If this had been just a few years ago, Flora would’ve opted for a distraction, leaping in with a change of conversation, her tone as sweet and bubbly as a glass of brut. Augusta was more likely to smile and respond with a seemingly innocent comment that was in fact devastatingly cutting. Daphne, on the other hand, would’ve gone nuclear, throwing out a sarcastic jibe engineered to make even Venetia slink away ashamed. And Carine—
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 onBridal 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 establishedcouples. 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 massesfor 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.
