Sing Me To Sleep Part 13

Thanks, Sarah. I think.

"Come on, Beth." Meadow's on her feet, jumping around.

"I'm not going to make a good impression if I faint when we sing." I keep eating, slowly, pretending I'm calm, not embarra.s.sed, not nervous. Totally indifferent. I tell myself I'm not interested in guys like that. Guys like Derek loathe me. He's the enemy. I glance out the window behind me to make sure the bright-white mountains aren't melting in the glow of Derek's smile like I am. I should be creeped out that he made me feel like this, swirled into a panic.

Meadow watches me take every bite. As soon as I get the last noodle in my mouth, she grabs my arm, jerks her head at Leah and Sarah, and the chase is on.

Just outside the restaurant, there's a stairway that leads us to a busy area directly off the entrance. There are counters where you can buy touristy stuff and racks of postcards over to one side. The rest is gla.s.s and blazing, white rugged mountain peaks.

Meadow spies the two guys looking at the postcards. "Come on." She goes right up to them, zeroes in on Derek. "Hey, are you guys Amabile?" I would be embarra.s.sed to say something that stupid, but from Meadow it sounds like poetry.

The tall guy looks at the back of his jersey that's plastered with their logo. "What tipped you off?"

"We're your neighbors."

The tall guy gives her a blank look-guess they get this a lot.

She doesn't balk for a second, turns to her boy. "From Ann Arbor. Michigan? You know that place just across the border? Bliss Youth Singers."

Derek grabs the hand she's sticking in his face. "You really are Bliss?"

Meadow lights up. "Yeah. That's us."

He lets go of her hand and looks at the three of us standing behind her. "Do you know Beth? The one who sings the *Take Me Home' solo on your Web site?"

Sarah and Leah drag me forward. Meadow isn't pleased. Neither am I.

"Hey." He shakes my hand now. "That's Blake. I'm Derek. Nice to finally meet you."

I'm surprised I don't faint, but I almost throw up all those b.u.t.tery noodles churning in my mortified stomach. My reply isn't an intelligible word. I can't speak or even breathe, can't look at him. I just stare at his soft, pale hand touching my rough, bronzed one.

"Sorry I was such a t.u.r.d that night online." He's not smirking at me. That smile is genuine, so heartstoppingly genuine.

I manage, "Me . . . um, me, too."

"Truce?"

"Sure." He draws his hand away from mine.

Blake turns so poor Meadow gets shouldered out. "Derek's over the top with his counterintelligence duties."

Sarah laughs up at him and oozes closer. She's well-endowed with natural a.s.sets and isn't afraid to invest them. I don't know how she communicates all that to Blake with a single giggle, but he obviously gets the message.

Derek flashes me another grin. "I have a confession to make."

More heat pours into my face. Maybe it doesn't show through my foundation.

"I downloaded *Take Me Home' from your Web site, which," Derek's smile opens up to include the rest of the girls, "really needs pictures."

Leah's eyebrows draw together. "I didn't think you could do that."

"Pictures? Easy."

"Download the song."

"You can't but-"

Sarah giggles again. "You stole our song?"

"Borrowed?" He gives me this sweet forgive-me look.

Blake tears his eyes away from Sarah to add, "So he can spy on you."

"Shut up." Derek elbows Blake in the ribs. "I've always loved that piece. We did it in chamber. And the way you do it-so much feeling. That needs to go on Bliss's next CD."

"CD?" I am so lost. Meadow and her mom forgot one thing when they remade me. I'd give anything for a personality transplant right now. I am so out of my depth.

Derek tips his head, talks low, like it's just the two of us. "Our conductor makes us listen to our numbers at night when we go to bed. Some flighty hypnosis trash. Sometimes I cheat-slip in something soothing." His deep brown eyes capture mine. "You sing me to sleep."

Blus.h.i.+ng, sweating-what a mess. At least I keep my lunch down. Who could possibly answer that? He must be doing this on purpose, take perverse delight in reducing tall, awkward girls to puddles.

Meadow comes to my rescue. "Now you've met Beth." She maneuvers me to the side. "Here's Sarah, Leah, and I'm-" She pauses and smiles at him like he's won the lottery. "Meadow."

Blake and Derek mumble polite stuff.

Meadow keeps after Derek. "I've got your CD."

Blake says, "The new one or the old one?"

Sarah laughs at his elbow, catches his eye again. "All three. I even got the new Primus recording." Primus is the name of their special group for the older guys.

Meadow picks up a postcard. "We all do."

Derek turns to where I'm pretending to look at fuzzy gloves with "Top of Europe" and mountain peaks embroidered on them. "How about you, Beth. Do you listen to us?"

I nod. "I have all the AYS CDs, too." My tongue seems to function better if I don't look at him. "They, um, set the standard."

He shrugs. "None of them has your voice."

Meadow maneuvers to a spot on Derek's other side. "Are you guys singing up here?"

Blake puts a postcard with a guy blowing an alphorn back in the rack. "Uh-huh. We just checked the schedule." He p.r.o.nounces "schedule" as "shedule." Sarah smiles at that. Blake raises his eyebrows at her. "Thirty minutes."

Sarah picks out a card I can't see and shows it to him. "You must be right after us."

"Cool." Blake looks around the rack at all of us. "We should do a piece together-in the name of international harmony."

Derek turns back to me, picks up a black velour beanie. "Are you singing your solo? I'd love to hear it live."

"No." I croak, swallow, manage to find a voice that doesn't wobble too much. "That's our compet.i.tion piece. We're saving it."

"Secret weapon?" That grin again.

Dang. I'm going to die right here and now. And then they'll win for sure. A guy with his cuteness factor blended with little-boy sweet shouldn't be allowed to roam free and unprotected. He's infectious. c.r.a.p. He's an epidemic.

I can't help smiling back at him. "Maybe not as secret as we thought."

"Do you girls want to get a drink with us?" He says "girls" but he looks at me. "They've got this hot apple stuff that really clears out your throat. Great for the pipes."

Leah looks at her watch. "I don't think we have time. We're supposed to warm up in five minutes."

Blake leans over Sarah and whispers, "Your loss," in her ear-loud enough so we all hear. She keeps her cool, does this almost imperceptible cat-wriggle response.

Meadow tugs at the beanie in Derek's hand. "How about after."

Derek drops the beanie and turns back to me. "Only if you promise to sing the test piece with us."

Sing with them? Oh . . . my . . . gosh. "But we sing the treble arrangement." I'm gross sweaty again. I can even feel perspiration breaking out in the small of my back.

Derek doesn't seem to notice. "The ba.s.s piece is in the same key. It works. We sing it in our chamber choir with the AYS all the time."

Meadow shakes her s.e.xy straight hair back out of her face. That gets Derek's attention. Blake's, too. She purses her glossy red lips. "Won't the AYS get upset if you guys sing with us?" I need to memorize what she does with her body. Head tilt, hip out, weight s.h.i.+ft, chest movement. It all looks perfectly natural. I feel like a board standing next to her.

Blake's eyes are all over Meadow now. "They are in China."

Sarah frowns behind him.

Derek picks up the gloves I looked at. "I'll make it happen." His arm brushes mine. Not Meadow's?

The guy must be magic because five minutes later when we meet for warm up, Terri's bubbling over. "The Amabile Young Men's Ensemble performs after us. Their conductor just invited us to sing the test piece with them."

When our choirs sing together, the sound fills up the entire non-acoustical gla.s.s, chrome, and cement installation. There are eighty of us and fifty of them. I'm standing in the center in the front. I'm too tall for the risers. Derek is right behind me, singing in my ear. That means he's only a couple inches shorter than me. He shows off and sings the soprano part. I'd like to hear his tenor. I bet that would melt the glaciers out the window. Shoot, he could melt the stone underneath. I'm grateful he's goofing around. His tenor would be way more than I can handle.

Maybe I have heard it. There's this one piece on their latest CD with an aching, tenor solo. That's got to be Derek. Meadow manages to stand beside him. She sings better than usual. Guess all she needs is a little inspiration. What is she doing in an all-girls choir?

After the performance, the guys take us through the main sights, starting with the ice palace full of goofy sculptures. Meadow slips on the ice right into Derek. He catches her arm. "Take it easy, eh?"

She clutches onto him. "Thanks."

He drops her arm, gets ahead of all of us. "Watch." He runs across the ice floor and slides all the way down a narrow hall that leads to the exit, his authentic Canadianness oozing out. Maybe he plays that weird game with the stones. I can't see him in hockey gear.

Then Blake has to do it. Sarah tries and almost falls, but Blake catches her. Meadow knows she'll end up on her b.u.t.t, so she just watches. I go for it and do end up on my b.u.t.t.

Derek's there, helping me to my feet, touching me again. "Are you okay? I should have warned you. It's slippery."

"Slippery ice? I'll have to remember that." I stare at him. Can't help it. Is he really this nice? Really this different from any guy I've ever known? That's impossible. Best behavior. Good impression. International harmony. That's all this is. Underneath, he's a guy. They all are-except Scott. Poor Scott. He seems so far away.

We take the elevator to the very top of the peak and go out on a wild, wind-whipped viewing platform. Even with all my layers, I'm frozen in seconds. Feels kind of good. Banks my interior fires pumping up all this heat.

"We better not get chilled," Leah calls.

We all agree she's right and duck quick back through the doors.

The guys lead us to the cafeteria-style restaurant where they ate lunch with their choir while we were hogging up the nice place.

Leah glances around with the corners of her mouth drooping. "What were you guys doing up at the other restaurant?"

Blake looks at me and then Derek. "Derek heard a rumor you girls would be here. He was looking for Beth."

Derek elbows him hard. "Shut up, you jerk."

Sarah turns to me. "Oooh, Beth. You've got a stalker."

I'm embarra.s.sed into a scarlet neck again, but Derek doesn't flush at all. He coughs like he's got something stuck in his throat and then laughs. "She figured that out the first time we chatted."

I try to compose myself while he and Blake push two tables together.

Sarah points at the table next to ours. "Look at that." Big cups of hot cocoa overflowing with whipped cream. Swiss cocoa. Banned. We can't have chocolate, either. No cream. No cheese until after we perform. That's torture in Switzerland.

The guys drool, too.

"You off dairy like us?" I take a chair.

Derek sits down beside me. "Yeah. We've got the gala opening tonight. Gotta keep the pipes clean."

Blake rolls his eyes at Derek. "What a joke that is." He slaps the menu down on the table. "To h.e.l.l with clean pipes. I'm having some."

Derek shakes his head and turns to me. "Are you going tonight?"

I start to explain, but Meadow plops down beside him and pats his arm. "We wouldn't miss it."

"Great." He smiles at her but turns to me again. "I'll look for you after."

The three of us sneak out with Meadow. I feel a bit guilty, but the concert is a blast. Why did we come all this way if we're going to hide in our hotel room? As soon as the Amabile guys. .h.i.t the stage, every girl in the audience forgets about saving her voice and starts screaming. The guys steal the show. Meaning, Derek steals the show. He's magnetic. Everyone in that giant auditorium tunes in to him and has a great time. I wish they could do more than three numbers.

"Okay, ladies." Leah's acting all official when she's just as AWOL as the rest of us. "Let's get back before somebody blows our cover."

"Hey-" It's him, Derek, pus.h.i.+ng through the crowd toward us. "You made it."

"Great show." Meadow touches him again.

"Did you all like it?" He gracefully eludes her grasp, looks around, focuses on me. "What did you think?"

"That spiritual you guys sang was a blast." I can look at him if I'm talking music. "Really different from ours."

"It rocks. You can be tender. We'll bring the house down."

I nod. "Your solo vocals were totally pure."