Сара Пинскер - A Song for a New Day

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.”

“My parents always told me people were safer with the congregation laws in effect. You think people have changed?” She’d learned in school that the time Before was terrifying and anxious, full of shootings and bombings and crowd-borne disease.

“I do. Look around. Kids have access to good schools, regardless of where they live. People have better access to jobs and housing. We’re working on federal basic income. There’s way less desperation.”

“My Hoodie still tells me to avoid certain streets.”

“I’m not saying everything is perfect. You’d have to have seen the Before to know how much better this After is, here at least. The prison cycle’s got a flat tire. The rents went back to manageable when all the rich people left. City resources were reallocated more fairly.”

Joni walked her through a community garden on the next block, talking about cleaning the city soil. Rosemary could hold her own on gardening, but she kept wondering when she’d have a chance to raise the StageHoloLive proposition. She tried to steer the conversation back to music.

“Your band is the only one I’ve seen here that’s all women. Is that on purpose?”

“Yeah. There’s something about playing with all women that’s… a different dynamic. An all-queer band like Luce’s changes the dynamic, too. And Luce curates her space in a way that puts us in the majority, which is nice. She says it’s one of the perks of being in charge. Some people think it’s a political statement, too, but that didn’t really come into it.”

“Huh. I don’t even know what you mean by a ‘political statement,’ let alone the rest of that.”

Joni laughed, then stopped when she realized Rosemary wasn’t joking. “I can’t ever decide if you’re adorably naive or if I should feel sadder about it. Or maybe happy that you don’t know why this matters.”

“Educate me?”

“Maybe later. You do get why the 2020 is so special, though? Luce created a place where it doesn’t matter at all who’s performing on a given night. It’s not driven by who can sell the most tickets, or what you play, only that you care enough to throw yourself into it. That doesn’t exist everywhere.”

Rosemary still didn’t understand. She thought it might be a dig at StageHolo, or at something from the distant past, but she didn’t want to clarify and risk getting an earful about her employers. She changed the subject back to urban farming.

They had lunch in a little Ethiopian restaurant. Rosemary had never had Ethiopian food, but she let Joni order, and followed her lead in eating it. The flavors were unusual but comforting, sour and savory. She even managed not to stress over the fact that they were both tearing and dipping their bread into the same mounds of split peas and beef. Neither mentioned Wednesday night.

Joni chatted on about the city instead. Her day job involved preventing homelessness, and she tied the tour together in a context of racial history, queer history, social history, politics, and even music history that left Rosemary exhausted and amazed.

“I had no idea,” Rosemary admitted. “I thought a city was just a place with more people crowded in together.”

“Stick around, kid,” said Joni. “There’s hope for you yet.”

An Ethiopian teenager stood in the corner rapping to prerecorded tracks while they ate. Rosemary must have been staring, because after a while, Joni leaned over. “It’s not music that’s illegal, you know. Just gathering to listen to it. He’s totally legit.”

It was easy to forget that. When Joni went to find the bathroom, Rosemary took the opportunity to Hoodie up and see if he was online. She blinked past an ad for Superwally’s Foods of the World drone subscription, but got an error when she tried to get the artist’s name based on the song he was playing: not in the StageHolo or Superwally databases.

She mentioned it as Joni slid back into her seat. Having established that she knew nothing was liberating; she could ask so many questions, freed of the burden of pretending worldliness.