Blue Notes

by Lofty, Carrie

  “Well stated, Miss Chambers,” the professor says, looking as surprised as impressed. “I look forward to your paper next week.”

  Aw, damn.

  That’s hours and hours that’ll get in the way of me mooning over Jude and blushing over memories of the previous evening or, hell, practicing. God, did he make me feel amazing. Daring. Naughty. Protected. I didn’t think those things could go together, but I’ve never known anyone like Jude.

  My rumbling stomach means I forgot to eat breakfast. Mooning takes precedence over self-preservation? That has kinda ominous implications.

  Great.

  I’m sick in the head. I need a way to turn thoughts of him on and off. Like . . . off, until my homework’s done and I’ve been a good roommate to Janissa and I’ve taken care of the basics. Then, once my obligations are done with, I can indulge in every little detail.

  The brain doesn’t work that way. The body doesn’t. The heart really doesn’t. We’re all grown-up kids, demanding pleasure first.

  After class, I check my phone and find a text from Adelaide. Milkshakes @ Duds? 4pm.

  I check the time. I have to hustle to make it from one side of campus to the other, where the union houses a ton of offices, restaurants, computer labs, and shops designed for one of two reasons: to entice the parents of prospective students with sweatshirts and coffee mugs that say they really do belong here in this safe place of learning, and to decorate student dorms. I dash off a text to Janissa, letting her know where I’ll be, because I still feel shitty about not checking in last night.

  Only, Adelaide isn’t alone when I find her in Dudley’s, a retro malt and burger joint just off campus. Dr. Saunders is sitting beside her on a red and white–checked bench, but he’s waaay too close for anyone to think they’re just talking about music. Music is passion, sure, but it’s not hand on ass in public. Adelaide has her butt wrapped in a skintight leopard print skirt. The former music director for the Toronto Jazz Orchestra seems to appreciate it. She’s laughing and having a good time, apparently, which makes me wonder why she invited me. Showing off? Daring me to tattle to Jude?

  More drama!

  I blame computers. By random assignment, some computer stuck me in a dorm room with Janissa, in a building where Brandon lives, and assigned me to mentor one half of the very, very famous Villars siblings. But then, the universe is kinda twisted. No matter what pairings some unseen computer conjured for me, there would’ve been drama. After all, there would’ve been people involved.

  Adelaide sees me coming. Her smile brightens. It’s blindingly charming. She uses the same smile on audiences. I’m back to the thought that she’s in performance mode twenty-four seven. Makes me wonder who she really is underneath all the glitter and leopard print. If she’s half as inquisitive as her brother, she’ll wonder the same thing about me.

  I reach their table and say hi. Then I extend my hand to the professor. “Hello, Dr. Saunders. Good to see you again.”

  “Do I . . . ?”

  “Keeley Chambers,” I say. “I’m in your international tonal theory class.”

  I know I can be invisible. My skill set, again. That he genuinely doesn’t seem to recognize me must come down to two possibilities: Adelaide has him entirely entranced or, despite having made an effort to be more outgoing here at Tulane, I’m failing miserably.

  He clears his throat. I notice that his formerly roaming hands are now in plain sight, palms down on the table. Nothing to see here. I wasn’t feeling up a student.

  I’m on Jude’s side on this one, although to outwardly smack Adelaide on the head with how stupid she’s being—if I had to guess, that’s his approach—isn’t my style. Sideways moves. Small moves. If not invisible, at least semitransparent. I am just here to chat. Adelaide invited me. That means ditching the creep.

  “It’s the first week or two,” Dr. Saunders says. “New names and faces. You know how it is.”

  “Sure,” I reply, my voice unimpeachably neutral.

  “I was just going to head out, Addie. I’ll see you . . .” His voice trails off. He adjusts his tie with agitated hands. “I’ll see you.”

  “Yup.” Her drawl is stronger than her brother’s, and her true meaning is hard to read. That one syllable could mean she never wants to see him again, or that their tryst for later that night is still on. No telling.

  We watch the professor walk out.

  “Sit, Keeley,” Adelaide says, her tone suggesting it wasn’t the first time she’d told me as much.

  I take the professor’s place, where the seat is still warm. That squicks me out. I shift uncomfortably. This wasn’t how I pictured meeting her again. There’s no predicting her, and I should know better: there’s no predicting life. Circumstance has made me into a bit of a control freak, which seems the opposite of what needed to happen. “Nurture” should’ve made me more adaptable, not the other way around.

  After a waitress takes my order, I ask her the obvious. “Why invite me here if he was going to be hanging around?”

  “Going to tell Jude?”

  “Not my business. That’s why I’m asking. I don’t want you daring it to become my business.”

  “Are you seeing him?” Her eyes are sharp; she is as perceptive as Jude. I would’ve been surprised had it been otherwise. “Never mind. Of course you will.” She grins. “But as for my brother and me, it goes like this. I’m eighteen years old. He’s eight years older. I know him as well as anyone, and I know that he’s got his eyes set on you. No offense. I’m sure you’re great. But my brother has some serious authority issues—as in, he can’t get enough. It’s only gotten worse since I started here and I’m not tied in bubble wrap at a boarding school. One drink and one chat with the wrong guy, and suddenly I’m on his shit list. Again.”

  “Maybe if that guy wasn’t one of our profs . . . ?”

  “Never mind. I’m not going to let Jude run my life. I’ll fight that battle some other time. I’ve been dying to pick your brain for days.”

  Maybe it’s that deception radar I’ve honed, but I know that’s not entirely the truth. She may have given me a passing thought or two. “Dying” for anything to do with me—I don’t think so. I wonder if she’s even given a thought to music in the days since her last performance. She expresses herself creatively with every gesture, word, her whole appearance.

  “Then let’s talk shop,” I say.

  “Or not.” She leans in, her hands lying flat atop each other on the table. “When did you find out who we are?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Sure. The sad, tragic, rich as fuck Villars kids. There’s a reason I registered using my mom’s maiden name. I want to know where I rate on your pity to envy scale.”

  There’s a defensive hostility in her eyes that I hadn’t expected. It’s really out of nowhere. I decide to counter it the only way I know—other than setting off a fire alarm and running out of the building. I’ve already done that with one Villars. So honesty it is.

  “I was mostly pissed at your brother,” I say. “He messed with me all night, and I don’t like being tricked, even by omission.” I take a sip of my chocolate malt. “But that’s not you. I got the formal introduction letter from the department. I just didn’t catch on. Mostly I felt bad for you, because I didn’t think I had much to offer when it comes to mentoring.”

  “And now?”

  “Now what?”

  “You said you didn’t think you had much to offer. After seeing me perform, have you changed your mind?”

  “Yes,” I say carefully. “But quid pro quo will probably come into it.”

  “The Franz Liszt thing?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t like performing in front of people. Sometimes I get scared that I’ll hole up in a studio and compose, and no one will ever see me play, and I’ll learn to be fine with that. But that night at Yamat
am’s took me by surprise.”

  “You liked it.”

  I smile. “And now I really want to do well at the Fall Finish, even if it means puking before and after. I wish I could grab a few strands of your extroverted DNA and make that a fun night, not one I spend months dreading.”

  “Then why did you? Perform, that is,” Adelaide says.

  “Jude goaded me into it.” My voice is rough. All pretense of keeping a nice, even, unreadable tone is toasted. I’m an open book and I know it.

  “I’m sure he had some power trip reasons, but that’s the best thing he’s done in a long time,” she says with a smile. “You were amazing.”

  “You’re being generous. I can’t get a job with an ensemble if I keep going into trances when I perform.”

  She shook her head. “I love that you compose on the spot, that you let the music take over and just go with it.”

  “It’s unpredictable. I’m sure employers don’t want unpredictable. They want someone to blend in. When I try to do that, I sound like a ten-year-old at her first recital. But you play—”

  “Okay, stop there. Either you’ll lie outright, which will damage us beyond repair. Or you’ll hesitate as you come up with some middle ground near truth. That’s what our more astute profs do, just before they ask how many hours a week I practice.”

  “Or?”

  “Hm?”

  I swipe a droplet of melted ice cream off my glass and rub it between my thumb and forefinger, then lick it off. “There sounded like a third option there. Outright lies, platitudes, or . . . ?”

  “Or blind fawning.”

  “Lemme guess,” I say, smiling more easily now. “That’s Jude.”

  “Most guys. But yeah, Jude.”

  “Then here’s the real deal. You have perfect technique. You probably master everything in a day, then do other stuff, whatever floats your boat. Rinse. Repeat.” I’m warming to the topic, because instead of scrunching up her face, all offended, Adelaide’s smiling too. She’s aggressive and megawatt bright, but she’s cheeky too. “Everyone’s so floored that you learn so fast that they don’t look deeper. So . . .” I take a deep breath. I’m grinning too. This has become less about music. That’s gotta be good for both of us. “Fans fawn, as fans do. The profs default to thinking you must not practice enough. They can’t see the real problem.”

  She’s laughing now, a wind chime, Tinker Bell sound. Her eyes take on that half moon shape Jude shows off when he laughs. “You’re a prodigy. Takes one to know one. Only another prodigy can see past the magic trick. So tell me, Piano Whisperer, what is my real problem?”

  I shrug. “Simple. You don’t give a shit unless you have an audience.”

  “My, oh my, Keeley Chambers.” She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I hope Jude doesn’t break your heart, because I do like you.”

  Eighteen

  There’s a lot about people I don’t like. If I give myself enough time to dwell, that list can get pretty long. People can be cruel, deadly, heartless, selfish, disrespectful. They can be vice-ridden and lack any basic empathy toward their fellow man.

  The tough part is when you have empathy and still wind up behaving like a jerk.

  That’s me. Tonight. It’s Saturday, and I just hit Send on a text to Brandon. Practicing with Adelaide. Rain check?

  “I’m such a liar,” I mutter.

  Janissa looks up from where she’s set up a sort of indoor picnic. She has this thick, doubled over piece of flannel she uses as a picnic blanket, with her dinner of Eggo waffles and a wedge of cantaloupe arranged on foam plates. There’s no chemistry book around. Instead she’s holding Dubliners by James Joyce. Just like me, just like everyone, we have electives to get through. Maybe someone held a gun to her head when she chose twentieth-century world literature.

  Not everything can be tearing down jazz clubs or exploding chem labs.

  She nods to my phone. “What’d you do?”

  “Blew off Brandon.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “I feel like crap.” I slump onto my bed and sigh. “But I’m just not up to it.”

  Janissa looks at me with lifted eyebrows, so damn cute and completely not buying my BS. “Uh huh. You’re exhausted, totally spent, ridiculously tired. You’re swamped! Just look at all those books,” she says, nodding toward the desk I’ve spent an hour pointlessly rearranging. “I can’t believe you’re conscious enough to text, you poor thing.”

  “I didn’t know you could talk in one hundred percent sarcasm.”

  She shrugs. “Gifts are gifts. But, seriously, Keeley. What’s wrong with Brandon? And really, what’s been up with you lately?”

  I don’t answer. I only toy with the On/Off button on my phone, watching the screen flash black and then back to a wallpaper of abstract blues and greens.

  “It’s him, isn’t it? Jude?”

  No denying that, not even with a mock glare. “Yeah, it’s him.”

  “Look, he might be a great guy. If I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt, I’ll even say it. He’s a great guy. He and his family did wonders for this city, Tulane in particular, after Katrina. And it sucks about his parents.” She grabs a bookmark and sets Dubliners aside. “But he’s, what, four or five years older than us? That’s a thirty-five year age difference in dog years. Take a lesson from the cute little puppies and forget him.”

  “Forget a gorgeous, melty, mysterious grown-up guy who’s decided I’m . . .” I don’t know how to finish that. What does he think I am? Does it matter? It doesn’t now, but it sure as hell will. “That I’m ‘intriguing.’ That’s the word he used.”

  “Intriguing,” Janissa echoes. “You’re taking that as a compliment, I’m assuming. I’d have preferred sexy or clever or irresistible.”

  “How much has he seen of the world? ‘Intriguing’ is a good thing.”

  “Or a good way to get into your pants.” I must’ve given something away. An expression? A shift on my bed? Her big, dark eyes widen. “Has he gotten into your pants already?”

  “No! Besides, what if he had? I could do a lot worse. Most of female-kind could do a lot worse.”

  “Okay, it’s like this.” Janissa stands from her half-assed picnic and sits beside me. “I don’t care what you do with your pants. Your choices. Your business. But a lot of the appeal has to be that he is older, and that’s super mysterious. It’s hot.”

  “I hear a big ‘but’ coming on.”

  “Oh yeah. It’s not like he’s one of us. We’re students. We do boring shit like classes and hideous group project meetings, clubs, Friday night basketball games. Well, maybe not us. My point is, you have no idea what he does when he’s not with you. You never will. His real life is like some other planet. Right now you could pop down to Brandon’s room and say hi. I bet he even has his door open.”

  Dorm rooms can feel like hamster cages, so most people do. We make it clear that some company would be welcome. It’s more like a cry for help. We’re studying! Come save us! It’s also how we find new music, share Netflix subscriptions, and borrow printers when something’s gone wonky. The more open the door, the more open the person—or pair of roommates.

  It’s funny. In the last couple days, Janissa and I have been leaving ours open more often.

  So yeah, I can probably stroll downstairs to where I know Brandon shares room 109 with a short psych major named Gerry, short for Gerard I think. Poor guy.

  The problem is, I don’t want to.

  “Keeley, Jude’s out of your league—and I don’t mean that as a girl and guy thing. It’s a girl and man thing.”

  “Quit.”

  “Nope. We’re in the minors and he’s in the major league. The two shouldn’t mix. Weren’t you saying that about his sister and that professor?”

  “Sure,” I say, flopping sideways onto my pillow. “Because he�
��s our teacher, and a married expectant father to boot. That’s just gross. Jude is not gross. He’s . . . I can’t stop thinking about him.”

  “That’s probably his intention. Hook, line, and sinker. Oh, and totally in your pants.” She kinda frowns. “Not to get too personal, and obviously you don’t have to answer, but what happened the other night? I mean, you haven’t said a thing. Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay.” But that’s reflex. I shake my head. “No, I’m not. It’s . . . Aw, crap. It’s complicated.”

  “I mean, you left the club to go make out with him in his town car. As an aside, who drives a town car? Does that need a chauffeur?”

  “It was a really big Mercedes.”

  “Gotcha. Rich speak for I paid a ton for this thing.”

  I smile a little. I know she’s trying to look out for me, and part of me really wants to confide in her—in anyone. But . . . God, it’s so personal. I need to, though. What happened, and this thing I want to have happen between Jude and me, is too big to keep trapped inside me.

  “We got sort of hot and heavy.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Not like you’d think. It was . . . Sometimes I wish I could say things with words as well as I can with music.” I shake my head. “Anyway, it was sexy. Teasing? Some kissing, touching, and toward the end I was so . . . Ugh. He stopped. He asked if I would still be a virgin if he hadn’t.”

  “I’m guessing not.”

  My face feels like it’s four inches from the sun. “Yup. So we made this . . . I think you could call it a plan. About how to make my first time really good.”

  “A plan? Keeley, that just sounds weird.”

  “No, hear me out. That guy you were with last year. Kier. It’s my turn to guess. He put a lot of pressure on you to give it up.”

  Janissa looks away, the first time she’s backed down during this grilling. I don’t like hurting her.