Your One & Only(15)
That was exactly why the Pairing tonight was so important, she realized. If they couldn’t get along at a Pairing Ceremony, how were they going to learn to work together when decisions were more critical? Althea resolved to have a better attitude than she’d had for the past few days. She would Pair with a Carson, just like her sisters, and everything would be smoothed over, paving the way for the future ahead.
Althea caught her breath that night when she saw the Commons fully decorated for the Pairing Ceremony. Last month had been the Altheas’ turn to host, and Althea had to admit that the Meis were better at it. They’d obviously put such care into everything. Lights hung like fireflies from the flowering trees in twinkling paper baskets, and the colored rocks glowed around the perimeter of the kapok. Fig and cherry trees dipped pendulously over tables overflowing with food.
There was the usual colorful rice cooked in banana leaves, each different hue representing the nine models. There were carved pineapple cups filled with jewels of corn in red, blue, and purple, and peppers modified to sparkle like gems in the lamplight. Avocadoes, molded to look like large-eyed spider monkeys, filled mango-wood basins. Under the direction of the Meis, the Hassans had put together a table of desserts; oil cakes covered in sugared violets, glitter-dusted breads that the little seven-year-old Gen-320s grabbed as they ran past, and jelly candies with almonds suspended inside. They’d even made flavored red ices in glass bowls, an obvious appeal to the Ingas in their red robes, whom the Hassans seemed to be hoping for tonight. It wasn’t too likely, though, from the way the Ingas laughed and rolled their eyes at one another. They’d already decided on the Viktors, Althea had heard, now that they knew the Altheas were choosing Carsons.
Althea took a crystal cup from the table and tasted the drink made from melons and ginger. It was sweet, and as she held it, the drink changed color like a chameleon to match her yellow robe. All the sisters’ Pairing robes were in their traditional colors. Tonight the Altheas’ were seeded with pearls and sewn with gold thread, and their hair, in trembling curls across their shoulders, shone with tiny gold charms. When her sisters separated, they spread like glimmering sunlight into the throng of girls that had converged on the Commons.
The boys wore their cotton robes in their designated colors, crisscrossed with matching leather belts that wound from their waists to their shoulders. The Viktors were in teal, the Carsons in purple, the Hassans in orange, and the Samuels in a deep navy blue. The Meis had wrapped their braids in scarves flecked with copper; the Kates, in green, wore jade earrings; and the Altheas draped knit yellow shawls over their shoulders.
While Althea sipped her drink and admired the transformed lawn of the Commons, Nyla-313 skipped over to her. The Nylas’ color was silver, and Nyla-313 wore a gray robe with silver trim that skimmed the top of her silver sandals, and bracelets on her arms that jingled as she held out a bowl of turquoise-tinted strawberries.
“They’re beautiful!” Althea said.
“Try one.” Nyla tilted the bowl toward her.
Althea eyed her friend. “It’s not going to start squirming, is it?”
“That happened once,” Nyla said, tipping her mouth down. “And it still tasted good.”
Althea bit into the strawberry. The juice dripped onto her lips. “It tastes like sugar and . . . What is that?”
“Chocolate.” Nyla beamed. “I spliced them with cocoa beans.”
“How has no one thought of that before?”
“They did, actually. It’s just been years since anyone’s done it. I found the sequence in the botany logs. I added the color myself. It’s from the flowers on the fiddlewood trees by the river.”
“Well, it’s brilliant. It might be my favorite thing you ever made.”
All ten generations crowded the Commons, from the children weaving in and out of the crowd, unconcerned with the history and solemnity of the ceremony, to the Gen-230s seated in carved chairs, their Pairing days behind them. The other Gens each had their own monthly Pairings, but tonight was the Gen-310s’, and after everyone had eaten and chatted, the Meis lined up the 310 boys in the circle of stones and shooed the other generations into a larger circle around them to watch.
At first, ushered by the Meis, the girls entered the center of the Commons single-file. Each of the four sets of sisters linked hands in a circle, as did the four sets of boys outside the border of lighted rocks. Althea took a breath. She looked into the sky, up at the numberless stars, and then closed her eyes. A warm breeze lifted her hair from her forehead, and the air smelled of hyacinths and lemons. She reached out in her mind, feeling the presence of her sisters as an immense current drawing her into a deep, warm liquid. It picked her up, and she gave herself to it so it spun farther, not just to her sisters anymore but to all of Vispera, gathered now in one place. In a quick, exhilarating wave, her thoughts and feelings seemed to amplify and then whirl out again like eddies in the bubbling Blue River.
With the clear ring of a bell struck by a Mei, the models dropped hands. The connection receded, and Althea exhaled softly, feeling the swift race of her blood and the sheen of sweat on her brow. This feeling, she thought, of connection with the community—with her sisters, her Gen, and all of Vispera—was why they held any of their ceremonies. Everyone talked so much about the traditions and history of the Pairing Ceremony, the Binding Ceremony, and then the final Yielding Ceremony, the one that gave a peaceful end to the oldest, hundred-year-old generation, allowing the community to celebrate the birth of the new generation from the tanks. But really, all the ceremonies centered on that one moment when they joined hands and everyone felt a surge of emotion swelling within them. Any disagreement, any confusion, it all fell away. They understood each other, and in their understanding, they became one. How could the Council even think of including the human in this sacred tradition? He couldn’t commune. At best he’d be a nuisance, a distraction to their ritual; at worst he’d be a wall separating them. There was no question, it’d be a disaster.