Сара Пинскер - A Song for a New Day

I reached out an arm. Rosemary stared for a minute before she understood. “Um,” she said. “I’ve never hugged anyone who wasn’t family before, not in real-space, and even my parents aren’t much for hugging.”

My arms dropped to my sides. “I’m sorry. Hug not required. Not everyone likes them.”

“No, it’s okay. I just didn’t know what to do.” She mimicked my gesture, and we wound up in a weird, brief half-embrace, shoulder bouncing off shoulder, before she ducked out the door.

Back at her hotel room, Rosemary lowered herself gingerly onto the bed. She didn’t remember the last time she’d stayed awake all night. Her body existed as one giant ache, and her eyes begged to close. She wanted a bath, even if it ate a few days’ water credits, but she didn’t recall if Luce had told her not to get the cuts wet. Or was that stitches? Casts? How were you supposed to know if your thinking was altered when you were this tired?

She lay back for a minute, then groaned and reached for her Hoodie.

You didn’t check in, the first message accused. Please report.

She missed knowing the person on the other side of her work correspondence. SHL handled her by group. If she needed something tangible, she called Logistics. If she wanted a supervisor’s opinion, she called Recruiter Management. If she ran into someone who didn’t want to sign the standard contract, she’d call Legal to negotiate. Nowhere a single name, a single person to trust or not trust with a question or a problem. Maybe that was the point. At least she didn’t have to put energy into talking face-to-face with a management avatar at this time of morning.

Sorry. Spent all night talking with a singer after a show. They didn’t need to know about the fence incident or the reason she’d spent all night talking.

Good lead? came an immediate reply.

Rosemary groaned again. She should have waited to respond after she’d gotten some sleep. Maybe.

Keep us posted. Sooner than later. We’re eager to see what you’re capable of.

What was the proper response? Will do.

She was eager to see what she was capable of, too, for her own sake. Luce had said she left home because she knew she couldn’t be herself if she stayed. Maybe, even if Rosemary was still looking for her thing, she could start with the knowledge she’d done right in taking a chance on this job.

On her next attempt to get in the 2020, Rosemary didn’t trust that she wouldn’t have trouble until she was through the door. Alice gave her a scowl and a salute from her couch that suggested grudging approval. She supposed that was enough; she didn’t need to be friends with everyone. The company didn’t even encourage it. You are not there to be anyone’s friend. Observe. Don’t be a stranger to them, but don’t get too involved.

But surely it didn’t matter so much. People had been so kind to her already, except for Alice. What was the harm in being friendly back? Everyone here knew each other. Maybe they didn’t all like each other, but they trusted on some level or they wouldn’t be here. Trusted that they were all here to listen, and that nobody would tell the wrong person. Even Alice was doing her job, playing her part night after night in case the wrong person stumbled in.

So much trust and care. If that many people put their safety—their freedom, their lives—in each other’s hands, who was she to doubt them? Nobody planned to start a stampede or a fire. They were mechanics, teachers, techies, nurses, musicians. They came because they loved music, loved these bands, felt some piece of the music belonged to them.

As she descended the basement stairs for the third time, she decided it was okay to be scared, but not to let fear keep her from the music she’d come to hear. Fear of bees was reasonable, but running from bees got you stung. Fear of crowds was reasonable, too, or so she’d been taught. Crowds spread disease. Crowds concealed attackers. Crowds attracted the attention of people who might do you harm. She could worry about all that or walk downstairs and do her job.

She still aimed for her protected spot below the stairs, armed with her mother’s invisible bubble, for whatever good that did. She had no illusion she’d stay calm in a crush, but maybe she could extend the limits of what was panic-worthy and make it through one full show.

She stood in her safe zone. She had been so focused on the room in the past—the stage, the musicians, the nearest exits—that she’d never taken a close look at the crowd before. It struck her that part of the job involved gauging the audience, too. It wasn’t only about her assessment of the band, her reaction to the music. Who did the audience respond to? Who made them dance, or press closer to the stage? A puzzle piece clicked into place. She thought back to the bands from the first night, tried to remember what the crowd reactions had been.

The audience had an even wider age variety tonight, or a wider variety than she remembered. In her mind, the menace of the second night’s crowd clouded everything. They were big, young, broad-shouldered, heavy-footed, in her recollection. Tonight a few people leaned against the walls, chatting with each other. More gray hair than she remembered. Nobody who wanted to hurt her. Not deliberately, anyway.

Joni came around the corner and stopped beside her. “Rosemary! Back for more punishment?”

“Desensitization. Are you playing tonight?”

“Nah. I don’t want people to get sick of us.”

“How could they? You were wonderful. I was hoping to see you again.”

“Thanks. I’m flattered.”

Someone touched Rosemary’s arm. She flinched, turned.

“You came through the front door this time, I hope?” asked Luce. “How’s the head?”

Rosemary put her hand to the adhesive bandage at her hairline. “Much better, thanks.”

“So you think you’ll make it through a whole set?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Good. It’s nice playing for new people. Just stand your ground, so I don’t have to clean you off the floor again. Stand firm and people will bounce off you.”

Luce melted into the crowd.

“So how come she can play practically every time this place is open, but not you? Because she owns the place?”

“No, she can play because her band is amazing and she spends all her time writing new stuff and experimenting musically and no two shows are ever alike. We don’t have enough material to play more than one show a month. We’ve only been together for a year.”

“I’d never have guessed.”

“That’s because you heard us once. Come back in a month, and it’ll be the exact same songs. Maybe one new one if you’re lucky. We don’t have time to work up more. Most of the bands here are on a one-month rotation, except Luce’s. She calls it her ‘extended residency.’”

Rosemary didn’t know what that meant, but she nodded. If that was the case, if she wouldn’t see some of these bands again for weeks, she’d have to practice making faster decisions on which she thought were StageHoloLive material.

She had another question. “Is the crowd mostly the same night after night, or do people turn up for specific bands? I asked somebody the first night I was here who she’d come to see, and she said ‘everyone.’”

Joni shrugged. “A mix. I think Luce is smart to only open the place twice a week. There are regulars who are here every night it opens, and musicians like me whose bands play monthly, but we come out other nights, too. I sit in with some of the others if they need cello. Then there are friends and family members and big- F Fans who only come for the bands they love. Luce tries to juggle the combinations so Fans hear different bands when they turn out for the ones they know, so maybe they’ll fall for somebody else as well. Cross-pollination, she says.”