by Maya Rock
Mobile cameras? Does that mean there will be fewer crickets slinking around? Increased camera coverage would explain the cameras in the school bathrooms. I groan aloud. I hope they don’t install them at home too.
• • •
I sign the leather-bound Hidehall visitor’s register. Under Visitee, I write my grandmother’s name, Violet Starling. It’s so nice that we share the last name, unlike Mom and I. Media1 has some algorithm they use to distribute last names around the island, so it’s not uncommon for parents and children to have different ones.
“I’ll let Violet know you’re here,” Tula the receptionist says. She picks up the telephone and rings my grandmother, tilting her mouth from the receiver so her dark red lipstick stays untouched. “She’s ready.” Tula gestures toward the hall on her left.
“Thanks.” I swing my arms as I walk through the mansion. Here there’s no pressure. Smooth, slow, serene Hidehall. Pressed flowers and photographs of the island line the dark-wood-paneled walls. Expansive windows look out onto the long, still lake and the brown-green sliver of the Brambles in the distance. Orderlies float by, dressed in the liberato uniform: puffy blouses and flowing skirts for the women and light linen pants for men.
“Nettie, my most beloved grandchild,” Violet cries from her royal-purple velvet armchair as I step inside her apartment at the corner of the first floor.
“Your only grandchild.” I smile, sadness twinging me. She used to be able to get up to greet me. As I bend and hug her, I can feel her fragility. Time has stamped her: it’s in her sunken cheeks and the wrinkles of her moon-shaped face. But her jet-black ringlets, dyed religiously, are the same as ever, as is the bright scoop-necked dress that displays her cleavage. No liberato for her. Hidehall arranges bused shopping excursions downtown around the motif change time, but Violet never gets on.
Her dress is on the ostentatious side, and so is her room. Paintings, most by Violet herself, crowd the walls. Each piece of furniture is upholstered in velvets and chenilles. Knickknacks compete for space on the white lacquered shelves. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that someone with her opulent—some might say garish—sense of style ever made a living as a portrait painter, but she’s assured me that she knew how to “tone it down for customers.”
“Only and most beloved grandchild,” she says as I sit in the hard-backed chair across from her and next to an open window. “How’s your mother? Are you looking forward to the game tomorrow?”
“She’s fine. Yeah, a little.” A lot. I loved watching Callen pitch the opening game last season, and I can’t wait to have an excuse to look at him again.
“How’s the apprenticeship?”
“The same.” I’ve told her about my problems at Fincher’s, but I don’t want to hash it out again, so I just leave it at that. I stare up at the intricate ceiling moldings, wishing I could tell Violet about the Character Report but not wanting to risk the chance that her mind will start wandering and she’ll talk about it on-mic. We used to frall a lot, but it’s become too dangerous.
“Did you get your dress for the Double A yet?”
“No, Selwyn and I are going to go shopping soon.” Thinking about Selwyn reminds me of Lincoln whispering Initiative to Revere at lunch when she brought up the tattoo. My skin prickles. Selwyn would never do something like that on her own. The tattoo might be a suggestion. She’d do anything for the cello apprenticeship.
“Fantastic. That girl has great taste.” She scans me up and down, but doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. I know my jumper is way too subdued for her. “Any boys around? Since Witson?”
“No, no one new.” I never told Violet about Callen because I knew she’d just urge me to, like, seduce him behind Lia’s back. I spot a new watercolor on the wall behind her chair, depicting a cardinal and a bluebird at the feeder located right outside the window next to me. “This one’s plus ten.”
“Yes, I think that painting came out well,” she says, poking her head up over the chair to look at it with me. “Birds are hard to get right, because they’re so quick. Even a tiny painting takes so many studies.”
Something looks off about the painting, though, and it takes me a second to figure it out.
“Wait, would a cardinal and a bluebird share a feeder?” I ask, sitting back down. “Aren’t bluebirds really shy?” Because of all the trees, the Arbor’s full of birds, so I’ve done some casual bird-watching at home. I’ve seen bluebirds flit away at the sight of a shadow.
Violet bursts out laughing across from me, her shoulders quivering against her chair’s plump cushions.
“What?” I say, stung.
“You notice all the details no one else sees, Nettie,” she says softly, reaching over and patting my knee with her bejeweled hand. A few seconds pass, and her brown eyes glaze and lose focus. I tense.
“Hart’s the same way,” she says.
I keep a stiff smile on my face. “Do you want me to make some tea? You have honey here, right?” I hurry to the small kitchenette.
“Where is Hart?” she asks behind me.
I ignore her, moving faster and humming, hoping to mash the audiotrack. I yank open a cabinet just as a cricket barges into the room. Startled, I back into the wall, still clutching the kettle.
Youngish, with pimples clouding his cheeks, the cricket storms over to my grandmother and glares down at her.
“You can’t talk about Patriots,” he growls. “That’s breaking Clause 56. You’re getting a fine.”
“I don’t understand,” Violet says. “Is something wrong with Hart?” She looks up at the cricket, begging him to answer.
The cricket grabs her shoulder. “Stop talking. You’re making the fine worse.”
I put the kettle down and run over. “Stop! She’s not doing it on purpose, she’s just—she’s not all there anymore.” I pray she doesn’t get a fine. She can’t afford one. It’s not like Hidehall denizens are impoverished—Media1 pays most of their housing and food costs, and they have savings and ratings payments, but they still don’t make as much as people with jobs.
The cricket doesn’t look at me, but he releases her shoulder. Violet slumps as if he’s squeezed the life out of her.
“Do you understand?” he spits. His face is flushed, and his eyes are burning into her.
“What?” Violet lifts her head, but her pupils are unfocused, and she’s speaking out into space.
“Do you understand?” the cricket repeats, placing his hand on the arm of her chair and lunging forward so he’s less than an inch away from her face.
“Yes.” She squints, and I know she’s surfacing again. “Oh, dear,” she says. “Nettie?”
“I’m here. It’s okay,” I say from behind the cricket, but she doesn’t seem to hear me. Thankfully, he marches out the room, and Violet seems frozen. The only sign of life is her wrinkled hand clenching the arm of her chair.
“I’m going to make the tea.” I shakily walk over to the stove. I’ve only actually seen crickets break into scenes to stop Characters from fralling once or twice in my life.
Violet remains quiet, and her eyes have gone distant again. My hands tremble slightly as I turn the burner on.
“What kind do you want?” I call out over my shoulder. She doesn’t reply. “Lemon it is!” I declare brightly. I watch her as I fetch the tea bags from the cabinet. She gazes blankly at my empty chair for a minute or two, then a scuffling sound from outside rouses her—birds at the feeder. She blinks, once, twice, tilting her head toward the window, then calling over her shoulder to me.
“Nettie?” she says in a muddled sort of way. “Did I? Oh, my. Another fuzzy moment.”
“Yeah, I think so,” I say lightly. The kettle goes off, and I quickly prepare the tray, eager to bring some normalcy back to the scene.
When I reenter the room, she’s gotten up and is peering out the window at th
e feeder. “Tula bought me a charming book on local wildlife. Take a look.” She points to a book on her bureau, then waddles back to her chair.
I set the tray down and fetch the book, Blissful Nature, while she sits and pours the tea.
“Pretty,” I say, flopping back onto the chair and looking at the book’s line drawings of island flora and fauna. The truth is I can hardly pay attention. I’m overwhelmed by guilt and anger because of what just happened. I wish I’d told Violet to stop talking when she brought up my father’s name. Why had the cricket been so mean to her? Was that part of the Initiative?
When we’re done with the tea, I leave, taking the book with me at Violet’s insistence. I walk down the hall and see the pimply cricket with three others, outside a bathroom that’s being rewired for cameras. I have to ball my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.
“Can’t read the Contract,” he says. Maybe it’s because I had to listen to Luz talk fast this morning, but I can understand him clearly as he speedmurmurs to his friends, a smug smile on his face. The anger in me amplifies. I try staring at the floor, not wanting to look at them, and I see keys, wallets, and sunglasses spilled out next to a toolbox.
“Stupid puppets,” a different one says, with a deeper voice.
Crack. I tread on the sunglasses, hard. The crickets fall silent, and I wish I could turn around and see their astonished faces, but that would be against the Contract, so I keep walking, smiling to myself.
Chapter 8
“We’ll reach the stadium faster if we cut across the field,” I say, climbing over the wooden fence before Lia can protest. She follows me, breaking away from the scores of Characters streaming from the Tram station to the stadium.
I survey the field, a vacant plot of land in the Granary, near the stadium. Camerapoles shoot up every dozen feet or so, and it takes me a few seconds to spot a patch of grass out of their range. “Let me show you this . . . flower.” I pull Lia over to the spot. Once I’ve moved us out of view, she scours the grass, intent on finding the nonexistent flower, until I nudge her sneaker—red-laced, in honor of the Ants—and she looks up.
“I had the rescheduled Report, yesterday morning. It’s official. I’m in the Initiative now,” I mouth.
She smiles and mouths, “Awesome. This is just what you needed.”
“Yeah, it’s good, definitely,” I say, struggling to come up with the right way to word this, knowing I can’t spend too much time off-camera and off-mic. “But Luz asked me to—”
“You spoke with the Real in charge of the Initiative? What was he like?” Lia cocks her head to the side like she did while trying to coax Mollie’s name out of Lincoln.
“Well. He’s sort of nerdy.” She’s paying close attention, and I draw it out, enjoying lording my insider’s knowledge over her. “Young. Enthusiastic.”
“Wow, you spent a lot of time with him.” Lia crosses her arms, ruffled. “Bek said that Luz wasn’t meeting with any Characters one-on-one.”
“Yeah, he said I was the only one. Because he’s a fan of mine,” I say. Seeing her expression curdle stops me. “But his first suggestion, it’s odd.”
“Spit it out,” Lia commands, her face hard and her arms still folded.
“He wants me to flirt with Callen,” I say, shrugging apologetically. “They’ll give me the math apprenticeship if I do.” I feel a lump in my throat, the same one I get when I lie. But it’s not a lie, I argue to myself.
“Flirt with Callen?” Lia repeats. She twines her braid in her hand. “The way Bek explained the suggestions to me, they’re supposed to be things we want to do,” she mouths, the braid slipping over her wrist like a handcuff. “But you don’t want to flirt with Callen, and it’s not like he wants to be flirted with, by you or anyone else. All he wants to do is smoke cigarettes alone and feel sorry for himself.”
“I don’t even want to have to see him after what he did to you.” Now, that’s a lie, and it comes out effortlessly. Of course I want to see him. But I would never have dared without the Initiative. “It’s just—I really want the math apprenticeship. Have your suggestions been things you actually wanted?”
“I didn’t think about it before, but I guess not. I’ve only had one. Remember how I changed the play? Bek said if I did it, my reward would be a private acting lesson with a top Blisslet. Actually, I didn’t really want to—I thought my ending was better,” she says, frowning. “And this week’s, ugh. I’m supposed to bring up my mother’s, you know, alcohol issues. In public, on-camera. In exchange for a B-plus in chemistry, to get Dad off my back.”
“Have you thought about not doing it?” I ask. “Dropping out of the Initiative?”
“No. Is that an option?” Lia adjusts her red T-shirt, getting ready for all the cameras in the stadium. Not that there’s much to adjust. She cut off the bottom half, baring a good two inches of her stomach. I haven’t really mentioned it—must have had something to do with showing up Callen on his big day. “Media1 knows what’s right for the Audience.”
The image of the cricket bullying Violet flashes in my mind. “But what about us?” I mouth. “Do they know what’s right for us?”
“It’s the same thing. Listen, without Media1, what would we be?” she mouths.
Her question hovers in the air. I know the emptiness in my mind isn’t the right answer, except, maybe it is. Nothing. We’d be nothing.
Lia glances over her shoulder, toward the stadium. “We should get going.”
I tug her arm, stopping her. “So you agree that I should just go ahead and flirt with Callen?”
“Well . . .” She stubs the ground with the toe of her sneaker. “I’m not happy about it, but obviously, I want you off the E.L., and the math apprenticeship would be amazing.”
“Ants attack! Ants attack! Ants attack!” Three younger boys scream, vaulting over the fence and sprinting across the pasture, a red blur, kicking up mud and grass and splattering Lia’s jeans.
“Brats.” Lia scowls as she brushes the dirt off her jeans. “Let’s go.” We follow their path, climb back over the fence, and merge with the crowd moving toward the stadium. “Selwyn’s probably there already.”
Which reminds me. “I think Selwyn is in the Initiative,” I whisper to her. “I bet they told her to get the tattoo.”
“I figured, but I haven’t actually fralled about the Initiative with anyone but Callen. He hates the whole idea. He’s not in it.” She plunges forward, deftly weaving through the crowd.
“He’s not in it,” I repeat, a thrill going through me. So his reaction to my flirting will be genuine.
I fall behind Lia in the crowd, and she reaches back for me. “Come on,” she says, pulling me toward her. She whispers into my ear when I’m next to her, “Let’s tell Selwyn we’re in it too. We should all be honest about what they’re asking us to do. Otherwise it might lead to misunderstandings.”
• • •
We’re on the third level of seven. A decent view. Selwyn’s already at our seats, in a periwinkle-blue dress with a patent-leather black belt around the waist and big blue-rimmed sunglasses that cover half her face. I glance down at my jeans—dark blue—and tank top—faded blue—and feel uncreative. Selwyn even has a pigeon finger painted on her cheek. She pops up as she sees us sidling down the aisle. She’s brandishing a pigeon pennant, and it looks like she’s about to leap out of her skin; she’s effervescent, her lustrous black hair reflecting the sunlight like pavement slick with rain. It’s not like she loves baseball, but she’s easily excited and gets swept up by the tumult around us.
“You’re late,” she shouts over the din. The blue dress has a wide, square neckline, and I don’t see any traces of a tattoo.
“It was a slow walk from the Tram, with all the people coming here.” I hug her, then sit down between her and Lia and—screeeeek. I gasp. A device attached to the seat back directly in front of us
springs out like a jack-in-the-box. After a couple of stunned seconds, I recognize the lens and the red light, and my heart slows down to a normal rate.
A camera. The mobile camera the Initiative posting at the Center had mentioned. Lia doesn’t react to it at all, and Selwyn just pats my knee. They must have seen them before.
I move back in my seat, and the camera stretches forward, like a reflection.
“No Callen, no pretending I care about sports.” Lia takes a stack of papers out of her straw bag, like she’s in study hall instead of at one of the biggest Special Events of the seasons. “I’m going to work on the play.” The new camera screeks over to her, its movements straighter than the swerve and sway of the ones the crickets carry. I relax, pleased to have it off me.
“Plus ten,” I murmur.
“Yeah, without Callen, I have time to focus on stuff I really care about. I’m thinking of getting Mom help.” Lia tilts her head to give the camera a flattering three-quarter view of her face.
“Is something wrong with your mom, Lia?” Selwyn asks, taking a break from her fervent pennant-waving.
Lia pauses and looks from one of us to the other several times before taking a deep breath. “I think she may have a real problem. She stays up all night guzzling white wine, and then she starts screaming at me and Dad. Last night, she tore apart her closet, looking for a necklace her mother gave her, and when she couldn’t find it, she came to my room and went on and on about how I had stolen it.”
“Guzzling white wine?” Selwyn puts the pennant down in her lap and leans over me so she can make eye contact with Lia. “Are you saying she’s an alcoholic?”
“That’s what I want her to figure out,” Lia says, flipping her braid behind her and turning her attention to the field.