As for the piano itself, it’s a black baby grand Hyundai—which made her laugh when she first saw it. She didn’t think Hyundai made pianos—but then, why should that surprise her? Multinationals can make anything they want if people will buy it. She once read that Mercedes-Benz had gotten heavy into artificial hearts before the Unwind Accord made such technology pointless. “The Pulsar Omega,” the advertisement went. “Take luxury to heart.” They invested a fortune in the product, only to lose every penny once unwinding began, and artificial hearts went the way of pagers and CDs.
Tonight she plays a forceful yet subtle Chopin sonata. It pours out like a ground fog, echoing within the hollow fuse-lages where the Whollies live. She knows it comforts them. Even those kids who claim to despise classical music have come asking her why she isn’t playing when she’s skipped a night. So she plays for them, but not really, because it’s herself that she’s playing for. Sometimes she has an audience sitting before her in the dust. Other times, like tonight, it’s just her. Sometimes Connor comes. He’ll sit beside her, yet somehow be distant, as if afraid to invade her musical space. The times Connor comes are her favorite, but he does not come often enough.
“He’s got too much on his mind,” Hayden has told her, making the excuses that Connor should make for himself. “He’s a man of the people.” Then he added with a smirk, “Or at least of two people.”
Hayden never passes up a chance to throw a verbal barb about Connor’s uninvited appendage. It ticks her off, because some things are no laughing matter. Sometimes she catches Connor looking at the arm with an expression that is so opaque, it frightens her. Like maybe he’s going to pull out an ax and chop the thing off right in front of everyone. Even though he also bears a replacement eye, the match is perfect, and the source unknown. It holds no power over him . . . but Roland’s arm is different, holding heavy emotional baggage in its powerful grasp.
“Are you wondering if it’ll bite you?” she once asked as he gazed at that shark. Startled, Connor went a little bit red, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Then he just shrugged it off. “Nah, I was just wondering when and why Roland got this stupid tattoo. If I ever come across the person who got that particular brain cell, maybe I’ll ask.” Then he walked away from her, ending the conversation.
If it weren’t for those daily leg massages, Risa would think that Connor has forgotten about her completely. But even those massages aren’t the same. They feel perfunctory now. Like the only reason he’s there is because he made a promise to himself that he would be—not because he truly wants to be.
Thinking about Connor makes her miss a chord—the same damn chord she missed at her life-or-death recital that left her on a bus, speeding her off to be unwound. She growls, then takes her fingers off the keys and draws a deep breath. Her music carries, which means her frustration is being broadcast just as clearly as Radio Free Hayden.
What bothers her most is that she cares. Risa was always able to take care of herself, both physically and emotionally. At the state home, either you developed several layers of personal armor or you were eaten alive. When had that changed? Was it when she was forced to play music as kids were led into the building beneath her to be unwound? Was it when she made the choice to accept a shattered spine, rather than having it replaced by the healthy spine of an Unwind? Or maybe it was before that, when she realized that, against all sense and reason, she had fallen in love with Connor Lassiter?
Risa finishes the sonata, because no matter how she’s feeling, she cannot leave a piece of music uncompleted. Then, when she’s done, she fights the dry, craggy terrain beneath her wheels and rolls toward a certain private jet.
9 - Connor
Connor dozes in a chair that’s too comfortable to remain fully awake in, but not comfortable enough to be fully asleep. He’s jarred alert by a thud against the side of his jet. By the time the second one comes, he realizes it’s off to his left. By the time the third one hits, he realizes someone is throwing things at his plane.
He looks out of a window, but in the darkness he sees only his own reflection. Another thud. He cups his hands over his eyes, pressing his face against the glass. The first thing he sees are the curved blue streaks reflecting moonlight. A wheelchair. Then he sees Risa hurling another rock, which hits right above the window.
“What the hell?”
He opens the hatch, hoping she’ll stop the barrage. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I was just trying to get your attention.”
He chuckles, not yet getting her frame of mind. “There are better ways.”
“Not lately.”
She moves forward and backward a bit in her chair, crushing a dirt clod that had her tilted at a slight angle. “Not going to invite me in?”
“You’re invited. You’re always invited.”
“Well, then maybe you should have put up a ramp.”
And although he knows he’s going to regret saying it, he says it anyway. “Maybe you should let someone carry you.”
She rolls a bit closer but not enough to close the space between them—just enough to make it painfully awkward. “I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going on.”
Risa might want this talk right now, but Connor is in no mood. After firing Bam and John, he just wants to end this day and find dreamless sleep until whatever fresh hell awaits in the morning.
“What’s going on is that I’m trying to keep us all alive,” he says with a little too much irritation in his voice, “and I don’t see that as a problem.”
“Yes, you’re so busy keeping us alive. Even when you’re not busy, you’re busy—and when you do actually talk to me, it’s all about the ADR, and how hard it is for you, and the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Risa, you are not the kind of fragile girl who needs a guy’s attention to feel whole.”
Then the moon comes out from behind a cloud again, and he can see tears glistening on her face. “There’s a difference between needing attention and being intentionally ignored.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but his brain fails him. He could talk about their daily circulation massages, but she has already pointed out that even then, he’s mentally checked out.
“It’s the wheelchair, isn’t it?”
“No!” he tells her. “It has nothing to do with that.”