Adios to My Old Life by Caridad Ferrer

Author:Caridad Ferrer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

I listened close to the music flowing through the earbuds, rewinding a few seconds on the iPod and playing it again. Pulling one of the tiny buds free, I noodled another couple measures’ worth of chords on the Steinway, changing a couple notes, getting them right, then scribbling the final result on the staff paper in front of me.

“Hey, where’s Gabriel?”

“Ahhh!” I spun around on the bench, with an added, “Oh shit, ” as my iPod, connected by the wire to the earbuds, followed my spin and slid off the piano, landing at Jaime’s feet.

“Oh man, I’m sorry, Ali. I waited until you looked like you were done. I don’t think it’s screwed up—” He had his head bent, pushing buttons and scrolling through the menus on my music player.

“Gabriel’s daughter is stuck at the beach—locked the keys in their rental car.” I rubbed at my sore ear. “He had to call someone from the company and go rescue her. He should be back soon if traffic’s not bad.”

Without lifting his head, he muttered, “Oh, okay. Wasn’t that important. I’ll catch him later. Where’s Elaine?”

“She had to double-check on a point for the abstract she’s working on—but she gets better wireless reception over at the big house than up here.” Considering that the whole “chaperone” thing was getting more fluid as time wore on, she didn’t feel any real need to be Velcroed to my side 24/7. We were to the point where it was only important if the camera crews were around or any show bigwigs popped by.

“Right.”

I just sat there, watching him messing around with the iPod, wondering what else to say, if anything. This was the first time I’d been alone with him in a couple days—since the duet. He’d been another one of the avoiders. Which was weird. The other people who’d steered clear had been the remaining competitors, outside of Guille, of course, and Tonio, who wasn’t fazed by anything, much less me. But for the others, it was like that performance had all of a sudden made them look at me in a different light.

The other contestants I could really give less of a shit about—but at least them, I understood. They thought they’d had me pegged and whammo, with one song and Guillermo’s help, I’d gone and busted all the cute little preconceived notions. Even Monica had looked at me the next day like I was a completely different person. I wasn’t the known quantity anymore and it made them way nervous. But Jaime—no idea what was going on there.

Couldn’t let it affect me, though. Another week, another performance, another round of eliminations to survive. This week’s challenge was to perform in a more intimate setting, with just one or two of the band members. So much more my speed.

Of course, I was putting my own twist on it, performing a flamenco-style reworking of Kelly Clarkson’s “Hear Me.” Yeah, so on the surface, Kelly Clarkson and flamenco went together like pineapple on pizza, but you know, I liked pineapple on my pizza.

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