Blue Notes (27 page)

When I finish, I’m surprised to hear that the sweet gum trees are still creaking beneath the strength of relentless winds.

“That sounds . . . familiar,” Jude says after otherwise silent minutes. Even the little hitches in my breathing have eased.

“Did I copy something? I didn’t mean to.”

“No, not like plagiarism.” He pushes away from the wall, out of the darkness, and sits beside me on the bench. I close the exquisite wood over the keyboard, where he promptly rests his elbows and tunnels agitated hands through his hair. It’s still a little wet from the rain. “I’ve
felt
that music before.” A warped smile doesn’t do anything to ease his tension. “I guess Addie’s tricks about making people react a certain way are paying off.”

I’m still pulled into myself physically, but I dare to rub his back. “I wasn’t using any tricks. I just needed to do that.”

“I don’t know where you pulled it out of, but maybe that’s why you didn’t want me to ask.” He exhales and straightens. “I get it. I do. Because there are some things about my life I’d stonewall too. You make it hard not to, though.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I keep quiet. Maybe he’ll tell me. Maybe he won’t. I hadn’t realized my music could be
that
powerful.

“You reminded me of people,” he says roughly. “Good people. And people who chose to save themselves first. The breadth of humanity, really. It’s a rough thing to take in all at once.” He looks toward where light reflects off a bank of windows. “This thunderstorm isn’t helping either.”

I go still. “Katrina?”

He nods, and takes a long time to compose himself.

“I was eighteen. Adelaide’s age. I thought I was pretty hot shit. Top of my class. Full ride to Tulane. Maybe that’s why I’m so hard on her, because she thinks the same thing now. But then . . .” He chuffs a dazed sound. “Then there was no Tulane. The storm swallowed the city I loved. Some folks climbed on top of one another for canned goods and blankets, while others took the shirts off their backs so babies would have cloth for diapers. My parents opened this whole place to refugees. I think at our max, we had about seventy-five people sleeping on the floors. We did what we could, but stories coming out of the Astrodome—God, none of it felt like enough.”

His breathing is rougher than mine, mostly because I’m holding all the air in my lungs. “I wound up taking classes at Louisiana State while my family and FEMA and all the other government misfires tried to dry out the Big Easy and put her back on her feet.”

He closes his eyes, shakes his head. I take his shudder into my body.

“I can feel it,” I say very quietly. “That’s not the end of your story.”

“I lost two of my best friends in the storm. They were on scholarship to my boarding school, but they lived down in the lowlands. Their houses, just . . . gone. Them too. I was humbled and scared. Everybody kept asking me why.
Why haven’t people come to help? Why haven’t we been rescued?
Or even,
Why is Jude Villars down here?
At least I could answer that one.” He kisses my forehead. “Because I didn’t know who I was anymore. Rebuilding a house was easier than dealing with how much had changed. Some rich kid with a future laid out like a red carpet—that’d been me. Not after the storm . . . and not after the crash.”

I swallow hard, but there’s no getting air past the lump in my throat.

“I’d finished my last exam at Vanderbilt an hour before the call came in. I was celebrating in a campus bar with my friends. We’d done it. Top honors MBA, here I come. Mom and Dad were supposed to come back the following week for the graduation ceremony. They’d finally decided to take time off and were flying to Banff for some Canadian sightseeing thing. Addie and I laughed at the idea of them both hiking, but they were excited, beaming like little kids. That’s how I remember them last.” He exhales heavily. “I guess that’s a good thing.”

“I think so,” I whisper, still stroking his back.

“I didn’t change my name because, hell, I couldn’t. I was trapped. I was too young. I’d fuck everything up. What had my parents been thinking, leaving me in charge of Adelaide and the business? I knew pieces of what Dad did, his responsibilities, but not enough to run the whole show. So I got thrown a new batch of questions.
Why is Jude Villars here? Who does he think he is?
One or two had the balls to ask me to my face. But . . . it got easier. I got stronger. Some would say I got pigheaded and arrogant. At least I stopped thinking I was trapped. Instead, I made it my own. Mostly because I didn’t have a choice. Move forward. Build again.”

“Take charge of a multinational corporation and pound a few dozen pianos into dust. That’s us?”

“Yeah, something like that.” He turns me to face him. I wipe a lone tear off his cheek, my heart breaking for him, my own fears subsumed by his confessions. My heart’s too big, too full of the bad
and
the good. “Do you see me?” he asks. “The real me?”

There’s no hiding from those eyes. No one would suspect by looking at us from the outside, and I didn’t understand it either, but we share a bond of loss and resurrection. The clubs and dances and sex, even the teasing laughter and life-changing dares, don’t connect this deeply. We’re being tied together by stronger forces—forces he doesn’t even realize—while the storm keeps raging outside. Here, we can take shelter in each other’s arms.

“Yes, Jude, I see you.”

He kisses me softly at first, then hauls me across his lap on the piano bench. His mouth finds everywhere he can reach. I inhale his rain-drenched scent and can’t stop touching him. Roughly, against my neck, he whispers, “In that, you’re
my
first.”

It’s then, kissing him, hearing those hoarse words, that my heart makes the big leap. I’m completely, terribly, beautifully in love with Jude Villars.

 Thirty-Five 

“I
t’s smaller than my dorm!”

Jude laughs and nuzzles my neck. “I’m glad that’s the only time you’ve mentioned small in relation to me.”

We push through the small door of the “roomette,” as Amtrak calls their sleeping cars. Early afternoon sunshine streams in through the large pane window. Two berths are folded into regular chairs, and a table between them is tucked flush against the outside wall. There’s enough room to wiggle in together, then stow our luggage. Just three nights’ clothing. It’s an adventure.

At least, that’s how Jude proposed it to me. “It’ll be an adventure. My treat. My surprise.”

But we’ve been together now for almost two months. He’s a smart guy and knows me as well as almost anyone ever has. So he’d nodded. “Never mind. No surprises when it comes to travel. I’m taking you to Chicago.”

My heart had stuttered. “Chicago?”

“Because of that poster on your wall. Janey told me what you said, about how you’ve always wanted to go. And for a right Southern boy like me,” he said, laying his accent on thick, “here’s our chance.”

“You in Chicago in November? No way.”

“As if Little Miss Baton Rouge will fare any better.”

I didn’t bother correcting him. Let this be the first time. Let this be a trip that rewrites history.

He’d already bought the tickets and reserved the hotel room for the Thanksgiving holiday. But I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I made at Halloween. I didn’t agree to go with him until I found out what Janey and Adelaide were doing. I couldn’t leave them alone. Turns out Janey was driving the five hours to Tupelo, Mississippi, where the whole Simons clan gathers at her eighty-year-old grandma’s house.

Clair and John agreed, with more reservations, but I think it was mostly because they have to recognize that Jude and I are together. Like,
really
together. This is the first serious relationship they’ve had to navigate along with me. I got the feeling there was a lot of worry behind the moment when they finally agreed that, yes, it would be an amazing adventure. They told me to have a good time, even though they know what Chicago means to me—the good and the bad. Maybe they understand too, that this is a chance to new, prettier memories. They decide to head over to the DePraus’ house for Thanksgiving. They’ve known Jean-Marc and Deb DePrau since grade school, and the four regularly beat the snot out of one another at bridge. The friendliest grudge match in Baton Rouge.

Addie knew about her brother’s plans, so she arranged to eat turkey and probably caviar with the twin daughters of a New Orleans city councilman. They’d been besties at boarding school and hadn’t seen each other since summer. That she’d be with friends made me happy. Jude smiled when he told me. I think he knew our escape wouldn’t be right if we left our friends and family hanging.

I’ve never been on a plane, so that prospect was exciting, but I wasn’t surprised when he mentioned faux-offhandedly that the tickets were for an overnight Amtrak. He flies when he needs to for business, but I bet he white-knuckles it the whole time. My slight disappointment was quickly replaced by empathy and a really fierce need to kiss him. I did. He kissed back. And we didn’t get out of bed until late, late on Sunday morning.

Now it’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I spent about thirty-six hours working my butt off to get all my assignments done before the four-day break. Our train travel is going to extend it by two extra days. He wants to be in Chicago on Thanksgiving morning, first thing, and won’t tell me why. That, at least, can remain a secret. I’ll have him to hold as we speed north on the rails.

I’ve never been on a train either. So I hug him and squeeze with such a burst of excited energy that he steadies himself against the window. “Hey, now. What’s that for?”

“I’m stoked. And you’re amazing.”

“I am. Now let’s get naked.”

I’m giggling fiercely when the train pulls out of the station and, yes, he has me stripped bare. We’re lying on one of the berths; the other is useless because they stack one atop the other like bunk beds when unfolded. “This is going to be a tight sleep. You’re used to that big four-poster.”

“You’re getting pretty used to that monster,” he says, tracing circles around my navel. “Besides . . .” He dips low to circle his tongue in the same pattern. His eyes are illuminated by the slanting sunshine, which turns dark brown hair into caramel and chocolate and other irresistible things. “Who said anything about sleeping?”

“These are sleeping berths. It’s in the name.”

Stretching up to nestle his mouth against my ear, he whispers, “That’s because ‘private place to fuck on a train’ didn’t go down well with marketing.”

We spend the trip exploring each other, in daylight and in darkness, as the countryside clatters by at beautifully dizzying speed. At one point, while curled against him, as he filled me so deeply, I was watching the lights of some anonymous town speed by in a rush of color when I came. I kept my eyes open, which I never do. The color and the sensation of being filled and satisfied so completely was so dazzling, so perfectly blended. I’ll never forget it.

Morning finds us in Chicago. Unreal. I clutch Jude’s arm as we file out of Union Station. A limo whizzes us to Hotel Burnham. I’ve never heard of it, and it has in-room spa services, so I keep my curiosity to myself about how much all of this is costing.

“Is it what you expected?” he asks. “I hope it is.”

I sit heavily on the bed, which has much more in common with his bed in New Orleans. “I don’t know, to be honest. We need to see more than a hotel room,” I say, keeping my voice light.

“Damn. I thought I had you tricked.” He grins with a naughty glint in his eyes. “I thought I had you trapped.”

I look up at him, staring, only just realizing what I’ve done. I was only seven when we left. And for those seven years, we certainly didn’t live in a high rise downtown. How much did I really know about the city I’d practically mythologized in my head, the way I’d made New Orleans an exotic mystery too?

I think I needed a place to call home, so I made this home. Willfully. I couldn’t just be a wandering girl with too many names. I had to
be
from somewhere. So I was from Chicago. And then I was from Baton Rouge. It kept people from asking questions. Now I have to be a tourist, which isn’t hard because, well, I’ll be seeing it with entirely new eyes.

“We could’ve saved the trouble and just stayed home.”

“Are you sorry to be here?”

“No.”

“Then I did just perfect.” He puffs out his chest with a flare of mock arrogance. I don’t tease him that it’s not that far off from his usual arrogance. “As usual. So, dinner tonight. And the parade tomorrow.”

“The parade?”

He frowns. “What do you sound like? Disappointed? Because I also have tickets to
Tosca
and to the Chicago Symphony’s first holiday concert of the season.”

“All of that? For one day?”

“No. Contingency plans.”

“You’re adorable,” I say, kissing between his brows until the frown goes away. “I like the idea of the parade. Adelaide and I have been practicing so much for the Fall Finish that I don’t think I’d appreciate a concert. Too much pressure to see the pros when I’m on the verge of having to go through that.”

“You’re going to play piano, make a hundred people fall in love with you, and walk off the stage into my arms. That’s not something to
get through
. Applause at the Fall Finish will be the cherry on top of a damn good semester.”

I giggle. “Not walking offstage and into your arms?”

“I don’t mind being second to rabid cheering.” He waves a negligent hand at the hotel window. “So, the parade it is. I have seats in a booth next to where NBC broadcasts.”

“What, no standing in the wind with the peons?”

“Hell, no. I bought us coats especially.”

He glares at two brand-new ski jackets. His is a rich sapphire color that will look amazing with his dark hair. Oh, who am I kidding? I think he looks amazing in anything from battered boots and ripped jeans to a three-piece suit and woolen overcoat. Mine is a graceful fawn peacoat with oversized tortoiseshell buttons and these cool corset-like ties at the low back. It’s
gorgeous
.

“You’re going to laugh at me, aren’t you?”

I grin as he stands and walks to the huge window. Already a flurry of fresh snow is streaking the sky. “Because you’re going to freeze your hot as hell N’awlins tushie off? Yeah. But you’ll laugh at me too. Tell me that wasn’t part of the present. Laughing.”

He returns my grin, looking wicked and breathtaking. His hair is careless, but his button-down immaculate. “Keeley, sugar, I’m here for your satisfaction and entertainment.”

We do all the usual tourist stuff, including a trip to the top of Sears—I mean,
Willis
—Tower, a vintage theater showing of the Thanksgiving classic
Home for the Holidays
, and an absolutely frozen walk along Navy Pier. Even hot chocolate and cuddling doesn’t ward off the chilly breeze when I insist on a ride on the little Ferris wheel.

“The water is so different,” he says, his voice distant, as if he’s standing on the coastline overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. “Lake Michigan just looks frigid. You can’t mistake it for anything but kill you instantly cold.”

“It must be different in summer,” I say, making hypotheticals out of a real memory. “The beaches down by Lake Shore. Have you seen pictures? Some people can walk there.”

We’d been able to. It was a
long
walk, but we did once. The water was like getting into a bath. There were so many people. I take a sip of the cooling chocolate and veer my gaze to the south, where that day would’ve taken place so long ago.

I shake my head. I’m feeling raw and charged up all at once. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s distracted by the view, because I remember losing sight of Mom. I wasn’t afraid. I just sat there with my toes in the surf and the sun on my face, happy. I looked around to see which family I’d pick if I could walk up to one and join right in.

Jude pulls me close and kisses me. We taste of chocolate, which makes the kiss that much sweeter. I’m surprised when I find frozen tears on my cheeks. His lips warm my skin, all over my face, banishing the worst of that old, forgotten pain.

“You crying?”

“It’s the cold!” My voice is shaky. Maybe it’ll cover the worst of what I push to one side.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

I shake my head vigorously and grab him into my arms so quickly that his chocolate spills on his new coat. I cuss. He laughs. I slug him on the arm. “Take it back,” I say. “Don’t ever say this is less than the perfect adventure.”

“See?” he replies, still laughing. “Me and perfect. We go together.”

“What does that make me?”

He stills, his gaze intense on my face. His skin stippled by lights from the rides along the pier. He brushes his lips whisper-soft against my jaw, then one kiss lower to my throat. “We go together.” His words are low and intense, shooting straight to my heart and then low into my belly.

We take a taxi back to the hotel because the snow is really coming down. “I have a confession to make,” he says. “It seems especially appropriate now that my new jacket is a walking chocolate stain.”

Although I fill with trepidation at phrases like “I have a confession to make,” I force my breathing to remain even. This is Jude. He’s treating me like a princess, making me feel special and beautiful in ways I’ve never experienced. “What’s that?”

“I don’t really have tickets to a booth for the parade.”

“No?”

“Ah, there it is.” He touches my hair, smiling. “I guessed you’d be disappointed if I said that, and that’s how you sound. I’m learning you, Keeley.”

I shiver, but it has nothing to do with the cold or his gentling touch. Learning me? Is that worth the hassle? Apparently trust comes easier when it has nothing to do with the pokey parts of my self-esteem. He’d wanted me to see him.
Really
see him. I don’t think I’m strong enough to be that open. It’s one part beautiful and one much bigger part scarier.