Perfect Pitch

by Alex Hayes

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, I catch sight of her walking up the road toward the more ramshackle place.

  3

  Cadi

  I perch cross-legged on the black leather sectional in the basement of the Thorny Rose working through calculus problems. The Thorny Rose is an old station building and one-time nightclub, now owned by Marek’s mom.

  Marek is Idris’s best friend and a science geek. He helped Idris figure out how to use his sound manipulation abilities to cut through a steel door and find me on the other side of the wormhole.

  Idris sits at the opposite end of the sectional, fingering a romantic ballad on his acoustic guitar. His music is perfect for helping me concentrate, and I fly through my math homework and move onto physics.

  All’s good until he starts to sing. New lyrics. He whispers the words, but his voice sucks my attention like a vacuum.

  His gentle tones play like fingers up my spine and along my shoulder blades. My toes curl and my leg muscles tingle.

  Paper flutters to the floor and the physics textbook slides off my knee onto the seat. I untwine my legs and wiggle across soft leather until my jean-clad thigh touches his.

  Lost in the music, he doesn’t respond. So I watch his face. Emotions tighten and relax his features, telling a story all their own. So beautiful. So hypnotic. So sexy.

  My body picks up the beat, swaying in sync to the song, while my heart rate echoes its rhythm.

  Is he doing this deliberately?

  I discovered his control over sound the day we met, the like me signal he unknowingly transmitted and pledged never to use again. But this attraction isn’t the same. Nor is it like the tugging pull that connects us through our crystals. No, this is something different.

  Idris, what are you doing to me?

  He seems oblivious, even as my arms wrap around his neck like charmed snakes, fingers weaving into the tight curls at his nape, bringing me closer and closer until my proximity interferes with his playing.

  “Cadi, what are you…?” His eyes meet mine and widen. A puzzled frown settles onto his features as he sets aside the guitar.

  My thighs slide over his until I’m straddled across his lap, hips rocking back and forth, tighter and tighter, until I can feel his body pressed into mine.

  His arms circle my waist, long fingers cupping my butt and pulling me closer.

  God, I want him. Right. Now.

  There are a few rules at the Thorny Rose, guidelines Idris and Marek came up with when Marek’s mom gave them permission to use the place to practice music. For one, sex is allowed only in the bedroom with the door bolted. That way, no chance of inadvertent interruptions or embarrassment.

  The sectional is not in the bedroom.

  “Maybe we should—” he starts.

  My mouth lands on his as I shove him into the seat cushions.

  What is going on with me?

  But I can’t stop. My mind tells me it’s too much effort, and what are the chances Marek will show up in the next half hour, anyway?

  Idris escapes my lips long enough to say, “Cadi, love, what are you—”

  I cut him off again, my mouth on his, as my hips grind into him. This makes no sense, but god, it feels so…

  He rolls me onto my back, pressing me into the couch, and pulls his mouth away. “Cadi, what the hell?”

  “I need you.” I lunge for him, but he flattens me back into the cushions.

  “Cadi! Close your eyes and imagine jumping into the hidden lake. In winter. In the freezing cold. Wearing overalls, hip waders and a really ugly canvas hat.”

  A low chuckle rattles from my throat. “What color?”

  “Huh?” He stares at me like I’m speaking a foreign language. “Oh. Uh… puce?”

  I burst out laughing. “What kind of color is that?”

  His hold on me relaxes. “Dunno. A pukey pink, I guess.”

  A lot of deep breathing, but that crazy image broke the spell. “I-I think I’m okay now.”

  He lets me up and retreats to the opposite end of the couch. “What the hell just happened?”

  “You started singing and I… Well, I wanted you. Badly.” I shake my head, trying to keep the amorous fog from returning.

  Idris stands. “Come on, I could use your help with some backup vocals for this new song. Maybe that’ll distract you.”

  I nod.

  He grabs his guitar and leads me into what used to be the nightclub office. Its soundproof walls make the space perfect for recording, and Idris has all the equipment set up. I sit on the gray velvet couch across from the desk and wait for his direction.

  I’ve never been much of a singer, but when Idris is around, staying in tune is easy. He explains what he wants me to do, turns on the recorder, then starts playing his guitar. I close my eyes and feel the beat pulse through my crystal, keeping me in time. In a way, I become an extension of Idris and the words pour out.

  After several takes, Idris stops playing and switches off the recorder. “That was beautiful, babe.” He drops onto the couch next to me.

  The music has stopped, but the beat plays on inside my head. I lean closer, breathe in his citrus scent and a muskiness that triggers those jumping hormones again. “Idris,” I murmur. “I could seriously jump you right now.”

  He pulls me against him. “Well, we could…” His cheeks darken. “I mean, maybe it’s time we, uh… you know.”

  I pull back, suspiciously. “What?”

  “Like… make love in our natural form. That might release the hormonal whatever-it-is that’s going on with you.”

  He’s talking about turning Livran. Not a good idea. “But what if I get preg—”

  “You’d have to stay in that form for several hours afterward, right?” A suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. “Why not do this and get it out of your system?”

  My hormones say, Yes! Oh, yes!

  But my mind’s playing devil’s advocate. In the cold light of reality, having sex in Livran form is such a bad idea.

  At least, right now.

  Of course, I want kids with Idris. Someday. Mr. Scrim talked about building a Livran colony, and I’m all for that. But our kids will need crystals and other kids growing up with them. The ar’n bala tree has only just been planted, and to my knowledge, there are no other Livran kids on the way.

  If anything, those like us who escaped Daïzani aren’t much more than kids themselves. I’m almost eighteen, but I don’t feel anything close to adult.

  I shake my head. “There’d still be risks. What if all that stuff happens in minutes? Before I change back?”

  He sighs and brushes my cheek. “I wasn’t suggesting we stop using protection.”

  My lungs fill up on his musky scent.

  Idris pulls me to my feet and into his arms. “You decide. I’m just saying I’m up for whatever you want.”

  I melt against him. “What I want probably isn’t…” My mouth finds his, making my desires all too clear, and what’s left of my resolve turns to smoke and blows away.

  His body shimmers, molten silver, then fills out under his clothes into a body more muscular, greener, scalier and… way sexier. “You’re sure about this?”

  Ugh! Why’d he have to shape shift and then ask me that?

  I’m really not sure. At all. In fact, I think I need to get out of here. Away from him, his scent and his sexy body.

  I close my eyes and try to block out the image.

  His scaled hands brush my bare arms. Hairs bristle under his fingertips. I think about chopping onions, peeling potatoes, scrubbing pans.

  His fingers skim my jaw. “I love you, Cadi,” he whispers.

  He has no idea what he’s doing to me. How out of control I feel right now. And I’m doing a terrible job communicating that.

  I want him so badly.

  My disapproving-busybody-old-lady sense kicks in, determined to save me. “I gotta go!” I exit the recording room and dive up the staircase. Sunshine, fresh air, that’ll do th
e trick.

  I reach the top of the stairs, panting, and stop short.

  Mrs. Lakewood, Marek’s mom, steps through the back door.

  Oh my god.

  She swings to face me, her conservative high heels clacking on the wood floor. “Hi, Cadi.” Her smile morphs into a frown. “Are you okay?”

  I force a grin but know my face is as pink as a petunia. “Fine.” Think of an excuse that isn’t a complete lie! “I… um, just had this really strange reaction.” I reach a hand to my shoulder and scratch. “And it made me kind of… itchy.”

  Will she buy it? Will Idris come flying up the stairs all green and scaly, and scare the hell out of her?

  Footsteps pound the wood stairs behind me.

  I hold my breath.

  “Hey, Mrs. Lakewood, what’s up?”

  A quick glance over my shoulder.

  Idris is human again, gripping his guitar in one hand.

  “Nothing much, Idris. Just came by to check on the place.” Marek’s mom smiles, but a question lurks in the back of her well-mascaraed eyes. “What’s going on with you guys?”

  “Just came up to check on Cadi,” my smooth-talking boyfriend answers. “We were recording some vocals when she had this weird reaction. Spider bite, maybe.” He glances at me. “You okay, babe?”

  I grin like an idiot. “Great. Actually. Whatever it was seems to be gone.”

  4

  Dean

  Telltale breathing, deep and throaty, drifts from the living room as I close the front door and rub Pepper, our over-enthusiastic Irish setter, on the head.

  It’s not even five and Mom’s already passed out on the couch. As I bend to drop my school bag on the floor, Pepper slaps me a wet one across the jaw. I push him away with a disapproving grunt.

  Before Gran died, Mom was holding her shit together. She kept a seat at a local hairdresser’s, working afternoons and evenings most days, where she earned enough to pay the bills and stock a case of Beefeater and another of cheap wine in the pantry to swill away the final hours of her day.

  I wish I could say it was grief over losing her mother that pushed Mom over the edge, but there was little love lost between them when Gran passed three months ago.

  My grandmother pumped all her love into her grandkids—Ty and me—instead. Up until Gramps died, she traveled to and from Florida in the green Subaru she left me, so she could take care of us over vacations. After my grandfather’s death, she moved local. Not too close, but close enough, which allowed me to rescue my GPA through high school.

  Then she died and my life fell apart. Almost.

  Thanks to Shri, study partnering me, and the help of a few teachers, I kept up my grades. Meanwhile, Ty took a turn for the worse, developing phobias bordering on OCD, and Mom quit work because she thought she no longer needed a job.

  Biggest mistake of her life. Maybe my grandmother’s too. Smart though Gran was leaving Ty and me college trust funds no one could touch, she also left Mom a few hundred thousand in cash.

  A few hundred thousand in the mind of this low-income working mother equaled early retirement and a spending spree. Rather than fix the roof, Mom replaced the stained couch and armchairs I grew up on with a fancy leather living room set, that’s no more impervious to spilled wine than the old chairs were. And now Mom doesn’t have a job to get sober for, spills happen more often than ever.

  I take a cautious look at the couch. Mom’s blonde head cranes back over the armrest. The perfect position for a passed out drunk to drown in her own vomit. While I slip a pillow under her shoulder to tilt her head, a rattle comes from the kitchen.

  Pepper gives the couch a wide berth as he follows me through the house. Mom has no patience for his wet loving, and he’s received a whack or three.

  Ty balances on a chair, reaching a scrawny forearm into a high cabinet as I walk in.

  I cross my arms, pulling the big brother pose. “Hey, what are you doing, Tiger?”

  He grins down at me, a lanky tower of mostly arms and legs. “Remember the emergency Cheetos we hid up here?” He pulls down the orange bag.

  “It’s almost time for dinner.” Mom’s line, not mine, but I heard it growing up so many times the words come unbidden.

  Ty pulls a face. “There’s nothing around, except leftover Chinese so old I had to use tongs to toss it.”

  Meaning a couple of days old. Ty never could handle leftovers, even before his phobias set in.

  He shudders. “Then I scrubbed out the fridge. Believe me, dude, it’s a void in there.”

  I stick my head in the pantry. “We’ll make pasta and there’s frozen broccoli.”

  Ty rolls his eyes and makes a move to open the Cheetos.

  “One cereal bowl full and you have to help me make dinner.”

  He nods. “After we throw ball.” He dumps Cheetos in a bowl and stuffs a handful in his mouth. One drops to the floor and Pepper snaps it up.

  “Sure.” I head for the sliding door to the backyard, picking up the baseball and mitts as I go. Pepper forces his way through the gap as the door opens.

  While Ty and I throw back and forth, my mind wanders to Tom Jacobsen’s job offer. I’d love to take the work just to get out of here, but I can’t leave Ty to deal with Mom alone. He’s just shy of eleven, for god’s sake, and she can’t keep enough food in the fridge for a single decent meal.

  “Come on, Dean, throw a fastball!” Ty shouts.

  I shake my head and grin. “I’ll knock your hand off if I give it my all.”

  “Then hit the post.” He tilts his head toward the nearest fence post.

  I focus on the chosen target, wind up and deliver. Hitting the post square on with a loud crack.

  “Yay!” Ty yells, bouncing up and down on his toes.

  We wrap up practice and head inside to make dinner and eat. I plonk a covered plate of food next to Mom, who has turned over on the couch into a fetal position.

  Ty and I head to our rooms, me to do homework. Ty’s workload has already petered out with summer approaching.

  Guitar music drifts from his room. I scrunch my forehead. At least one of those strings is off-key. Maybe I’ll buy him lessons for his birthday, so he can learn how to tune the thing properly. That said, he’s damn good, considering he’s self-taught with nothing but YouTube to guide him.

  Once my English essay is done, I drop back on the bed and cross my arms behind my head. What would it be like to spend the summer in the mountains? I wonder if the tasks Tom has in mind would be much different from the work I’m doing now. No goats, I assume. Work on the farm is hard, a lot of lifting and shoveling, to which I can credit most of my muscle. The job saved me a good few trips to the gym during football season.

  I sigh. At least I don’t need to rely on a football scholarship to pay for college. Gran pushed me to apply to a bunch of schools, even ones I didn’t think I had a chance at. I couldn’t believe it when I received an acceptance letter from MIT.

  But there’s no way I’ll be going there now.

  With Gran gone, how will I make it to college at all? The idea of taking a year or two off, delaying my education, sucks, but what choice do I have?

  Would two years be enough to get Ty to a place where he could fend for himself? Not likely. And then there’d be the homework. Would he make it through high school without me kicking his butt to keep up his grades?

  I brush my face with a palm. Almost ten. I should be asleep already. My phone alarm is set for four a.m., and I need to get out of the house a few minutes early to pick up Shri on the way to work. I twist off the bed onto my feet.

  After stuffing schoolwork and books into my bag, I head out to the living room to check on Mom. Still curled in a ball, her plate of pasta untouched. I shake my head and squat to pick her up. Another reason to be thankful for my job at the farm, given how often I’ve had to carry Mom to bed.

  I turn my face away, wrinkling my nose, at the smell of stale booze.

  Her arms loop around my neck, tho
ugh her head half lolls. “Daniel,” she murmurs, a vague smile drifting across her lips.

  “I’m not Dad, Mom.”

  Her face puckers. “Deanie?”

  God, I hate it when she calls me that, like I’m three.

  Mom’s never been heavy. Too much drink and too little eating has kept her thin. I eye the untouched plate on the side table. Especially when she misses meals.

  Our house is single story. No stairs to carry her up. If there were, I’d probably have left Mom on the couch all these years.

  I’ve always thought waking up on the couch in the middle of the night would be awful, so most nights I schlep Mom to her room. It feels weird though, like I’m carrying a kid to bed, and not my mother.

  As I make to drop her on the bed, her arms tighten around my neck.

  “Let go, Mom.”

  Her eyes open and she stares at me through the shaft of light from the hallway. “Your hair’s just like your father’s,” she muses.

  Last time I saw Dad was three years ago. I try not to think about him. At all.

  “A golden halo. Like a sunset.”

  I almost smile, remembering my trips to the playground with Mom when I was a kid. She was so proud of her golden-haired boy.

  She sighs, blinking at me sleepily. “You’ve grown into such a handsome young man.”

  Awkwardness twists my gut. I disentangle myself and back away from the bed. “Go to sleep, Mom.”

  As I walk from the room, I feel the weight of a boulder sink into my chest.

  How am I going to escape this place when Ty and Mom need me?

  5

  Cadi

  After drying the last breakfast plate off the stainless dish rack, I hang up the towel. “I’m taking a walk before it gets too warm out.”

  I haven’t told Mama and Papa about the crystal tree yet, even though it’s been two weeks since we planted the cutting. I really need to come clean, but the timing hasn’t felt right.

  Papa glances up from his crossword, which lays nearly complete on the kitchen table. Crow’s feet crinkle up at the edges of his eyes. “Maybe we should get a dog.”