16. Jude
Jude”s unsure hand hovered above the laptop”s keyboard, stuck on the blinking cursor dancing on the empty page. As much as he wanted the entire essay swirling around his head to get on the document, he preferred emptiness to unusable lines clogging up his momentum.
In the cozy, overly warm nook he created at Giselle”s kitchen counter, Jude”s attempts to write a personal statement fell apart on his tongue faster than the buttery bread baking in the oven. He couldn”t cobble his words into a coherent sentence, let alone a five-hundred-word statement highlighting him as Truman Scholar material.
Surprisingly, he made it past the initial selection rounds and landed himself on a shortlist for the California scholarship. He joked it was a miracle, but Giselle would throw one of her oranges at him if she heard that.
He celebrated his win despite the blank page taunting him. He earned his finalist spot fair and square.
Jude”s eyes darted over the top of his laptop when a ceramic plate clattered on the counter beside him. In return, a mouthwateringly large slice of carrot cake beckoned him to pick up the fork laid across the plate and devour it.
Jude”s eyes trailed over to Giselle, whose hands picked at the bow of her apron and pulled it undone. She lifted the cake into a domed glass dish after she nudged a smaller square onto another plate.
Giselle spun around and caught Jude”s stare, ”Hey, is everything okay? You”ve been scowling at your laptop for the last thirty minutes.”
”Everything”s okay, I promise,” Jude sighed, leaning back while careful not to fall backward. ”I haven”t made any progress on this personal statement that I”m supposed to recite before the panel.”
”Remind me what you”re supposed to say?”
”Let”s see. Congratulations on making it to the next round for the Truman Scholarship. So, explain in painfully intimate detail why you deserve this scholarship opportunity compared to everyone else who applied and why you”re so much better.”
”Is that actually what it says?”
”I”m paraphrasing.”
”Alright, let me see,” Giselle flounced around the counter and right into the stool beside Jude. She pressed against his arm and nearly climbed onto his lap while reading his screen. ”Introduce yourself to the Board, which should serve as your reasoning for why you”re an ideal candidate to be a Truman Scholar.’ That doesn”t seem too bad.”
”I disagree. This feels like pulling teeth.” Jude groaned, burying his face in her hair with nowhere else to hide.
”Why? You have me curious now.” Giselle giggled, still perched by one hand along the rim of the stool. Jude”s hand snaked around her waist at the slightest wobble of her arm to hold her steady.
”The question demands me to brag about myself, which never gets easier. I”m supposed to get deep and philosophical without being too speculative. There”s no time for nuance. One minute isn”t enough to skim the surface value of who I am, what I stand for, and why my future will live up to their expectations. Honestly, questions like this feel like those cheesy first-day icebreakers. I hated those.”
Jude cleared his throat, lost somewhere on his tangent, but his eyes focused on Giselle. She peered at him through her lashes, and her mouth twisted into a smile. The smile deviated from her sweet innocence he grew so accustomed to, exchanged for bared teeth in an impish twist.
Then, she leaned over, snatched his open notebook off the counter, and returned to her stool. She slid out the pen from the spiral binding before pulling the notebook to her chest, guarding it from Jude”s sight.
He tried to grab the notebook back, but Giselle squirmed away from him. She jotted something down onto the page, occupied by a few notes he scrawled into the margins while brainstorming. She spent a few minutes marking up his notebook, punctuated by intermittent pauses before she relaxed.
Giselle set the notebook down, sliding it back. ”Why don”t you try this as a starting point? I”m no genius, but maybe an outside perspective can shake things up.”
Jude raised his brow yet picked up the notebook as she asked. He cleared his throat and stopped when his eyes brushed the notes stacked on one another.
”Kind? Insightful? Quick-witted? Reliable?”
”All of those traits describe who you are. . . to me, at least. That”s a shorter list but encompasses all of your best qualities.”
”You think I”m all of these things?” Jude’s voice shot up a few octaves, cracking at the end like a second round of puberty hit him like a bus. He wanted to punch himself every time he shoved his foot in his mouth in front of Giselle. Real smooth, Casanova.
Giselle exploded into a fit of giggles that reverberated off the walls to fill the kitchen with its effervescent sound. Sweet and airy, the sound-induced a wild thump in his chest, spinning on high like he drank straight out of a champagne bottle.
Giselle leaned over and poked his cheek, drawing a smile out of him. ”I”d never lie about how awesome you are. Imagine I”m giving you two thumbs up if you freeze up!”
Jude”s face heated, and the warmth crept along the column of his neck, threatening to envelop him all over. She said it so innocently but imagining her in the interview room might derail his attention to the wayside. At least she didn”t suggest he imagine her in her underwear.
He would implode thinking about it.
His hand reached out and caught Giselle”s, squeezing gently to pull her back to his gravity. ”I think I know what to do. You”re the best.”
”The best, huh?”
”Absolutely. You”re smarter than you give yourself credit for but twice as thoughtful as anyone I know.”
Giselle”s eyes wandered over his face. ”Well, I can”t argue with you. . . you”ll probably win from all your experience. But, if you”re looking for ways to thank me, then we should go out next weekend.”
”Next weekend? What”s next weekend?” Jude asked.
”It”s February 14. We don”t have Valentine”s plans, oh fake lover of mine?” Giselle batted her lashes, tacking on the heavy drawl of teasing. She scooted her stool closer to his and tucked her hands onto her lap.
Jude carved out a piece of his carrot cake, chewing slowly while he hummed. ”You mean this isn”t the celebration of our undying love for one another?”
He met Giselle”s eyes, and her expression nimbly flitted between suspicion and confusion, but a tiny thread of hopefulness swirled around those baby blues. Instant regret slammed down on Jude”s head while drowning in the depths of Giselle.
Jude stole one of her hands and clasped it between his, stroking his thumb against her wrist. ”I booked a nice dinner to celebrate since my parents asked, and I mentioned needing recommendations. So, I hope you like Italian.”
He encouraged a smile, fighting against a sudden shyness tumbling through his thoughts. Giselle paused but slowly broke into a smile as sweet as her carrot cake.
Days later, Jude carried the memory of Giselle and carrot cake tucked into the breast pocket of his coat. Thinking about their laughter blending together worked like an antidote for the burning in his chest. The weight bore down, flushed against his sternum, and itched underneath his skin with its stinging bite.
His knee bounced despite the hand pressed firm against his thigh, jittery like a man three coffees deep. Pride anchored him to his seat as the sole force holding him together before he dodged the interview entirely.
In his peripheral, he spotted a flash of pastel purple hustling down the hallway and smiled. Fixating on the simple details—like the sun filtering through the nearby window or the lilac head-to-toe ensemble of Cheyenne from IT—of the otherwise bland palette around him slowed his racing pulse enough for him to breathe.
The fuzzy edges of his thoughts fizzled out when he heard his name called. ”Jude? Are you ready for your interview?”
”Of course,” he lied, not sparing a breath to compose himself before lurching out of his chair. He smoothed his sweaty palms down the sides of his pressed slacks, thankfully smart enough to pick a black pair. ”Thank you.”
”You can take a moment if you need to. The committee needs a few moments in between each candidate to discuss anyway,” Lucy, the school”s newest scholarship coordinator, chirped. She rocked back and forward, arms protectively wrapped around a leather-bound portfolio folder.
”I can wait.”
”Thank you. . . oh, that”s such a lovely pocket square you”re wearing today. I love the green accents.”
”Thanks,” Jude smiled, but not the tight-lipped smile reserved for suffocating small talk. No, his cheeks ached with a smile stretched so wide, it flirted with the edge of his face. ”My girlfriend made it for me as a Christmas gift.”
The statement rolled off the tongue with practiced ease, too effortless to be a lie, and poor Lucy would never be the wiser. To all, Giselle had him wrapped around her finger in the realest way imaginable.
She couldn”t be there, so wearing the pocket square she made was a close second for comfort. The hours she spent stitching it together must”ve captured some of her sunny outlook on life because he felt her presence there with him.
Lucy”s eyes crinkled, adopting a fonder glow to her face. ”How sweet. I”m sure she”s very proud of you.”
”I hope so.” Jude”s hands, although shaking a little, reached for his phone. The screen switched on with a bright flash, but no new messages. He swiped his finger across the screen until his phone powered off, closing himself off from a world of distraction.
Lucy”s blonde bob curtained over her eyes while she scuttled toward the door, knocking and poking her head into the room. She exchanged gestures with the panel inside, and the silence pierced Jude”s stomach. What he wouldn”t give to be on the court with a racket in his grip and a tennis ball speeding at him instead.
He missed his tennis days; the court allowed him a safe place to expel all the anxiety festering inside him like an open wound instead of the worry compounding under his skin. The words never came out right when he found himself too caught up in his head. But the here and now demanded he rise to the challenge.
Jude straightened as Lucy pushed the door open, offering him one last thumbs-up. ”They”re ready for you. Good luck.”
”Thank you.” Jude swallowed hard. The edges of his vision tunneled as he faced the open door. But Jude blinked, clearing the blurriness inching inward on him. He grabbed the doorframe and pushed forward, starting a momentum that wouldn”t grind to a halt once it began.
He marched ahead, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and holding his chin high. Seated before him, a table with five people—three women and two men—passed around a shuffle of papers.
Their hushed tones escaped his hearing, but he spotted a picture of him attached to one of the pages. Sent in with his application, he chose a photograph of him from last summer.
”Good afternoon. Please take a seat,” One of the women remarked upon noticing Jude in the room. She was flat-toned and gave nothing away about her or the panel”s disposition.
”Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for meeting with me today,” Jude replied.
He dragged out the lone chair, sat across from the panelists, and met their stiff expressions with perfect posture. His mom taught him how to play the man and perform for his audience, aligned or otherwise.
”You have about a minute to introduce yourself with the required statement from the secondary materials. Do you require a moment to refresh your memory or grab notes?”
”No.”
”You may begin, and time will start at your first word.”
Jude nodded; hands bunched at his thighs. ”The expectation of a Truman scholar is to be a beacon for leadership potential, which begs the question of what it means to be a leader. For me, leaders are insightful, reliable, and lead with kindness. I think of myself as the leader I want to see in the world. In the field of public service, we need more forward-thinking problem solvers whose aim isn”t for the profit of the private sector or the appeasement of political organizations but is rooted in genuine care for people. I am that leader, which my resume will show. But my answers to your questions should remove all doubt that this premise is true.”
His memory of his speech frayed toward the end, but he embraced the pause and pretended that Giselle sat across from him. She appeared in the middle seat with her hair cascading and her eyes sparkling intently, easing the dull ache settling in his chest.
”Excellent. Thank you for the salient points,” the man in the center chair spoke up, and his voice slashed through Jude”s vision of Giselle. ”Would you like some water, Jude?”
”Yes, please. Thank you, sir.” His throat itched, tinging his voice with a rasp at the end. He grasped the water bottle slid to him and cracked it open, quenching his thirst.
Potential questions rotated in his head, led by the usual suspects of ”describe your plans for the scholarship prize” and ”future goals and visions.” After the speech, the rest of the interview sounded like a cakewalk.
However, the same man cleared his throat. ”We”d like you to expand on one of the unselected questions from your application. Name someone who inspires you to be a leader or strive for greatness.”
Of course, people like his dad, Dr. Miranda-Silva, other professors, or the typical list of notable public figures popped into his mind. Any one of them made a safe answer.
Yet, he straddled the pause as the panel stared at him, expectant in their gazes while waiting for his answer.
Jude”s lips parted, and he coughed out. ”Someone who inspires me to be my best is. . . Giselle. My girlfriend.”
The stunned faces of the panel flashed several warning flags, but backtracking was out of the question. He said Giselle, so he needed to own it—whether he messed up or not.
”Your girlfriend?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Alright, explain why. It”s a unique approach to the question.”
”Giselle and I have known each other since we were fifteen. The man I am today is miles ahead of who I used to be; timid and unable to meet most people in the eye. Giselle was the first person to see through the walls I put between me and the world, holding everyone at arm”s length. She never let me stay that way. She makes me want to be a better man,” Jude remarked, meeting the eyes of each member of the panel.
He let the words sink in, settling on the once unsteady air until the faces of the panel softened. Even without being there, Giselle knocked down the barrier between him and the end goal.
The man in the middle nodded, hands clasped over his papers. ”An insightful answer, and although unorthodox, it was quite honest. Now, we should move along to discussing your resume and extracurriculars.”
”Yes, sir. I”m an open book,” Jude swept his eyes over the newly receptive faces and chewed on the pride swelling in his mouth. He wasn”t out of the woods yet, but he locked onto the guiding light named Giselle to pull him into the clear.
And he tried everything in his power not to acknowledge the ticking clock that awakened inside his head the moment he stepped into the interview room. He and Giselle ran on borrowed time, slipping through their interlaced fingers.