Three new girls in school. Ask one on a date. But what happened in her last school and where is Canterlot High anyway?
After the events of Rainbow Rocks, Sonata Dusk and her two companions are cooling their heels at a new school. At lunch one day, a young man is bold enough to ask her out. An ordinary teenage girl and an ordinary teenage boy. As their relationship grows, he learns some of her secrets, and has to come to grips with them.
Finally the bell rang, only we don’t have a bell at Griffin High, just a buzzer sound that’s probably not even generated each time, but a recording played over the PA. Whatever, it means we get out of class. Whoever put my lunch in seventh period, someday I will find you and get revenge. I mean, one o’clock isn’t an unreasonable time to eat lunch, but when you had breakfast at seven…and there’s almost no one in the lunchroom, because everyone has their lunches at fourth, fifth, or sixth. Only transfers like me and remedial kids have to have them this late.
To be fair, they don’t run out of stuff. On the contrary, they probably throw out most of it. But that means that we get the food that’s been sitting in trays for…three times forty minutes…OK, I need to study math more. It’s a long time. I grab a slice of pizza that’s lost all its crunch—no toppings or garlic or red pepper of course, that would give it too much flavor—and some juice and take my tray down to the last table. A few moments of peace and then I can burn through history and gym and go home.
But it looks like I’m not the only transfer student stuck in the late lunch, because these three have to be new. I would have seen them before. The hair colors alone—orange, purple, blue…the blue might look gray in low light, but even that doesn’t help. Nor did the style. Blue had a pony tail and Orange had a Peg Bundy poof and Purple had a pair of Sailor Moon pigtails. Plus the way they dressed…I know nothing about fashion, because I’m a guy and I don’t have to, but their clothes looked more like parodies of trendy clothes than what actual girls were wearing. Oh, well, it was their problem.
They didn’t look happy, but that could be attributed to the food, the fact that they were in a new school, or just the weather.
This was Friday, and I put them out of my head. I liked girls fine, but I had no idea how to talk to them, even when they didn’t have anime hair. What weirded me out further was when they came in Monday in exactly the same outfits. I mean, I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought. Probably they did laundry over the weekend and the last became first. It didn’t bother me till Tuesday.
My sixth period class is right by the cafeteria, so I just take my books in while I eat, then go to my locker before eighth. The upshot is that I’m usually first to get the leftovers. That Tuesday, though, I got my tray and get in line when this blue and gray streak runs right up next to me.
“Ooh, sorry,” she said. “Really itching for lunch, you know.”
It was blue-hair, and again, she was wearing the same faux-Gothic outfit. I mumbled a “Don’t mind” and pushed ahead to get a scoop of macaroni and cheese. Well, in name. I’m fairly sure that no part of the dish ever saw the inside of a cow.
“What the—what is this?!”
The bored server didn’t answer, just added a scoop to her plate.
“But it’s Tues—arrgh! I wish there were a way to know what the lunch is!”
I don’t know how she could have missed it, but I cleared my throat and said, “The schedule for the month is posted where you get the trays.” She looked at me as if wondering why I was speaking to her, then ran back to the tray area, bowling over another couple of students. After scanning it, she said, “They don’t even have them!”
I shrugged and took my usual spot at table. She slammed her tray down next to me. “Food sucks,” she said.
“It is pretty bad, isn’t it.”
“You think so, too?” she said.
“Yeah, but they don’t let you go out for lunch, even though there are probably some places I could drive to and back in time.”
“I meant having to eat food, it’s the worst.”
I didn’t get her. Losing interest, I turned back to my own food. “Thanks,” I heard, and looked up. “For showing me the menu,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” I decided to try to take the conversation up. “So, about your clothes…”
“Hey!” She stood up and waved. I turned around to see her two compatriots, also in the same clothes, join her. Talking was over for that day.
Indeed it seemed over for that week. She didn’t come in early again, and I didn’t feel confident striking up a conversation with the other two there. And that was something I wanted to do. I liked her increasingly, listening to the timbre of their conversation. They seemed to be complaining a lot, which I could understand, but blue-hair at least laughed once in a while. I got the impression she wasn’t that bright, but wasn’t stupid either. Just a little spacey.
So I made a plan. On Friday, I changed my routine and did go to my locker before lunch. That gave me more time to get to the next class. Right as the bell rang, I steeled my courage, walked behind them as they were headed out, and said, “Er, excuse me?” All three turned around, but I kept my eyes on target. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” I hoped that the alone would be implied.
They all had looks like they didn’t want to be separated, but orange-hair said, “Catch up with us. You do remember where the next class is, right?”
“Sure.” They walked off, and now I was in for it.
“So, um…sorry, I don’t know your name.
“Sonata.”
“Really? That’s an unusual name. Pretty, I mean. I’m Chip.”
Her eyes widened a little. “Like a nacho chip?”
“I…sure. If that helps. So, like we were saying…you probably don’t remember, but we complained about the food. Would you maybe want to get some better food? Like, with me.”
She hesitated. “Do…is there any place that has tacos? They don’t have them here, but they did at my last school.” She clearly missed it.
“I’m sure I can find someplace with good Mexican food.”
“I don’t want Mexican, just tacos.”
I was confused. Didn’t the one mean the other? Oh, she must mean that she wants fast food tacos. “OK, we can just go to Taco Border, if that’s what you’re into. Want to meet there?”
“Actually, I was wondering if you couldn’t just take me after school. I don’t have a car.”
“OK, I could pick you up at five—“
“No! I mean, let’s go right after school.”
“But we just ate…ok, I see your point, we barely ate. Sounds good.” Homework could wait anyway.
I sleepwalked through the last two periods and hung out in front of the buses that would take all the non-seniors and those without cars home. This was the worst part of a meet-up: the waiting. I made note to get her phone number if we were going to be dating. Then I realized that I never clarified this as a true date, and that three o’clock wasn’t exactly date time either. I would have to bring that up.
Finally she came out with her two-person crew. Or, to be fair, it seemed like she was in the crew and Orange was the boss. Whatever, not my problem. “Hey, Sonata!”
Purple shot me a look and lowered her tone so that I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I got the impression that neither of the other two liked me. Well, I hoped that was just typical female jealousy. Sonata came over and I did the chivalrous thing of opening the door. I know it’s considered corny and anti-feminist. But all’s fair.
OK, so, I had her in the car, good. I liked my car; what high-school student doesn’t? Even if it’s a beater and has no style, it’s four wheels, and that’s two to four more than most people my age have. And mine wasn’t that bad. Used, of course, but paid for, a gift from two birthdays ago, contingent on my getting into college to keep it. Yes, I had a lot of miles under my belt with my…
I laughed out loud.
“What?” she asked.
“I just realized, the car. It’s a Sonata.”
She was confused.
“The model of the car, I mean.”
“Oh! I didn’t even know that was a car model.”
No laugh, but then it wasn’t really a joke, just an observation. There would be time for that later, I hoped. I couldn’t see myself dating someone who didn’t laugh. Crazy, I could deal with. Humorless, never. I’d once spent the better part of a three-day weekend trying to get someone to crack a smile. Made it on the last day, by referencing something we’d seen on the first.
I reached for the radio knob. “Do you like music?”
“No!” Sonata was given to exclamations, but this was the kind of sharp warning that I would have expected had she noticed a spike on the knob waiting to pierce my finger. “I…no, I don’t like music.”
That was odd, but not too much. Some of what they played would turn even the most ardent admirer’s ear away from the medium.
It wasn’t far to the taco place, and when I brought the car to a stop she fairly jumped out and raced to get in line. She sniffed the air like a junkie taking a hit. The rush hadn’t hit yet and we reached the front of the line quickly.
“Three taco supremes, please!”
I managed to not get out a “tacos supreme.” The last thing that I needed to do at the beginning of a date was to get a reputation as a grammar stickler. Besides, I had a feeling that Sonata wouldn’t understand, and that if I tried to explain, she would get bored or annoyed.
Still, if this was going to be the model for our dates, I was going to enjoy this. The entire meal for two hadn’t cost ten dollars, and here we were at this reasonable hour, standing a good chance of getting home while it was light out. If the relationship progressed, that would mean time for extended dates.
“Thank you so much,” Sonata said, and she meant it. Don’t go crazy, Chip. You just bought her fast food.
Our number came up and I took the tray, seeking a booth in the corner where we could talk in as much privacy as could be afforded in such a place. I watched her pick up her first taco and eye it greedily, before biting in and giving a moan of satisfaction.
“You seem to like it.”
“My friends and I used to eat out all the time, but ever since we got here, we haven’t been.”
“Where did you used to go to school?” I asked.
“Canterlot High.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It doesn’t matter. But speaking of which, can I ask a question?” I nodded assent. “OK, Griffin High School. Out in the front there’s the sign that says, ‘Home of the Gophers.’ Why not a lion or an eagle?”
I searched the question for meaning. Then it hit me and I laughed again. Maybe Sonata did have a sense of humor. “Oh, that’s clever. But no, it’s not like the mythological griffin. I only came in this year but one of my classes made me research it. Some guy named Griffin, a television producer I think, gave some money to have it named. Or maybe he went here when it was called something else, I forget. But they didn’t establish the mascot until later.”
“No griffins? I’ve got to tell Adagio! She picked this school.”
“Adagio?”
“My friend, the one I eat with. She and Aria, but Adagio’s kind of the boss.”
I concentrated on my quesadilla for a moment. The freakish names were one thing, but what did Sonata mean by “picked the school”? I had pegged the orange one as the leader of the group, but did Sonata’s parents really present a series of options of moving locations to which they deferred, not to their daughter, but to her friend? It was crazy, but that seemed the least hypothesis for the moment.
“Oh, I wanted to ask about your clothes.”
“Is there something off about them? You don’t like them?”
“No, I do.” In fact I liked her whole look. “But you wear the same outfit every day. Do you have a bunch of them or do you wash it every night?”
She took her time answering, because I gave her a choice of two and she didn’t answer with either one. “I just take it off when I go to bed and put it on again in the morning.”
Another mystery. Sonata seemed to be full of them. By all logic, if what she said was true, she should stink noticeably, which she did not. If she had any scent at all, it was of talcum and sea salt, neutral tones that suited my sensitive sinuses. Nothing was worse for me than some girl who deluged herself in eau de toilette. I would almost prefer the literal meaning.
It irked me. She and I seemed so compatible, if only she didn’t say odd things. Something I needed to consider was that she might simply be an inveterate liar. But she hadn’t lied for any advantage. Say rather that she was a teller of tales. She smiled at me as she bit her last taco, and I put aside all thoughts of the enigma of Sonata.
The meal was done, and we lingered over our sodas. Time enough to arrange a second date. I didn’t intend to try to extend this one. Sonata might get the wrong idea about me if I asked to stay out till after dark.
“So I’d like to do this again sometime.”
“Buy me tacos? Coolsies!”
It was kind of a childish word, but she wasn’t a serious girl. “Well, I meant any sort of date.”
“So no tacos?”
“If you like them, I’m sure we can come back here or find some place with better stuff. Can I get your phone number?”
“Oh, sure. It’s (555) 321-5464.”
I put my phone down. “Look, if you didn’t have a good time, just let me know and I won’t bother you.”
She looked hurt. “No, I had a great time! I want to do this again! And not just ‘cause I get hungry.”
It made no sense. She was either the best actress in the world or she was being honest. “But there’s no way that’s your number. 555 is the fake area code they use so that people can give numbers on TV without people calling them.”
“I didn’t know that, but that’s what my number is. Here, I’ll text you.”
She typed on her phone and I waited. In a moment it popped up on mine: “Pls don’t be mad at me, k?” and a little emoticon of a girl giving a V-sign. I checked the return number, and it was exactly what she said it was.
“I’ll be d…OK, I don’t get it, but I’m sorry. I’ll add it to my contacts. What’s your last name?”
“Dusk.”
Of course. Couldn’t be something I’d heard of. “Spelling?” I asked, hoping that it would be something like Dusque that I could look up and find was, I don’t know, Andorran maybe.
“Dee-you-ess-kay.”
So much for hope. I logged it in and put away my phone.
“Ready to go?”
“Go?”
“Yeah, I’ll take you home.” This seemed to stymie her for no apparent reason. Only one thing I could think of. “I don’t mean my home! I’m not being forward.”
“Well, I could just walk. Maybe I’ll call Adagio and have her pick me up.”
“You don’t have to. It’s no trouble.”
Sonata bit her lower lip. “Well, all right. At least I can spend more time with you.”
My heart beat faster. I mean, there’s no way I could take that other than that she liked me, right? Again I got to her door before her, and she smiled at me, but there was still a little worry behind it. Pulling my own door shut I said, “Where to?”
“I’m still not familiar with this area. Let me put it into my phone.”
I could have used my own , but let her be the navigatrix. She guided me through the surface streets to a rather seedy part of town. I was grateful for my automatic locks. We reached a large crossroads with strip malls on each corner.
“OK, you can let me off here,” Sonata said.
“You live here.”
“Not exactly, but please, let me go here.”
She didn’t want me to see her house. OK, that was fine, not necessarily trusting a guy you just met, huh? I pulled into one of the strip mall parking lots. “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch?”
“Sure. Bye, Chip.”
“Bye.”
She closed the door and started walking north. I didn’t quite know where I was so I put my home address into my own phone and it had me start north as well. I passed Sonata walking but didn’t bother to give her a honk. There is a limit even to my cheesiness.
A few blocks up, though, I spotted her two compatriots. What were their names again? Adagio and…Aria! That was it. I should remember that one. I guessed that she had texted them to meet her on the way after all, but I still didn’t see any place livable around there. It was more of a commercial area than a residential. I turned a corner…
Oh, no.
I knew at once that it was, even though I hoped it wasn’t. Right there was a sign: County Homeless Shelter. I drove one more block and pulled over, looked at my map one more time. Nothing else close, no apartments or houses for three miles. Sonata was poor, destitute. Probably the volunteers did her laundry for her every night, or every other night. That was why she was so overjoyed at a cheap taco meal.
Well, so what? Should I look down on her for that? It’s not her fault; it’s not like we’re supposed to be earning our own living as teenagers, right? Maybe her father got laid off or her mother just didn’t care or…or was she an orphan? All three of them? I didn’t know if they were sisters, but I didn’t know they weren’t.
No, I resolved that I would not stop seeing her because of this. But I did want to get her to open up to me. I knew, but she didn’t know I knew. I had to make Sonata understand that I didn’t care either way. And then I could help her.
I couldn’t wait till next week. I had to ask her out again by Friday. The thought of her waiting a full week getting nothing but whatever food they had at the shelter grated on me. I didn’t know what they had to eat there, but if the school food was any indication of what the county provided, it would be flavorless and cheap.
Friday morning, getting ready for school. In one hand was my phone, in the other my wallet. I was going to have to economize for both our sakes, but right now I was willing to spend a little. I thumbed out a text: “Go out with me again tonight after school?”
Sonata didn’t have the same cell service as me, so I didn’t get the little “text pending” icon. I decided on the policy that a watched phone never vibrates and went back to getting dressed. I was paying more attention to my look the last few days. If she could manage to keep fresh with the same ponytail and outfit all the time, I could certainly do so with my wardrobe.
I heard the beep and grabbed the phone. “For realzies?!” was the reply. Glad she sounded happy, but I would have preferred an unambiguous yes. Oh, well, let’s be bold. “Yeah. We’ll hash out the details at lunch period.” I briefly considered replacing the word hash with an octothorpe, but in the first place Sonata might not get it, and in the second, it was the stupidest piece of humor ever.
Sleepwalking through another day of classes, I forewent my locker as usual to get my seat in the lunchroom. With a tray of what the menu called a Jamaican beef patty, but in fact was about as Jamaican as UB40, I waited for Sonata. But this time I heard her before I saw her.
“…don’t care, I’m going. Hey, Chip!”
She sat down next to me, and I caught the other two scowling. Didn’t even bother to hide it or look away when I noticed. Aria—I learned their names—said, “So are you eating, Sonata, or are we supposed to wait on you?”
“No, don’t wait on me. Go get your own food. I’m saving up my appetite for later!”
“Have anything you like off my plate.” She was openly at my table now, and there was a literal divide between where we were and where the other two sat. I’ll be honest; I didn’t like them, probably because they didn’t like me. But at the same time, if they were Sonata’s friends I didn’t want to pull her away from them. For all I knew, they were the only people she had.
“Don’t worry about them,” she said. “They’re just upset because we have to take a bunch of remedial classes.”
“Oh, wow. That sucks. Was Canterbury High in some state with poor education standards?”
“Canterlot. And no, we just never paid attention in class. Actually, I’m not sure that Canterlot High had any classes. Just extracurricular activities and lunch.”
I wasn’t sure if she was being serious. Was it some sort of progressive school for the arts, like in Fame? A private school? Maybe I was right and her family used to have money. That would be hard on her.
“So, yeah,” she continued, “we all did tests this week and they said we’re way behind everyone else in, like, everything. You would think we would be good at history, but they just want to know when the wars and battles happened, not what caused them.”
Yeah, one of those prog schools where they were all air-quote “holistic” about teaching, meaning that the classes were devoid of facts. Had to be.
“Well, I co—“
She was in the zone and wanted to continue to rant. “And English! We can all speak it. So what’s the big deal if we don’t know which words were invented by William Shakestein?”
“Shakespeare.” The correction was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Well, she had corrected me on the name of her school.
“Oh, wow, you know him? You’re so smart, Chip.”
“I…not really. I’m not at the head of the class in anything. But at the same time…I could probably help you handle the remedial stuff. Get you caught up by the end of the year.”
“But that’s only a couple months away!”
“No, I meant the school year.”
She blushed. “You wouldn’t want to do that. I’m dumb anyway, and you’d get annoyed.”
“Hey! Don’t call yourself dumb.” She might be fishing for the compliment, but I’ll take that bait if it makes her feel better. “Well, it’s an open-ended offer. You can bring your books here and we can work on stuff. Not like we’re spending the whole time eating.”
“I’ll see.”
“Now, about tonight.”
Instantly she brightened. “Can we go back to the same place? Please please please!”
“I was hoping we could take it up a little. We can go to the Mesón Salsa. It’s a little further away, but it’s a nicer place, clean, private.”
“Aww, but I wanted tacos!”
“You can get tacos there. I made sure and looked up the menu online. I…want to give you a chance for something better than drive-through.”
“All right.” She still didn’t seem enthusiastic, but I was hoping this would be a try-it-you-might-like-it kind of thing. I got the feeling that Sonata wasn’t too happy with change in her life right now, and she had every right to be. A change for the better would help. I hoped.
She went back to sit with her two friends, explaining that if she was going to spend dinner time with me that she owed them some attention too. I was OK with that. From what I could overhear it seemed like she was giving them the details of our date.
The rest of the school day passed quickly—they don’t expect too much from you on Friday after two o’clock. Once again I waited by the bus lane, but this time Sonata came out alone.
“Hey. I missed you the last eighty minutes.” I still couldn’t get her to crack a smile. “Where are Aria and Adagio?”
“They ditched the last class.”
“Cut class?!” Again, I’m not the best in school, but I never just ditched. Too easy to get caught. “I hope you don’t do that. You don’t want to flunk. I don’t want you to flunk.”
“Thanks, but let’s not think about that right now. School’s over for the week.”
“Amen to that!”
So I mounted my Sonata—no! I mean I got in my Sonata—just as bad! I’m talking about the car! The car! I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, and took no prurient action. Just turned the key and started to pull out—of the parking space!—when I heard my radio click on. Oh, dang, I forgot. The car had an adapter for my mp3 player, and I’d left it plugged in. Even if the stereo’s off, it’ll turn on so long as something’s connected. Before I could thump the on/off switch, it managed to get out a singer’s “-tori jana-“ set to some soaring strings.
“Sorry,” I said. “I know you don’t like the music.”
She nodded.
At some point I was going to have to pull her out of her shell, and this seemed like a moment to try it. “Can I ask a dumb question?”
She nodded again.
“If you don’t like music, how come you have a patch of a heart with an eighth note on your jacket?”
Her eyes involuntarily went to the emblem I mentioned. She ran her fingers over it like she’d forgotten it was there. “It’s not a true note.” For the first time I’d heard, her voice had lost all its happiness. “Look at the stem. It’s all jagged and withered. This is a note that’s no good for anyone to hear.”
“I’m sorry. For whatever it is. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s OK. But if you do, whenever you do, I’ll be here to listen.”
Sonata smiled again, briefly and wanly. I’d touched a nerve, but some way I had to get through to her.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said.
“Of course.”
“What was that music? I only heard a bar, but I couldn’t make out the lyrics at all.”
It was my turn to blush. Well, I couldn’t ask her to give up her secrets if I wasn’t willing to share my own. “So back a couple of years ago I was big into anime. I was a regular otaku and one thing I liked was the OSTs. Then I got into J-pop and K-pop in general.”
“Mm-kay, I understood about half of those words.”
“Ha, ha. It’s Japanese. I’d say I have about half regular stuff that you might hear on the radio, and half Asian music,” I said, pointing at the mp3 player. “But you don’t want to hear about that.”
“You want to know why I don’t like music, don’t you?”
“Yes, but only if you’re ready to tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“That’s OK, when you think you can.”
Sonata looked annoyed at me for talking. She put her hands on the sides of her head and said, “No, I mean…I can’t make music. I can’t sing.”
“I see. I mean, I don’t understand entirely, but I can tell how, when you love something that much but you can’t do it, how it would grate on you.”
“And I used to love singing so much, but now…I haven’t sung in months.”
“I think I know a little about that. No privacy. I have a brother and sister at home, so I can’t even sing in the shower without being made fun of.”
“That’s not it. My voice…I can’t make it sound good.”
I decided to make a bold move. I slapped the on/off button again. If my ears were right, the song that had been playing was finishing a chorus and going into the bridge. I waited for the moment…
And in my most cacophonous falsetto, in broken pseudo-Japanese that couldn’t be understood by anyone, belting out all the power in my lungs, I sang along.
Sonata needed a second to comprehend what was going on, but then it happened. I broke her. She burst out laughing. I didn’t stop, but glanced over at her with a winking grin as I butchered the accidentals in the final chorus before coming up a good three steps flat on the final high note.
Not wanting to belabor the point I turned the stereo off before the shuffle could pick up the next song. She was shaking her head and still laughing, her eyes squinting in a way that made her look even cuter. When she found her breath she said, “Oh, my…you suck!”
“Of course I do. But that’s not going to stop me from singing the songs I love, even if it’s only here in the car. I mean, I can see why you wouldn’t want me to do it while you’re here, but—“
“No, I want you to do that again! You’re the only person I’ve heard worse than me.”
“Maybe on the way back.”
We finally reached the Mexican restaurant, and Sonata went back into her self-conscious shell. I remembered that this was higher end dining than she was accustomed to, and I wanted to make it as easy as possible for us. I took the lead and asked for a booth in the corner.
As the hostess led us, we passed another booth where two people in hoodies were sitting. I did a double take as I saw their orange and purple hair. Aria and Adagio had beaten us here; had Sonata told them to get some protection? Or maybe their opinion on whether I was up to snuff.
Of course, it was also possible that they came without her knowledge and that she, like I, decided not to call them out on it. We passed right by them, so there was no way she couldn’t notice.
Remembering my Encyclopedia Brown, I let Sonata sit against the wall to see and be seen, which put my back to the hooded pair. I decided to ignore them as best I could. Sonata looked over the menu and breathed in sharply. “This is in Spanish! I can’t read Spanish!”
“Yes, but ‘tacos’ is a Spanish word. Here, it’s right here.” I pointed at her menu after I found it my own. “Unless you want to try something else.”
“Nope! Thanks a lot. You’re a big help. I…I don’t know how to say this, but I…I know I make a lot of stupid mistakes, and yet I’m happier to make them if you can correct me.”
I still had my hand near her menu. Hers was on the table, so I pulled mine down on top of it. She breathed in again, but in a different way from when she couldn’t understand the menu. The waitress, with the impeccable timing of her profession, came over to break up the moment and take our drink orders.
The meal came quickly, as it doesn’t take long to make Mexican food. It half made me wish that Sonata had a penchant for barbecue instead so that we could talk and look into each other’s eyes while our brisket slow cooked over several hours. As it was, she dove into her tacos and crunched away while I took my time with my fajitas. By the time she’d finished and downed her soda—both of us too young to drink—I still had a few tortillas left and of course too little of the filling.
“Come on, finish up,” Sonata said.
“Are you that keen to get away from me?”
“Oh. No, I just want to get into the car again so I can hear you sing.”
“Well, at least let me finish my drink so I can moisten my throat if I have to give a command performance.”
We laughed, and this time it was she who put her hand on mine. I ate a little faster.
Waiting for the check, I saw the first uncaused change in her personality. Sonata could be a little cold, or she could be happy, but now I saw her worried. “Look,” she said, “I haven’t told you everything about me. I’m not an ordinary high school girl. I—“
“It’s all right. I know.”
“You do?!”
“Yes.” From behind me I heard a glass hit the table fairly hard.
“And you can still want to date me, knowing?”
“Hey. Listen to me. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that.”
Sonata seemed taken aback. “I guess I’ve never been ashamed per se, but since I’ve come around here there are a lot of people who wouldn’t be happy. I don’t want people to know. If this is what I’ve got to be, I just want to be normal.”
“And I can help you with that. I definitely promise not to tell anyone. Do you want to tell me how you got this way?”
“It just all came in a blast. We were doing well, and then they fired….We just collapsed”
“They’re all bastards.” I was trying to be sympathetic.
“I know, and everyone loves them.”
I wasn’t sure about that, but whatever. “Just try not to get depressed. You’ve got people who care for you, including me, and someday you’ll get out and make a better life for yourself.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
“About you being homeless. Why, what were you talking about?”
“About me being a siren!”
Before I could get out my “Huh?” I heard the glass hit the table again, and then our booth for two was occupied by four. Adagio bumped me to the side while Aria got next to Sonata. They flipped down their hoodies.
“Hey!” said Sonata. “You guys came here too? What a coincidence!”
Again I wasn’t sure whether to believe her. We had walked right past them, but maybe she was so used to seeing orange and purple hair that they didn’t stand out for her like they did for me. And if she was lying, she was the best actress ever. In any case, I was still stuck on her being a siren and what that meant.
Adagio acted like I wasn’t even part of the conversation. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m on a date!”
“I mean telling him about us.”
“But he said he knew I was a siren. Or, former siren, I guess.”
I tried to get a handle on things without raising my voice enough to cause a scene. Fortunately, from all anyone could tell, two tables had just combined. Adagio slapped her forehead. “He had no clue until you blurted it out.”
“I’m sorry. Can someone explain the whole siren thing?”
Sonata turned her focus from Adagio to me like she could only focus on one of us at a time. “So basically we would sing and make people do what we wanted, and we had these magic jewels that let us feed on the negative energy we would get from making people fight."
Aria joined in the eye-rolling and face slapping. “Aaaand, now he thinks you’re crazy and a liar. Come on Sonata, we’ll take you home. Sorry, um, whatever your name is—“
“Chip.”
“Don’t care. Probably best that you just forget about this. Just a silly girl who told you a story you don’t believe.”
“Excuse me.” I shouldered aside Adagio to stop being so cramped. “I never said that I didn’t believe her.”
That finally got them to pay attention to me. “You believe her?”
“Well, let’s start with this. You’re her friends. Are you calling her a liar?”
“We’re not,” said Adagio, “but we know her and were sirens too. Now you’ve got me saying it! Forget it! You two are made for each other. The ditz and the gullible fool. Come on, Aria.” They shuffled out of the restaurant and left me with Sonata.
“So, you really believe me?” she said.
“I don’t fully understand what I’m being asked to believe. But I’m definitely not disbelieving. Let’s talk about it.” I signaled for the check.
“Later. Right now I want you to take me home. In your car.”
“Yeah?”
Sonata swung around to my side of the booth and put her arm around me. “I want to sing with you.”
On the way home from the restaurant, Sonata and I performed a caterwauling, screeching duet to anything I played the stereo. Sonata had a terrible voice, just like me, but she had a good ear. If she heard the chorus of a song twice, she could pick it up after the bridge and join in. She was even able to scat-sing along to the Korean and Japanese songs.
I pulled up to the same shopping center I let her off at last time, but she let me drive another block to finish the song that was playing. I pulled over and said, “So do you want to talk about this?”
“Let’s not spoil tonight. I had a great time singing and eating tacos with you. For a moment I forgot about all I’ve lost. I mean, you were right about the rest. I have no money right now and no prospects. But you made me feel normal again. Let me hold onto that tonight.”
“Of course. We’ll talk in school.”
But come seventh period each day Aria and Adagio were attached at the hip to Sonata. They gave me the evil eye all the time, and any time I tried to lean over and say something they came up with something to say to Sonata, usually a veiled insult against me. I wanted to jump in, but I’d only been her boyfriend for two weeks. These were lifetime friends. It was a delicate balance.
But Wednesday night I got some good news, and fortunately we have cell phones. I texted her: “The stars have aligned. This Friday my mother’s on a business trip, my father’s taking my sister to see our grandmother, and my brother’s got a date of his own. So we can spend the whole night talking and singing. Only chance for privacy.”
Ding. “For realzies?” Did she have it on shortcut? Ding. “You mean, alone?”
Oh, wow. I realized how it came across. My fingers flew across my phone. “Listen. I promise you I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want to do. I’ll stay on the other side of the room if you like. No touching.”
“None at all?” With a heart emoticon.
“We can talk about that too.”
“Well, what would we have for dinner?”
I had no emoticons for rolling eyes. “I can make tacos. I know how to brown ground beef and I'll buy the pre-made shells and we can put things together from there.”
“Can’t wait!” Kissy-face emoticon.
Friday comes and now I’m keeping my distance to put up a smokescreen against Adagio and Aria. Let them think that Sonata and I are drifting apart, and so long as they didn’t check her phone, or if Sonata was clever enough to clear her text history, we were in the clear. Ninth period bell rings, I’m running out the door, throwing my bookbag into the back seat, and peeling out (as much as a fuel-efficient car can), and reaching the head of the bus lane before the mass of people get out. The lead bus driver scowled at me, but if she reported me I’d get a slap on the wrist.
The one good thing about the rainbow-haired trio was that they were easy to spot. Feeling like some 1950’s greaser I honked my horn and leaned over to open the door. Lots of attention was drawn, but it included Sonata who broke away from the other two and flopped into my passenger seat. I had it in gear before she finished closing the door, and she put on her seatbelt while I was getting out of the parking lot.
“Nice escape,” she said.
“I keep telling you, it’s a Sonata.” But she still didn’t get my car jokes.
“So are we listening to music on the way home?”
“Moot point. We wouldn’t even have time to finish a song. I live real close to the school.”
“Oh! So that’s why you drive.”
I nodded. “I’m too close to take the bus, so before this year I had to have one of my parents drop me off or, if it was a nice day, walk. My sister still has to do that. I drop her off sometimes too.”
It was only a couple of stop signs before we entered the block of ranch houses. My parents had a two-story ranch in a no-outlet section, a real nice house that I would miss when I went off to college next year. Four bedrooms, and three of them upstairs so that all of us had privacy in every way except sound.
I let us in and spied the area out. I knew my folks weren’t home, but my brother might still be getting ready for his date. The coast seemed clear and I showed Sonata around.
“Kitchen and dining room’re in here. Mom and Dad are kind of old school and insist that we all come and have dinner every night together, no cell phones, no TV on. Can’t take food up to our rooms. Up the stairs is where the kids stay. My brother’s got the front bedroom. It’s actually a little smaller than mine but with a better view. He got first choice.”
“You’re the middle kid?”
“Yeah. My little sis has got the back room, and I have the side, which is the biggest. When my brother finishes college and moves out, I’m hoping she takes the front room so I don’t have to move.”
“Can I see it?”
“Of course.” I took her up to the end of the hall and to my room where I’d done a bit of preparation. My secondhand office chair was already facing away from the desk, and I’d taken the computer speakers which would normally just point at me and moved them to the center of the wall. Not a great sound system, but we’d hear it. In the middle was the bed, and I’d found one of the folding chairs we keep around for company and put it on the far side by the window, so Sonata would be able to keep her distance from me if she wanted.
“It’s nice. I guess a house like this is what I’ll aspire to someday.”
She took the seat and looked out the window. With her hands on her thighs, she was the picture of elegant, the proper schoolgirl. Only the spiked wristbands were out of place.
It was time to have our talk. “So, sirens.”
“Oh. You didn’t forget about that, huh?”
“No. The only thing I found when I looked up the word is the mythical creatures from Odysseus who lived on an island and lured sailors to their deaths. That’s not what you’re talking about, is it?”
“It’s not. I’m almost sure I’ve never worked from an island.” I waved my hand to invite more information. She narrowed her eyes. “I think you said something about cooking?”
“OK, fine. I’ll cook, you talk.”
We went back to the kitchen and I started getting together the taco ingredients. While I browned meat and chopped lettuce and tomatoes, she explained. She had a rambling style, and I figured it would be easier to let her finish before asking questions. Besides, I had my mind on the cooking.
When I put down the completed tacos on a plate in front of Sonata and watched her take the first bite, I said, “So, let me see if I can sum this up. You came from another world where you had the power to influence others by singing to make them want to do things they normally wouldn’t."
“Mmhm. These are good, by the way.”
“Thank you. And you were banished here where you still used your power, but were far weaker than before.”
“Yeah. Do you have any sour cream?”
I went to the fridge. “And you had a magic jewel that let you steal the negative energy you created in others and gain life force from it, but then you got in a battle with someone from your original world and it was shattered.”
“It’s hard for me to hear you talk about it so casually.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get the facts straight. So you’re a thousand years old.”
“A little more than that.”
“But not two thousand, which is odd, because you would have to be to inspire the original legend. But set that aside. I mean…” I now wanted to phrase things delicately. “You don’t act a thousand.”
She was starting to get annoyed, I could tell. “Well, in the first place it’s not like I was paying attention or trying to learn during that time. It was all about survival. But more than that, now that I’m just a normal girl I don’t have the memory capacity I once did. I’m kind of scared, too. Sure, I’m a teenager, but I’m going to start growing old now.”
Now I had my own meal. I hadn’t minded Sonata’s breech of etiquette in starting before me. We weren’t the old school type like my parents. “So. Now I know.”
“But you don’t believe me.”
“Let’s go up to my room.”
I didn’t know why I wanted her upstairs, but I think it was because it was where I had thought of what I was going to say. She sat in her chair and I in mine, and I breathed in deep.
“Sonata, I’m really coming to have feelings for you, but it’s hard to talk about these things. So I need you to be patient with me, and let me get through this, even if I say things that might hurt you.”
“Just say what you’re going to, gosh!”
“OK. So look at it from my position. It’s possible that you’re just setting up a prank. That you’re…what’s the word? Catfishing me.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s just like Adagio said, you really don’t believe me.”
“But then I rejected that, because it makes no sense. You wouldn’t get anything out of it. You’d have spent a lot of time and effort to get a few meals, plus while I’d be laughed at, you’d be disdained and no one else would be friends with you. So you’re not lying.”
Now she looked at me with hope.
“So now I’m left with two possibilities,” I continued. “One, that you’re telling the truth, but that means that everything I know about the world is wrong, or two, that you have genuine psychological issues. Maybe you’re a failed singer and the loss of your voice hurt too much, so you had to make a cover story to keep yourself sane.”
“You don’t think I’m lying, you think I’m crazy.”
“No, I mean…I’m trying to take you through my thought process. That’s what I came up with, but it’s not where I finished. On that level, if you just asked me to say what I thought of someone telling me what you did, that’s how I’d respond. That’s what I’d tell Aria or Adagio.
“But it’s not what I’m going to tell you, because feelings do matter, and I don’t want to hurt you by telling you you’re crazy. I’d rather believe you and see you smile than tell you that it’s not true and have you upset.”
And she did smile, and we looked at each other from across the room. And I stared into her eyes and she into mine, and as we leaned in she gave me all the sincerity she could muster and said:
“I don’t get it.”
I collapsed onto the bed face-first and struggled to my feet. “I’m not sure that I do either. So let’s just hold off all worries about you and me and just think about us. OK?”
“Can we listen to more music? I kind of figured that since we got this chance to be alone, that we could sing together without having to worry about driving anywhere or how long it would be.”
“Sure, Sonata. We can listen all night.”
She moved her chair up near the computer where mine was, and I opened my music directory. I’d never become used to having any organization software, so I just had it all dumped in one list. She looked it over. “Oh! I think I know that one.” She pointed at the title of a show tune.
Show tunes, it seemed, were what she was most familiar with. If she was being honest, then while she wasn’t working during her thousand years, she had seen plenty of movies and plays. We worked our way through most of the major Andrew Lloyd Webber songs, and I was about to go searching again, when she held up her hand.
“Can I ask you…why do you like music? I mean, for me it was all tied up in controlling other people, but you couldn’t do that. So what did you get out of it?”
The question brought me up short. Who doesn’t like music? I didn’t want to philosophize, I just wanted to spend time with Sonata. “OK, you remember a few minutes ago when I tried to give a complex evaluation over my thoughts about you being a siren?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, with music I can get away from complicated thoughts like that. I’m always overanalyzing everything, but when I can come here and listen to music or when I can drive around with the stereo on, then it calms that part of me down. I can just lean back and let go.”
Whether my answer satisfied Sonata or whether she just jumped topics, she said, “Ooh, Let it Go, that’s a good one, play that.”
She liked singers with big voices, and I could understand that, so I found it online and we screeched through that one, and then I decided to carry the theme forward and introduced her to Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston and Celine Dion and we caterwauled and sung off key and screamed too loud and laughed and laughed.
“It’s a shame we can’t do this all the time,” Sonata said.
“Yeah. If you ask me, the Japanese have the right idea with karaoke booths. We make a spectacle of our singing. If you want to go and sing you have to do it in a bar, one at a time, with everyone watching. Over there you get your own little area for just you and your friends and you can sing away to your heart’s content.”
“I’d like to go to one of those, someday.”
“Yeah, someday.” I reached over and put on another song. We had no microphones, no lyrics, no timing mechanism other than our own memories. We weren’t going for quality, just fun. As the final chorus swelled, I looked at Sonata. I’d seen her smile, but this was the first time I’d seen the smile in her eyes. And I recalled the answer I’d just given her, about how music helped me be calm and let go, and I got that feeling doubled. Sonata was my music.
And then…
I can’t even remember what song it was. Maybe “All By Myself” or “MacArthur Park,” but all of a sudden I couldn’t hear myself sing anymore, because Sonata was overpowering me. She wasn’t even loud, rather she had just found the resonant frequency of the final note and was holding it effortlessly. She put her hand to her throat as her eyes went wide.
I even lowered the volume on the speakers just to hear her. It was beautiful, lilting, breathy, everything that a singer ought to be. She let the note fade out, and yet the echoes were still in the room.
“I can sing!” she said.
“I’ll say. What was that?”
“That was how I used to sing before I lost my powers. But how could I do that now? I don’t have my jewel.”
Great. Everything went back to the siren thing. “Can you do it again?”
She cleared her throat and let loose, but now she was back to the off-key singing I’d come to know from her. “Try playing the song again. Not the whole thing, just skip to the end.”
It took me a while, since too many popular video sites don’t let you skip around as you like, but eventually I got to the part she wanted. She led in, but still couldn’t hit the note. “I don’t know why that happened,” I said. She was straining, and I started to worry about it. “Take it easy! Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Why not? Is that all I’m going to get is one lousy note?”
“It was a beautiful note, and I’d love to hear it again, but if I can’t, so be it. I just don’t want to see you in pain. I care about you too much.”
She breathed in, and I braced myself, but she did it again, singing in perfect clarity and harmonizing with herself.
“This doesn’t make any sense. I’m going to have to ask Adagio and Aria about how this could be. I wonder if my powers came back with my voice?”
“Oh, you mean to make people do what you want?”
“Yeah. I’m going to try it out.” Sonata started to sing, but held up. “Is that OK with you?”
“Well, since you asked, sure. But I’m warning you, I’m skeptical that you can make me do anything I don’t want to.”
She sang a simple pattern, a kind of, “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah.” It was pleasant enough to listen to, and irrespective of all this magic mumbo-jumbo, I wanted to hear her more. When she stopped, I said, “So?”
“Oh, darn, I forgot to actually tell you to do anything.” I laughed, and she started again. “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah. Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah. Umm…go make me another taco.”
That got another laugh out of me. Somehow she had managed to make that broken improvised phrase sound melodic. But I didn’t feel any sort of impetus to follow her instructions.
On the other hand, I thought, she would feel bad if I proved her wrong, and that would just shatter her dream. What harm would it do to let her pretend, just this once. “I’ll be right back.”
There was still some ground beef in the pan, enough to make one more. I microwaved it to heat it up, then put it into the shell and brought it up to her. “Yes!” she said. “I did it. Oh, and thank you. This is awesome”
I had second thoughts. A dream was one thing, but this was a delusion. “Look, Sonata, you didn’t really make me do that. I did it for you voluntarily.”
“Don’t worry about that. That’s how it works. You think you’re doing it yourself. How did Adagio put it? ‘People have an almost infinite capacity for rationalization’.”
Well, I literally couldn’t argue with that, or I’d be proving her point. “I’m still not saying I believe you either way, but I’m glad you’re happy.”
“I am. And I don’t fully understand, but I get the feeling that it’s because of you.”
And before I could react, she pulled me up, hugged me, and kissed me full on the lips.
When Monday rolled around, I hoped to talk to Sonata more about these powers she thought she had. But ten minutes into lunch period she was a no-show, and so were her companions. For all Griffin High’s faults, I’ll say this for it: they’re cool about cell phone use if you don’t do it in class. So I pulled mine out and texted her, asking if everything was all right.
What I got back was, “Don’t be upset, but I ditched with Aria and Adagio today. Had some business to take care of. Will be in tomorrow. Miss you. Can’t thank you enough for last Friday.”
This wasn’t good. If this became a habit with her, she’d fall behind and have trouble advancing. I was going to have to get to tutoring her sooner rather than later. I indicated as such while still trying to be nice.
But when I walked into the lunch room the next day, she was already there and, by the evidence of an empty tray, had finished lunch.
“Hey, Chip,” she said, running up to me. “Listen, our lunch period got switched to sixth because a class we wanted was in seventh, so we’re going to be limited to five minutes each day. But, just bear with me because soon enough I’ll have everything sorted and I’ll make time for you.”
“OK, but we have to plan a study date then.”
“Yeah, about that….” And in full public view, with everyone walking in and out, she started her singing. “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah. I know I’ve got a lot to learn, here inside the school. But grades aren’t what I’m looking for, so you just keep your cool.”
I looked around, but no one seemed to have noticed. Well, she wasn’t that loud, but anyone should have paid attention to something so melodious. “Thanks for the song.”
“Thank you, as always. Now, we have to get to the advanced history lecture.”
So that was the class that they’d transferred into. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, that they could go from remedial to advanced, but if they managed to get in, then maybe Sonata didn’t need me to help her. Shame, though. I’d been hoping to set up a regular date at my house with an excuse to give my parents.
But if she’d sorted out her academic problems I was still worried about this new thing of singing and expecting me to do what she said. I didn’t mind doing nice things for someone I liked, and it could be a fun game between a couple, but she could also abuse it.
I thought about bringing it up the next day, but when I did she said, “Oh, right. I figured that I should use my siren powers on you to make you OK with me using my siren powers on you.”
I had to laugh at that. After sitting through another snatch of her music, I decided that I would just deal with it for now.
Things went on like this for two weeks. Every day she would come in, sing me a verse or two, and ask me to be a little patient. Then on Friday she said, “Can you pick me up after school? Tell your folks you’ll be out late?”
“Sure! A full-fledged date?”
“Kind of. Ooh, it’s going to be such an awesome surprise! But better to show you than tell you.”
She had my curiosity throughout my lunch, and I thought of sending her a text asking for more details, but she might answer it in class, and that was a problem. So I bided my time and, when the final pseudo-bell fake-rang, I sauntered out to my car and pulled it up to the side, this time out of the buses’ way.
It was the first time that I had noticed the change in Sonata, and it was only because I got to see her with the other two. She had more confidence, a brighter look in her eyes, and she was in the center instead of on the side of their walking wedge. Aria and Adagio only seethed the more for it, but as they drew closer I could hear Sonata say, “Trust me, everything is going to get better starting tonight. Just you wait.” Then I opened the door, and she flopped her butt into the passenger seat.
“OK, where to?”
“Just go. I’ll give you turn-by-turn.” She winked at me, and I decided that I liked this new confidence. It put our relationship on more of an even footing. I didn’t mind doing things like paying for food and driving everywhere; Sonata needed it. But if she wanted to arrange something, good for her.
She guided me to the highway and down a couple of exits away from the downtown area where the shelter was. The cross street after the exit was nominally a highway too, but really it was just one lane either way plus a left-turn lane in the middle for easier access to all the shops. The shops, with obvious exceptions like gas stations, were done up in an old-town style from the days of walking a boulevard. Taken for all, it was a nice neighborhood.
At the end of this road was a high-rise. I had been to this part of town a while back with my parents, and I remembered when they were putting this up. Luxury apartments, the sign had said, for improvement of the town. When she had me turn at the corner, I expected to swing around it for some other destination, but Sonata pointed me into the underground garage.
“We’re going here?” I asked.
“Yeah. One thing I’d like, when we have time, is for you to teach me how to drive. I’m going to need that.”
I was willing, of course, but right now I was wondering about why we were here and who we were visiting. We entered through the automatic doors where Sonata gave a wave to the security guard who acknowledged it and let us through. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said. The elevator was also high-tech security, with a proximity reader instead of a button. But as we approached it beeped and let us on.
The hall it led us out to was well-lit and carpeted with thick Oriental patterns, but I had no time to admire it as Sonata practically dragged me by the arm to the second door on the right side. This one opened with an old-fashioned key, and she pushed the door open with her arm extended and said, “Ta-da!”
The apartment had a small kitchen off to the left and a dining area to the right, then a step down into a den or TV room. I couldn’t say why, but that two-level effect gave it an extra air of luxury. The edge of the step was marked by a deep chocolate leather sofa that faced a flatscreen TV on the right-hand wall. It was all open-plan except for a wall behind the kitchen. The walls had only been painted that bland apartment white, but it still looked good.
Along the back wall was more window than wall, and I remembered from seeing it outside that it was smoked or tinted for privacy. I tip-toed over to get a look down at the boulevard we’d come down to get here, then turned back to Sonata with a question mark on my face.
“Ah!” she said, bouncing over to the door in the one wall. “The bedroom! Only one, in this one. The one next door has two; that’s for Aria and Adagio. But you can stay here any time, and we’ll only need one bedroom.”
I was a little proud of myself that, in the midst of confusion about this whole situation, I did not get distracted by the fact that Sonata just proposed that we sleep together. I filed that fact in my mind for later analysis. Right now I had bigger issues.
“So, are you going to explain?”
“Of course. What happened, I—oh, dinner!”
I had to assert myself. “No, let’s talk about this now.”
“This’ll just take a second.” She pulled her phone from the purse she had left hung over a kitchen chair and tapped it a few times. “Hey, it’s Sonata. Yeah, great. Mmhm. For two. Sounds awesome! See you soon.” Then back to me. “Done.”
“So…you want to explain?”
“Sure! See, after you gave me back my powers, I realized that I could start improving my life and getting out of all the hardships we’ve been suffering.”
I couldn’t believe this. Having me get her a taco was one thing, but an apartment? “So you’re saying you sang to the landlord here and they gave you this place?”
“Oh, no! I got smart, for once! I went down to a bank and sang to make them give me some money. Then I rented this place the regular way. It actually was ready last week, but I had to get some furniture.”
“But that’s like stealing!” I got so distracted by the ethical question I’d forgotten about the fact that it was impossible.
“Not really. They gave it to me as a loan. Then I sang for their accountant and he wrote it off. So the bank has it all sorted out.”
“It’s still taking someone’s money!”
Her only response was, “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah.” I was still trying to wrap my head around this. She had taken the bank’s money for this apartment. Then I wondered, whose exactly was it? If the bank lost money like that, where would it come out of? Probably some of it from taxes, since they would profit less, and, assuming it was a publically traded bank, some from the stockholders. In other words, it would be spread throughout the economy. The economy could probably afford to keep one teenager in a comfortable lifestyle without collapsing. It wasn’t like she bought a mansion.
“All right, maybe it’s not so bad, but I still don’t see how you can make someone give you something like that—“ I was interrupted by an electronic chirp that Sonata recognized. She ran to the door and pressed an intercom that I hadn’t noticed.
“Come on up,” she said. Opening the door, she waited for the elevator to ding, then fairly ran out. When she came back in she had a bag with a couple of large cardboard boxes. “I got burritos and fajitas along with tacos. Have whatever you like. If it’s not enough I’ll order more.”
“I didn’t know there was a Mexican place that delivered.”
“Oh, there isn’t. I sang to the owner and now he personally brings me my order when I call it in.”
The problem was no longer that Sonata had a delusion. The problem was that I was genuinely not sure any more that she wasn’t a magical siren. It still seemed crazy, and yet how else to explain her newfound wealth? Telling her I believed was one thing, but could it really be true?
“Hey, Sonata?”
“Yes?”
“Can you sing to me again?”
She was already opening the bags. “After dinner, OK?”
“No, I mean, can you make me do something again? Because I want to feel how it works.”
“I told you, you’ll rationalize it out.”
It was a paradox. I wanted confirmation, but she was specifically saying that I wouldn’t get it. Then I saw a way out of it. “Can you make me believe you?”
She scowled at me. “Let’s sit down and eat. I’ll explain a few things.”
I sat and worked on putting together a fajita. She finished a taco before she spoke again.
“Now, listen. I’m not a mind controller. I can’t make you think things or believe them. All I can do is make you want to do something or not want to do it. Now, that’s a wide power, but I can’t do just anything.”
“So you could make me want to believe.”
Sonata nodded. “But you might still not.” It didn’t seem to bother her as much as before.
“Let’s just enjoy eating dinner together,” I said, tired of all the drama.
“Exactly!”
We sat there eating Mexican, and I marveled at the contrast of images. On the one hand, we could be two ordinary high schoolers on a date, eating cheap food and looking at each other across the table. But given the setting and the way the food had been arranged, we also could have been a long-attached couple who had decided to spend a night in after a hard day at our respective jobs.
The good thing was that we managed to talk about ordinary things. No weird powers or strange origins. Sonata said that she had been listening to more music on the radio and over the Internet, and she didn’t talk about how it gave her any magic or anything. But then she pointed over at the TV. “I got us a karaoke machine for afterwards! I don’t know how soundproof this place is, but at least no one can see us. We’ll have the lyrics and it even comes with two microphones. It’ll be just like those places you were talking about.”
I was impressed. “That’s great! So again we can sing all night.”
“Maybe not all night.” And she half-closed her eyes at me with a knowing smile.
I breathed through my nose and adopted my most serious tone. “Look, Sonata. I’m attracted to you, and I know that, as a guy, I’m supposed to be ready to go at any time. But I’m not ready for that. Not until our relationship gets a little deeper and I understand you more. I mean, this is the first time I’m in your apartment. Let me get used to that idea first.”
“I could make you want it.”
Well, gee, that wasn’t creepy or anything. “No, please don’t. Even if your powers didn’t have limits, that’s something that I don’t want changed. It would be violating who I am. When the time comes, and I say I’m ready, you can do anything you like to make it good for both of us. But until then, just give me this as something to keep my own desires intact.”
She had laid out the table with full service, always a good idea in my opinion with tacos, since some of the inside invariably falls out. It also gave her a prop with which to poke at her food while thinking about what I said. “I guess that’s fair. You have to understand that this is all new to me. When I was a true siren, I didn’t go for money or love or anything like that, just the negative energy of others to feed of off.”
“If we work together, we can find reasonable limits for what you should do to other people, your friends, strangers, businesses, even enemies if that comes up. You could be the safest person out there.”
“Right.” She gulped down the last of her food and I finished mine. After tossing the dishes in the dishwasher, she practically cartwheeled onto the couch and said, “So, singing?”
“Not right after such a big meal. Let’s watch something first.”
We flipped around the dial and watched some of the shows on high-end cable, the kind of TV that you didn’t have to pay too much attention to. Even though I wasn’t ready to get completely intimate with Sonata, sitting together on the couch next to each other, holding hands or having her lean her head on my shoulder was nice, and the kind of growing closer in a relationship that I felt was the right pace.
When the show ended, I said that now would be a good time to use the karaoke machine, but she opened her phone to check the time and said, “Ooh, shuckies! Singing’s going to have to wait. It’s almost time for them to get here!”
“Who?”
“Well, now that I’ve got the apartments set up you don’t think I’m going to leave Adagio and Aria in the shelter, do you?”
That made sense. This whole night wasn’t just for me. This was Sonata’s chance to show off what she had done. And even questioning the ethics, it was done out of intent to help others as much as herself. “Want me to drive you over and we can pick them up?”
“Nuh-uh. I hired a car to get them.”
“Just how much money did you get?”
She pursed her lips and repeatedly crossed and uncrossed her legs. “I won’t go back to that bank when I need more. There are a lot of really big ones that can give me some next time!”
“All right, don’t worry about it. I just hope you didn’t go all out and get one of those stretch Continentals or something.”
“I don’t think so. But it was a big SUV. As much as I love your car, I don’t know that it’s right for Adagio.”
That burned me a little. “Is she too good for my Sonata?”
“No, it’s just that your low ceiling would mess up her hair.”
We shared a good laugh at that, but then her door-buzzer rang again. I could only picture how it would have appeared to Aria and Adagio. Having a uniformed driver show up and inform them that they were wanted, packing up their few meager possessions, walking out to the envying eyes of all those who would still be bedding down in poverty tonight, all to be ferried across town to the obsequious sounds of “Right this way, ma’am, yes, ma’am, anything you say, ma’am.” And then to be guided into this opulent building, into the elevator, up to our floor and...
Ding. Sonata and I both went out into the hall to see the two of them looking around and holding their arms as though they expected to be arrested. Sonata raced over to them and, in a move I’d never seen, managed to hug both of them together.
“I’m so glad you made it! Welcome home!”
Both of them were stunned, and Aria was the first to semi-recover with a “Huh?”
“Come on in! Come on in! Chip and I finished dinner a while ago but I could order more if you like. They’ll deliver again if I ask them.”
She dragged them by the arms into her apartment, down the step, and onto the couch. I took one of the chairs at the table to watch the reunion.
Now Adagio had her wits about her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Sonata, before your brain overheats, will you explain what’s going on?”
“Of course. I mean, it’s a long story, but...” She balled her fists and bit her bottom lip in anticipation. “I can sing again! I’m a siren once more!”
“You’re crazy,” said Aria. “You know we lost all that. And what is he doing here?” She pointed a finger in my direction without bothering to look at me.
“Chip’s here because I invited him. But I was with him when it all started. We were having fun singing and then all of a sudden I went...” And she replayed the chorus of the song that she had first sung in my little room.
Again they were momentarily speechless, but then Adagio’s expression spread into a toothy grin. “You don’t say.” And then her eyes flashed toward me, hungry in their redness.
“Now, tell me exactly what happened.” Adagio stood up and looked down at Sonata like a child standing next to a broken lamp. I didn’t like the way she treated her friend, and at some point I was going to have to say something.
But Sonata, to her credit, took it in stride. “Well, like I was telling Chip, first I went to the bank, then I got this place, but getting the furniture delivery was a problem, and—“
“No! I mean, tell me how you got your voice back!”
“Oh, right.” She recounted the story of our date at my house, thankfully leaving out the detail of the kiss. Adagio didn’t ask me any questions and in fact they both acted like I wasn’t even there. Fine. If they were going to treat me like that, see if I would help them.
When Sonata stopped, Adagio paced the room, drumming her fingers on her chin. “What do you think, Aria?”
Aria leaned back on the couch and fiddled with her hair. “Two possibilities. One: when the Rainbooms hit us with that alicorn beam, it didn’t completely destroy our powers, just damaged them enough to need major healing. Sonata was the only one of us to actually sing through our discordance until her voice repaired itself.”
“And the other possibility?”
“The beam did blast all our powers away, but left us with something else. You remember how they were able to use magic even though they were ordinary girls?”
Sonata raised a finger. “Technically two of them were transported unicorns. Or one was, and the other—“
“Yeah, don’t quibble. They had Equestrian magic infused into them. We could have the same thing.”
Adagio narrowed her eyes. “It’s got to be the first one. Sonata’s using siren magic, not whatever they had.”
“The magic of friendship.” Aria shook her head, making her pigtails bounce around. “That’s the problem. Sonata got her powers back on a singing date. We don’t know if it was the singing or the date.”
Again Adagio sized me up like a prize pig. Sonata stepped in between us. “You want to use my karaoke machine?”
“No. What I want is for you to tell this guy to feel the same way about us as he does about you.”
“Huh?! I…I don’t know that I want to do that.”
I decided it was time to stand up for myself. “Yeah, really. If you want me to like you, then start being nicer, and not just to me. Don’t treat Sonata like she’s stupid! Second, even if I did, I’m not going to feel the same way about you. What she and I have is something special.”
“You shut up!” Adagio said. I was about to get ornery with her, but she turned right off of me and accosted Sonata. “Do it! I want my magic back!”
“Sonata, I don’t want to be forced to feel things about them.”
She stood between the two of us. I was so angry at Adagio for putting her through this decision. Worst still was that I wasn’t sure her powers went that far. I was coming to acknowledge that she had some kind of influence on me, but I still credited it to charm more than magic. If she tried to make me and I could still dislike them, it would shatter her. But more than that, I wanted her to stand up for herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and to my dismay she was looking at me. “But you don’t know what it’s like to be a siren who can’t sing.” She closed her eyes and for a moment was deep in thought. Then she began: “Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah…
Please forgive me, for what I have to do
I hope this won’t change, what I mean to you.
I know you hate them, but please break through that barrier.
And give your friendship, give it all to Aria.
“What?!” Adagio was in even more of a rage. “Why her and not me?”
“I was going to get to you,” said Sonata. “But I couldn’t think of a good rhyme for ‘Adagio.’ Let’s see, Baggio, Caggio, Faggio, nope, hmm…”
But I was only half listening as I thought about what she said. However bad Adagio was, it was probable that she was the only bad influence on them. Sonata was a kind girl, and I bet that Aria could be too. I pictured it in my head, the three of us, or four once Aria found someone special of her own, being long-term friends, double dating, each of us being that couple that the other one always goes to.
She was still sitting on the couch, but her hand flew to her throat and she sang out clear and loud. She smiled, and it did my heart good to see that my new friend was happy.
Adagio, however, was not. “Sonata, you moron!”
“Don’t worry,” said Aria, with a cool edge to her voice. “I’ve got this. Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah…”
It was the same lead-in that Sonata used, but in a deeper register, and a more sultry voice.
Don’t move, don’t speak,
Get down on your knees.
Content yourself in doing
Whatever I please.
This time it was different. I wasn’t rationalizing the way I did when Sonata gave me one of her singing commands. I walked over to the couch half in a trance and fell to my knees in front of Aria. Part of me wanted to get up, but when I tried I couldn’t. This wasn’t something I could explain away. I was magically bound.
It scared the hell out of me.
From behind I heard Sonata running up. “Aria, what are you doing to my boyfriend?!”
“You’re really sweet on this guy, aren’t you? Well, this is more important. We’ve got to figure out how to extract the negative energy from him so that we can feed off it again. I feel like I’ve been starving for months.”
Adagio ran over and shoved Sonata out of the way. I wanted even more to get up and do something but…”Forget about that, get him to give me my voice back too.”
“In good time, in good time. Actually, I was thinking of using his clear disdain for you as a wedge point. Don’t worry, I’ll share, with both of you.”
“Stop it!” I saw Sonata’s arm come down in front of me. “Don’t hurt him. Don’t make him feel that and drain him.”
“We’ve done this to thousands of people, they come out all right!” Aria sang again, low and slow. I barely paid attention to the words.
What I did focus on, though, was how messed up this whole situation was. And it was all Adagio’s fault. If she hadn’t reacted to her friend’s good fortune by trying to figure out how to make it work for herself, everything might have worked out. Instead she had to go and be selfish, wanting Sonata to help her. It was typical of her. There was nothing but malice in her heart. I wanted to break her, to tear out that poofy hair, to slap that smile off her face and make her apologize to Sonata.
It was only out of the corner of my eye that I noticed a green mist crawling across the floor. I was curious where it came from but I was thinking more of whether I could shove it down Adagio’s throat. If I could only move.
“It’s working!” she said in her grating voice. I looked over as Aria seemed to be leaning down to breathe in the mist, and I hoped it was safe for her. Aria at least was nice.
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “I can’t gather it in. Without the pendant there’s no way I can take it into my body. It’s useless.”
“That can’t be!” Now they were both on the floor in the middle of the mist. They were trying to shovel it with their hands, push it, fan it anywhere, but it wasn’t responding. It was just a mist.
Aria leaned back and said, “Forget it.” She sung another snatch of song and the mist faded. Adagio only got more annoyed, and I took some pity on her.
She reached her knees and walked on them over to Aria where she put her hands on her shoulders. “We’ve got to find a way. Make him do it again.”
“There’s no point.”
“Yes there is! If we can’t get that energy, you know what that means?! It means that this is all we are, and all we’re going to be. We’re going to get sick, Aria, we’re going to get old. And then we’re going to die! D-I-E, die! We’re not supposed to die!”
And from behind me I heard a soft voice trying to assert itself. “I-I don’t think I mind it that much,” said Sonata.
“What did you say?” Adagio spat out.
“Yeah, we’re gonna die and that sucks, but not for a long time. Like, decades if we’re careful.”
“What’re a couple of decades when we’ve lived for over a thousand years?”
Sonata came into my view finally, and she was growing more confident with each word. I realized that she was standing up to Adagio for the first time ever. “No, we haven’t. We’ve never lived. We just fed off energy and kept going. Yeah, we could eat and drink, but we didn’t have to. But now, I don’t just like to eat, I have to. And it means that much more. All the tacos I’ve eaten since I got blasted, somehow they’ve tasted sweeter. And you talk about a thousand years? How much of it can you really remember? Do you feel old? Do you feel anything?
“Since our fall, I’ve found new appetites too. I’ve never loved before. I’m not sure that I do now; love is something really complicated. But I might feel it for Chip, and that’s more than I’ve ever done before.” If I could have smiled, I would have. “Now, I’m not saying that I like all the suffering, which was why I was glad we could get out of the shelter and get some money. I want to live well. But if I do, then I won’t mind the dying at the end of it.”
Aria looked at Sonata with what I thought could be newfound respect. Adagio just rolled her eyes and exhaled. “That’s only because you’re an idiot,” she said. “Aria, get this thing to give me my powers back. Even if I can’t feed off it, I’m going to go spread hate and strife around the world. I’ll burn out any love I can find. If I have to go, I’m taking this world with me.”
“What?! No!”
Aria bit her lip as she looked between the two of them. Sonata had a plea in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” Aria said. “She deserves her powers the same as we all do.”
She stood up and sang, with more of a melody than the usual simple introduction. But now it was Sonata who bit her lip, more in determination than in fear. Balling her fists and spreading her legs, she opened her mouth and sang in counter.
“What are you doing, Sonata?!” Adagio screamed, and I half-wished that Sonata’s apartment wasn’t that soundproof so that someone would come in and help. On the other hand, I doubt they’d believe anything of what was going on.
Sonata ignored her, and now I had two sirens singing at me. My vision blurred, and now in addition to being unable to move or speak, I couldn’t see. Soon after that, I realized I couldn’t think.
Both of them were trying to overwhelm the other, and every time I had the beginning of a thought it was crushed between the two voices that were all I could hear. My head throbbed and felt like it was going to burst open and pour out my brains. I couldn’t speak, but a scream is not speaking, and that logic let a thin whine of agony escape my lips.
Whether she heard it or whether I managed to put enough of a plea into my eyes, Sonata ceased singing and my vision returned. “Stop it!” she cried out. “You’re hurting him!”
Aria laughed and also let her melody fade. “You were hurting him by fighting back. Just let me do this. We’ve never tried to sing two different commands. It could break him.”
“Then don’t. Let things go on as they were.”
“Can’t do it.” And she sang again. Sonata grabbed my wrist and looked me in the eye. I could see the apology in her tears, and I wanted to tell her that there was nothing to apologize for.
In the meantime I had to find a way out of this. I had to think before Aria’s song drove my own thoughts out of my mind. If only I could close my ears the way I could my eyes, to shut out the music. But all I could do was try not to listen. I couldn’t stop myself from hearing.
There had to be a way out of this before Adagio got her own voice back. Probably after that they would make me hate Sonata just out of spite, and then they’d go on to take over the world, or at least destroy it. How could I stop them?
Then I realized that I was finally thinking about siren magic with full belief. No longer was Sonata just a pretty girl with a few quirks. She was absolutely, definitely, a magical creature. She had really ensorcelled me with her voice.
That was it. The sirens’ power worked by making me rationalize whatever they wanted me to think. If I actually believed that it worked by magic, then it didn’t work. This line of logic sounded so ridiculous in my head, but I actually heard Aria’s voice weakening. My legs were feeling stiff, and I pulled in my knees. I could move! I was doing it!
I realized that there was a volitional element to this as well. I wanted to let Sonata tell me what to do, because her happiness meant something to me. And I didn’t particularly dislike Aria or Adagio before that night, and I would have been friends with them if they had acted friendly to me. But I didn’t want them hurting other people, and I thought that they needed to learn a lesson.
Aria’s voice went softer still, until it shattered and broke to the point that she sounded like Sonata did that first time in the car. I stood up and walked over to Sonata. I held her hand. For a moment the tension still hung in the room. Sonata was the one to break it.
“Well, this is kind of awkward.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it’s always weird when someone’s just tried to use magic to get you to give the same magic to another friend who wants to take over the world, and then it doesn’t work, and you’re all wondering what to do next.”
That emboldened Adagio, who gritted her teeth and said, “How did you break our spell?! No one has that kind of power, least of all some loser boy with no magic of his own.”
I went through my thought process. “I’m the only one you’ve ever told that you were trying to cast a spell on. It doesn’t work that way.”
Sonata raised her hand. “Actually, we would tell people all the time. Adagio wrote all our songs and she loved putting in give-aways. We had a whole song about telling people that they were under our spell and that they had to do whatever we told them. Then we had another one about telling people they were going to love and adore us. I mean, we were practically one step away from doing a song called, ‘We’re evil sirens from Equestria and we’re using magic on you’.”
“But people still didn’t believe them. Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was the power of love that broke the spell.” Sonata blushed and nudged me with her shoulder.
“Oh, make me sick,” said Adagio. “We still have to figure out what’s going to happen next. Are you just going to let us out of here?”
“Of course I am,” said Sonata. “We’re all still besties. That’s something else I’ve learned recently, that a little fight or argument can’t break real friendship. You two will always be my friends.”
Adagio rolled her eyes, but Aria looked contrite. “I’m glad you feel that way. I-I’m sorry I tried to melt your boyfriend’s brain.”
“It’s OK. So listen, I told you that I got the apartment next door for you. Why don’t you guys go over and check it out. It’s a two bedroom, two bath, very convenient. You can stay there tonight and we’ll talk in the morning. The door is open and the keys are on the table.”
They both stood up and headed for the door, but I caught Adagio’s sneer. “Sonata,” I said, “are you sure you can trust them? They won’t come back here and try again?”
She still addressed them. “You won’t, will you?”
Aria said, “I promise,” but Adagio was more reluctant. Her hesitation gave Sonata her answer.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I think Chip’s right. You’re still my friends, but you’re going to have to earn my trust. In the meantime...Ah-ah-ah, ah-ah.”
The other two sirens’ eyes went saucer-wide as Sonata sang for them to stay in the apartment, get a good night’s rest, and not leave unless there was a fire or similar emergency.
Aria and Adagio started walking toward the door, unable to stop themselves. Adagio couldn’t resist saying over her shoulder, “I can’t believe you did that. That’s the first time ever that a siren has used her powers against another siren.”
Sonata nodded. “Let’s work together to make it the last.”
The door closed, and there we were. “Some night, huh?” I said.
“Yeah. Can I ask you for a big favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Will you stay with me tonight? I know you said you didn’t want to sleep with me, but if it’s just sleep...I don’t want to be alone.”
I leaned over and gave her a hug. “I will. But can I ask you for something?”
“Hm?”
“Can you sing me to stay? You see, I find I like doing what I’m told, if you’re the one telling me.”
In the morning I woke up before Sonata. She had thoughtfully stocked the bathroom with a guest set of everything, so I could look presentable even if I had to wear the same clothes two days in a row. I texted my parents that I was OK and coming home soon, and that nothing bad had happened to me.
She got up and we had a good-morning kiss, then we agreed that I should go home so she could deal with Aria and Adagio. With me gone there was no possibility of a repeat of the day before. Driving home I tried to get my head around all that had occurred, but I knew that it would affect me for the rest of my life. I just didn’t realize how much until Monday.
Sonata strutted into the lunchroom in a new outfit. It was still faux-gothic, but much more high scale and probably bearing the name of some designer I’d never heard of. She didn’t get in line but came right over to me and sat down.
“So here’s what I figured out over the weekend,” she said. “I’m leaving the school. I have no need to get the diploma to get a job out there. I can get enough money to live on using my powers, and I intend to. Like Adagio said, we do have only a short life, so I want to have the best time possible. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to learn; I’m awfully ignorant. But I don’t want to be here trying to get grades and learning with a bunch of other people. I hope that you’ll become my teacher.
“I also want you to move in with me. Finish school if you want, but then come live with me. I’ll take care of us financially and we can learn together and be a family. You see, Chip, I love you.”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
“Yes, you do. Now, at least. If you say no, I hope you’ll keep enough feeling for me to let me use my power, but if not that’s my problem. Or, maybe I don’t need it and I’ll keep them anyway. I don’t know enough.”
I realized that we were having this very personal conversation in full view of dozens of students, but she didn’t seem to care. “Sonata, I love you too. But at the same time, we’re just kids. Even if you’re a thousand-year-old kid. I don’t know that we’ll stay in love.”
She smiled. “If you don’t say no now, I’ll ensure you stay in love with me. And I’d never be so cruel as to let you down.”
“And the other two?”
“I’ll support them too, but I’ve forbidden them from doing anything to hurt people. Who knows, they might even find someone for themselves and regain their voices that way.”
I needed to think about it. If I said yes, I was setting the course of my life. If I said no, I would be free, I hoped. Sonata didn’t seem to be the type to take petty revenge, but I couldn’t be sure. Everything had happened so fast, but so much had happened.
I realized how much our positions had reversed. I had been prepared to take the lead in the relationship, to help her out when I thought she didn’t have a home. Now it was she who would be the head of the household.
Well, what was wrong with that? Did every relationship have to be about two people pretending to be equals when one was a better leader and one a better follower? We were breaking the rules of logic with Sonata’s magic; we could easily break the rules of modern relationships.
“Sonata Dusk, I love you and I would be happy to move in with you.”
That was two years ago now. The most awkward part was watching Sonata come to my home and brainwash my family to not think it was weird that we would be living with no visible means of support. After a year in the apartment, we bought a house in a fashionable suburb a few miles away. We have pleasant neighbors and summer barbecues and with the exception of our youth we seem like every other couple on the block.
A few months prior, Sonata decided that she wanted children, and I thought it was a good idea too, but where we were living it would be awkward for an unmarried couple, so we planned a wedding. Aria and Adagio were invited, but fortunately they didn’t cause any problems. They’re still in the apartment complex, but Aria moved into our old place so they each have their own. Sonata didn’t mind, and we acquired enough money that we could invest it and have legitimate income.
The wedding was a beautiful affair. I did my best to look good in a tuxedo and say my words at the right time. Everyone cheered and had a good time, and we got more than one compliment on the innovative idea to have the cocktail hour be Mexican food.
But this is going to be it for me. Pleasant suburban life. Like Sonata, I only have so many years left, and it doesn’t bother me too much. Nothing really does, only one thing. Soon, she will have our first child. And if our children learn to sing, will they…?
