never complains, I guess you ask a goody-goody choir girl.”
“Huh,” Jude said, slowly placing another program on a seat. “Thing is, I’m not convinced you’re as good a girl as everyone thinks.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said immediately. Because I wasexactlyas good as everyone thought. And I was really freaking sick of it.
He wasn’t looking at me, so I almost missed his next words. “Naw. I saw you throw away that note on Mr. H’s desk.”
My hand froze on the next folding chair. I didn’t think anyone had seen me do that. “Mr. H is a dick,” I said quickly. It was true, too. The teacher had snatched that note from a girl in our geometry class who he always picked on. She’d turned red when he’d dropped it on his desk, so I knew the contents would embarrass her.
When I’d gotten up to sharpen my pencil, Mr. H had been at the other end of the room, helping a basketball player with his homework. With a single flick of my finger I’d sent the note into Mr. H’s garbage bin as I passed by.
Jude gave me the hundred-watt smileagain. “See? Not such a good girl.”
The idea that he thought so made me feel prickly hot. And not in a bad way.
For two months after that odd little exchange, we had no more interaction. But whenever he entered a room, my face felt hot and the back of my neck tingled with awareness.
Jude ignored me until one afternoon when I was alone in one of the little practice rooms off the music wing. I was working on a vocal piece for the Vermont All State Competition, and Ireallywanted to win. I’d had the foolish idea that my father would take my musical ambition more seriously if I could demonstrate that I had potential. I was preparing “Green Finch and Linnet Bird” from Sweeney Todd, because it showed off my soprano range.
I’d sung it a million times already, and I knew the piece well. But my delivery was unsatisfying, and I couldn’t figure out why. A change of key hadn’t helped, either. I was hitting the creative wall and frustrated as hell over it. I remember slapping my finger down on the iPod wheel to stop the music, then yelling “FUUUUCCCCCCKKKK” at the top of my lungs.
It wasn’t like me. I didn’t even know where that obscenity came from. It was probably the first f-bomb I’d ever said out loud.
From the other side of the practice room door came laughter. I jerked the door open, wondering who had heard.
When I popped my head outside, I saw Jude leaning against the hallway wall, grinning at me. “Problem?” he asked in that smoky voice.
I looked both ways down the hall before answering him. “Just frustrated.”
“Reeeeeally,” he said, his tone full of suggestion. “Maybe I can help with that.”
I flushed immediately because he’dalmostmade a sexual reference. And Jude exuded sex, which was a subject I knew nothing about. “I doubt it, unless you’re a vocal performance expert.”
He toyed with an unlit cigarette between two fingers. “That’s an awfully frilly song you’re singing in there. Anyone might befrustrated.” He gave me a slow, distracting smile.
Jude’s quick diagnosis of the problem was annoying, yet itwasa frilly song. It required a ton of control and a tight vibrato. But it came out sounding… constricted.
He was right, damn it.
“Maybe,” he said, tucking the cigarette into a case in his hand, “the stakes aren’t high enough? The birds are trapped in their little cages. So what? They have brains no bigger than your fingernails. It’s a good-girl song. There’s nowhere to go with it.”
