So I work in that same beauty salon
I'm chained to the old masquerade
The lipstick, the shadow, the silicone
I follow my father's trade
*
Joey used to trade in the credits he earns at his performance evaluations for upgrades to his
telecommunications packages, extra hours of history specials and televised broadcasts of light
opera and old Fred Astaire films. He would wake up in the afternoons and dial open the blinds
on his windows so that the sun came in and turn the volume on his monitor all the way up so that
it sounded like he was somewhere else, and when there was music on the program, he would
dance.
Now he's a father, and he saves all his credits for extra time off. He gets daily updates on his
daughter -- her health, her eating habits, her test scores -- downloaded to his mailbox from her
pediatrician and her cognitive psychologist, and even her mother sends him letters along with the
photos. Unsigned letters; Briahna's mother was matched to Joey because of their genetic
compatibility, but no one has ever suggested that they meet, which means that she is either much
higher-placed in the company than him, or much lower. Probably higher.
He visits twice a month, more if he works on holidays to earn extra time, and he has to commute
hours out of the city to see her. He takes a train, and it's a boring trip. There's a monitor, but the
programming is mostly commercials, and he tunes it out, listening to the sound of the voices, but
not the meaning, much.
Joey is attuned to the sound of voices. That's his specialty, in his department. Other processors
are more creative, are better at constructing stories and building drama from the raw electrical
material of the slides they receive, but Joey does voices. Most slides don't come with sound.
Joey puts the voices in, so he's always listening to the way people speak, keeping one ear open
for just the right sound. He hears them in the oddest places.
They run a lot of commercials for Joey's company on the train. Everybody loves the Panthea girl,
the unnaturally sleek and liquid grace of her digitized body, the way her skirt swings when her
hips swivel, the way she flips her hair, the famous pose with her knees together and her calves
splayed carelessly, childishly apart while she rests her chin in her hands. "Panthea makes
everybody's dreams come true," she says. She's ghostly, faint lines on a white screen, but she's
the face of Panthea. Joey can barely make out her face even while he's watching her. "Do you
dream?"
Joey likes her voice -- girlish, with a hint of a static hiss behind it, real and simulated at the same
time, like the Panthea girl herself. He wonders if she was thought up and animated by some
advertising firm somewhere, or if she started out as a dream herself, if she passed through
Processing years ago. He wonders who dreamed her, and what he got paid to give her up. He
wonders who put in the voice. The Panthea girl has been around for as long as Joey can
remember, long before he was with the company.
Briahna gives him sticky kisses, citrus kisses. She likes grapefruit, and limes, and anything sour.
Joey brings her candy sometimes, JuicySours and Puckers and Lemonbombs, and pops them
quickly into her mouth when her caregivers aren't watching. She's barely three, and her diet is
strictly monitored. He knows it's healthy, but when Joey was a kid, his parents gave him
strawberry shortcake and chocolate cereal and candy canes at Christmas, and he turned out all
right. He sneaks her the candy, and when she hides them under her tongue and grins at him, he
puts a finger to her lips and thinks, This is from your grandfather.
She wears a heart-shaped necklace on a silver chain, with a serial number on one side and the
Panthea logo stamped on the other. If she's ever lost, she can be sent home where she belongs. If
the clasp is ever broken, it will set off a silent alarm at Children's Assistance, and someone will
come to help her. Briahna can't be lost or stolen; she's the daughter of two Panthea employees,
and the company will take care of her for as long as she needs care. When she's older, they'll find
her a position with the company if she wants one, in whatever department her aptitude tests route
her into.
When Joey wonders if he made the right choice, he just thinks of Briahna, of how she'll always
have something to fall back on, how she'll always have someone looking out for her. That's all
that any father ever wants.
He takes the direct line back to his office when the visit is over, and because of the train schedule
he's always early, earlier than any of the night shift, except for Lance, who always shows up early
and eats a sandwich and drinks a cup of hazelnut coffee in the courtyard. Lance claims he likes
to focus his mind on the work ahead of them, but Joey is pretty sure that he just comes hoping
that the good-looking boy from Human Resources will leave the office late that day, and they'll
see each other.
That's all they ever do. Lance comes in early and eats his sandwich. His looker is usually the last
to go home, locking up the HR suite behind him before he crosses the courtyard toward the
security checkpoint. Sometimes he smiles at Lance as he goes by, and sometimes he's distracted
and he doesn't. When Joey has been to see Briahna, he's there early enough to catch the show.
"You'll never say hello to him," Joey says. Sometimes it works, if you act like you think you
know more than Lance. Sometimes he'll want to prove you wrong.
But this time Lance just shrugs and says, "You never can tell."
Lance lives by himself, and he spends his bonuses on time off, just like Joey, but he takes it once
a year, three weeks in the Caribbean, and Joey thinks he goes there by himself, too. He's been
partnered with Lance for almost five years now and he's never seen Lance's apartment. Lance has
a ferret and a dog. Joey hasn't seen them, either. Every now and then, Lance shows up at Joey's
place, and they drink a few shots and curl up on the couch to watch Fred Astaire movies until the
sun comes up. Then Lance either goes home or he lets Joey lead him into the bedroom and make
love to him in the sleepy mid-morning light. If Lance dreams when he sleeps, he never tells Joey
about it.
Joey rarely dreams. Processors don't, much. They spend so much time in REM that before long,
they lose the ability to get there normally. Their brains just don't need it anymore.
They have other people's dreams.
There's a new team working the night shift, and they come in early too, still trying to make a
good impression. Joey doesn't understand how they operate; usually a processor and his pro-tech
team together as much because of their rapport as their individual skills, but Pharrell and Chad
seem like strangers sometimes, like they just report for work in the same space. They're efficient,
with Pharrell already in the chair with his blinders on and Chad running the first-up system boots
while Joey and Lance are still hanging up their coats. Joey has seen their work, too, and they turn
out a good product, non-linear and full of energy, the smoothest transitions in the company. He
doesn't get it, though. Nick and Brian are two halves of the same identity, finishing each other's
sentences, always together, endlessly delighted by each other. Beyonce, who does the best
erotica maybe anywhere, whose work is so tight and streamlined and perfectly tuned, is sort of a
fragile girl, soft-spoken and easily rattled; she's in complete control of her craft, but Kelly is the
one who takes care of her on and off the clock, so that Beyonce's eyes are always skittering
toward her, constantly following to make sure Kelly doesn't stray too far off. And maybe Joey
feels sometimes like he doesn't know Lance as well as he should, but there's a bond there; he
feels more peaceful, more at home when he's just sitting in the atrium watching Lance eat a
sandwich than he's felt anywhere since he left home. Pharrell and Chad.... Joey just doesn't get
it. How can you let yourself go like that, with only someone you don't love to catch you?
Joey and Brian show each other their baby pictures; Brian is married to Baylee's mother, and the
three of them live in Family Housing in the suburbs. He doesn't really have the seniority to live
in the suburbs, but he has religious affiliations that bump his name forward in the lottery, one of
those traditionalist sects that opposes centralized childcare. Brian's religion probably opposes
managed conception, too, but he's so good-natured, and he never seems to be judging Joey; he'd
never be like some of those people who picket outside the nursery grounds and yell at Joey as he
goes in, who say that if he loves his children he won't abandon them for strangers to raise. It
never seems to occur to Brian that Joey could love his daughter any less than Brian loves his son,
just because he's giving her a different kind of upbringing.
"Come on, come on, come on," says Nick, who's practically a little kid himself, half-jumping on
Brian's back. He's a lot bigger than Brian, but Brian always seems able to hold him up just fine.
"The night is young, and we have five slides on the schedule tonight, can you believe that?"
"They're slave drivers," Brian says, still smiling. "I heard day shift still gets overtime if they do
more than three."
"I guess they figure we get the night shift differential anyway," Joey says. "Okay, if it's going to
be that kind of night, I guess we better save all this for after. Anybody for the Heidelberg?" The
Heidelberg runs specials on drinks and appetizers at dawn, for the police and the medics and the
regular people like them, anyone who has to work nights. Nick and Brian and Joey and Lance go
at least once a week. Joey wonders if they should start inviting Pharrell and Chad. It seems
polite.
"You're going to love this," Lance says as Joey takes the chair. He holds the slide between both
hands, a rainbow shimmer of data in its clear plastic case. It's the only one they've been given,
apparently, and Joey's stomach sinks when he sees the account number written across the case in
thick black numbers. 3335.
"I can't," Joey says. "Dammit, I said already, I can't keep dealing with this account. I'm not good
at it. Why don't they schedule Beyonce and Kelly to take it over?"
"Maybe it's a different dream this time," Lance says.
"It's never a different dream. And I'm not good at it, and they keep sending it here and sending it
here, and I keep fucking it up." Joey's heart is racing, and his voice keeps getting louder without
him meaning to raise it. Fucking it up isn't the right word. He just can't catch it. It's starting to
haunt him, that face appearing behind his eyes every time Joey closes them, just like it was Joey's
own dream. 3335. That boy, the one that Joey can't...quite...catch...
Lance reaches out to pat his wrist firmly. "We'll get it," he says.
"I don't know why they keep sending it right back to us," Joey grumbles as Lance fixes the soft
pads of the receptors to Joey's temples. Joey closes his eyes; he used to use the blinders to block
out light, but he stopped because he was showing off, and now he really can work just as well
without them. He can theta with his eyes open now, if he tries. "What's that saying -- insanity is
doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?"
"Shhh," Lance says. "We'll get it."
It's harder to relax than usual, because he's already thinking about the 3335 boy. He's had to
process at least half a dozen dreams on this account, and it's the same face every time. There
must be at least one person out there who can't get that boy out of their head at night either; that
thought is slightly comforting.
He does it, though, because it's what he's trained to do, what he's good at. He lets go of
everything, of thoughts and sensation, the very chair underneath him and the air he's drawing in
through his nose. He lets himself go still and weightless, until he hears Lance's deep voice from
a long way away, saying "Good, Joe, looking good. You're steady at 5.2 per, and I'm loading the
slide. Give me a go when you're ready."
"I'm ready," Joey says.
There's a psychosomatic element to something like this, when it's a familiar account number,
when you have expectations. The slide itself is nothing more than a stored file of electrical
impulses, a chart of the way that someone's neurons fired during the recorded sleep cycle, and
Lance is just running it like sheet music, making Joey's brain fire the exact same way. The
difference is that Joey has training and experience and control, and his brain interprets these
meaningless electrochemical signals more vividly, more intensely than the original dreamer, so
that what seemed garbled and hazy the first time can be remastered and re-recorded. When the
client gets his dream back, it'll be everything he remembered and so much more, better than any
movie. Some people can barely remember what they dreamed about at all, before Joey shows it
to them.
This time he knows what he expects, and so it rises up from the darkness of his mind with very
little delay. It's so vague, and yet so vivid. Joey can see every gleam of soft light off his lightly
golden skin, the exact mess of his rough-warm curls, the bluntness of his chin and the width of
his mouth. Joey's attention skims over his strong arms, his long neck, his outsized hands as they
tug impatiently at the buckles on his bladers, fitting them over his sneakers with their worn laces,
frayed at the ends. He straightens up, and there's a fine strip of skin under his tight, dark blue
shirt that gleams like a coat of scales; the heavy waistband of his jeans stands stiffly just a
fraction of an inch away from his stomach, scratching against his pelvis, leaving a narrow, deep
shadow between clothes and skin. There's no background, no detail. Nothing but the boy -- the
man, really, easily in his twenties, but Joey thinks of him as a boy because the dream is rich with
a mood of fragility and innocence, untouchability -- on the edge of a bench, strapping on his
bladers and then standing up, skating a lazy half-circle while he stretches his long, raw-boned
limbs and getting ready to race.
He can't get the rest, no matter how hard he tries. There should be more. There's always more;
the natural complexity of consciousness means that details and layers build up, unnoticed the first
time around, and Joey's whole job is to catch them as they flit past and weave them back into the
story. But he can't get past the boy. He can't see anything but that strong cheekbone, that jut of
collarbone that looks like it could cut your lip if you kissed it.
Joey's attention comes momentarily back into his own body, because he's sweating, and it
prickles on his palms. "I'm stuck," he says.
"You're good," Lance assures him. Joey can imagine him, although he's never seen Lance work.
He can imagine the intent look on Lance's face as he watches the monitor, seeing what Joey sees
from the outside. Joey doesn't really understand what a processing technician does; something
with computers, something Joey doesn't have the education or the temperament to understand.
All he knows is that Lance stays with him the whole time, sees everything he sees. "Joey, you've
got it. You gotta relax, you've got it. He's beautiful."
Beautiful. He is and he isn't. He's too real to be beautiful, not made out of clean, digital lines,
not touched-up. The skin on his face is a little rough, wind-struck, with uneven redness staining
his nose and his cheeks. His lips are chapped, and his hands are too square, he's got a firm, flat
stomach and narrow waist but from other angles he just looks skinny, underfed, and there's
something about his eyes -- he doesn't have that willing look, nothing inviting about him. He's
busy, he's going somewhere, he's living his life. Usually in a dream like this, the subject will be
focused on the dreamer. Usually the point of hiring Panthea to remaster your dreams is to
pretend that he's seeing you back, that you're real to him the way he is to you. There's no one else
in this dream. The boy is on his own. Joey thinks that makes him less beautiful than almost
anyone who knows you want him, than the ones who catch your eye and smile back.
He's not beautiful. But he's so real, so detailed. He's a real person, Joey's positive of it, not
someone's fantasy. He looks like he might live downtown.
"Get me out," Joey says. "I'm not doing this anymore, get me out."
"Okay," Lance rushes to say, his fingers fumbling over the back of Joey's hand as he fades out the
input. Joey's brain goes to a simmer, and for a second he can feel the twitch of his eyes, and then
it's over, he's out of REM and his brain is cycling faster, fast enough to think again. He opens his
eyes and sees Lance, staring at him worriedly. "Joey, are you all right?"
Joey rubs his eyes. The rest of the room is quiet, Beyonce and Nick and Pharrell still deep in
theta, their pro-techs attentive to them and ignoring Joey. "I want to go home," Joey says, and he
doesn't know if he means the clean, spacious, upscale convenience of his apartment, or if he
means home.
"We can," Lance says dubiously. "We have the sick days." They haven't taken a sick day in two
years; Joey knows they shouldn't, because they get bonuses at their productivity reviews for not
using their allotment and Joey needs the bonus for Briahna. But they haven't given him anything
but 3335, and he can't do it anymore. It's not fair that they're making him, and Joey thinks he
should file a complaint with Human Resources.
The last image is frozen on the monitor -- slight frown, awkward arch of his neck, lashes
lowered. Joey wants to put something over the monitor, cover it up. He wants to protect this
boy's privacy. Most of all, he wants the boy in the dream to do something. He's always
getting ready, always putting on those bladers and limbering up like he's getting ready to race
somewhere, but nothing ever happens, Joey can never push the dream past that, to where he
actually goes somewhere or meets someone or becomes anything at all. Joey is sick of seeing
him stand still.
"I think I'm in love with him," Joey says. Not in the usual way, but somehow. The more he's in
Joey's head, the longer he hangs around after the shift is over, like a ghost of a ghost.
"Come on," Lance says, taking his hands to help him out of the chair. "We need a night off."
They clock him out at security and download him a copy of his benefits information, in case he
wants to see how much sick time he has or where he should report for various types of medical
care. The atrium is quiet except for the birds of paradise chattering softly at each other from tree
to tree; one of them flies across, his body dipping awkwardly, flapping his wings in desperation.
He just barely makes it. The birds are bred so that they're too heavy to fly themselves more than
a few feet. That way they don't dive-bomb the employees.
Joey heads for the door, but Lance hooks his arm through Joey's and takes him toward the
elevator. "I don't think they're open at this hour," Joey says when he sees where Lance is taking
them. There's a restaurant on the top floor with a beautiful view of the city, where the company
brings its invited guests. It's more expensive than anywhere Joey ever eats, even though it's
technically available to any employee, too. Joey was there a year ago, for Brian's wedding
reception.
"You're in love with him?" Lance says. His eyes are luminous in the glow of the LED panels
around them, sad and gentle, but his voice sounds irritated. "Joey, what's this really about?"
Joey puts his hands in his pockets and stares straight ahead. "Not in love, in love. I just think
about him a lot. Too much. I don't think 3335 is the right person for him, you know? He'd do
better with someone who doesn't want to see him...you know. Just kept in that same spot all the
time. Every dream is the same; it's fucking eerie, really."
"He's not real, Joe."
Joey hasn't known he was irritated himself until just now. "And yours is, your looker from down
in the offices? You come every fucking day hoping to see him, and you don't even know his
name."
"I do know his name, and it's not the same thing. That's exactly the point, Joe: I know the
difference."
They don't say anything until they get off the elevator. The restaurant is closed just like Joey
said, the chairs stacked up on top of tables, the hum of cleaning equipment filtering through the
glass doors. Joey starts to say they need to go back, but a waitress comes to let them in. She
kisses Lance and talks to him like he's an old friend. He probably is. Joey forgets, sometimes,
that he's the only one who sees Lance in his quiet phases, his strange, withholding moods.
Usually Lance is charming, and wherever he wants to go, he knows somebody. They don't know
him, but Joey doubts they ever think about that. Lance attracts the kind of people who have a lot
of connections and don't think too hard.
The staff doesn't seem bothered at all, and they pull together a small table by the very outer arc of
the window and serve them breadsticks and Cosmopolitans and the last of the day's soup, French
onion. Someone even lights the candle on their table, like it's a romantic dinner for two. Joey
wonders if Lance ever brings dates up here. He's never brought Joey before.
"Maybe I made a mistake, coming here," Joey says. He doesn't mean the restaurant and Lance
knows that. They're so high up that the city is a featureless blaze of light below them. Joey has
lived here all his life, and he can't make anything out.
"Is it so much better downtown?" Lance asks quietly. "Joey, there's nowhere to go there.
Little one-room offices and contract employees with no benefits and no job security, and the
crime rate, Joey, Jesus. I thought you wanted a family, right? How do you honestly expect to
raise kids downtown? The companies reserve eighty percent of the seats in credentialed schools
for their own kids, and if you can't lottery into what's left over you end up sending them to indie
schools that can't afford enough computers, and then what happens, Joey? They end up like you,
like your father, functionally computer illiterate, basically unemployable? They sell ice cream
cones at the park until they retire and can't afford supervised care, so they move in with
grandkids who can't afford-- ?"
"Stop," Joey says. "Fuck you, Lance, okay? I grew up downtown, and I think I know what my
options are better than you do. When have you ever been there, except to slum on the bar strips?
Where do you get all this stuff, the news feeds? My father had a job."
Lance opens his mouth and then closes it. Lance is a legacy; his family has been with Panthea
for God knows how many generations, since back when it was a game company, before the
dreaming technology advanced. To Lance, the corporate life is what a job is.
"We need to take the night off tomorrow," Lance says.
"I just took-- "
"We need to. We need some time apart."
Joey doesn't know if they're fighting or not, let alone over what. He watches Lance eat his soup,
just sits and watches him in silent frustration, picking his breadstick into crumbs. "I wasn't
yelling at you," he says, when the silence becomes unbearable. "I just...wish you hadn't brought
up my father, that's all."
"Leaving the company won't bring him back, Joe."
"Let's not talk about this." He can't talk about this with Lance, whose father's father's father
worked in this building, who stayed their course, who was always a part of this. Lance doesn't
know what it's like to leave badly. He doesn't know what it's like to leave at all.
They might be fighting, but Lance rides the train home with Joey, even though it's three stops out
of his way, just like always. It's still dark out, and Lance can't seem to help staring out the
plexiglass roof of the train at the blur of stars passing by, his hand clutched hard around the
support pole. At first Joey thinks Lance is avoiding him, and then he realizes he's just entranced
by the sight of it. "Is your apartment on the top floor?" he asks, thinking about how Lance
bothered to make friends with the staff of the restaurant that sits high above the city.
"Yes," Lance says. "Why do you ask?"
"No reason."
The stop underneath Joey's apartment complex sits on a roundabout platform, and Joey always
walks to the other side with Lance to wait for his train going back the other way. They stand
quietly, and the glare of white tile and green lights makes Joey's eyes hurt with the cleanliness of
the whole thing. It looks fake, like a movie set, and no matter how many times Joey tells himself
that this is his life now, it never seems real. He thinks of the boy, the downtown boy, and
imagines him in one of the downtown train stations, surrounded by overflowing trash cans and
graffiti and crying children, fidgeting with frustration at one of the endless Green Line delays.
The image isn't beautiful, but it's real.
Unexpectedly, Lance turns toward him, his arms around Joey's ribs under his coat, his breath hot
on Joey's neck. Joey touches his back gently. "I love you," Lance murmurs. "Don't leave."
"Okay," Joey says without thinking about it. He just wants to be reassuring, wants Lance to trust
him the way he trusts Lance. "I'm not going anywhere."
Lance kisses him, a slow and hesitant kiss that's all too easy to settle into. Joey finds his fingers
nuzzling comfortably inside Lance's waistband, over Lance's warm skin, and when they pull apart
they're both breathing heavily, Lance's eyes dark with pleasure like Joey's only ever seen them
after sex. "Call me later," Lance says.
Joey sleeps most of the night and well into the morning, and when he wakes up at one o'clock
he's disoriented, because this is normally the middle of his night, and yet he's wide awake. He
goes out for tacos around the corner and is amazed by how many people are rushing around in
the bright sunlight.
He gets on the train with no particular destination, but by the time he's halfway to the river, he
has to admit that he's on his way home.
He takes the Green Line all the way down to Federalist Avenue; he almost misses the stop
because the recorded voice on the train says Federalist Avenue when Joey's only ever
called it FedAve since he learned how to talk. He still remembers the station, though, where the
dark grey stone is bleached almost white at the bottom of the escalators, where the sunlight pours
in from above; Green Line is almost all underground, not that it matters, because there's no
plexiglass ceiling on the trains.
FedAve hasn't changed in the years Joey's been gone. It skirts the south edge of Whittier-Francis
Park -- Joey only knew it as the park when he was a kid; there was no other park, as far as he
knew -- and follows along a row of stone buildings that are all a hundred years old or more.
They house all kinds of businesses, but when Joey looks at them, all he sees is fallout from the
theater district up on the 900 block. The Chinese restaurant that catered every opening night, the
thrift shops where everyone bought and traded costumes, the dance studios that gave day jobs to
choreographers. When he walks past Mary Immaculate, with its barred windows at ground level
blocking Joey's view of the four basement classrooms that made up his alma mater, Mary
Immaculate Parish School, still all Joey thinks of is the theater, of watching the priest intently to
learn timing and voice control, of coming up through the ranks of the Christmas pageant year by
year, sheep to shepherd to Wise Man to Joseph, with his father directing every year. He used to
sit in that basement and hide scripts inside his catechism, memorizing Tennessee Williams when
he was supposed to be studying.
By the time he comes within sight of the Rialto, Joey misses it all so much that he's dizzy. He
almost can't see the deep, jagged cracks in the sidewalk to step over them. He almost can't
believe that his father isn't inside, holding rehearsals.
Four strangers are crowded into the window of the props attic; for a few confusing seconds, Joey
thinks they're calling out to him, waving their arms and laughing and pulling him in. Joey takes a
halting step forward. He's been gone for five years now. How could these people be waiting for
him, these three boys and one tiny girl with long blonde cornrows, shouting and laughing like
they can't start until he's inside again where he belongs?
One of the boys holds his arm out the window at an angle, showing the face of his watch to Joey,
even though it's too far away to read. "Ten!" they start to yell. "Nine! Eight! Seven!" Joey
takes another clumsy step, wondering what happens if he doesn't make it inside by the time they
count to zero.
He's passed up in a blur of motion and the whir of bladers, almost knocked aside by the speed.
At first he thinks it's the boy from 3335. It takes him a few seconds to realize he's right.
Joey hasn't had a dream in three years or more, since before his father died. But that's what it
feels like, following this stranger who isn't a stranger, half unable to believe it, half sure that he
came all this way for this, exactly this. He crosses the street as if in a dream, only yards behind
someone he knows just as a stranger from inside another stranger's head. Nothing feels real, and
Joey is almost sure that when he steps inside the Rialto his father will turn to face him and say,
"So look who thinks he doesn't need to rehearse like everybody else," just like he always did
when Joey came later than he should.
The kid bounds the threshold of the theater while his friends are on one, and they break off to
applaud and whistle at him. Justin, somebody shouts. It shocks through Joey almost
painfully. He has a name now. Justin.
He slips inside unnoticed and stands in the back as Justin pulls off his bladers, shuts off their
batteries, and tosses them among the back rows with two heavy clunks. There are people on
stage and at the sound board, and the rumbling over their heads of Justin's friends pelting down
the back stairs. "I'm not late!" Justin says.
Joey sits down in the very back, unnoticed. He can't follow the details of their chatter, but it
sounds familiar anyway, auditions and understudies and off book by Friday, everything that
actors talk about. He could almost walk up and join in. This was almost Joey's life. He never
imagined doing anything but this, until a small, sharp-eyed man who fidgeted like one of the
addicts who sat across the street from the shelters and waited to come down before they could be
allowed in for the night came backstage and offered Joey a small fortune to move across town
and direct a different kind of show than the only kind his father had ever taught him.
Joey has been gone for years, and he doesn't recognize most of these people, but a few are
familiar. Robin is still here, with her dark red hair and her husky, commanding voice; she was
his father's assistant for years, and it looks now like she's the new director. Joey's brother Steve
is at the light board. He knows one of the actresses, Jennifer; they went to school together. He
knows Justin. In a way. Joey doesn't know this script, but it looks like Justin is the star of the
show.
When the lights hit him, when he's up on the glossed wood of the stage and framed against the
velvet backdrop, he's more beautiful than Joey expected. He moves like he's still on wheels,
smooth and effortless, like Fred Astaire in all of Joey's favorite movies. He prowls the stage like
it was him and not Joey who was born in the prop attic, who was meant to be here, like he's the
legacy and not Joey. Joey is split almost in half by the force of his jealousy, and at the same time
he can't think of anything but running his fingers through that hair, pulling Justin's sharp-edged,
lissome body close and making him moan with kisses.
He has everything Joey thinks he's ever wanted. It's no wonder somebody is obsessed with him.
Joey stays longer than he should, but he still manages to slip away before anyone notices he's
there. It's evening when he emerges from the dark theater, and it's hard to see the sun as it sets
behind the tall buildings of the uptown skyline, but the light breaks loose and shines vivid red in
rivers from between. Mary Immaculate seems to be glowing when Joey sits down on the steps
among the fat, bad-tempered pigeons and calls Lance.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he says. "I came downtown to see my old neighborhood, the old
theater, and I swear to God, Lance, I can't remember why I'm doing any of this."
"Because you wanted a better life. I thought."
"It's not necessarily about better and not better. This was my life, it was always supposed
to be my life. You can't understand. You stayed where you belonged, you don't know what it's
like to -- I grew up in that theater, and I'm just some stranger there now. You don't know
what that's like."
Lance's voice is harsh, almost a little crazy. It's strange enough to jolt Joey into giving his full
attention. "You don't know what I know. Don't tell me what I know. The only
difference between us is that I thought about all this ahead of time. I didn't sign a contract
somewhere else and then start thinking about what my father would say and then
start having a fit because I figured out that changing means losing something. That's why I didn't
sign a fucking contract to start with."
Joey watches the birds waddle back and forth and give him evil looks. "Where did you want to
go?"
Lance gives one short burst of laughter. "Away. As far away as you can get. I wanted to work
for a company that has off-planet interests. But of course they can never promise you that you'll
get there. They just say, sign here, and we'll start you out at the bottom, and maybe you'll do
really, really well and promote up for fifteen years, and then you'll be eligible to apply to think
about training to learn how to be one of the ones who might go. It's not.... I stayed where
I...well, where you think I belong. I personally don't feel like I know where anybody belongs and
where they don't, but I'm willing to take your word for it, I guess."
"Do you believe in God?"
The subject change seems to throw Lance for a beat, but he says, "Of course I do."
"I just think this has to be a sign. That guy, Lance, from the slides, the 3335 account? He's here.
He's an actor in my father's old theater. I mean, you tell me what that means."
"I'll tell you what it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that he's your goddamn soulmate or whatever
you're thinking."
"It's not a fucking coincidence, that's not even possible."
"Joey-- "
"I just feel like something brought me back here, like-- "
"Joey, he's dead. Okay? Your father is dead. You fought with him before it happened, and you
weren't there when he died, and I know you hate it and I know you'd give anything to change it,
but you can't. Even if you quit the company and went back right now, even if you marry your
little starlet and take up directing the way your dad wanted you to, you wouldn't feel any different
than you do right now. You'd feel guilty because you said things you didn't mean, you'd worry
that he really did mean the things he said, and you'd miss him."
He hasn't cried over this since the day his sister called to give him the news, but now he does,
and the years in between don't soften it. It hurts just as much as it did then, because Joey's father
was a big, noisy man who loved music and actors and believed in candy before supper and
stopping to help out a stranger and making big mistakes, because he said it was better to clean up
afterward than not to take a chance at all. He was a good man who loved his kids and he would
have forgiven Joey any time, except that Joey didn't ask for it, and now it's too late.
"I'm sorry," Lance says at last. "I'm not good at this stuff."
"It's not you," Joey says. "I'm just...stuck." Because he has a lease. He's under a contract that
has four more years on it and is very expensive to break. He has a daughter that the company
keeps under lock and key, and he has no illusions about how often he'll get appointments to see
her once Panthea doesn't owe him anything anymore. Joey isn't coming back to marry Justin and
take his father's place at the Rialto; he knows that. He just didn't expect, when Chris Kirkpatrick
promised him lifelong security, that this was what it felt like.
"His name's Justin," Joey says. "By the way."
"Well, mine's named Joshua. You see, I do know."
That makes Joey smile. "You're probably just making that up."
"You should come back. I don't like you being downtown after dark."
"You worry too much. Trust me, okay?"
"That's my line," Lance says, and in a way he's right. Processors let go of all their control,
knowing that only electricity goes in and most of what comes out of their heads was there all
along. Joey has always had to trust Lance, or he couldn't relax and not mind whatever Lance
might see.
For the first time, Joey wonders if it's him and not the dreamer who can't cut Justin free to move.
Joey cuts through Whittier-Francis to see the carousel that still doesn't run, even though the local
commissioner runs every year on the promise to fix up the park. Joey walks between the kids
playing on the platform of the dead carousel and is sort of pissed off, because it's one more thing
that doesn't go anywhere. He rubs the cold plaster nose of the walrus that was always his favorite
of the animals and wonders if a carousel counts. If going in circles forever even counts at all as
moving.
He comes out the park gate nearest the FedAve station, and it takes so much attention to cross the
street between the cars -- there used to be crosswalks, but they let the paint fade out when the city
budget cut most of the traffic lights downtown, and now it's every man for himself -- that he
almost walks right by someone else that he knows, someone else he would never have expected
to see here.
Joey sits down beside him, not sure whether or not a Vice-President can be expected to
remember someone like him, an ordinary downtown guy who was probably just a routine hire
more than five years ago. But then, most Panthea Vice-Presidents, Joey is willing to bet, don't
kill their free evenings sitting on a public bench on FedAve and feeding the pigeons from a bag
full of popcorn that's so over-salted that Joey feels thirsty just smelling it.
"I don't -- you probably don't remember me," Joey says. "My name's Joey Fatone. You were,
actually, you were the guy who hired me. I work at Panthea, I'm one of the night-shift process-- "
"Sure I remember you," Kirkpatrick says easily. He glances up and squints at the remains of the
red sunset. "You're gonna be late for work."
"I'm. Uh. Sick," Joey says lamely.
Kirkpatrick just smiles briefly and says, "Oh, okay, then. How are you liking Processing?"
"I like it," Joey says automatically, and then is surprised to find that it's true.
"Yeah, I knew you would," Kirkpatrick says. "We get all these applicants who want to work for
Panthea because they grew up with the product, because they're fans. But I never think they do
as good a job. Kids like you and me, we grew up too broke to rot our brains with other people's
dreams. We read books, we went to theaters. It's a particular type of skill, you know? Seeing
something real minimal, then imagining that there's a lot more to it. Not everybody can do that."
"It's a lot like what a director does when he reads a script," Joey says quietly. "My father was a
director."
"I know. One of the best in the district; I was a real fan. How do you think I found you?"
Joey looks up when four different cars hit their horns in the same time. Justin skids around the
last one so closely that Joey would swear it nicks his wheels as he goes by. He's laughing as he
grabs hold of the back of the bench to help stop himself. They don't allow bladers inside the train
station, so he has to stop and take them off.
"Better hurry," Kirkpatrick says, amused. "This is how many times you've been late this week?"
"Aw, fuck 'em," Justin says. "What are they gonna do, fire me? There's other shitty night jobs
out there."
"Offer stands."
Justin laughs again and throws his arms out wide. The collar of his jersey slips, and Joey can see
that he was right about those collarbones. Sharp as knives. "And disappoint my fans? Thanks,
Mr. K, but you know I wasn't born for a desk job."
"Yeah," Kirkpatrick laughs, but there's something faded and sad in his eyes. "I know. What the
hell is that on your face?"
Justin wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand and doesn't manage to do much more than
smudge everything everywhere, streaking a luminous grey shadow across to his temple and over
the back of his hand. "Some damn thing that make-up wanted to try, and I didn't have time to
take it off. Now I look like a whore; we'll see how that affects my tips tonight."
"And speaking of your career, how did your audition go?"
Justin makes a little face. "I can't even tell anymore. They didn't fall out of their chairs and offer
to make me an instantaneous superstar -- is that a bad sign?"
"Next time," Kirkpatrick says.
Joey stands up when Justin starts for the staircase. "Wait," he says.
Justin turns around and looks him up and down hard. He has strong, flat eyebrows over his blue
eyes; Joey doesn't remember that detail. Processing isn't an exact science. His eyes are darker
than Joey thought, too, unless that's just a side-effect of the makeup. "I know you, don't I?"
Justin says. "Where do I know you from?"
For one crazy second, Joey thinks of that word that Lance used -- soulmate. For that one second,
he thinks that maybe Justin is seeing backwards through those dreams, watching the people who
are watching him. That maybe Justin has been waiting to be found. Then he comes back to
reality and says, "You might have known my father. I look a lot like him."
"Oh, shit," Justin says. "You're Joe Fatone's other kid, aren't you? I know your brother, from the
Rialto; I'm actually rehearsing a show there right now. Hey, how are you?"
"Fine, thanks," Joey says, and shakes his hand. "I've -- I've seen you before, actually. At the
Rialto. You're really good."
"Thanks! You wanna be my agent? I think I need a better one."
Joey laughs awkwardly, not because it was a bad joke, but just because he can't quite believe he's
doing this. "I don't know if I can get you a job or anything, but I could definitely buy you dinner.
I mean, I know you have to work tonight, but some other time. Whenever you're free."
Justin cocks his head, surprised, and this time he looks Joey over a little more slowly. "Hey," he
says, "that might be fun. Listen, I really do have to run, and actually the truth is I'm never
free, because I've got this show, and my fucking night job, and I'm trying to make all these
auditions, so I'm not blowing you off, but I seriously don't know when would be a good time,
right off the top of my head. Can you just give me your number and I'll call you first chance I
get?"
"Okay," Joey says.
Justin punches the number into his phone. "Your name's Joe, too, right?" he says when he's
ready to save it, and Joey nods. Justin saves the number, and then gives him a brilliant smile.
"This is cool, this is some kind of karma shit. Your dad gave me my first paying job. This was a
few years ago, and it was Shakespeare, can you fucking believe that? Who takes a chance on
some total rookie who's never done anything but third-rate talent shows and Baptist revivals --
fucking Shakespeare."
"He always knew talent."
"He was one of the good ones. I bet you miss him."
"Yeah," Joey says. "I do. Who'd you play?"
"Romeo."
Joey smiles. "I'm sorry I missed it." He puts his fingers under Justin's chin and kisses him softly,
just a slow press of their lips, barely parted at all. Joey's father always told him, it's easier to
clean up the mess than not to take the chance at all.
Justin draws away slowly; he looks a little agitated, but not completely in a bad way. "Okay,
well," he says helplessly. "I'll definitely see you later."
"The direct approach," Kirkpatrick says behind him after Joey has stood there like an idiot,
watching Justin disappear down the steps two at a time. He sounds admiring, but there's a
cutting edge to it. "Can't argue with success."
Joey turns around to look at him, and he knows he shouldn't ask, but he can't help it. "Are you
3335?"
Kirkpatrick's mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Panthea guarantees its clients' privacy." Joey
feels weird about the whole thing, but it's not like he did anything that anyone else couldn't have
done if they wanted to. Kirkpatrick stands up and brushes the popcorn crumbs off his coat.
"He'd make a great processor," he says. "But it's hard to get these guys, the really creative types.
They're happy where they are. I think most of them need that dynamic with the audience to
function. It's hard to find people who can put on their best show for just one person."
"I guess it has to be the right one person," Joey says quietly.
"Well, you get lucky sometimes," Kirkpatrick says breezily.
Joey has never been to Lance's apartment, but he knows which stop, and he knows it's on the top
floor, and it's not that hard to find. It's been months since Joey has seen Lance in anything other
than dress-code, and he can't remember if he's ever had a chance to see how well the sleeveless
look suits Lance. "Can I come in?" he asks.
"Sure," Lance says, like he doesn't see why Joey would want to.
It's a beautiful apartment. Lance decorates in warm, beachy colors, with the walls painted in a
slow fade, layers that graduate from eggshell to soft gold to coral and pink-orange-sunset at the
top. Joey thinks of Lance's Caribbean vacations; there's so much that he knows about Lance, and
so much more that he doesn't. Lance's shaggy little terrier is barking around Joey's feet, and his
ferret is asleep on the round white couch that dominates the middle of the room. "I've never been
here," Joey says.
"You never asked."
"Listen," Joey says urgently, and then realizes that he doesn't know what he's come here to say.
Lance looks expectantly at him. His hair is still damp, and brown at the roots, and Joey leans
forward and sniffs the vegetarian smell of Lance's shampoo, brushing his lips over the hairline.
Lance makes a soft noise and puts his arms around Joey's neck.
He doesn't know the way to the bedroom, so Joey just pulls Lance to the couch, only carefully
enough to avoid squashing the ferret, who doesn't seem inclined to move. Joey doesn't care
much about getting their clothes off, because he didn't come here so much for the sex, but more
just to be with Lance. He doesn't think it's time apart that they need.
Lance keeps making those sounds as Joey rubs against him, low, restless sounds of pleasure that
sounds almost like protest. It's only from his gleaming eyes that Joey can be sure it's not protest
after all. He holds Lance's jaw with one hand and kisses him over and over, using the other hand
to pull Lance's shirt far enough up to be out of the way of his belt buckle. Maybe a little bit he
came here for the sex.
But they do end up stopping short of actual sex. It's full dark in the room now, with just the
lights from the kitchen and from the window that takes up half the north wall of Lance's
apartment, and half the ceiling, too. They don't talk about it, about where the lines are tonight,
but when their clothes are unfastened and they're touching each other in ways that turn Lance's
slow keening and Joey's panting into sharp, startlingly loud cries, suddenly they both slow down.
Lance leaves his hand inside Joey's pants, his fingertips barely moving. Joey slides his hands
over Lance's smooth, hard upper arms, his face hovering just over Lance's. Lance licks his own
lips, eyelashes fluttering over slitted eyes, and he's stubbled and sleek and too beautiful. His
pulse races under Joey's tongue when he kisses Lance's neck.
Through what seems to be sheer force of will, Lance makes his eyes open. He strokes Joey's hair
and says, "You know that there are reasons, right? That nobody else does this with their
processors? Even Kelly knows there has to be some kind of separation."
"There's that one married couple on days."
"Who, Nick Lachey and his child-bride?" Lance snorts. "Clearly that's exactly how stupid you
have to be to fall in love with your processor."
"Is that how stupid we are?" Joey whispers, thumbing Lance's jaw.
"I don't know," Lance whispers back. He smiles then, and says, "What? I'm not allowed to have
no idea what I'm doing sometimes, too?"
They rest there together for a minute, ignoring the dog's attention-seeking whines. "How was
your visit home?" Lance finally asks.
It's hard to draw his attention away from the idle patterns Lance's fingers are drawing on his back,
but Joey makes himself answer. "I wouldn't say it necessarily helped."
"Well," Lance says, with a certain finality. He palms the back of Joey's neck and says, "We'll get
there, Joe. Trust me, okay?"
"I don't even know where it is I'm trying to go."
"So that'll slow us down a bit," Lance admits. "Slow's not so bad, though."
"No, I know," Joey says. He tends to agree with whatever Lance says, just out of habit. It works
for them. He falls asleep trying to calculate the math in his head, how the sick days will affect
his review, how long it might be before he can get upstate to see Briahna again.
Lance usually saves up all his credits for three weeks in the Caribbean at the end of the year, but
if Joey asks, he thinks Lance would be willing to give up a couple of days to come along. Joey
wants them to meet each other.