A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

  “You heard her, too. Did you feel it?”

  “Sure, a little. The band was a little raggedy, which makes sense since it was one of their first shows together, but I can see what you mean about her charisma. Hey! The car figured out where we are!”

  He turned to her as the car took over driving. “So what’s your plan?”

  “I don’t know. My plan hinged on getting her to agree to play. Without her, I’ve got nothing but what I’ve already been doing.”

  Sadie said, “That’s not so bad, though. You get to listen to music and plan some fun shows and keep people out of trouble. That’s not nothing.”

  “It’s nothing if it goes on that way forever.”

  “You don’t have to be the change all by yourself. You need to find people to help you.”

  “Like you guys did.”

  “That, and more. You need people who will call legislators, and people who will run for office, and people who will write articles and—”

  “What you’re talking about will take forever!”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I’ll bet you somebody out there is already working on it, and could use whatever boost you give.”

  Rosemary wasn’t convinced.

  * * *

  —

  They rolled in late, and Rosemary slept most of the day away on Sadie’s couch while Sadie dragged herself off to the coffee shop. When she woke in the evening, there was a text message on her phone from an unknown number.

  Look I’ve been thinking. U said a 1 time show maybe I can do 1 time, my way

  It could only be Luce. The time stamp said it had arrived two hours before. She immediately texted a response. I’m interested—tell me more!

  “I’ll tell Luce.” It must have been a bandmate’s phone.

  “You look excited about something,” Sadie said, coming through the door.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You don’t know if you’re excited?”

  “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  Rosemary spent the next day waiting for the call and trying to decide where to go. She didn’t have to stay in North Carolina any longer—the cop hadn’t shown up and her charges had been dismissed—but she wasn’t sure where to go with the whole country in front of her. She couldn’t stay on Sadie’s couch much longer.

  * * *

  —

  The bus took the better part of a day, giving Rosemary time to listen to Wilmington bands. Logistics took her new plans in stride. She asked for a room on the ocean and, after looking at maps, picked an area called Carolina Beach because it had “beach” in the name.

  “It’s, like, fifteen miles away from Wilmington,” they warned. “There’s not much out there.”

  “You let me go to my hometown without telling me it was too far from anything. Maybe I have a lead.” She didn’t, but that was beside the point.

  “Do you know it’s hurricane season?”

  “Of course,” she lied. She pulled up a weather map. “I don’t plan on being there long, and there’s nothing brewing.”

  From the bus drop-off, she called a single-cell to take her to the motel Logistics had booked. When she stepped out of the vehicle, the sun felt hotter on her skin than it had in weeks, brighter, and the air tasted like salt.

  The Silver Bell Motel was two stories tall, with the first floor on stilts ten feet above ground level and rooms that opened directly to the outdoor walkway, unlike her fortress-like hotel in Baltimore. It was possible she was the only guest; the parking lot was empty and the whole area looked deserted.

  She found the beach across the street and over a small dune from the motel. Found. It hadn’t been lost. You couldn’t lose an ocean. She climbed the dune and caught her breath. How had she not expected it to be this big?

  She pulled up her Hoodie and looked for an ocean backdrop she’d played before, just for reference, then dropped it again. There was no comparison. They’d gotten the horizon right, the colors, the sky. She remembered walking along the simulated beach, getting points for finding fancy shells and treasures washed in by the tide, listening to the waves lapping the shore.

  What they’d missed: the wind, strong enough to freeze-frame the gulls as they took off and landed; the volume; the sand she kicked into her shoes within the first three steps, so that she had to take them off, then her socks, which she stuffed into the shoes to carry; the frigid water; the irregularity of the shells and other debris, when she’d always imagined each one perfect; the way the sea came closer, then receded, leaving her feet to sink in the muck. The multiple textures of sand: the dry dunes, the gritty debris that marked higher tides, the velvet damp closer in, if she braved getting wave-hit, which she did. The weight of the ocean. In the distance, the remains of houses on stilts, collapsed into themselves. Here was a thing that people had sullied, but you couldn’t tell it if you didn’t look that way. From where she stood, looking outward, the ocean won.

  What was she doing here? That was the question of the hour. She’d arrived to find bands and to destroy their scene, or to fake the same. Was it such a bad future? Not if she could travel to places like this.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and when she looked, there was a message from the same mystery number giving a download code for one of the sites she could only access outside the Superwally/StageHolo networks. She entered the code, shielding her screen in the bright sun.

  “Cassis Fire—Manifest Independence” appeared. The beach was empty, so she turned the volume up and played the song to the ocean.

  When the last chord rang, she played it again. And again. And again, and again, until a low battery warning appeared. It didn’t matter; the song was part of her now. She would never hear it without thinking of the beach, the gulls, and the absolute, boundless joy that started at her chest and expanded outward to fill her entirely when a song connected perfectly with a moment.

  The lyrics were taken from the things Luce had said at Graceland, or else the things she said had been taken from the lyrics. It was instructive without being pedantic: an invitation, a challenge, a call.

  Her phone died. She hadn’t even responded yet. Hopefully Luce wouldn’t think that was rude. She knew she should head back and charge her phone so she could write back, but the ocean was too much for her. She zipped her jacket up to her neck and lowered herself to the sand.

  * * *

  —

  Rosemary requested a meeting with Management the next morning. Something big, she’d said, trying to see if she could rustle up a nongeneric manager in the process, if such a person actually existed. They didn’t; not today, at least. Generic Management—Male (1 of 5) met her in the nonintimidating, regular-office setting.

  “That was fast! You’ve only been in”—he paused before continuing—“Wilmington one night.”

  “It’s not about here,” she said.

  “Oh? The message said you had something. We figured—”

  “Luce Cannon.”

  “You found her again? In Wilmington?”

  “I said it wasn’t about here. I know where she is.”

  “And she’s willing to sign?”

  “She’s willing to do one big show, then gone again.”

  His gears were clearly turning. “Luce Cannon: One Night Only. We do a special on that big song, maybe make up something forensic about tracking her down, lead it all up to a show . . . What was the name of that famous article? ‘The Last Power Chord’? We call the concert the Last Last Power Chord, or the Next Power Chord, something like that, that she’s coming out of retirement for one show only . . .”

  “She’ll be fine with all of that.” They’d had this talk and figured it would go this way. Luce was not a fan of the coming-out-of-retirement angle, but it fed into the fiction of the thing. “She does have some specific guidelines for how it has to go down, thoug
h.”

  “The money, you mean? We’ll have Contracts make her a good offer.”

  “No. She’ll only do it under certain conditions.”

  “We’ll see what Legal says.”

  Rosemary continued. “There has to be a live audience—”

  Generic Management Man sighed. “Of course there does. Why should it matter if that’s illegal?”

  “—and she wants to choose the location.”

  “You mean which campus will host? That’s not a problem.”

  “She doesn’t want to do it on a campus. She wants to do it at a real venue.” Those were Luce’s words, real venue. “Nonnegotiable.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Sure we can. We can do all of that. Patent Medicine did a ‘music festival’ on campus with an audience. It shouldn’t be impossible to transport a camera rig somewhere.”

  “We have to apply for waivers from the state and federal government every time we do something like that. It’s not simple.”

  “Who said anything about simple? This is going to be a logistical bear, and we’re going to do it because this concert is going to make us a ton of money.” She was careful to say us, not you. Rosemary Laws, Model Employee.

  “Anything else?”

  “We’ll own the concert recording, but we point song links to her own site.”

  “Legal will never agree to that.”

  “They can hash it out, then, and see if she walks, but she’ll probably give up merchandising if we give her that much.”

  He sighed again. “You’re still on our side, right? It almost sounds like you’re working for her.”

  “I’m not working for her. Let me know what you decide.”

  She disconnected and dropped her Hoodie. The ocean greeted her with a roar.

  37

  LUCE

  Manifest Independence

  The marquee from that last night Before still had my name on it. Of all the changes and incongruities and instances of past overlying present, I’d never once considered that one. It made perfect sense. The last show before we collectively gave up on trusting each other in proximity, captured in time. A memorial plaque for who we used to be.

  “Oh, man,” said Silva, and I realized whatever I was feeling as we approached must be even stranger for him, since he had worked there. He would have been the one waiting every day for the go-ahead to change the sign during that hellish upheaval.

  The C and H from the name had fallen or been stolen, leaving THE PEA. Grackles nested in the remaining letters and most of the bulbs surrounding the sign looked like they’d been shot out. Somehow, nobody had stolen the movable letters that read TONIGHT: LUCE CANNON.

  Looking closer, we saw the marquee was propped up by a couple of new-looking jacks. The posters were gone, the glass ticket booth boarded up, the sidewalk cracked. Time was a bastard on the best of days.

  “This poor old girl.” Silva shook his head as we turned down the alley.

  Marcia watched us both with curiosity. “Why is it always ‘she’? I don’t think I’ve heard someone call a building she before, but ships and guitars . . .”

  Silva shrugged. “I have no idea, but if the outside looks this bad, I’m a little nervous about the inside.”

  “They would have taken any opportunity to move us to their campus if it wasn’t possible to play here,” I said, though I was wondering the same thing. I had pictured the place frozen in time, perfectly preserved. Stupid. Preservation is an action, not a state.

  We turned another corner, and I was surprised to see that the back was as busy as the front was deserted. A dozen trucks and vans crowded the loading dock. We had to block one of them in, but it was reasonable to think they wouldn’t be leaving before us.

  I shouldered my guitar and looked at the others. “Last chance to turn around.”

  “This was your idea, not ours,” Marcia said. “That’s completely your call.”

  “Silva?”

  “I want to see what she looks like inside.”

  Backstage bustled with activity. Nobody gave us a second glance; if we were there, we belonged. Some of them were assembling camera rigs, others trying to raise a new curtain, others loading more equipment in through a side door halfway down the room. We walked past and onto the proscenium.

  “Oh, man,” Silva repeated.

  The seats were gone. Paint hung from the walls in long strips, and the place carried a vague smell of—water? Trash? There was a stain in the shape of Australia on the ceiling above the balcony. A couple of workers snaked wires off the stage and around the wall to a corner in the back, where they’d set up a makeshift control booth.

  Still, it was beautiful. The wall sconces, the stage, the elegant balcony molding, the chandeliers. A thought crossed my mind that if someone had been using it as a secret venue, I might have ruined everything for them by choosing to play here when I could have picked anyplace. I could have made them film me at the 2020. Why had I chosen this? Because, I told myself, you wanted to show them a past that didn’t have to be past. Or something like that.

  “You made it! And you were right: this place is beautiful! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  I turned to see Rosemary approaching from the wing. Funny how I always heard her before I saw her. You had to give the kid this: she was enthusiastic. I felt a pang of sympathy for her “never seen anything like it.” It had been a beautiful room, but not unique in its day.

  “Is everything going okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. It’s all working out pretty well. The city owns the building, and they had no problem turning on the electricity as long as we were willing to pay to get everything inspected. It mostly needed a good cleaning. The company liked that the chairs were gone. Said it’ll be easier to film. All the sound equipment was sold off a long time ago, but we would’ve brought ours in either way. And you should’ve seen how excited they were about that marquee with your name on it. It was like they’d discovered an intact dinosaur fossil. Um, you’re not the fossil in that scenario. The marquee is.”

  I sighed. More nostalgia. Maybe I brought it on myself by picking this place, this format.

  “So, um, thank you for telling them to make me your artist liaison for this gig. I don’t really know what that entails, since it isn’t part of my normal job, but tell me what you need from me and I’ll do it.”

  It wasn’t like we’d ever had an artist liaison for anything before. A host supplied by the enemy. I didn’t really know what to ask for, but scrambled for something to make her feel useful. “Could you rustle up some people to get our gear inside? It’s faster with help.”

  She saluted and disappeared, returning with two burly guys and a burlier woman.

  “Minions! Excellent!” Marcia led them out the door. I followed, but they picked up two more people along the way, and I didn’t end up needing to carry anything. One trip, and everything was in for us to assemble.

  “Closer to the front,” I said to Marcia as she unrolled the rug that kept her drums from moving. “I want us all tight and intimate if we’re playing for cameras.”

  She saluted and dragged her rug closer to me. Techs began to circle us, taping marks onto the wooden floor.

  “Hi, I’m Luce,” I said to the guy miking my amp.

  “Hey,” he said without introducing himself.

  It took a while for them to get the sound under control, the speakers emitting earsplitting crackles and squeals like creatures that didn’t want to be tamed. The challenge would be creating a mix that worked both for their recording and for the live space. I was more worried about the latter.

  “Rosemary, how many tickets did you sell?” I asked the question into the mic and she appeared in front of me instantly.

  She gestured out into the empty room. “They gave away ten pairs of tickets in a contest, alo
ng with transportation to get here.”

  Ten pairs. “What was the contest?”

  “They had to say where they first heard ‘Blood and Diamonds.’ I know that’s not what you would have wanted, but Promotions insisted that was the best way. There were a lot of entries, for what it’s worth.”

  This was the first I was hearing about it, but the contest was a distraction. “What I’m trying to say is it’s going to sound awfully boomy in here with no seats and no bodies to absorb the sound. Twenty is nothing in a room this size.”

  “Maybe it’ll work itself out?” She looked away again.

  “Twenty isn’t what I had in mind when I told you I needed a live audience.”

  “I know, but it’s all I could get them to agree to. Better than none, right?”

  “I guess it is what it is. We’ll make it work.” Not much choice.

  We eventually came to a point where I was satisfied with the live sound and the nameless soundperson adjusting levels didn’t seem to be fiddling anymore. Then we went through it again for the recording rigs and the lights. Beneath it all, I heard the grumbling of the techs as they repositioned their equipment. “What the fuck are we doing here?” one of them muttered to another, and I wondered the same. What was the point of my insisting we do this here if there wasn’t any audience? No, twenty wasn’t nothing. I’d play for ten or five or two if they were into it. I’d just have to convince these contest winners that the recent stuff was as good as the song they knew.

  When the techs were finally done, I asked into the mic if I could have a minute to play.

  “Sorry,” came the voice I’d started thinking of as the Director, since he hadn’t bothered to introduce himself. “No time.”

  I remembered standing on this stage, playing for myself and nobody, in the last minutes before the world changed. This was the problem with trying to re-create a memory: the overwrite took the memory down with it.

  The Director himself approached from the booth, carrying a printed set list with times for our songs, and a stack of lyric sheets. I’d submitted it all two weeks before. “This is all still good, right? No changes?”