Of all the things he could have heard, I actually think that’s the least embarrassing. I shrug my shoulders and nod.
“Interesting,” he says, screwing up his eyebrows for a moment. “Would it help if I told you I don’t?”
“Not really.”
“What about if I told you that I’m not a stalker or anything weird?”
“Not convincing, seeing how you found my cell number Saturday night.”
Jude sucks in air through his teeth. “Hm. That does look bad, doesn’t it? Maybe I do have Nightingale syndrome. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. And you don’t have it,” I say, shaking my head at him, trying not to picture Naida leaning over him that night. We rise, and I follow Jude back to the Dr. Wacky’s cart, where he rolls up the canvas and situates the palm-tree hat back on his head firmly.
“Here. Pick one,” he says, motioning to the cart.
“What? Why do I have to wear one?”
“Because you said you’d do me a favor. And also so I’m not the only one that looks like a moron wearing a foam hat,” he says, grinning, which is why fifteen minutes later, amid a trickling stream of customers, I’m wearing a hat with sea turtles on it. When I move my head, their flippers wiggle.
“Tell me something,” Jude says. “About you, I mean. Because basically, all I know is you have two sisters, you prefer sea turtles to stingrays, and you sometimes save people from drowning.”
I smile, wrap my ankles around the legs of the stool I’m sitting on. “I…” I can’t think of anything to say. I like history class? I like the ocean? I hate cheap chocolate? Everything about me seems to be so caught up in my sisters and our powers, I can’t think of anything to share with a stranger. For a moment I find myself wishing he could see my past, if only so he’d understand my silence.
Jude looks a little amused, but nods. “All right… what about this—I’ll tell you trivia about me, but you have to tell me matching trivia about you.”
“Like what?”
“Like… here, trivia: In third grade I had to do this report on Indians. I worked really hard and made this poster and had a costume and everything. And after the report was over, I found out that my teacher meant ‘Indians’ as in ‘India,’ not ‘Indians’ as in ‘Native Americans.’ ”
I nod, grin—I didn’t know that memory. “Okay, okay. In… fifth grade, I think—maybe sixth—Anne, Jane, and I used to try to switch places in classes.”
“Did it work?”
“For them it did. But anyone who knew us at all could always tell it was me. I spent a lot of that year in detention for it,” I admit.
For an hour, things are different. I didn’t know as much about Jude as I’d thought—I mean, yes, I knew the big picture, but there are so many details, so many little things I didn’t see, that I wouldn’t know if we weren’t playing the trivia game. Sweat trickles down my neck despite the umbrella shading us and the waters we buy from a passing cart.
“Seriously, it used to infuriate me,” I say. “They called me Mother Celia for, like… a year.”
“All because you were named after your mother? I think they’re jealous.”
“Anne and Jane don’t get jealous,” I say. “But… I do like that I have my mother’s name.”
“You were close with her?”
“Not at all, I barely knew her. But she was exciting and beautiful, and everyone adored her. She and my father had this dramatic love story; she was a rich girl from the city and he was a poor woodsman, but she ran away with him anyway.” I can feel myself grinning as I tell the story. “She said her life started that day.”
“That is dramatic,” Jude says, nodding. “Are you like her, at least?”
I exhale. “Not really.” I hesitate. “Or maybe just not yet.”
“An optimist,” Jude says, smiling. “All right, all right. Let’s see… to match that… I’ve got an excellent one. But you’ll owe me like… fifty pieces of trivia about yourself if I tell you.” He inhales deeply, closes his eyes. “My name isn’t Jude.”
I hesitate—I probably look more shocked than is fitting. But in all the memories I saw, I never heard someone call him another name. Were the memories wrong? Did I read them incorrectly? I run through them in my head, alarmed.
“Relax, it’s not that bad a name….” Jude says, a little concerned. I try to wipe my expression away.
“What is it, then?” I ask.
“Well, first off, it’s a family name. It’s tradition—every first son gets stuck with it. So in middle school, I renamed myself after the Beatles song. You know it?”
“Hey Jude? Of course.”
“Oh, good, I don’t have to start hating you. Anyway, it didn’t really stick until I moved away from home. Only my roommates know the truth, and that’s only because my rent checks still say Barnaby.”
I try to smash the smile spreading across my face but can’t help it. I laugh, and Jude’s ears turn pink. He rolls his eyes while I get the humor out but smiles a little himself at the same time.
“I know, I know. Everyone in third grade thought it was a riot, too. You see why I changed it? No one would give money to a musician named Barnaby. What about you? Do you play any instruments? Create any art?”
“Not really. I took a painting class at Milton’s once; we made watercolor flowers for nine weeks. No music, though. There’s only a choir program there, and I definitely don’t sing.”
Jude pauses, looking a little confused. “Really? I remember you singing on the beach.”
I stumble a little but shake my head. “Nope. I don’t sing.”
“Huh. I could have sworn you did. What do you do, then, other than hang out with your sisters?”
“I… nothing,” I answer. “Nothing. Really. I go to school, I get decent grades, I… I guess in some ways, being Anne’s and Jane’s sister is really all I have time to be. Or energy, at least.”
Jude raises an eyebrow. “Poetic. Though it’d be more so if you weren’t wearing a hat covered in sea turtles.”
I laugh. “I know, it’s not very exciting.”