Jude’s Song Read online

  “We have good taste, don’t we? We even think the same boy is cute.”

  “Absolutely, I can’t even argue with that logic.”

  “You’re so funny.”

  “What about you? Do you like any boys your age?” I ask as I pull her hair back into a ponytail.

  Hayden blushes. “There is this one boy, Bryon Cohen. I thought he might’ve liked me before I got sick, but I don’t know how he feels now because he hasn’t written me or anything while I’ve been in the hospital. I don’t even know if he still likes me.”

  “Boys are funny about that kind of stuff. Sometimes they don’t like to let us know how they feel. Is he nice to you? Does he treat you right? Is he smart?”

  “Geez! You sound like my mom.” Hayden laughs, then starts to cough. When she stops, she responds, “Yes to all the above. He’s chill, otherwise I wouldn’t like him.”

  “Then I guess he either doesn’t quite know what to say, he doesn’t know how to reach you, or both. It doesn’t sound like he’s the kind of boy who'd purposefully blow you off. I say give him a chance when you get home and see what he has to say.”

  “That was kind of my plan. Before all this cancer stuff happened, I was hoping maybe he’d take me to the dance, but now I don’t know.”

  “I say we better practice your makeup just in case,” I state firmly.

  “Where did my little girl go, and who’s this lovely young woman?” Pennie gasps as she walks into the room.

  “Really? Mom, do you think I look okay? What do you think Dad will say? We tried not to overdo it. I don’t want him to have a cow and not let me go to the dance. I want to look like the other girls though. I don’t want to look sick — and I don’t mean it like slang either — I mean I don’t want to look like I have cancer.”

  Pennie tears up a bit as she answers, “I know what you meant, Sweetie. I can’t guarantee you that your dad won’t freak out. You look so much like your sister he will probably have a ‘moment’. You know how he gets about his babies growing up. You look very much like the teenager you are and not the little girl he remembers.”

  Jude steps forward with his cell phone in hand and offers, “Why don’t I take a picture of you lovely ladies so you can send it to him?”

  Hayden’s eyes lit up as she turns to me and asks, “Tasha, you don’t have to go anywhere, right? So, you could do my mom’s makeup and hair like you did mine, couldn’t you?”

  I look over at Jude and shrug. “If she’d like me to … sure. We’re on vacation. We’re not on anybody’s clock except our own.”

  Pennie laughs self-consciously and pats her hair as she says, “Oh good Lord! I don’t know if you could do anything to help me. It’s been so long since I’ve had anything done. Larry wouldn’t even recognize me if I had my hair done and makeup on this face.”

  “Mom! That’s exactly why you should do it. Dad would be so surprised. We should do it!” Hayden says.

  Pennie sighs and looks at me. “Okay, I guess I’m game if you are.”

  “Oh my gosh! This will be so much fun. Wait until you see the way Tasha puts on makeup. She’s like some sort of professional. My friends will be so impressed by all the things I’ve learned. I swear, I should record this like some sort of makeup tutorial on YouTube or something.”

  “Hayden! Don’t you dare! It’s bad enough you talked me into this but if you put it on social media, I would die of embarrassment,” Pennie threatens.

  Hayden giggles as she responds, “Don’t worry, Mom. It’s your lucky day. Tasha and Jude are off-duty. They’re not onstage and I won't out them for being here. But consider yourself warned, if we were in our bathroom and it was just us, you’d be in deep danger. Makeup videos are all the rage and I could make some serious bank with all the makeup tips I’ve learned.”

  I grin at Hayden. “I appreciate you protecting our privacy. Not a lot of people would. I’ll tell you what. Sometime down the road, when I have some free time, maybe you and I can put together a makeup video for teenagers and you can post it on your social media page.”

  “Serious?” Hayden gasps.

  “Totally. It sounds like fun,” I declare, giving her a high-five.

  “You are like the nicest person ever,” she says, pulling me into an awkward hug.

  I glance at Jude from over Hayden’s shoulder as I say, “I try to be. But sometimes I completely miss the mark and then I have to say I’m sorry.”

  “Está bien, Sirena. Te amo.” Jude speaks so quietly, I’m not sure I heard it at first.

  “Did you hear that, Tasha? You guys should go celebrate or something. That was like one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard. Take pictures of the restaurant you go to and come back and tell me about it, okay? I’m sick of hospital food.”

  I hug Hayden again. “Okay, you have a deal. I might even bring you some dessert.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JUDE

  I’VE BEEN THINKING THOSE WORDS for quite a while. I don’t know exactly how long — they just started floating around in my mind. I’ve just never found the right time to say them. This wasn’t the right time either. Somehow I forgot to connect my brain to my mouth and they slipped out. Usually, my tendency to slip back into speaking Spanish disguises what I’m really thinking, but I don’t get away with much around Tasha.

  Tasha is wicked smart and knows a lot of Spanish. Some people just know cuss words or the words they learned from Sesame Street when they were young — not Tasha. Apparently one of her tutors from the pageant circuit, taught her a couple of academic years’ worth. She’s been practicing Spanish with me so she’ll be better prepared when she meets my mom. Although she speaks English well enough to be easily understood, she prefers to speak Spanish. I am honored Tasha cares enough to make the gesture. I’m pretty sure it’s going to make my mom and my sister cry.

  My thoughts are interrupted when Tasha places her hand over mine to stop me from flipping the drink menu over and over in my hands. We’re at some upscale barbecue place — because where else would you eat when you’re in Memphis? Clearly, I am ruining the cozy atmosphere with all of my fidgeting.

  “Are you upset you said the words? Are they a lie?” Tasha asks with a look of concern on her face. She’s near tears. “I mean … after what I did to you, I don’t blame you if you want to take it all back.”

  “¡Dios Mio! Of course not,” I exclaim. “That’s not what this is about at all.”

  “Then why do you look like you’re about to be sick to your stomach? Why are we not celebrating?” Tasha presses.

  “This is so complicated. It’ll take me a little time to unravel it all for you. It might not even make sense after I do, so please be patient with me. You know, when we met, I had a case of hero worship. I thought you were beautiful and sexy. You have one of the most amazing singing voices I’ve ever heard. But … honestly, when you turned down Aidan’s offer to record, I wasn’t sure I would actually like you. I thought maybe you were holding out for more money or a higher billing or something.” I pull on the collar of my shirt and frown deeply as I spill all misconceptions.

  “I thought maybe you were one of those beautiful girls who thought you were better than the rest of us. I figured you were probably a straight up witch. I made a lot of snap judgments based on who I thought you might be. I didn’t understand who you really were or the choices you had to make. I never expected we would end up as a couple, much less fall in love,” I confess in a rapid burst of speech.

  “Wow, that’s honest,” Tasha says as she sips her iced tea. “Okay, to be fair … I wasn’t very nice to you in the beginning either, so I can’t say I blame you.”

  “This is where it gets complicated,” I warn with a grimace.

  “More complicated than you starting a career in music when I am planning to leave show business?” Tasha asks with a sigh.

  “In some ways, yeah. Although, at some point we’ll have to deal with that too. We always seem to find reasons to put off the car
eer discussion.”

  “So, what are you talking about?” Tasha asks.

  “This has to do with the way I grew up. You know my dad ditched me when I was a little boy?”

  “I guess we have that in common.”

  “The whole time I was growing up, my mom would tell me these wonderful stories about how my dad came in and swept her off her feet. How wonderfully romantic he was and how he would change her life and make everything better for her. In her mind, my dad was the perfect man. It was something from a fairytale — or at least it was … until it wasn’t. One day, my dad took off and he never came back. He stayed around long enough to father me and my sister. After that, he was gone. He never looked back, he never checked in on my mom. He never did anything. He broke every promise he ever made. How could a guy who convinced my mom he was so perfect be such a loser?”

  “I don’t know, some guys just are,” Tasha remarks with an eye roll. “My dad was no prince.”

  “What if I’m like him? My abuela says my mom fell for him because he was a gringo and I don’t fall far from the tree.”

  An angry expression crosses Tasha’s face as she asks, “So, you think you fell for me just because I’m white? I’ve got news for you, I’m like a genetic potluck. I come from New York. I’ve got so many family trees in my background, it’s like tracing a forest. Let me tell you, we didn’t all come over on the Mayflower — that’s for sure.” Proverbial fire shoots from her eyes as she angrily tosses her hair over her shoulder.

  I throw my napkin down on the table and almost knock over my water glass as I say, “No! I knew I would do a bad job explaining this. That’s totally not what I meant.”

  “If it’s not what you meant, then what did you mean?” she asks with a stubborn tilt of her chin. “Honestly, that’s sure what it sounded like.”

  “It’s not what I meant.” I try to explain as my thoughts race. “I wonder sometimes if I’ll be a loser at relationships like my dad was. Will I fall in love and then bail out of your life when it gets hard? Honestly, when you told Hayden you probably won’t be able to have kids I was relieved. I don’t even know if I’m dad material. What if my abuela is right and I’m just like my dad?"

  I watch Tasha carefully to see what her reaction is to my confession. I’ve been harboring my secret fear for as long as I can remember. I don’t know what Tasha will make of what I’ve told her, but I feel better now that I’ve been honest.

  Tasha is silent for what seems like forever. Initially, her posture is stiff and ungiving. I can sense that I’ve hurt her feelings which was the last thing I wanted to do. Finally, she looks at me and says, “I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. Somehow I feel like doing both. I can’t believe you’re serious. Jude, you are the most stable person I know. Do you know how much everyone around you relies on your solid, calm, common sense?”

  I shrug and glance down at the table.

  “No, I’m serious. Jude, look at me,” Tasha says.

  When I meet her gaze, she continues.

  “You’re starting to get a taste of it now, but when we’re getting ready to go on stage, it’s the most chaotic environment you can imagine. Somehow you constantly pull it all together and help make it make sense. You always have the equipment properly set up and the instruments ready. Everything is as it should be — right down to the tape marks on the floor. That might not seem like much to you, but to those of us who rely on it every day, it means everything. The fact that you respect and honor those small details tells me everything. You’re not the type of person who would walk away from your responsibilities in a relationship — especially a personal relationship. If you ever decide to be a dad, you would be amazing.”

  “So I’m good at my job, but it doesn’t mean I would make a good partner in life or a solid parent,” I argue.

  “Yeah, actually it does. You bring the same level of respect to our relationship. We’ve been together for months now. Whether we’ve called it dating or a really good friendship, you’ve been taking care of me in a million different ways — you make sure I’ve got food that makes me happy and you protect me from my mom. Heck, you even make sure I’ve got the contact lens solution which doesn’t make my eyes turn red. I know how hard it is to find. I didn’t ask you to, but you noticed I was running out of it and got me a bottle of it anyway. You might not make all sorts of grand gestures you see in the movies, but in all the ways that count, you are there for me.”

  “Any decent guy would do that. I’m not special,” I argue.

  “You’d be surprised how few decent guys there are in the world.”

  Tasha settles back and takes a long drink of her tea.

  “You’re not the only one who is impacted by someone else’s past. At least you heard good stories about your dad. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard my mom say a nice word about my dad. She spews so much hate about him, sometimes I wonder how they ever got together to create me. To hear her talk, he’s the lowest of the low,” she adds after a few moments of silence stretch between us.

  “Do you know what happened?” I ask. “Did he ever come back and explain?”

  “No, I only have vague memories of him being part of our lives. He disappeared around the time I was diagnosed with cancer. My mom drops hints suggesting he couldn’t handle me being sick. In a way, she blames me for him leaving.”

  I can't help myself. I reach over and gather Tasha close to me. "Have I mentioned how horrible I think your mother is?"

  Tasha grins up at me as she says, "I think you've mentioned it a time or two. I once asked my Nana if she thought it was true and she said no — he did not run away because of me. She told me my dad was a decent guy and I probably got my musical talent from him. She talked as if she really liked him and thought he was a good influence on my mom for a while. My papa seemed to like him too. I guess they talked about the Yankees a lot. When you’re from New York, it helps when you root for the same baseball team.”

  “Do you ever wish he was part of your life?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, my mom kept me so busy as a kid I almost didn’t know what I was missing. My life was so bizarre that it didn’t even resemble a normal kid’s life, so I didn’t have regular family events like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthday parties or other traditional things kids have with their dads. I didn’t have regular school events where I would need a father. It was just my mom and my nana. When my papa was alive, he’d sneak me away from my mom and do some really tomboyish things like take me fishing or out on his four-wheeler in the mud.”

  “He sounds a lot like my uncle who passed away from cancer. He was the one who’d let us use slingshots in the house and eat pizza for breakfast.”

  Tasha smiles at me. “People like that are fun, aren’t they?”

  I nod. “They are. I bet if your mom was the same as she is now, she wasn’t much fun though, huh?”

  Tasha shrugs as she concedes, “As long as my mom’s getting her way, she’s not too bad. If she feels like she’s being ignored, she becomes a bear. For a while there on the pageant circuit, I was on a pretty good winning streak, so my mom became quite popular with the pageant organizers. That was a good time.

  There's a reason I brought up my past. It's because my mom’s attitude toward relationships in men has colored the way I see things too. I’m more likely to jump to negative conclusions about things and I’m more than a little touchy about trying to do things on my own without help. I don’t always talk things through when I’m feeling cornered or stressed out. A lot of my attitude is because my mom taught me I couldn’t trust anybody. Not men, and not other women. It was a very lonely existence. So, it would be silly of me to think that it doesn’t impact the way we interact.”

  I have to clear my throat before I ask, “So where does that leave us? I barely trust myself to do the right thing and you don’t trust me either. Can we handle all the things we’re going to need to face together?”

  “I don’t know. I want to be able to t
ell you, ‘Yes, of course we are stronger than our pasts. We can overcome anything together.’” Tasha answers with emotion breaking her voice.

  “But?” I prompt. My heart drops to my stomach as I wait for her to explain.

  “I’ve seen a lot of couples with a lot less odds against them split up. We’re young and we don’t have the best role models in our lives. We’ll be going in totally different directions soon, and we have a lot of personal stuff to overcome. In some ways, we’re as different as night and day. Sometimes, I wonder if we stand a chance.”

  “Does this mean you don’t feel the same way about me?” I anxiously spit out the question that’s been tormenting me since we started this conversation. I need to know once and for all if I’ve ruined our whole relationship by blurting out how I feel without understanding Tasha’s point of view first.

  Tasha swallows hard and takes a long drink before she answers, “No.”

  “No? No what?” I stammer, feeling like she punched me. “I should’ve seen this coming. You’re a big star and I’m just the equipment guy. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Jude, stop. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying I don’t know where I am at in my life. I don’t want to be the person who pushes you into something you don’t want to do because you’re trying to make me happy because we’re a couple. I don’t know how we’ll make ourselves work as a couple if I’m in school and you’re trying to make it with Aidan. I don’t even know if I’m going to get into school. If I don’t, I don’t know what I’ll do and you shouldn’t have to wait around for me to figure out my life. I’ve got so many things I don’t understand or know at this moment. It’s not fair for me to weigh you down with all of my uncertainties — I’m bad for you right now.”

  “So, it’s not because you don’t love me?” I ask again.

  “No! It’s more like I love you so much that I don’t want to do this to you. I’m a mess. I haven’t figured out anything about my life.”