Scenes from an Art Show (220)

[PSI-2]

At the Table

Milo noted Polyhymnia’s husband holding one of the tiny plates near the free food and frowning. He had to assume Hector needed some help with the concept of buffets. Hector preferred science to reality like Milo preferred gears. Milo thought that was kinda cute, in a my-discipline-is-better-than-your-discipline-but-at-least-we’re-both-smart sort of way. He picked up a cocktail sausage by its sword toothpick and demonstrated that you were supposed to put the food on the tiny plates. Hector still didn’t seem like he got it, so Milo added a cracker with gray stuff on it and a puffy orange biscuit. There! Like collecting stamps! Or whatever science people liked to do for fun, he didn’t know. He liked practical applications. And shoes.

Hector sighed. “Thank you, Milo. I just… I thought there would be dinner and this isn’t dinner. I get a little… brain…” He made a locked up gesture with his index fingers which looked suspiciously like FRIENDSHIP to Milo. “Wrong. Thing.”

Milo pointed and signed him a double thumbs up. Oh, you need sugar! No problem!

“I don’t have enough processing power to adjust all my variables when my hypothesis no longer applies!” Hector managed finally, to thin air. He sighed again.

Mordecai, in the presence of people having multiple anxiety crises, was like a magnet in search of a refrigerator. He tentatively attached himself to the man who was shouting at nothing, “Can I help you, Mr. de la Cruz?”

“Stupid paradigm,” Hector muttered, gazing into the distance.

Mordecai didn’t quite catch that. He leaned in a little closer, hoping for some clarification, but none was forthcoming. “Your, um, parrot died?”

Hector slowly turned towards the person with whom he was apparently having a conversation, also utterly lacking context. His eyes widened with growing horror. Damn it. He knew this one. He couldn’t just walk away. “It-it-it’s not my parrot.”

“Do you, ah, want to talk about it?” Mordecai hazarded.

Hector shriveled up like crisped bacon, clutching his tiny plate. “Nn… Uh. Nooo?” He ended two full octaves higher than he’d begun.

Milo slid in between them with a plate full of cookies and a cup of punch. He nudged these towards the fragile theoretical scientist.

Hector stared at the assorted cookies and slumped, defeated. The sausage, cracker, and orange puff fell onto the floor. “The boys are going to eat nothing but cookies for dinner and they’ll be up all night.”

“Oh, you missed dinner!” Mordecai cried, relieved.

Hector shrank away, embaconed. Milo balanced the punch cup on the cookie plate and shook a scolding finger at Mordecai.

The red man bowed. “Pardon my outburst, Mr. de la Cruz. My family missed dinner too. This is the first art show we’ve ever been to and we weren’t sure how they went. We didn’t really even have lunch. When did you eat last?”

“A solid torus,” said the scientist.

“Uh…”

Hector drew a circle in the air and poked his finger through the center of it. “Uh. Round. Round thingy. Hole.”

Mordecai put a hand over his mouth and decided against trying to figure out if that meant a doughnut or a bagel in human language. “Ah, not since breakfast, then? I wouldn’t worry about Helix and Sigma. Erik and Maggie found some jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off — do they like jelly sandwiches?”

Hector nodded.

“And sliced apples and cheese chunks. It’s not exactly a balanced meal, but it’s New Year’s. They usually have more cookies than they should on New Year’s anyway, don’t they?”

Hector nodded.

“As for the rest of us, the plates are a ridiculous size and everything looks a bit silly, but I’m sure we can build a dinner. I can help you out if you’d rather not have an entire plate of cookies. I don’t know why Milo brought you an entire…” Mordecai’s eyes widened. He picked up one cookie, a sandwich model in pale gold. “Milo, this is a macaron.” He paled himself. There were festive dots of red and gold all through the pile. “There are a half dozen macarons on this plate, Milo.”

Milo nodded and signed him a thumbs up. Those were the best ones! They were glued to this big pointy thing like a party hat in the middle of the…

Mordecai snatched Milo and dragged him aside, along with the cookie plate. “These are the most expensive cookies known to mankind! They cost a sinq each!”

Milo’s mouth dropped open. He covered it with a hand, shaking his head. But there was a big pointy thing…

“These are for the people who might buy paintings — the people Calliope and her friends are trying to impress, Milo!” Mordecai hissed. “For gods’ sakes, wait until nobody is looking and put them back!”

Milo staggered away, clutching the precious plate of cookies against him.

Hector lifted a single index finger, cowering some distance away. “Might… Might I have just one cookie, Mr. Eidel?”

Mordecai was already filling another tiny plate. “Have a few of these puffy orange things, Mr. de la Cruz. They’re not bad. Do you like olives…?”

———

In the Gallery

Calliope jumped and wheeled around with a wobbly smile. She sighed and it faded. “Oh. Mom. I thought you were…”

“Someone important?” teased Rinswell Soap Flakes-Otis.

Calliope failed to see the humor and couldn’t fake it. She shook her head, looking down. “Just a dumb reporter.”

“Won’t they leave you alone?”

Calliope covered her painted face carefully and let go an increasingly ragged breath. “They’ve been here over an hour and they won’t stop leaving me alone. They talked to Chris and Katya already and I didn’t want to ask Teagan because I hate her. I… I don’t want to be mean, but I’m not pretending I’m a cow or taking funny raccoon photos… I didn’t insulate myself. This is me.” She gestured to the paintings and then, reluctantly, to the cuckoo clock. That one wasn’t even for the art people, but she still wanted them to like it. She loved it. “If nobody likes it, I can’t be someone else.”

Rin wrapped both arms around her daughter. “A lot of people like it, Calliope.”

“Mom, you have to like me.” Calliope pushed back from her, shaking her head. “That’s great and all, but I want people who don’t know me to like me. Well, like my stuff I made about me, you know?” She straightened, electrified. “I want people to put my picture in the paper and give me a good table at restaurants and let me quilt a city bus!” She turned away. “But I want them to do that because they think I make good stuff. Not like… I don’t know.”

“Not like how you see your Dad’s whole family sucking up to Meme Otis because she’s got all the money but they really can’t stand her?” Rinswell said.

“I want people to suck up to me like they suck up to you!” Calliope said.

Rin laughed. “You know, Calliope, sometimes I think all of us are chasing a ghost. I barely knew my mom. I remember she made good pancakes and she’d come home late and wake me up so she could tuck me in again. When I grew up enough to understand she was a lawyer and when she came to this country she couldn’t read a box of soap flakes, she was already gone. So I kept the funny name and I decided to be a really amazing lawyer too — but sometimes I still feel like I’m clumping around in her shoes like a little kid playing dress up.” She snickered and clutched her graying hair in both hands. “And I am not a young person, Calliope.”

Calliope frowned. “You’re not old, Mom.”

“Compared to you,” she replied. She smiled. “Compared to how I feel. It’s super weird to turn around and see all you kids struggling to walk in my shoes, you know? I’m not going to lie, I always expected all of you to be amazing too. Maybe I pushed you and maybe I didn’t have to, but you all picked something to do that you loved, and you guys are killing it. Even if you don’t feel that way all the time.” She touched Calliope lightly on the nose and scolded her with the same finger. “Getting your picture in the paper won’t fix that feeling. There will always be another thing to shoot for. You won’t get all of them, but if you keep going you will get something else you want.”

Calliope brushed her away. “Mom, I love you, but you’ve got distance and I don’t. I can’t be zen enough to be okay with not getting my picture in the paper after I did all this darn work.”

Rin smirked. “Yeah, but would you have done it anyway if you knew it wouldn’t happen?”

“Not all the shit with the caterer and the money and Katya hitting on Chris the whole time!”

“The art part, hon,” Rin said gently.

“Oh. Yeah. That part. I mean, I love that part.”

Rin put an arm around her. “Love is better than fame. And if you’re going to get famous, it’ll sneak up and bite you while you’re doing something you love.” She frowned. “The good kind of famous. Don’t murder anyone, okay, honey?”

“I might love killing a couple critics,” Calliope said with a smile.

“Please don’t. But if you have to, I’ll defend you.”

“Well, yeah.” Calliope snickered and rolled her eyes. “Duh. I mean, you’re an amazing lawyer.”

“Wind up that clock again, it looks really cool,” Rin said.

———

In the Bathroom

“Get back out there and sell your goddamn raccoon photos or I will make you work off your share of this shitty investment washing dishes!”

Chris — sometimes ‘Toph’ or ‘Christoph’, but he was always thinking of changing it — wheeled around and almost sat down in the urinal. “Oh, my gods, Teagan! This is the men’s room!”

“Gender is a construct,” said the woman with blue hair.

“Privacy isn’t a construct!”

“Yes it is.” She sat on the trash can and lit up a cigarette. “What are you even doing in here? That man who prints funny postcards wants to buy the whole lot, but he can’t find you. You are in here hiding from money. What’s your problem?”

“I’m in here hiding from blatant commercialism and the evils of mass production,” Chris said primly.

“Money,” Teagan replied.

“Context,” Chris said. “You know ‘context’? Like how your condemnation of cow-like ignorant-slash-innocent artists being literally chewed up by a commercial enterprise loses something when it’s hanging on the wall of a hamburger restaurant! Which you own!”

She glared at him. “What the hell were you doing in my hamburger restaurant, freak? It’s been pies for almost a year!”

“I like to eat.”

“Then sell your funny photos to the postcard man, you twit!”

“Then there will be a million of them printed in low-resolution and all out of order. I have spent the last four months of my life carefully crafting a spiritual journey for a found object that is not unlike my own — only much more optimistic because that happy raccoon is a beautiful person. I’m saying ‘seize the day because the day is awesome.’ On a postcard rack, I’m just saying… I don’t even know. ‘Raccoons are cute?’” He scowled. “It’s insipid.”

“Everyone already thinks you’re saying that.”

“Everyone thinks you’re saying farms are blurry.”

———

At the Table

Milo urgently tugged on Chris’s sleeve, pulling away from the deceptively welcoming cookie tower. He shook his head, crossing his hands in front of him. He wasn’t sure Chris knew enough sign language to understand EXPENSIVE, specifically, so he just said, MONEY NO MONEY NO NO NO.

“I own one fourth of these macarons and I’m going to have to wash dishes for a year to pay for them even if I sell out, so let me eat them,” Chris muttered.

Milo shook his head. He offered a handful of paper napkins. Chris was dripping wet, with fragments of blue gel on his nice jacket.

‘No. Artists who don’t suffer are hypocrites. Besides, it can’t be fixed and I want cookies.” He paused with his hand up. “You can tell I didn’t do this to myself, right? This doesn’t just look like some stupid stunt for the papers, does it?”

Milo shrugged. It kinda looked like he’d gone headfirst into a washing machine and was saved at the last minute, but that couldn’t be it.

Chris was clutching his soggy tie. ‘Like… Like I decided to do a jig in a fountain. Performative joie de vivre.” He snatched Milo’s outdated jacket by the lapels and cried, “I don’t want to be calculated and cynical like that, I was trying to be sincere!” He scurried back towards the toilets with his hand up to block his face, pleading with no one in particular, “No photos, no photos, no photos…”

Milo sighed and wandered after him, shaking his head. Well, he guessed if he couldn’t explain how he could fix the nice jacket, he could just pin Chris down for a second and do it anyway.

Chris would thank him later. Probably.

———

In the Courtyard

“That was a scream,” Erik said.

Maggie gave him a light swat to shush him. “Teagan’s probably just trying to flush Chris again, that’s not our problem.”

“Daddy says never get involved in pol-i-tics,” the little boy with the plate of cookies opined. 

Maggie patted him and his identical silent partner on the head. She didn’t want to be patronizing, but that was cute how they were too little to understand everything was political. Even science, like their mom and dad did. Maybe they’d be old enough to have a clue by the time she was ready for the Acadamé St. Honorée.

“This isn’t our problem either…” Erik said.

Maggie sighed. “Do you want to fix Calliope’s low attendance before we have to go home or not?”

Honestly, he’d just seen all of the art three times already and he was sick of eating fancy fish crackers and getting stared at, but he didn’t want to bring it up. He nodded.

“Hold this for me and don’t touch the glowy bits, you know how hard it is to hack Milo’s stuff.”

“I’ll mess you up if I touch the glowy bits or they’ll mess me up?”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Probably not. Here we go.” She slotted her modified bulb back into the string and waited for it to propagate. There was a minimum of sparking along the black wires.

A cute couple was examining the fake fairy in a bulb and flicking the glass to see if the illusion would react. “It’s so precious!” the female half gushed. “I haven’t seen these in the stores! Do you suppose they’re imported?”

“They look cheap,” the male half said. “I bet they’re basically…”

The fairy’s tiny, ball-shaped head rotated one-hundred-eighty degrees like an owl’s.

“Oh, it’s…” said the woman. Maybe they did do something if you tapped the glass.

Three dark bowling-ball-style holes rolled into view. The lowest one pulled into a wide half-circle which might pass for a grin. “Hey!” said the gaping mouth below the vacant eyes. The voice was high and childish — Helix had recorded it for Maggie — but oddly flat, as she had to feed him the lines. The resolution was crackly like a wax cylinder. “Dat’s enough wights!” Helix and Sigma were not yet four. “Why’n’t you come inside weh it’s wawm and have a devil…” The sound cut off with a shriek and the simple face distorted into a jagged scribble. “…devil-devil-devil-devil…”

The woman screamed and ran off, followed quickly by her partner, as multiple other shrieking fairies joined in the chant.

“…devilwed egg!” the original fairy finished brightly.

Two scared, frozen teenagers edged into the gallery, followed by one madly-laughing man who toasted them with a bottle in a brown paper bag. “Man, that was great!”

“Fifteen percent engagement,” the General reported.

Maggie slumped helplessly. “I don’t have a lot of space to work with.”

The General put a hand on her back. “It is an improvement, but perhaps we’d better come up with something else.”

———

In the Gallery

Oz was standing in front of Found Objects 1 and 2. The set had already been sold, which he respected in a she-may-not-be-an-accountant-but-at-least-it’s-a-job kind of way. She might even make a little profit off this travesty, whether the neighborhood turned up for it like she wanted or not. Still, it was a shame, about the neighborhood and the sale.

“Cookie.”

Now, he was not here to buy a painting and it would be silly to squirrel away a piece of real art in his office where no one could look at the damn thing and the cats would chew on it. It would also be silly to break up a set, and he didn’t care much for Found Objects 2.

“Cookie.” It nudged him in the side of his glasses and he ignored it.

Honestly, he could take or leave most of Found Objects 1, except this little bit at the side with the bird peeping at the chipped cat figurine from the other side of the rainy window. Whoever bought that was just going to think it was a cute little inversion of a cat trying to get at a canary in a cage. Or maybe they wouldn’t notice it at all. They wouldn’t get it.

“Cookie.”

“Cookie.” There were two of them now, damn it.

They are twins, they have the same color palette, and the rain is…

“Cookie. Cookie. Cookie…”

He snarled and turned on his siblings. “I do not want a cookie! Why don’t you eat a vegetable for once in your lives? Grow up!” His glasses had gone askew. He straightened them with a sniff.

Euterpe had an embarrassed half smile, a plate of cookies in one hand and a single pecan shortbread in the other. Polyhymnia was holding a cookie in each hand and balancing her plate on her shoes. “Carrot?” she said. She grinned.

Euterpe snickered. “Big brother doesn’t carrot all.”

“I think he ‘carrots’ a little much,” Polyhymnia replied. She slung an arm around her scowling brother and gently mussed his hair. “She wouldn’t want you to miss her so much you never have any fun, Melpomene. She loves you. She’d want you to save up a whole bunch of cool experiences you can share with her later. And I bet she’s having a blast in Suidas right now.”

“It’s summer there,” he said softly. “Can you believe it? That’s how far away she is. She is literally on the other side of the planet. She can get no farther.”

“Mine’s in Vignoble, but that’s not anything like how crummy it’s been for you,” Polyhymnia said.

“I know she’s stuck there, but I don’t think she’d mind if you visited,” Eurterpe added. “If you don’t have the money, you could hitchhike.”

“She’s an international criminal, I could get her shot,” Oz said. He gestured at the painting. “It’s the bird’s fault it’s outside and there’s an ocean between them. She didn’t put anything in about that. It’s the bird’s damn fault.”

“Calliope’s not super judgy,” Euterpe said. “She’s cool like that. That’s how it is and that’s just how it is, you know?”

“She loves us uncritically,” Polyhymnia opined. She snickered. “And some silly person who likes still lifes is going to walk past this every day and they’ll have no idea. That’s her sense of humor.”

“A stealth tribute,” Euterpe said.

“She wrote ‘Hi Mom’ in the rain,” Oz said.

Euterpe and Polyhymnia leaned in and stared at it, blinking.

“Okay, Mister Audit-pants,” Polyhymnia said. “Admit you only noticed that first because you’ve been over here all sentimental.”

Oz made a small smile. He shrugged.

“She left the window open,” Euterpe said. “You notice that part? Just a crack. The bird could come in.”

“I’m keeping an eye on her, watching her grow up,” Oz said absently, regarding the window. “If the world does anything to hurt my littlest sister’s boundless optimism, I’m going to murder every last person in it.”

“Oh, yeah, we’ll help you,” Polyhymnia said. Euterpe nodded.

Oz picked up his sister’s plate and munched on a random orange puffy thing. “These aren’t bad. What are they?”

“They taste like fish,” Euterpe said with a scowl.

“They are supposed to taste like fish, they have fish in them,” Polyhymnia replied. She shrugged. “But the boys hate them too.”

Oz wandered back towards the table with the plate. “Oh well, more for us.”

———

At the Table

“Miss Otis?” She pronounced it with a long O, like ‘opaque.’ “Ah, konbanwa, by the way.” She gave a little bow. “Shimizu Keiko desu, Daily News.”

Calliope blinked. “Uh, yeah. Osu. Miss… Miss Keiko?” She set her plate on the table and offered a hand to shake.

Miss Shimizu recoiled. “Shimizu, Miss Otis.”

Calliope snickered. “Otis, Miss Shimizu.” She gave it a short O, like ‘optimist.’ “But it’s okay. I’m sorry too.”

“Otis,” said Miss Shimizu, smiling. “That’s an odd name for a Wakokuhito girl.”

“Oh, that’s my Dad’s name. He’s…”

“But then, ‘The Minority Report’ is an odd name for an art show presented by three spoiled white girls, isn’t it?”

Calliope’s smiling mouth contracted as if trying to wink out of existence. She managed to get a couple words out of it, but they were strained, “Excuse me?”

“The Otis family’s financial provenance is a matter of record, as is Miss LeBlanc’s. How did you pay for this little dalliance in the art world, Miss Otis?”

“I didn’t ask my dad for money, if that’s what you’re saying. I sold some stuff and got a loan from Tea… From Miss LeBlanc like Katya and Chris. She has a …”

“So this attempt to present yourselves as a grassroots organization of underrepresented local artists is more of a LeBlanc family enterprise?”

“What? We… No. It was Katya’s idea…”

“Miss Kovalchuk, whose country of origin is literally occupying the entirety of this one? It was her desire to somehow pass herself off as a ‘local artist’ while you two rich girls and your token colored friend are just along for the ride?”

“Katya’s parents left because that place sucked, and she grew up here! Chris and me and Teagan were all born here! Or if you mean ‘local’ as in San Rosille, we’ve all lived here…”

“What I mean, Miss Otis,” she spat the name, “is that your experiences are so divorced from the culture that comprises half your heritage that you can’t even introduce yourself properly. I mean the reason you find your voices unrepresented is not because of any objective unfairness, but because your work is not groundbreaking, important or even good. Not one of you is living a true minority experience, nor does your work reflect any such thing…”

“Chris is bright blue and he is standing right there!” Calliope’s volume, plus the vast gesture, was enough to alert other gallery-goers to the interview-come-altercation in progress.

Chris startled and dropped a plate with several crackers and a orange puffy thing on the floor. “Huh?”

Milo picked up the plate for him but hung back, frowning. He’d already messed up the thing with the cookies and he didn’t want to mess up Calliope’s shot with the press. The other newspeople were hanging back too. The man in the shabby suit took out a pad and began scribbling notes.

“Mr. Treves perhaps comes the closest,” Miss Shimizu allowed. “Although, magic aside, he is a white male member of the patriarchy. But all he’s seen fit to do with his sliver of legitimacy is present a series of incoherent sculptures and postcard photos. Do you even care that your blatant grab for publicity under the guise of fashionable feminism and identity politics is pushing real underrepresented minority artists out of the spotlight?”

“That is,” Stephen Otis cried, but Mordecai grabbed him.

“No, no, no. You’ll only make it worse. Please, Mr. Otis.” He’d been through this utter bullshit multiple times himself, during the revolution, and the only way to deal with a newsperson building a hit piece was to walk off and deny them further information. Then at least it would be a short hit piece. Calliope’s white father yelling at a Wakokuhito journalist would add paragraphs.

Similarly, Calliope’s mother ducked in to block off Calliope’s siblings at the entrance to the gallery. Mordecai thought he heard the weedy little accountant say, “That woman is talking shit about…” before Rinswell silenced him with a hand.

“Don’t,” the lawyer said. “Polyhymnia, sweetheart, put the hatpin away, people are taking photos and that looks bad. Your sister already knows you love her and the woman trying to publish an insulting article doesn’t care, so just back off.” Rin turned, with a weak and hopeless smile. “Calliope, hon, that reporter is after a headline for a story she’s already written and she doesn’t deserve more of your time. You know that, right? ”

Calliope narrowed her eyes. “I don’t care. The opposing counsel just made their case with a sack of blatantly untrue facts and I am entitled to act in my own defense. There are some newspeople here who maybe aren’t writing a canned exopsé.”

“Oh, shit,” Mordecai muttered. He nudged Hyacinth. “Set something on fire. Distract them. Quickly.”

Hyacinth was grinning. “Are you kidding? Calliope’s gone full prosecutor. This is gonna be great.” She held Lucy up to watch.

“The media is not fair like a courtroom,” Mordecai said stiffly. He inclined his head towards another evident reporter in a shabby suit who was madly scribbling notes.

 Hyacinth snorted. “You don’t really think courtrooms are fair. Get real.”

“You want an angry quote you can take out of context, right?” Calliope said. “Well, get your pencil out, because it’s gonna be a long one, lady. If I read ‘spoiled white girl has hysterical reaction’ tomorrow, I’m gonna write every editor in town with a comprehensive text and citations. If you just insulted my art, I’d probably shrivel up and take it, but you went after my friends and my family. If it’s your contention that my mom isn’t my mom because I don’t fit into some narrow little box you’ve defined…”

“Oh, no, Miss Otis, I am quite aware that the wealthy lawyer from the family of wealthy lawyers who could afford to leave Wakoku on a whim is your mother. I didn’t mean to give you that impression.” Miss Shimizu smiled.

“I’m grateful that my family had enough money not to come here as refugees like Katya’s family,” Calliope spat, “and I know I got lucky, but you won’t make me ashamed. You’re not going to disqualify all of us from a minority experience by setting up a bunch of hoops to jump through that don’t exist!”

“What’s going on?” said a heavyset blonde woman in a black satin gown. She had been in the courtyard examining the demon fairies when a friend grabbed her. She scowled. “Oh. Her.”

“Katya!” Teagan cried, from the gallery. Calliope’s weird family was blocking her exit. “What is it?”

“Is damn woman who smile at me while she imply my parents overstay their visas like she cool with it and won’t tell. She think she is springing her trap. I told you to get lost once already.”

“You won’t silence the Marselline free press, you totalitarian stooge!” Miss Shimizu declared, pencil raised. “I have done research!”

“You are not being silenced, if your dumb article is not in paper tomorrow it’s nothing to do with me. I’m just immigrant brat who like to reclaim vintage pornography, nonjudgmentally of all body types. Every woman beautiful.” She glanced towards the man in the shabby suit, trying to gauge if he got that. “You threaten my family at my art show, I ask you to leave. Simple reaction to rude behavior.”

“She asked if my art was meant to be commercial like she didn’t understand and I spent forty-five minutes explaining it!” Chris cried.

“Well, she wasn’t listening, ‘cos she just told me it’s not new, important or good,” Calliope said. He staggered backwards as if shot, but Milo caught him.

“Oh, they all say that,” Teagan muttered, tiptoeing her way through the Otises.

Maggie found herself nudged out from behind Katya. “Observe, Magnificent, “ her mother said. “Divide-and-conquer may cease to be an effective strategy very suddenly if divisions are not maintained.”

“Uh-huh,” Maggie said, which was not so much agreement as code for: stop talking now, I want to watch. Erik, Helix and Sigma fanned out behind her like a hand of cards, each peeking out just enough to see. “Daddy,” Helix noted. Hector was hiding behind the empty macaron tower. Helix and Sigma waved at him.

Calliope saluted Chris. “Also you’re the patriarchy now. Congratulations, hon!”

“Wh…” Chris stood up and straightened his newly-laundered jacket. “Miss Shimizu, do you honestly think they’re going to let me into the patriarchy on the basis of chromosomes? I can’t even get a taxi half the time!”

“Right on,” said the man in the shabby suit.

“The only reason any of you are standing here is that your histories reek of unearned privilege!” Miss Shimizu cried. “You have all crawled over the backs of people who worked much harder than you for much less!”

Teagan had worked her way to Calliope’s side. She lit up a cigarette. Only Calliope was close enough to notice her fingers were shaking. “Yeah, babe, so did you.”

Miss Shimizu had, for once, been rendered without a retort for the free press. Unless one counted changing a faint shade of purple.

“Is crab bucket mentality!” Katya added with a smile. “Everyone is just trying not to be bottom crab, who is dead. Welcome to our gulag, it follows you.”

“Plenty of lady Wakokuhito reporters who’d kill to be where you are right now, right?” Teagan said. “Good ones, I bet. Want to get out of their way because you were lucky enough to be in San Rosille and they were hiring?”

The man in the shabby suit raised a hand and volunteered, “Pretty sure they only gave me this assignment because you all called it the Minority Report and I’m basically the only guy on staff who’s not white. I’m in sports, usually. It like that for you, Miss Shimizu?”

Calliope snapped her fingers and pointed, “Politics, right? A muckraker! Oh, it makes sense now…”

“I am trying to make something of myself so other girls like me see where I’ve gotten and keep trying!” Miss Shimizu shrieked at last. “It is not fair for you all to attack me merely for trying to do my job, I am…”

“Ah-ha,” Chris nodded, “There it is. Right there. Gods, I hate hypocrites.”

Calliope sighed and slumped. He put a consoling hand on her back but she shook her head and brushed it away. “I’m sorry, Miss Shimizu,” she said. “I really am. I got pissed off and I forgot how it must suck for you too, but the way you are handling this is not cool. You don’t have to do your job this way to be an example for girls like us.”

“I am nothing like you,” Miss Shimizu said coldly. “I worked hard for everything I have. How dare you try to equate my struggles to yours? How dare you, you… you entitled half-breed!”

Katya threw back her head and cackled. “Oh wow. Come and see racism inherent in system!”

Chris lit up a blue-tinted fireball. On the sidelines, Maggie did likewise, matching the color. “You take that back,” she said.

Teagan snorted. “Oh, for gods sakes, nobody takes that seriously anymore. It’s like she rolled up and called you a mulatto.”

“Hey!” Maggie snapped.

“You are threatening me,” cried Miss Shimizu, “and this will not go…”

“We’re just upset,” Calliope muttered. “Put those out, you guys, it looks bad.” The attached photographers were already scampering around taking multiple shots, but Chris, Maggie and Miss Shimizu were not positioned ideally to make a coherent composition. Both combatants extinguished their weapons on command, providing no further opportunities.

“Miss Shimizu, I didn’t give you your angry quote yet,” Calliope said calmly. “Let me finish, then you can do whatever you want. We invited everybody, you’re part of that.

“I am not half-anything. I am a whole person with a background from two distinct cultures. I am not less than you because I don’t speak the language or have all the same experiences, I am different from you. That doesn’t make me not a minority, or not underrepresented. Apparently I’m so much a minority even you have no idea how to deal with me. You’re hollering ‘thief’ because I don’t have a matching set of stuff, but I didn’t steal this.” She snickered. “Or if I did, it was because I had to, because nobody was going to hand me a culture. I collected what I liked out of what I saw. I’m not a mulatto, I’m a goddamn magpie.”

Maggie snickered too and covered it.

“I don’t get to go to the movies and see a story about a Wakokuhito girl with a white father, or a white girl with a Wakokuhito mom, or even by a person like that,” Calliope said. “That’s what this is about, not about deciding which one of us had it worse like some contest in hell. All of us have things about us that we rarely or never see in media. We want to be part of the solution, but we know we can’t fix it with one art show.

“But if we sit down and shut up and wait for society and turkeys like you to decide how they want to handle us before we get out there and demand representation, we are never going to get any. If you can’t see that, I can’t fix that either, but I am not going to roll over and let you attack me — us — and we’re certainly not going to support you just because your situation sucks too. So give me back my food.”

Miss Shimizu recoiled with a hand to her chest. “Excuse me?”

“I saw you fill up a paper bag with our food and stuff it in your purse. I was going to let you get away with it because you’re a writer and that’s basically an artist too, but you burned all your bridges, so you can buy your own dinner. Don’t eat my salmon shoes. Give ‘em back.” She gestured impatiently.

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about and you have no right to search…”

A brown paper bag with a neatly-folded top levitated itself out of Miss Shimizu’s purse and hovered between her and the four artists. “Is that it, Calliope?” Maggie asked.

“Yep. Thanks.” Calliope plucked the bag from the air and turned back towards the table.

“Magpie power,” Maggie said gravely.

“That is mine!” cried Miss Shimizu. “You stole that from my purse! You have no right, you have no proof…”

Calliope turned, regarded her, and unfolded the top of the bag. The photographer attached to the Times and the man in the shabby suit saw what was coming and framed a perfect five second image: Calliope upended the bag and spilled out three dozen assorted hors d’oeuvres on the floor, to Miss Shimizu’s horrified reaction. The three other artists rounded out the composition — Katya laughed, Teagan grinned and Chris frowned. That made the front page of the Arts and Leisure section, above the fold. The headline: Minority Artists Demand a Seat at the Table, ‘Give Me Back My Food!’

Miss Shimizu’s blistering exposé — Scene at the Mallory Gallery, Establishment “Artists” Defend Cultural Appropriation: ‘I had to! Nobody was going to hand me a culture!’ — ran on page two of the About Town section of the Daily News.

Nobody was in any condition to read them the next day, but Euterpe clipped both out and saved them. That was nice of him.

Miss Shimizu scurried away from the mess, a tactical retreat. The man in the shabby suit sidled over and asked Calliope for an exclusive interview. “Not right now, maybe in February, when it’s slow. You can bring your friends if you like. Can I call you?”

“Give me your number and I’ll call you,” Calliope said. “This spoiled white girl can’t afford a phone.”

When he had gone and the gathering had mostly unfrozen amid nervous laughter, but before Milo could push his way through the crowd to get to her, Teagan pulled Calliope aside. “That was really cute, but if I don’t make my money back on account of you threw a hissy-fit and that lady savages us in the paper, I am making you wash my dishes for the rest of your life. Not just until you pay off your share, the rest of your life. You have that, Miss Otis?”

“Darn, I didn’t think about that part,” Calliope said. “Oh, hi, guys.” She took Lucy from Hyacinth and accepted a kiss from Milo with a smile.

———

In the Courtyard

Milo touched Mordecai on the shoulder and signed, I/ME KIDS HOME. I/ME.

Mordecai smiled. “Milo, don’t even worry about it. I don’t have anyone to kiss at midnight and I hate champagne. I’d much rather deal with whatever Barnaby’s done to the house.”

Milo shook his head. CALLIOPE OK … KISS [FUTURE KISS] … I/ME YUCK.

“You had enough people?” the red man guessed. “I don’t blame you, it was…”

Milo shook his head. He wrapped his arm around his stomach and stuck out his tongue again. YUCK.

Mordecai closed his mouth on an attempt to make Milo feel more secure with a gallery full of people and an impending hideous news article. He frowned. “Milo, just how many macarons did you eat?”

Milo held up one finger.

“Milo.”

…two fingers.

“Milo.”

…and all five fingers of his other hand, with an irritated sigh. Chris wanted to eat thirty-six, okay? I got him down to twelve and he shared them with me. We were commiserating! I did your job! If you really think about it, this is your fault! But it was too hard to explain and he didn’t even want to. He wanted to go home and lie down.

Mordecai put a hand over his eyes and sighed too, louder. “All right, I’ll tell Erik and find Lucy for you. Take one of those seltzer tablets when you get home and don’t worry about cleaning up after Barnaby unless he’s literally burned the place down — which for your sake, I hope he hasn’t.”

Milo nodded.

———

At the Table

“Pardon me, Miss LeBlanc?”

Teagan groaned. “Oh, now what?” She clutched a hand against the shiny tablecloth and shuddered. “Oh, you’re… Oh. Guh… Good evening. Sir.”

The General bowed. “I have already obtained consent from the majority of your partners in this venture, but I thought I would inform you as a courtesy. My daughter and I have come up with a possible solution to your attendance problem which does not involve screaming fairies. In her absence, I intend to employ it and report the results.”

“I’m sorry. Scream… Screaming fairies?”

The General unraveled the tale, and the plan.

Teagan had both hands supporting her against the table and seemed to be thinking about throwing up in the punch bowl. She did not look up. “You’re going to invite poor people specifically to eat up the rest of this food and there’s nothing I can do about it?”

“Essentially, yes. You may consider it free advertising for your catering business if nothing else.”

“It’s not a catering business, and I don’t expect to sell a lot of pie to people who can’t afford the price of a meal.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think there’s anything left to be salvaged anyway, so do whatever you want.”

“A simple application of math indicates approximately one-hundred servings of various hors d’oeuvres may be salvaged from it.”

Teagan smiled weakly. “Ah, but you’ve eaten all the macarons and choux au saumon.”

“They weren’t bad,” the General replied in passing.

———

In the Courtyard

Brigadier General Glorious D’Iver stood facing the little gallery and framed the sky in her fingers, as if plotting a landscape. She wrote the letters in bright pink sparkles like a firework above the twinkling bulbs: Tix Accepted.

They would not, of course, take any soup kitchen meal tickets in exchange for tiny food on tiny plates that would just be thrown away otherwise. But one hoped it would get people in the door.

———

At the Table

Calliope and company rang in the new year surrounded by shabby, mystified people who maybe weren’t too into art criticism, but did at least have a lot of kind words for the food and champagne. Some of them wandered into the gallery and appreciated the art while they were at it. Chris promised everyone he’d bring a hotplate and make everyone a grilled cheese if they’d just please come back tomorrow and bring a friend. He seemed to have a few takers.

Mordecai noted Calliope wasn’t drinking her champagne. He put an arm around her shoulders. “Missing Milo or just worried?”

“Honestly, I just don’t feel so hot,” she said.

He smiled and shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t either, but it’s understandable. You did your best tonight and that’s all anyone can ever ask of you. You can be proud, even if you don’t feel like it now. It’s going to be okay, Calliope. Maybe not right away, but we’re going to get it there eventually. Believe me?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah. I know. But thanks. Happy new year.”

“Happy new year, dear. I pray it’s a better one.”

A Multiracial Restaurant

A little of this, a little of that
It all depends on where my head is at
My accent doesn’t match my face
And you noticed my last name
You know we’re not the same

A little of her, a little of him
Both at once if that’s the mood I’m in
I'll order anything I want
My parents built this restaurant

Of course I’ve been glad to have what I have
Don’t hurt my job, don’t hurt my paycheque
Then I had a kid, boy that sure did
But it all worked out fine
So I don’t count the cost
There’s some other stuff I guess I’ve lost
And I know I can’t get it back after
All this time

Only my brothers and sisters can say how weird it’s been
High-heel boots, wooden zoris and hybrid genes
Oh, throw some rice in a pot and whip up a brand new cuisine
Crab roll, crab bisque?
Cold fusion is my favorite dish

Mother and father could never be bothered
With acting the way that they should
When push came to shove it came down to love
So they both called it good
I think they knew it’d be trying
If I said love was painless, I’d be lying
But they never thought that they might want an easier life
One thing I’ll say, my mom and dad never backed down from a fight

Father and Mother kept supporting each other 
Through stormy days and in the sun
Or when hostess saw them waiting together
And said, “Table for one?”
Mom and Dad never got nervous
They’d cook their own food if they couldn’t get service
They blended their food, their culture, their faith and their lives
My dad proposed and they kissed single tables goodbye

They built us a home where we never felt lonely
And we were all free to be weird
With things they enjoyed and a whole bunch of toys
To fill out our formative years
We never discerned between his and hers and
We never quite matched with our peers

I’m between and betwixt ‘cause my family’s mixed
But we all grew up happy and strong
Can’t say if my twoness made it harder to do this
But it’s often been hard to belong
I’m chasing my dreams, but some people are mean
They see I’m never quite right so I’m wrong

I get upset when I hear this crap again
but you haven’t said anything new
Now, you don’t have to go but this is my show
(And stop eating my food!)
I can’t change your mind if you doubt me
The best I can do is speak out about me
So that’s why I’m telling you I won’t back down from this fight

And that's all because of my Mommy and Daddy
Can't tell you more than I told you already
And don’t expect me to be sorry for being alive

A little from here, a little from there
Or mix them up together, I don’t care
I'll order anything I want
Because I own this restaurant