Matched Read online

  I don’t see any other girls wearing the green dress. I don’t mind. I like the idea that, for one night, I don’t look like everyone else.

  I wait, holding my compact in one hand and my mother’s hand in the other. Her palm feels sweaty. For the first time, I realize that she and my father are nervous, too.

  “Cassia Maria Reyes.”

  It is my turn.

  I stand up, letting go of my mother’s hand, and turn toward the screen. I feel my heart pounding and I am tempted to twist my hands the way Lea did, but I hold perfectly still with my chin up and my eyes on the screen. I watch and wait, determined that the girl my Match will see on the screen in his City Hall somewhere out there in Society will be poised and calm and lovely, the very best image of Cassia Maria Reyes that I can present.

  But nothing happens.

  I stand and look at the screen, and, as the seconds go by, it is all I can do to stay still, all I can do to keep smiling. Whispers start around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother move her hand as if to take mine again, but then she pulls it back.

  A girl in a green dress stands waiting, her heart pounding. Me.

  The screen is dark, and it stays dark.

  That can only mean one thing.

  CHAPTER 2

  The whispers rise soft around me like birds beating their wings under the dome of City Hall. “Your Match is here this evening,” the hostess says, smiling. The people around me smile as well, and their murmurs become louder. Our Society is so vast, our Cities so many, that the odds of your perfect Match being someone in your own City are minuscule. It’s been many years since such a thing happened here.

  These thoughts tumble in my mind, and I close my eyes briefly as I realize what this means, not in abstract, but for me, the girl in the green dress. I might know my Match. He might be someone who goes to the same Second School that I do, someone I see every day, someone—

  “Xander Thomas Carrow.”

  At his table, Xander stands up. A sea of watching faces and white tablecloths, of glinting crystal glasses and shining silver boxes stretches between us.

  I can’t believe it.

  This is a dream. People turn their eyes on me and on the handsome boy in the dark suit and blue cravat. It doesn’t feel real until Xander smiles at me. I think, I know that smile, and suddenly I’m smiling, too, and the rush of applause and smell of the lilies fully convince me that this is actually happening. Dreams don’t smell or sound as strong as this. I break protocol a bit to give Xander a tiny wave, and his smile widens.

  The hostess says, “You may take your seats.” She sounds glad that we are so happy; of course, we should be. We are each other’s best Match, after all.

  When she brings me the silver box, I hold it carefully. But I already know much of what is inside. Not only do Xander and I go to the same school, we also live on the same street; we’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember. I don’t need the microcard to show me pictures of Xander as a child because I have plenty of them in my mind. I don’t need to download a list of favorites to memorize because I already know them. Favorite color: green. Favorite leisure activity: swimming. Favorite recreation activity: games.

  “Congratulations, Cassia,” my father whispers to me, his expression relieved. My mother says nothing, but she beams with delight and embraces me tightly. Behind her, another girl stands up, watching the screen.

  The man sitting next to my father whispers, “What a piece of luck for your family. You don’t have to trust her future to someone you know nothing about.”

  I’m surprised by the unhappy edge to his tone; the way his comment seems to be right on the verge of insubordination. His daughter, the nervous one wearing the pink dress, hears it, too; she looks uncomfortable and shifts slightly in her seat. I don’t recognize her. She must go to one of the other Second Schools in our City.

  I sneak another glance at Xander, but there are too many people in my way and I can’t see him. Other girls take their turns standing up. The screen lights up for each of them. No one else has a dark screen. I am the only one.

  Before we leave, the hostess of the Match Banquet asks Xander and me and our families to step aside and speak with her. “This is an unusual situation,” she says, but she corrects herself immediately. “Not unusual. Excuse me. It is merely uncommon.” She smiles at both of us. “Since you already know each other, things will proceed differently for you. You will know much of the initial information about each other.” She gestures at our silver boxes. “There are a few new courtship guidelines included on your microcards, so you should familiarize yourselves with those when you have an opportunity.”

  “We’ll read them tonight,” Xander promises sincerely. I try to keep from rolling my eyes in amusement because he sounds exactly the way he does when a teacher gives him a learning assignment. He’ll read the new guidelines and memorize them, as he read and memorized the official Matching material. And then I flush again, as a paragraph from that material flashes across my mind:

  If you choose to be Matched, your Marriage Contract will take place when you are twenty-one. Studies have shown that the fertility of both men and women peaks at the age of twenty-four. The Matching System has been constructed to allow those who Match to have their children near this age—providing for the highest likelihood of healthy offspring.

  Xander and I will share a Marriage Contract. We will have children together.

  I don’t have to spend the next few years learning everything about him because I already know him, almost as well as I know myself.

  The tiny feeling of loss deep within my heart surprises me. My peers will spend the next few days swooning over pictures of their Matches, bragging about them during meal hour at school, waiting for more and more bits of information to be revealed. Anticipating their first meeting, their second meeting, and so on. That mystery does not exist for Xander and me. I won’t wonder what he is like or daydream about our first meeting.

  But then Xander looks at me and asks, “What are you thinking about?” and I answer, “That we are very lucky,” and I mean it. There is still much to discover. Until now, I have only known Xander as a friend. Now he is my Match.

  The hostess corrects me gently. “Not lucky, Cassia. There is no luck in the Society.”

  I nod. Of course. I should know better than to use such an archaic, inaccurate term. There’s only probability now. How likely something is to occur, or how unlikely.

  The hostess speaks again. “It has been a busy evening, and it’s getting late. You can read the courtship guidelines later, another day. There’s plenty of time.”

  She’s right. That’s what the Society has given us: time. We live longer and better than any other citizens in the history of the world. And it’s thanks in large part to the Matching System, which produces physically and emotionally healthy offspring.

  And I’m a part of it all.

  My parents and the Carrows can’t stop exclaiming over how wonderful this all is, and as we walk down the steps of City Hall together, Xander leans over and says, “You’d think they’d arranged everything themselves.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I say, and I feel opulent and a little giddy. I can’t believe that this is me, wearing a beautiful green dress, holding gold in one hand and silver in the other, walking next to my best friend. My Match.

  “I can,” Xander says, teasing me. “In fact, I knew all along. That’s why I wasn’t nervous.”

  I tease him back. “I knew, too. That’s why I was.”

  We’re laughing so much that when the air train pulls up neither of us notice for a moment, and then there is a brief moment of awkwardness as Xander holds out his hand to help me climb aboard. “Here,” he says, his voice serious. For a moment, I don’t know what to do. There is something new in touching each other now, and my hands are full.

  Then Xander wraps his hand around mine, pulling me onto the train with him.

  “Thank you,” I say as the doors
close behind us.

  “Any time,” he says. He does not let go of my hand; the little silver box I hold creates a barrier between us even as another one breaks. We have not held hands like this since we were children. In doing that tonight, we move across the invisible divide that separates friendship from something more. I feel a tingle along my arm; to be touched, by my Match, is a luxury that the other Matchees at Banquets tonight do not share.

  The air train carries us away from the sparkling, icy-white lights of City Hall toward the softer yellow porch lights and streetlights of the Boroughs. As the streets flash past on our way home to Mapletree Borough, I glance over at Xander. The gold of the lights outside is similar to the color of his hair, and his face is handsome and confident and good. And familiar, for the most part. If you’ve always known how to look at someone, it’s strange when that directive changes. Xander has always been someone I could not have, and I have been the same for him.

  Now everything is different.

  My ten-year-old brother, Bram, waits for us on the front porch. When we tell him about the Banquet, he can’t believe the news. “You’re Matched with Xander? I already know the person you’re going to marry? That’s so strange.”

  “You’re the one who’s strange.” I tease him, and he dodges me as I pretend to grab him. “Who knows. Maybe your Match lives right on this street, too. Maybe it’s—”

  Bram covers his ears. “Don’t say it. Don’t say it—”

  “Serena,” I say, and he turns away, pretending that he didn’t hear me. Serena lives next door. She and Bram torment each other incessantly.

  “Cassia,” my mother says disapprovingly, glancing around to make sure that no one heard. We are not supposed to disparage other members of our street and our community. Mapletree Borough is known for being tight-knit and exemplary in this way. No thanks to Bram, I think to myself.

  “I’m teasing, Mama.” I know she can’t stay mad at me. Not on the night of my Match Banquet, when she has been reminded of how quickly I am growing up.

  “Come inside,” my father says. “It’s almost curfew. We can talk about everything tomorrow.”

  “Was there cake?” Bram asks as my father opens the door. They all look back at me, waiting.

  I don’t move. I don’t want to go inside yet.

  If I do, that means that this night is coming to an end, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to take off the dress and go back to my plainclothes; I don’t want to return to the usual days, which are good, but nothing special like this. “I’ll come in soon. Just a few minutes more.”

  “Don’t be long,” my father says gently. He doesn’t want me to break curfew. It is the City’s curfew, not his, and I understand.

  “I won’t,” I promise.

  I sit down on the steps of my house, careful, of course, of my borrowed dress. I glance down at the folds of the beautiful material. It does not belong to me, but this evening does, this time that is dark and bright and full of both the unexpected and the familiar. I look out into the new spring night and turn my face to the stars.

  I don’t linger outside for long because tomorrow, Saturday, is a busy day. I’ll need to report to my trial work position at the sorting center early in the morning. After that I’ll have my Saturday night free-rec hours, one of the few times I get to spend with my friends outside of Second School.

  And Xander will be there.

  Back in my bedroom, I shake the tablets out of the little hollow in the base of the compact. Then I count—one, two, three; blue, green, red—as I slide the tablets back into their usual metal cylinder.

  I know what the blue and green tablets do. I don’t know anyone who knows for certain what the red tablet does. There have been rumors about it for years.

  I climb into bed and push away thoughts of the red tablet. For the first time in my life, I’m allowed to dream of Xander.

  CHAPTER 3

  I’ve always wondered what my dreams look like on paper, in numbers. Someone out there knows, but it isn’t me. I pull the sleep tags from my skin, taking care not to tug too hard on the one behind my ear. The skin is fragile there and it always hurts to peel the disk away, especially if a strand or two of hair gets caught under the adhesive on the tag. Glad that my turn is over, I put the equipment back in its box. It’s Bram’s turn to be tagged tonight.

  I did not dream of Xander. I don’t know why.

  But I did sleep late, and I’m going to be late for work if I don’t hurry. As I walk into the kitchen, carrying my dress from the night before, I see that my mother has already set out the breakfast food delivery. Oatmeal, gray-brown and expected. We eat for health and performance, not for taste. Holidays and celebrations are exceptions. Since our calories had been moderated all week long, last night at the Banquet we could eat everything in front of us without significant impact.

  Bram grins mischievously at me, still wearing his sleepclothes. “So,” he says, shoving one last spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth, “did you sleep late because you were dreaming about Xander?”

  I don’t want him to know how close he is to the truth; that even though I didn’t dream of Xander, I wanted to. “No,” I say, “and shouldn’t you be worrying about being on time for school?” Bram’s young enough that he still has school instead of work on Saturdays, and if he doesn’t get going, he’ll be late. Again. I hope he doesn’t get cited.

  “Bram,” my mother says, “go get your plainclothes on, please.” She’ll breathe a huge sigh of relief when he moves on to Second School, where the start time is half an hour later.

  As Bram slouches out of the room, my mother reaches for my dress and holds it up. “You looked so beautiful last night. I hate to take this back.” We both look at the gown for a moment. I admire the way the fabric catches the light and plays it back, almost like the light and the cloth are both living things.

  We both sigh at exactly the same time and my mother laughs. She gives me a kiss on the cheek. “They’ll send you a little piece of the fabric, remember?” she says, and I nod. Each gown is designed with an interior panel that can be cut into pieces, one for each girl who wears the dress. The scrap, along with the silver box that held my microcard, will be the mementos of my Matching.

  But still. I will never see this dress, my green dress, again.

  I knew the moment I saw it that it was the one I wanted. When I made my selection, the woman at the clothing distribution center smiled after she punched the number—seventy-three—into the computer. “That’s the one you were most likely to pick,” she said. “Your personal data indicated it, and so did general psychology. You’ve picked things outside of the majority in the past, and girls like their dresses to bring out their eyes.”

  I smiled and watched as she sent her assistant into the back to retrieve the dress. When I tried it on, I saw that she was right. The dress was meant for me. The hemline fell perfectly; the waist curved in exactly the right amount. I turned in front of the mirror, admiring myself.

  The woman told me, “So far, you are the only girl wearing this dress at the Match Banquet this month. The most popular gown is one of the pink gowns, number twenty-two.”

  “Good,” I told her. I don’t mind standing out a little.

  Bram reappears in the doorway, plainclothes wrinkled, hair askew. I can almost see the wheels turning in my mother’s mind: Is it better to comb his hair and make him late, or send him as he is?

  Bram makes the decision for her. “See you tonight,” he says, sprinting out the door.

  “He’s not going to be fast enough.” My mother looks out the window toward the air-train stop, where the tracks light up to indicate the approaching train.

  “He might,” I say, watching Bram as he breaks another rule, the one about running in public. I can almost hear his footsteps pounding on the sidewalk as he runs down the street, his head lowered, his school pack bumping against his skinny back.

  Right when he gets to the stop, he slows down. He pats his hair into plac
e and walks casually up the steps toward the train. Hopefully, no one else has seen him run. A moment later, the air train pulls away with Bram safely inside.

  “That boy is going to be the end of me.” My mother sighs. “I should have gotten him up earlier. We all overslept. It was a big night last night.”

  “It was,” I agree.

  “I have to catch the next City air train.” My mother pulls her satchel over her shoulder. “What are you doing for your free-rec hours tonight?”

  “I’m sure Xander and everyone will want to play games at the youth center,” I say. “We’ve seen all the showings, and the music ...” I shrug.

  My mother laughs, completing my sentence. “Is for old people like me.”

  “And I’m using the last hour to visit Grandfather.” The Officials don’t often allow a deviation from the usual free-rec options; but on the eve of someone’s Final Banquet, visiting is encouraged and permitted.

  My mother’s eyes soften. “He’ll love that.”

  “Did Papa tell Grandfather about my Match?”

  My mother smiles. “He planned to stop by on his way to work.”

  “Good,” I say, because I want Grandfather to know as soon as possible. I know he has been thinking as much about me and my Banquet as I’ve been thinking about him and his.

  After I hurry and eat my breakfast, I make my train with seconds to spare and sit back. I may not have dreamed about Xander while I slept, but I can daydream about him now. Looking out the window and thinking about how he looked last night in his suit, I watch the Boroughs slide by on my way into the City. The green has not yet given way to stone and concrete when I notice white flakes drifting through the sky.

  Everyone else notices them, too.

  “Snow? In June?” the woman next to me asks.

  “It can’t be,” a man across the aisle mutters.