Jesse St. James was the lead male in Vocal Adrenaline and all of New Directions knew it and how good he was good thanks to Rachel. Despite all the rumors I heard about him, about him being a miva and a drama king, I refused to believe that they were true till I met him face to face and got to make a judgment call of my own. No one knew, but I had been in the same room with Jesse a lot. The bad thing about being the only celebrity in a small cowtown like Lima was that you often had to share your resources with other groups who could also pay for the treatment and Vocal Adrenaline definitely had the money for the things I did as an All Star National Gymnast in Lima. After I had won the Covergirl Classic two years ago, there was lots of cheering but then there were the endorsement deals that had to be done. God, I really hated endorsements. Everything about them was horrible, but that's how my stylist came to Lima and in turn how I ended up in the same room as Jesse St. James, the enigmatic Vocal Adrenaline lead.
While being here mainly for me, she did do some part time work as a costume consultant and stylist for the news. There wasn't anything wrong with that and in fact I enjoyed meeting the other people every time I came to see here. Fittings were interesting. She did all the same type of demographic at once and so teenager's all had one spot in her week and that's where we first saw each other. At a fitting. He was getting an all black with a touch of red costume and I was getting a casual outfit tailored so that I could shoot a commercial in it while doing a little gymnastics routine. When she was fitting someone else we just looked at each but we never actually talked.
From what Rachel said, he was the best and I believed her. You could tell that the man was dedicated. He didn't realize it but he often did small things with his feet that indicated that he was a dancer and that was enough for me to know that he was doing the right thing for him. The way he moved his feet, it was so natural, like the sky being blue, or the grass being green. He was just different than everyone that we knew as New Directions. Sure, those Jane Addams girls were scary, but he wasn't scary in that way. He was scary in the fact that he was that fantastic and he knew it and I could tell he did. He had a glint in his eyes like he knew what I was thinking when I looked at him. I reduced it to me being way too paranoid all the time but it would always come back and again, I would blow it off. Of course, I didn't want to think what he was thinking about me when he looked me like a creeper in the fittings.
Love, that was I though Rachel had for her music, but Rachel was nothing compared to him. His voice was the voice of an angel. He was challenging me. Now, when we were being fitted, you could hear singing across the room. We never sat next to each other but we sang. And every day it got gradually louder. It made us equals here. Talent surged through the room.
I still remember singing "Let My Love Open the Door" by Peter Townsend a cappella while he mixed in "Poison" by Alice Cooper. They were very different sounds and yet as we sang from our hearts about other people, nothing else mattered. We were here in this moment with an equal. When he came over I was freaking out. I would be lying to say that I hadn't been thinking about him since I met him and that day. It wasn't just the singing that made us different; it was the talent that made us different. Even from those around us who were our "peers" we were different.
In a very suave and debonair manner, he introduced himself "Hi, I'm Jesse."
"I know," I said, sticking out my hand. Nothing was weird about this. I had to convince my brain that I was not going to fangirl on this. "I'm Alex," I said in a manner that I hoped was cool but not cocky. I always had a problem with that.
"I know," He said accepting my hand and putting his in mine.
And that's how we met. Very simple. With no glitz and no glamour, just us performing to each like we were the most important people in the universe. The earth spun around us and everything just followed, because we were the center of gravity.