Privilege 1 - Privilege (15 page)

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ACTUAL FUN

"I've never done anything like this before," Ariana told Hudson as they strolled down the center of the crowded street in one of Dallas's historic districts. The full-skirted seersucker Ralph Lauren dress Briana Leigh had chosen for her fluttered in the breeze, tickling her knees. Considering the other options in Briana Leigh's wardrobe, this dress wasn't half bad. It made Ariana feel like she was the central character in some 1950s, small- town romantic play, with Hudson as her farm boy suitor. She scooped a small bite of ice cream out of her paper cup with her pink spoon and let the sweet confection melt deliciously on her tongue. The sun was finishing its long, slow trip toward the horizon, and a cool breeze tugged Ariana's hair back from her face. The sensory experiences were all so pleasant, she hardly minded the unwashed children with their painted faces and the screaming parents all around her.

"Anything like what?" Hudson asked.

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"Like this." Ariana gestured with both arms to take in the whole scene. "This street fair thing."

Hudson paused, allowing a gap to open up between them and Briana Leigh and Teo, who were strolling up ahead, wearing the matching cowboy hats Teo had purchased for them from a guy at one of the many clothing stands. When Teo and Hudson had arrived at Briana Leigh's house midafternoon and announced that they were going to be attending the Taste of Dallas Festival, Ariana had balked. Her dates usually included five- star restaurants, classical concerts in the park, champagne, and respectful kisses at the door. A daytime street fair with arts and crafts vendors, restaurants hawking five-dollar tasting plates, and clowns on stilts generally didn't factor in. But now that she had spent a few hours there, Ariana realized that she was actually having fun. She wasn't sure if it was the weather or the food or the freedom or the fact that Hudson kept reaching for her hand--probably a combination of all four--but she was actually having fun.

"Y ou've never been to a street fair? I'd think Chicago would have some good ones," Hudson said, incredulous. His ice cream cone dripped over his hand and Ariana automatically held out a napkin. Hudson thanked her and mopped up his hand, giving her an extra second to formulate a proper response.

"Oh, well, of course they do," Ariana said, figuring it was true. He launched the balled-up napkin toward a garbage can, missed, then rushed over to retrieve it and deposit it properly, all of which made Ariana smile. "It just wasn't something my family was into."

"Too upper crust for that, huh?" Hudson teased.

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Ariana smirked. "How did you guess?"

"Just something about you," Hudson replied. "You go to Easton, and I just had a feeling it wasn't on scholarship."

Ariana's pulse quickened at the mention of Easton. So he did remember that tidbit she'd fed him. No good. Plus the scholarship thing now had her thinking about Reed Brennan, which instantly dampened her mood. She felt her face start to redden and looked at the ground.

In, one... two... three...

Out, one... two... three...

Okay. It's fine. You're fine.

"How's Harvard Prep?" Ariana asked, desperate to stop talking about herself. "Do you like it?"

"It's okay. It'll get the job done," he said, taking a bite from his cone.

"What job's that?" Ariana asked.

"Getting me into Boston Conservatory," Hudson said, running his free hand through his long blond hair. Most of it flopped right back into place. "They only accept three drummers each year, so it's not going to be easy."

"You play the drums?" "And the guitar, the violin, the oboe, and a mean tambourine," Hudson joked. "But I want to focus on the drums in school. They're my passion."

"Wow. A five-instrument man," Ariana said with a smile, turning to face him.

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"Impressed?" Hudson asked, his eyes sparkling.

Ariana smiled flirtatiously. "Maybe."

"Emma! They're line dancing over here! Let's go!"

Briana Leigh's hand closed around Ariana's wrist, and once again her arm felt dislocated. Ariana dropped her ice cream into the garbage can as Briana Leigh practically flung her up a set of stairs and onto a makeshift wooden dance floor. A dozen men and women in jeans and cowboy hats were all moving in perfect sync to some annoying twangy music being played by a six-piece band on a platform. Briana Leigh jumped right in, moving her feet in unison with the others, which couldn't have been easy considering she was sporting a tight, distressed denim Chanel mini and Jimmy Choos with four-inch heels.

"I don't know how," Ariana feebly protested, trying to inch her way off the stage.

"Come on! I'll teach you!" Briana Leigh shouted.

Teo laughed and clapped as he watched his girl get down. Ariana, however, was physically repulsed. She had never been one for synchronized dancing. All the girls at her small Southern private school had flocked to ballet and cheerleading and jazz classes when she was young, but her one go at tap had ended in disaster. Ariana had been so afraid of missing a step at the recital, she had frozen up and not moved a muscle throughout the entire number. Her mother had been forced to carry her home in tears. Her mom had never brought up dance lessons again.

Feeling the burning humiliation of that day as if it had just happened, Ariana turned and scurried right back down the steps. Hudson

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placed his hands on her stomach, stopping her. The intimacy of the gesture was not lost on Ariana.

"Go on. It looks like fun," Hudson said in her ear.

"I can't." Ariana shook her head. "I don't know it."

"I'll do it with you," Hudson said, taking her hand. "Come on. We can mess it up together."

This guy had no idea who he was talking to. Ariana had never willingly messed up anything in her life.

"Let's go, Emma!" Briana Leigh shouted, gesturing over her head.

Suddenly an unfamiliar sense of calm came over Ariana. Right. She wasn't Ariana Osgood anymore. She was Emma Walsh. For now, at least. And maybe Emma Walsh didn't mind getting a few steps wrong.

"You know what? Fine," Ariana said. "Let's do it."

She and Hudson stepped up onto the stage, to the whoops and happy hollers of the rest of the dancers, and fell in line with Briana Leigh. Staring at Briana Leigh's feet, Ariana did her best to match the steps, but soon found herself crushing Hudson's foot, turning the wrong way, and walking right into Briana Leigh's back.

"Sorry. I'm so sorry," Ariana said, embarrassed.

"It takes a few times through before you get it," Briana Leigh told her. "Here. Watch me. It's right, right, left, left, kick, turn, stomp, stomp."

Right, right, left, left, kick, turn, stomp, stomp.

"You try it," Briana Leigh said, stepping back.

Ariana looked at Hudson and they both went for it. Hudson

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tripped over his own feet and almost fell off the stage. Ariana, however, executed the sequence perfectly.

"See!" Briana Leigh was all smiles. "You're a natural!"

Ariana found herself grinning from ear to ear. The day out had apparently put Briana Leigh in a good mood and she was being unusually nice at the exact perfect moment. The girl spent the next ten minutes making sure Ariana had all the steps down, and soon the two of them were dancing together, hamming it up like old pros and throwing in hip juts and extra kicks for fun. Hudson gave up and jumped off the stage to watch with Teo. Ariana felt his eyes on her and made sure not to look at him, keep him wanting more. But her skin grew warmer and warmer under his gaze, and she found herself loving every minute of it.

When the song finally ended, Briana Leigh cheered and threw her arms around Ariana.

"You sure you're not from the South?" she joked.

Ariana felt a sudden, unexpected twinge of guilt. She had felt so free while she was dancing that she'd once again forgotten her mission and started to enjoy her time with Briana Leigh. Ariana was starting to understand why Kaitlynn had liked her--there was something disarmingly intoxicating about her. But Briana Leigh's rhetorical question brought her right back to reality.

"Nope. Not from the South. But that was fun," she admitted.

"See? You should always listen to me," Briana Leigh said lightly. Then she turned and threw herself off the stage into Teo's waiting arms.

Ariana glanced at Hudson. He seemed willing to catch her, but she

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wasn't quite ready for stage diving and PDA yet. Instead she took the three stairs on her own and joined her friends.

"What next?" Briana Leigh asked.

"I don't think I could eat anything else," Hudson said, placing his hand on his flat stomach.

"No. No more food, please," Ariana added with a laugh.

All around them streetlights flicked on as the sun dipped below the horizon. The hanging paper lamps around the stage bobbed in the breeze. Ariana felt as if the laughter and conversation and music had softened along with the heat. A pleasant, content feeling overcame her just as Hudson's hand slipped into hers yet again. It was a feeling Ariana relished--so rare for her normally intense self.

Teo turned to Briana Leigh and Ariana noticed the serious expression on his face even before his girlfriend did. Something was up. She glanced at Hudson and he raised an eyebrow. He had seen it too.

"Well, since you asked, I do have an idea of what to do next... if you're up for it, Briana Leigh," Teo said.

Briana Leigh stopped looking around at all the people and frivolity. Her eyes widened as Teo got down on one knee, right there in the middle of the jostling crowd.

"Oh my God," Briana Leigh breathed.

"Oh my God," Ariana said as Teo whipped out a black double-hinged ring box.

"This just got way interesting," Hudson put in.

"Briana Leigh, I don't want you to have to worry while I'm away in Ibiza," Teo said, swallowing hard. He was clearly nervous but determined

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as well. His gaze was firm as he looked up at Briana Leigh's face and opened the box. "Y ou're the only girl for me, now and forever. Briana Leigh Covington, will you marry me?"

Dozens of people stopped to stare. Ariana gaped at the ring. It was a perfect cushion-cut diamond with three baguettes on either side in an antique-style platinum setting. At least someone in this relationship had good taste.

"Are you kidding? Yes!" Briana Leigh cried.

Teo grinned as he stood up and Briana Leigh launched herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his back. Ariana was surprised. She would have thought that Briana Leigh was the type to get that diamond on her finger ASAP, but she didn't even seem to realize the ring was there. She was too busy crying and kissing her new fiance.

As the people around them applauded, Ariana looked at Hudson. He gave her a sort of nonplussed glance.

"Well, I don't have a ring," he said finally. "But I can offer you an iced coffee...."

He tilted his head toward a Coffee Carma kiosk and grinned at her like he was offering a brand-new yacht. Ariana laughed. "Come on. Let's leave these two alone for a little while," Hudson suggested.

"Definitely," Ariana said.

Hand in hand, they left the happy couple to their moment.

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THE DREAM

Stars. Ariana had missed the stars. When she was a little girl in Georgia and her grandmother was still alive, she and her mother and her gran used to sit out in cushioned lawn chairs for hours, just waiting for that elusive shooting star. As Hudson settled in on the blanket next to her that night, Georgia and her family seemed so very far away. So far that they could have been on some remote planet circling one of the very stars she was now watching.

"Beautiful, huh?" Hudson said.

"Absolutely," Ariana replied with a sigh.

The moment the foursome had returned from Taste of Dallas, Briana Leigh had dragged Teo up to her room to thank him in God knew what way for asking her to marry him. Ariana had wanted to get as far away from the second floor as possible, so she had suggested the stargazing. After stealing a huge, cushy plaid blanket from an upstairs linen closet, she and Hudson had snuck out back and set up on the

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lawn near the shimmering outdoor pool, which, Ariana noted, was even bigger than the indoor one.

"It's so peaceful out here," Ariana mused.

Hudson shifted next to her and her skin sizzled as she braced for contact. But Hudson simply crooked his arm so that he could lay his head back in the palm of his hand.

"I love the sounds after dark in Texas," he said. "The night birds, the coyotes howling... You get nothing like that back in Boston."

Ariana smiled. A future music major like himself would notice nature's own lovely chorus.

"Tell me about music," she said, rolling over onto her side. She bent her arm under her head and propped herself up.

"What do you mean?" Hudson asked.

"Well, why music, exactly?" she asked. "How did you get into it? What do you love about it?"

Hudson pushed himself up as well, mirroring her pose. Even in the dim light coming off the pool area lamps, she could see the spark of excitement in his eyes.

"It's the only thing I've ever loved to do," he said. "I tried to get into sports as a kid because my dad wanted me to, but it never interested me. I would be running down the field in football, staring at the marching band, wishing I could try out the tuba or something. Got my helmet knocked off a few times that way."

He chuckled and Ariana grinned.

"It's like anytime I'm not doing something else, I have to be playing music or listening to music or writing music," he said.

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"I used to write poetry," Ariana said wistfully.

"Used to?" Hudson prompted.

Ariana's heart clenched. Why had she brought that up? It wasn't something she wanted to talk about. She glanced at Hudson. His gaze was so intent, she realized that he wasn't going to just let it drop. But she couldn't tell him the truth. Hardly. She decided on a reasonable stretch of the truth.

"I used to keep these journals full of poems," she said, thinking of the standard-issue notebooks she'd been allowed to use at the Brenda T. "I'd write between classes, in the middle of the night, whenever something came to me. Then one day my father found them. A lot of the stuff was personal and some of it was kind of dark, you know?"