Free The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson Page B

and I celebrated the day on the rock of A Castanha in the bay, getting drunk on cachaça and chalking doodles on wet stone.
    “Kill me if I ever get that old,” Gil said.
    “Hey, by the time we hit two hundred and fifty, there will probably be grandes twice our age.”
    He grimaced. “What’s the point of life , June, if you don’t live it?”
    “Some do. Some grandes live.”
    “While they suffocate the rest of us.”
    I couldn’t deny it. Just that morning, I’d gotten a polite rejection from yet another gallery, saying they only accepted work from “mature” artists. At this rate, I wouldn’t get so much as a painting in a show before I turned forty.
    “Your mamãe has lots of work, these days,” I said, trying to make that doomed feeling in my stomach go away. “She’s almost a waka, and designing dresses for Aunties.”
    Gil hurled our empty bottle off the cliff. It biodegraded as soon as it hit the water. “And when they realize how old she is, grandes still look at me like I must be half feral.”
    I bit my lip. I wondered when it would be okay for Gil and his mamãe; when her talent and maturity would matter more than her age, as though she could never be good enough with a son just sixteen years younger.
    “Grandes can be assholes,” I said finally.
    Gil sighed and closed his eyes. We were silent for a long time, so long I got sleepy and rested my head on his shoulder. Through my lidded eyes, I could see water bluer than the sky, and the city like some clean and bright geometric heaven. Gil stroked my hair and I felt warm and happy as a lizard in the sun.
    “Will you kiri, Gil?” It was my greatest fear, but at that moment the terror couldn’t touch me. I felt as though I could see us both too clearly for fear.
    “Maybe,” he said. “Probably. Yes.”
    I knew. I don’t know how, but I did. “Not too soon,” I said.
    “No, of course not. God, we’re only sixteen.”
    My papai was a hundred and forty.
    Had been a hundred and forty.

    The first time the lights go out in Palmares Três, Gil and I are in the third row of the orchestra seats in City Hall, awaiting the summer king’s first public address. The first two rows are filled with important people, mostly Aunties, but a few other dignitaries. I even see three Uncles — men who have entered politics, though they’re not as influential as Aunties. Quite a few sun year summer kings have been Uncles.
    It’s been a week since Enki’s election and I’m exhausted. I’ve spent the past two nights feverishly sketching, designing, and discarding one idea after another. I need to strike quickly and brilliantly if I want to prove myself to the Queen and the other finalists. It’s an open secret that Auntie Yaha got me in — it probably would be even if it weren’t true, and that makes me hate what she did even more.
    Bebel is already planning a free concert in Gria Plaza. I wish I didn’t know, because it’s only making me crazier, but of course she had to tell me in that way of hers, like we’re best friends and not implacable enemies. She even had the nerve to ask Gil to dance for her, but he refused.
    I almost stayed at home. I have more important things to think about than even Enki, but Gil begged and so of course I agreed. You don’t abandon a friend in love. And if my heart races at the thought of seeing him again, well, I’m a waka with a pulse. That doesn’t mean I want him.
    There are camera bots everywhere and occasionally they buzz near the two of us, but I stare straight ahead and pretend not to notice. Right now, I want to be invisible. I want to come up with an idea that will make Bebel look like she’s leading a sing-along at a birthday party. And when it’s ready, I want the world to know my name.
    “I still think you should do the garden,” Gil says. “Vines growing out of the trains? You’d definitely get attention.”
    “It’s too derivative. Juliana Consecu did that installation with roses five years