Swimming Through the Dawn

by R. P. Rioux

  "Okay, thanks, Phil." Steve stared at the monitor as the door shut behind him. He shuttled to the beginning of the video clip and replayed the audition once more.

  8

  Grace

  In the aftermath of the audition, Heather complained as they reached Grace's beloved 2005 Subaru Tribeca. "You told him the group's nearly complete."

  "I didn't want him thinking we were closer to the beginning than the end," Grace responded as she switched to Korean to deter eavesdroppers. "Besides, I wasn't the only one improvising on the fly. Made in Heaven? Where did that come from?"

  "It sounds nice. What? You don't like it?" Heather stacked her guitar case on top of Grace's with a lack of finesse that made her wince.

  "It's okay, I suppose." Grace attempted to fit Sun-hee's keyboard into the remaining space but had to angle it to shut the tailgate. "I thought we were collaborating on those sorts of creative decisions."

  "I like it," Sun-hee said.

  "It'll grow on me, I suppose. In the meantime, we have work to do." Grace detailed her game plan. "First, we need to recruit, recruit, recruit. And not any old K-pop fan. We need Talent with a capital T. Start beating the bushes. Talk to everyone you know. Time's not our friend." She slammed the hatchback closed. "They should have a strong work ethic, be easy to get along with, and also look the part."

  "Piece of cake," Heather said teasingly as she snapped her fingers.

  "If you have anyone in mind, let me know. I'll get in contact with them first thing tomorrow. Keep us updated. So much for a restful night."

  * * *

  Two days later, Grace sat with Heather on the steps overlooking the Sunken Garden. Heather was finishing her snack of hummus and carrot sticks as they watched a long-haired, rastacap-wearing white guy race by on a Segway. He was towing a wagon carrying a black guy who ate ice cream while reclining on a stack of pillows.

  "Remember, in grade school, when we all wanted to be like everyone else for fear of being bullied?" Grace asked. "Now in college, you see those guys and think 'they've got it all figured out.'"

  "I looked into reserving a classroom for the auditions," Heather announced.

  "Will it cost anything?"

  "Not on Sundays."

  "Okay, we'll set a date, and I'll greenlight the casting notices once —" Grace stopped midsentence and took a closer look at the student commons. "Oh, my. Do you see what I see?"

  Heather looked in the direction of her gaze. Students used the myriad walkways to traverse from the northern dorms to the campus mall at most hours of the day and night. Though busy, as typical for a weekday, it was clear who Grace was referring to. A petite, youthful girl of East Asian descent walked across their field of view. She had a figure mirroring Heather's, with relatively broad shoulders tapering to a slight waist and understated hips. She carried what appeared to be an electric guitar case.

  "A boon from the gods!" Heather exclaimed.

  "Exactly what I was thinking."

  "She looks too young to be in college, though. Is she Korean?"

  "I bet she is, but there's one way to make sure." Grace bounded down the steps on a course to intercept her target. As she approached, the girl glanced in her direction without pausing but otherwise kept walking. Grace greeted her in Korean, "Annyeonghaseyo."

  The girl decelerated and faced her greeter, looking wide-eyed and unsure what to do.

  Hearing no response, Grace offered a second greeting, this time in Japanese. "Konbanwa," she said. Still, the girl's reaction was even more bewilderment and a halting attempt to respond in broken and accented Korean. Deciding to end the poor girl's misery, Grace said, "Don't worry, I speak English."

  Relief evident on her face, the new girl responded with a laugh, "I'm sorry, I'm learning Korean, but reading it and speaking it are two different things. I get so nervous and tongue-tied." She spoke with a slight drawl in a small but delightful voice sounding as young as she looked.

  "That's okay. You don't need to apologize. I saw you passing by and thought I'd introduce myself. I'm Grace So."

  The girl smiled. "You speak Korean well." Grace found the comment amusing since she had only said one word thus far. By this point, Heather had joined them, giving a thumbs-up for Grace's sole benefit. She mouthed the words, 'she's cute' behind the girl's back.

  "I'm American, but lived in Korea for five years," responded Grace without acknowledging her friend. "You?"

  "The opposite. I was born in Korea but adopted as a baby by a family from Oklahoma. Harper, Oklahoma, to be exact. That's where I've been until I moved here for college."

  Heather seized that moment to interject her own introduction. "Hi, my name is Heather Moon," she said, stepping to the girl's side and extending a hand in greeting. "So, you're a student here? You look so young."

  "That's what everyone says. My curse, I guess." The new girl accepted the offered hand. "My birth name is Ha-eun, by the way, but people call me Erin. My full name is Erin MacLeay."

  "Hello, Erin. I'm glad we met."

  "Me too." The girl's eyes diverted shyly as she continued. She took a step forward. "Listen, I'm sorry if I appear rude, but I don't want to be late for rehearsals. I'm playing bass in a band, and this is only my second practice."

  Heather, who had remained standing behind Erin, gestured to Grace like they had won a jackpot. Grace smiled and laced her arm with Erin's. Soon they were joined by Heather, who took the opposite arm. "Do you mind if we walk with you, Erin MacLeay from Oklahoma? We have an idea we'd like to propose."

  * * *

  Grace's outgoing voicemail message answered. "You know what to do, so do it at the beep."

  "Hi, Grace. This is Steve, the music video guy. Listen, I enjoyed your performance the other day. You have a promising group, and I hope it goes well for you. I have bad news, though. I decided to go in another direction. Hope you understand. Another band's ready now. Well, take care. See you around campus. Good luck."

  9

  Steve

  When he spotted her walking 20 feet ahead, and in the same direction, Steve hastened to reach her side. "Hey. Heather, right?"

  The girl that so impressed at auditions stopped to face him, her smile fading away the moment she laid eyes on him. "Oh, hi," she said bluntly, before resuming her walk.

  Steve caught up to her. "We're going the same way. Mind if I join you?"

  "It's a free country."

  "I'm Steve, remember? From the auditions?"

  "How could I ever forget?" snipped Heather as she kept her eyes locked straight ahead. "So, how's the music video biz?"

  He ignored her question. "Maybe Grace told you, but I thought your band was superb. The decision was a tough one."

  "I bet you struggled for days."

  "I did actually. Anyway, I'd like to come listen to you play when you get some gigs. You kept my contact info, didn't you?"

  "We'll see."

  "Are you parked over here?"

  "Are you following me?"

  "No." Steve stopped at the crosswalk, but Heather walked straight on through without hesitating, forcing him to wait for a car to pass before he could regain her side. "I thought we could work on a project together in the future. Wouldn't that be fun?"

  Heather didn't respond. They continued walking silently. Awkwardly. Steve tried to make a graceful exit.

  "That's my dorm over there. Rosecrans. I have to go. I'll see you later."

  "Don't get lost," Heather quipped.

  "Nice to see you again." He waved uselessly as Heather continued towards the parking lot without looking in his direction or making any effort to acknowledge his farewell in the slightest.

  She hates me.

  * * *

  Casey lay on her stomach with a group of textbooks stacked on the armrest of Steve's dorm room couch. One of them, Differential Equations, was propped open. It was the object of her current attention as she finished an assignment. Casey would typically drop by after classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Steve'
s roommate was at work. It gave them a chance to spend quality time together.

  "This course is much easier than I thought it'd be," she said, closing the book.

  "That's because you're so brilliant." He bent to kiss her, caressing her natural strawberry blonde hair.

  "Go on. That's what I like to hear." They kissed again, this time more passionately. Casey kicked her legs in the air, toes curled.

  They'd been friends since kindergarten. The decision to attend St. Ignatius together after dating through senior year of high school was an easy one. The university was attractive because it offered degrees in both of their preferred majors. For Steve, that meant Film and Television Production with a Recording Arts minor. For Casey, Mathematics. Steve didn't care much for the subject. The one branch of mathematics he received anything higher than a C in was Geometry, but he admired how easily it came to Casey. She lived and breathed it.

  "Let's eat," she said.

  "Yeah, in a minute. Let me show you a video I found first." Steve sat on the floor next to the couch and opened his laptop for Casey.

  "What's this?"

  "It's from a great Russian film director, Andrei Tarkovsky. You'll be amazed."

  In the clip, a man lights a candle. As the scene unfolds, it becomes evident he is trying to walk across a drained swimming pool while struggling against the breeze to keep the candle lit. The first two attempts fail. By the third try, the man is ailing, but he manages to make it to the far side with the candle still lit. His task finished, the man collapses from view, where he's heard gasping for air off screen.

  The action, depicted in real time, employed a single continuous tracking shot lasting more than nine minutes. Steve marveled at the technique. He found its unique combination of elements under the director's distinct vision to be emotionally powerful and inspiring. "Isn't that impressive?" he asked as the scene ended.

  Casey looked annoyed. "I don't get it."

  Steve's head drooped. "What do you mean?"

  "Why didn't he simply go to the other side and light the candle there? It would have been much easier."

  "You're missing the point."

  "There was no point. It was dumb."

  "It wasn't dumb." Steve checked his emotions to keep the conversation from developing into an argument.

  "If the whole movie's like that, it's gotta be the world's most boring."

  "The director is original, but certainly not boring."

  "Give me a superhero movie any day."

  "Okay," he said, eyes rolling. "But you're missing out by not expanding your horizons."

  "If that's the best you can do, I doubt it."

  "Those movies are like fast food. Sure, it tastes good once in a while, but you'd die of malnutrition on a steady diet of it."

  "What do you have against superhero movies?"

  "You mean besides being thunderously vapid?"

  "How snobby."

  "Let me count the ways. There's no emotional resonance. No mystery. The characters' decisions don't matter in the long run. Collateral damage seems to be an afterthought. I could go on. One Truffaut film contains more honesty than a decade's worth of comic book spectacles."

  "Meh. Life's too short to waste it on stuff that slow."

  "It's not slow if you realize the intent. Tarkovsky used the poetry of images to depict the inner lives of his characters. It's genius. This one metaphor encapsulates the struggles of a person's entire life."

  Casey's head floundered to the couch as if fainting. "Well, genius or not, my life will end soon if I don't eat."

  Steve slammed the laptop shut. "Okay, fine. Let's go." He wondered why he even bothered sometimes.

  * * *

  Steve's phone rang. "Hey." He double-checked the clock. It read 8:20.

  It was Phil. "Are you sitting down?"

  Steve hesitated before answering. "You know it's gonna be one of those days when you hear that."

  "Well, get ready for one of those days. I was at Jordan's yesterday, you know —"

  "The lead singer for Radish Conspiracy?"

  "Exactly."

  "And? Get to the point."

  "The band's no more. They broke up last night. Full-on meltdown."

  Steve bolted upright and shook himself awake. He briefly questioned whether he was dreaming, but knew it was a false hope. "What?" he howled. "Dude, they can't do this to me! I'm three weeks away from the video shoot. The recording session is this weekend!"

  "Steve, I know, but I can't do anything. They're done."

  "What the hell happened?"

  "Get this. Jordan learned last night his girlfriend Kara—you met her before, right?"

  "The Hailee Steinfeld lookalike?"

  "Yeah, well anyway, she was cheating on him. And that's not all."

  "Oh, God."

  "She declared vengeance. Jordan, it turns out, had been cheating on her with the manager's girlfriend. That revelation opened a whole can of worms. All the dirty laundry they'd swept under the rug spilled out. No one in the band was spared. Lucky they're not dead. You should have seen it. I wanted to call last night, but it was late."

  "This can't be happening. What am I supposed to do now? You told me they were a sure thing."

  "What's a sure thing in the music business? Roll with it, baby."

  "Roll with what? I've got jack. Where can I find replacements with no notice? It's too late to drop the course, and I've already blown half my budget on pre-pro." Steve tried calculating what it would take to salvage this disaster.

  "What's the deal with that Korean band you had the hots for?"

  "Aw, they hate me."

  "Why? What did you do?"

  "Nothing. I mean, I didn't pick them, so they took offense."

  "You're picking them now. It's not like you have options."

  "You should have seen the look on her face."

  "Sometimes, you have to resort to groveling in this business."

  "Easy to say when you're not the groveler."

  10

  Heather

  Heather felt like a secret agent skulking near the entrance to Amorphous Records. Grace called just as she was checking Instagram for inbound messages.

  "Feel like working on songs tonight?"

  "Love to, but I'm in Hollywood tracking down a potential addition to our group."

  "Look at Heather Moon calling the shots."

  "We can't pin our hopes on one guy, right?"

  "That's the spirit. So, who's the target?"

  "Get this. I was watching dance cover videos on YouTube the other day when I ran across a pretty good local group. One member, in particular, I'm thinking she's either an amateur with natural talent or has had training."

  "Go on."

  "Anyway, I discovered she debuted as a member of a K-Pop group four years ago. Have you heard of WeR5?"

  "That name sounds vaguely familiar."

  "They had a modest hit called 'Hummingbird.' Disbanded eventually. Not clear on the rest."

  "What's her specialty?"

  "That's the best part. She's a drummer."

  Further research revealed the girl's given name was Min-ji, but she used an alias in the States. Over the past week, Heather had sent many direct and indirect messages, but none were returned. Lacking other options, she felt inclined to take a more aggressive approach. On impulse, after Philosophy class was canceled, Heather drove to Hollywood to investigate in person.

  James Blake's "Where's the Catch?" blared on the record store's sound system as she entered. Heather approached the retail counter where a bearded, white, hipster-looking fellow sorted through a stack of documents. "Is Mindy here today?" she asked, shouting to be heard over the music.

  Instead of giving her a blank stare as she half expected, the guy responded without making eye contact, "She's on break. Try back in 20."

  Heather opted to pass the time by perusing the merchandise. The enormity of the store's offerings impressed her. She chose recent releases as a familiar starting p
oint. Though she never bought vinyl, the thought of accidentally stumbling upon hidden treasures in the store's vast bins intrigued her. She especially admired album art. The emphasis on presentation reminded her of the elaborate packaging most K-Pop albums came with.