Sam and Mercedes sat next to each other in uncomfortable silence. They both desperately wanted a piece of paper. They could say anything on paper, talking in real time was terrifying. Fortunately they didn't have to do much talking right now.
Kurt was ecstatic that Mr. Schuester had finally, finally! assigned Kurt and Blaine to a duet. It was just an in-class exercise but it was the first time they'd be singing together for New Directions. Kurt was nervous and excited and Mercedes couldn't see why. They were born to sing I'll Cover You from Rent. It was perfect, if predictable, as Kurt pointed out. Someday My Prince will Come was Blaine's choice. "Sitting right here, babe." Kurt said.
What was she going to sing with Sam, that's the problem. "So what are you going to sing with Sam?" Blaine asked.
"My Eyes from Dr. Horrible?" Sam suggested.
"Let me hear it." Kurt said. He listened and said "So Sam's singing that the world is full of filth and lies and Mercedes is singing the world is finally growing wise. Interesting."
"Love Needs a Heart" by Jackson Browne?" Mercedes suggested. "Proud and alone, cold as a stone. I'm afraid to believe the things I feel. I can cry with the best, I can laugh with the rest. But I'm never sure when it's real." she sang. Sam stared at her.
"Hallelujah? When you said you were going to sing Leonard Cohen I wondered if you were going with KD Lang or Jeff Buckley." Sam said.
"I didn't say I was going to sing Hallelujah," she answered. "Bird on a Wire."
Bird on a Wire? Sam thought. Torn everyone who's reached out to me? She must be really hurting.
"Not Bird on a Wire but Hallelujah is good." Blaine was saying "Don't you have anything in your notebook?" Sam and Mercedes exchanged guilty glances, like they'd been caught up to no good.
"What notebook?" Kurt asked.
"It's just a notebook." Mercedes said. Thanks a lot blabbermouth she thought.
"I'm sorry, I'm confusing you guys with a book I just read. Remember, I showed it to you Kurt? It was a mystery and you don't like mysteries so maybe you don't remember. And you've seen my notebook, it's mostly lyrics."
"How about Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered? It's Rogers and Hart, I think." Mercedes said, trying to add another layer of distraction. Her mother was listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing that when she came home from school today. "Do you know it?"
"Couldn't sleep, and wouldn't sleep, until I could sleep where I shouldn't sleep, bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I." Kurt sang. "Pal Joey. I like that."
Mercedes didn't remember the lyrics going like that but at least she'd succeeded in distracting Kurt.
Sam looked around Mercedes' dining room. The room was warm and comfortable, just like her whole family. It had been several months since he'd been here last, back when they were friends, and then more than friends. Now they're pen pals, kinda. It was crazy but he could get used to that kind of crazy. Things were good until they'd been assigned to do a duet. He'd gotten used to writing to her, not talking to her.
Did Blaine know what was written in that notebook? It sounded like he didn't, not for sure. Sam noticed how he quickly he came up with "a book I'm reading" once he realized Kurt hadn't noticed them passing it back and forth. Kurt, on the other hand, seemed to have completely forgotten the subject and gone back to agonizing over his duet with Blaine.
"Can I have a drink of water?" Sam asked.
"Sure. Wait a minute, we just rearranged some things. Let me show you." Sam and Mercedes walked into the kitchen.
"Has Blaine seen what's in the book?"
"No. His mother came down last week and took us all out to dinner. I was writing in the car and he noticed and asked what it was. Then he asked why I write to you instead of talking to you. Reasonable question."
"What did you say?"
"I said it's easier that way. You know, Blaine would make one hell of a spy. He says he collects stories because he wants to be a writer but there's something about him that makes you run off at the mouth. I think it's the way he looks at you like whatever you're saying is the most interesting thing he's ever heard in his life. With you it's that country boy charm that makes people tell you things, like you're just sitting on the back porch drinking lemon aid." He laughed.
"You guys okay in there?" Blaine called from the dining room. "Having any trouble finding a glass?"
"No prob. You want anything?" she called back.
"No, we're good."
"See" she said to Sam. "He lives here. He knows we didn't rearrange anything." She grabbed two glasses and filled them with water. "I think he finds the idea behind the notebook more interesting than the actual contents. That's just how he is." Their hands touched briefly when she handed him the glass. They both jumped like they'd been shocked.
"Well, umm, what do you want to do, about the duet?" he asked, heading back into the dining room. He was surprised to turn around and see Mercedes still standing at the kitchen sink.
"What are we going to do about us? This is insane, you know. I miss you so much, but when we were together, at the end, I felt so...I don't know."
"Used." he stood next to her. "I used you and you let me because you cared about me. And you were afraid, I think, that nobody was ever going to love you and you had to settle. You're wrong about that. And I was afraid too. I didn't know what was going to happen with my family. There's no privacy when you're crammed together like that. I used to pretend to be asleep while they worried if they should send Stevie and Stacey to live in Memphis with grandma. If I should go live with my father, Bob's my stepfather you know. So I controlled the only thing I could. You. I can never fix that. I'm sorry, but I can't erase it and I can't expect you to forget what happened."
He sat down at the kitchen table. She sat down next to him. "We used to talk about anything and laugh about everything. But things went too far and somehow I turned into the jock who has to be careful who he's seen with. And you turned into the secret girlfriend who's sad all the time." He took her hand. "If it's possible, can we take what happened, and put it on a shelf? And later, maybe, we can open that box again? And until we're both ready can you be the beautiful girlfriend who laughs all the time and I'll be the poor boyfriend takes you to the park?"
"How about if you're the boyfriend, Sam from Memphis, and I'm the girlfriend, Mercedes from Lima?" Then she kissed him.
Kurt and Blaine were kissing across the dining room table and looked up, surprised, when they walked in holding hands.
"I live here, remember?" Mercedes said laughing. Kurt noticed it wasn't that fake laugh she'd been using lately.
"We're taking your suggestion. Just celebrating." Kurt said. "Now we can focus on your problem."
"How about Robert Palmer?" Blaine said "She used to look good to me but now I find her simply irresistible?"
Sam blushed. "Do you have one about a roommate getting murdered?"
"Aren't people forever getting murdered in old country music songs?" Kurt asked. "Oh, there's a murder in Sunset Boulevard!"
"Remember, that's the movie that opens with the guy face down in the swimming pool?" She reminded Sam. "All because he was playing mind games with a batty old lady. That guy was a writer, if I recall correctly. A writer who gets in trouble for messing with folks. Now there's an interesting concept."
"Okay, I'll stop. You're on your own." Blaine stood up. "Kurt, lets go to my room and practice."
"Practice, that's what they call it." Mercedes said to Sam.
Blaine's sudden appearance had swelled the ranks of female members of New Directions. They hadn't shown much interest in singing, just in staring at Blaine and daydreaming. His rendition of "Part of Your World" - including his refusal to neutralize the gender references by changing "reprimand their daughters" to "scold their sons and daughters" tamped down those fantasies a bit. Kurt and Blaine's rendition of "Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered" was the final proof, if any was needed, that Blaine was definitely gay. She listened to them singing.
I'll sing to him, bring spring to him
And worship the trousers that cling to him
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
When he talks he is seeking
Words to get off his chest.
Horizontally speaking he's at his very best.
Vexed again
Perplexed again
Thank God I can be over-sexed again
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I
Well, Mercedes thought, that ought cut down the female competition for solos. She was sitting next to Sam, holding his hand. Funny how such a little thing made her so happy. He was grinning at Kurt and Blaine - "So NOT Ella."
"There's a hundred verses to that song and they specifically picked those." She whispered. "They decided to go with Rufus Wainwright, Rod Stewart, Cher and Patti LuPone boozing it up at 3 in the morning down at the No Tell Motel."
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