A Song for a New Day

by Sarah Pinsker

  It had gone as well as she’d hoped. She’d unlocked all the doors before the show started, and they waited until after the first song to start slipping in. StageHolo hadn’t bothered with security for twenty contest winners. Any managers or executives who were watching watched remotely, and the cameras were all pointed at the stage, not the audience. The camera operators and sound engineers all had jobs to do and singular focus. The company would hesitate to risk calling the cops and interrupting the show for all the SHL viewers. Ironic that this might prove to be the safest gig of all.

  Luce’s energy changed as the space filled. She needed that audience. Once she could feel them in the room with her, she relaxed and played like she had at the 2020. The kind of show you had to be there to experience fully.

  The 2020 people were used to proximity and crowded close, as did the others Rosemary had met at shows. They led the way for those who had ventured out of hoodspace for the first time at her invitation, people who hadn’t gone looking for secret venues, or hadn’t known they were out there to seek, like Rosemary in her own personal Before. Their body language interested her: the ones who had done this long ago and let memory dictate their behavior; the ones who were clearly trying to conjure their own invisible bubbles of space. She wanted to tell them all they would be okay, that this was a first step, that it would get easier. A few had Hoodies up. Recording, she hoped, so there would be a second record of this show, one that included the full audience, and couldn’t be edited by the company.

  She entered hoodspace once herself, partway through the set, to see what the SHL viewers saw. She could’ve spawned directly into the show, but she chose to enter from outside. They’d rendered the marquee as it was meant to be, all letters whole and lit. Inside, a vast, crowded space, made to look like the Peach but more generic. She found a path through and approached the front. Luce’s eyes were open, roving the crowd she couldn’t see, an act of faith Rosemary had never credited before. She looked worn but happy. Her angles were sharper than Rosemary remembered, her arms ropy and muscular and bone thin.

  Leaving the concert playing in the background, she opened a staff chat to see what the techs were saying; they were frantic and overwhelmed. They’d had to mirror the show dozens more times than they’d expected to accommodate for all the extra traffic. She wasn’t really supposed to be there, but it had been easy enough to get access to their channels.

  Almost as easy as the other tiny tweak she’d made: the one where she’d sneaked into the back end of the SHL site and created a free guest code for the show, a code which she’d distributed far and wide through an anonymous account. SHL would still make bank. If a few thousand people had happened upon a discount code, well, that was nobody’s fault. A glitch in the system.

  When Rosemary dropped her Hoodie again, she felt a momentary dislocation; her actual position was ten feet left of where she’d been standing in the virtual space. Luce was a smaller figure onstage than in hood, but the music hit in a different way. It surrounded Rosemary fully, emanating from the amplifiers, pulsing from the speakers, and up from the floor, and from the people around her, dancing and singing along. She joined them.

  Luce had told her she’d be using the penultimate song to talk to the audience, wherever they were, and when the time came, Rosemary listened along with them. She was them. It was everything she’d thought it could be: a call to action, short term and long term. If it spoke to the rest of them the way it spoke to her, it would work.

  “Let’s create something new together,” Luce said, and then, by some invisible cue, the song that had been building behind her exploded. Rosemary could go to shows every night for the rest of her life and she’d never cease to be amazed at the way musicians spoke to each other onstage without speaking. Rosemary shot a grin at Sadie and Nolan, standing a few feet to her right, and they both returned her smile. This was what she had promised them. The same band from the barn show, but not the same performance, not the same songs.

  This was the song from the Graceland gates, the song she’d been sent at the beach, but bigger, more fully realized. As big as the ocean. She dropped any thoughts of the company, the job, the people she’d brought in, the trouble, the room, her body, the bodies around her. Luce was a giant, she was the whole room as she attacked her guitar, but Luce didn’t matter anymore, either. Only the song, the moment, the song, the moment, the moment, the moment she was in and already past, looking past, saying I am here, I am here, I will always have been here, everyone here is marked by their presence.

  And then it ended. Luce stood onstage again, a human-sized person above them, staring out as if she couldn’t quite see them but she knew they were there. Strings dangled from her guitar in all directions. One of the strings must have sliced her when it snapped: a thin line of blood trickled down her forehead, which she wiped away as if it were sweat.

  Rosemary had told people to leave during “Blood and Diamonds” or right after, before SHL could figure out what to do about them. She knew she should be helping clear the room, but she couldn’t resist stopping to listen to “Blood and Diamonds.” No matter how many times she saw Luce in the future, she knew she’d never hear her play that song again.

  It sounded different with this trio, different with the years on Luce’s voice. Not in a bad way, but in the way of something welcome and familiar and changed. She wasn’t a kid in a hospital anymore, either; she could hold on to the memory of the song’s reassurance without being called back there. She clapped and cheered as hard as she could to make up for the dwindling crowd.

  The lights came on, leaving Luce and her band looking mystified. Her bassist whispered in her ear, and she handed him her guitar and climbed down to chat with the contest winners, who looked equally confused, but satisfied.

  Rosemary took a moment to pop back into hoodspace to see whether people were talking about the show. When she ventured into the discussion forums, they were full of people trying to figure out what to do to answer Luce’s call. A law student offering to start a group to take on congregation laws, someone else saying they wanted to host a show in their basement, someone else talking about running for office on a pro-congregation platform. Good.

  Luce was chatting with a contest winner. An artist liaison should probably check if the artist needed anything, but Rosemary was suddenly afraid to approach; afraid she hadn’t done enough, or that she’d gone over the top, that she still might not be forgiven. Then Luce spotted her, and she smiled, and Rosemary knew that her terrible past actions might not entirely be past, but she’d been given another chance.

  Rosemary tried to make herself unobtrusive, hoping the SHL employees who had seen the crowd wouldn’t associate it with her. They all seemed to be pretending it hadn’t happened, since they couldn’t explain it. A few contest winners stood chatting with each other, still energized, buzzing with excitement. They hadn’t left yet even though the concert had been over long enough for the equipment to all be packed away. Canned music played over the loudspeakers, and two women danced by the exit.

  “Thank you.” Luce appeared beside Rosemary, holding out her arms. Her back was soaked with sweat, her forehead smeared with blood, but it didn’t matter. When they hugged, it felt familiar. “Do you want to take a walk? I wouldn’t mind a walk.”

  Rosemary recognized Luce’s mood, the way she’d always surrounded herself with people after a show. She nodded. They exited through the front doors, still unlocked. Across the street, past the parked cars, there was an overgrown path down into a small park, broken-branched trees lining either side. The path led them to a tiny footbridge, where they leaned on their elbows and looked down at a stream, shallow but fast moving.

  “I thought that went really well,” Rosemary said.

  “Great, really. Sound could’ve been better, but we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect evening.” Her eyes shone, the same postshow glow Rosemary remembered. She’d seen it in other
performers, too, but few fed on live music the way Luce did.

  “You were amazing.”

  “Thanks. Uh, was I hallucinating, or were there a few more people in there for part of the show? Or is that part of the StageHolo experience? I could’ve sworn . . .”

  “I might’ve invited a few people. I’d heard you wanted an audience.”

  “Nice, kid. Was that company-approved?”

  Rosemary shook her head, trying to underplay her pride. “Not approved. We’ll see whether I get in trouble, or if they’re still happy with me for bringing you in.”

  “So you’re going to keep working for them?”

  “I don’t know what to do anymore. You’re right that I’m perpetuating the system, not changing it, but I keep feeling like if I stayed long enough, maybe I could get them to see these are stupid policies.”

  “Maybe,” Luce said. “I guess there’s something in helping them see there’s room for us to exist.”

  They both grew quiet, watching the stream run beneath the bridge. There was movement in the trees, and an owl darted out of the darkness to skim the water. It came away with a small silver fish writhing in its talons, then disappeared back into the woods.

  “Huh.” The look on Luce’s face was pure amazement.

  Rosemary was surprised, too. “I’ve seen hawks attack package drones. And mice in the fields. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an owl hunt before.”

  “I grew up in Brooklyn. Pigeons and parrots.”

  Rosemary had never seen a single interview where Luce mentioned Brooklyn or her childhood. She decided not to call attention to it. “Hey, Luce, do you know if Joni is playing somewhere else now? I got her to talk to me once, but then she wouldn’t respond after that.”

  “I think she’s involved with a warehouse series. Outsider art and music and theater, all interwoven. Don’t send your goons, please.”

  “I wouldn’t! I’m trying to stop them from doing that, I really am. It’s just going to take time.” If she stayed, people she liked would always be saying that. That was her choice: stay and try to change things from the inside, or find another path. She was surer that other paths existed now than she had been.

  Luce shrugged. “I should probably get back. We’re driving tonight.”

  “You’re still my favorite performer.” Rosemary hadn’t meant to say that out loud; it hung in the air.

  “You need to get out more.”

  “Ha. Well, have a safe drive. See you down the road.”

  “Coming soon to a town near you. Look, if you ever want another option, maybe we could use you as a tour manager for a little while. Or booking agent. Or both. It would be way easier to arrange shows if we had someone more . . . plugged in . . . on our team. The money would be crap, and you’d have to get used to sleeping in very tight quarters, but it’s an alternative.”

  “For real?”

  “For real. Find me when you’re ready.” Luce turned to walk away.

  “So you’re just going to keep doing those little shows?” Rosemary called after her.

  Luce stopped and looked back. “It’s a decent way to spend forever.”

  Rosemary recognized the lyric from “These Turning Hands,” but she didn’t doubt that was exactly what would happen if Luce wanted it. She had a way of making things turn out. She was a small figure walking back toward the Peach now, shoulders uneven, gait hitched like someone balancing on a boat deck. She rounded a curve in the path and vanished from sight.

  There were other things Rosemary would have liked to say to her. How she had learned to stand her ground in a crowd, as Luce had taught her; how the idea of a crowd had gradually become less terrifying. How the job she had invented for herself, her secret subversion, had brought SHL inches closer to what she had originally believed it to be. How she thought she might build a career trying to right her biggest wrong, and she still wasn’t sure it would be enough.

  Luce had once told Rosemary how you grabbed on to a single note and, if it sounded good, you played it until you were ready to pick a new one. And the thing she hadn’t said, but Rosemary had learned from her, later: that in any given moment, there’s no such thing as a wrong note. Any note can be played over any chord, and any chord can be played over any single note. That it’s possible to be a note nestled into a chord, off but right, in the moment before the song moves on around you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The funny thing about having my first novel arrive on the heels of my first collection is that I got to do a lifetime’s worth of thanking six months ago, and I’ll probably have amassed another lifetime’s worth in this chaotic year, but I’m writing this in the limbo in between. Even so, it’s inevitable that I’m going to forget someone. This is an apology in advance, and an acknowledgment that it’s absolutely impossible to thank by name everyone who had a hand in making this book happen. That said, here goes:

  Thank you first and foremost to Zu for understanding why I need to do this and for making it easier, and for being the best person I know.

  My agent, Kim-Mei Kirtland, is smart and wise and willing to answer even my most ridiculous questions. My hugest thanks to her and Megan Gelement and everyone else at HMLA.

  I want to thank my editor, Rebecca Brewer, for believing in this book, and for having a clear vision of how to make it better. Also huge thanks to Megha Jain, Alexis Nixon, Tara O’Connor, Jessica Plummer, Sheila Moody, Miranda Hill, Jason Booher for the cool cover, and the rest of the team at Ace and Berkley.

  Thank you to LJ Cohen, Donna Buckles, Kelly Robson, Amira Pinsker, Ellie Pinsker, and Marlee Pinsker for reading the first draft and giving excellent feedback, and then sometimes later drafts and random panicked questions along the way, and to Rep Pickard and Sherry Audette Morrow for reading various chapters at various times. Thanks to my writing buddy Kellan Szpara for not only keeping me company, but also for reading at least two drafts and helping me wrap my head around edits.

  I want to thank Sheila Williams (and Emily Hockaday!) at Asimov’s for buying and editing my novelette Our Lady of the Open Road, which features Luce at another point in her life. This novel wouldn’t exist without that story, and that story always wanted to be an Asimov’s story.

  Thank you to the Red Canoe (Josie, Tina, Matt, and everyone else) for letting me write the entire first draft at their family table. Actually, I wrote the original story there, too.

  Thank you to my father, to Esther, to Milton, to the Tudhopes, to the Verskins, to my mother and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles and siblings-in-law and nieces and nephew, for your unwavering support and enthusiasm. I love you all very much.

  Thank you again to my critique partners and workshop buddies and retreat hosts and Slacks and SFWA, and all the blurbers and everyone else in this amazing community. I absolutely adore the writing community I’ve found, both locally in Baltimore and around the world. Thank you all, individually and as a group, for your friendship and support. You inspire me.

  Lastly, stories and music work on similar magic. This book wouldn’t exist without music and the music community, even though I’ve been neglecting that side of things of late. Thank you to SONiA for being the first person to take me out on the road and show me how to live a principled life in music, and to her band disappear fear for teaching me how to always have a clean towel on the road. Thank you to John Seay and to my band-brothers in the Stalking Horses, Jes Welter, Chris Plummer, and Tony Calato, for every wonderful show. Thank you to every band I ever shared a stage or a circle with, and to every musician who ever stepped onstage and mesmerized me, some of whom have tributes hidden in this book. (Apologies to Rahne Alexander & the Degenerettes for titling a chapter after the song “Baltimore” and thus ensuring they have no idea it was meant for them.) I know this might seem like it belongs in my album liner notes instead of my novel, but not a single word of this book would have been possible wit
hout all those people and the songs they set loose in the world.

  Photo by Karen Osborne

  Sarah Pinsker’s Nebula and Sturgeon Award–winning short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and translation markets. She is a singer/songwriter who has toured behind three albums on various independent labels. Her first collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, was released in early 2019 by Small Beer Press. This is her first novel. She lives with her wife in Baltimore, Maryland.

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