"I can't believe it's tonight," I said to Aubrey as we walked together to the dance studio.
"The convention center is twenty minutes away. You'll change in the car," Aubrey explained.
I was about to respond when I saw the Australian girl, Amy I'd since come to learn, exiting the building next door to the dance studio, leaving a poker tournament based on the sign, only to get her purse caught on the door handle and dump its contents onto the patio.
"Amy! Hey, Amy, we'll help you," I said, rushing, Aubrey following.
Amy was quick to move, but I couldn't help but notice two of the items I picked up and handed back to her were wallets. "So much shit, eh?" she said, stuffing it all back into her bag. "You never know what you might need in the Outback." Her husband (?) joined her a moment later and gave us a suspicious-looking nod, as though we were up to something, before ushering her away.
I stood on the bench in the women's locker room, wearing Aubrey's uniform. She worked behind me, pinning the hem as her legs were longer than mine. I was terrified.
"I just keep my shoulders down, my eyes open, my frame locked, remember to point...what if I forget the words?"
Aubrey moved into my line of sight as she gave my hips a little reassuring shake. "You have eight other girls up there with you, it will be okay. Beca will know if you're lost. Let her lead you."
"I'm afraid I'm going to use the trumpet instead of the snare, spin left instead of right and run into someone else and fall on my face." I shook my head, trying to find my resolve again. "No! Keep my eyes and ears open, point my fingers, land that plane…"
I could feel Aubrey staring. "Thanks, Red." I turned to look at her. "I just want you to know that I don't sleep around, whatever Luke might have told you. I was genetically predisposed to developing nodes; I knew I was already at risk when I was on Broadway. And I thought that he loved me, and it made me forget to take care of my voice. I thought we had something special. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that." She went back to fiddling with my skirt, not making eye contact.
"How does it look?" I asked, giving her emotional space.
Aubrey sniffed, glancing at how my shirt's buttons created a gap, revealing my bra. I giggled and adjusted it. But Aubrey's face changed, eyes meeting mine, big, worried.
"I'm scared," she said, shaking her head. Her voice wavered. "I'm so scared."
Of course she was scared. She was going under the knife tonight to fix her vocal cords, and singing was her life. "Don't worry," I said, as if that would make her stop worrying, and pulled her into a hug. "You'll be fine."
I ran to catch up with Stacie as she followed Mom and Dad to dinner. "Stacie, you just gotta do something for me."
"I don't just gotta do anything."
"Just tell Mommy and Daddy I've got a terrible headache and I'm in bed, and you checked on me once. Okay?" Honestly, I covered for her; it was the least she could do.
Stacie looked at me like I was a crazy person, but I didn't care. Beca was waiting for me in the parking lot.
"Volkswagen is proud to be a sponsor of The Lodge at Fallen Leaves. Please welcome our annual convention the Lodge's renowned a capella group, Pitch Slapped!"
This was it. It was happening. I filed onto the stage with the other eight girls, getting a reassuring nod from Beca as I looked her direction to wait for her to count us in.
With a whispered, "One, two, three, four," we were off. And it was ok. Everyone was doing great, and I felt like a bumbling fool, sticking out like a sore thumb. But every time Beca's and my paths crossed, she smiled at me, and when we were next to each other and her hand grasped mine, it squeezed, thumb brushing over the back of mine before the dance step required we separate.
We were at the front of the stage taking our bows when I noticed movement in the audience, hard to see with the blinding stage lighting, but I recognized them - Amy and her man.
I was in the back seat of Beca's car, changing out of the costume on our way back to the Lodge, both of us on a high from the performance.
"You did well," Beca said as she drove. "You worked hard."
My peasant blouse was tangled inside out, making me fight with it, leaving me topless for a minute. "I saw that couple from the Lodge and I thought that was it!"
"Oh, me, too. Me, too," Beca answered. "You know, by the second verse, you really had it."
"Yeah, but I didn't nail that snare-bass transition."
"You did really well." Beca looked at me in the rear-view mirror, still topless. And I noticed she didn't avert her gaze nearly as quickly as would have been deemed polite.
I noticed it even more when her gaze returned as I pulled my shirt over my head and got it tucked into my jeans.
I climbed over the console between the seats and plopped back into mine, stealing a glance at Beca, only to see her stealing one at me. More than once. After the third time, she smiled at me awkwardly and scratched her arm.
It was well past midnight by the time we pulled up in the staff parking lot. Beca hopped out and I used my visor's mirror to check on the state of my make-up. I didn't want to be wearing too much when I went home; Dad wouldn't like it. She showed up at my door a couple seconds later, opening it for me.
"Thanks," I said, surprised when she took my hand to help me out, holding both of them for a moment as she stepped close, making my heart race.
"Beca!" It was Donald, scrambling around the front of the car. "Come on, it's Aubrey."
Aubrey. In all the excitement of the performance, I'd forgotten that she was having her surgery tonight. We took off running to Aubrey's cabin, finding the door open, several of the staff members hovering nervously in her room.
"Did you call an ambulance?" Beca asked, pushing through the crowd.
"She said the hospital would call her father," Donald said, chasing after her. "She made me promise."
Aubrey was in bed, sweating but under a heavy blanket despite the heat of the evening. Tears stained her face, her hands seemed to perpetually squeeze her throat. A dry erase board laid on her stomach, marker on her chest. Beca rushed to her side, taking up one of her hands in her own.
"She said, well, wrote, that the scope burned going down."
"I thought you said he was a real M.D.?" I asked, scared.
"He was, but he's a chiropractor." Jesus christ. Really, Donald?
"It's alright," Beca said, smoothing Aubrey's hair out of her panicked face. "I'm here."
I ran. I needed my father. Aubrey needed my father. I snuck into my parents' room and crept as fast as I could to his side of the bed, shaking him gently until he woke up. He saw the fear on my face.
"What? What is it, Red? Is it Stacie?"
"No," I whispered, grabbing his old school doctor's bag that I always loved that he brought on trips ("Just in case!" he would say). He climbed out of bed and got dressed, following me back to Aubrey's cabin.
"Excuse me, everybody clear out," he said, kicking out the staff as he made for Aubrey. He made Beca move and sat in her place. "Okay." He touched her throat and she gasped, body shuddering. "Yes, I know that hurts. We're going to take care of that." He opened his bag and pulled out a pen light and tongue depressor. "Who's responsible for this girl?"
"I am," Beca said, watching intently. I hovered by the door behind her, watching. "Please. Is she…" Beca's voice faltered, and her emotion made me stop forward, touching her back.
My dad seemed to notice. Or he was angry with Beca. I didn't know. He turned and leaned over Aubrey as he clicked on his flashlight. "Open."
We all left, then, unable to take the anxiety or witness Aubrey's worst fears coming true. We waited on the porch, Donald pacing, Beca staring into the night until the door opened. She rushed to my father.
"Doc, thanks a lot," Donald said, grabbing his hand to shake it.
Beca offered hers to shake. "Dr. Beale, I don't know how to thank you."
He pointedly avoided her handshake. Didn't even bother responding to her gratitude. Just took me by the shoulder to lead me back to our cabin.
"Was that what my money paid for?" he asked me angrily as we walked.
"I'm sorry, I never meant to lie to you."
"You're not the person I thought you were, Red. I'm not sure who you are. You know how important it is to have a specialist do vocal cord surgery." I fell back a step, hurt. "But I don't want you to have anything to do with those people again."
Fear rose up in me. "But can I just explain -"
"Nothing!" he shouted, stopping. "You're to have nothing to do with any of them ever again. I won't tell your mother about this." He started walking, away from me. "Right now I'm going to bed. And take that stuff off your face before your mother sees you."
I stopped, watching him leave.
If he thought I was going back to Stacie's and my room to go to sleep, he was dead wrong.
I could hear quiet music playing, a nice throwback jam - R. Kelly's "Ignition." I knocked on the screen door of Beca's cabin.
She opened the door a few seconds later, wearing an oversized T-shirt and...well. That seemed to be it. Her hair was tied up in a sloppy bun. She was gorgeous. I tried not to stare.
"Can I come in?"
She moved aside to let me pass and I stepped in, surveying the place. It was empty, not much more than a couple chairs, a table, a desk with a laptop open with some crazy program on its screen, a lamp or two, and a bed. Clothes were everywhere, on the floor, on the chairs. One chair was apparently the designated bra chair, several of them hanging over the back of it.
She hovered behind me. "I guess it's not a great room. You probably have a great room."
"No, it's...it's a great room!" I said, way too enthusiastically to come across as authentic.
She stared at me for a second and then moved, swiping clothes off the nearest chair so I could sit. She reached for her computer, the source of the music.
"No, leave it on," I said quickly when I realized what she was going to do. "I'm sorry about the way my father treated you."
"No, your father was great," Beca said, moving more clothes off another chair to take a seat. "He was great. The way he took care of Aubrey -"
"Yes, but I mean the way he was with you. It's really me it has to do with."
Beca looked at me, seeming conflicted.
"Beca, I came here because my father -"
"No, the way he helped her - I mean, I could never do anything like that! That was something. The reason people treat me like I'm nothing is because I'm nothing."
My heart dropped. Beca couldn't - shouldn't - think that about herself. "That's not true! You - you're everything!"
Beca looked at me sharply. "You don't understand the way it is for somebody like me. Last month I'm slinging lattes to keep alive. This month, people are spamming my inbox with Amazon gift cards. I'm balancing on shit and as quick as that," she snapped her fingers, "I can be there down there again."
"No, it's not the way it is!" I said desperately. "It doesn't have to be that way!"
Beca stared at me and shook her head. "I've never known anybody like you. You think you can make the world better." Her voice started turning bitter. "Somebody's lost, you find them. Somebody's bleeding -"
"Yeah and I go get my daddy," I interrupted. "That's really brave, like you said." I wondered if she even remembered insulting me when I gave Aubrey the money.
"That took a lot of guts to go to him! You are not scared of anything. I don't -"
"Me? I'm scared of everything! I'm scared of what I saw. I'm scared of what I did, of who I am." It was coming. I felt it. Word vomit. Beca stood up, pacing. "And most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you!"
Beca stopped and stared down at me. It was out. I'd said it. I dropped my gaze, staring at her now empty chair, trying not to cry. The song had ended, leaving us in silence. Painful, painful silence. I needed her to respond, to kick me out. To say she felt the same way. Anything. D'Angelo's "Untitled" shuffled on and I looked up at Beca. And she just looked at me, eyes big, jaw tense.
So I pushed myself out of the chair. I could do it. I could be brave. "Sing with me?"
Beca's stoic face broke a little. She seemed nervous. "Here?"
"Here." I took a step. And another. And another until I was right in front of her. She kept her eyes down, not looking at me. So I took a breath and lifted my hand and touched her shoulder, holding it, sliding along it to meet her neck and curl around the nape. I could feel us moving, naturally swaying to the rhythm.
I felt her arms slink around my waist, her voice soft. "And if you'll have me, I can provide everything that you desire. Said if you get a feeling. Feeling that I am feeling. Won't you come closer to me baby, you've already got me right where you want me baby…"
My heart was in my throat. I'd never felt so high, so excited. Her hands pushed up along my spine and I leaned back, trusting her to support me as I arched. I pulled myself up with my hands on her shoulders, slowly, until we were close enough that I could feel her breath on my neck.
"How does it feel?"
I could feel everything - the music, the air, the rhythm, Beca. I didn't think. I felt. We moved in sync and when she bent me back again, I felt her thigh between mine. She pulled me in and I wrapped my arms around her neck, our bodies flush, and I felt her arms around me, holding, squeezing, a hand drifting down over the seat of my pants and not making any apologies for it. Every time her fingers moved across my back where my shirt didn't cover, I swallowed hard.
"And I am feeling right on," I whisper-sang; I knew my voice wasn't steady enough for anything more than that. "If you feel the same way, baby, let me know the right way. I'd love to make you wet -" I stopped, blushing hard, forgetting what the lyrics were actually saying. Beca seemed to remember, though, and she sighed in my ear, hands pulling me firmly over her thigh to make me gasp.
This was happening. It was one hundred percent happening. I let my lips touch her neck and I felt her shiver. So I did it again, and her head tilted a little, so I did it more, letting my tongue graze her skin as my fingernails scratched the back of her neck. I felt a hand on my waist drift down to my thigh, and Beca dipped a little as her hand caught the back of my knee to hitch it up alongside her hip. It opened me to her, pulled me closer. I let my hips roll once. Just once. I looked up at her to see her staring at my lips.
It was a rush. A feeling of power to have this woman who was so confident, always the badass, now nervous. Excited. Unsteady. I started to lean in, her breath against my lips, but eased out of her embrace, circling her slowly, staying close, letting my hands trail over her as I moved until I was behind her. I desperately wanted to feel her skin under my fingertips as I rested my hands on her shoulders. I settled for pressing my lips to the back of her neck, hands working to untie her hair and let it down. I finished my circle, daring to let my hand dip down over the curve of her backside, not feeling anything under that T-shirt.
Her face was intense when she looked up at me, and she ran her hands up my sides slowly, pushing my arms up over my head. She squeezed my wrists and I kept them there as she trailed her hands down again. I felt her tug at my shirt, untucking it to lift it up and off in one smooth motion. Her arms were around my waist again and I felt her toss the shirt aside as we swayed to the rhythm.
I felt her lips brush mine, a kiss, but there was no rush. She dipped me backwards again, lips traveling along my chest and up my neck until she had me upright. I pushed my hands through her hair, holding her, feeling her. My eyes were closed, functioning solely on instinct and response to what she was doing, what she was making me feel.
I felt her take a step back. And another. Toward her bed. My heart raced, more so than it already was. But I followed. We stopped and I let her rotate us until I felt her bed behind my knees, and then she pushed until I sat down. She slipped into my lap like it was second nature, like she was meant to be there, and I felt safe, cocooned by her almost as her weight and warmth helped keep me grounded.
Her hands pushed through my curls to pull my head back and expose my neck to her mouth which trailed up and down, slow, wet kisses, over every inch. I didn't know what to do with my hands so I let them rest on the tops of her thighs, high enough that her T-shirt could separate my hands from her skin.
She must have deemed that unsatisfactory, because the noise she made sounded like it and she reached for my right hand and deliberately moved it up and under the edge of her shirt and onto the warm, soft skin of her thigh. I inhaled at the contact and she lifted off my lap a little. I really liked that motion - it was sexy and wanting and I wanted her to do it again. I let my hand drift higher, keeping safely to the outer edge, until I was at her hip where I could grab hold of her and pull her closer.
I wanted her. I wanted her so badly. The rational part of my brain was all but deactivated, but there was enough of it there to wake me up for a second. "Bec...Beca," I heard myself say and I felt her mouth disappear from my neck. I righted my head so I could see her. She looked as crazed as I felt, and I shivered at it.
"What? What's wrong?" she asked, breathing hard.
"Nothing, I just…you should know…" I swallowed. "I've never…"
"Oh. Oh." She brushed my hair back, scanning my face. "Like, with a woman?"
I shook my head. "Ever."
Her roaming hands stilled, pausing where they'd ended up on my chest, just shy of the swells of my breasts. "Red, we don't have to…"
"It's okay," I said quickly. I needed to assuage her growing concern. "I want to. I just...wanted you to know."
Beca swallowed. "You're...you're sure?"
I nodded and made the bold move of sliding my hand around her hip and down to squeeze round flesh. "Make love to me."
"Singers, dancers, actors, this is your lucky day! Auditions for the annual Lodge end-of-the-season talent show beginning in the playhouse!"
I felt like a different person in the morning. Renewed. Energized. But I had to play it normal; Stacie would sniff me out in a second if I wasn't careful. So far at breakfast, she seemed clueless. It was easy to play it down, though. The tension radiating off my father was palpable and we were all eating in awkward silence.
The impeccable timing he was prone to have, Jesse rolled up to our table, clipboard in hand. "Everyone going to be in the show?"
"We're leaving tomorrow," my dad said, surprising all three of us. Four, if you counted Jesse. "Miss the weekend traffic." No. No no no!
"But Jake, we're paid up 'til Sunday." My mom, always conscientious about a dollar. I cheered her on in that moment. Leaving was literally the last thing I wanted to do. Especially not tomorrow. That was way, way too soon to leave Beca.
"Daddy, and miss the show?" Stacie asked, urgently.
"I said we're leaving tomorrow."
"But Daddy, I was going to sing in the show!" Good girl, Stacie. Break him down.
"It's a big event. People bring their own arrangements. You don't want to miss it." I was even cheering for Jesse - good job, Jesse! "Oh, Red, I need you for props." Ugh fuck off, Jesse.
"Jake, why would you want to leave early?" my mother asked, concerned.
My father was stewing, glowering at his omelet. "It was just an idea. We can stay if you want to."
I let go of the breath I was holding and saw Stacie do the same.
"So, Stacie, what were you planning to sing?" he said, forcing a smile.
And that's all it took. Stacie was up and out of her chair, following our father out of the dining room.
As soon as I could escape, I ran to the staff quarters. I needed to check on Aubrey, see how she was doing now that half a day had passed. I knocked and heard a bell ring on the other side. I assumed that meant "Come in" so I peeked in, seeing Aubrey sitting up in bed, smiling as she waved me in.
"You look much better," I said, taking in her appearance. She wasn't as pale, and she seemed far less tense than when I'd left her last night.
She held up her index finger and then picked up the dry erase board, scribbling on it before turning it to me to read. "Just missed your dad." She followed it with a thumbs up and used her two hands to make a heart. She liked him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize the doctor…"
Aubrey shook her head and waved her hand dismissively.
There was an enthusiastic knock at the door and we both turned as it opened, Beca popping in, looking hopeful. "Hey!"
Aubrey clapped and held out her hand for her. Beca noticed me then, looking at me maybe a second too long but not really acknowledging me before sitting with Aubrey. I tried not to be hurt by it; I knew she couldn't know.
"So, how are you doing?" Beca asked, speaking quietly as though if Aubrey couldn't speak, neither should she.
I watched Aubrey erase her board and write. "OK. Dr. says I can still sing!"
Beca's posture sagged with relief and then she lifted her head. "Aubrey, that's so great."
Aubrey glanced at me and she erased her board again. "Last night? ?"
"Good," Beca said curtly.
"Fine. I missed the snare-bass transition. But it was good." It felt so awkward for some reason. Like, if I thought there was tension between my father and me at breakfast, it had nothing on the tension between Beca and me right now.
Aubrey was staring at me, and then I saw her look at Beca again, face changing a little.
I needed to get out of there. "I guess I...I guess I'm going to go. Bye." I recognized that maybe I looked at Beca a second or two too long, waiting and hoping for some type of response.
But all I got was, "See ya."
I closed the door and sat on the porch step, waiting, pretending like I couldn't hear their conversation - or at least Beca's side of it.
"So, he says you're going to be fine! Don't worry about Gail, I'll tell her your grandmother died...I know what I'm doing, Aubrey."
I stood when I heard the door, and Beca looked surprised I was still waiting. "Look, um," she started. Why is it so awkward between us? "I gotta run. I have a lesson with the Schneiders in three minutes and they'll kill each other if I'm not there."
"Sure, if you gotta go," I said, trying and knowingly failing miserably at hiding my disappointment.
Beca looked at me like she wanted to say more. Or do something. "I'll see ya." She was walking away.
"Beca!" I called, before I could stop myself.
She turned and looked at me for a minute. And then smiled.
The first sign all morning that we were okay.
It absolutely poured that evening. Torrential rain. My dad and I picked away at a jigsaw puzzle as my mom worked on packing.
Stacie was in front of the mirror, pouting as she fussed with her hair. "God, I am so sick of this rain! Remind me not to take my honeymoon at Niagara Falls."
"So you go to Jamaica. It'll be fine." My mom, always the fixer.
"Where is my Lancôme L'Absolu Rouge lipstick? I know I put it in this drawer."
I needed to get out. I itched to leave. I needed to see her. I got up and grabbed my raincoat.
Dad didn't seem to notice, but Mom did. "Red, where are you going in this weather?"
"Um, they're having karaoke in the west lobby."
"Quite the little joiner, aren't we?" Stacie snipped.
An hour later and I was wrapped up in Beca and her sheets, listening to the rain and feeling completely at ease, Amos Lee's "Arms of a Woman" appropriately playing in the background.
"Have you had many women?" I asked, feeling Beca's hand trailing aimlessly up and down my naked back.
"What?" she laughed.
I propped myself up to see her better. "Have you had many women?"
"Red, come on."
"Tell me," I smiled. "I want to know."
"No, no," Beca said, shaking her head. And then she was getting up, forcing me off her. I'd meant it to be a teasing conversation, but I'd struck a nerve. She climbed out of bed and I watched her pull on her discarded shirt. "You have to understand what it's like. You come from the streets and suddenly you're up here. Women are throwing themselves at you and they smell so good. They really take care of themselves. I never knew women could be like that. The men, too. They're so goddamn rich you think they must know about everything." She walked, busying herself with finding shorts to put on. "They're slipping their room keys in my hand two, three times a day, different people! So, I think I'm scoring big, right? For a while, you think, 'Hey, they wouldn't be doing this if they didn't care about me, right?'"
I felt bad. Bad for asking, bad for upsetting her. I didn't like the implication that she'd slept with so many people, basically as part of her job. "That's alright. I understand. You were just using them, that's all."
"No!" Beca came back and sat down next to me, her face earnest, exposed. "No, that's not it. That's the thing, Red. See, it wasn't like that. They were using me."
I stared at her, reading her. It had hurt her. They had all hurt her. I sat up to press my lips to hers, gently, and then less gently when she kissed me back, and I let the sheet around my torso fall so I could pull her back down into bed with me.
She pulled away suddenly, looking down at me like she'd been struck by an idea. "What's your real name, Red?"
I smiled. "Chloe, for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison; she was born a Chloe."
"Chloe," Beca said, smiling. "That's a really pretty name."
Her look shifted intense again. Wanting. I wanted, too. I lifted my head and reconnected our mouths, pulling her down to me with fingers in her hair.
I spent the night in my family cabin, much to my chagrin. We had so few days left here, but my family couldn't know. I was running out of excuses to be out late, and Stacie was getting suspicious, giving me looks every time I snuck in after dark.
We laid in our room in silence. My brain was turning. I could still feel Beca's hands on me, as though they'd left imprints. Dots of heat along my neck that could have been hickeys but they weren't; I'd begged her not to leave any. At least, none that could be seen. I trailed my hand along my hip, touching where I knew she'd left one.
"I've decided to sleep with Luke."
I sat up, looking across the room at Stacie. Now, I knew she was no virgin. She played boys like they were cards, only holding onto them until something better came her way. But that was just it - she only ever upgraded. Luke was a douchebag downgrade. "No, not with him."
"Do you think if we came back for our tenth anniversary it would be free?"
Oh my God she wasn't seriously thinking of marrying that douche? Stacie didn't settle. And I knew she wouldn't settle down for years. She wasn't an idiot - in fact, I'm pretty sure she was a secret genius; there was no reason for her to be hung up on this guy. "Jesus, Stacie. Not him. You're better than him. If you're going to be with someone that you sort of...love." I froze. I hadn't let that word sneak into my head yet. But I did. I knew I did. I loved her.
"Bullshit," Stacie said, rolling over. "Since when do you care who I sleep with? You wouldn't care if I banged the entire Miami Heat, as long as I got you courtside seats. What you care about is that you're not Daddy's girl anymore. He listens when I talk now. You hate that."
I clenched my jaw. I wasn't trying to not be "Daddy's girl." I was just having fun stepping outside my usual box. Trying new things. If that drove a wedge between my father and me...maybe we weren't as close as we originally thought.
I met Beca in the dance studio in the morning; I'd "signed up for lessons" with her so she could block out her morning. We weren't really dancing, though, so much as...feeling. Each other. Up.
A lot.
To Nelly Furtado and Timbaland's "Promiscuous." Which I never would have thought could be a cha-cha, but hey. What did I know?
"One, two, three, cha-cha-cha," I said jokingly as Beca let me lead her around the room, her hands sliding down my back and hips to palm my backside. "Hey! My frame - where's that point?" She grinned at me and I lifted her arms up and off me. She groaned. "Spaghetti arms! Would you give me some form, please?" She smiled and pulled me in again, and I let her. For a second. And took a step back. "You're invading my air space. This is my air space. That's yours. Let's cha-cha." We took a few proper steps and then she pulled me back, and I let her, smiling at the way she kissed my neck and started working her way down the open vee of my shirt. "Don't look down," I admonished, lifting her chin and pointing at my eyes. "Look right here." I turned and danced away, laughing as Beca fell dramatically to the floor to lay on her side and watch me.
"I want you on my team," she rapped along to the track.
"So does everybody else," I answered, rocking my hips and pushing my hands through my hair. It was fun to feel sexy, to feel wanted. To feel confident with another person.
"Baby, we can keep it on the low. Let your guard down, ain't nobody gotta know. If you with it girl, I know a place we can go."
"What kind of girl do you take me for?" I sang, dropping to my knees to crawl towards her.
She met me halfway, bending to press her lips to where my crop top exposed my navel and I let my arms wrap around her, pulling her to me as she straightened and we worked our way back to our feet. "Promiscuous girl, wherever you are, I'm all alone, and it's you that I want."
"Beca!" Jesse's voice startled us apart just in time before he popped up the stairs. I spun, practicing a simple cha-cha step as Beca hurried away to busy herself at her computer. "Hey Red - taking dance lessons?" I nodded, wanting him to leave. "I could teach you." He attempted a poor version of what I was doing and I ignored him. The music cut off abruptly. "Uh, Beca," he said, thankfully leaving me alone. "My dad put me in charge of the final show. I want to talk to you about the last performance. I'd like to shake things up a bit. You know, move with the times."
"Yeah?" Beca said, immediately excited, turning to her computer and clicking through screens of music apps. I watched them in the mirror; she was practically jumping in excitement. "I have a lot of ideas. I've been working with the rest of the staff on a mash-up of "Run the World" and this original song one of them wrote -"
"Whoa, down girl," Jesse said, cutting Beca off mid-sentence. "You're way over your head here." Her posture immediately fell. "You always do the chart-topping Ladies of the 80s. Why not do this year's final show...to the 90s?" Jesse looked thrilled with his suggestion.
"Right," Beca said, glaring at him.
"Well, you're free to do the same tired number as last year if you want…but next year we'll find another music director who will only be too happy -"
"Sure, Jesse," Beca said loudly. "No problem. We'll end the season with the 90s. Great idea." Beca snapped the lid of her laptop closed and Jesse got the hint, walking away. Towards me.
"Sometimes she's hard to talk to, but the guests seem to like her," he said, and I swallowed bile. "See that she gives you the full half-hour you're paying her for." He snapped and gave me a finger gun, backing out of the studio. I waited, staring at Beca's back in the mirror. She kicked the table. Hard.
"That little prick. He wouldn't know a new idea if it hit him in the balls," Beca huffed, marching along the path toward the staff quarters. I had to hurry to keep up with her. "He wanted some new ideas? I could have told him some new ideas."
"Why did you let him talk to you that way?"
"What do you mean? And fight the boss man?"
"Yeah, tell him your ideas!" I said, wanting Beca to have a chance. "He's a person like everyone else, I'm sure he's got great -"
"Look, I know these people. They are rich and they're mean. They won't listen to me."
"Well then, why not fight harder? Make them listen?" Always Miss Fix-It. Like my mother.
"Because I need this goddamned job lined up for next summer. My dad calls me today. 'Good news,' he says. 'I pulled some strings. Got you off the wait list and admitted.'"
We stopped the top of the hill. "Admitted to what?"
Beca put her hands on her hips and turned to me. "Barden University Freshman, at your service."
"But...that's where I'm going!" I said excitedly, reaching for her, but she turned away and kept walking.
Movement below us caught my eye, my dad, Stacie, and Luke leaving the main hall, Dad's arm around Luke's shoulders as Stacie chattered on and on, and I grabbed Beca, pulling her backwards and down, out of sight. "I don't think they saw us," I said quietly.
Beca seemed mad. She stood and looked down at me. "Fight harder, huh? I don't see you fighting so hard. I don't see you running up to Daddy, telling him I'm your girl."
I stood up, too, unable to have her glowering down at me that way. "I will. With my father, it's complicated. And I've never introduced him to anyone I've been seeing, especially not a girl. I will tell him."
"I don't believe you, Red," she snapped at me, and then seemed to catch herself, taking a breath. "I don't think that you ever had any intention of telling him. Ever." She turned and walked away.
And I let her.
