Chapter Three A Dance, a Misstep, and an Engagement #2
No. There was nothing to remember about Carine. Lost in her daydreams, Zada had already made the mistake of uttering Carine’s name in front of everyone today. She wasn’t going to do it again.
Venetia and Marianne were still waiting for Zada to mumble out some kind of a retort, eyebrows lifted.
“No, thank you, that’s very kind,” Zada murmured. “I love those pumps, Venetia. I think the gentleman with the live stream wanted to get a look at them? Something about being featured on Bridal Style?”
Venetia spun around, searching for her moment in the limelight as Zada beat a quick retreat, still feeling as if someone had cranked an enormous spotlight on her empty wrist.
She scanned the crowd. Other than a few classmates, she didn’t recognize many people. She would have danced with Augusta, who looked very alone, but the quartet was playing the intro to the pairing-off dance, and widows were of course barred from participating.
Zada deposited her cup on a tray held by an attendant, silently cursed that she would have to do this in shoes that did not fit, and summoned her best smile for dancing.
The quartet on stage struck up a lively tune, and the young men in attendance lined up on one side of the dance floor, while the young ladies lined up on the other.
Each of the unpartnered nonbinary guests took a side, in accordance with their registered request. The two rows were, of course, perfectly matched.
Zada had no doubt that Flora and Aiden had spent hours poring over the guest list to ensure this.
Everyone else formed a half circle around them. There would be a dance or two later for the children and established couples. But this moment belonged to the unmatched.
Zada fell into line with the others and tried her best not to imagine what her dance partners must see: a short, round-faced eighteen-year-old with hair an unremarkable shade between brown and blond, eyes an unremarkable shade between green and gray, and a figure too stout to be anything other than, well, unremarkable.
The tension in the air hung thicker and heavier than any perfume, and Zada steeled herself for the battlefield of the dance floor.
She wasn’t afraid of never finding her Heartsong match.
Statistically speaking, that rarely happened, and Zada wasn’t dramatic enough to think she alone would be somehow left out.
Her real fear was that when she finally looked in her soulmate’s eyes, and he (or she, or they) looked in hers, she would see a flicker of disappointment.
A disappointing match wasn’t the end of the world, she knew.
Matches that held no promise at first would certainly flourish and prosper as the years went on—such was the genius of Heartsong, which was unerring in its calculations.
But nobody wrote love songs or sweeping romance novels about the forty-fifth time someone touched their soulmate.
Zada had inhaled enough of them to say that with certainty.
You only ever got your one shot at living the dewy, rose-colored dawn of your own love story.
With everyone having taken their places, Zada silently counted off with the rest of the debutantes until it was time to begin. The room went silent except for the quartet. Heart in her throat, Zada waited as each pair before her touched hands, conscious of not bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Her first dance partner was Arthur Bridgman. As they approached each other, Zada was conscious of her heart beating slightly faster. They had similar thoughts about Mozart, and they had once gone head-to-head in a spelling bee, which would make an excellent story for any children of their own.
But everyone knew that he and Marianne Erskine had feelings for each other, and although Marianne had never shown her any particular warmth, Zada didn’t want to come between them. Nothing spoiled a Heartsong match like knowing it had hurt someone else, however temporary or incidental that hurt was.
The music swelled as Zada and Arthur took their turn to slowly touch palm to palm and spin in a circle together.
Nothing. Zada breathed a sigh of relief.
Next up was Hubert Sweete, and Zada’s heartbeat continued its prestissimo pace as she waited to know her fate.
Despite his saccharine name, Hubert had been a tremendous bully at school, reserving the worst of his wrath for scholarship students like Zada.
On some level, she knew that being matched with her might do him some good.
It would expand his horizons and force him to learn something of the people he considered so beneath him.
But selfishly, something in her recoiled at the thought of spending the rest of her life in a constant state of setting a good example for someone else.
Their turn came. Their hands touched. Hubert’s palm was even sweatier than Zada’s, and she longed to wipe her hand almost immediately. Again, there was blessed silence but for the quartet, the footsteps of those dancing, and the distant murmur of the audience surrounding them.
Zada was just bending to touch hands with Aubrey Audelay, a drily humorous classmate of hers who was looking very smart in a lavender-accented waistcoat and a specially gilded formal wheelchair, when she heard a single, heaving sob.
It was Marianne, she realized. The lack of any Heartsong told the whole story.
Marianne must have just learned that Arthur was not her match after all.
Zada’s heart ached, in empathy if not in sympathy, as Marianne collapsed to the floor.
From the perimeter of the room, Zada saw Administrator Erskine purse her lips and gesture for Marianne to stand and continue dancing.
Marianne was not looking at her parents, however. She stared up at Arthur, tears dripping down her reddening face.
“You said you knew it was us,” she cried. “I—you said you knew.”
Arthur shook his head, chin wobbling. “I thought I did. I thought—” He broke off and swallowed. “But Marianne, you must finish the dance.”
“I can’t,” Marianne gasped between breaths. “I can’t, I can’t!”
“Perhaps a short break is in order,” Chancellor Fallow announced over the microphone system as Administrator Erskine led her still-protesting daughter away from the gleaming wooden dance floor.
Like the Fallows, the Erskines were direct descendants of one of the Founders.
Cygnus Erskine had leveraged his billions as the city’s first Head of Nutrition, before the dome was even under construction, back when a series of environmental cataclysms had first necessitated the best of the best of the former United States to band together for safety.
It was through Erskine’s work that New Ionia’s food systems were entirely self-sustaining—no need to rely on the vengeful outside masses for sustenance and risk a poisoning or worse.
Arthur, on the other hand, was the child of a mid-level civil servant and a painter. No doubt the lack of a match was a relief to the Erskines.
“The dancing will resume in ten minutes.” A cunning projection of a clock materialized on one wall, its minute hand ticking inexorably down.
Zada sighed. She knew it was unbecoming, to grow so attached to a potential suitor before it was even possible to know if they were the right one.
Marianne’s outburst was deeply immature, not to mention embarrassing to whoever her future match turned out to be.
In less than thirty seconds, Marianne had cast a lingering shadow over her own life’s romance—for just a simple entanglement.
At the same time, it was difficult to watch someone normally so icy crying like a small child, difficult to watch how hard Marianne kicked and screamed as her mother discreetly pulled her behind an ornate mahogany door, which shut with a final-sounding click.
The quartet was retuning their instruments, which had already been in tune—Zada recognized a stall when she heard one.
Daphne had darted across the floor to whisper something to the viola player.
It was accompanied by a single slicing motion, as if to say “never mind.” The viola player whispered something back, and Daphne nodded.
Had Daphne been there the whole time?
It occurred to Zada then that Daphne, who had certainly been absent for Buford’s announcement about the Applicator, might still have been under the impression that Zada had told the truth and implicated her for its disappearance.
Zada felt a spike of adrenaline and then a spike of annoyance.
Why did it still matter to her at all what Daphne thought?
Unthinking, Zada turned to follow Daphne’s progress—and collided face-first with someone’s snowy ascot and bare chin, skulls smacking together with a terrible clunking sound, and—oh, please, no—the momentum taking them both down in the process, along with several of the older guests, and the table of perfumes behind them.
There was a shrill smashing of glass, and the smell of fresh linen colliding with pine and old mushrooms filled the air.
Panic clawed at Zada’s chest, heart beating in counterpoint to the chords echoing above her. Why in the world had the quartet chosen the precise moment of disaster to start another piece?
But when she managed to peer up from the ground, none of the musicians were playing.
Instead, they stood gaping at Zada as if she’d done something remarkable, instead of simply pulverizing Flora’s entire scent story in a parody of rom-com klutziness.
Zada scrambled away from the person she’d knocked to the floor.
It was Buford, she realized with a stab of guilt.
He had so many responsibilities today. A bruised tailbone was the last thing he needed.
“I’m so sorry,” she gasped.
“It’s okay,” Buford assured her, “I don’t feel a thing. Are you all right?”
The music around them swelled impossibly.
The music, which had started the instant they touched, and was still playing now as Buford stood and reached down a hand to help her up.
Zada took his hand. His palm was dry, and his grip felt remarkably sure.
The deliberate touch, in front of all these people, was a shock to her system.
She half expected someone to scold her. Buford pulled her to her feet.
He was quite a bit taller than her, and she ended up with an eyeful of that same gleaming-white ascot.
Except for the song, a gorgeous major-key waltz emanating from the space between them, the room had gone very quiet.
Distantly, she was glad that her Heartsong—well, their Heartsong—was so pretty.
None of it felt at all real. It was as if the entire world had been drafted into performing a play, and nobody had thought to give Zada her lines.
In the thick of the crowd, she spotted her parents. Her mother’s hands were clasped over her heart. Her father was still holding the triple cello case in one hand, mouth hanging open in a delighted grin. Seeing the two of them brought her several inches closer to earth.
She turned back to look up at Buford. Handsome, charming Buford, with his auburn curls and his warm smile.
He was still holding her hand—she’d forgotten that.
How had she forgotten? Touching that bare sliver of Daphne’s wrist had zapped her like a burst of lightning, but obviously this touch mattered infinitely more.
Buford ducked to kiss her hand, his lips brushing across her knuckles. The moment was like every romantic comedy that Zada and Flora had ever watched together, and it was happening, right here and right now, to Zada.
There was no need for Buford to say it out loud. Everyone knew there was only one possible outcome, but evidently, he felt the need to embrace the moment.
“Zada Chambers,” said Buford, “will you marry me?”