Like A Blond
By
Alyson Grant
"So, you've been to jail, experienced a public breakup and won a contest that changed your life forever. Do you feel any different these days or do you still feel like the same Jude Harrison who won Instant Star a year ago?"
"Wow!" She ran a few fingers through her hair. "You get right to it. Well…yeah I'm Jude Harrison. For better or worse I'm stuck with myself."
The crowd laughed.
"I still feel like the same girl I was but in some ways I'm sure I have changed. If the past few months of my life were a book this chapter could simply be called Change because that's all it was non stop."
"I could barely catch my breath before the next thing started happening."
One camera zoomed on the contrast of Jude's red chipped fingernail against the surface of her silver star ring as she lightly touched the symbol with her thumb.
Whether she was nervous or just contemplative the camera couldn't tell but the unconscious movement was captured and transmitted live to the viewers watching.
"So much has changed for me but at the same time it's weird how things haven't. I still suck at math, still have personal issues, still have best friends who care about me and am still for better or worse signed to G Major."
"Big changes this year."
She nodded. "That's right. Absoluely. Came back from tour and it was like I'd just stepped on a completely different planet."
"There were rumors that you were going to be dropped from G Major. Any comment on that?"
"None."
"Now back in September you were famously cut off stage by Darius at his annual Red and Black party. Any…comment there?"
She gave him a direct look. "We had a difference in opinion."
"All right then."
She gave him a bland look.
"Has it been hard working with Shay?"
"I don't work with Shay."
"Sorry." He glanced discreetly at note card. "Isn't he finishing his third album at G Major with producer Tom Quincy?"
"That's right," Jude agreed pleasantly with a point. "With producer Tom Quincy not me."
"Guess he won't be invited to the seventeenth huh?"
Jude patiently smiled and said nothing.
The VJ coughed, "Uh since you won Instant Star sources have been saying you and Mr. Q. are an item. Any truth to that?"
"Not even remotely. He is however dating Sadie Harrison my older sister."
"How did your family react to your jail time?"
Jude frowned, "They were ecstatic. Look, you and every other third rate tabloid people try to shove in my face are all making this into a much bigger deal of this then it was. I made a mistake. I was intoxicated-"
"And underage."
"Yes. I'm not nineteen yet obviously and I'm not trying to downplay anything at all but I was drunk just like millions of teens are daily but I got called on it because I was stupid enough to do something I shouldn't have been doing and have to hear about it in the press continually because people feed on my downfalls."
"The Saga of Jude is not that interesting people," She said vehemently. "I was stupid. I admit it. End of story."
She glanced at the camera and added, "Oh and my jail time was a few hours. Please don't have a James Frey type of lie attached to my life."
He blinked at her intensity and found himself taking a step back.
Jude smiled and continued, "So let's flip this and turn the tables shall we? Over the summer you had a segment running about my parent's decision to divorce. By you I don't mean you personally Bryan I mean this station."
"A full half hour special," she said pleasantly. "Even my parents wouldn't call themselves that interesting enough to be on Music Squared. I caught that when I came home and it was all about the perils of divorce and how it would affect me and who gave you that baby picture? One question comes to mind about the whole media coverage in general: Why "
"You don't think that maybe, just maybe my family would have liked a private moment to deal with everything by ourselves? And it's not just you. It's every tabloid and newspaper who snapped pictures of my family and I during that time or unearthed old ones. Or wrote about the topic at all. It's not that interesting. Truly."
"Divorce is not a story or at least it shouldn't be. Hell, I am not a story. I'm a person just like you, just like everyone else and my family didn't deserve the great big media play by play. I didn't appreciate that."
The ambushed VJay looked visibly relieved when the signal came to wrap it up for commercial break. Jude had only been speaking without interruption for less then two minutes but this wasn't on the cue cards, was unexpected and felt a whole lot longer.
He hid all that for the camera and smiled brightly.
"Uh well we're going to go to a commercial break. Gotta pay those bills! But when we return we'll have the world premiere of Jude Harrison's new music video As a Blond as well as a performance of Another Thin Line to celebrate today's one hundredth play and retirement from the countdown.
Jude smiled, pointed to the camera and mouthed as she gestured to the man beside her, 'He Can't Handle The Heat' and playfully stuck out her tongue to the camera on her left as it zoomed, moved back and rolled to commercial break.
The minute the cameras were off the VJay had a less enthusiastic smile on his face. "Uh Jude?"
"Yes?"
"You kind of ambushed me there."
"I was kind of expressing how I felt."
"Well yeah but…"
"And I wouldn't call what I just did an ambush. Sorry if you took it that way but you know what? I seem to remember you in that special too. You and the rest of the world seemed to have a few thoughts and opinions so here's mine."
She stepped closer, "Sorry if you can't handle a little reality."
AG - Author's Note
Like A Blond? This wasn't the story I was going to put up next!
Anyway this is an idea I've been toying with for a while.
I wrote this part yesterday. Hope you liked it.
Speak your mind.