Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

Why the hell had I come back, anyway? I’d skipped even the fiftieth reunion; what had driven me to want to attend my sixtieth? Was it loneliness?

No. I had friends enough.

Was it morbid curiosity ? Wondering who of the old gang had survived ?

But, no, that wasn’t it, either. That wasn’t why I’d come.

The song continued to play. I was doing my guitar solo now. No singing; just me, strumming away. But soon enough the words began again. It was my most famous song, the one I’m sure they’ll mention in my obituary.

To my surprise, Madeline was singing along softly. She looked at me, as if expecting me to join in, but I just forced a smile and looked away.

The song played on. The chorus repeated.

This wasn’t the same gymnasium, of course—the one where my school dances had been held, the ones where I’d been a wallflower, waiting for even the boys I couldn’t stand to ask me to dance. That gym had been bulldozed along with the rest of the old Cedar Valley High.

I looked around. Several people had gone back to their conversations while my music still played. Those who had won the little trophies were showing them off. But Devon, I saw, was listening intently, as if straining to make out the lyrics.

We hadn’t dated long—just until my parents found out he was black and insisted I break up with him. This wasn’t the song I’d written about us, but, in a way, I suppose it was similar. Both of them, my two biggest hits, were about the pain of being dismissed because of the way you look. In this song, it was me—homely, lonely. And in that other song …

I had been a white girl, and he’d been the only black—not boy, you can’t say boy—anywhere near my age at our school. Devon had no choice: if he were going to date anyone from Cedar Valley, she would have had to be white.

Back then, few could tell that Devon was good-looking; all they saw was the color of his skin. But he had been fine. Handsome, well muscled, a dazzling smile. And yet he had chosen me.

I had wondered about that back then, and I still wondered about it now. I’d wondered if he’d thought appearances couldn’t possibly matter to someone who looked like me.

The song stopped, and—

No.

No.

I had a repertoire of almost a hundred songs. If Pinky was going to pick a second one by me, what were the chances that it would be that song?

But it was. Of course it was.

Devon didn’t recognize it at first, but when he did, I saw him take a half-step backward, as if he’d been pushed by an invisible hand.

After a moment, though, he recovered. He looked around the gym and quickly found me. I turned away, only to see Madeline softly singing this one, too, la-la-ing over those lyrics she didn’t remember.

A moment later, there was a hand on my shoulder. I turned. Devon was standing there, looking at me, his face a mask. “We have some unfinished business,” he said, softly but firmly.

I swallowed. My eyes were stinging. “I am so sorry, Devon,” I said. “It was the times. The era.” I shrugged. “Society.”

He looked at me for a while, then reached out and took my pale hand in his brown one. My heart began to pound. “We never got to do this back in ’63,” he said. He paused, perhaps wondering whether he wanted to go on. But, after a moment, he did, and there was no reluctance in his voice. “Would you like to dance?”

I looked around. Nobody else was dancing. Nobody had danced all evening. But I let him lead me out into the center of the gym.

And he held me in his arms.

And I held him.

And as we danced, I thought of the future that Devon’s grandchildren would grow up in, a world I would never see, and, for the first time, I found myself hoping my songs wouldn’t be immortal.

Shed Skin

In the summer of 1982, I worked at Bakka, Toronto’s science-fiction specialty bookstore (and now the oldest surviving SF shop in the world). The then-owner, John Rose, encouraged me enormously in my writing, which was just beginning back then, and we remain great friends.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one he nurtured. After my stint at Bakka, a bunch of other people who went on to be professional SF or fantasy writers worked there, and all of us were encouraged by John: Tanya Huff, Michelle West, Cory Doctorow, and Nalo Hopkinson among them.