Jesse's Girl (Hundred Oaks #6) (10 page)

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

His lips trail along my neck. “Concert in Atlanta.”

I slip my fingers inside the waistband of his jeans, right behind the skull belt buckle, and pull him hard against me. “Atlanta’s not far. I could drive down to see you—I’ll sit backstage. That’d be so fun.”

Suddenly he pulls away from me. He furrows his eyebrows.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, pressing a hand to my heart, trying to slow it down.

“You want to come backstage? Why?”

“To be near you.” I move to take his hand, but he shoves it into his pocket.

“This was stupid.”

My heart practically stops. “What?”

“You don’t actually like me, right? You just want to come to my concert and sit backstage. You’re shadowing me and want a record deal.”

“Jesse, that’s not it at all.”

“Stacey did shit like this. She always wanted to come backstage, but she only cared about being seen with me. Only cared about what I could get her.”

“I don’t care about that at all. I just want to be around
you
.” I reach to take his hand, but he steps back, wincing like when I first met him. What in the world?

“But why do you want to be near me? ’Cause I’m famous? Because the press was all over you today?”

“You’re funny, and you’re interesting. You’re a great musician… I can’t stand country music, but I guess I can deal with a shortcoming or two.” I grin. “You’re cute as hell. Why wouldn’t I want to spend time with you?”

“You said I’m not your type.”

My smile disappears. I feel the blood drain from my face. He doesn’t trust me. After we spent a day telling each other our secrets and dreams, he still doesn’t trust me.

A truck zooms up on the road, getting closer and closer, its white lights blinding me momentarily until it disappears into the night.

“And you’re thinking the worst of me,” I say. “Comparing me to Stacey—which is insulting by the way—and pushing me away, ’cause that’s what you do, right? So you can be alone.”

He glares. “You should try it. Going solo. It’s better that way.”

I lean back against the tree’s rough bark so I won’t slip to the ground. Why did I let him kiss me? It’s like being betrayed by Nate all over again, only a million times worse. Kissing Jesse was totally different. I felt that spark, the one everybody talks about. But on top of that, I told Jesse all my secrets, I let him in, and he’s ditching me already. Why is it that as soon as I place my faith in others, trust disappears in a second?

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Jesse,” I say with a shaky voice. “I don’t need or want anything from you.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you, either…it’s just that you and me? We’d never work out.”

“We haven’t even tried to be fr—”

“I guess I’m not ready for this… I don’t wanna get your hopes up. I’m sorry.”

First he gave me his number, then he kissed me, then he freaked. He’s all over the place. I hate that we’re losing what could’ve become a really good friendship for a kiss. Why did I let that happen? Just because today has changed me doesn’t mean stuff would change for him too.

“I had a great day,” I whisper as tears burn my eyes.

“I did too, darlin’.”

I pinch my nose and sniffle.

“Bye, Maya Henry.”

“Bye.”

He walks backward to his Harley, staring at me, and climbs on. Turns the ignition. His engine roars to a start. The wheels crunch gravel on the way out of the driveway.

I hate that today is ending like this. Hate it. I dart toward the road, waving my arms to get him to stop, but he’s too far gone.

I bring my phone to my lips and watch the Harley’s lights disappear in the distance.

Saturday, 5:45 a.m.

It’s hard to believe that yesterday I played an electric Les Paul in the Gibson store and sang a solo on the Belle Carol Riverboat, and now I’m up to my elbows in grease at Caldwell’s. I hope working at the garage will keep my mind off how the best day ever crashed and burned like Axl Rose smashing a guitar.

I shut the back of the Volkswagen bus Dad and I are taking a look at. It’s such an old model that the engine is tucked beneath the trunk.

“Want the good news or the bad news first?” Dad asks.

“Bad,” Garrett Wainwright replies, pacing back and forth in the shop like it’s a hospital waiting room. Garrett is a guy I know from school. I need a new geometry tutor now that Nate and I are no more, and Garrett agreed to tutor me if we’d fix his orange bus. Hence Dad and I are up at the ass crack of dawn, before Caldwell’s officially opens.

Some people describe Garrett’s orange bus as “the setting of a bad 1970s porn movie.” Wooden beads hang over the side windows, and instead of standard bench seats, he installed jump seats on the side. A tie-dyed beanbag sits atop a faux bearskin rug stretching across the floor.

Normally something this heinously amazing would cheer me right up, but not today.

Yawning, I wipe the grease off my hands with a rag. “The bad news is your transmission slipped out of gear.”

Garrett stares at his bus like it’s an injured puppy. “And?”

“When a transmission slips out of gear, it has to be replaced,” Dad starts, “but since your VW is so old, they don’t make transmissions for them anymore, so you have to rebuild them.”

“The whole thing?” Garrett exclaims.

“Yup.”

He rubs his eyes and looks at me. “Expensive?”

“Six hundred dollars or so, parts and labor included,” I say.

“Crap. What’s the good news?”

Dad gives me a smile. “Since we’re fixing it, you only have to pay for the parts. Probably about two hundred dollars.”

“I’ll have to see if I can come up with it.”

Garrett and I make plans to meet after school on Monday—after I’ve served detention—to talk about where we can buy the parts for cheap. I feel his pain. To some people, the kind of cash he needs is pocket change, which sucks, but it is what it is.

My coworkers who always open on Saturday mornings appear in the garage carrying cups of coffee and a box of doughnuts. Nick and Evan graduated from Hundred Oaks a couple of years ago, and both are really cute and funny. They always make the workday go by more quickly.

“If it isn’t the famous Maya Henry!” Nick holds out the box of doughnuts and a napkin. My greasy hands are gross, but I don’t really care at the moment. I’m starving and cranky, and I want a doughnut. I take a napkin and choose a strawberry glazed one from the box. If Jesse were here, he’d complain about how unhealthy it is. I sigh and take a huge bite.

I didn’t cry over him last night, but my body feels like it did. I was up half the night thinking about what went wrong.

“Check it out,” Evan says, passing me a rolled-up newspaper.

“Will you sign it for me, My?” Nick jokes.

“What is it?” Dad asks me.

With a shaky, grease-covered hand, I take the newspaper from Evan and unfold it. A picture of Jesse and me singing together fills the front page. It’s from the Belle Carol. In the photo, he and I are hovering above a microphone, our noses an inch apart, smiling as we stare at each other.

The headline reads “Jesse Scott Retakes Nashville.”

Hello, corny headline.

Dad pats my back. “That’s a great picture of you! Your mom will go crazy when she sees this. I’m gonna tell her to buy a bunch of copies.”

Dad goes to call Mom, and I eat my doughnut and dig into the article. It talks about how “after spending nearly four months out of the limelight following an incident in which he fell off a yacht on the Cumberland River, Jesse made an impromptu visit to a fan’s birthday party with a spunky girl, seventeen-year-old Maya Henry of Franklin, Tennessee.”

Spunky? Seriously? I need to write a complaint letter to the editor, because that is beyond dorky. My eyes drift back to the picture of Jesse and me, to a moment in time when we were both happy and free and loving life and music.
Forget
about
him, Maya. The same thing happened with Nate. You always get your hopes up, and guys just let you down.

I fold the newspaper in half, hand it back to my coworker, and grab my clipboard. Time to get this day started. I’ll be working reception later when it gets busy, but first up is an oil change for a 2005 Toyota Camry and then cleaning an air filter on a Mazda.

“Bo-ring,” I sing to myself, because these are pretty lame cars—at least compared to a Maserati—but completing the two tasks clears my mind. Then I change the oil on my next two cars: a Nissan Sentra and a Ford Focus (double boring), and that’s when the mayhem starts.

During his break from bussing tables over at the Roadhouse, Dave comes rushing into the garage wearing his uniform: a neat brown apron and crisp blue button-down shirt. Evan and Nick stop hammering out a dented fender to greet Dave, probably hoping he brought biscuits from the Roadhouse.

“Look at this!” Dave says, holding out his phone. He presses play on a YouTube video of me and Jesse singing on the Belle Carol Riverboat.

“Does that say 715,000 views?” Nick asks, leaning over my shoulder to watch the video.

“Maya, this is so, so cool. You sound amazing,” Dave says.

“Finally, a YouTube video where I don’t sound like a banshee!” I reply, and that’s when reporters from the
Tennessean
, NBC, ABC, the
Franklin
Times
, the
Nashville
Scene
, and the
Tullahoma
News
arrive to interview me, like I’m some sort of celebrity. I’m mortified when I look down at my greasy white T-shirt and jeans. The reporters thrust microphones up to my mouth.

“How’d they know where to find me?” I ask Dad.

“They came by the house first,” he replies quietly. “Your mom got excited and sent them here. I hope Mr. Caldwell doesn’t get angry.”

“Mooooom,” I whine, and Dad gives me a sheepish shrug.

The first question the press asks is, “Do you know why Jesse’s quitting the business?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t.” Can they tell I’m lying?

When they realize my mouth is glued shut to talking about Jesse, they start asking questions about me.

“Jesse Scott’s manager Mark Logan told our producers you are skilled on guitar and have a nice voice,” a lady from Channel 4 news says, holding a microphone up to my mouth. “So what’s next for you?”

“School on Monday, I guess.” I shrug, smiling.
Mr. Logan said that?!

The reporter’s question strikes a nerve, and I can’t stop asking myself that same question. What’s next? Rejoining show choir and the church choir? Trying to find members to start another band?

I gaze around Caldwell’s, from the oil spots on the floor to the guys covered with grease, and let out a long sigh, trying to keep it together. I like working here, but it’s just a job for me. I want to perform.

It sucks having a once-in-a-lifetime day, a day that changes you, only to hear the same old song repeated on the radio over and over.

I don’t want yesterday to wither away and die.

• • •

When I get home after work, I plop down on a bar stool in the kitchen, exhausted from not having slept last night and having to fend off reporters at Caldwell’s. Dad had to kick them out because no work was getting done, and he sent me home three hours early to stop the press from coming back. I really could’ve used that money.

I swipe my cell on to find a ton of texts from Mom, Dave, Hannah,
Nate?
, and everybody I’ve ever met. Foolishly, I had been hoping Jesse might reach out to me.

I rest my head on the counter and sigh. I shouldn’t have invited myself backstage to Jesse’s concert tonight. It spooked him. What is it with me and guys? Do I come on too strong? Why do none of them want to stick around? I’m gonna be forty years old and out on a date with some man, and we’ll make out, then he’ll tell me we’re not meant to be, and I’ll go home to my fourteen cats.

“Hey, baby girl.”

I look up to find my mother has appeared in the kitchen. She fills the teakettle with water and sets it on the stove.

“So did you do anything interesting yesterday?” she asks with a coy smile, and I give her my look of death. “What’s wrong?”

“It was all going really well…”

When my voice breaks, Mom wraps me in a hug, and her familiar smell of lavender and dryer sheets calms me. There’s no way I can admit that I thought I had a chance with a boy like Jesse Scott. What was I thinking? She pats my back and soothes me.

“This might make you feel better. Something came for you.” Mom releases me from her embrace and passes me a large brown box. The handwritten label reads
Maya.

“Where’d this come from?” I ask.

“A messenger dropped it off this morning.”

“A messenger?”

“Yeah, a guy in a fancy town car.”

“Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things,” I sing softly, dragging my fingers over the crisp paper.

“Open it already,” Mom says.

I unlace the string, and the paper falls away from the box. With shaking hands, I lift the lid. It’s those purple boots I tried on yesterday. I gasp and trace my fingertips across the soft leather/python/whatever it is.

“Those are beautiful!” Mom says. We’re the same shoe size, and I can tell she’s desperate to put them on and dance around the house to Dolly Parton.

A card sits wedged between the boots.

Dear Maya,

These boots could belong to no one but you. Holly will be in touch to discuss voice lessons. Thanks again for the great day.

—J

Is this a parting gift or a mixed message? I push the card into my back pocket, then open the fridge for a Diet Coke. What did he mean Holly would be in touch to discuss lessons? Does she want me as a client? Because I can’t afford that.

“What’d the card say?” Mom asks. “Anything about how good of a kisser you are?”

“Mom! Were you spying on me?”

“Of course not. Your brother told me.”

“He was spying? Ugh. Sam is the worst.”

She presses a comforting hand to my forearm. “So what happened with Jesse?”

I’m trying to figure out what to tell Mom when a knock sounds on the back door. It’s Hannah. My mother motions my former bandmate—former friend?—inside. Hannah plays with her lip ring and looks at me with big, sad, brown eyes.

“Hey, Maya.”

“Hi.”

The teakettle rattles, hissing and spitting out steam.

Mom pours the hot water over a teabag, then wraps her hands around the cup. “I’ll be in my room.”

“You don’t have to go,” I say, because I don’t want to talk to Hannah. Especially not alone. I’m afraid I’ll want to yank the extensions out of her hair or worse, cry.

With a smile, Mom takes her tea and leaves the room, and then it’s just me and Hannah. I lead her to the couch in the living room. Why is she here? I lean my head back, close my eyes, and sigh.

“Bad day?” she asks.

“Not the best.” Most kids would probably love the attention I got from the press this morning, and truthfully, normally I would too, but it only reminds me that Jesse left me last night.

“I figured your day would be going pretty great since you hung out with Jesse Scott yesterday.” Hannah smiles shyly. “Are you gonna see him again?”

Does she not care that I
sold
out
? I ignore her question, because I’m still really upset at how last night ended. “What are you doing here?”

Hannah sits on the edge of the couch and ruffles her dark chestnut hair. I want her to leave so I can practice. And listen to a bunch of sappy eighties love ballads. And maybe eat a bag of Cheetos.

“You haven’t been answering my texts or calls,” she says. “I need to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

“I’m sorry for what happened—I had no idea Nate wanted to replace you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything when he kicked me out?”

“I was shocked, honestly, and I had just gotten together with Nate and didn’t want to piss him off. I was confused, I guess. I know I should’ve spoken up.”

“Well, it’s too late now.”

“Maybe it’s not.”

“Huh?”

A smile appears on her face. “I told the guys that unless they get rid of that dickwad Bryan Moore and bring you back as lead guitar, I’m quitting. Nate has been trying to reach you too.”

That must be why Nate texted and why he tried to cut in when I was dancing with Jesse last night.

I can’t believe this. “So basically the band
that
I
started
said they’ll take me back because they don’t want to lose
you
?”

“That’s not how I meant it, My. I love performing with you—
you
are what makes our band special, not any of those guys.”

I sigh and sink deeper into the couch, sipping from my can. “Would the guys be willing to play other kinds of music besides metal?”

“We didn’t talk about that,” she says softly.

Yesterday on the playground, Jesse pulled my body to his and told me that if I keep letting other people decide what kind of music I play—if I let them tell me how to live my life—I will end up leading a life that’s not
mine
.

Yesterday changed me. Before Dr. Salter suggested I shadow Jesse, I thought I knew all there was to know about singing and playing guitar. I never considered I might learn something. And now I know several new techniques to sing from my diaphragm, to better play a B7.

Hell, what if there’s even more stuff I should learn?

Regardless of how the day ended with Jesse, he gave me the biggest gift ever. I’m motivated again. If I want to become something, I need to work a lot harder. Which makes me want to start practicing right away.

After my solo on the Belle Carol, I know that I can do things on my own. I don’t need a band to move forward. If you love something enough, want it bad enough, you should be willing to go after it on your own.