“I thought that was what I suggested,” Bailey said. “I said, a city she wants to see.”
“What’s there to want to see?” asked Rosemary. “Anyway, I’m not supposed to go see some city. I’m supposed to find local musicians, but I don’t know how, so I guess I’m not going to have this job for long.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and examined the book titles on the shelf on the opposite wall. Decided to take control of the conversation. “Aran said he just walked in here and told them to sign his band. How did you all get found?”
Victor snorted. “Aran’s full of shit. Don’t believe everything he says. I was one of the zillion people who are out there uploading music. Nobody hears it because if you don’t have an SHL contract you have no access to Superwally distribution or audiences or anything but the tiniest streaming services, which you can’t even access without hacking your own devices to ditch the proprietary stuff. SHL makes sure nobody hears you if you’re not theirs. But I got to chatting with a recruiter when we both played on the same team in a shoot-’em-up, and she invited me to send her some of my stuff. Then I had to audition for an audience of one, which was weird, and then another audition as an opening act for Huntress here, and I got her fans dancing, so here I am.”
That story calmed Rosemary’s nerves a bit. If he had been discovered through a game, there was a chance she could start out online, from home. Baby steps.
Bailey rolled over onto her back and rested her head on her hands. “And I was playing in the Atlanta underground clubs when a recruiter told me he liked my stuff. I thought he was trying to scam me, but he kept coming round to shows ’til I started to believe him.”
Rosemary filed that information away, too. What had the training packet said? Don’t be a stranger to them, but don’t get too involved. Bailey’s story bore that out.
“How do you find underground clubs?” she asked. Better to sound ignorant in front of three people and learn something. If she asked anything too embarrassing, she’d have to make sure she never saw them again. “I’m sorry if it’s a stupid question. I really don’t know. Do you need a password? Aran mentioned earlier how some bars have secret music rooms, and I’d never have guessed that in a million years.”
Bailey stood and stretched her legs. She was smaller than Rosemary expected, compact and muscular. “Sometimes you do need a password, or a person to vouch for you. Sometimes it’s a matter of showing up in the right place on the right night. You wouldn’t be there if you didn’t know, so obviously you’re meant to be there.”
“I’ve never understood that logic,” said Victor. “Anyone could be there if they did enough research. Cops, shooters.”
Aran threw a pillow at him, which he ducked. “That’s why nobody would’ve found you in a million years if you hadn’t gotten lucky. Little bedroom geek making music in your room for nobody.”
Victor threw the pillow back, with a little more force. It looked like Aran’s comment had stung. “Better to be a bedroom geek than get arrested making music for slightly more than nobody. Why risk it?”
“And this is what you’re up against, Rosemary. There are talented musicians hiding in their bedrooms, and talented musicians playing for ten or twenty people in hidden rooms all over the country. The company doesn’t care where you find us, as long as you find us. Bring us in! Make us yours.”
Aran tossed the pillow Rosemary’s way, and she grabbed it and held on. She felt a little more comfortable now, a little less like a mouse for the cats to bat around. Still, if she asked another question, it would keep them from asking her any. They were performers. They didn’t mind attention.
“So, what else can I tell the, ah, new talent about what they can expect if they come out here? They want me to sell something I’ve never seen. I think there’s a talent FAQ, but maybe y’all can tell me more about what I’ll be asked?”
“You can tell them all this can be theirs.” Aran waved his hand at the room. “If they want. They can also live at home and travel in for shows, but if they’re not a solo act, they’d be better off staying here for a while to practice in the isolation booths.”
“Free food,” said Victor. “Well, free-ish. It gets deducted from our pay, but the prices are reasonable, so it’s not like owing the company store, unless you have fancy tastes or eat a ton.”
“Or unless you’re an alcoholic,” said Aran. “If they drink a lot and buy at the commissary, they’ll be poor very quickly. If they can wait the hour, they should drone it.”
“It doesn’t feed you in the same way a real live show does,” said Bailey.
Victor squinted at her. “Superwally? The commissary? Are you still talking food?”
Bailey ignored him. “It’s different from performing for an audience. More intimate, in a way, because it’s more like playing for one person—the camera—than a whole crowd. If you’re somebody who gets charged up by screaming fans or playing to the cutest person in the audience, you’re not going to be fed.”
“They do bring in audience for some people.” Victor stood to toss his pizza box in the garbage, then returned to the floor.
“Yeah, but they don’t like to, except on special occasions, and even then it’s only, like, ten or twenty people. Cuts the profit margin. They have to screen everyone, and worry about security on campus…”
“But it can be worth it.” Aran had a dreamy look in his eye.
Bailey swatted his leg. “You’re only saying that ’cause you found a guy to hook up with at the festival last week.”
“I used to meet someone at every show. Don’t tell them that part or they won’t come, Rosemary.”
“That’s the choice,” Bailey said. “Fame and fortune, a chance to make an actual living playing music, but you have to give up the most fun parts of the job. I’m not even saying sex, but talking with fans after the show, signing stuff for them, watching their reactions…”
“…Sex…” said Aran.
Bailey frowned at him. “Living here doesn’t make you a monk. There are new hires all the time. It’s a big campus.”
“Not big enough when things don’t turn out well.”
“Not any smaller than the incestuous scene you came out of.”
Aran nodded, conceding the point.
Rosemary listened in silence. She still had the sinking feeling she wasn’t the person for this job. Who was she to tell some musician in some as-yet-undecided city that playing for millions on SHL made more sense than what they were doing? Not that she could speak from experience on any of the subjects they talked about, either; all of her dating had been within the safety of hoodspace.
She wasn’t in a position to give anyone advice on music. She had expertise in other areas. Growing carrots. Solving database errors. Troubleshooting. That was what SHL had seen in her: good problem-solving skills, resourcefulness, enthusiasm. If they hired her, they must believe those skills carried over. She worked on memorizing what everyone had said, so she’d be able to repeat it back if she ever needed to have an opinion.
12
LUCE
Never Really Ever Had It
We had a large dry-erase board on the kitchen wall. On one side, roommates put notes about groceries needed and leftovers available and things like “Good luck on the interview, Jaspreet!” On the other side, we kept a running list titled “Don’t Forget Normal.”
The Don’t Forget Normal list included: street festivals, Renaissance fairs, amusement parks, supermarket runs, movie theaters, malls in December, talking to strangers in a waiting room. We debated whether some of those were things we actually missed, but decided they all went on the list. Just because something had needed improvement didn’t mean the solution was to cancel it entirely. Jaspreet, the public school teacher, had hated her school’s principal and adored her students. She applied for the new virtual grade schools one after another, but there were far more teachers than spots, between the sick kids out of school and the ones who had died, and the constricting job market.