Scripted (10 page)

She thinks he'd never notice me. I know I don't have long, expertly mascaraed eyelashes or finely cut cheekbones, or whatever it is that makes the Audience—and the boys at school—so into her, but it's not like I'm invisible either.

Ratings mark: 168. Still—that doesn't make me a leper, just a low ratings earner. Maybe that's how she sees me: a low ratings Character she's taken under her wing.

“Are you all right?” she asks on-mic as the crack of the bat reverberates throughout the stadium and Characters angle their necks, following the arc of the ball.

“Fine.” Selwyn jumps back on her feet to celebrate the foul ball, cooing again. “So, we were right about Selwyn,” I whisper. I explain to Lia about the tattoo, and Lia nods, but she's preoccupied with her play.

So I watch the game, zeroing in on Callen. He's pretty far away, a blue stick figure from here, but my imagination fills in the rest. I've spent so long looking at him.

The catcher signals the pitches to Callen, and I get an idea. What if we had a signal for the Initiative? Something that would help us communicate what Media1 had asked us to do.

I whisper my idea to Lia. “Anytime we're doing something for the Initiative, how about we go like this?” I scratch behind my ear.

Lia blinks, confused—I broke her concentration—and her eyes dart up to the hand on my ear. Then she brings her hand to her own ear. “Got it,” she mouths. “Neat idea.”

“What are you talking about?” Selwyn nudges me. I explain the signal to her, and she murmurs, “Smart.” And then, smiling coyly, she scratches behind her ear and says on-mic, “Wanna hang out after school with me tomorrow? I have fun plans.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say, mirroring her ear scratch so she knows I understand.

“Are you ready?”
Selwyn asks, bending down and unzipping the bulging nylon bag she hauled all the way from school. She has a ton of energy somehow. I'm exhausted. Last night, after the Pigeons won, everyone in the Arbor congregated on the streets, celebrating until past two a.m., even Mom. Callen had been off at some private baseball bash, so there was no chance to flirt. I'd shuffled through the day like a zombie.

“I guess,” I say, half yawning. We're in an abandoned underground passageway that goes beneath the Tram tracks. The tunnel is blocked on both ends by decaying wooden boards. We'd squeezed through a jagged hole in one board, wriggling to avoid the splintering wood.

I poke my head out of the hole and look in both directions. Some Tram passengers are going upstairs to the platform, a dozen feet away. No one notices us. Good. This is part of the Initiative, but that doesn't mean police or parents wouldn't be swerved off to find us here. I gulp down the fresh air before turning back to the damp, mossy tunnel. Selwyn props a flashlight up on the ground, so at least it's not pitch-black anymore. The tunnel still makes me claustrophobic, but I ignore the fear crawling through me and move deeper inside, toward Selwyn, in her pool of light.

My sneakers crunch over beer bottle remains. With the flashlight on, I can make out the graffiti sprawling across the curved walls, and the only cameras I see are older models, all dead, no red lights on. Why would she bring us here if it's for the Initiative?

I mouth as much to her and she shrugs, mouthing back, “I'm just doing what they said.” She paws through the bag, and clanking echoes throughout the tunnel. I squat next to her and check out what's inside. Dozens of gleaming spray paint canisters.

“I'm going to use blue, white, and silver,” she says, scooping out three canisters.

Bam.
I jump to my feet, and Selwyn drops a canister. Someone, someone large, kicked at a wooden board, trying, and failing, to widen the hole. He squeezes into the tunnel, and all I can think is,
Mom is going to kill me.
Relief floods me when the figure steps closer to the light: a cricket. Another one follows him, a camera on his shoulder. I avert my eyes, my heart slowing. Better crickets than police.

“Choose a color, Nettie,” Selwyn says, turning her back to them.

The crickets draw near, stopping about two feet away, and I turn my back to them. Yeah, they're not going to arrest me or tell my mother, but I don't feel like seeing them. The memory of what happened to Violet is still fresh in my mind.

“I'll go with yellow.” I pick up the yellow canister and stand next to her.

“Where to tag?” she ponders, shining the flashlight.

“It seems like every inch of this place is covered.”

“Maybe here.” Selwyn approaches a wall plastered in graffiti: Character names, obscene stick figures, enigmatic symbols. There are a couple that break Clause 56, like
All for the Audience
and
Drowned Bliss Island
above a drawing of the island covered in ratings cards.

“Not enough room.” Selwyn pulls me past the fralling graffiti down toward the end of the tunnel, beaming the flashlight at the walls, trying to find free space. The crickets and I trail her. Her walk is full of new swagger, and I can't tell if it's genuine. She's in jeans and an old T-shirt, a departure from her usual ultragirly frocks. I wonder if the wardrobe change was part of the suggestion too.

“Here,” she declares, reaching a free space, right up against the tunnel's end, at the corner between the wooden boards and the wall. She moves the flashlight around to get a fuller look, and spiders scramble across their webs, fleeing the light.

“What do you think?” She beams.

“Yeah, plus ten,” I say, checking discreetly over my shoulder. The crickets are still behind us, their faces impassive, the hum of their cameras audible in the quiet tunnel. Selwyn presses the nozzle down and shrieks as paint jets out.

“It stinks,” she wails, pinching her nose. But she goes on, soon wielding two cans with ease, her hands moving like they've been choreographed. Paint coats the wall. Staying a safe distance away, I tilt my head left, right, trying to discern what she's making, the swoop of silver stirring up a faint memory.

When she starts in with the blue, adding white streaks, it clicks: the fountain in the plaza behind town hall. The blue and white are the water under sunlight; the silver, the steel fountain. She asks to borrow my yellow, the closest she has to bronze, I guess, and does the mermaids. The crickets tiptoe closer, the hum of their cameras blending in with the sound of pressed air.

“Selwyn, that's amazing,” I say, coming closer when she's finished. “You're so talented. My grandma always said your stuff was plus ten.”

Selwyn sighs. “Yeah, sometimes I wish I had gone for an art apprenticeship. But too much competition.” She backs away from the wall, grinning, and pokes me. “Your turn, Nettie.”

It's the same pressure I feel during art class. Make something pretty. Right now, all I can think is,
What do I do? What do I do?
The crickets huddle behind me. They don't have the answer. But Selwyn does. She pulls me away and stops about midway to the other end of the tunnel.

“Check it out,” she says mischievously, shining the light on the wall. “Add to that list.” I step closer to inspect what she's pointing out. “Garrick told me about it,” Selwyn says behind me. “The Love List.” It's mostly names, tons of names—names I recognize, names I don't recognize, names that sound fake, names that are blurred out or chipped away or overlap other names. Delfine + Morgan, ME + YOU, Teressa + Nicolet, Looks + Brains. There are columns and columns of names.

“Do it.” Selwyn shoves me closer to the wall, scratching behind her ear. The Initiative signal. She's right: it's not flirting, but if Media1 wants to tease the Audience with the idea of me and Callen, they'll love this scene. It'll fit into the whole plotline they're building.

“Okay,” I say, holding up the can and standing on my tiptoes so my tag goes right underneath Looks + Brains. I begin my
N,
my hand wobbling, part nerves, part throttle. Soon I get into the rhythm, even adding little curlicues to my letters. I think about how Selwyn's suggestion is so easy and the reward is so nice: Selwyn's producer said they'll give her parents fewer shifts at the hospital, lighten those dark rings around their eyes.

Mine isn't quite so easy. I had one chance today, in art class. Callen was at the sink, washing his hands, but when I tried to force my feet to get up and go, they turned into anvils.

Five more days.

I start the
C,
and by now I'm a pro. It helps that I'm used to writing Callen's name in my notebooks whenever I'm bored in class.

“Well done,” Selwyn says. Her wide face, illuminated only in brief sections by the flashlight, looks moonlike. “Okay, okay, enough of this. Let's go before we get in trouble.” She gathers up the canisters and packs the bag. I snatch up my book bag, and together we leave the tunnel and emerge into the daylight, squinting at the sudden onslaught of sun.

The crickets are behind us as we walk to the train platform. I gesture to Selwyn to hurry up, hoping that they'll lose interest when we join the rest of the commuters and become harder to film.

Sure enough, the camera buzz is gone by the time we reach the crowd climbing up to the steps to the Tram platform.

Selwyn flashes her paint-smudged hands at me as we walk up the stairs.

“Yuck,” she declares.

“It'll come off. Unlike a tattoo.”

“So happy I didn't do that.” She shudders.

A crack of thunder overhead, and the sky turns into a swamp of gray. Rain slams down, hard and loud. Neither of us has an umbrella, and the small glass waiting room at the Tram stop is packed. We huddle up under a narrow overhang, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the unfortunate umbrellaless.

We tuck our mics into our shirts to protect them from the rain, and Selwyn takes the opportunity to frall. “Do you think I'll get the reward?” she whispers.

“Yes! We could have gotten
arrested.
The Audience will love it.”

“Good. Now it's your turn. You should call Callen up and arrange to meet him at midnight. Ro-man-tic,” she mouths.

“Really?” I mouth, glancing around to make sure no one's watching. I put my hand up to shield my mouth from the nearest camera. “I'm just—I'm not even sure what I should do. Witson was always sort of around, and one day he, like,
declared
his affections, and then we were a couple. I'm not even sure I
can
flirt.”

“You can,” Selwyn asserts. “Garrick had no clue who I was, so I'd sit next to him at parties and scoot over until our legs were touching, just a little. So it looked like an accident. Eventually he noticed me.”

I refrain from reminding her how ridiculous the chain of party make-outs that constituted their relationship was. “Yeah, I need the right opport—”

The rain interrupts me, coming down in even heavier torrents and splashing us. Selwyn shrieks. The Tram pulls up, thankfully, full of the businesspeople who work on the outskirts of downtown. Pushing through them, aware of raised eyebrows and disapproving glares, I feel every inch an island rebel, in sodden clothes, with the fumes of spray paint lingering on me.

There are no seats left, so we stand in the tight compartment at the end of the car, wedged up against the doors. Selwyn clutches the nylon bag with the cans in front of her with both hands.

“Want me to hold that for a bit?” I ask.

“Thanks,” she says, passing me the bag. “It's heavier than I thought it would be.”

“No problem,” I murmur, watching a new pair of crickets stumble into the crowded car, two men again. One has a distracting mole right under his nose. They're speaking low, but it's quiet enough to hear them.

“I read there might be a draft,” Mole growls. “Take care of the drownclowns once and for all.”

The other replies in a hoarse voice, the kind Media1 will fine you for having because it messes with the audiotrack: “Before they do that, they should up the adventures.” His eyes scan the car, meeting mine. I drop my gaze to my sneakers.

The Arbor stop comes up a few minutes later, and I hand the bag back to Selwyn and get off fast, glad to be cricket-free. The rain has tapered to a drizzle, and the sun is breaking out from the clouds. A figure on the Herrons' porch catches my eye. Turns out there's no need for a midnight meeting. Callen's sitting on his porch swing. No baseball, I realize. Rained out.

But what do I say?
Forget flirting—even a simple hello seems out of reach at this moment, I'm so tongue-tied. My stomach is in knots, but I remember being in Luz's office, and his total confidence that flirting was what the Audience wanted. I can do this.

“Callen, guess where I just came from?” I approach the house, but hesitate at the bottom of the steps.

“Not school,” he says, pushing back the mop of blond hair that's fallen in front of his eyes.

“Nope. I was spray painting with Selwyn, in an abandoned passageway at the Granary stop. Do you know about it?”

“Really?” he says, waving me up. I scramble up the stairs and sit on the porch swing with him. “I've heard about it, but I've never been there. What'd you do?”

“Selwyn spray painted a
masterpiece.
The town hall plaza fountain. It looked so real—she chose just the right colors, and, well, I couldn't begin to do something like that . . .” I trail off, realizing what I'm leading up to.

“Well, what did you do?” he prompts.

I keep my lie short and simple. “My name. Then we got out fast. I thought the police might catch us or something. But the only thing that caught us was the rain.” I lift up my soaked sneakers ruefully.

“Spring rain is the best,” he says. I love how the skin around his eyes crinkles when he smiles. “It gives me my afternoons back.”

I'm barely listening, my mind whirling as I try to figure out how to flirt. Between us, lying on the swing, is a baseball. I pick it up, using the movement as an excuse to edge closer to him. Flirting. I need to say something that's coy, but not too subtle. Channel my inner Terra.

“You did such a plus-ten job yesterday.” I spin the baseball in my hands.

“Thanks,” he says, pushing back on the floor with his feet so the swing rocks a little. “It's scary being in the stadium. So many people there. Much more than the bleachers at school can hold. Nerve-racking.” He glances at me, then quickly looks away. By his standards, that was probably a huge admission.

What would Terra say? “I couldn't tell at all, you looked so calm,” I say, unable to meet his eyes, but I make sure my head is positioned so my voice will reach the mic.

“So tell me about the tunnel. Garrick told me they'd nailed it shut. How'd you get in?” he says after a moment. The sun fills his eyes with light, and I almost forget to reply.

“Someone had broken through the boards on one end. Still, it wasn't easy.” I show him the scratches on my arms.

“I wish I could have been with you,” he says. I feel myself blush, and I'm glad my skin hides it better than Lia's.

“Do you miss Lia?” I wince. That's the furthest thing from flirting I could have said. But it just came out.

“I'm all right.” He shrugs. Back to the inscrutable face I'm used to seeing on him, eyelids at half-mast, looking off in the distance. I put the baseball down and flatten my hand on the swing. Only a few inches from his. My stomach churns with nerves. Hands touching. That would be undeniable flirting. Actually, putting my hand over his would seem more like
harassment
than flirting.

I become aware and then slightly mortified that I can
smell
him. Soapy. Fresh. He must have showered after practice was canceled. His hand seems so close, so warm, callused fingers splayed slightly on the wood, and I move mine nearer, in small motions, like an inchworm, start stop, start stop.