Super Fake Love Song

by David Yoon

  Milo was piloting a miniature electric bike with his legs frogged out, clown-style. Behind him was Jamal. They were somehow riding the squirrelly thing together.

  “Sunny,” cried Jamal.

  “Turn around,” said Milo.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “It’s three minutes till livestream, not fifteen,” said Milo. “Lady Lashblade messaged in to say she’s ready. Jamal, tell him.”

  “Sunny,” said Jamal. “We forgive you.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “I wouldn’t forgive me.”

  “Shut up with that self-pitying nonsense,” said Jamal. “No one could know what they’d do if they were in your shoes—that’s beside the point.”

  “Although I’m glad I wasn’t in your shoes,” said Milo.

  “We need you,” said Jamal.

  “For the livestream?” I said.

  “No, you idiot,” said Jamal.

  “I’m kidding,” I said. “I need you guys, too.”

  “This is all wonderful,” said Milo. “Now bang a yewie.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Turn the heck around and come back with us!” said Jamal.

  * * *

  —

  “Check one two syphilis,” I said.

  “Levels are good,” said Jamal.

  “Cuing in Lady Lashblade,” said Milo.

  We all held our breath as a rectangle appeared on-screen with her eminence herself. Lady Lashblade was one of the few prominent women of color in the world of role-playing games and was known for changing her hair into something architectural in its splendor every week. This time it was done in overlapping lacquered sheets bursting from a spiky halo in the back. A hippogriff pin held the whole thing together. Her eponymous eyelashes sparkled and matched the pin’s crimson hue.

  “Good afternoon, fine sirs,” she said. “It’s such a pleasure to be a part of your wonderful show.”

  “The honor’s all ours pleasure is we’re so glad to have you thank you this evening,” we all said at once.

  “Oh my,” said Lady Lashblade. She got down to business. Livestream shows were nothing for her. “What’s your preferred format?”

  “Hi, I’m Sunny,” I said. “Uh, so, um, it’s twenty minutes of banter, and ten minutes of product intro and demo, then thirty minutes Q&A with the audience.”

  “That’s typical,” said Lady Lashblade, taking a sip of red wine through a straw in a crystal goblet.

  “So I’m the funny one,” said Jamal. “And Sunny’s the Idea Guy.”

  “I’m the therapist philosopher,” said Milo, crowding into Jamal’s mic. “Sorta like an Oprah but not quite as good a listener, especially when I get nervous—”

  “Fellas, fellas,” said Lady Lashblade. “Just be yourselves. You’re gonna do gr-r-reat.”

  Lady Lashblade was right. Of course she was right. She was Lady friggin’ Lashblade.

  We began the livestream.

  We were ourselves.

  And we did just gr-r-reat.

  The viewership was ludicrous, in the tens of thousands. We gained hundreds of followers. Once those people started telling other people, Lady Lashblade gained hundreds of followers, too. Understand that these weren’t ordinary followers—nothing like those drive-by scrollers who followed Skittles Official on a whim. These were hard-core fans. The type who made—never bought—their own cosplay. The kind who LARPed even in the rain. The kind who religiously made the pilgrimage to Fantastic Faire every year.

  As we wrapped up the livestream, she said it.

  “I look forward to seeing all of you at the Faire in—what—just a month now!” she said. “All my close friends will be at my booth, including these good sirs we’ve all just had the pleasure of learning from, DIY Fantasy FX. If their schedule allows, that is.”

  My face froze. So did Milo’s and Jamal’s. Jamal inched his face away so that he could freak out properly off-frame.

  “I bluh-bluh-believe we’re free?” I said.

  “We’refreewurrfreewurrfree,” said Milo.

  “See you there!” said Lady Lashblade. She wiggled her sparkling fingers to deliver her catchphrase: “Make and believe.”

  “And cut,” said Jamal. “We’re out.”

  “Goddess of the game I worship thee Lady Lashblade!” I screamed.

  “I’m still here,” said Lady Lashblade.

  “Thank you, Lady Lashblade!” we all screamed.

  “You guys are so cute,” she said, and vanished with a wink.

  Jamal fetched us Ramunes, which we slammed open and raised for a toast.

  “Guys,” I said, exhaling after a long pull, “I vow from this day forth to never betray you again. To never act without your consent if that consent involves all of us. I vow—”

  “Whatever! Lady Lashblade!” said Jamal and Milo.

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  Beautiful

  Back home, evening.

  I checked my phone out of the same helpless desperation of pathetic phone users all over the world.

  Farewell, friend.

  A cartoon version of Cirrus gave a sad smirk, blinked, smirked, blinked.

  When had she sent this? What did this mean?

  I watched the looping animation for a full minute. I gained no insight.

  Dad came floating out from the dark. “Hey, bud,” he whispered. “We watched your internet show. You guys were great.”

  “You did?” I said. “How did you even know we were on tonight?”

  “You have a real broadcaster’s voice,” said Dad.

  I didn’t know what to say. My family was watching? And they liked it? But they weren’t into the lifestyle. What would they even get out of it?

  Just take the compliment, dummy.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He paused, then added, “Cirrus’s parents told us about it.”

  All sound cut out for a moment, like it did sometimes. I pictured Cirrus, just beyond the upper window of her condo, watching on her phone along with thousands of others. Had she heard about DIY Fantasy FX from someone? Gunner? Artemis?

  Did she hit the heart button?

  “They told me something else,” said Dad. “You’re not gonna like it.”

  Farewell, friend.

  “Their LA project is tied up in city hall,” said Dad. “So they’re gonna do a short gig in Yiwu.”

  “Is that inland?” I said.

  “It’s four hours south of Shanghai.”

  “China!” I shrieked.

  Mom appeared in her pajamas. “Who’s shouting?” she said, but fell quiet when she saw Dad and me.

  “How short is a short gig?” I yelled.

  “Just a few months,” said Dad with a one-armed shrug.

  “Honey, it’s twelve,” said Mom. “With the option to renew their contract if the government likes what they’re getting.”

  “I was trying to soften the blow,” said Dad.

  Oops, mouthed Mom.

  “A year?” I wailed.

  “What’s with the shouting?” said Gray from the landing below.

  “Go back to sleep,” said Mom.

  “Oh, snap,” said Gray. “You told him about tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I howled.

  “Please, lower your volume,” said Dad. “They leave first thing in the morning.”

  I sat right down in the foyer, among all the shoes. We Daes did not line up our shoes. Cirrus did, though. So I began lining up every last shoe, down to the millimeter.

  “Sun?” said Mom.

  I picked up my shoes, lined them up, and flung them both across the room. I took out my phone.

  Hello? I wrote.

  You’re leaving?

  Just like that?

/>   Hello?

  Cirrus did not blow a single bubble back.

  “She’s right down the street and I can’t even reach her,” I said.

  My phone was a useless prehistoric piece of junk. I might as well have been staring at a loose bathroom tile in my hands. After tonight, Cirrus would be gone. And she would be gone forever, because Cirrus was highly skilled at being gone. She went gone every couple of years for her whole life. She was expert at it.

  Cirrus had chosen to go, in fact. I changed my mind, she perhaps told her parents. I’m ready for another adventure.

  And from the window she watched, no doubt, as Rancho Ruby and all of California became just another piece of vanishing landscape making way for the endless scrolling Pacific. She would chalk up this whole Sunny episode as one of her weirder duty stations, then safely detonate it from a distance like she’d had to do with all of her other memories in order to protect her heart.

  And then I’d never see or hear from her again for years and years. Maybe in some inconceivable future we’d meet in some dumb shopping mall with our spouses and kids in tow, and have that awkward catching-up conversation adults seem to always be having even though all they’d rather do is sit on a couch and binge old shows until their toes became sharp roots that anchored them to the ground to draw up minerals that would soon calcify every vein in their body and render them into an anomalous state scientists would not quite be able to call death.

  Mom knelt and simply put her arm around me.

  “Listen,” said Dad. “This might not be what you want to hear right now, but . . . you’re young . . . and . . .”

  “Dad,” said Gray. He had emerged fully, and wore horrible baggy sweats and a horrible baggy hoodie. In one hand he held an acoustic guitar. In the other, a beautiful sunburst mandolin.

  “Lemme handle this,” said Gray.

  “Okay?” said Dad, perplexed.

  “Sunny, get up,” said Gray. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?” I said. “For what?”

  “Oh my god,” said Mom, sweetly realizing some mysterious something. She gave Dad a squeeze. And then she gave him a little kiss. The kiss seemed to squirt a shot of understanding into Dad’s brain, because he brightened like a little bulb.

  “Might as well try,” said Dad to Gray.

  “Do or at least try, there is no do not,” croaked Gray.

  “Never attempt to quote Star Wars again,” I said.

  Gray opened the front door with a Picardian flourish. “Engage.”

  * * *

  —

  We walked outside in the chill of the deepening night. Gray tuned the guitar as he walked. It was the first guitar he ever got, way back in freshman year of high school: a little parlor-size classical with nylon strings. He made me wear it.

  “You know that song ‘You’re Beautiful’ by James Blunt?” he said.

  “That song is so cheesy,” I said. “Milo’s mom piped stuff like that when he was a baby in her tum-tum.”

  “That’s the song you’re gonna sing,” he said.

  “Doesn’t he say, I will never be with you?” I said.

  “That line is precisely what makes it a great love song,” said Gray.

  I grappled with the paradoxical logic of declaring your love for a person by singing about how you’ll never get to be in a relationship with them. Maybe the yearning alone made a persuasive case?

  “Are we seriously doing this?” I said.

  “You are seriously doing this,” said Gray. “I sure couldn’t. The vocals are way too high. But falsetto’s in your wheelhouse. Plus you know all the words.”

  This was actually true. I used to sing along with the song every time it came on in the car in grade school. Funny that Gray remembered such a small detail.

  “Chords are super simple,” said Gray. “Capo the eighth fret, play G, D, E-minor, C, then for the chorus go C, D, E-minor, D, C, D, and back to G. Just follow my lead.”

  “You’re serious,” I said.

  “What else are you doing tonight?” said Gray. “She friggin’ leaves tomorrow.”

  I went through the chords with Gray, who guided me along by playing lead-in notes on his mandolin.

  Down the hill was Cirrus’s condo. I stopped walking, but Gray restarted me with a push of his hand.

  It dawned on me—again—that after tomorrow morning Cirrus would be gone. What would a late-night serenade even accomplish? Would she reverse course yet again and ask her parents to drop the project and stay put, all for the chance to be with someone she could never quite trust?

  If it were me, I would start learning my basic Mandarin.

  But it wasn’t me, and I couldn’t deny that I harbored a tiny crumb of hope that a miracle would happen. This crumb came from the same crappy, tasteless loaf of bread shared with lottery ticket owners, children still believing in Santa Claus (bless them), and every game show contestant ever, including and especially the defunct X-Factor.

  We reached her condo. An automatic floodlight flooded us with light.

  “That’s your cue,” said Gray. He stood some feet apart to give me more of the spotlight, then counted us in.

  Suddenly I was freezing. My hands were freezing. But I clipped on the capo and played the first G, remembering to add the little hammer-on detail.

  “Here we go,” said Gray. He led me in with the familiar solo melody. It was a simple phrase played twice over four bars at a leisurely pace, giving me a full eight bars to clear my throat and my fears and just dive in to the song’s oddball fake-out fragment of a first line—

  My life is brilliant

  —sung before the actual real beginning of the song, which we soon reached in three short bars.

  My love is pure

  I saw an angel

  Of that I’m sure

  VERSE 1 → CHORUS

  VERSE 2 → CHORUS

  BRIDGE → CHORUS

  Simple as can be. My voice slotted in so comfortably at this high register that I didn’t have to worry about hitting the notes. I didn’t have to worry about remembering the lyrics, either. My performer’s brain was freed up to go for style points, and I tried my best: adding in grace notes and voice cracks here, mumbles and slurs there. Gray had been right: falsetto was in my wheelhouse. The perks of being a castrato.

  Cirrus’s condo remained dark.

  I glanced at big brother Gray now and then. He nodded like a grinning idiot. He strummed quietly along at mezzo piano in support of my mezzo forte. Because he wanted to make sure everyone knew who the star was.

  It was a short song, not much longer than three minutes. But still, it managed to convey an entire journey of stupefied longing by a hopeless (and hopelessly stoned) romantic on a train in love with a girl across the car. I kind of wished Gray hadn’t made me play this song, whose last line, as a friendly reminder, was:

  I will never be with you.

  But the song also had a charming ironic quality to it, something English, and the English ironic-ness suited Cirrus, so whatever, it didn’t matter at this point. Because now we had reached the end.

  The timer ran out on the motion sensor floodlight, and it turned off.

  “That was wonderful,” said a voice. An older woman’s voice. Cirrus’s mom?

  I looked up. Still the house was dark. The voice wasn’t coming from there.

  It was the condo next door.

  “Uh, thank you,” I said. I waved an arm to turn the light back on.

  “I loved singing telegrams when I was a child,” said my favorite somnambulist.

  Gray spoke at a slow, constant pace. “It’s not a telegram. It’s a serenade.”

  “Uh-oh,” said the woman.

  Gray whispered to me, “You wanna try another song?”

  The woman heard him. “I would love
another song, but the Sohs left an hour ago. They won’t be back for months.”

  “I thought it was tomorrow morning,” said Gray.

  “They got a great deal on first-class seats,” said the woman.

  “Sorry to disturb your sleep,” I said.

  “You are very talented,” said the woman. “You are a natural.”

  “I mostly fake it,” I said, and walked away.

  V

  Patiently watch and you’ll see them come back:

  summertime meteors dazzling on black.

  Doomed

  What else was there to say?

  Nothing.

  I had just serenaded a painted box.

  Like one of the millions of wretched unwanted outcasts silently screaming at the murderous uncaring world for even the tiniest shred of attention no matter how sneering and disdainful, I launched the monopolistic social media photo sharing app known as Snapstory. The Chinese city of Yiwu, according to my teary-eyed research, was home to the world’s largest wholesale market of dollar-store knickknacks that was ten times larger than the biggest mall in America. I wanted to see it through her eyes. I needed to.

  But she was not on Snapstory.

  I deleted the app. What was the point of using an app that had no one on it?

  I drove Gray to LA—he had left his wallet with his driver’s license at Miss Mayhem—and being back on Sunset had felt like self-inflicted punishment. It had stung to see the club’s marquee blank and stripped of letters. Also stinging—and surreal—was the sight of three neighborhood homeless people each wearing Immortals shirts. They must’ve been abandoned, then donated by the venue. Cirrus would’ve been heartbroken. Or then again not, because now at least someone who really needed a shirt now had a shirt.

  None of this should have happened.

  If I had just been normal, Cirrus would’ve told her parents she wanted to stay and finish out Ruby High, and she would still be here.

  Anyway.