Chapter Text
Caitlyn thought the knot in her chest would have loosened as she watched her bundle of lilacs drift further down the Danube, but the complicated tangle of resentment, regret, grief, and love around her heart was as stubborn as ever.
She felt no easier than she did at the start of this week-long journey to send off her mother on her own terms, stopping in cities that held some of her fondest memories of them together. As the flowers disappeared in the distance, she thought back to the last time they had spoken: another attempt to persuade Caitlyn to step away from her seemingly endless pursuits in academia and into her role as heir to the Kiramman Hotel Group.
“Darling, I admire your insatiable curiosity and zeal for knowledge, truly, but don’t you think it’s time to embrace your birthright? There’s a career that others would die for just waiting for you – lineage aside, you have all the proper degrees and credentials to be the right pick – and yet you continue to bury yourself in unnecessary additional degrees and now… bugs.” Caitlyn had waved off her mother’s thinly veiled disgust towards her latest endeavor and tucked a finger into her book to meet Cassandra’s imploring eyes, a mirror of her own.
“Did you know that the Hercules beetle can carry up to a hundred times its body mass? Smaller rhinoceros beetles could carry maybe half that, but even then, they’re essentially immobilized. Their efficiency is almost inconceivable – when carrying thirty times their body weight, supported only by their legs, they burn only five times their basal oxygen and can move forward almost indefinitely. Remarkable, isn’t it?” Her mother had sighed in exasperation and rubbed at the crease between her brows, lamenting to herself that she just didn’t know how to get through to Caitlyn.
Dinner that night had been a quiet affair, and Caitlyn ate and dismissed herself quickly to avoid any further discussion of her career prospects. Tobias was cheery as always when seeing her off the following morning, while Cassandra was stiff as Caitlyn pressed a kiss to her cheek with a promise to come back to London soon. “This conversation isn’t over, Caitlyn,” her mother warned, but the threat – functionally empty after years of being voiced with no follow-through whatsoever – may as well have fallen on deaf ears.
Caitlyn had left for Dublin excited to dive into the courtship practices of Dynastes hercules, expecting to see her parents again and evade yet another pointed nudge to join the family business sometime in August. She returned to London just two weeks later with a muddled mind and a fractured heart that she quickly forced back into shape to grant her father, unmoored, the luxury of falling apart.
It had been an aneurysm, ruptured while she slept – a quick, painless passing for the matriarch.
The conversation was, in fact, over. Fourteen days earlier, such a notion would’ve rendered Caitlyn overjoyed. Now, it meant that she would forever stand at odds with the ghost of her mother.
The implication was haphazardly filed away with other questions and thoughts that were, at the time, useless to Caitlyn.
Was there truly no one else in consideration to inherit the company?
I’ll have to withdraw from the university – put my degree on hold indefinitely.
Was she proud of me?
Eventually, I’ll have mourned her for longer than I’ve known her.
The last thought would’ve burned through Caitlyn if it wasn’t quashed with the others so as to avoid devastating her into inertia. After all, she had to make arrangements for the cremation and a beautiful memorial service that “really honored her mother,” according to aunties and uncles that traveled from near and far, Kiramman Hotel Group board members, fellow powerhouses in the global hospitality industry, and droves of hazily-remembered acquaintances who attended.
Caitlyn couldn’t even recall her speech – mostly, she remembered trying to escape the overwhelmingly cloying scent of chrysanthemums from the floral arrangements sent by those who couldn’t attend the funeral. By the time the flowers, too, had died, Caitlyn had officially withdrawn from Trinity and reluctantly began to assume her mother’s responsibilities at the company, though she insisted that it was only until the board aligned on a more permanent candidate.
For the time being, Caitlyn was at the seat of power at the Kiramman Hotel Group, maintaining a careful façade of composure and soundness of mind while she unraveled within. Between moving back to London; meeting with board members, shareholders, and local and international teams; and doing her best to keep her father – who was just a notch above wasting away most days – alive, entomology should have been the last thing on her mind. And yet, the steadfast creatures she had been lauding to her mother all those weeks ago rose above the simultaneous chaos and tedium of her new life. She wondered how the Hercules beetle would fare carrying emotional weight, if it would struggle to move at all under that kind of burden. It was only after she fainted during a status call that she began to seriously consider Jayce’s pleas for her to take some time off.
In her tenure as the head of the Kiramman Hotel Group, Cassandra had been exceptionally busy bringing the organization to new heights, but she highly valued her role as a mother. As much as she raised Caitlyn from birth to one day assume her mantle, she also fiercely nurtured in her daughter an indomitable curiosity that especially flourished during summer and winter holidays that Caitlyn cherished like no other. She’d count down the days for a true Kiramman holiday, which was typically a week away during which Cassandra would encourage Caitlyn’s every fascination with an unbridled zest. These trips held memories with her mother that stayed close to her heart, even after Cassandra grew less inclined to encourage her enthusiasm for learning and more inclined to groom her for her future as the Kiramman heir.
At 11 years old, Caitlyn was particularly transfixed by Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series. More than 30 pieces, painted over the course of two years and refined for an additional year, captured the same façade under various conditions – unique moments, colors, beams of light that would never be seen that way again, and Caitlyn couldn’t get enough of them. Cassandra had arranged for a trip to the old city and sat with Caitlyn outside the cathedral from early morning to dusk, watching the light and colors shift over the carved surface as they did in Monet’s works. At 30, Caitlyn took a train from London to Paris, then Paris to Rouen and, after a brief stop at a local florist, watched the cathedral exterior shift from a pale bluish gray in the early morning to a warmer blue in the daylight, from golden ochre to burnished red at sunset, and finally to a shadowy indigo come nightfall. When fatigue began to wear at her, she left the small bundle of lilacs that she’d clutched all day just to the side of the entrance, where it was sure to catch the first rays of sunlight at daybreak.
From there, a short train ride brought her to Brussels, where her heart twinged as she took in the wondrous interior of the Horta Museum. She remembered climbing up the stairs all too slowly, Cassandra always trailing behind and never ahead of her, while marveling at the stained glass ceiling and the whimsical, elegant whorls of metal and wood that defined the Art Nouveau house and atelier. The lines undulated in an organic chaos that mesmerized Caitlyn at 13 years old. Now, she sought comfort in the way the human hand could render such softness out of rigid, industrial materials. It would have been hard to inconspicuously leave even a small bouquet in the museum, so Caitlyn found a welcome home for a sprig of lilacs in the third floor’s winter garden. The glassy, brightly lit room overlooking the neighborhood had been part of a gift from Horta to his daughter Simone, as young Caitlyn had informed Cassandra. Eight years after the house’s construction, he extended it to add an apartment for her. Caitlyn thought it fitting that such a place was now home to a gift from a daughter to her mother.
In Luxembourg, Caitlyn figured Cassandra wouldn’t mind revisiting the halls of Vianden Castle. It was here that the Kirammans had spent hours exploring as Caitlyn, at 16 years old, waxed on about Romanesque and Gothic architecture and the castle’s medieval history. While Tobias chattered good-naturedly about the chill and the castle’s operating hours as the cold crept in and the sky darkened, Cassandra merely bundled their teenage daughter into her coat and let Caitlyn continue steering them through the castle until a staff member notified them that they were closing up. In her last act as the Kirammans’ dedicated château docent, Caitlyn left a bouquet of lilacs on a balcony overlooking the Our. She curled into the little alcove as clouds rolled past and the sky glowed golden, and absently passed her palm over the weathered, mossy stone ledge that bordered the smooth stone surface of the sitting nook. For the briefest moment, a butterfly landed on the lilacs. Its wings were a muted brown-gray, outlined in white and suffused with flecks of a powdery blue close to the butterfly’s center upon closer inspection. You’re a long way from home, aren’t you? Caitlyn thought to herself upon seeing it. Cupido minimus – the small blue – was more commonly found in the UK, though sightings were less common these days given the species’s “Near Threatened” status in the region. Caitlyn stretched her fingers towards the insect, offering an alternative perch to the flowers. When her fingertip was mere centimeters away, the butterfly took flight into the evening.
When she was 17, just on the cusp of 18, Vienna.
Actually attending the symphony on her last night in Vienna had been an impulsive decision, but the Musikverein concert hall beckoned with a salve for her heart, bruised and raw and desperate to pound frenetically to a beat that Caitlyn didn’t set. Cassandra had always been fond of the Vienna Philharmonic, which promised an interesting night: a rotation of conductors was slated to direct the renowned orchestra through an atypical three and a half hours of aural magic in An Evening with the New Maestros.
Caitlyn settled into her seat and took a deep breath as her eyes drank in the wooded and gilded hall; the dazzling chandeliers that lit the space from high above; and the bursting clusters of blue, white, and violet flowers that flowed over the railings and wrapped around the stage.
She thought about the last time she’d been in this storied venue: New Year’s Day, just days before her eighteenth birthday, as the stifling pressure to fall in line and uphold expectations about her future in the family business came to a head. Hours earlier, Caitlyn and her mother had been arguing about her desire to pursue an undergraduate degree, not to mention career, in anything other than hospitality management. It was, after all, the first step in the path to eventually inheriting the Kiramman Hotel Group.
Conversation between them was nonexistent following an outburst just outside St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Cassandra had called Caitlyn an ungrateful child who didn’t recognize the great fortune and privilege of having a prosperous future laid out for her, and Caitlyn had called Cassandra a failing attempt at motherhood who cared more about her daughter as a legacy than as a person. The rift between them had felt wider than ever, and Caitlyn sat between her parents at the symphony, sinking into a melancholy so deep that not even the flawless conducting of Maestro Gustavo Dudamel – the object of her fascination at the time – could draw her out.
But with neither a word nor a sidelong glance, her mother had taken her hand and squeezed gently during one of the many joyous Strauss Waltzes performed that night. It had come as a shock to Caitlyn, how warm and grounding the touch was in the wake of their glacial silence. Despite no words being exchanged, an understanding flowed between them – from both sides, it was remorse, recognition, and affection all at once. Caitlyn had squeezed back and returned to the moment, her eyes focusing on the orchestra following Dudamel’s wild movements, but her vision bleary from the tears that had sprung up on her without warning.
Over a glass of wine and a shared slice of sachertorte, Caitlyn and Cassandra had struck a deal that Tobias oversaw: so long as Caitlyn got her bachelor’s degree, an MBA, and internship experience in hospitality management, she could double major in her undergraduate studies and would have her parents’ support in pursuing any additional degrees as she pleased. She’d also asked her mother to keep the nagging about joining the family business to a minimum, but Cassandra had politely yet firmly declined. Caitlyn never thought she’d miss the badgering – after all, in death, her mother got exactly what she wanted – but at the end of the day, she longed for even that. She missed the trusty pattern that was her mother probing about when she would complete her latest degree, or when she would finally join the fold, and rolling her eyes in response. She missed shrugging her mother’s comments off with the practiced ease of a daughter who could expect the same exchange the next day, and the day after that, and the next visit home. She missed the prospective future she didn’t get to have: her mother coming to understand her aspirations and freeing her from such lofty expectations.
The lights dimmed slightly, bathing the hall in a soft, hazy glow that prompted stragglers to find their places and drew Caitlyn out of her memories. She held her own hand now, and her heart panged, waiting for direction. The audience hushed as the orchestra took their seats and the first conductor strode to the podium. Following his modest bow, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Winter, 2nd Movement began with little fanfare, the sweet and lilting violin a sonic apéritif to open the night.
Across three acts with brief handoffs in between, three conductors expertly guided the orchestra through overtures and waltzes with the precise movements of their batons. All the while, Caitlyn’s heart continued to thud steadily of its own accord, moved by neither the shimmering strings nor the blaring horns in Smetana’s The Moldau, immune to the playful flirtations of Márquez’s Danzón No. 2. Her eyes and ears savored the magnificence before her, but her heart was a fickle thing that yearned for more. Caitlyn waited for the bittersweet cello solo during Suppé’s Poet and Peasant to tug at her heartstrings, for the dramatic flourishes of the folk dance evoked by Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 to carry her away, but all she felt was the absence of her mother’s hand in her own, squeezing in silent reassurance. The whole room thrummed like a live wire during the frenzied, thunderous sections of Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, but the slower, more dulcet moments interspersed in between made Caitlyn’s solitude all the more palpable.
By the end of the third act, she felt as weary as when she had arrived and wondered if her grief had worn away even the magic of the symphony. Caitlyn leaned back in her seat and took a breath in anticipation of leaving, but the applause roaring around her somehow ratcheted to an even greater volume following an introduction that she had missed in her mental spiral.
Amidst the crush of hydrangeas, orchids, wisteria, and amaranthus spilling over the edge of the stage, a rose unfurled. A fourth conductor took to the newly vacated grand piano with an easy but purposeful gait, her hands rifling through slightly disheveled layers of deep red hair that fell to the other side of an undercut. Her attire was noticeably more casual than that of the other conductors: there was no tailcoat to conceal the white dress shirt stretching across her broad back and shoulders, and no bowtie or buttons done up to the top to restrict a strong, inked neck. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing tattooed forearms.
For the first time that night, Caitlyn flipped through the program on her lap. While there were pictures and detailed descriptions of the first three conductors and their accolades, as well as a complete list of the orchestra members and notes on each piece performed, there was no trace of the individual taking a bow onstage in the booklet. Caitlyn turned to her seatmate to ask, “Sorry, who is this?”
The young woman beside her was incredulous, stars in her eyes evident as she exclaimed, “That’s Vi Warren!” as if Caitlyn was meant to understand the gravity of the name, let alone the person, upon discovery.
Vi adjusted her headset microphone and smiled at the crowd. It wasn’t the polished, reserved smile of a seasoned professional used to a reverent audience – it was toothy, childish, and utterly arresting. Caitlyn couldn’t look away.
“I think it’d be fun to try something I’ve never done before in my life, which is making something with the orchestra completely from scratch – no plan, no sheet music, no rulebook, and no prior discussion.” The audience laughed, charmed by Vi’s carefree admission.
“It’d be a good idea to start by giving everyone a note, yeah? Everyone deserves a note. I’m feeling E tonight – basses, would you mind?” And then she sang the low note with a hand outstretched, fingers flickering towards the musicians that matched her pitch.
Caitlyn watched in confused wonder as Vi worked her way through the celli, violins, and flutes to build a warm melody that embodied the anticipation and cautious hopefulness of new love. Vi was unabashed when things sounded wrong, quick to correct keys, adjust octaves, have a section go up to a sharp or down to a flat as she saw fit. It was only after she continued with the trombones, trumpets, bassoons, and timpani that she realized the section right in front of her was still awaiting direction.
“Oh, oboes, of course!” She turned to the audience with a goofy, helpless grin and a sheepish, “I always forget!” before turning back to the orchestra. “Let’s go on B – great! And can we have a quiet snare drum roll? Yeah, that feels good.” To a grand piano in the back: “Could you play a low E, tremolo, with the pedal down?” While the low note trembled, she turned sharply. “And harp, glissando in a B Major scale.”
“Louder,” she commanded with arms outstretched, and as the musicians obliged, so too did the progressively erratic pounding in Caitlyn’s chest. Just as the music swelled, she swept her arms downward. “Quieter?” she asked, and the song became a whisper nearly drowned out by the sound of Caitlyn’s pulse racing in her ears. Vi continued to wave her arms like they were wings, guiding the song louder and softer, before bringing them down more firmly with closed fists to end the music abruptly. Another round of applause filled the silence, which promptly returned as Vi began to speak.
“That’s a great place to start! So, another thing I’ve always wanted to do.” She turned back to the orchestra. “While you’re playing those notes, I’ll give you a signal,” – she brought her arms forward and opened them out to her sides, as if anticipating an embrace – “and the further out my arms stretch, the more out of tune you have to play.” A laugh rippled through the crowd, and even the corner of Caitlyn’s mouth quirked upward at the thought of world-class artists having to go against the perfection that had been ingrained in them over decades of training and experience.
Vi chuckled, the sound low and rich. “I’m so interested to see how this goes! Could be really bad. But let’s start with just the firsts on D sharp.” And from there, Vi’s whims were gospel: the violins played a perfect D sharp that went askew as soon as her arms opened wide. She toyed with the section for a bit to test their compliance, and to Caitlyn, the result sounded something like if she played a corrupted file of the Jaws theme song – slightly eerie, but compelling nonetheless.
“Okay, that’s good, thank you very much! I’m ready to hear what that sounds like with everyone – can everybody play?” She turned to the audience in a conspiratorial aside: “But being in tune is way overrated, I’m serious! Out of tune is where it’s at!” Laughter rang out in the hall once again, but her sincerity was evident.
“Does everybody remember their note? Yeah? Let’s hear everybody’s note.” She opened her arms wide to greet the harmony – a grand, prolonged note that awaited resolution, completion – then doused the room in silence with another wave of her closed fists.
“All right, whoever I’m looking at as I bend my arms, go out of tune. Here we go!” She took a deep breath and began with a jump, the grand note returning in all its glory, before indicating to the violins and violas to go out of tune first, then brass and woodwinds, then the bass and celli. “Now everybody,” she said, and spent the next few measures bringing her arms out and bending back dramatically, swinging the whole orchestra in and out of tune. She brought her hands down with another jump, which, curiously, was starting to become endearing to Caitlyn, but that wasn’t a feeling she particularly wanted to investigate.
“Wow,” Vi breathed out as she stepped down from the podium, a dazzling smile lighting up her whole face while the audience applauded and cheered. “Let’s save that one for the end, all right? For the beginning of the piece, I wanna build up a groove.” She began to snap a beat. “Harp, on D, octaves apart,” and she hummed the notes for the harp to follow.
“Is there a vibraphone?” In the back of the orchestra, a man stood up and raised his mallets. “Every four notes, can you play a constant D in the middle?” After a few strikes of the mallet to the bars, she backtracked. “Actually, could you play the D below as well, so alternating between low and middle?” Her eyes closed as she considered the sound for a bit, then opened. “I really like that, let’s keep it going.” She walked over to the right side of the stage and continued down the line of sections, giving everyone a note and humming it with perfect pitch. Though she wasn’t singing seriously, just guiding instruments for now, her voice had a lovely timbre that gave Caitlyn pause.
“Okay, celli stop, everyone else keep going. The song I have in mind that could fit with this has two main chords, and one of them is that chord, and the other is if you go one note up in the G Major scale, so—” she demonstrated, then asked, “Can you play E, C, E, then back down again to D, B, D?” She let it run on for a bit, then nodded in satisfaction before asking the celli and basses to stop.
She gestured towards the harp and vibraphone. “Sorry, but you guys are gonna be going for a while – I like it too much.” To the rest of the orchestra, she said, “Okay, we’ll build a chord on top of this and we’ll start with…” She drummed her fingers in the air as she assessed where to begin, then gravitated towards the first row of violins, closest to the audience. She swept through this section quickly, each row of violinists instructed to play a different note so that together, they were playing one descending D Major scale all at once. Vi then deviated from the sweet melody by telling the violins on F sharp to go down to F natural, then E. With such a small change relative to the rest of the violins holding their notes, the tune took a wistful, longing turn.
“Back up to F sharp – oh yeah, that’s so nice. Let’s have the celli and basses back?” She counted them in, listened for a few beats, then made her way to the piano. All she did was play a series of ascending notes accompanied by some bass chords – nothing particularly special or out of the ordinary, but they fell like the first shooting stars of a meteor shower, and something stirred within Caitlyn, twinkled.
Vi stood again. “Strings except for basses and celli, can we hear that tremolando?” The strings danced delicately in response. She gestured for the rest of the sections to come in, then asked if they could play more slowly. She set a new tempo with the gentle snap of her fingers and cued the orchestra in, and just like that, the same melody became even sweeter. While getting to this point – witnessing the process of all the pieces coming together – was lovely, the song played in harmony was a gorgeous thing to behold.
After a few more measures, Vi signaled for the orchestra to stop playing with a crooked smile on her face. “I could literally do this for hours, but I know we’ve only got so much time, so I have one more request. Woodwinds and brass, you’ve been so patient – could the flutes and the oboes play a melody within this time that goes D, B, G, E flat?” She hummed the melody and counted the musicians in, who proceeded to follow the tune that she set. She turned to grin at the audience. “They’re really good, aren’t they? Turns out I wasn’t wasting my time with you, oboes!”
“Okay, on that last bit, I’d like to do a huge chord – clarinets let’s do C, half horns on G and the other half on A, bassoons on D flat, tuba E flat, trombone B flat, trumpets on G.” The chord was admittedly difficult to swallow with how truly incongruous it was, which would have irritated Caitlyn more if she hadn’t been so focused on working out how it fit into Vi’s vision for the piece. When the musician asked to hear the woodwind and brass sections play the chord, it was actually a bit imposing, and Caitlyn began to understand the way it would introduce tension to the otherwise soft tune that the strings were playing just minutes earlier.
“Perfect! Okay, that’s basically everything we need, I think. So let’s try and do the whole piece,” Vi said as she stepped down from the podium, “and I’m gonna try to sing a song, and I hope it’ll fit with this. I hope! We’ll figure it out,” she said reassuringly. “Let’s begin again with the harp and the vibraphone.” She set the beat with her snapping fingers and motioned for the two instruments to begin playing. After a few beats, she signaled for the basses and celli to join in, for the violins to begin playing in tremolando shortly after, and took a seat at the piano bench a few beats after that.
As she played a gentle tune on the keys, pausing only to signal a key change for the basses and celli, Caitlyn’s eyebrow lifted in recognition of the song that Vi had been building up to. Late September evenings in Vienna were still warm, with summer reluctant to make its departure just yet, but the sweet, hopeful melody that Vi coaxed out of the piano was reminiscent of early spring: new life bursting through the chill of winter, baby leaves and flower buds finally sprouting, days warming up and stretching out like a cat just roused from a sun-soaked nap.
The melody came to a close, but with her fingers still pressing the keys, she asked if the orchestra could play from the start and began to sing.
I know I stand in line until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me
And if we go someplace to dance, I know that there's a chance you won't be leaving with me
Then afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two
And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like…
Where “I love you” should have closed out the refrain, Vi swept an arm out to the audience. “I love you,” the girl next to Caitlyn sang with clasped hands to her chest and her heart on her sleeve. “I love you,” echoed the whole hall with unrestrained joy at the spontaneity of being included in this act of communal creation. By the second “I love you,” Vi stopped playing and stood, encouraging the audience to continue – for a moment, their voices became the orchestra as the instruments stilled – then turned back to usher the orchestra in for the big, cacophonous chord that she wanted. She alternated between the audience’s singing and the clashing chord, then between the orchestra playing the chord in and out of tune, before bringing her closed hands downward. After that, she went back to the beginning, starting with the harp and vibraphone, then the basses and celli, then the violins, and quietly brought the piece to a close with the lingering glimmer of the strings, like sunlight glinting off the surface of the sea.
The audience’s applause was deafening, with Vi the recipient of a hard-earned standing ovation. Caitlyn was still in her seat, her back ramrod straight, her spine tingling, and the weight on her chest feeling leaps and bounds lighter than before. She estimated that it had been no more than maybe twenty minutes that she’d known who this Vi Warren was, but that was enough for her to somewhat understand the young woman that sat beside her – and who was now blubbering and rummaging through her coat pockets for a tissue. Caitlyn unfroze to pull her handkerchief out of her purse and offer it to her neighbor, who thanked her with a tearful smile. She looked down at the program clasped in her left hand, and An Evening with the New Maestros stared back at her from its cover. In Caitlyn’s entirely biased opinion, the woman who had since taken her final bow and left the stage was the only conductor tonight worthy of such a title.
Caitlyn’s flight back to London was on the earlier side of the morning, but she didn’t feel like going back to the hotel yet. Instead, she wandered around the streets neighboring the Musikverein for a bit before she stumbled across an alley of shops and restaurants that had long since closed for the night. The exception was a lone storefront that glowed golden and overflowed with the muted sound of chatter and music. A moth drawn to the light, Caitlyn ambled over until she was faced with a sheet of metal in the shape of an arch, an Art Nouveau-style woman carved and painted on its surface. Engraved above her profile in curling, gilded script, Janna.
What Caitlyn could see past the two sets of double doors beside the sign was, all things considered, inviting: it appeared to be an intimate space, narrow and cozy. The bar was jagged, like a line of sharp, triangular teeth facing outward so individuals could sit in their own cubby-like pockets. To their backs, shelves built into the wall alternated with sconces shaped like lilies of the valley, which lit the space along with stained glass pendant lamps that hung from the high ceiling. Beyond that, the room opened up just enough to accommodate maybe two or three booths. At the far end of the bar, a space became available as an older couple closed their tab for the night, and Caitlyn supposed a glass of wine couldn’t hurt.
What looking in from the outside did not reveal was the contents of the shelves – a rather impressive collection of vinyls – and, tucked in its own carved-out space in the wall, a little wooden stand with a record player atop, basking under the warm light of a stained glass desk lamp. Speakers sat on the shelves by the bar and nestled into the back corners of the room, piping in a bossa nova song as Caitlyn slung her jacket over her chair, hung her purse on the hook in her cubby, and slid into the velvet seat.
Sometime between her second and third glass of a lovely Riesling, Caitlyn took notice of a young woman with long, striking blue braids that trailed after her when she approached the shelves of records. Slender fingers tapped across the spines as she squinted to read the titles. Several minutes of perusal resulted in a resounding, “Aha! They have it!” followed by a groan coming from a booth around the corner and an embarrassed, “Pow, please don’t do this.” She bounded up to the counter beside Caitlyn and waved the record in a silent question, making the pointillist pin-up girl on its cover dance. The bartender responded with a nod and a hand gesturing towards the turntable.
The speakers crackled slightly with the record change, but soon enough, six striking chords of electric guitar exploded through the room at a volume that rattled Caitlyn’s eardrums. Further down the bar, a couple that had been spooked apart by the sudden outburst scowled at the blue-haired girl, who was dancing her way back to her friends.
Tipsy and a bit nosy, Caitlyn craned her neck to see what kind of company this girl kept and, looking past three young men howling with laughter, managed to catch a sliver of red slipping below the table. She turned back and giggled into her glass while a woman’s rich and full voice, layered over itself four or fivefold, sang something rather funny: I think I fell in love with lightning bolt, I’m ready to run. Her head bobbed along gently, instinctively, during a fantastical guitar solo that she imagined must have felt cathartic to play. During the bridge – what began as a quiet croon that crescendoed into a chant that led into the final chorus – Caitlyn made a mental note to peek at the name of the record before she left.
The abrupt choral ending bled into a jazzy track with a groovy bassline and funky beat that Caitlyn was eager to lose herself in when a familiar voice pulled her attention away from the song.
“Sorry about that,” – an offhand apology to those seated at the bar, accompanied by a tattooed arm raised to rub at the back of her neck. To the bartender, “Could we get another Delirium Red, two Bush Caractère, and four tequila shots, please? Danke!”
Caitlyn’s skin prickled. When she was right next to you apologizing for essentially nothing, when she wasn’t putting on a show for an audience, when she wasn’t projecting instructions through a microphone at her lips, Vi Warren’s voice was low, a little raspy, and criminally intimate. The immediacy with which heat bloomed at Caitlyn’s cheeks was positively mortifying.
Against her better judgment, she yielded to an intrusive thought and flickered her gaze to her right. A full, pink mouth, with a scar running through the upper lip captured her attention first. Under the glow of the lamp above, a nose ring winked at her. Caitlyn’s eyes moved up to the Roman numeral tattoo atop freckled cheeks, then up to striking, pale blue eyes – or were they gray? – looking back at her curiously, a slashed-through eyebrow raised. Caitlyn stilled. If she was sober, maybe she’d have had the sense to smile politely and turn away. But she was nearly three glasses of wine in, could feel that her heart had shaken off the restraints that weighed it down even if temporarily, and she was right next to the strikingly handsome woman who very well may have been the catalyst for that. So she turned to face Vi and held her gaze, raised her glass to the other woman with a carefree “Prost,” and drained what riesling remained.
With too-perfect timing, the bartender set the three beers that Vi had ordered on the counter and lined up four shot glasses. Vi took her glass, the foamy liquid an almost-wine red several shades deeper than her hair, and tipped it up to Caitlyn in a silent toast with the corner of her mouth upturned. After a long, slow sip, she set her glass back on the counter, grabbed the two paler beers, and headed back to her booth. “Pow, the shots?” Caitlyn heard her ask while she tried to tamp down her disappointment at the mundanity of the interaction. In a poor effort to distract herself, she made for the shelves to find the record jacket so she could take note of the title and artist. She snorted at the jacket in her hands. The imploring “Pow, please don’t do this,” the trace of red sliding under the table, and Vi’s apology all added up. The album title: view vol. 4. The artist: Vi Warren.
The blue-haired girl, Pow, popped up to carefully retrieve the four shots and slowly made her way back to the booth, but not before narrowing her eyes at Caitlyn. As she returned to her seat, Caitlyn’s hand was halfway up to close her tab when she noticed the red beer, two-thirds full and a little foamy, still on the counter and the glass just beginning to sweat. Before she could even blink, the musician slid into the seat beside her.
“Hi. I’m Vi.”
Vi didn’t move to extend her hand, but neither did Caitlyn, who figured it was ultimately for the best. If just hearing Vi’s voice was enough to make her flush, she didn’t want to consider what actually touching her would do.
“Caitlyn,” she replied, her finger running delicately over the rim of her glass.
“You want another?” Vi nodded her chin towards the empty wine glass. All thoughts of closing her tab vanished, and Caitlyn was about to oblige when she considered the bubbling red drink.
“Actually, I think I might want to try what you have.” She hadn’t meant it as stealing a sip of Vi’s drink – she really did just mean to order it herself – but then Vi pushed the glass towards Caitlyn and said, “Be my guest.” And it would’ve been awfully rude to decline such an offer, wouldn’t it?
Her hand wrapped around the glass, the condensation cool and slick against her hot palm. Vi watched her as she took a sip of the beer, and Caitlyn was surprised at how tangy and sweet it was. True to its color, it tasted a bit like tart cherries, with a refreshing crispness from the carbonation. A small smile spread as she relished the flavor, and Vi smiled in kind.
“It’s good, right?”
“Not what I expected, but yes. It’s almost like juice, actually.”
“What can I say? I’ve got a sweet tooth.”
“I’ll have one of these, please,” Caitlyn managed to catch the passing bartender, who nodded in acknowledgement. “What is this, anyway?” she asked Vi.
“Delirium Red – a Belgian beer, actually. Tried it in Brussels and by the end of the night, you could’ve cut me open and I’d have bled it. Pretty sure my piss was pink, actually.” Vi’s nose wrinkled at the memory as the bartender set down a blue paper coaster with a pink elephant on it. Caitlyn blamed the three glasses of wine for the giggle that escaped her. “That sounds like it’d require medical attention.”
“Honestly, that was the last thing on my mind. We ended up staying way later than we should’ve and almost missed our flight the next morning. Claggor was the only one who’d sobered up enough to get the rest of us back to the hotel and on the way to Amsterdam in one piece.” Caitlyn turned to follow the path of Vi’s gaze, which was fixed on a burly young man that was wiping up beer that had sloshed onto the table. The culprit of the spilled beer, a lanky young man with hair that stood several centimeters above his head, stumbled around as he flailed his arms in animated ramblings. Pow was slumped against a young man with a more boyish face and white dreads pulled back, neither of them looking particularly enraptured by the drunk storyteller.
“Friends or family?” Caitlyn found herself asking when she turned back around, and all of Vi’s features softened.
“Family,” she said, and reached for her glass. Caitlyn did the same, and they clinked their glasses together before drinking.
Feigning ignorance, Caitlyn asked innocently, “So what brings you all to Vienna?”
Vi reprised that toothy, playful grin that Caitlyn had seen from afar, which now dazzled her in full force. Satisfaction bubbled within her at the serendipitous fortune of getting this smile all to herself.
“I’m a musician! We’re on tour, it’s kind of a family thing.”
“Did you come here after your show then?” Caitlyn probed.
“Actually, our show was last night. I had another thing tonight, something I’ve been interested in doing for a while. It wasn’t originally planned but the timing worked out, and somehow things came together pretty quickly.” Vi’s eyes lit up just as the pieces fell into place in Caitlyn’s head, and Caitlyn deigned to show her hand.
She reached into her purse, pulled out the program, and held it up. “Is that why you weren’t in here?”
Vi’s smile fell a fraction, the twinkle in her eye fading as she leaned away. “Oh, did you already know who I am? Because if you did, I won’t lie, kinda weird that you pretended—”
Caitlyn set the program on the bar and let all pretense fall away, her eyes wide as they took in the growing distance between them.
“No! No, not at all – I assure you, I had no idea who you were before tonight. I thought the concert was over after the third conductor and was about to leave when you came onstage and the girl next to me raved in excitement like a madwoman.”
Caitlyn could see the rigidity leave Vi’s body as her shoulders relaxed and she leaned back in a little. Her expression was still guarded, but her cheeks dusted with the lightest shade of pink. “That so?”
“Yes,” Caitlyn reassured, hoping she didn’t sound too pleading. “I wasn’t even planning on seeing the Philharmonic this trip; it was just an impulsive decision that has, admittedly, gained you a new fan. It makes sense that you’d be involved in a concert themed around new maestros; you’re rather miraculous.”
The admission was shameless, but made in good faith – Caitlyn just hoped that Vi understood it as honesty rather than flattery. Vi stayed quiet as she considered Caitlyn’s words, her blue-gray eyes flicking between the program and the other woman.
After a few seconds of silence that passed like minutes, the corner of her mouth quirked up again and she finally responded, “I guess that’s one more thing that makes tonight a dream come true.”
Caitlyn slowly breathed out through her nose in relief. If she wasn’t concentrating so hard on pressing her lips together to avoid smiling so wide it broke her face, she might have been able to spare some energy to resist the full-body flush that overcame her once she processed the comment.
Before she could speak, an unsteady hand at the back of her chair startled her: the spiky-haired young man had one arm draped across Claggor, the other finding support on Caitlyn’s chair.
“Vi, we’re pretty much ready to head out. We good to close the tab?” Pow asked, her speech slightly slurred as she and the white-haired boy approached from behind.
Vi met Caitlyn’s eyes, and Caitlyn quickly looked down, feeling like an intruder. When she gathered the nerve to cast her eyes back up to gauge if there was some kind of silent exchange going on, Vi was still looking at her, unreadable as ever.
“Hellooo?” Pow needled.
“You go ahead, Powder. I’m gonna stick around for a bit.” Caitlyn let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and looked over at who she now knew was Powder . The blue-haired girl gave her a dead-eyed stare before rolling her eyes and turning to her companion. “God, she’s such a sucker, Ekko.” To Vi, she raised a two-finger salute and said, “See ya when we see ya, sis.”
Vi turned around to wave goodbye until they were out the door, then faced Caitlyn with a blush.
“I’ve gotta take a leak, but would you wanna move over to the booth? This chair isn’t doing any wonders for my back and at least there, I can stretch out.” Caitlyn made a valiant effort to be the picture of poise and composure, then snorted.
“You go, I’ll move our drinks over.” Once Vi chirped her thanks and dashed off to the restroom, Caitlyn slung her purse over her shoulder and her jacket over the crook of her arm so she could take the two glasses of beer. Before she moved their things, though, she made sure to ask the bartender to add Vi’s tab to her own.
Caitlyn settled into the booth and brought her attention back to the music. The song that had just begun marked a significant tonal shift from the lively, joyous tracks from earlier. Atmospheric and poignant, the instrumental carried an almost insulated quality as if it was playing underwater. The clarity of Vi’s voice, the emotion that permeated through it, was like the comforting brush of a hand on the cheek as you fell asleep, conveniently and neatly bottled up in a song.
Little blue, be my shelter
Be my cradle, be my womb
Be my boat, be my river
Be the stillness of the moon
If I could, I’d go with you
To a place I never knew
In your eyes, so dark and open,
There’s a light that leads me back to you
Caitlyn swallowed and her vision blurred as she felt tears begin to prick.
With the swell of the song, a numbing tide of grief pulled her under, and she fell from the high of good wine, great music, and even better company. Moments ago, she was just a woman in a bar in Vienna, at ease for a rare moment and somewhere between tipsy and drunk, waiting for a beautiful musician to return so they could keep drinking, talking, flirting, maybe inching closer together until Caitlyn could feel the brush of red lashes on her own cheek – would that have been so wrong?
But with nothing more than a bittersweet melody and the right combination of words carefully strung together, a song brought her back to the body of a girl that missed her mother, expectations, misalignments, arguments, and all.
Distantly, she heard a muffled voice call her name – the messenger of the words that were tearing her apart, now offering deliverance with a warm hand upon her own.
Caitlyn blinked back tears, all the nerves in her body concentrated and humming where Vi’s fingers touched hers.
“Sorry,” she blurted, withdrawing her hand to dab at her eyes. “I don’t know what came over me.” She laughed instinctively, but it came out rueful and empty. When she rested her hand back on the cushioned booth seat, their fingertips touched. In the pocket of silence, Caitlyn focused on the other woman’s hands, long and elegant fingers meeting faintly scarred knuckles.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
Caitlyn considered the offer, which she figured was made more out of politeness than anything else, and countered with a question of her own. “Maybe this is stupid to ask, and I suspect I already know the answer,” she paused to sniffle. “But did you write this?” They listened together, Vi’s voice now harmonizing with another.
Don’t be afraid of the light
It’s all right
You’re gonna find your way
To carry the weight of the world
On your shoulders
You’re gonna find your way home
Vi tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and went along with the deflection with a small, crooked smile.
“I wrote it for my sister. Not-so-little blue from earlier, Powder. I wasn’t always able to be there for her the way she needed when we were growing up, and I still haven’t really made my peace with that. When I wrote this, I was trying to let go of it, but…” she shrugged helplessly. “It’s hard.”
Caitlyn swallowed the lump in her throat and made a choice. The likelihood of Vi knowing that she was a Kiramman, or even what that meant, was rather low, and the likelihood that they’d ever see each other again was even lower. And, ultimately, she had asked – whether it was polite or sincere didn’t matter as much. Caitlyn could give Vi the abstract and figure out where to go from there.
“My mother died recently. We had a… complicated relationship. She raised me to fall in line, gave me a direct shot at a safe, predictable future, but I only ever really wanted to learn.” She took a sip of her beer, now room temperature and losing its buoying fizz.
“Most of the time, we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and my career was a significant point of contention. But when I was younger, we used to go on these holidays where she was different, supportive. She encouraged my curiosities and indulged long days of walking around castles and museums and cathedrals, letting me prattle on about whatever I was obsessed with at the time and asking me questions, meeting me where I was. Then we’d go home and it was business as usual, like a switch had flipped.” Caitlyn’s eyebrows knitted together as she reflected on the difference – even years of experience didn’t make such a stark contrast any less confounding.
“The last time I saw her, she was still trying to wear me down. I brushed her off like I usually did, couldn’t wait to have her out of my hair, and then she died. And now I’m exactly where she’s always wanted me to be. I resent her for it and I hate myself for that, but more than anything else I just miss her. Most of the time she was needling and relentless and particular and dismissive, but she’s still my mum. At work, I’m so busy trying to hold everything together that I barely have time to think and all the while, there’s this gaping wound inside me. I thought I would feel better after this trip, that it would give me some semblance of closure to say goodbye in my own way, but it just feels like the bloody bits have been cauterized and the hole is still there. She died, and I’m her ghost.”
Her feelings had tumbled out of her with a frustrating ease. She’d bottled it all up, unwilling to burden Jayce and certainly not her father with her emotional turmoil, but it felt good to say it all out loud to a complete stranger. Vi kept quiet, but Caitlyn could tell it wasn’t because she felt awkward or uncomfortable. The groove between her brows deepened as she processed Caitlyn’s admission – which was lengthier and divulged more than Caitlyn had anticipated – but it slowly smoothed over as she found her words.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Vi said, her fingers tentatively sliding past Caitlyn’s to cover the rest of her hand. “And I’m sorry for you. The hole will always be there, but this is the biggest it’ll ever be. She’s gone, and you’re gonna keep living and the hurt will remain, but you’ll see and live and feel beautiful things that will grow around it and make your life more real.”
Caitlyn looked up at Vi and saw a similar pain reflected back at her in those eyes, glassy and opalescent. It took everything in her to not seek comfort in the cradle of Vi’s shoulder.
“You’re not her ghost, but you’ll carry her with you. And that wound will always be a reminder that she loved you so much, she took a piece of you to keep with her.”
Eyes brimming with tears that she refused to let fall, Caitlyn turned her hand upward and squeezed. “Spoken from experience?” she asked quietly, a slight wobble to her voice.
“Yeah,” was all Vi offered as she averted her gaze to their clasped hands and squeezed back, and Caitlyn didn’t press any further, savoring the grounding touch.
Caitlyn’s bladder considered this an opportune time to scream at her, and it was her turn to excuse herself. After washing up, she splashed water on her face and pressed her cooled palms to her eyes, then let the tap continue running over her hands and wrists.
The icy chill had a graciously sobering effect, but the cold was short lived: once Caitlyn remembered how close they’d been, the feeling of Vi’s calloused palm in hers, the way that understanding shone in her eyes, she warmed all over. She turned the tap off and dried her hands, then fanned herself to dry off the remaining droplets of water on her face. They dissipated, but the flush on her cheeks – whether from the wine or the company she kept – remained. The newfound lightness in her chest was equally hard to ignore.
When Caitlyn emerged from the restroom, Vi had migrated from the booth and was now half seated on a chair with one hand clutching a suit coat, the other gesticulating wildly as if reprising her performance from earlier that night while she chatted with the bartender. Her audience of one was wiping down the bar – all other patrons had apparently cleared out since Caitlyn joined Vi in her little corner booth.
As Caitlyn considered where they might go from there, Vi fixed a peculiar expression at her. Her scarred eyebrow was raised and she tried to maintain a serious expression, but her mouth twitched with the effort it took to repress an amused smile.
“Care to explain why I just tried to settle my tab and all I got was,‘It has been taken care of’?”
The bartender – who up until then had been perfectly reserved and the picture of professionalism – paused in their work to wink at Caitlyn. She made a mental note to leave a 30% tip as she faced Vi with an innocent smile.
“If it’s been taken care of, do you really need further explanation?”
Vi was incredulous. “I mean, kind of, considering my family was on a mission to drink this place dry probably before you even got here! Did you see how sloshed Mylo was? He can handle his liquor and half his drinks end up on the floor, so you can imagine how much he had to order to get to that point.”
Caitlyn sidled up beside her and set her purse on the bar so she could extract her card holder, responding breezily, “Don’t worry about it.”
Vi’s eyes were glued to her fingers sliding her credit card out of the worn leather with ease, then extending it to the bartender. Before he could take the card, Caitlyn pulled her hand away just a fraction as an idea struck.
She may not have gotten the closure she’d hoped for from this trip, but she got something else entirely tonight. Heartache, yes, but also comfort, warmth, understanding, levity – hope, too, so early in its nascence that she couldn’t quite pinpoint its direction yet. But she at least recognized that this was a night to remember, and it demanded a souvenir that she could touch, play back at a deafening volume and savor, to summon the memory. She leaned over the counter and abandoned shame to try her luck: “Is there any chance I could buy this record as well? Save me the effort of looking for it when I get home.”
It was an absurd request, and by the looks of the bartender’s narrowed eyes, Caitlyn could tell that they rarely, if ever, fielded such a question. But it was the end of the night, both parties had been good business, surely no one would notice the absence of one record amidst hundreds of others, and they’d colluded with her once already in adding Vi’s tab to her own. What difference would a second time make? Unbeknownst to Caitlyn, she and the bartender were passengers on the same train of thought.
A jovial laugh broke their inscrutable expression, and they inclined their head in acceptance, tacking an approximation of the vinyl’s cost onto the bill. Caitlyn beamed and handed the bartender her card before going to switch out the vinyl. She carefully slid the record back into its sleeve, then into the jacket and set it on the bar so she could tack on a 40% tip and sign the receipt. All the while Vi stared, gobsmacked, at the woman who paid her family’s bar tab and bought her record secondhand.
After returning her credit card to its holder and slipping the leather sleeve into her purse, Caitlyn shrugged her jacket on and proceeded to the front of the bar with a cheery “Danke!” to the bartender. She held the door open for Vi, who ambled through the entrance with her suit coat hanging over a shoulder while still marveling in mild disbelief at what Caitlyn had done.
They were walking aimlessly down the alleyway towards the main road that led to the river when Vi asked, “How am I supposed to thank you for this?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
A few beats of comfortable silence followed Caitlyn’s nonchalant response as Vi catalogued whatever options she was considering. When Caitlyn eventually cast a curious sideways glance, Vi’s eyes were alight with mirth. Just as they were about to cross the road, her arm shot out to stop Caitlyn – a lone car going faster than it should’ve at this small intersection rocketed past them, its headlights blinding. Vi lowered her arm and her hand grazed the small of Caitlyn’s back while they crossed.
“Well?” Caitlyn nudged after they’d made it safely across the street.
“I know the whole schtick about assuming and asses, but you seem like you have the time and money to travel. And since you apparently like my music enough to impulse-buy it from a bar, how’s this sound: I’ll leave a ticket for you at every stop of my tour. No strings, no expectations, open offer.”
Caitlyn slowed, caught off guard by the proposal. It was certainly a novel idea, and there was something about how openly and confidently Vi had communicated it that warmed her to it even more. A small smile formed before she could even think about it. “I’d like that very much, actually.”
“Great! What name should I leave it under? Caitlyn…?” Her little smile froze in its steady creep upwards, and Caitlyn worried her lip as she scrounged for an excuse as to why she couldn’t share it. A fake last name might have worked, but she scrapped the idea altogether upon remembering that she’d likely have to show some form of identification at the box office.
Vi picked up on her hesitation and ran with it, effortlessly pivoting to offer, “Why don’t I just leave it under a nickname, like… Cupcake?”
If the out that Vi had no obligation to give Caitlyn wasn’t cause enough for her to withdraw from premature catastrophizing, the seemingly arbitrary nickname certainly was. She made no effort to subdue the confusion in her voice when she clarified, “Cupcake?”
The question hung in the air long enough for Vi to dart from beside Caitlyn to in front of her, and for Caitlyn to gracelessly stumble on an uneven cobblestone in response. She instinctively held the vinyl tight to her chest while trying to regain her balance, a task that was more efficiently accomplished by the steady hand that now had a firm, warm grasp around her waist. She shivered in spite of the balmy evening air and her flimsy jacket. As if out of habit, Vi slid her suit coat over Caitlyn’s shoulders.
“‘Cause you’re so sweet. And I like cupcakes.” Any attempt at speech would’ve just been foiled by sputtering nonsense, so Caitlyn opted to keep her mouth shut.
Despite their unhurried pace, the sound of traffic from the main road and the sight of the river drew near, and with them, a tinge of wistfulness. Though the music at Janna had been loud – and Caitlyn was by no means complaining about that – the last few hours she’d spent with Vi had been a private quiet that eased her soul. She was leaving a hazy, late-night dream – warm and intimate, effervescent with harmless flirtation and fruity beer – and returning to a bustling urban reality. Even with Vi’s gracious offer, the odds of their paths crossing again were low considering how likely Caitlyn was to get swept up in the deluge of work that awaited her upon her return to London.
At a street corner just before the bridge, Vi’s phone buzzed to life and she withdrew it with a grimace upon seeing the time and the caller. She mouthed an apology to Caitlyn then picked up with an bashful, “Heeey, Pow!” Caitlyn put her moping on pause to laugh quietly at Vi pulling her phone away from her ear while Powder yelled loudly enough for Caitlyn to hear, “Do you know what time it is? And do you know what time our fucking flight is? Are you still canoodling with Blue Beauty over there?”
She brought her phone back to her ear to reply, “Pow, I’m not far from the hotel and I’m coming back now, okay?” That was apparently reassuring enough for Vi’s sister to quiet down; Caitlyn could now only hear a couple of affirmative grunts from Vi before she hung up. She shuffled awkwardly as Vi looked at the ground and tapped her phone against her hand.
When she looked back up, she flashed Caitlyn an easy smile and slid her phone in her back pocket.
“All right – it’s been real, but I’ve got a flight to catch in a couple hours. I hope I’ll see you soon, Caitlyn Cupcake!”
Caitlyn couldn’t get a word in before the pedestrian light turned green and Vi waved and backed into the intersection in a light jog. Outerwear rendered entirely useless by the full-body flush that once again overtook her, this time at the ridiculous nickname, Caitlyn called after Vi’s retreating figure, slipping the suit coat off and letting it dangle fruitlessly from her fingers. Around her, the air was perfumed with a lingering fruity scent.
Vi echoed the city lights and the smattering of stars twinkling above with a wink that sent Caitlyn’s heart into a staccatoed tizzy. “Keep it! It suits you better than me anyway.” She turned back around and picked up the pace to beat the crosswalk countdown.
It wasn’t fair. Caitlyn was still standing on the corner, watching Vi shrink in the distance until she blended into the Vienna night, and yet she was the one left stupidly breathless.
Caitlyn’s alarm just barely began to ring at 4 AM before she turned it off. She hadn’t slept a wink, instead spending the remaining few hours of the morning after returning to the hotel making sure she was all packed, washing up, and sprawling on the king mattress in a bathrobe embroidered with the Kiramman sigil, turning over the night’s events in her head. The vinyl was safely cushioned by Vi’s suit coat, which was folded neatly and nestled in with the rest of Caitlyn’s belongings in her luggage.
In the car to the airport, she reckoned she’d better dig up her father’s record player.
On the short flight back, she considered getting a record player set up in her office too for good measure.
While the heavy London rain poured down the car window in sheets on her way home, she wondered where Vi was headed next.
Her schedule at work the next day was the stuff of nightmares – meetings upon meetings filled her calendar to the point that several windows were double- or even triple-booked. By all accounts, these were not circumstances that fostered any semblance of a good mood. But in the smallest respite between the Jenga blocks precariously balanced in her calendar, she sat at her desk to catch her breath when those familiar electric chords rippled to the top of her mind and resounded within her. I think I fell in love with lightning bolt, I’m ready to run. Her executive assistant knocked at the door, waiting to escort her to a candidate interview. A flash of cherry red hair and moonlit eyes cut through the corporate din that occupied her mind, and Caitlyn smiled.