Chapter 1
“I don’t know what they think is wrong with me, Clair.” Cheyenne tossed her thick, blue-black hair over one shoulder and stared into the full length mirror. Her own almond brown skin and khaki grey eyes stared back. She stuck out her chest. “Is it my boobs?”
Her best friend and roommate laughed, which sent her pink-tipped and bottle blonde hair flying around her head like a bouncing, shimmering mobile. Clair looked like a fairy queen in sparkling face jewels and cotton candy makeup. Sparkles flew from her hair. Her hands and smock were covered in plaster, and she was moulding something vaguely human-shaped that stood on a caster board in the middle of the room.
“It’s not your boobs. It’s not your acting. It’s not your legs and for the thousandth time, it’s not your inability to do a cartwheel. You just weren’t what they were looking for.”
I’m never what they’re looking for. Nobody writes movies about mixed race girls. My agent even said it, didn’t she? When they were casting that documentary about racism. Sorry, Cheyenne, it’s a protest scene. We need people who look ethnically very white or very black.
“I’m never what they’re looking for.” There was no point in telling Clair the rest. She wouldn’t get it.
Cheyenne sunk into a clear melamine chair made up of odd angles: one of Clair’s projects. It was weirdly comfortable, despite its confusing shape. Clair had laid sparkles into the clear plastic, like the ones in her hair.
Maybe that’s why I feel so comfortable in this chair. I’m an art piece that never sells.
“I guess I’m a piece of your art now.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Hey, roll Noah out of the way so I can watch the StanTV livestream.”
“Noah? I don’t know why you name my art pieces.” Clair sized up the half-formed blob. “Noah. I like it. But…” she slapped a bulky node of clay below his waist. “He’s going to need a bigger dick. You remember Noah McClintock, from college?”
“You did NOT.”
“Hell yeah, I did. Noah. Hmm.”
Clair did as she was instructed, pulling Noah off to one side, and sitting down to work on her most recent inspiration.
Louder: “CHY! What do you think? Should Noah have an erection, and no head? Is that too political?”
“Sure. You could use the plaster cast to make dildos, and sell them as art to lonely widows.”
“Widows need love, too.”
“I’ll be a spinster.”
She switched on the flatscreen, and there he was. Jae Park. She settled (ish) into the chair, leaning far back as if in a front row theatre seat, as if she’d be able to see more of him.
An announcer came on screen, speaking Korean. It was instantly translated into English and subtitles by the translation team. Her eyes drank in every word.
It has been almost two long years of lockdowns, and in that time, Streetband hasn’t been able to create a lot of music. Leader and oldest member Kim Seok said he spent the time in reflection, writing songs with twin brother Joon. And now, here is their brand new single, I don’t want to wait. Please enjoy it!
There they were. All five of them, dressed in seafoam satin that glittered with every move. Their suits were different but similar: on the surface, they were high school prom suits, or the kind grooms wore to pastel weddings. But in true pop stage fashion, they’d been cut and sewn and redesigned to hang perfectly, showing every curve of the talented stars’ bodies as they moved in perfect synchronization.
Jae Park walked confidently out of the center, the others parting on both sides to create a runway. He strutted toward the very edge of the world, toward the cameras she knew were there but her heart only saw him walking toward her.
His hair was longer now, worn wild and dyed a bright shade of pink. His eyes were the same bright and royal blue, twin seaglass bottles floating on a frozen lake. Her heart leapt toward the screen, and her hand fluttered to her chest to hold it in. He winked, and sent her a grin. His dimpled smile and strong, confident expression threw a smile at her and pulled it back from her heart, until she was sure her breathing would stop.
“I thought you were going to orgasm. Right in front of me.”
She blushed. “Don’t be stupid.”
“I would have painted it.”
“It wouldn’t sell.”
“I don’t know…” Clair squinted at her idealized rendition of a penis. “I think it would be one of the greats.”
She turned poor abused Noah around on his casters. “Does this look like his?”
“I’ve never seen…” Jae Park’s? Was that what she was going to say? What was wrong with her?
But she’d imagined it. Watching him dance. That light bulge in the front of his pants, sometimes. When his pants sat low on his hips and he walked with that swagger.
“I know you never saw Noah’s but like…if you had to guess.”
“It’s perfect,” she said.
Clair turned the plaster statue, mangled except for his perfect priapus, back around.
“Shit, you’re right. He’s too perfect.”
On the screen, Jae Park winked. In the chair, Cheyenne fell apart. And there was another 90 minutes in the livestream.
It would be the longest hour and a half of her life.
“I’m going to finish watching this in my bedroom.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Knock it off, Clair!”
Her best friend and roommate’s laughter sounded off like wind chimes following her to the bedroom, where she tucked in to watch him dance, pick his voice out from the others. She listened with her eyes closed, drinking in.
