by Proehl, Bob
“What’s this?” Miquel asks.
“Arthur Russell,” Carrie says. “He’s good.”
The song fills the room with negative space pinpricked with cello and horns. Carrie waits for Miquel to say something smart-alecky about whether this even counts as music, but he doesn’t. He listens, and she wonders if he hears the same magic in the song she does.
“It’s good,” he says as the song fades. “Sad somehow.”
“Yeah,” Carrie says. When she’s high, she flickers. It’s difficult to keep a clear picture of herself. She starts to think of herself as an echo, the idea of herself more vague until she’s in her resting state: barely perceptible. The next song starts, and her heart speeds up because she’s secretly thought of it as their song and it feels like Miquel will know. “I should get ready for class,” she says. “I’ve got History of Revolutionary Thought with No-Fun Novak.”
“Get ready how?” he asks. “You look great. Want to hang out here? I’ve got a free period anyway.”
“I guess,” Carrie says, trying to sound casual. First period is breakfast, but upperclassmen use the unsupervised time for sleeping, fucking, and recreational drug use. Wanna come over first? is a crude pickup line at Bishop. Miquel asking her to stay carries an implication even if it’s there only because Carrie wants it to be. She examines the stuccoed ceiling, each little stalactite of it looking as if it might drip down onto her.
“You’re not angry anymore,” Miquel says.
“Don’t do that,” she says, blushing. “It’s as bad as Waylon.” Sometimes Carrie works so hard to keep how she feels from Miquel. Other times it’s like she’s silently screaming at him, wanting him to hear.
“Waylon goes into people’s heads,” he says. “That’s fucked up. This is how I see. You were all red when you came in. Now you’re like a light orange. Sad, a little. Like this song.”
When Miquel is high, he takes deep breaths and blows them out like he’s thinking the deepest thoughts. His breath is out of sync with the music. She likes listening to him breathe. She thinks of his chest rising and falling, and it seems impossible that he doesn’t know what she’s feeling, that she hasn’t turned the neon equivalent of whatever color Miquel sees as desire, want.
“I should go find the reporter,” she says. Ask me to stay, she thinks. Keep me here with you.
“You should,” says Miquel.
“I don’t know what to say if I find him,” Carrie says.
Miquel lets out one more deep breath, and Carrie can almost feel it passing through the air between them, through the stink of Waylon’s mattress and into her lungs, filling her with calm, confidence.
“Tell him something that only you could know, that only you could tell him,” Miquel says. “Tell him what it feels like not to be seen.”
* * *
—
Third period, and the reporter is visiting Sarah Davenport’s Artistic Expression class in the black box theater on the fifth floor. Carrie knows because Hayden told her. Not to make Carrie jealous but in a sincere effort to help with whatever Carrie has planned. Sometimes Carrie pretends she’s resentful of Hayden because Hayden is prettier, more confident. Because Hayden makes music and Carrie just consumes it. But the resentment isn’t real. Hayden is someone else to imagine being, but only because Hayden imagined themselves into someone better to begin with.
She sneaks in before anyone else arrives and takes a seat by the door. There are two microphones set up in the center of a circle of chairs, along with a stereo on a cart and the odd collection of AV equipment that accumulates in any room that isn’t regularly used. Carrie has Sarah for Psychic Defense last period, and she knows there’s a risk that Sarah will spot her mind in the room. Carrie pushes herself way down, basically invisible. Invisibility is a strain. It’s like screaming I’M NOT HERE I’M NOT HERE I’M NOT HERE as loudly as you possibly can. The cloud of weed lingers in her brain, and she flickers back into visibility every now and then.
A dozen students file in, and Carrie recognizes each of them, even the younger kids she’s never spoken to. Bishop isn’t that big, and they’re all trapped in one building together. An island floating in the middle of Manhattan.
There’s Isidra Gonzales from Carrie’s year. She makes metal sculptures that respond to touch, or time, or light. They’re made of a silvery substance Isidra literally spits up from her guts. Last semester, she made a semi–perpetual motion sculpture: shiny silver koi that circled the fountain in the front lobby for two weeks before slowing like a dying watch and losing definition. By the end of a month, amorphous blobs of mercury traced a zombie circle in the water, then sank.
Darren and Lynette Helms, twins, both with the same jet-black, ruler-straight hair, file in behind Isidra. They’re arguing about their weekend plans, something involving skiing. The Helmses come from money, and their parents are both Resonants. Lynette is sort of useless, but Darren is actively the worst. He’s a drinking habit away from committing date rape. They’re a year ahead of Carrie. After fifth year, students can opt to leave or can stay for two “postgrad” years. She hopes if one of the Helmses decides to stay, the other one will leave. The best thing Lynette could do is to get far away from her brother.
Maya Patel is a third-year, a heavy-set Indian girl. She speaks only when absolutely necessary. Ask her a question and the image of the answer appears in your head, stamped on your thoughts like a photo negative. Neal Byrd, pale and spotted with acne, doesn’t talk to anyone either. He goes directly to a pile of scrap metal in the corner and begins spinning a piece of rebar by twirling his finger at it, but Maya snaps at him and he lets it clatter to the ground. Jovan Markovic is a second-year and can make slightly amorphous shapes out of water.
Jonathan Mazur comes in with Hayden Cohen. Half the kids at Bishop believe Jonathan and Hayden are not just fucking, not just dating, but destined to be one of those star couples you see in magazines. He’s good-looking in an outdated way. Seventies hot, like a low-rent Jim Morrison. Long, wavy hair, bronze skin, and thick lips. In the cleft of his Paisley silk shirt, a triangle of bright orange throbs in time with his pulse. He has to wear heavy turtleneck sweaters whenever he leaves the academy to cover it up.
And there’s Hayden, Carrie’s roommate for the last three years. It makes sense that someone who could look like anyone would look like Hayden. Their beauty comes off as effortless because it’s the result of so much effort. Hayden’s ability is constantly engaged for the purpose of, as Hayden puts it, keeping up appearances. Hayden winks at Carrie as they come in. Hayden can always find Carrie no matter how far down Carrie tries to hide.
Once the whole class is seated, Sarah arrives. Behind her, the reporter and his kid, who’s got Sarah’s dog, Cortex, trotting along with her. When Carrie first got here, she assumed Cortex was a service animal: one of those dogs that can smell an oncoming seizure or an emotional support dog. Waylon says the dog’s like an external hard drive but then won’t explain what the fuck that even means. It follows Sarah everywhere. The kid is vigorously petting Cortex, which none of the students are allowed to do.
The reporter is not that impressive. Carrie and Miquel had tried to imagine him, thinking he’d look either like Robert Redford in All the President’s Men or like Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men. The latter was closer to the mark. He looks like he used to be muscled and let himself go. Dad bod, thinks Carrie, even though it’s one of those awful phrases adults come up with to sound like teenagers. She tries to guess his age, but mostly what she notices is that he looks stunned, as if he’s been smacked. She thinks of reporters as having a keen eye, but Avi’s eyes are wide, trying to take in everything at once but unable to. When he smiles, it’s too taut to be genuine.
Sarah calls the class to attention with a golf clap. She comes from money, too, although she doesn’t reek of it the way the Helmses do. Sometimes she comes off like the
matron at a finishing school.
“Today we have some guests,” she says. “This is Avi Hirsch; he’s a reporter with…” She turns and looks at Avi.
“Freelance,” Avi says. Sarah looks at him like he’s used the soup spoon to stir his tea. She’s such a priss.
“He’s a noted reporter,” she says, putting weight on the word to see if it holds up. Unsatisfied, she adds, “Award-winning.” This pleases her, and she moves on. “As you know, there’s been an initiative to go public about the existence of people like us. Mr. Hirsch has been asked to help us with that. He may write about the academy, but he won’t be revealing any personal details of students or any details about its location. We want you all to know that you’re safe here.”
Carrie lets out an annoyed burst of breath loudly enough that Lynette looks over at where she is to see where the sound came from. Bishop goes through all this effort to instill pride in who they are, to make the students feel good about being different, and then hides them from the whole world. It’s hypocritical bullshit, done in the name of safety.
“And this,” says Sarah, “is Avi’s daughter, Emmeline. Emmeline is a Resonant, which some of you may have sensed. She’s new to all this, so I hope you’ll welcome her and make her feel that she’s found a home here.”
The students, who nodded and mumbled when Avi Hirsch was introduced, all say warm and cheerful hellos to Emmeline. She smiles back, then shrinks into Avi’s side. She’s so young. Carrie has never heard of someone that young resonating. She has dark skin and amazing corkscrew curls, and her eyes are like pale ice. From behind her father’s leg, she looks right at Carrie. Emmeline holds eye contact with her, then hides again.
“Today we have presentations,” Sarah explains to Avi and Emmeline. “In this class, we work on ways to use our abilities to express creativity. So much of what we do at the academy involves teaching essentials.” Sarah puts the word in air quotes and rolls her eyes. “Control. Defense. But it’s important that students engage their full selves not as Resonants but as human beings.”
This line is so overused, it’s become a joke among the students. Any time students use their ability to do something they could just as easily have done without it, someone else will rag on them for failing to engage their full selves.
“Now,” Sarah says. “I think Hayden and Jonathan have a song for us.”
Hayden and Jonathan go to the center of the room to a smattering of applause. Jonathan intently tunes while Hayden adjusts the mic. When Hayden and Carrie first met, Hayden was into pure pop music, and their interest in being a singer had as much to do with fame as it did with music. Hayden and Carrie found a few singers they both liked, and once Hayden got a sense of how into music Carrie was, they adopted Carrie as their personal tour guide. The only trouble with them was that they wanted to try emulating everything as soon as they heard it, not giving it a chance to sink in. Lately, they’d been listening to a lot of early Leonard Cohen and writing songs with the same murky cadences. There was such a sonorous quality to Hayden’s voice that even their strained metaphors seemed deep. It was as if Hayden shaped their vocal cords into a perfect instrument, an internal echo of their physical attractiveness.
“That was great, Hayden,” Sarah says when the song is done. “Really lovely. And because I wanted to give you a little taste of how abilities and the arts can intersect, Lynette has something for us.”
Lynette Helms stands up.
“I have something, too,” her twin brother, Darren, shouts. It’s awful enough that Lynette has a brother as unlikable as Darren, but Darren hangs on her like a stink. He has no interest in artistic expression. He’s here to make sure Lynette doesn’t have a moment she can enjoy. She has no female friends at the academy. None of the girls are willing to put up with Darren. Lynette doesn’t say anything. She walks to the middle of the room and stands with perfect, practiced posture.
“Since I knew we’d be having guests today,” she says, giving a little bow toward Avi and Emmeline, “I wanted to do something that would involve all of us.”
“Get on with it, Lynnie,” says Darren. The corner of Lynette’s mouth twitches, but she carries on. She turns to Avi and frowns. She looks like she’s about to tell him he has cancer.
“I should say, though, Mr. Hirsch,” she says, “I’ve never tried this with a…”
“A Damp?” says Darren.
“Darren, that’s enough,” Sarah says sharply. Darren smirks. Carrie watches Avi. Even if he doesn’t know the word, he knows what it means. There’s an instant understanding when someone calls you a name meant to tell you you’re other, less.
Lynette produces a stack of note cards from her pocket and hands them out. Carrie stands up and looks over Maya’s shoulder. Hers says VIOLIN.
“What about me?” Emmeline asks. She hasn’t been given one.
“Your part is the most important,” says Lynette, smiling. “I need everyone to think about their card. You can think about the word, or you can imagine the instrument or how it sounds. It shouldn’t matter which.” She goes over to Emmeline. “Emmeline, since you’re our guest, you get to pick the song. Think of it in your head.” Emmeline closes her eyes. “You got it? Okay, I’m going to…” Lynette puts her hands on Emmeline’s head. Carrie’s head floods with music, a descending line played on the violin she has pictured. It catches her off guard, and she flickers visibly. She fights the urge to hum along.
“She’s gotten into your record collection,” Sarah says to Avi. “Or mine.” She’s smiling, and her eyes are closed, so she can’t see how frustrated Avi looks. He strains to hear whatever’s written on his card. He must be visualizing the instrument, imagining the sound of it, but getting nothing. Lynette opens one eye. Her shoulders slump.
“You can’t hear it, can you?” she says to him. “I’m so sorry. Here.” She crosses the room and turns on one of the three stereos. It’s an old silver tank like the one Carrie’s dad has back in Deerfield, Illinois. It comes alive with static. Lynette lays her hand on it, and at her touch it blasts noise. “Dammit,” she mutters. “Levels.” She closes her eyes again. The noise takes shape just as the song hits its swell, spinning off into orbit as an astronaut speaks back to ground control across a void. Even without the lyrics, with the melody line rendered by a tenor saxophone, it rings of spacemen and glitter.
“Nice choice, Leener,” Avi says, looking around, embarrassed. He ruffles his daughter’s hair. Emmeline smiles at him, but there’s a sad quality to it. She’s thrilled with what she’s seen, and Lynette was smart to choose a manifestation of her ability that let the girl be a part of it. Along with the excitement of realizing she’s like these other kids, there’s the understanding that her father is not, can’t be. She’s found her place in the world, but it means she’ll have to leave him behind. He must know that, too. Carrie wonders how long he’s known that the kid is a Resonant. She’s glad things went the way they did with her abilities and her parents. She faded out of their minds, as if they’d heard a song called “Carrie” on the radio once and hummed it for a little while, then forgot it.
“That was very interesting, Lynette,” says Sarah. “And your transfer to electronics has gotten much stronger.” Lynette smiles, delighted by the teacherly praise. Darren stands. He has no intention of letting her enjoy the moment.
“Mine’s better,” he says. “Want to see?”
“Darren,” says Sarah, “today is not the day.”
“Lynette got to do her party trick,” Darren whines. “Hayden got to sing his little song.”
“Fuck you, Darren,” Hayden says.
“Pass, thanks,” Darren says. “I have something I want to share. I think I should be able to express myself.”
Sarah is about to come down on Darren, but Avi, without any context for what’s happening, says, “It’s fine.” Fidgeting in her anger, Sarah spins a finger in the air
to indicate that Darren should make it fast. He struts to the front of the room and turns on one of the televisions. He draws a full breath into his chest, ready to proclaim. At that moment, Emmeline raises her hand and clears her throat. Darren deflates.
“May I go to the bathroom?” Emmeline asks. Carrie smiles. It’s possible the girl needs to go, but she timed her request exactly to poke a hole in Darren’s moment. The reporter might not be much, but the kid was all right.
“Of course,” Sarah says. “Cortex will show you the way.”
This must be exactly what Emmeline hoped for, and she follows the dog out of the room. On her way out, she reaches out her little hand and rests it, just for a moment, on Carrie’s. Carrie jumps, visible for a flicker, but the kid is gone before Carrie can read anything off her face. Darren puffs his chest back up and begins.
“I’ve been working on 3D projection,” he says. “It’s tough, because video is already so much more information than audio.” He shoots Lynette a withering look. “And for 3D you need two different camera angles. You need to find two people with a shared experience. I’ve been fishing around, and I finally found one.” He smiles, a terrible wolf grin. “Jovan and Maya have an experience they’ve shared.”
Jovan and Maya go pale as an image appears on the screen. It’s fuzzy but resolves, rising out of the static the way Lynette’s song did. It’s a hand stroking an erect penis, seen from above.
“This is Maya jerking Jovan off,” Darren says. He sounds like he’s narrating a nature video. “The reason I chose it is they must have their heads very close to each other. Like, Maya is sitting right next to him in his dorm room and stroking him off. But there’s enough distance between the two points of view that you get this great depth of field. Wait till he comes; it’s like it’s shooting right at you.”
The class reacts with a mixture of shock and giggles. Carrie doesn’t join in. She thinks about sneaking up to the front of the class and punching Darren Helms right in the dick. Hayden’s already on their feet, about to do just that, when Sarah shuts the television off and turns on Darren. “You think it’s funny using your abilities against people who can’t defend themselves?” She reaches out, rests her fingertips on his forehead. Her eyes glaze over with a milky whiteness, and Darren’s whole body shudders. His posture straightens, and he turns to the class.