A Chorus Rises

by Bethany C. Morrow

  The supposed love triangle involving the two friends and the gargoyle that perched on the Philipses’ home is easy enough to disregard as wish fulfillment, completely unsurprising to see in a movie with a teen protagonist and target audience. There are other events—the Camilla Fox protest for one, including a spectacularized version of the activist’s arrest being witnessed by an airborne Tavia—that seem to serve an agenda beyond entertainment. In a story about one of very few known sirens, that was the fear, and avoiding it should have been the film’s top priority. Instead, and as remarkably few reviews have noted, a story revolving around a heroic use of magical ability for the good of others drifts on more than one occasion into divisive politics that benefit few.

  This movie couldn’t have been released at a more opportune time. Portland—a city known for its progressively liberal ambience—is feeling particularly amorous. The fact that Awaken coincided with Awakening Day is no coincidence, it’s good marketing, and if all other critics didn’t seem so uniformly under Tavia Philips’s spell, perhaps its self-serving messaging wouldn’t be alarming. A movie’s just a movie, after all.

  Unless it isn’t.

  It’s no one’s intention to be alarmist, but a word of caution: there are two sides to every story. And if saying so is interpreted as discrimination because this particular story is about a siren? That is reason for alarm.

  Chapter IX

  NAEMA

  This is not about explaining myself. In the least. I didn’t to Priam, either, because whether there’s a movie with even a bastardized version of me in it or not, and despite the fact that I said I was gonna skip it, and regardless that I couldn’t care less about Tavia’s little rehabilitation narrative, I can also watch it if I so choose. Because—and I can’t stress this enough—I am the boss of me.

  But, to be clear, I meant what I said.

  I was going to skip it.

  I could not care less about Tavia’s thing.

  And there was no morbid curiosity about the Nina version of me.

  It did occur to me, though, that Tavia Philips was getting the star treatment, and not just from Hollywood types, or whoever slapped her story on the small screen.

  Her face has literally taken up residence on LOVE.

  Like a billboard for an audience of one, a banner ad promoting her movie showed up in my digital house. It isn’t bad enough she’s been on pretty much every local podcast, and her channel has eclipsed Camilla Fox’s numbers.

  This is officially aggression, and there’s nothing micro about it. Because for all the Black-tivist rhetoric, she doesn’t seem to have any issue with Portland pitting the two of us against each other. Two magical Black girls—thank God Effie disappeared, I guess—and only room enough for one.

  The 99 percent not capable of critically analyzing her have to choose which of us to adore now. Speaking of LOVE—since my account got scoured after prom and someone found every single time I supposedly cryptically dragged Tavia (or they thought I did), and since no one knew anything about her until her Awakening stunt, guess who comes out looking like the model minority?

  Let’s be clear: she felt unsafe enough to hide from them, she was terrorized by what the world has done to her kind, but their first introduction to her was in service of their children. She won them over with one very specific siren call, and with her noble act of forgiveness.

  She must have taken the high road, they’d assumed, otherwise she would have done something dangerous.

  It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t disgusting to watch.

  Tavia’s heroism hasn’t inspired anyone to look closely at the society that made her hide. Nope. They’ve instead decided to just treat her like a heroine, and that apparently makes everything all better. They’ll listen to her speak, even invite her to do it, but the listening is clearly all they’re willing to do.

  And what does Ms. I Rise do in the face of them celebrating her while making zero commitments to Dismantle Oppressive Systems, like she’s always preaching about now?

  She smiles. She waves, and she appears, and she shows up for hair and makeup.

  Fine. Most of the time.

  What’s super cute is how I know they’d act surprised that I see through it all, her and Effie. Like being Eloko means I wouldn’t. Like—well let’s just call a thing a thing: they always acted like being Eloko means I’m not Black. Or that I don’t want to be.

  I don’t have to say this, but I am, and I do, and I see through it.

  So I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s all gone to her head. Maybe she needs someone to make her a better person. Because that’s what trauma does, isn’t it? Isn’t that what it did for me? Opened my eyes to the truth about my city and my magic?

  According to Professor Vesper-Holmes, I don’t have the kind of power Tavia wielded, but I do have the truth. I do have the moral high ground, whether anybody knows it or not. Because I’ve spent years protecting a siren, only to have the ingrate refuse to come clean.

  So I’m gonna tell them myself. I’m gonna finally let the whole world know who she really is, and I plan on being very careful to clarify. Not All Sirens. Just one.

  Just Tavia Philips.

  And since I’m Darren Bradshaw’s daughter, I know you don’t offer on a piece of property without getting comps. Which, for you bagless non-ballers, means you figure out the stats on other properties in the area. It’s called due diligence, and it meant if I’m gonna pitch my own movie—

  Did I mention that? That the natural clapback is to land my own movie and tell the part of Tavia’s story she left out?

  Keep up.

  —then I need to know what’s already on the market. Reviews are fine, but I need to see for myself.

  So. Awake. Or Friendship Is Magic: The Effie and Tavia Story, and chill, or whatever.

  Let’s just start off right away with how trite and uninventive it is to pretend Tavia and Effie were ugly ducklings. Because, yawn. And it wasn’t even like that. Sure, Effie was the quiet type, when she wasn’t blurting out snark and then pretending she was an innocent and wilting daisy struggling to bloom with the help of her protective sister, who all along thought she needed protecting, imagine that, and isn’t your heart getting physically warm?

  Super fictitious triad romance part aside, there’s the whole gargoyle sentry subplot, which, to no one’s surprise, Tavia thought had to do with her. Whoops, that was an Effie/gorgon thing, girl, sorry. It ain’t all about you. Which I feel like I literally told her once, but that didn’t make it into the movie. Imagine.

  While we’re on the subject of the gargoyle/gorgon connection, and Things They Clearly Fictionalized, the whole Renaissance faire thing was a nice tie-in, but it was a bit tidy. The way they turned the lore into Effie’s origin story, and created a long-lost father character who also chiseled her community pool boyfriend from stone? I mean. Dope. But also hard to believe her corny hobby played that big a role, not that that’s stopped anyone from visiting the Hidden Scales. The local news even did a segment inside the tent, despite the fact that it was pretty underwhelming. A rickety table, and a ledger, or something, and mist.

  If there was a portal in there, I didn’t see it.

  And yes, there was Nina. A Walking Identity Crisis With Relaxed Hair foil character to Tavia’s authentic naturalista. And wearing our hair straight is precisely where the similarities end. In the movie, Nina doesn’t have a life or crew or shred of an original thought of her own. She’s the completely one-dimensional, inexplicably salty high school nemesis that movies and TV shows insist exist in real life. She isn’t Eloko, she isn’t in the network, and she doesn’t see through Tavia Philips’s Pretty Little Sad Girl, No One Cares Except All The Folks Sworn To Ride For Me routine. In fact, it’s why the prom scene makes absolutely negative sense.

  In the movie, Nina rolls up on the intrepid sisters in the courtyard—which, fine, that part sort of happened, except it was just Effie and her boyfriend, and I was just making not completely friendly con
versation—and she’s flanked by a previously unintroduced entourage of about a half dozen kids—which, nope, because I don’t ever roll that deep—and she outs Tavia’s sirenness based on receipts she inexplicably came upon off camera and has never had verified. It would have made slightly more sense if the Nina character had been presented as Queen Bey of Beckett or somesuch, but she wasn’t. She was just the half-baked antagonist who scowled or sneered anytime the camera caught her so the audience knew she was The One To Hate.

  So Nina catwalk-struts up to Tavia and Effie, phone already recording, and announces: Tavia’s a siren!

  And then the whole of Beckett High’s junior class immediately believes her, and they all start demanding that Tavia tell them the truth, and the camera circles an overwhelmed and Barely Keeping It Together teenage girl beset by scoffers, and we whirl around and around because that’s how you know the pressure’s building, until bam!

  It happens.

  Tavia opens her mouth, and the most beautiful, melodic, yet frighteningly powerful siren call erupts from her lungs, and not only does Effie sprout a tail, and Everybody’s Boyfriend sprouts gray skin and wings—while remaining largely gorgeous, which is a complete fiction, because his gargoyle form was not for the faint of heart—but Tavia herself does like a whole Now My Skin Glows And Also I’m Wearing Makeup. Because if there’s no glow-up, is this even a poorly conceived high school movie?

  Lies on lies on lies, basically, but somehow I’m through it and when the credits roll, I don’t shut it off and throw my laptop the way I want to. Instead I write down the names of the producers and affiliated companies, and start researching. I discover that the name with the most traction online is Leona Fowl, a producer whose credit is admittedly near the bottom of the list. And whose name sounds either like a Portland-famous band with an ironic lack of women in it or the name of a little girl taking over for Veruca Salt in an unauthorized sequel.

  Aaand when I find her on social media, it isn’t pretty. There’s a boring Corporate Networker profile that I don’t bother looking at, because I’m seventeen, and then there’s a Bicker profile that she hasn’t used in about four-plus years … but hasn’t actually deleted. In her defense, she’s deleted her profile picture, and four years ago maybe people still thought things could actually get lost on the internet, never to be found again? Whoops.

  She clearly did not understand how to use Bicker. Of the dozen Bites she sent—all in the same two-week span—ten of them are to viral personalities and read like an old relative who doesn’t know they’re not sending a private message.

  “Hi [insert handle], my name is Leona Fowl and I’m a producer with It Doesn’t Matter. I loved your [article/Bite/who cares] and would love to talk about sharing your story more widely. Email me at [She Really Posted Her Email In A Public Bite, She’s Precious].”

  I would write her off as mediocre if I didn’t hate Bicker to begin with, and if upon checking her IMDB page, she hadn’t had a major professional glow-up in the four years since that embarrassingly thirsty display. Clearly she’s figured out how to get what she wants, because despite being low in Tavia’s credits, she has a slew of other credits and projects, and an increasing number of appearances in articles and press releases. All of which I assume means she’s doing the thing.

  And since I don’t have an email address for anyone else …

  Dear Leona Fowl.

  Get at me.

  * * *

  Priam is still acting like a brat when we get to Oaks Park. I’m trying to be okay with the cold wafting off him, even during the couples’ skate while I skate backward so we can pretend it’s “prom on wheels.” But while we glide across the hardwood, our hair floating on our wind, we just look at each other. The main lights abruptly go dark and the colorful ones sweep over our skin, and the music dares our voices to try to compete, but I don’t ask what’s bothering him, or where he was earlier in the day, or why he’s so hurt that I watched the movie.

  Or why I should be okay with something having to do with Tavia Philips hurting him in the first place.

  When the love song ends, and I push off a little so that the space between us grows, but not in a way that an amateur skater like Priam would notice, it’s meant to seem like inertia. But maybe our eye contact is too constant for that. His expression doesn’t change, and eventually I give up on pretense and just smoothly rotate on one quad, going solo so I can twist and twirl when I want to.

  I get it; not everybody did ballet and figure skating, and some people really can’t figure out how to navigate eight wheels and still look like they invented grace. But I can’t say it doesn’t get old having to hide that you can, just to have a partner.

  Plus the new beat is too dope to waste. Upside-Down Portland, and its alternate version of my doting boyfriend, will still be there when the song ends, and I have to decide exactly how much I’m leaving behind when I get on the plane tomorrow. In the meantime, I loosen up, feel my shoulders start to roll, let all my weight drop into my seat, and weave my legs in and out of each other as I take the turn faster than anyone else. I whip around and groove backward so the other skaters can’t help but watch me, my eyes closed for a moment before I have to start checking over my shoulder. Naturally, I work the glances into my dance so it looks like I’m more than just flawless, more than just graceful and rhythmic and impossible to imitate.

  Because maybe being Eloko doesn’t come with a cinematic power like Tavia and Effie have. Maybe it doesn’t mean having a sixth sense, or knowing when to weave, or how to take back the spotlight. But maybe that’s what being Naema means.

  Listen. Sometimes you’ve gotta remind folks who tf you are.

  Half a dozen songs later, I’m sweating, but working it. I laugh at the smiles I gather, and sweep the strands of hair that’ve fallen loose from my high ponytail back up, knowing they’ll drift right back down. I’m not a naturalista like Tavia and her sister, so I’m not supposed to like the way my relaxed hair gets slick and limp when damp, but I do.

  Patting my face and neck, I wave off my admirers before I make the transition from wood to carpet look like a breeze and leave the rink.

  A year after Awakening to a city that can’t decide if I’m a misbehaving Eloko, or a mean girl who doesn’t get to be one anymore, I’m still giving them a show. And when they’re not behind a keyboard trying to prove just how righteously outraged they are that anyone could mistreat a siren—because they certainly never did—they’re still eager to receive it.

  Jamie spun around in the center of the rink with me while we lip-synched a song or two, before she and the rest of the group set up shop in the concession area. I find their table and plop down next to a very quiet Priam, while Gavin makes the girls laugh so hard Girlfriend threatens to pee herself and instead spit-takes all over the buffet array of roller rink nachos, hot dogs, and licorice ropes.

  Adorbs.

  As soon as she darts off to the bathroom, face and chest bright pink, I turn to Gavin.

  “What is it with you and these tourists?”

  “I don’t understand the question,” he lies.

  “Why would you want to date someone who’s only gonna be in town for the summer?” Jamie asks.

  “If that,” Priam interjects, suddenly remembering how to form words with his mouth.

  “Because,” Gavin says, calmly. “Then I can date someone else after the summer. If that.”

  Jamie grimace-pouts, and Gavin laughs, poking one of her cheeks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, through an exhale. “I don’t think that’s very nice.”

  “Oop.” Jamie pokes him back and they carry on.

  “Still sulking?” I elbow Priam before kissing his cheek. He glances at me but doesn’t answer. “You need to fix your face. I gave you a minute to get it together. You can’t insist I spend time with you and then be a spoilsport, Preemie.”

  I love a good nickname of a nickname, especially when it’s also an arguably unintentional barb.

/>   “Why do you care if I watched it anyway?” I ask, after dropping my voice.

  “Can you guys give us a minute?” he says, at full volume. So much for keeping it discreet.

  “Yeah, can we finally go skate, please?” Jamie exclaims, like it was her idea. I pretend she annoys me, but I do love her. Some people live for the dramatic showdowns, but Jamie is forever happily interjecting with a distraction—even if she has to fake the happy.

  When the two of them leave the table and pick up a returning Girlfriend, Priam turns toward me, pulling his knee up onto the bench so I have to skootch back.

  “Okay,” I say. “So why are you pissy?”

  “I didn’t watch it because I knew you wouldn’t like it,” he says.

  “Thank you.”

  Which isn’t the answer he wants, so we just stare at each other for a moment before he starts again. “So why did you?”

  “Because as the one who was going to be misrepresented, I didn’t think I needed permission to see just how badly.” I mean that wasn’t the reason, but it would’ve been a good one.

  “So you wanted to see what they told the film people about you, and what you did.”

  “Yes, Priam.”

  “Well, so did I.”

  “Okay, fine, watch it. It’s on demand, be free.” I roll my eyes, and when they return to him, he’s looking off to the side and biting the inside of his lip. “What, is that not what you wanted? I’m saying you can watch it, and I won’t be upset.”

  “I don’t want to watch it, Ny, I. I want you to tell me if it’s in there.”

  “If … what?” And why are his eyes glassy all of a sudden.