Sparrow's Story - A Girl Defiant

Chapter 18

Sotheby’s tortures her through two dress fittings and a makeup session, so Sparrow’s exhausted by the time she gets back to the Chatwal.  In the hotel elevator, Dad waves three tickets to a Broadway show courtesy of Sotheby’s at her, and she shuts him down. “I have no interest in seeing ‘Tabitha!’”

“According to Riley,” Dad says, “this the hot show on Broadway. You don’t want to impress your friends back home?”

If I told my classmates that I’d gone to see Tabitha, Sparrow thinks, they’d know I’d gone to the dark side. “You and Damon go,” she tells Dad. “I’m ordering room service.”

“You sure?” 

“Totally sure. I want a bath, and to go to bed.”

“You’ll be OK without a bodyguard?”

“Dad, I’m locked down in a secure wing. I think I’ll survive.” Sparrow steps onto her floor and sweeps her eyes over the walls near the ceiling. Cameras lurk in the corners and Imran will have to scramble them before she can cross to his wing. “Don’t wake me before eleven.”

“All right,” Dad says, turning towards the men’s wing. “You earned your rest.”

I’ve earned more than that, she thinks. I made him fifteen mil. 

Sparrow swipes her card at the security door, and Dad says her name.

“Yes?” She doesn’t turn around. 

“You did well today.”

“Glad you’re happy,” she answers under her breath. 

“I know this isn’t what you wanted...”

You got that right.

“But it’s what your mother would have wanted for you.”

She turns and lasers him with her eyes. “Really, Dad?”

“Yeah, she loved being a mother. You remember how she said it was the greatest job in the world?”

Sparrow sees the smile on her mom’s ash grey face as they peered into her microscope. Dad’s lying to himself about the future her mother would want for her, but not about how much she loved being a mom. “Yeah, I remember.”

“She was a great lady, your mother.” 

Sparrow nods and shoves open the door.  She lets it click behind her and breathes slowly until the ache fades.  

Really, Dad? What Mom would have wanted is for me to go to MIT and fall in love. Find a smart guy who can challenge me. That’s what Mom would have wanted.

Imran and Sparrow are meeting at midnight, so she’s got hours to kill. Sparrow peeks inside the “ladies lounge” and sees a girl slightly older than her curled on a couch, watching a big screen. 

The brunette’s pants are skin tight, lizard-patterned, and her black bra shows through her gauzy top, so Sparrow goes to leave, but the voice on the TV stops her. The girl is watching a news broadcast and it sounds unrestricted.

She looks up from the orange she’s peeling, and spies Sparrow. “Hi. Want to join me?”

“Are you watching the memorial?”

“For Rowley’s lawyer? Yeah. It’s taped.”

Sparrow drops down on the couch. “I’m Sparrow.”

“Tabs.”

Two plus two adds up to Tabitha, the singer Sparrow refused to see perform. “The memorial’s on PC-TV?”

Tabs laughs. “No. I bribed the concierge into giving me the access code. I watch anything I want.” 

A camera pans the audience. “I don’t see Samantha Rowley.” 

“No, they said she’s in protective custody.”

Soldiers carrying guns line the walls of the church, as if they’ve taken it hostage. Sparrow reads the audience the way Dad reads a courtroom. Who comes to pay respects and who stays away can tell you a lot. There are three cardinals and two rows of rabbis. “Did they say who those guys are in the first row?”

“One’s the ambassador from Denmark, and I think the others are from Norway, Sweden and Finland.”

“Guess that tells us what they think of the US right now. Not surprising that none of our own leaders have shown up.”

“Yeah, not a Paternalist in sight,” Tabs says. She offers Sparrow some of her orange.

“No thanks, I’m not really hungry.”

“Bad day?”

“I was at Sotheby’s, getting ready for my auction debut.”

“Sounds like it wasn’t your idea,” Tabs offers.

“What can I say? Dad can’t resist the siren song of millions of dollars.”

“But you’re happy now that you’re doing it, right?”

Sparrow shakes her head. She can’t tell a complete stranger what she’s planning to do.

Tabs presses her lips together. The looks they exchange tell stories they can’t say aloud. “Let me see your phone.”

Sparrow hands it to Tabs who peels back the sparkly cover. She smiles when she sees it’s unrestricted. “You’re resourceful. “ Tabs types in a phone number. “I’m going back to Vegas at the end of the week. You should come visit me.”

Her suggestion is bizarre beyond belief. “I never leave LA,” Sparrow blurts.

Tabs holds the phone out, but she won’t let go until Sparrow meets her eyes. “Promise you’ll call me if you do. I have a friend you should meet. She fixes things.”

Hearing what isn’t said can be a girl’s survival tool. Sparrow’s cheeks flush, because she’s sure Tabs is talking about Contracts. “Is she a lawyer?” 

“Basically.”

Sparrow’s got questions, but you never know who’s listening. It’s one thing for Tabs and her to watch restricted TV, another to plot something borderline illegal.  “Thanks.”

Tabs scoots off the couch. “Got to go. Curtain’s up at 8:30.” 

Sparrow stays and watches the pallbearers carry Henry Forester’s coffin out of the church. According to the voiceover, the coffin is empty. They couldn’t scrape enough of the lawyer together to put inside. 

 When the memorial ends, the news goes international. Sparrow switches from one world hotspot to another. Riots in the Middle East. Pirates in international waters. A suicide bomber in London. She clicks past them until she’s stopped by a clip from Myanmar.

A man in orange red robes sits cross-legged in a street, his clothing on fire. He stares straight ahead, not making a sound. Flames lick his face, and the crowd of people watching him are praying, but not one tries to stop him. 

Soldiers rush into the crowd, shoving people with the butts of their guns. They reach the circle, but the monk’s skin and robes are charred black. When the soldiers face the crowd, hundreds of eyes are trained on them.

The headline rolls across the bottom of the screen: Monk Protests Government Repression. 

The program switches to a commercial and Sparrow clicks off the TV. The image of the monk is seared into her brain. A match and a can of gasoline, and this silent man forced the world to listen.