A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

  “Uh, most of them are noncomm. Do you know what that is?”

  He sighed. “A pain in the ass. Why do they always have to be noncomm? Alright. You’re authorized to offer an audition to any of the rest, as long as you connect us with Luce Cannon. She’s a done deal. Tell the rest they have to un-noncomm long enough to talk to us, if they’re interested. Once you’ve signed them they have to borrow a phone, borrow a Hoodie, whatever it takes to get them in contact with Logistics. Do you have any videos?”

  “A couple.” She sent them his way.

  “Thanks. We’ll review those, but we assume they’ll back up what you’ve already said. Make sure they know we may have to discuss other band names for, oh, probably all of them. The Coffee Cake Situation. Saints preserve.”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she stayed silent.

  “Good job, Rosemary. We look forward to getting those contacts in the next few days.”

  “How soon?” A new panic gripped her. She’d expected weeks to figure out how to make the approach.

  “By the end of this weekend.” He paused, went still. Probably consulting with someone else. “Yeah. Tell them they have to give us a decision by the end of the weekend. No point in giving them longer.”

  “Shouldn’t I have seen them each a few more times, though?”

  “Do you think you need more time? Your descriptions make it sound like you’ve got a good handle on it already.”

  The edge in his voice made her think more time was not advisable. “No, this weekend’s fine. Thank you for your trust.”

  “We were surprised when you picked Baltimore. Most people pick something close to their home region for their first time out. This is better than expected.”

  When the connection terminated and the grass faded from view, she was left with all the questions she hadn’t been willing to pose. How was she supposed to approach everyone by the weekend? What music had she missed in her own “home region”? Not to mention she no longer understood why anyone stayed in said home region when they had the option of going almost anywhere.

  * * *

  —

  The bassist for the band that had been Aran Randall’s original Patent Medicine, the Handsome Mosquitoes, had said at the diner that they all worked on Thursdays, and the singer had worn a T-shirt for Blackner’s Lumber & Salvage, an odd thing to advertise if you weren’t an employee. An odd thing to wear for a rock show, really, unless maybe there was a point where you were cool enough that whatever you wore was cool by default. Or maybe it wasn’t strange at all, and she still didn’t know the rules, which was a distinct possibility. Rosemary looked up the location, which turned out to be a mile west of her hotel. The day looked inviting from her vantage point in the sky, and she decided to walk.

  Walking made her wish she knew more about Baltimore. She’d chosen it based on Aran’s suggestion without researching further. She knew it had been a significant city at several points in history, but she couldn’t dredge up the whys from high school. Strolling the wide sidewalk, waving back to strangers who sat on their stoops, she wished she remembered the details. The picture in her head was so different from this friendly place. It had been put there by her parents and teachers, and it was nothing like reality.

  She hadn’t caught the singer’s name, so she wound up asking if a tall, good-looking blond guy worked there, which won her a knowing look from the cashier. “If you want my advice, forget him. He’s a player. You’re not the first one to come here, though you’re not his usual type.”

  Color rose to Rosemary’s cheeks. “No! I’m not . . . I just need to talk with him.”

  Another look told her the cashier didn’t buy it, but she pressed an intercom button below her register and paged Josh diSouza. Rosemary stood awkwardly to the side, willing the other woman not to tell her any more. How awkward would it be if the person paged didn’t turn out to be him? Sorry, didn’t mean to bother you, but I hear you’re a hit with the ladies.

  She was relieved when the tall blond guy walking from the back was the right tall blond guy. He wore the same T-shirt, or an identical one, and there were wood shavings in his tangled hair.

  He glared at the cashier, then appraised Rosemary. “Do I know you?”

  She spoke low, in case his band was a secret. “My name is Rosemary Laws. I was at your show last night, and then at the Heatwave. I hung out with the other guys from your band, but you’d left already, I think.”

  He took her elbow, his grasp firm but not rough; it didn’t lend a favorable impression, since she hadn’t given him permission to touch her. He led her to an area that was outdoors but fenced in. She’d never been in a lumberyard, but she liked the sweet piney scent, the sawdust underfoot. It reminded her of her family’s barn.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t usually talk music here. How can I help you?”

  “I’ve got a proposition for you. For your band, I mean. I didn’t know how to find the other guys.”

  He sat on a stack of pallets and gestured for her to do the same. “A proposition.”

  “Yeah. I . . . Are you familiar with StageHoloLive?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m a . . . They call us artist recruiters. I travel the country looking for bands to bring into the SHL family.” After all the times she had practiced this in her head, it proved remarkably easy to say, at least to this guy. Maybe because she hadn’t talked to him before, so she hadn’t yet presented herself as anything else to him. Easier, too, to pretend he wasn’t the first one she had ever attempted to recruit. “I think you guys are the complete package, and I’m authorized to offer you a chance to audition for my bosses.”

  “You’re kidding.” He stared at her. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Can I, uh, two of the other guys work here as well. That’s how I met them. Can I bring them in on this conversation? You’re making this offer to all of us, not only me?” He had gone from confident to all nerves.

  “All of you. I know what happened with Patent Medicine.”

  He looked relieved. “Be right back.”

  She waited. Rosemary imagined herself vacuuming up all his confidence to use for her own. The power position.

  He returned a moment later with the bassist, the one who had offered his flask the night before, and the octopus-drummer. Kenny and Marcus, if she remembered. Kenny looked entirely changed from the diner, his body language closed off, scarred arms folded across his chest. The drummer looked a little less tightly wound, but no less wary.

  “You?” asked Kenny. “I shared my flask with you. Luce said you were cool.”

  “Easy, Kenny,” said Marcus. “She never lied. We didn’t ask her what had brought her here, or what she did for a living.”

  “She should volunteer it. Otherwise we met under false pretenses. She was a fan, far as I knew.”

  “Look.” Rosemary tried to get the conversation back under control. “I apologize if I misled you in any way. That wasn’t my intent, but I truly do want to talk to all of you about SHL.”

  Kenny didn’t relax. “All of us? Or are you going to make us drive out to your headquarters and audition and then tell us you want our singer?”

  “All of you. And is that what actually happened with Patent Medicine? That isn’t the story I heard.”

  Marcus shook his head. “Come on, Kenny. You know that isn’t what happened. Aran screwed us, not SHL. Do you really think he fought for us? He drove out there on his own.”

  “He told me he was going,” Kenny said. “He said he was bringing video of the whole band.”

  “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Maybe if we had gone with him, they’d have been impressed by all of us instead of only Aran, but we didn’t go. This chick is here in front of us right now. Let’s maybe talk to her instead of convincing her we’re dysfunctional.”

  Josh rais
ed his hands, a placating gesture. “I promise, I’m not looking to ditch you guys. She’s offering all of us.”

  Rosemary shot him a grateful look. “All of you, as I said. Your songs are super catchy.”

  “So what’s the deal?” Kenny didn’t unfold his arms.

  “A second audition at SHL, expenses paid. You already passed the first one, since I like your stuff. You have to show that your sound plays well to the cameras as well as it does to a live crowd. That’s it. If they like you as much as I do, you get a contract.”

  “Enough to live on?”

  “As I understand it. The terms are between you and Legal, but they want their musicians happy and focused on making music.”

  “Do we have to move out there? Live in some little artist village with Aran as a next-door neighbor?” Kenny’s hostility hadn’t faded.

  “Not if you don’t want to, I don’t think. You can commute.”

  “How long do we have to decide?” asked Marcus.

  “Sunday at the latest.”

  “Fuck! How do you expect us to make a decision that fast?”

  She shrugged. “I know it’s short, but how much deciding do you have to do? It’s an audition, not a commitment. Contract comes later. You can walk away if you get there and change your minds.”

  She turned away and studied the sky while they talked in low voices.

  “An audition,” Marcus said at last. “What do we have to do?”

  Rosemary smiled. “First of all, do any of you have a phone or a Hoodie?”

  Josh returned her smile. “You think we’re all in that noncomm cult? This is a connected band, friend. We’re on board, ready to promote.”

  She gave them the contact information for Logistics, and her employee ID as reference. It had gone well, or as well as expected, considering the Aran complication. If she had thought about it more, she’d have waited to talk to them after Kurtz. Maybe she’d gotten the most difficult out of the way first. She hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a name change, either, but she’d leave that to somebody more experienced.

  * * *

  —

  She had assumed none of the bands were online, but the Handsome Mosquitoes made her realize she’d generalized. To find Kurtz, she tried the old-fashioned way: head in hoodspace. She scrolled through body-mod sites until she located one that intersected with music. He was right there, contact information and everything. How many guys could there be with a piano in their arm and a desire to turn their whole body into a trigger system? “KurtZ OMB,” he called himself online. One-Man Band.

  It was easy enough to ask him into a private room to discuss his music. His avatar had even more mods than he had, though they came across a little more cartoonish. Anyone could have piano keyboards for arms if they paid enough for the customizations, or a guitar for a body. When he walked, his footsteps triggered drum hits. A map of what he yet wanted to do to his real body, perhaps. Beside him, she felt generic.

  The room was his choice, paneled with colored squares that lit when he moved. The different colors corresponded to different notes. The discord gave Rosemary a headache, but it made sense to make him comfortable by letting him choose the space.

  “Hi,” she said. “I met you at the 2020 last week. I liked your band, and the body-mod thing is awesome.”

  “Thanks. Do you look like your avatar?” He tapped on his arm as he talked, little trills.

  “Close.”

  “No music mods?”

  “Sorry, no. I hope I didn’t misrepresent myself when I contacted you.”

  “Nah. I was hoping. I love to see what other people come up with.”

  “Sorry,” she repeated. “But I’m here to offer you a chance to audition for StageHoloLive.”

  His tapping trills ceased. “You’re joking.”

  “Dead serious. I’m an artist recruiter.” She pushed her professional credential to him.

  “Whoa. For real.”

  “For real. You and your band are invited to audition. Logistics can get in touch with you about travel arrangements if you’re interested.”

  His hand went to his arm. “Will they have any trouble with my trigger system?”

  “It was part of the appeal, so I assume they’ll find a way to make it work.”

  “Is there room to improvise? To do new mods and stuff?”

  “It’s harder. I think you’d have to talk to somebody who knows the tech side, but I think as long as you keep them in the loop, it can happen.” She repeated some of what Aran had told her. “Structured creativity, if that makes sense. That’s how it was explained to me, anyway. I’m not a musician.”

  “And it’s only an audition? If I don’t like the situation, I can still walk?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay. Tell me who to talk to.”

  “Will do,” said Rosemary. “But, um, what’s your name? I got the name of the band and your avatar, but I think I should give my bosses your actual name.”

  “Kurt Zell.”

  Kurt Zell. KurtZ. She thanked him, and let him show her what he’d been working on, a guitar fretboard mapped over his avatar’s torso, as he’d mentioned at the club. In hoodspace, it represented layers of modification she couldn’t even imagine. He played his own body to play his brain to play his avatar’s body, translating it all into an eerie and off-putting sound. All without even opening his mouth. She realized she hadn’t even mentioned his voice to Management. Let that surprise them.

  22

  ROSEMARY

  You’re Only Here to Know

  She hadn’t been given the go-ahead for Mary Hastings, so the last two bands on her list were Joni’s and Luce’s. For some reason she felt apprehensive about both those conversations. Not because she didn’t think she had fair offers for them, but because of the Handsome Mosquitoes’ reaction. False pretenses, they had said, or one had, and left it to the others to argue him down. Her pretenses weren’t false, though. She genuinely appreciated their sound, and she had tangible benefits to offer. If she was in the room on business, she was also in the room as a music fan. She hadn’t faked anything, she told herself.

  Joni. She wondered if she had made an awful mistake with Joni on Wednesday. It had felt right at the time. She liked her, really liked her, thought she was impossibly talented and sexy and kind. Not enough credit was ever given to simple kindness. And yet, the words “false pretenses” colored her Friday and made her dread meeting Joni the next day. False pretenses would have been if she wasn’t a recruiter but told them she was. She pictured the note-perfect Management avatar walking through the 2020, offering people auditions in exchange for cash, auditions for sex, auditions for drugs. She hadn’t misrepresented herself. She had never been anything but herself.

  She toyed with the idea of inviting Joni back to her room instead of touring the city. If there was any active lie she had told, it was that one, about staying with a friend. She should have said she had a hotel through work. Then she could have shown off the room, the view, the bed.

  But then Joni might have asked about her job, and would she have told the truth? All anyone had ever asked her was whether she was a cop. She’d have been truthful if they had asked the right question, she was certain. That made it Joni’s and Luce’s fault they hadn’t questioned her more specifically. They’d asked her about music where she came from, but not about her. She would have told them. Maybe.

  Anyway, this was the day to come clean. She took the bus to the Heatwave to meet Joni. Pulled up her Hoodie and rewatched the videos she’d taken of the 2020 bands. Her recordings captured the bands well enough. They all sounded good. Management would have told her by now if they thought any of her offers were mistakes. The company must be happy with her performance.

  Her Hoodie buzzed her to leave the bus, and she tucked it back and rang for her stop.
Joni leaned against the diner’s facade, reading a paperback. She looked up and smiled when she saw Rosemary, sliding the book into her bag.

  “I hope you weren’t waiting long,” said Rosemary.

  Joni shook her head. “Nope. Walked faster than I expected, but it’s a nice day, and I never mind a few minutes to read. Look, um, I’m going to be direct: I like you, but I think I made a mistake the other night.”

  Lightning shot through Rosemary’s chest. Joni continued. “I thought maybe we’d walk, get some lunch, go to the show tonight, but maybe take it a little slower? You haven’t even mentioned how long you’re staying around, and I have a tendency to throw my heart into things.”

  Rosemary bit her lip. She didn’t want to say she didn’t know how much longer she’d be in town. Didn’t know if her nerve had been fortified by alcohol or the wonderful show or something else that might not be present again. She nodded, and Joni exhaled.

  “Okay, good. I’m glad that’s settled. Anyway, I’ve been trying to think of what I wanted to show you. Do you want to see where all the jazz musicians played? The area was bad for a while, but it’s being restored. Not with jazz clubs, of course, or none that aren’t hidden, anyway.” She gestured in one direction, then another. “Or I can show you the Peabody Library. It’s gorgeous. Closed to the public now, but I have a friend who works security there who would let you have a peek . . .”

  “Whatever you want to show me, honest.” I have something to ask you, too, she didn’t say.

  “Okay. We can figure it out as we go.”

  Joni started walking. Rosemary was caught a step behind, but jogged a few steps to meet her stride. These blocks between the diner and the 2020 had become familiar, at least. She wondered what it was like to know a city well, or a neighborhood.

  “There’s a lot still wrong, obviously, but in some ways it’s gotten better here since we were kids. My neighborhood growing up was over there.” She pointed southwest. “It was pretty rough Before, but by the time I was in high school, with better schools online and less gentrification some of the disparities had evened out. My mom worked, so I went to school from a friend’s house. I know it’s bad form in some circles to say anything is better in the After, and there are new things that are fucked up, and some of the same old problems, but there are a few things that’ve improved. I don’t think they should have closed everything down, just that there’ve been some interesting side effects that I don’t entirely hate. I’m sure if they relaxed the laws and let us open clubs and museums and stuff again, we could fix some of the other stuff, too.”