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She thinks she's being subtle, with a trench coat and funny beret. Siobhan thinks nobody’s going to notice her anyway. People in the Dreamjolt Holstery, they're too busy hiding themselves to think about who else is in the room.
And call her curious, but Siobhan's got the time. She knows exactly who the lady is, and what she's doing here.
“This your first time?”
“I've been here before, but I never had the chance to sample the drinks.”
“I don't mean the Holstery.”
The woman with periwinkle hair takes a minute before she can even think how to react to that. “I'm sorry, you are?”
“Apologies, Miss Oak, I never introduced myself. I'm Siobhan.”
“Lady Siobhan,” she shakes her hand. “Delighted. I recognize you. Are you from the Irises?”
“I used to be.” She leans on the bar counter. “I guess I still am, but I work differently now.”
She spends the rest of the time ordering another drink.
“If you're wondering if it gets better, it does.”
She says nothing. Siobhan shows her empty palms.
“My bad, I'll leave you to it.”
Robin shakes her hands. “No, no. It's alright. I appreciate your company.”
They stay in silence for the rest of the evening. When she leaves, she doesn't say goodbye.
There's a time and place for everything. Something tells Siobhan she'll be back.
The second time she sees her, she sits directly in front of where she's working.
When she gives her the order, Siobhan gets to work with previously unseen professionalism.
“I'm sorry about the last time,” she offers, even though it's useless. Robin takes her drink.
“It was never offensive to me. I should be the one to apologize, I didn't come here to chat the last time. I should've been clear on that.”
“Lots of guests come here to just drink. Or mope,” Siobhan smiles, changing topic. “When’s the last time you were here?”
“It’s my first time back,” Robin confesses, relaxing. These questions she can answer. “Not counting short visits.”
Siobhan senses her hesitation—she isn’t meant to be here. Then again, so are a lot of their other patrons. This shouldn’t make her much different. “You ever miss this place?”
“Sometimes I think I do.” Robin stirs her drink. “I don't regret this path. But it's been the only choice I've made myself since I left.”
“Ahh. Yeah, I get what you mean. What is it you wanna do?”
“I suppose that's what I'm trying to do,” she muses. “Figure it out.”
Siobhan sees the glint in her eye. She's serious. Girls like Robin, nobody really takes them seriously. Siobhan would like to.
She's way in over her head, Siobhan thinks. Crushing on the bartender is one thing, but sneaking into the Dreamscape to meet her is another.
She is good company, she tells her. It's been a while since she's had someone to talk to like this—her brother would spend more time away, and she couldn't get to see him as often as she'd like.
It is lonelier coming home than she thought.
“This is the new sample they sent me.”
Sometimes she brings her work to the bar—only when it’s fun. Siobhan can see how the music industry itself has done more hollowing to Robin’s face than anything else she says to cover it up with.
And she can’t say she understands.
But she knows.
“Okay, let’s hear it then.”
When there is light foot traffic she turns down the lights. People will get caught up in the thick memoria to pay attention to them. It’s times like this Siobhan lets the guests talk amongst themselves. Play some blues. Let the scenes unfold.
She thinks she can do more like this, in the background, than go out there herself. And she’s right. Out there is for girls like Robin.
Maybe Siobhan’s just a coward, deep down.
“It’s not bad.”
“It’s pop,” Robin doesn’t disagree. “You have an ear for music.”
Siobhan doesn’t—but she can pretend she does. She tells Robin this, because she owes her that.
Because all the Irises know is to perform, and she thinks she’s over that but maybe not a little bit when she wants to impress the rising popstar.
Robin is supposed to be the lady-lacquered antidote to Penacony's problems, but her fate is as bitter a pill as any to swallow—she ends up as a different kind of poison. She sits in your mind not quite the same way she sits in your stomach—ever-pervading, like a colony of angels.
For a moment Robin must have been thinking she's late, or the bar's closed for the night, when Siobhan appears from behind the counter.
“I can leave,” she offers. Her whole body is facing the bar, not even her foot is motioned to move to the door.
“You can,” Siobhan grins. “But I prepared something special for tonight.”
The lights come on, and so does the music. It’s a soulful kind of jazz. Robin stays.
Siobhan takes her coat off for her, and leads her to the middle of the room by the hand.
“We used to dance like this, at the Irises.”
They take center stage, the spotlight following them where they sway.
Robin’s emerald eyes are glittering. “I didn't know you can do this.”
“I can't,” Siobhan shrugs. She can't remember the last time she's ever thought about what she can or can't do.
A few more drinks later on, and Siobhan learns Robin's got a mole just in the valley between her neck and shoulders, that she's scraped her knee when she was four, her brother would have ordered a strawberry parfait.
“He's busy lately,” she says, morose.
“I can see that.” Robin leans into her, and she shifts in her seat. “What would he do if he saw his little sister here?”
“I'm not little,” she says, and an unfamiliar expression passes her face. Maybe it's because she's tipsy, or she's gotten too comfortable with her.
The way she's swaying in her arms, Siobhan can already tell the intention.
“You've never kissed another woman before?”
“No,” her voice was as soft as her lips, barely an inch away from her face. “I just know I want to kiss you.”
She locks gazes with her, and all Siobhan can see are the flash of lights, the cameras, the stage.
Everything she had ever run away from, coming back to her like this. Were it that it had to be in the eyes of the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
Siobhan pulls away.
“You can save it for later.”
Only there is no later. And they both know it. Robin smiles, sadly, and moves away from her touch.
’Later’ is when Siobhan sees her on the billboards, posters from high rising towers. The morning after that night, all she’s had to leave her is a note, which smells just like her perfume, and nothing else.
It’s two years after that when she sees her next, and she’s already on the peak stages of her fame.
Glitter on her nails. Glitz and glamor with her familiar girlish charm. Subdued, all the time but for when she’s in front of the cameras. In truth, Robin has always looked tired when Siobhan sees her.
Siobhan thinks about the careful way she makes it to the bar this time. She can’t say she doesn’t have reason to hide—anybody would turn their head to look at her.
She orders a drink, and it’s harder. Siobhan has to feign a look of nonchalance.
“Couldn't remember the last time I saw your face walk in here. What’s on your mind?”
Siobhan splays her hands on the counter. She's dressed roguishly handsome, and you can bet she smells even better.
The best Robin does is shrug, smile small when she sips from her cocktail.
“These flavors were not a coincidence,” Siobhan says conversationally, taps at the wood near whereupon her glass is set. “Missing someone?”
She stirs her drink. This would have to be her first and last here this time, so she wants to make it count. “Not yet. I'll be leaving soon.”
The Dreamjolt Holstery is abuzz with low activity. Siobhan doesn't have to keep her voice any lower, but she'd always been discreet.
“Are you staying after the Charmony Festival?”
“I won't be long, I'm afraid.” Robin turns to the doors, gaze running fast over faces of strangers. Her phone screen glows with a message.
“I’ll clean up,” Siobhan flashes her a smile.
“Thank you. I just wanted to stop by and see…you,” she says, dropping her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“I get it, Romeo. And yeah—text me when you get home anyway.”
She does.
I get what you mean. And why you did it.
And the rest of it, some more personal things Siobhan decides to file away. They both wanted closure, they finally got it.
Texting is good—it’s better than a note. Because leaving a number is leaving a place for her to send more messages.
They can be friends, if nothing else.
Stardom, she thinks, is meant to be short-lived. But she’d be damned if Robin didn’t burn red-hot and lit up the sky while she was out there.
Robin still sends Siobhan cheesey samples from her label, and she still pretends to like it. But now she’s going steady with a girl who loves all her music, even the ones she thinks are bad, and maybe she deserves that. Someone who isn’t as hard on her as she is on herself.
As for her, she can take things easy. She always does.
Sometimes she plays a little bit of their old songs and reminisces, and the other guests ask about the music she’s playing.
She’d say it’s something she composed with an old friend. The bar closes, and she calls it a day. And then it repeats, and she welcomes it.