“I need the door shut,” I said, gathering my wits. “I have to get this done in the next ten minutes.”
Still blocking the door, he held up a hand as if to silence me. Then he took a last puff and let it out. Finally, he crushed the cigarette under his boot.
I waved my hand frantically in front of my face, trying to keep the smoke away from me. Cigarette smoke would not be good for my vocal chords.
That’s when Jude had grinned, 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 was exactly as 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 smile again. “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 I really wanted 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’d almost made 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 be frustrated.” He gave me a slow, distracting smile.
Jude’s quick diagnosis of the problem was annoying, yet it was a frilly song. It required a ton of control and a tight vibrato. But it came out sounding… constricted.