The first thing New Directions noticed was that the girl was holding a guitar. There was a female guitarist in the band, Alice, but she wasn't a girly-girl. If you didn't pay attention, and very few of them did, you'd never notice her behinds the sweatshirt and baggy jeans. But Mercedes knew Alice from church and Alice had even tried to teach Mercedes to play once, with disastrous results.
The second thing they noticed was that the girl was black. Alice is bi-racial and looks it, this girl was definitely black and was sporting a glorious afro to prove it. Between the electric guitar, afro, the tie-dye long shirt, or short dress maybe, the black leggings and thigh-high boots she looked like Jimmy Hendrix reborn. The boys in particular found her extremely interesting.
"Class, we have a new member to audition..."
Rachel's hand shot up like a rocket. "But Mr. Schue, it's so close to Regionals. Do we want to rearrange things so late in the season?"
The girl smiled softly and started running chords with Alice and Ben, other guitarists.
"Yes, that's true Rachel, but most of you are graduating. We need to add some underclassman, Tina and Mercedes will need some help next year. And yes, we won't be changing anything before our remaining competitions."
Rachel smiled, which Mr. Schuester took as permission to proceed. He nodded to the girl and she stepped forward. Sam, late again, slipped into his seat in the front row. The girl's smile slipped a bit but she quickly pasted it back on. Then she stepped over to Brad and spoke to him. He signalled the band to sit back and listen. The girl swapped the electric guitar for an acoustic one, pulled up a stool and started playing.
At times I'd like to break you
And drive you to your knees
At times I'd like to break through
And hold you endlessly
At times I understand you
And I know how hard you've tried
I've watched while love commands you
And I've watched love pass you by
At times I think we're drifters
Still searching for a friend
A brother or a sister
But then the passion flares again
And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides
Her voice was deep, raw, untrained. Mercedes thought she was an excellent guitarist with potential, if properly trained, to be a good vocalist. She'd be good addition to New Directions and maybe she was a better guitar teacher than Alice. She was wondering where the girl came from and who she was singing about when Sam stood up and walked towards her like he was hypnotized. The girl did the same. They stopped an arm's length away from each other.
She grinned at him. "Hello, sweetie."
"Hello, Patrice." he answered, trying to maintain an emotionless tone.
"Hello, Patrice?" She seemed angry. "That's all I get? Well, I didn't get a 'goodbye Patrice' so I guess this is progress." She turned and headed towards the band kids.
"I'm sorry." he said, his voice choked with emotion. "Do you forgive me?" He put his hand on her arm. She turned to face him.
"Don't I always?" Then they kissed, a kiss that took Mercedes' breath away. It wasn't a shove your tongue down the throat kiss like Rachel and Finn enjoyed making a show of, it was a melt into each other because I miss you so much kiss. He used to kiss her like that, she'd never kissed Shane like that. The kiss that wrecked her relationship with Shane wasn't half of what Patrice is getting right now. Sam put his arm around her and they walked out.
All eyes were on Mercedes. "Who the hell was that?" Santana demanded.
Mercedes shrugged. She racked her brain looking for a Patrice, Pat, Patricia, Trish, Trixie, Tricia, or girl guitarist. Nothing, Sam had mentioned none of these. "He talks to you" she asked Kurt. "Did he ever mention her?"
"Not a word."
Patrice watched Sam swim laps in McKinley's pool. Bored, she leaned back and was staring at the ceiling when she felt someone sliding into the bleachers beside her.
"Rachel, Rachel Berry." the short brunette who complained in the audition room thrust her hand at her.
"Patrice Greene." She said grasping the hand with a smile.
"Welcome to McKinley." Rachel seemed to be the spokesperson for the three other girls with her. A regular United Nations, Patrice thought. One was Asian, introduced as Tina, one Latina, Santana, one blonde, Brittany, and the brunette. If they didn't let her in the group she was definitely gonna make an argument about ethnic diversity.
"Thank you. It's a very nice school."
"So how do you know Sam?" the Latina got straight to the point.
"And your name again?"
"Santana. Santana Lopez."
"As in the guitarist Carlos Santana?"
"No, as in Santana Lopez."
"Too bad. Alice said girls don't play guitars around her. Well, just Alice and now me. An all-girl band, awesome idea don't you think?"
"So how is it you know Sam?" Santana repeated. Patrice decided Santana was the one in charge, regardless of what Rachel might think.
"Kentucky. We performed together."
"As in show choir?" Tina asked.
"Something like that."
"You didn't..." Tina's mouth fell open. "Dance?" she whispered. Santana gave the girl an appraising once-over and liked what she saw.
"It was a job." Patrice looked at Santana and Brittany, their long legs entwined. "I saw them perform. They perform for free. I did less with more clothes on and got paid." They watched Sam climb out of the pool. "And people paid to see that."
"Whatever." Santana said. "Sam kinda has a girlfriend. Her name is Mercedes."
"Mercedes is real?" She seemed honestly surprised.
"Of course she's real. Why would he lie about that?"
"In my line of work, my former line of work, you hear a lot of stories. Very few of them are true." Patrice thought about what Sam had said about Mercedes. "Is she a big girl?"
"Yes, and sweet, really sweet." Tina chimed in.
"Hah! White Chocolate."
"What was your name?" Britt asked.
"Sweet Pea." She smiled to herself. "All pigtails and white lace."
"And why are you here so late in the school year?" Santana demanded.
"Family decision. My mom found out about Sweet Pea and was not amused. Sent me up north to live with my cousin Alice."
"Guitar Girl?"
"Alice. Guitar Girl has a name and it's Alice." This was starting to get tedious.
"Don't you have to be 18 to be a stripper?"
"Dancer, not a stripper. And nobody checks your papers. Something to keep in mind. You have the build for it." Patrice hoped a compliment would appease the girl.
"Dancer, stripper. What's the difference?"
"A stripper gets naked. Sam and I never got naked for money."
"You and Sam. Did you get naked for fun?" Santana smiled, thinking about the times she'd been naked with Sam.
"I'm done." Patrice picked up the guitar at her feet and moved away. What was the deal with these girls anyway? The way Sam described it, Mercedes was kind of an outsider, always on the edge. And he'd described Santana in not very nice terms. But Santana was going all mama grizzly one her. Patrice had seen that before, an older dancer taking a younger one under her wing for protection. Did Mercedes need protection?
"I see you've met Patrice." Sam said, walking over from the dressing room, smiling that heartbreaking smile of his.
"Yes, we met your dancing buddy." Santana replied.
"They knew already!" she answered his glance.
"Nothing's a secret around here. You ready to roll, Chi?"
"More than ready, Nash." They linked arms and left the pool.
Shit, Santana thought, they even have pet names for each other. Mercedes was in big trouble.
"Hi, Rachel! It's Rachel, right? Do you live here too?" Patrice put her guitar down next to the front door of the Hummel household.
"No, my fiancée, Finn does. I thought you might be uncomfortable, being the only girl here for dinner with" she looked around, "Finn, Kurt, Sam and oh, hi Blaine! Their parents are in Washington. His dad's a congressman, did you know that?"
"No I didn't and that's very sweet of you." Patrice said, thinking what bullshit that was.
"So tell us all about Kentucky, how you and Sam met."
"It's a boring story." Sam said. "I met Chi when I lived in Kentucky."
"Okay, that's a start. Chi?"
"Chicago. I'm originally from Chicago, Chi-town. It's a joke. He's Nash from..." she waited for them to fill in the answer.
Blank stares from everybody but Kurt. "Nashville." He said finally. "Why am I the only one that knows that?"
"Okay, but you dated back in Kentucky?"
"Yes, we did." He reached for her hand.
"And why is it you never mentioned her?"
"I don't know, Rachel." he was exasperated. "We don't exactly sit around having heart to hearts, do we? You only just found out two minutes ago where I'm from."
"Did you come here to be with Sam?" Rachel decided to ignore Sam and work on Patrice.
"No, my cousin lives here." She repeated her story for the benefit of the boys even though she figured Rachel had briefed them already. "Alice and Ben McKenna? They both play guitar in the band?"
"There isn't a black boy in the band."
"Yes there is, he danced with you guys at sections."
"You sure?"
"Well, I didn't see the competition but he wouldn't lie about that. You see, that's why I auditioned." She warmed up to her subject. "They figure you guys owe them, Ben and Tim, the other guy who helped you get your numbers up for Sectionals. Otherwise you'd been disqualified. You're grateful for the help, right?" They all looked away guiltily. They didn't even remember those guys names, if they'd ever known them. Maybe there was some moral obligation to them. "And Alice is already dancing with the Troubletones."
"I thought they were all Cheerios."
"Not all of them, she just sneaked in one day and nobody noticed, well Mercedes did but she likes Alice and acted like she'd always been there. So that made me the only one without a ticket to Nationals. Pretty sweet, huh?" She smiled at all of them, her gaze lingering or Sam. "And for the record, I know for a fact his mother is black. She's my aunt."
"Same as me." Rachel was saying. "One of my dads is black. That was lucky, Sam being here."
"Fate, wouldn't you say?" Patrice and Sam grinned at each other.
"So have you met Mercedes?" Finn asked.
"Not yet." She answered, evaluating the tall boy sitting across from her, trying to figure out what that was to him. "Looking forward to it."
"She only lives a couple of blocks away. We could invite her over for desert."
"Damn it, Finn!" Sam stood up. He'd had enough of this. Besides Patrice, the only person at the table he actually liked was Kurt and he could talk to him later. Alone.
"Maybe some other time." Patrice also stood up. "I really need to get home. Thank you very much for dinner."
"And he didn't get back til midnight!" Kurt reported the next day at school.
"None of my business." Mercedes said, randomly flipping through the history book in front of her. "He has a perfect right to have a girlfriend. I had Shane."
"Shane! A pretty poor consolation prize."
"Hey!"
"Sorry, but the truth's a brutal thing. You could have done so much..." He looked up and saw Patrice standing in the doorway of the library, looking right at them. "You want me to stay and watch your back?"
"What do you think she's going to do? I doubt that she has razor blades hidden in her 'fro. Trust me, I can handle her."
"Hello Kurt. Nice seeing you again." Kurt half smiled at her. "Do you mind if we have some privacy, just a little girl talk between Mercedes and me?"
"Sure," Mercedes answered. "I have some time before an after school club. We can talk there."
Sometimes When We Touch – Dan Hill