Shy
Authors: Thomma Lyn Grindstaff
Tags: #new adult, #new adult romance, #new adult college, #rock and roll romance, #musicians romance
SHY
by Thomma Lyn Grindstaff
Copyright 2015 Thomma Lyn Grindstaff
Cover Design by Thomma Lyn Grindstaff
Photo from iStock
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All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or dead is wholly coincidental.
First of all, thanks to my readers. You're the reason I do what I do. Special thanks to Susan Helene Gottfried, Editor Laureate of the Universe. Thanks to my husband for always believing in me. And I’d like to thank my family and friends who have been supportive of my efforts throughout the years. I'd also like to acknowledge my kindred spirit and best writer buddy, Dorothy Brown BumBer, for her unfailing friendship, love, and support. I miss you, KS.
Mom no doubt thinks I'm at the rush party right now, and I haven't told her any differently. Actually, though, I'm alone in my favorite practice room in the John Alford Music Building, hanging out with one of my favorite people. Sound like a contradiction? It's not, really. I'm hanging out with Beethoven by virtue of playing the second movement of his gorgeous Sonata Number Eight, “Pathetique.” Beethoven has been and will always be one of my favorite people who ever walked the face of the earth. Even though he's dead, he still communicates with us through his incredible music which is, to my mind, much better than communicating with words.
Especially with speech.
I prefer music over speech any day. I can communicate all kinds of complex, nuanced emotions with music, whether I'm playing music composed by the great masters or the music I compose in secret, all by myself.
Words? Not so much. You see, I'm terribly, terribly shy. And yes, the second
terribly
is justified. Just ask Mom.
But let's back up a bit.
(Beethoven won't mind.)
I'm a freshman at the University of Tennessee, and I'm majoring in Piano Performance. I could have gone to a conservatory in Boston, but I chickened out. Mom wasn't too happy with me, but there are excellent professors at the University of Tennessee, so hopefully I haven't devastated my future too much, by her standards.
Besides, Jake's in Tennessee. He's my best friend, and he was my boyfriend for a while in high school before we broke up. I didn't want to move hundreds of miles away to Boston, where Jake and I couldn't see each other. I just wasn't ready for that.
Jake is one of the only people on earth I feel really comfortable with. Well, aside from Dad, who, like me, is terribly, terribly shy (just ask Mom). Jake's not shy. He talks only to who he wants to talk to, and nobody can tell him who to talk to or why. His independent spirit is one of the biggest reasons we're best friends. He doesn't apologize for being who he is, and he inspires me to think, just maybe I don't need to apologize for who I am, either.
My phone trills out the first few bars of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante—I love Mozart as much as I love Beethoven—and I stop playing and retrieve my phone from the top of the upright piano. It's Jake calling. I hoped it would be. Mom wouldn't call because she thinks I'm at the rush party, but when I show up at home tonight, she'll learn the truth.
I'm not looking forward to that.
Especially after she sought a letter recommending me for Alpha Delta Pi from her successful, popular cousin who pledged the sorority years ago. Alpha Delta Pi was the sorority Mom rushed when she was a college student, only they didn't take her. Another sorority wanted her, but she turned them down, and now she wants me to join Alpha Delta Pi to make up for her own disappointment.
Biggest reason, though, is she thinks I need to be more social and learn to network. She figures a sorority is the best way for me to do that. I'm sure they're a great sorority, if you like that kind of thing. But I don't.
Sigh.
“Wildflower,” Jake says. It's his name for me. It's based on the wildflowers he sees on his mountain hikes. They simply bloom where they are and don't try to impress anybody. He says I remind him of those flowers. Beautiful and quiet, in my emotional wilderness, doing my thing regardless of whether anybody sees me or is impressed. He's called me Wildflower since we were in junior high school together. Before he and his family moved to Knoxville, they lived in upper East Tennessee. His dad wanted to relocate their garage to the Knoxville area to get more business. Jake loves to hike here in the region, but especially in the mountains near his home, whenever he can get back there. No matter how long he lives in Knoxville, Appalachian East Tennessee will probably always be home to Jake. I'm surprised he didn't move back there after his high school graduation last year, but Knoxville is a better base of operations for his bluegrass band.
“Hi, Jake.” I'm honored he uses a cell phone, just for me. Otherwise, he hates the things. Before I started college, he never had anything to do with any kind of cell phone, not even an old-style flip phone. But with me attending UT, it's easier for us to keep in touch if we both have cell phones, so when Kelsey, one of his bandmates, offered him his old flip phone, Jake didn't turn it down. But he will probably never own a smartphone. He told me he wouldn't fool with a smartphone for all the banjos and mandolins in Appalachia. He's a very private person and hates the idea of hyperconnectivity, of being accessible and on the grid 24/7.
“You going home tonight?” he asks.
“Yeah. Trying to put it off as long as I can.”
“You can't put it off forever, you know.” He knows about the sorority rush party that I'm not attending, even though I'm supposed to be.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Just stand up to your mom,” Jake says. “It's your life. And call me afterward and tell me about how it went.”
He would know about standing up to people. He has had to stand up to his dad any number of times about all kinds of things. His dad means well, but he's kind of a nut and sometimes kind of a control freak. He used to try to run Jake's life just like he runs Jake's mom's life, but Jake was able to tell him where to get off even before he graduated high school. He doesn't let anyone walk all over him. Ever.
I, on the other hand... I'm sometimes pretty bad about letting people get away with too much. But I'll keep Jake's advice in mind. He makes things so simple, distills complicated situations down to their actionable essence. And he's right. I tend to make things more complicated than they need to be.
Jake's been out of high school for a year—he's a year older than me. And he never had any desire to go to college. Not that his dad wanted him to. No, his dad wanted him to follow in his footsteps and take over the family garage. They do all kinds of things there, from mechanical work to auto body repair. Jake is, like his dad, incredibly handy and mechanically inclined, but he also happens to be a musical genius. Specifically, a guitar, banjo, and mandolin genius. He can play anything with strings. And he has a wonderful, deep, sexy singing voice.
He's the frontman for a bluegrass band called the Hickory Hollow Boys that tours around Knoxville, East Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. They play in restaurants, churches, coffee houses, and on the college circuit and are very well-liked, but leading a bluegrass band on the college circuit isn't near enough to college for my mom's taste. In her world, you have to have a college degree to succeed, and if you aren't interested in going to college then you're a slacker, no matter whether you bust your ass in a thousand other ways at things you love and are better suited for.
There's not much wiggle room in Mom's narrow world.
“How are things with you?” I ask Jake.
“Okay,” he says. “Getting ready for the show tomorrow. Good to have tonight off, though. Hey, Wildflower, I'll come get you after you talk to your mom and we'll hang out if she's too much of a pain for you to want to stay home.”
“Thanks. I might take you up on that.” Jake knows great places near Knoxville to hang out, away from the crowds and traffic. When we hike together and we've just climbed a challenging hill and we're sitting next to each other, catching our breath and drinking in the beauty of the forest with our eyes, I feel closer to peace than I do anytime or anywhere else, except for maybe when I'm listening to compositions by the great masters. Or playing them. Or playing and writing my own stuff.
Only Jake has heard my own compositions. But I'm nervous playing them, even around him. Sometimes I just get so pissed at myself. I don't know why I'm so shy and unsure of myself, but I've been that way all my life. Dad tells me it's okay, and he's the same way. Shyness hasn't ruined his life by any means. He's a successful computer guy. And he's an incredible classical guitar player. He's not a loser, by any definition of the word.
But I can't help but think of all the ways I fall short compared to other people my age, regardless of my talent. Yes, I'm talented, but what good is being a Wildflower if I'm so shy I can't blossom anywhere but the wilderness?
Jake says the blossoming is its own reward. Somehow, according to him, I've been an inspiration for him to follow his heart with regard to his bluegrass band. So I guess I'm good for something. Somehow, I need to figure out how to be good for myself, too.
“Just let me know if that's what you want,” he says. “And be sure and call me and let me know how things went.”
“I will,” I promise. “What are you getting up to tonight?”
“Staying at the apartment with Kelsey and Ty. We're going to do some rehearsing for tomorrow. Our gig at Family Circle over in Bristol.”
“Oh, yeah. You guys are going to blow everyone away, as always.”
“Well, it means a lot to hear you say so.”
I can feel his smile through the phone. It has to be that sweet smile of his, where he almost looks a little embarrassed at hearing someone else say he and his band are good. Jake and I both tend to be a little bit funny about accepting compliments, but we definitely enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling that goes with them. According to Mom, I've always had something wrong with me. According to Jake's dad, he's always had something wrong with him. Shyness, rebelliousness, it doesn't matter when we're together. Our friendship makes us think maybe there isn't anything wrong with either one of us.
We end our call and I go back to playing the piano. This time, I play music by Chopin, another of my favorite people to ever walk the earth, and another one who just happens to be dead. I play Chopin's Prelude in E minor, a sad, gorgeous piece that makes me feel so distraught and wrung out by how Mom will react to me tossing aside the sorority opportunity that I have to stop and play something to make me feel more peaceful, more on top of things. I choose another piece I'm preparing for competition later this year, Chopin's Étude Opus 10, Number 3. It calms me every time I play it.
As I play, I hear a rich, tenor voice reverberating from the hall. For a moment, I keep playing, enchanted by how the voice is singing along so masterfully with the Chopin Étude I'm playing. Then my hands jerk from the piano as though they have minds of their own when I realize there's somebody out there listening to me.