by Maya Rock
“Lia, that is so terrible. I’m here for you, if you ever want to talk about it,” Selwyn says, wringing her hands.
Lia is cringing, like she wants to run away and hide, but she manages a “thanks,” raising her voice so the mic can hear her over the stadium noise.
The organ player works the crowd into a feverish pitch around us, and Selwyn leans back into her seat, shaking her head and murmuring, “I had no idea.” It’s the perfect time to frall. “She wanted her mom’s problems to be a secret,” I mouth to Selwyn, “but she had to bring them up because of the Initiative. We’re both in it. You’re part of it too, right?”
Her eyes widen. “How’d you know?” she mouths, shifting closer to me, making it harder for the moving camera to see us.
“I knew you’d never want a tattoo. They told you to get one, right?”
“Yes, but I didn’t have to. They just wanted me to say I wanted it. And look, my reward was getting my tooth fixed!” She lifts her lip so I can see her restored canine tooth. “And my ratings bumped up.”
“Neat,” I say, glad for her. The Initiative worked for Selwyn, and maybe it’ll work for me too. Off the E.L., in a plus-ten apprenticeship, and whatever flirting with Callen leads to.
The organ plays a few notes, signaling us to stand. Cheering gets louder, becoming a roar, and Selwyn and I get up to do the Pigeon chant—“Coooooo! Coooooo!”—ignoring the Ant fans shooting nasty looks at us. I sit down again, but she keeps standing, cheering. Unlike hers, my enthusiasm is fake, mostly for the Audience’s sake. The camera snakes forward, real close, then retracts, and Lia leans over. “I heard Characters calling them ’biles,” she whispers. “Short for mobile cameras.”
“They are sort of bile-inducing,” I whisper back. “Do they need to be so close to our faces?”
“I know.” Lia rolls her eyes. “Thank God for these makeup techniques from the Sessions.” She bats her eyelashes comically. But she does look better with whatever tricks they showed her at the Center, and I feel a pinch of jealousy.
Selwyn pokes my shoulder, blocks her mouth with her pennant and hand, and mouths, “What’s your suggestion?” My skin grows hot.
“Flirt with Callen.” I keep my eyes fixed on the still-empty field.
The pigeon on her cheek crinkles with her smile. “So. Plus. Ten,” she says on-mic, forgetting to hide the fralling. “That your radio works!”
I whisper, “I’m only doing it because they said so. Probably nothing’s going to happen.”
“They must have you doing it for a reason. They want you to go out, and they think you have a chance!” she mouths, smiling. I can’t help smiling back. I’m too scared to say it aloud, but it’s great hearing her voice my biggest dream.
She turns back to the game. “Where are they?” she shouts down to the field. I touch my face while she’s looking away. Between Lia’s makeup and Selwyn’s perfect smile, I can’t help but feel drab, and I remember Dr. Kanavan chastising me at my Show Physical. Will better Initiative plotlines even work if the Audience doesn’t like my face?
Lia passes me the binoculars. “Your mom’s across the field, to the right.” I twist around and zoom in. There she is, with her book club brigade, their eyeglasses glinting in the sun. I don’t think baseball is their thing, but they know how to fake enthusiasm for a Special Event; they’re all waving pennants and cheering.
I turn the binoculars to closer targets. Lincoln is a few rows down, next to Revere. Farther down the row is Scoop, eating popcorn and chatting with his friends, including Terra, who’s fanning herself with a souvenir red palm, her hair in two pigtails tied with red ribbons.
She touches his shoulder and asks something, gesturing toward the field. He points at home base, then at the outfield, pausing to make sure she understands. She nods and runs her tongue along her lips, and I laugh aloud. Maybe I should use that move on Callen.
“Welcome to the opening game for your high school, Ants vs. Pigeons!” the announcer booms.
The crowd’s in a frenzy by the time Callen saunters to the mound, his easy gait at odds with the frenetic energy in the stands and on the field. Selwyn jabs me, grinning, and I ignore her, staring straight ahead, my breath caught in my throat.
He’s so beautiful.
The crowd roars, and the ’bile in front of us retracts. The game starts. The first Ant hitter saunters up, brushing off dust on home plate with his sneaker, then loosening up his arms like a dog shaking off rain. Selwyn jumps up and down as the hitter settles into batting position, facing Callen.
I imagine flirting with him. I’m not good at that. Compliment him? What nice hair you have . . . I bury my head in my hands. I can’t even talk to him without blushing.
Lia puts down her pen and elbows me. “What’s going on with you?” she says gruffly.
“Just . . .” I don’t want to drag her into the suggestion anymore, but her eyebrows furrow in that way that I know means she’s reading my mind.
She looks for the ’bile, then turns so her body blocks it and whispers in my ear, “Don’t agonize about Callen. He’ll probably just walk away from you. I don’t think he wants anything to do with any of us. Once Media1 sees that, they’ll give you new suggestions.” At us, she makes a sweeping gesture that covers me, Selwyn, Revere, and Lincoln, and even seems to include some random Drama Club members sitting nearby. The message is clear: she has the bigger team, and Callen stands alone. I grin, like it’s hilarious and true, but my stomach turns because I hear another message too.
She thinks he’d never notice me. I know I don’t have long, expertly mascaraed eyelashes or finely cut cheekbones, or whatever it is that makes the Audience—and the boys at school—so into her, but it’s not like I’m invisible either.
Ratings mark: 168. Still—that doesn’t make me a leper, just a low ratings earner. Maybe that’s how she sees me: a low ratings Character she’s taken under her wing.
“Are you all right?” she asks on-mic as the crack of the bat reverberates throughout the stadium and Characters angle their necks, following the arc of the ball.
“Fine.” Selwyn jumps back on her feet to celebrate the foul ball, cooing again. “So, we were right about Selwyn,” I whisper. I explain to Lia about the tattoo, and Lia nods, but she’s preoccupied with her play.
So I watch the game, zeroing in on Callen. He’s pretty far away, a blue stick figure from here, but my imagination fills in the rest. I’ve spent so long looking at him.
The catcher signals the pitches to Callen, and I get an idea. What if we had a signal for the Initiative? Something that would help us communicate what Media1 had asked us to do.
I whisper my idea to Lia. “Anytime we’re doing something for the Initiative, how about we go like this?” I scratch behind my ear.
Lia blinks, confused—I broke her concentration—and her eyes dart up to the hand on my ear. Then she brings her hand to her own ear. “Got it,” she mouths. “Neat idea.”
“What are you talking about?” Selwyn nudges me. I explain the signal to her, and she murmurs, “Smart.” And then, smiling coyly, she scratches behind her ear and says on-mic, “Wanna hang out after school with me tomorrow? I have fun plans.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say, mirroring her ear scratch so she knows I understand.
Chapter 9
“Are you ready?” Selwyn asks, bending down and unzipping the bulging nylon bag she hauled all the way from school. She has a ton of energy somehow. I’m exhausted. Last night, after the Pigeons won, everyone in the Arbor congregated on the streets, celebrating until past two a.m., even Mom. Callen had been off at some private baseball bash, so there was no chance to flirt. I’d shuffled through the day like a zombie.
“I guess,” I say, half yawning. We’re in an abandoned underground passageway that goes beneath the Tram tracks. The tunnel is blocked on both ends by decaying wooden boards. We’d squeez
ed through a jagged hole in one board, wriggling to avoid the splintering wood.
I poke my head out of the hole and look in both directions. Some Tram passengers are going upstairs to the platform, a dozen feet away. No one notices us. Good. This is part of the Initiative, but that doesn’t mean police or parents wouldn’t be swerved off to find us here. I gulp down the fresh air before turning back to the damp, mossy tunnel. Selwyn props a flashlight up on the ground, so at least it’s not pitch-black anymore. The tunnel still makes me claustrophobic, but I ignore the fear crawling through me and move deeper inside, toward Selwyn, in her pool of light.
My sneakers crunch over beer bottle remains. With the flashlight on, I can make out the graffiti sprawling across the curved walls, and the only cameras I see are older models, all dead, no red lights on. Why would she bring us here if it’s for the Initiative?
I mouth as much to her and she shrugs, mouthing back, “I’m just doing what they said.” She paws through the bag, and clanking echoes throughout the tunnel. I squat next to her and check out what’s inside. Dozens of gleaming spray paint canisters.
“I’m going to use blue, white, and silver,” she says, scooping out three canisters.
Bam. I jump to my feet, and Selwyn drops a canister. Someone, someone large, kicked at a wooden board, trying, and failing, to widen the hole. He squeezes into the tunnel, and all I can think is, Mom is going to kill me. Relief floods me when the figure steps closer to the light: a cricket. Another one follows him, a camera on his shoulder. I avert my eyes, my heart slowing. Better crickets than police.
“Choose a color, Nettie,” Selwyn says, turning her back to them.
The crickets draw near, stopping about two feet away, and I turn my back to them. Yeah, they’re not going to arrest me or tell my mother, but I don’t feel like seeing them. The memory of what happened to Violet is still fresh in my mind.
“I’ll go with yellow.” I pick up the yellow canister and stand next to her.
“Where to tag?” she ponders, shining the flashlight.
“It seems like every inch of this place is covered.”
“Maybe here.” Selwyn approaches a wall plastered in graffiti: Character names, obscene stick figures, enigmatic symbols. There are a couple that break Clause 56, like All for the Audience and Drowned Bliss Island above a drawing of the island covered in ratings cards.
“Not enough room.” Selwyn pulls me past the fralling graffiti down toward the end of the tunnel, beaming the flashlight at the walls, trying to find free space. The crickets and I trail her. Her walk is full of new swagger, and I can’t tell if it’s genuine. She’s in jeans and an old T-shirt, a departure from her usual ultragirly frocks. I wonder if the wardrobe change was part of the suggestion too.
“Here,” she declares, reaching a free space, right up against the tunnel’s end, at the corner between the wooden boards and the wall. She moves the flashlight around to get a fuller look, and spiders scramble across their webs, fleeing the light.
“What do you think?” She beams.
“Yeah, plus ten,” I say, checking discreetly over my shoulder. The crickets are still behind us, their faces impassive, the hum of their cameras audible in the quiet tunnel. Selwyn presses the nozzle down and shrieks as paint jets out.
“It stinks,” she wails, pinching her nose. But she goes on, soon wielding two cans with ease, her hands moving like they’ve been choreographed. Paint coats the wall. Staying a safe distance away, I tilt my head left, right, trying to discern what she’s making, the swoop of silver stirring up a faint memory.
When she starts in with the blue, adding white streaks, it clicks: the fountain in the plaza behind town hall. The blue and white are the water under sunlight; the silver, the steel fountain. She asks to borrow my yellow, the closest she has to bronze, I guess, and does the mermaids. The crickets tiptoe closer, the hum of their cameras blending in with the sound of pressed air.
“Selwyn, that’s amazing,” I say, coming closer when she’s finished. “You’re so talented. My grandma always said your stuff was plus ten.”
Selwyn sighs. “Yeah, sometimes I wish I had gone for an art apprenticeship. But too much competition.” She backs away from the wall, grinning, and pokes me. “Your turn, Nettie.”
It’s the same pressure I feel during art class. Make something pretty. Right now, all I can think is, What do I do? What do I do? The crickets huddle behind me. They don’t have the answer. But Selwyn does. She pulls me away and stops about midway to the other end of the tunnel.
“Check it out,” she says mischievously, shining the light on the wall. “Add to that list.” I step closer to inspect what she’s pointing out. “Garrick told me about it,” Selwyn says behind me. “The Love List.” It’s mostly names, tons of names—names I recognize, names I don’t recognize, names that sound fake, names that are blurred out or chipped away or overlap other names. Delfine + Morgan, ME + YOU, Teressa + Nicolet, Looks + Brains. There are columns and columns of names.
“Do it.” Selwyn shoves me closer to the wall, scratching behind her ear. The Initiative signal. She’s right: it’s not flirting, but if Media1 wants to tease the Audience with the idea of me and Callen, they’ll love this scene. It’ll fit into the whole plotline they’re building.
“Okay,” I say, holding up the can and standing on my tiptoes so my tag goes right underneath Looks + Brains. I begin my N, my hand wobbling, part nerves, part throttle. Soon I get into the rhythm, even adding little curlicues to my letters. I think about how Selwyn’s suggestion is so easy and the reward is so nice: Selwyn’s producer said they’ll give her parents fewer shifts at the hospital, lighten those dark rings around their eyes.
Mine isn’t quite so easy. I had one chance today, in art class. Callen was at the sink, washing his hands, but when I tried to force my feet to get up and go, they turned into anvils.
Five more days.
I start the C, and by now I’m a pro. It helps that I’m used to writing Callen’s name in my notebooks whenever I’m bored in class.
“Well done,” Selwyn says. Her wide face, illuminated only in brief sections by the flashlight, looks moonlike. “Okay, okay, enough of this. Let’s go before we get in trouble.” She gathers up the canisters and packs the bag. I snatch up my book bag, and together we leave the tunnel and emerge into the daylight, squinting at the sudden onslaught of sun.
The crickets are behind us as we walk to the train platform. I gesture to Selwyn to hurry up, hoping that they’ll lose interest when we join the rest of the commuters and become harder to film.
Sure enough, the camera buzz is gone by the time we reach the crowd climbing up to the steps to the Tram platform.
Selwyn flashes her paint-smudged hands at me as we walk up the stairs.
“Yuck,” she declares.
“It’ll come off. Unlike a tattoo.”
“So happy I didn’t do that.” She shudders.
A crack of thunder overhead, and the sky turns into a swamp of gray. Rain slams down, hard and loud. Neither of us has an umbrella, and the small glass waiting room at the Tram stop is packed. We huddle up under a narrow overhang, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the unfortunate umbrellaless.
We tuck our mics into our shirts to protect them from the rain, and Selwyn takes the opportunity to frall. “Do you think I’ll get the reward?” she whispers.
“Yes! We could have gotten arrested. The Audience will love it.”
“Good. Now it’s your turn. You should call Callen up and arrange to meet him at midnight. Ro-man-tic,” she mouths.
“Really?” I mouth, glancing around to make sure no one’s watching. I put my hand up to shield my mouth from the nearest camera. “I’m just—I’m not even sure what I should do. Witson was always sort of around, and one day he, like, declared his affections, and then we were a couple. I’m not even sure I can flirt.”
&
nbsp; “You can,” Selwyn asserts. “Garrick had no clue who I was, so I’d sit next to him at parties and scoot over until our legs were touching, just a little. So it looked like an accident. Eventually he noticed me.”
I refrain from reminding her how ridiculous the chain of party make-outs that constituted their relationship was. “Yeah, I need the right opport—”
The rain interrupts me, coming down in even heavier torrents and splashing us. Selwyn shrieks. The Tram pulls up, thankfully, full of the businesspeople who work on the outskirts of downtown. Pushing through them, aware of raised eyebrows and disapproving glares, I feel every inch an island rebel, in sodden clothes, with the fumes of spray paint lingering on me.
There are no seats left, so we stand in the tight compartment at the end of the car, wedged up against the doors. Selwyn clutches the nylon bag with the cans in front of her with both hands.
“Want me to hold that for a bit?” I ask.
“Thanks,” she says, passing me the bag. “It’s heavier than I thought it would be.”
“No problem,” I murmur, watching a new pair of crickets stumble into the crowded car, two men again. One has a distracting mole right under his nose. They’re speaking low, but it’s quiet enough to hear them.
“I read there might be a draft,” Mole growls. “Take care of the drownclowns once and for all.”
The other replies in a hoarse voice, the kind Media1 will fine you for having because it messes with the audiotrack: “Before they do that, they should up the adventures.” His eyes scan the car, meeting mine. I drop my gaze to my sneakers.
The Arbor stop comes up a few minutes later, and I hand the bag back to Selwyn and get off fast, glad to be cricket-free. The rain has tapered to a drizzle, and the sun is breaking out from the clouds. A figure on the Herrons’ porch catches my eye. Turns out there’s no need for a midnight meeting. Callen’s sitting on his porch swing. No baseball, I realize. Rained out.
But what do I say? Forget flirting—even a simple hello seems out of reach at this moment, I’m so tongue-tied. My stomach is in knots, but I remember being in Luz’s office, and his total confidence that flirting was what the Audience wanted. I can do this.
