Wild Cards

“Keep walking, damn it.” Jade Blossom didn’t like jokers either. They reminded her of what she might have become. She had majored in microbiology at UCLA to learn about the wild card virus, and she understood how arbitrary its effects could be. “I heard something about them on my way in.”

“Aces no joke!” the protesters shouted. “Aces no joke!”

Jade Blossom spotted Elaine, visibly anguished, waiting off to one side with Ethan. He had engaged a chauffeured limousine for her use during this appearance and now watched her warily. She decided they looked constipated.

“Elaine! Get in the limo and follow us!” Elaine, whose rust-colored hair was tossing in the breeze, waved acknowledgment.

Jade Blossom felt that breeze fluttering the long skirt around her legs. “I’m going to keep hold of your arm, but if you feel me slipping, grab on tight.” She reduced her density to the lightest feathery seed bloom.

“What?” Cesar stared up at her.

Because Cesar was in direct contact with her, his density was also reducing. Jade Blossom swept up her free arm and, as she began to lift from the ground, she gave her legs a little kick. Cesar came up with her.

“Cool,” Cesar muttered, looking down.

“Just don’t lose contact with me or you’ll fall,” said Jade Blossom, as they gradually gained altitude.

“You can swoop down and catch me.”

“I can’t fly, you idiot! We’re drifting on the breeze, updrafts, whatever air movement I can find.”

“Oh.”

“So if we let go, you’ll switch back to your normal self and go splat on the pavement.”

Traffic raced along the street beneath them and Jade Blossom knew the pressure wave in front of moving vehicles pushed air upward as well as sideways. She caught more of the air and took Cesar forward about twenty feet above the ground. Below them, pedestrians were staring. “Pick a place, kid,” Jade Blossom said.

“I’m from Seattle!”

“Look anyway!”

Eventually they spied an upscale tavern and Jade Blossom brought them down gently on the sidewalk, increasing her density, and his, back to normal. She let her knees bend slightly and found her footing even on her Jimmy Choo sandals.

Cesar stumbled backward, lost his hold on her, and landed on his butt. “Shit.”

Ignoring him, Jade Blossom strode inside, her silken gown swaying around her long legs. The bar was airy, with a vaulted ceiling and exposed rafters of unvarnished wood. Brick walls, painted a sand color, stood at each end, and the wooden tables and chairs matched the walls. Three-foot potted plants gave the place some greenery. Easy-listening instrumental music played faintly from overhead speakers. In the center, an internal pavilion was surrounded by a three-foot wooden railing.

As Cesar hurried after her, she asked to be seated in the pavilion. It contained a table for six on a raised platform that probably doubled for musical performers. The aroma of sizzling burgers drifted from the kitchen.

Elaine came clattering inside from the limo with Ethan and up onto the platform. She turned two of the chairs to face outward in front of the steps that led to a break in the wall.

Without acknowledging her, Jade Blossom sat down in one chair, crossing her legs so that the colorful split satin gown fell away nearly up to her hips. She patted the other chair without looking and Cesar got the message to join her.

“Elaine, bring me a strawberry margarita and an iced tea for Cesar.”

“Hey, this is a special occasion—” Cesar stopped when Jade Blossom turned her palm out and stuck it in front of his face.

“Got it.” Elaine hurried off just as reporters and camera crews from the protest outside the hotel rushed into the bar. They set up just in front of Jade Blossom, as she had expected, below the dais.

Ethan stepped in front of Jade Blossom, this time at a safe distance. “I’m horrified by your behavior. The studio will hear about this. I think your role in the film may be at risk. You can’t stop me from speaking up.”

“You’re blocking the cameras, asshole.” She waved for him to move away.

Ethan strode away, pulling out his phone.

“Aren’t you worried about what he said?” Cesar asked in awe.

“Worried? Not about that little pussy.”

As photographers snapped stills and news crews took video, Jade Blossom turned to Cesar. “God, I hate that easy-listening shit. Well, then. How did I get stuck with you?”

He gave a nervous laugh. “Uh, I wrote this essay.”

“On being a Chao? Is that why they picked you? Why didn’t I get a Jones or Hernandez? Is that how they matched us up?”

“I wrote about ‘What Jazz Means to Me.’”

“It means you get to be my date.” She accepted her margarita from a server and sipped it, enjoying the salt, the sweet strawberry, and the cold tequila. “What did your essay say?”

“I said my favorite album is Bitches Brew by Miles Davis and explained why.”

“Bitches Brew. Is that a joke?”

“Hey, it’s real. It’s considered a landmark.”

“Jade Blossom!” One of the reporters, a young Latina, held up a hand. “What do you think of your new friend?”

Jade Blossom turned to Cesar, aware that all the reporters were listening. “You’re from Seattle? Whoever heard of Seattle jazz? What instrument do you play?”

“The teacher told me you’d get a full report,” said Cesar.

“I didn’t waste my time on it.”

“I play piano.” He looked up as though hoping for approval.

Jade Blossom sipped her margarita, thinking, He’s just the kind of loser I expected.

Another reporter, a young guy, shouted from behind a camera crew, “Jade Blossom, what do you think of Bambi Coldwater?”

“I’m as human as anybody, only more so,” Jade Blossom shot back. “Ask the bitch what she thinks of that.”

Cesar gave a goofy laugh.

She sighed. “You have a girlfriend, Cesar?”

Cesar hid behind his iced tea with a couple of big swallows. “Are you married?”

“Me? Ha!”

“I guess you can play the field a lot, huh? Have lots of relationships?”

“I don’t do relationships. I do what I want.”

“Okay, so, what do you want?”

“Looking for a turn-on, are you? A peek behind the curtain?” She leaned back, extending her long legs in front of her for the benefit of all the cameras. “I wanted Bruce Lee, for one. He was very fit and flexible even at the age of fifty, some years back. I’m taller, so when we stood together, his face was right at boob level.” She giggled, remembering. “I wanted Golden Boy and he liked me right back. Same with Arnold Schwarzenegger—I heard he liked to grope, so when I had an early small part in one of his movies, I went to the density of a car tire and turned my butt toward him. Gave him a surprise!”

“You know a lot of celebrities, huh?” Cesar asked.

She sobered slightly. “I admired Bill Cosby, but when we met for drinks one night after American Hero, my margarita tasted funny, so I made excuses and got the hell out. The bastard sent word around Hollywood and stalled my career in low-budget shit for years.” She savored the bitter memories and used them to stoke her inner fire.

“Old dudes,” said Cesar. “Every single one of those guys is old enough to be your dad.”

“They aren’t the only ones, asshole. I had any guy I wanted.”

Some of the reporters and camera crews were turning away. They had all seen this chatter in the tabloids and online long ago. Off to one side, Ethan talked into his phone, then let his shoulders sag as he lowered it. As Jade Blossom expected, she had little to worry about from him. She sipped her margarita and turned to Cesar. “What about that girlfriend? You don’t have one, do you? She’d be way jealous right now.”

Cesar slammed down his glass, sloshing iced tea onto the table. “I play piano, bitch, and I’m good at it! I’m human, so I’m better than you!”

At the sound of his raised voice, the reporters and camera crews turned back, calling out questions and recording again.

Jade Blossom was startled but she liked his response. “Somebody spike your iced tea? What’s in that stuff?”

“I’m damn good on the ivories and I wrote a damn good essay! Girls don’t like me, that’s all.”

Jade Blossom jumped on his weak spot. “Why don’t girls like you?”

“I dunno.” He drank more iced tea, the fire seemingly gone.

“Hey, Jade Blossom!” The Latina reporter was smirking. “You going to give him tips on getting girls? After all, he’s got you for the day!” All the newspeople laughed.

Jade Blossom yanked Cesar’s cold glass out of his hand. She poured a little of her margarita into it and slid it back to him. “You’re not ugly. You need to work out, tubby.”

“I hate my life.”

“Think that makes you special?”

“My mom’s really strict. But I like band. And I’m kinda shy.” He drank some of his spiked iced tea. “I hate my life and I hate you.”

Jade Blossom laughed. She understood hate. “Is it because of my ace?”

Cesar leaned forward and threw down a long swig of his drink. “Mom came down with our band, you know, to be a chaperone? Outside the hotel, she stopped to talk to the Purity Baptist Church people. I listened and you know what? They make some sense. Mom says so, too. You’re not human. You’re different now.”

“If you can live in a world with dogs and cats, you can live with people like me.”

He pounded his glass down on the table again. “Live with that Marissa Simpson? Are you kidding me?”

“Who’s she? Some girl you’ve got the hots for?”

“She’s a goddamn joker in Jokertown Mob!”

Jade Blossom had him hooked like a fish. “Does she play skin flute?”

Cesar stared at her, maybe not certain he had heard correctly. “She plays piano, only her hands are all weird.”

“Weird how?”

“Her hands are all rectangular. She’s hard and white, like piano keys. Her whole body looks like a robot made out of ivory, hard edges and angles and hinges on her joints.”

“An exoskeleton,” said Jade Blossom.

“And her face! Like a robot, all white and stiff, too.”

Jade Blossom sighed. “If you hate wild cards, why did you write that essay to meet me?”

“That was before. Now I know better!” He chugged the rest of his spiked iced tea, then clanked the glass down, gave her a triumphant grin, and stomped out.

Jade Blossom judged it to be a good exit for a high school kid. The reporters and news crews followed him out. She had a moment alone, if you didn’t count Elaine waiting for her off to one side like the toady she was and Ethan staring at the floor with his hands shoved into his pants pockets, willing himself to be anywhere but here.

Jade Blossom liked Cesar. Very few people tried to get the best of her—except that bitch Bubbles. Jade Blossom was not normally reflective, but Cesar’s responses reminded her of when she had been a six-foot-tall, skinny fourteen-year-old girl named Haley Mok, who was ridiculed and ostracized by her peers. When her card turned, she learned to hurt people before they hurt her. She had maxed out her density and smashed through doors and walls at school, destroying desks, terrifying her peers and the adults alike. Then she knew she could speak her mind. Those memories still amused her.

She sipped her icy margarita, allowing Cesar plenty of time to go ahead of her. Her studio commitment required that she attend the mixer with him, but she had no idea if he was going back to the hotel. No matter what, she would have to go back and hang around for the evening.

“Elaine!” she called over her shoulder without looking.

“Yes?”

“Take the limo to the hotel.” Jade Blossom set down her glass still half-full and sauntered outside into the dusk.

The breeze was still blowing lightly from the direction of the hotel, but she had plenty of practice working her way through the air. She reduced her density to the minimum, jumped lightly, and let the breeze toss her like a silken scarf. Once in the air, she angled herself to pick up a thermal from the restaurant’s roof exhaust fan and rode it up high. Then, like a sailboat tacking against the wind, she altered her density in slight changes and turned herself to catch the pressure waves from passing vehicles and light gusts between buildings. Outside air was almost always moving, in more ways than most people ever noticed.

She felt emotionally drained. Cesar’s complaints and accusations had taken a toll. The little snot was getting to her somehow and she hated that. Vulnerability was a sign of weakness and weakness was just about the only thing that terrified her.

As she drew near the Gunter, she saw that the protesters were still outside. Some of the news crews who had followed Cesar from the restaurant had returned. She slowly increased her density and landed on the sidewalk near them.

“Hey, look who’s back!” One woman pointed with her arm extended like she was making an accusation.

Jade Blossom gave the crowd a quick glance, taking in a pair of twins maybe in their thirties wearing identical clothes and a woman in a muumuu carrying a sign that showed a picture of a deformed joker. Everyone in the group had hostile expressions as they looked back at her.

Always ready for a confrontation, Jade Blossom sashayed forward with her best catwalk stride. “This is a public sidewalk.”

“You’re even worse than that Bubbles,” one of the other women spoke in an imperious tone as she came forward.

Jade Blossom’s professional eye for fashion was offended by the woman’s cat’s-eye sunglasses and electric-blue polyester pantsuit. Her hair was in a kind of oversize pile that Jade Blossom had seen in old movies from the sixties.

“Betty Virginia.” Jade Blossom had seen the protest organizer earlier, leading a chant. “You think you know something about the wild card?”

“The Lord’s word guides us,” Betty Virginia said calmly. “You aces just think you’re better than everyone else.”

“No, just better than you,” Jade Blossom said in an exaggerated, childlike singsong. “Nobody needs an ace for that. Jokers are better than you.”

“You’re no longer human. Abominations before the Lord.” Betty Virginia tilted up her face, challenging her. “If you can’t put on a regular dress, at least you could wear proper unmentionables.”

“And leave my son alone!” A petite, pretty, forty-something woman of East Asian descent, wearing a modest blue dress, came up next to Betty Virginia. “He doesn’t want anything to do with you!”

“This is Lara Chao,” said Betty Virginia. “You are certainly a menace to her family.” She backed away slightly, letting Lara step up.

Jade Blossom looked down at her from more than a foot in height difference. “Cesar liked me just fine. Too bad, Mommy.”

“Leave him alone!” Lara yelled, tossing shoulder-length black hair that was parted just off center. She took a deep breath and spoke with an intense calm. “I was proud when he wrote his essay. Now that I’ve met Betty Virginia and Bambi, I’m part of the Purity Baptist Church movement.”

“Honey, you’re part of a bowel movement.”

“I don’t see any need for that kind of language,” said Betty Virginia.

“Listen, all right?” Lara insisted. “My Cesar is a prodigy. He played classical piano in local concerts by the time he was twelve. And he branched into jazz as a teenager. He has four full-ride music scholarships to choose from. And Betty Virginia told me how you wild carders take opportunities in life away from gifted human children like my son.”

Jade Blossom heard her own mother’s demanding standards in Lara’s words. She felt sorry for Cesar. His tiger mother was smothering him. No wonder the kid doesn’t have a girlfriend.

“I tried to put a stop to your so-called date, I’ll have you know,” said Lara. “I told somebody in charge here that I didn’t want my son spending one minute with you. They put me on the phone with your studio and some jackass threatened to sue me for the cost of your precious promotion, so I dropped it. If Cesar stays away from you on his own, well, that’s different.”

“He’s a teenaged boy.” Jade Blossom took a sexy pose, with a hand on her hip and one leg angled out of a slit in her gown. “Of course he’s hot for me. His mama can’t do a damn thing about it.”

“My son is naturally gifted!”

Jade Blossom understood: Lara wasn’t any kind of true believer. She saw the protesters’ position in pragmatic terms. Lara just wanted to get an edge for her son. Jade Blossom heard the echo of her mother’s voice again.

The guy wearing a sidearm shouldered his way through the crowd with a confident grin, leering at Jade Blossom. He had a comb-over and wore a denim cowboy shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His gaze dropped to her shoes and came slowly up her legs and trim torso to rest on her face.

She began increasing her density in case she needed to defend herself. “Lara, if Cesar’s truly gifted, he’ll be fine.”

“This ace has quite a mouth on her, doesn’t she?” The guy stopped in front of Jade Blossom, his hands on his hips.

“I think she was just leaving, Earl,” said Betty Virginia, giving Jade Blossom a hard look. She waved her hand in a shooing motion.

Jade Blossom had reached aluminum density. With her hard right hand, she gave Earl a pseudoaffectionate chuck under the chin that knocked his head back. “You’re a cute little thing, Earl.” With that, she sashayed away, knowing he appreciated the view no matter what his church taught.

“Inhuman bitch,” Earl called after her.

Inside the ballroom, many kids were talking, some dancing to canned music, others mingling and joking around. Many were clustered around the table with soft drinks and the table with munchies. Jade Blossom spotted Cesar in the crowd, now wearing a black suit that was too small and tight, a white shirt, and a plain blue necktie that made him more nerdy than before.

He was running his hand over the polished black surface of the grand piano. Most of his peers were casually dressed in teen styles she found silly but genuine. She decided Lara must have bought Cesar his ill-fitting suit.

This time, the kids accepted her presence. Many of them watched her but no one interfered as she worked her way toward Cesar. She came up behind him as he looked at his slightly elongated reflection in the top of the piano.

“Waiting for your date?” Jade Blossom asked, projecting her voice over the buzz of the crowd.

Startled, Cesar whirled around. “Uh, hi.”

“Why aren’t you hitting on girls?”

“I suppose they’re avoiding me because of you.”

“Okay, I’m your date. But what’s so fascinating about your own face?”

“I want a human girlfriend! Someday, I mean.”

“Someday!” Jade Blossom laughed. “Someday never comes, Cesar.”

She looked out over the crowd. Rustbelt was across the room, his big jaw moving up and down as he talked to Rubberband in his signature slouch. Near one wall, she spotted a girl who fit the description of the joker piano player Cesar had mentioned. Her body looked like it was formed of large and small piano keys, hard and white in modular rectangles connected by hinges large and small. She had an exoskeleton, Jade Blossom had said to Cesar. In her case, this meant a chiseled white face with dark eyes, softened only by lush chestnut hair that reached her ivory-white shoulders. A green dress of modest length hung on her body, revealing more hard angles under the fabric.

As Cesar eyed Jade Blossom, she nodded toward the keys of the grand piano. “Show me your stuff. You’re my date, damn it. Try to make a good impression on me.”

“Why would I care what a diseased mutant thinks?”

“You have any other girls begging to take my place?”

He frowned but settled himself on the bench and started playing, even with the canned music coming through speakers and the growing buzz of conversation.

She leaned down close. “Keep at it, dude, and I’ll be right back.” She ran her manicured nails along the back of his scalp for encouragement, but he flinched at the contact.

When Jade Blossom reached Marissa she didn’t bother with niceties. “Don’t you want to play?”

“I do play,” said Marissa, as her mouth made rigid vertical movements. “Pleased to meet you, Jade Blossom.”

“I know you are.”

Jade Blossom nodded toward Cesar. “Is that guy any good?”

Marissa shrugged, her modular shoulders going up, slightly sideways, then moving in reverse. “I guess we’re all pretty good.”

“Show us what you got,” said Jade Blossom.

“What? You mean, now?”

“Come on, joker girl. Have you got anything or not?”

“Where the hell do you get off talking that way?” Marissa demanded. “Are you always a super-bitch?”

“I’m a sweetheart.” Jade Blossom batted her eyes.

Instead of responding, Marissa watched Cesar at the piano for a moment. Then she walked toward him, maneuvering awkwardly through the crowd.

Jade Blossom followed.

Cesar was toying with the keys, gazing out at the crowd in front of him.

“Can you play or not?” Jade Blossom demanded, as she came up behind him. She began raising her density, sure that Cesar might try to walk away.

“What?” When Cesar saw Marissa timidly sit down on one end of the bench, he rose to his feet. “Hey! I’m not playing with a joker!”

Jade Blossom’s density had reached granite level. She placed her heavy hands gently on his shoulders and bent her knees slightly. Her weight slammed Cesar back down on the bench. “You’re my date, remember? Pretend you’re trying to get in my pants. Well, my thong.”

Cesar glanced once more at Marissa, who pointedly looked down at her fingers on the keys in front of her. In a sitting position, her green dress clung even more to the sharp edges and angles of her body.

Cesar suddenly started a fast, complex piece.

Jade Blossom knew very little about classical music, but this had nothing to do with jazz. She believed it was a composition by Johann Sebastian Bach, but in any case, Cesar was showing off. Jade Blossom had challenged him and he was responding.

The kids nearby turned to watch and listen.

Marissa began playing. At first she watched Cesar’s hands, but quickly found what she wanted. Her hard, white, rectangular fingers matched the white piano keys.

Jade Blossom listened and realized that Marissa was not just keeping up, but harmonizing.

Cesar made an abrupt change. Suddenly he was playing a mid-tempo atonal piece, leaving Marissa behind.

Jade Blossom finally got it—Cesar had no interest in impressing her. He was trying to embarrass Marissa. The little snot was angry about Marissa joining him, so he wanted her to look bad in front of all their fellow musicians. In return, Marissa was showing her stuff. Jade Blossom knew next to nothing about atonal music but she could see that their fast hand motions were precise.

Against the far wall, the slender, very pretty six-footer was talking to the guy covered in peach fuzz. Others in the crowd drifted toward the piano, interested in the impromptu performance. A moment later, the canned music stopped.

Marissa made the next move. She began a tune that Jade Blossom actually knew; her mother had listened to a lot of British-invasion-era rock music and this was “The House of the Rising Sun,” bluesy and wailing.

Cesar hesitated, then followed her lead to the song.

Jade Blossom heard him improvising and saw that Marissa responded in kind.

The other kids were swaying, dancing, talking, and laughing. Many, though not all, were obviously tipsy, on drinks they must have smuggled into the event.

Jade Blossom swept her skirt out of her way and planted one Jimmy Choo on the piano bench. Then she stepped up onto the deeply polished top of the piano. She danced alone, moving to the jazzy version of the song she had pretty much gotten sick of hearing when she was growing up.