Gifted

by H. A. Swain

  “Zimri’s not a random person,” I argue. “I brought her in.”

  Piper leans back against her desk. She crosses her arms over her chest and her legs at the ankles. “What about people like your friend Arabella, who’ve paid their dues, waited their turn, and played by the rules? What message would that send to them if a girl like Zimri can waltz in from a warehouse job, no ASA, and I make her a celeb?”

  “It would say that anyone, not just the rich, should be able to profit from their own art and that talent is more than the wiring inside your brain!”

  “A hell of a lot more!” Piper says loudly. “It takes a PromoTeam and distribution and funding. You think this girl you plucked from a Complex is the only natural-born genius? There are tons of people out there who could make music, but the industry is dedicated to promoting a different kind of artist. She can go make music for the Plebes. But making money, making art is the providence of the plutocracy. Of which you’re a part. So don’t throw your life away on some Plebe girl with a good voice and a nice ass. Think about your future and the future of this entire company. It’s time you were on your way back home to get your ASA. You and Arabella are naturally compatible. We can get a duet for the two of you, plus capitalize on this whole Plebe adventure of yours. The public will eat it up.”

  “I could never do that to Zimri,” I say.

  “Sure you could,” says Piper. “She’d go back to her old life and do just fine without you. In fact, she’d probably be better off. You know how hard the spotlight is. A Plebe like her could never handle this life. You’d be doing her a favor to let her go.”

  “Piper,” I tell her as I stand. “The only person I’d be doing a favor for in that scenario is you. Because together, Zimri and I are going to kick some Plute ass. So watch your backside.”

  ZIMRI

  As we zip through a corridor of flashing 3-D billboards lining the Distract SkyPath, Orpheus is sullen and quiet.

  “Hey.” I touch his forearm. “You’re not upset about what happened back there, are you?”

  “Of course I am,” he says. “Aren’t you?”

  “Not really,” I admit. “What did you expect? We’d waltz in unannounced and Piper McLeo would hand me a record deal?” Before he can answer, I add, “Heck, I didn’t even expect her to let me in the building, much less listen to me play.”

  “You should expect more.”

  “Hmph!” I snort. “Spoken like a true Plute.”

  Orpheus slumps in his seat and sighs. “It would be one thing if I was wrong about you, but I’m not and Piper knows it. You’re more talented than … than … any of those idiots!” He points out the window at bigger-than-life holograms singing and dancing across the rooftops eye-level with his car. “In fact, you’re more talented than anyone who’s walked into her office since my mother!”

  “First off, I doubt that’s true,” I say, blushing. “And secondly, that’s not the way the world works.”

  “Yes, it is,” he insists. “That’s exactly the way my world works.”

  “Your world.” I point out the window at the chaos of lights and noise. “Where you’re never told no. At least not by the people who work for your father.”

  “Piper’s not the only gatekeeper,” Orpheus says bitterly. “There are plenty of other producers in the world.”

  “But there’s only one patron that matters,” I remind him, which makes him slump again. “The thing is, Orpheus, I don’t need your father to sell my music in order for me to be happy.”

  He looks at me, horrified. “So you want to work in the warehouse for the rest of your life?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You deserve to make a living off of your genius, Zimri! The same as any Plute.”

  “Maybe I do,” I shrug. “But your father and Piper McLeo don’t deserve to make money off of me.”

  Orpheus stares at me for a moment. Then he blinks. And blinks again.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Oh my god!” he shouts and bangs the steering wheel. “I never thought of it that way!” Then he leans over to plant a kiss on my cheek. “You’re absolutely right. They don’t deserve you!”

  * * *

  When we arrive at Alouette’s MediPlex outside of the Distract, I can’t believe the same company owns this and the crap hole Nonda is stuck in back home. I stop outside the opulent entrance lined with potted palm trees and marble statues surrounding a three-tiered fountain.

  “I know it shouldn’t surprise me that everything for Plutes is bigger, better, and nicer, but come on!” I say.

  Orpheus looks at the grandeur as if seeing it for the first time. Then he takes my hand. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair.”

  “Yeah, well as Nonda always says, fair and real are two different things.”

  As soon as we pass through the entrance, Orpheus’s entire demeanor shifts. He visibly relaxes as we walk the pristine hall with artwork and plants and beautiful music pumped in through the ceiling. When we reach Alouette’s room, he shoves his ExoScreen and EarBug in his pocket, then sighs deeply, as if he’s stripped away all the frustration of the last hour.

  “Do you want me to stay out here?” I know how important she is to him. She’s the main reason he’d come back to the City for good.

  “Of course not!” He tugs me toward the door. “I want her to meet you.”

  Alouette’s sanctuary is lovely and I can see why he likes to visit. The room is cozy and pretty. In here the rest of the world seems far away. Alouette lies in the bed, a beautiful ruin. Like Orpheus, she has dark olive skin but hers is ashy, not glowing. Her hair is the same deep brown as his, but thin and brittle against the bright white pillowcase where her head rests. She has his features: deep-set eyes, strong nose and jaw, but they’re sunken into her emaciated face. She doesn’t seem to register our arrival until Orpheus touches her on the forehead. She draws in a breath and lets it go as if she, too, is relieved.

  “Sorry I haven’t seen you in a while,” he tells her quietly. “I was away, but I brought someone to meet you. This is my friend, Zimri.”

  I step up beside the bed and touch her withered hand. “Hello,” I say. “Orpheus has told me so much about you.”

  “Zimri is a singer,” Orpheus says. “Like you.”

  “Would you like to sing a song with me?” I ask.

  Orpheus looks at me. “She doesn’t really…”

  I ignore him and sit on the edge of Alouette’s bed. “What do you like to sing?” I listen to the rhythm of the room. The ticking of the songbird clock becomes my metronome. I tap a rhythm on my thigh as I hum a few notes over the whoosh and swoosh of the machinery. Orpheus walks around the bed and settles into an easy chair. He slips off his shoes and props his feet up on the bed. I continue to hum, not expecting anything except to let the music take me where it wants to go. Then the clock strikes the quarter hour and the call of a whippoorwill fills the room.

  Orpheus and I smile at one another and we both join in. “Whippoorwill, whippoorwill,” we call back and forth. When the clock is done chiming, I continue the song I made up by the river.

  Whippoorwill, whippoorwill, I know just how you feel,

  Singing for a broken heart that may never heal.

  Singing for your lover, singing for your mate,

  If you find each other, then it’s truly fate.

  When I get back to the chorus again, Orpheus joins in.

  Whip-poor-will-you, whip-poor-won’t-you, sing throughout the night.

  Then Alouette sings with us.

  Until you find another one that will hold you tight.

  I find the harmony as we repeat our chorus over and over. Our voices meld like three notes on the same instrument. Singing with Alouette and Orpheus is the purest form of music for me. Not meant to entertain or titillate, no money generated. Our song is just for us. It doesn’t need to be captured or repeated or remixed and sold. It’s the thing unto itself and it is perfect. When our song fades, we sit in a comfor
table silence.

  After a while I get up and look around the room at all the family photographs. Orpheus and Alouette as little kids sitting in a tree. A fresh-faced and gorgeous Alouette blowing out the candles on an elaborate birthday cake. The two of them in fancy clothes beside their mother who was stunning in a long silver gown, holding a silver statuette.

  “Who’s this?” I pick up a picture of a woman at a grand piano.

  “My grandmother,” Orpheus says.

  “Your mom’s mom?” I ask. “Was she a musician, too?”

  “No, actually, that’s my father’s mother.” He gazes at the photo over my shoulder. “I never knew her but my father said she was a brilliant pianist. A child prodigy. She studied with famous teachers, went to some place called Juilliard, and even had a record deal, but the way my dad tells the story, she never figured out how to play the game. She couldn’t bend and mold herself into a groove that fit a marketing category so the one record she made was a flop and her label dropped her. She got depressed. Wrote sad and moody songs nobody wanted and eventually washed down a handful of sleeping pills with a bottle of bourbon. My dad was six years old.”

  I quietly digest this story. “So your dad and I have something in common.”

  Orpheus blinks at me, uncertain. “Other than me?”

  I set the photo down. “Both our mothers left us when someone tried to take their music away.”

  Orpheus puts his hands on my shoulders and lays his chin on top of my head. “I never thought of it that way.” I lean back against him and he wraps his arms around me. “I liked singing with you,” he says.

  “Me, too,” I tell him. “I think Alouette liked it as well.”

  “The doctors say the auditory cortex is the only part of her higher functioning brain that works anymore, but that she doesn’t derive any real pleasure out of music.”

  I turn and look at him. “That’s a load of crap and you know it.”

  “You’re probably right,” he says.

  I reach up and put my hands on his shoulders. “Orpheus, I would understand if you needed to come back permanently,” I tell him. “For her, I mean.”

  He kisses my forehead. “Someday I will, but only when you can come with me.”

  “I—” I’m interrupted when the door flings open and a woman flies into the room. When she sees us she yelps. I jump away from Orpheus, my heart in my throat.

  “Mom!” Orpheus says.

  “Libellule,” I whisper to my childhood idol. I spent hours learning all her songs and singing them to myself in the bathroom mirror when I was little. Now here she is in front of me and even more beautiful in person. Shorter than I imagined, but willowy and strong, like she could withstand a powerful storm.

  “Orpheus!” she exclaims and launches herself at him.

  “What are you doing here?” He pulls away from her hug.

  “I should ask you the same thing!” she exclaims. “And who’s this?” She looks me up and down, but unlike Piper or Arabella she doesn’t sneer. Instead, she strides over to me and holds out her hand. “I’m Libellule!”

  “I know,” I say, starstruck and silly, but manage to squeak out, “I’m Zimri.”

  “What a fitting name!” she exclaims.

  Orpheus and I look at each other and burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny about that?” she booms, but she smiles, large and effusive, like all the fun in the world belongs to her, which sets me at ease.

  “That’s exactly what he said when we first met,” I tell her.

  “Smart boy,” she says and winks at him. “But who are you? Where did you come from? Orpheus!” She turns back to him. “My god, where have you been?”

  Every ounce of tranquillity drains away from Orpheus. He holds his body rigid again and the muscles in the side of his jaw twitch. “If either you or Dad had bothered to look for me—”

  “You’re the one who left!” She flits across the room to plant a kiss on Alouette’s forehead. Then she smooths the girl’s hair back and straightens up her covers. “Didn’t you get my pings? I’ve been frantic!”

  Orpheus looks up at the ceiling as if praying for patience.

  Libellule ignores him and turns to me. “I ran away from home, too, but I was only fourteen,” she tells me like it’s a competition and she’s winning. “I knew I was meant to be a star. Can you believe it?”

  “Actually,” I tell her, “that doesn’t surprise me at all.” I can see how beguiling she can be, but also how she could turn on you like a snake. Instinctively, I move closer to Orpheus as if to protect him. “You seem like the kind of person who goes after what she wants.”

  She beams at me. “You’re a good judge of character.”

  “Yes,” I say and take hold of Orpheus’s hand.

  “Zimri’s a musician,” Orpheus says.

  Libellule’s mouth drops open. “You’re joking!”

  “A damn fine one, too,” he adds. “In fact, she reminds me of you when you were young.”

  “In what way?” Libellule steps back to appraise me.

  “Well,” says Orpheus as he thinks this over. “She’s a natural-born genius with the kind of talent every patron is trying to engineer.” I blush redder than the cardinal on Alouette’s clock. “And she commands attention when she’s onstage.”

  “Sounds promising,” Libellule says. “But can she sing?”

  “Mom,” says Orpheus, dead serious now. “There has been no voice like hers since yours.”

  “Hmmm,” says Libellule. “I’m intrigued.”

  I think that I might die. Libellule, the Libellule, is intrigued by me.

  “Now that I think about it,” Orpheus adds, “there’s one major difference between the two of you.”

  “Oh,” his mom says, batting her lashes. “What’s that?”

  “Zimri uses her music for the people but you used people for your music.”

  For a quick moment, hurt passes over Libellule’s face, then she recovers. “I’m trying hard to rectify that, you know.”

  Orpheus rolls his eyes. “How’s that?”

  “Project Calliope,” she says.

  “Oh, right,” says Orpheus, unimpressed. “I heard you on the Buzz saying you support their cause.”

  “Wait, Calliope?” I ask. “Calliope Bontempi?”

  “Yes,” they both say at the same time.

  “My mother knew her,” I tell them. “They made music together.”

  “Spiritus mundi,” says Libellule. “We are all connected. Synchronicity! Who was your mother? Do I know her?”

  I shake my head. “Just a warehouse worker making music on the side.”

  “Too bad Chanson Industries made that illegal,” Orpheus adds.

  “That’s exactly what we’re trying to combat,” Libellule says. Then she looks at Orpheus. “You should really give us a chance, darling. You could be a big help to the Project.”

  “Wait a minute,” Orpheus says as if he’s putting something together in his mind. “Are you the one who put Calliope up to all of this?”

  Libellule draws in a long breath through her nose. “Let’s just say I’ve been biding my time, waiting for the right person to come along and take your father down a peg. When Calliope showed up in the City a few months ago, I knew I’d found a cause I could get behind.”

  Orpheus’s mouth hangs open. “You sent her to find me, didn’t you? The night of Quinby’s opening?” he asks. “You’re the one who told her I was on the fence about having an ASA.”

  Libellule blinks at him but refuses to answer.

  “And you knew I was here, didn’t you?”

  She shrugs but glances away. “I happened to look at the security cam from Al’s room and when I saw you, I rushed right over.”

  Orpheus steps toward her. “What do you get out of this?” he asks. “What’s in Project Calliope for you?”

  “I never liked those nasty surgeries,” she says. “Even before Alouette’s life was ruined. Now that I’m out
from under your father, free and clear, I’ll have the satisfaction of watching him go down in flames.”

  “But why now?” Orpheus asks. “After all these years?”

  For the first time I see a genuine sadness pass over her face. She stands up and reaches for Orpheus, caressing his cheek. “When Harold started pressuring you to have an ASA and you were uncertain I realized I had to do something drastic or he would get what he wants. Again.”

  Orpheus stands, speechless, so Libellule continues.

  “Genius is a thing that should happen only once in a very great while. Not every day on an operating table.” She looks at me and winks as if all of her concern from a moment ago has now evaporated. Then she grabs his hands in both of hers and pulls him close. “I know I’m not a great mother, but believe me when I say, I’m doing this for you, sweet boy. Project Calliope is all for you and your sister.”

  Orpheus is unmoved by her drama. He pulls away. “No, Mom. Like with everything Dad does, this is about the two of you, not me and Al.” He takes my hand then leans down to kiss Alouette once more. “It was nice to see you, but Zimri and I have to go. We have work tomorrow.”

  VERSE SIX

  ORPHEUS

  When the rounded toe of Zimri’s funky orange trainer trips the laser sensor at the Strip, no MajorDoormo announces our arrival, no spotlights illuminate, no ’razzi drones swarm us, no headlines flash onto the Buzz, and yet it’s just what I need after our disappointing trip into the City.

  “Aimery!” a shout goes up from the bar when we step inside. A group of girls, with Veronica at the center, lift their cups. Out of habit, I step slightly behind Zimri and put my hand on the small of her back then flash my widest, most camera-ready smile at the crowd.

  “What are you doing?” Zim asks and ducks away, embarrassed.

  I laugh. “Oops, sorry. Old habits die hard.”

  Veronica rushes up and plants one on my cheek. “I haven’t seen you since we went out the other night. Where have you been hiding?”

  “I’ve been around,” I say and try to sidestep back to Zimri, who’s found her best friend in the crowd.