Her location wasn’t the thing that mattered, anyway. Message transcended location, even if it was a message saying to be somewhere and do something. And this message was reaching people. Four hundred thousand views and climbing.
She played it again, listening carefully, then dropped her Hoodie to think. We need something new. Create something better. Construct ways to belong. That was a message directly to Rosemary. Not only to her; she knew that. It would take more than just her, anyway. The concert tonight had been one step in the right direction, but only one step. What was the next one? She groaned in frustration.
The cop looked over. “Ankle hurting?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.
She kept thinking it over. Thought about it as they came to get her for X-rays, as they mashed her foot into the right position for the X-ray, as a doctor eventually showed up and confirmed she had a bad sprain, not a break. They wrapped it tightly, told her to ice it and elevate it and try to stay off of it. When the doctor wrote a prescription for a painkiller, the cop interjected that she would probably be better off waiting to get it filled, if she could stand the pain.
“Are you really supposed to have a say in my care?” she asked, as if it had been her plan to go to the hospital.
“No. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying less paperwork, less chance of your pills getting lost, less delay in getting you out the door after you’re arraigned. Speaking of which, are you ready to go?”
She wasn’t, but she supposed that didn’t really matter.
Lockup hadn’t been on the list of things Rosemary had been dying to experience in her travels, and afterward it made her list of things she’d prefer not to experience again. Jails had their own exceptions to congregation laws, with the result that she spent the night with thirty other women in a cell that wasn’t nearly large enough for thirty women standing, let alone sitting or trying to close their eyes. Only three others looked like they might’ve been at the warehouse concert, and she was glad North Carolina had recently done away with cash bail, according to the officer who’d done her intake, so she wouldn’t have to worry if they had the money to get themselves out; it was her fault they were there. When Management had shown all that concern about getting Legal involved after the raid in Baltimore, it had been only for her and Luce, not for anyone else who got caught up in their net. She hadn’t even considered that before.
She carved a few inches out for herself on the questionable cement floor and waited, which was an interesting exercise in itself. She had no idea how to keep her mind occupied with no Hoodie, no phone, no job, no music, no chores. Her foot throbbed, and she tried to get someone to bring her ice, but the request was ignored. Nothing to do but wait and hold on to her space and second-guess her life decisions.
Waking disoriented her; she hadn’t planned on falling asleep. She started to stand up before her foot reminded her to stay on the floor a little longer. Breakfast was a square eggish patty on square white bread, which she gave to another woman who looked hungrier than she was.
They’d done away with cash bond, but left a complicated recognizance system. The district court commissioner didn’t like that she had no personal ties in the state. He asked her not to leave the city until her court date; she successfully argued that her job demanded travel, and the restriction was amended to staying in state. It helped that she had nothing on her record, and that the charges were only congregation and trespassing, both level-three misdemeanors; apparently the cop had only said resisting arrest to scare her. Legal would have gotten her out faster, but she hadn’t wanted them to know she had stayed. It was possible they knew already, if they tracked her company Hoodie even when she was on vacation. She still wanted to pretend they wouldn’t do that.
So she was stuck in North Carolina for the time being. On vacation as far as the company was concerned, which was good, because she was still weighing out the ramifications of what she’d done. She had no way of knowing if anyone had gotten hurt, if anyone had picked up weightier charges, if Tomás would get in trouble—at least he was only seventeen—or his mother had lost her building. Tomás had promised she had others; he’d liked the subterfuge. Rosemary still couldn’t tell if she had the stomach for this, though it still felt better than the alternative. The waste she’d laid to Luce’s life and the scene she’d built so carefully.
She hobbled back to her room. Arranged to have her pills droned in. Realized she had no ice in her tiny fridge’s tinier freezer, and added a chemical ice pack to her Superwally order. What she wanted to do was go see if Sadie was at work, but that would involve walking. She collapsed on her bed and set her mind to work on a question that had been nagging her: Why was the video labeled “Harriet”?
The video she watched didn’t provide the answer, but one of the others did. From that drone’s angle, a large “Harriet” sticker was visible on Luce’s guitar case, and after much discussion, the uploaders had decided that was her name. None of them connected her with Luce Cannon, one-hit wonder, and if anyone from Baltimore was watching, they weren’t spilling. It added to the mystery. Between all of the versions, Rosemary counted over three million views. Three million people watching in amusement, or three million people taking it to heart, or some lower number of viewers watching it on repeat as she had done? She had no way of knowing. All she knew was she needed to do something to help; to answer the call to action.
She had one tiny grain of power: recommending bands to SHL. Two if you counted the trick she’d pulled on the company here. Was there any medium in which she could follow Luce’s instructions? A thing she burned to do? More than anything, she wanted to be a conduit for Luce’s message, to shout it from the rooftops in a way that it might be heard. Maybe, maybe she had a way.
It started with a twofold apology.
“Baltimore Homelessness Prevention Services, this is Joni speaking.”
“Don’t hang up. I’m sorry to call you at work.”
“Sorry? Who is this?”
“Joni, this is Rosemary. Please don’t hang up.”
There was a sigh on the other end, but the call didn’t disconnect. Rosemary took that as a positive sign.
“If you think the statute of limitations on my anger has expired, you’re wrong.”
Or not. “Look, you don’t have to accept my apology. I don’t think I would, either, under the circumstances. I’m calling because there’s a thing I want to do for Luce, but I need to find her to do it.”
“I don’t know where she is. She left town right after you killed her space.”
“I know. I was hoping you’d have a way of reaching her. Somebody has to, right? Somebody knows where to reach her if something happens with the 2020?”
“There’s a lawyer,” Joni admitted.
“So you could get the lawyer to pass a message for me?”
“I could, but I still don’t know why I would. What could you possibly offer her that she hasn’t already turned down?”
“A way to do it without selling out. A platform. Have you seen her vid at Graceland?”
“Her what?”
“I’ll send you a link. Borrow a Hoodie and check it out, and then call me back if you’re willing to help me reach her. And again, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am for what I did. You said I couldn’t fix it, and I can’t, but maybe I can make something else happen. Watch and call me back if you’re willing to let me try.”