The Variables

“Come on,” said Grant. “Take me somewhere cool. I need to get out of my head for a minute. I don’t know if I can handle another second of dwelling on what’s going to happen next. I just need someplace…for us.”

Lucy knew just the place.

Everything was there. Every song ever recorded, every album ever released. Mozart to Michael Jackson; Etta James, the B52s, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Every genre across the decades, organized into various categories, and available within seconds. Lucy walked Grant over to the soundproof booth and sat him down on the cushioned seat. Then she shut the door and smiled. Slipping into the booth next to him, she could see Grant’s head against the neighboring glass. The world was silent—everything outside had disappeared. The din of people talking, the echo of voices up and down the floors, the buzz of the elevators carrying people about their day.

She didn’t want to listen to music. She just wanted to listen to the empty, shallow sound of nothingness.

But Grant had quickly gotten to work pushing the computer screen into action, dialing up artists and songs. While Lucy couldn’t hear what was going on in his booth, she could see Grant’s fingers swiping through categories, adding songs to his playlist, his head bopping along to something upbeat.

He turned and looked at her and broke into a grin. From beyond the glass, he broke into song: He closed his eyes and crooned upward, a mighty grin on his face. Lucy just watched him, giggling. Filled with inspiration, Grant darted out of his booth. She tried to see where he went, and then he reappeared holding a pen and several sheets of white paper. He scribbled.

Good thinking, he wrote, pushing the paper to the glass.

She bowed and broke into a grin.

When he turned back to the screen, she popped her head out. It was disorienting to suddenly hear the sounds of life.

“Excuse me?” she called. “Hello?”

“Is there a problem with the computer?” a young man with a thick Australian accent asked, and he rushed over to her booth. She didn’t recognize him and he didn’t seem to recognize her, so he must have been a Kymberlin transplant from another EUS. “They’re still a bit glitchy.”

“No, no,” Lucy said and she smiled conspiratorially. “Do you have a master control to the boxes?”

“You mean...can we override the playlists and pump in any song we select from our mainframe?”

Lucy nodded with her eyebrows raised in expectation and excitement. “Yes! That! Can you do that?”

“Can we do that?” the young man called to a second young man behind a big counter. Just like in some music store in a big city, the counter was covered in famous concert posters. They were relics now; artifacts of the old world, stored in this place as a reminder. “Yeah, we can do that,” he said nonchalantly.

Lucy jumped and whispered a song into the young man’s ear. He raised a single eyebrow, smirked and started to walk away.

“And can I have paper, too?” She clapped her hands.

He obliged, handing over a small stack and a pen.

“You two kids on like a date or something?” he asked with a smile.

“I think so,” Lucy replied with a blush. “Okay. Play my song next.” She slid back into her booth and shut the door.

Grant still bopped along; he turned when he saw her and wrote something down.

Welcome back! Listening to Elvis Costello. And he had drawn a wobbly smiley face.

Then he pulled the paper down and his face went neutral. He looked up to the ceiling, confused. She watched as he stared at his computer and tapped it with a finger. When he realized he had been hijacked, he smiled at Lucy and saluted her. He poised his pen above the paper, but didn’t write. Lucy could tell he was listening to the lyrics, decoding them as they poured into his booth.

Wow, he wrote.

Eels, she wrote back. Daisies of the Galaxy.

He closed his eyes, a smile still plastered on his face. When he opened them he wrote: You knew this would get to me. I will be far away soon. But I’m not the one who’s sad, Lucy. Not about that. He was listening to the words she chose for him. Really listening.

She nodded.

Why are you sad, then? she wrote.

His hand hovered over the paper and he wrote down, I’m sad because it’s unfair to ask you to choose. He showed her. She read it again and again. He took the paper down. I love you he wrote next.

I loved you first she wrote back instantly.

LIES! Grant wrote next. The song must have ended because he put his finger up and she saw him leave the booth. When he came back, he wrote a new note: Your turn.

With a sudden burst of drums and twangy guitar, Lucy’s booth erupted into song. Even though she was expecting it, the music overwhelmed her. It was so loud and rich, as if nothing else in the world existed except for this one song, played for her by a boy she loved.

Then the singer began. A moody, melancholy voice. Lucy listened and listened. Like Grant, she tried to decode. It sounded so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time. Then the chorus hit her.

She wrote: Whoa.

He wrote: Yeah.

She wrote: Seriously. Whoa.

He wrote: You know it?

She shook her head. So, he wrote: The Smiths. There is a Light That Never Goes Out. 

Resting back against the booth, Lucy closed her eyes and let every chord and strum and beat rush over her. It was a message, loud and clear. She wiped away a tear before Grant could see. Then she stood up and put her hand flat against the glass; Grant reciprocated. They stood like that until the song was over...the lyrics still echoing as Lucy realized and internalized their significance.

He didn’t have to ask her to choose between a life on the shore and a life on Kymberlin. He made it clear that the choice was a life with him or a life without him. And he deemed it a privilege if she chose him, but one thing was clear: both paths were littered with heartache.

Grant slipped out of his booth and joined her inside hers. It was a tight fit and Lucy squeezed against the edge, her hip pushing into the computer console. Grant leaned down and kissed her, slow and purposeful. She could feel the questions on his lips, the worry of goodbye on his tongue.

Here they were on their first real date. A bona fide, old-world date. Perhaps the last one they would ever have. Because soon Grant would be dead to her. His life on the Island would end. Soon he would leave Kymberlin. Forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ethan knocked once. Cass answered in a nightgown and black fuzzy slippers, and she held the door tight against her body, opened just wide enough to let her head pop out and Ethan see her in her state of undress. He smiled, but she looked stern, impatient, and anxious. Instinct kicked in and Ethan moved to try to peer beyond her doorframe, but she slipped out into the hall and shut the door behind her, crossing her arms around her and grabbing at the small open fabric at the top of her chest. Her legs were dotted with goosebumps and she jumped slightly to warm up.

“You have a visitor?” Ethan asked with a smirk. He hoped it didn’t come across as upset or prying; he didn’t care if Cass had let someone stay over. She didn’t owe him anything. She was not his girlfriend, and in many ways, it would make leaving easier.