Blue Notes (19 page)

 Twenty-Six 

S
ome things, you have to wait for. In this case, Adelaide and I are sitting on the floor in Dixon Hall, outside the line of rehearsal rooms. A few are free on the floor below, but they’re not equipped with pianos.

“I guess trying to reserve a room at a moment’s notice is easier said than done,” Adelaide said, smiling amiably. She’s filing her nails although her manicure looks perfect. She’s wearing so many bangles that I wonder if she’ll take them off when she plays. Or if she even plans to play. This was my idea, after all. “It seems pretty spontaneous for you. No offense.”

I don’t say anything. Maybe she takes that as a reason to elaborate.

“I mean, you don’t come across as a spontaneous person. I bet that night you played at Yamatam’s is the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done.”

“Outrageous? Was that it?”

I smile at the word to hide what I’m really thinking. I’ve done a lot worse, and a lot bolder. What happened between me and Jude in his car—
that
was outrageous. If someone put a gun to my temple and made me choose which was more life changing, I’d wind up headless.

“Sounded outrageous, anyway. You floored the room. Is that what you’ll perform for the Fall Finish?”

“Maybe,” I say, obviously hedging. “That was all improv. I’m still trying to make sense of it.”

And try to expunge Jude from every note.

That isn’t working.

“Well, you should. It’ll blow away the stodgies.”

“That’s part of the problem. The stodgies. My music isn’t for everyone.”

“Bull puckey,” she says, laughing. “Your music is for anyone who has ears. It’s not
polite
, but who wants to sit through eighteen half-assed variations on the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Fifth? That’s as bold as the boldest of them will be. And every stodgy will see right through it. You’re going to hit them with a baseball bat and they’ll love it.”

“I really don’t think so.” I shake my head. “People like polite. And refined.”

“That’s the thing, girly.” She tucks her nail file away, leans her head against the shellacked cinderblock wall, and turns to eye me. “People think they want refined until they jerk out of a stupor with a bit of drool on their chin. If you get hired by one of these ensembles someday, sure, you’ll be playing Beethoven’s Fifth. But that won’t be what catches their attention in an audition.”

I try to believe her words. I do. But something about me is so encased in Teflon that they’re just sounds. The melody of her drawling accent is what gets through, not her advice. Playing it safe is the safest thing. Besides, if I rip myself open and show people what I’ve been hiding all these years . . . then what? I’ll get a smattering of applause but still be ripped open. The best I can hope for then is a polite rejection and the strength to hold it together until I find someplace private to cry.

I’m feeling edgy and awkward. After the encounter with Brandon, I’m still in a mild state of shock. Now, talking shop with Adelaide, I’m constantly sorting her from Jude, Jude from her. They look similar, with wide smiles that can come out of nowhere. Adelaide’s bleach-blonde locks look great on her, which adds a welcome contrast to his caramel-tipped dark brown hair. Although hazel, she has the intensity of his eyes—dark and unflinching in how she looks at the world. Privilege, maybe? Or just the way she’s processed the loss of her parents?

“Ugh,” she says with a sigh. “We’ve been waiting so
long
. How long does it normally take?”

“Blocks of one hour. We have ten minutes left. You
do
practice, don’t you? Or will I have to take sides with the professors and chastise you?”

She sticks her tongue out. “Don’t you start. Normally I practice at Jude’s house.”

“Oh?”

“He’s got the best piano
ever
. It’s on the top floor of the mansion. I don’t know how they got it up there. I was stuck at boarding school.”

That’s a lot for me to take in at once. Mansion. Boarding school. Playing piano in Jude’s house.

“Where did you go for school?”

“Here in New Orleans. I was barely sixteen when my parents . . .” She looks away. “You know.”

“Yeah.” I restrain the urge to touch her, somehow, just to say that I
do
know. It’s not just a platitude from me.

“Anyway, I started running wild. It was messy. I’m . . .” Pausing again, she stops to dig a lip gloss out of her purse. It smells of marshmallow cream. “I’m lucky I made it through without needing rehab or hiring a nanny. Although Jude would say I’m still playing Russian roulette.”

“I think that’s an exaggeration.” I decline to mention Dr. Saunders. “What turned you around?”

“More like
who
. I hated him for him, sorta for the same reason I hate how nosy he is now. Not that I can blame him sometimes. But I blame him plenty when I want to have fun. That’s college, right? The freedom to have a little fun?”

She exhales shakily, in a way that takes the gusto out of her challenging words. “When our parents died, Jude had just finished business school. Dad left him in charge—some shareholder thing built into the works when he incorporated. If Jude had finished business school, and the worst happened, he’d take over. Twenty-four years old and boom, suddenly he was head of a multibillion-dollar company. I don’t know how he did it and stayed sane. Well, relatively. And with me, to boot.”

To take on that burden at such a young age . . . I shiver with the need to apologize to Jude, although I can’t figure out what for. Doesn’t that just suck when it comes to arguments? I can’t remember when he and I went from
Let’s go get a hotel room
to
The end
.

“He decided I needed stability,” she continues. “And that I needed a keeper. Instead of moving the company headquarters to New York like all the board members wanted—really, we were kinda oddballs for still being based in Louisiana—he said no. Kept it right here. Fought for it. That way he and I could still be home. I didn’t need to change schools. He didn’t need to leave the mansion, although I’ve been telling him to sell that place for years. It’s like living in a crypt with our parents.”

She shudders, then rubs her hands together. “Anyway, enough sad sack Addie. Now you can tell me about you. I’m super curious.” With that conspiratorial smile of hers, she bumps my shoulder. “Jude is too. I swear, other than how to rein me in, I can’t remember seeing him this worked up over a puzzle that wasn’t based on opportunity costs and PE ratios.”

He’s been talking about me to Adelaide? Before or after how things ended?

“Nothing to tell,” I say evenly.

If I was inclined to tell her anything, I’d only be playing a game of telephone with her and Jude. I don’t want him to know anything more about me than he’s already pried out. And if I thought our age difference was a barrier to being more serious, I can’t imagine what my past would do to any second chance with him.

Jude’s parents: paragons, lost too soon.

My parents: menaces, not gone soon enough.

“All right, fine.” Adelaide stands and offers me a hand. “I’m only letting you off the hook because we’re up.”

A slim boned young man with slightly hunched shoulders is clutching his portfolio, leaving rehearsal room number one. He hurries past us without looking. God, do I look that withdrawn and scared? What’s scary is to realize that might be the case.

If so, why did Jude notice me in the first place? A jest, maybe, to begin with. Not later, though. I know he’d been perfectly serious about making that deal with me. What I couldn’t know then—and knew now—is what craving more of his attention would do to me.

Thinking about him too much, with no relief.

The piano room is cool, as always. I’m gratified to see Adelaide strip down. She means business too. She takes off her hundred thousand bangles and even her four-hoops-in-one earrings. She ties her hair back and sheds a knee length sweater that isn’t missing a single color from the rainbow. In fact, I think it made up a few colors no one’s ever seen before. I do the same, getting rid of my purple jacket and opening my portfolio.

“Ooh, wait,” she says. “I forgot to ask. What do you listen to? You know, in your off hours?”

I list a few singers, mostly Florence and Ellie Goulding and Sara Bareilles.

“I thought so. No offense, but you’re just the type. Crazy creative on your own, but a little stuck in a rut.”

“How can you tell that?”

“Just a guess. Plus, I like showing off my diverse tastes. Jude says it’s pretentious, but he still listens to The Killers.” She fishes through her giant tote. How she could find an elephant in that giant thing is beyond me, let alone a little flash drive. “This is for you. The Dead Weather, Santigold, Lana Del Rey, Flyleaf, Bastille, Purity Ring, Billie Holiday, Skrillex. Even some old school Reba McEntire and Johnny Cash.”

“Country music?”

“Don’t knock ’em. Great performers. So . . . listen and take it all in.”

I shrug and pocket the drive before spreading my sheaves into place. Unlike that time with Brandon, when I reflexively hid my work, I don’t do it now. Not because I want to be open, but because for a few delusional seconds, I forget Adelaide can read every note as easily as a junior high kid reading a baby’s board book.

“Whoa,” she whispers over my shoulder. “That’s come a long way. I’m impressed. But I wanna do something different. I get the feeling you wouldn’t have called me if you wanted to practice this. You sounded . . . flustered.”

I shrug to readjust the tension between my shoulder blades. “Yeah. A run-in at lunch with a guy I don’t like much.”

“Tell me who he is and he won’t bother you again.”

“Is this some
If I tell you, I’d have to kill you
thing?”

“Totally.” With a giggle, she looks down at her flowing skirt and unfurls its colors. “I’m
so
the secret-service type.”

“He’s just a jerk in my building and he’s been trying to play me and this other girl at once.” I shrug some of the tension out of my shoulders and roll my neck. “Turns out he’s a bit psycho. I mean, he got
really
defensive and angry when I called him on it.”

“You expected something else?”

I smile to myself, amused by the idea that, yes, I’d expected something else, something better from Brandon. Do I think that of everyone . . . without even realizing it?

“Now,” she says, her voice surprisingly no-nonsense. “You wanted performance tricks? I have them for you.” She sets my sonata aside and replaces it with a single sheet of music. On it is a basic melody and harmony, only twenty-four bars long. Thirty seconds of music, tops. “That’s your assignment.”

It’s elementary. It’s something I could’ve played when I was three. Had my parents realized what a whiz I am with the piano, they’d have used me for stuff other than luring potential marks. Instead my moment of discovery came by chance with a music teacher when I was twelve. Some junior high. Some town. Her name was Mrs. Krevitz and she must’ve seen what no one else could. She kept me after class one day and sat me at the piano.

“Play,” she said.

I was only scared that getting home late would get me in trouble. An hour later, I didn’t care. I had a gift . . . and a secret. Being raised by two people who knew what it was to keep secrets, I hid mine well. I only spent a few months with Mrs. Krevitz before I was jerked away again, but they were profoundly formative months.

I saw a glimmer of who I could be. Sometimes it was empowering when my secret gave me strength. Sometimes it was this heavy
thing
in my head. My living with my folks would’ve been like Mozart working in a coal mine.

“It’s for kids,” I say, my throat rusted. “Besides, who’s the mentor here?”

“It’s for kids.” Adelaide nods, fake earnest. “You’re the mentor and doing a great job. I’m serious! Here I am giving a damn about music, without a bar-sized audience and no spotlight. I’d have only asked you to do this tomorrow.”

“Play this?”

“Yup.”

She sits on a chair she pulls close to the bench, wearing a satisfied expression I don’t get. Whatever. Let the Villars sister get what she wants. I glance at the sheet music, then press the appropriate keys. The end.