Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fatin slams her phone down onto her counter so hard that she’s sure that the crack in her screen just got ten times worse. She then slams the coffee mug in her other hand down too, for good measure, which ends up being a huge mistake because it shatters, sending hot coffee spilling all over her counter and her hand and her phone. 

And then, since shit’s already fucked, Fatin decides to go big. She whirls around, clutching the largest remaining chunk of her coffee mug, ready to whip it at the wall, and she’s just winding up to throw it and unleash a much-needed scream of rage when her roommate appears at the entrance to the kitchen, right in the line of fire.

“Whoa,” Dot says, eyes wide, and she holds her hands up in preemptive surrender, sidling around Fatin towards the fridge, not quite scared enough to leave the room (she’s dealt with too many Fatin tantrums to be fazed by this) but clearly also wanting to get out of her crosshairs (she’s also dealt with enough Fatin tantrums to know that friendly fire is a possibility). “I cleaned up my crumbs last night, I swear.”

Fatin lowers her weapon and her primal scream remains unvoiced, retreating back into whichever dusty corner of her it came from in the first place. 

“No, it’s not you,” Fatin grumbles, giving her head a shake to try to regain control of herself. “It’s that fucking — ” She reaches for the paper towel roll that Dot has prudently held out to her and rips a few squares off with a perhaps excessive amount of force. “ — shit-for-brains music critic again.” 

“No way,” Dot says incredulously. “Seriously? Does he get off on this?”

“Honestly, at this point, maybe.” 

Dot takes a gulp of milk and then points thoughtfully at Fatin, her pensive expression made a little ridiculous by the milk mustache. 

“You should write to the editor. This is, like, borderline harassment. The guy just has it out for you for some reason.”

Letters to the editor. Now that’s an idea. A strongly worded letter sounds like just the thing that would help Fatin feel better and vent some of her frustration. 

So after she cleans up her coffee crime scene, she opens up her laptop and tries to track down some contact info for who exactly she should complain to.

The tricky thing is, it’s not like this is just some dinky local gazette. It’s this hipster lifestyle magazine, probably based in some converted warehouse in Brooklyn with beanbag chairs and weekly dog therapy. And that fucking prick Jeff Galanis who writes the music reviews probably brews a fresh cup of ethically-sourced, locally-roasted coffee every morning before he sits back in his custom ergonomic office chair and thinks to himself, “Hm, I wonder what kind of nasty shit I can come up with about Fatin Jadmani today?”

She’s come to expect it, like clockwork, after every single performance she gives in the greater New York area. He even followed her as far as Boston once, although she seems to be safe when she’s on home territory in California. Maybe his snooty little magazine doesn’t have the money to expense his plane tickets across the country to see her. 

But every time she plays in New York, she checks the music section of the magazine’s website and, without fail, there’s a concert review from one Jeffrey Galanis proclaiming that Fatin Jadmani is a fraud of a musician who relies on empty showmanship and skimpy outfits to distract from her inability to connect with the music. 

Of course, Fatin wouldn’t have made it as a performer without thick skin. Maybe she could still play in an orchestra, but if she truly didn’t know how to handle criticism, she wouldn’t have lasted half a minute at Juilliard and her solo career would’ve been dead in the water. Part of handling criticism, Fatin has learned, is sorting out the meaningful, useful criticism from the uninformed, useless criticism. Everyone has an opinion, but not all opinions deserve equal weight.

When she had come home from college one summer and had a couple lessons with her childhood cello teacher for old time’s sake, she had expected Mrs. Du Pont to be dazzled by her exciting new repertoire and awed by her flashy new technique. But she had just pursed her lips and gazed at Fatin for a moment before opening up the sheet music and going through it with Fatin, interrogating her on every stylistic choice she’d made, some of which Fatin hadn’t even realized she was making. Why did you go so fast here? Why didn’t you let this part breathe? Yes, your technique is nearly perfect, but why are you hiding behind it? Are you really listening, or are you just playing?

It was devastatingly humiliating, all the more so because it came from someone she respected so much. But Mrs. Du Pont knows her shit, so Fatin had listened, and when she went back to school that fall, her cello teacher and her professors commented that she seemed to be much more in touch with the music, and one had even pulled her aside after her fall recital and told her privately that he’d been doubting whether she was truly ready for a solo career, but that her musical maturity has made such great strides since he last heard her play that his doubts were gone.

But Galanis? What the hell does he even know about music? Fatin has googled him to try to figure out if he has any credentials to speak of or if he’s just talking out of his ass, but the man seems to be some kind of recluse because all she could find was a second-rate novel with a two-and-a-half-star review average on Goodreads, and other than that, she there’s not even a hint of a whiff of a social media presence. So she assumes, since she can’t find anything and he’s never mentioned his musical qualifications in any of his columns (and she knows most music critics will happily tout their pedigree), that he is in fact talking out of his ass. 

Fatin has made it a personal policy to disregard people who talk out of their ass. It’s a choice anyone who’s even slightly in the public eye has to make for the sake of their sanity. Fatin gets plenty of flack from the classical music community to begin with, not just for her music but for her general persona. Even in the 21st century, there’s a tiresome level of pushback against anyone who’s not stuffy, buttoned-up, white, and boring. (And, for fuck's sake, Fatin doesn’t even dress that skimpy. The occasional slinky dress or low-cut neckline, sure. But she usually opts for pantsuits, since it’s easier to get the cello in between her legs that way. So she thinks maybe Galanis is just a perv who gets distracted by anything that’s not a burlap sack.)

And Fatin lets most of it roll off her back. She avoids googling herself, she doesn’t read the reviews. She listens to Mrs. Du Pont, who makes it out to every concert in the Bay Area, she listens to her manager, and she listens to a couple trusted professors from her college days. And those are, really, the only opinions she needs. She hadn’t even known Galanis existed and was on the warpath against her until Dot pointed it out. Dot, of course, doesn’t know the first thing about music, but considers it her duty as Fatin’s roommate and best friend to brave the sea of reviews and YouTube comments to defend her honor. 

Sometimes she brings Fatin funny tidbits, and at first the Galanis thing was kind of funny, like, who pissed in this guy’s cornflakes? But it stopped being so amusing after a dozen bad reviews, and even though the man clearly has no idea what he’s talking about, he’s so fucking persistent, and he gets so fucking personal, and now it’s starting to impact Fatin’s career, since she’s been avoiding her manager’s pleas for her to schedule some dates on the East Coast, and really, she has to draw a line somewhere. 

So she clicks around the magazine’s website, which is sleek to the point of being almost impossible to navigate, until she finds a page with contact information for the higher-ups in the magazine. The editor of the Literature & Arts section is some woman named Leah Rilke. Sounds vaguely familiar, somehow. Maybe one of her mom’s real estate clients? Or maybe some girl her dad used to fuck around with. If Fatin recognizes a name, it’s usually from one of those two places. 

Well, either way, this Leah Rilke has a big storm coming. 

***

“You can not send this, Fatin,” Dot says, laughing as she looks over Fatin’s shoulder at her draft email. “I mean, I love it. But you can’t send it.”

“Why not?” Fatin pouts, folding her arms. 

“For starters, you spend a whole paragraph threatening to sue the magazine for emotional damages.”

“I’m bluffing.” Fatin rolls her eyes. “I just want her to sweat a little.”

“Oooookay,” Dot says. “Well, you also addressed it ‘To whom it may fucking concern,’ which I don’t think is industry standard, and you refer to her employee as a ‘useless cretin who clearly has a steaming turd in place of a brain’, which, although accurate, might ruffle some feathers — ”

“All right, I get it, I get it,” Fatin sighs. “A little aggro. I guess that means I probably should change the signature too, then.”

“Yeah, I don’t think ‘Up yours and have a shitty evening’ is going to help your case.” 

Fatin reads over her email again, enjoying her colorful expletives one last time before deleting it all and starting fresh. 

“Dear Ms. Rilke,” Fatin narrates as she types. 

Dot nods in encouragement. “Already an improvement.”

“I can only assume you’re aware of what your colleague, Jeffrey Galanis, writes about me in his music review column, since you are the editor of the Arts & Literature section.”

“Nice.” Dot sits down next to Fatin on the couch. “Let her know you’ve got her number, but without threats of legal action. I like it.”

“I understand everyone is entitled to an opinion, and as a musician and performer, I am aware that not everyone will agree with my artistic choices. However, I feel that Mr. Galanis’s columns cross a line from good-faith critique into targeted and frankly unnecessary territory.” 

“You know,” Dot says, tapping her fingers on her thigh as she thinks. “It might help your case if you gave her some examples, and explained why they’re so out of line.”

Fatin frowns and makes a noise of disgust. 

“Yeah, I know,” Dot agrees, frowning as well. “I hate reading that shit. Makes me fucking sick.”

“Aw, Dorothy,” Fatin coos. “Because you love me so much?” 

Dot smacks Fatin’s arm halfheartedly. “Because it’s fucking bullshit.”

“And you love me,” Fatin teases, earning herself another smack. 

“Do you want me to go through and pick out some of the worst parts so you don’t have to see it?” Dot asks. “Hey, why don’t you get your manager to do this? Isn’t it his job to do PR shit for you?”

Fatin pauses for a moment. “I think it’ll make more of an impact coming from me directly,” she says slowly. “Like, sometimes people need to remember this is a real person they’re talking about.”

Dot furrows her eyebrows at Fatin. “That’s…profound.”

“Well, that and — ” Fatin winks at Dot. “I could never pass up an opportunity to go Karen on someone who really deserves it. Wouldn’t wanna let my manager have all the fun. ”

Dot laughs and stands up, affectionately clapping Fatin on the shoulder before leaving the kitchen. “That’s more like it.”

Fatin clicks back to the magazine’s website and starts the miserable task of trawling through the archives of all Galanis’s reviews of her. She downloads and saves each one to her computer in case anyone tries to get clever and delete the evidence, then goes through and highlights the particularly egregious passages, copying and pasting them into her email to the editor as well as providing her own commentary. 

‘Ms. Jadmani’s strategy seems to be to dazzle us into submission. Her technique is certainly up to the task, although she has an uncanny knack for making even the most beautifully written music sound as expressionless as a child’s scale exercise. But more so, her choice in clothing — or her choice in lack of clothing, as the case may be — seems entirely calculated to distract the viewer so that they are too focused on her low-cut neckline to notice how she massacres the music.” 

Surely you’ll agree as a fellow woman that it’s quite insulting to be reduced to a pair of legs in a sparkly dress. It would seem to me that Mr. Galanis is incapable of engaging on a non-superficial level, and that perhaps he is not exposing my shortcomings as a performer so much as his inability to move on from objectification. He could always shut his eyes and listen to the music if he really finds my appearance so offensive.

‘Ms. Jadmani tosses off arpeggios easily enough, but perhaps her high-rolling lifestyle is taking a toll on her, as her tempo fluctuates wildly in the slow movement. It may do her some good to ease off the parties and focus more on practicing with her metronome.’ 

Although it’s embarrassing for Mr. Galanis that he’s unfamiliar with the concept of rubato, I think it’s much more embarrassing for him that he feels the need to stoop to speculation on my private life in order to make his point. 

‘While Ms. Jadmani’s stage presence may be alluring, her musical output is anything but. She bashes through Brahms as if trying to singlehandedly prove that a Juilliard education does not guarantee musical sophistication. It’s clear that Ms. Jadmani has been coasting on the momentum of good looks and strong technique — and beyond that, she has little to offer.’ 

“Jesus,” Fatin mutters, shutting her laptop forcefully as she starts seeing red again. What blows her mind the most about all this is that these columns even made it to print. Didn’t this Rilke lady read them over? She really didn’t see anything wrong with this? 

She’s clearly part of the problem too. Maybe she’s fucking him on the down low, Fatin thinks to herself bitterly. It’s the only explanation she can think of. 

At this point, Fatin doesn’t really trust herself to finish writing the email without throwing in a few expletives, so she drags Dot out for a walk, air still thick with the Los Angeles heat even though it’s nearly midnight. They do a lap around the neighborhood, and then another, and finally Fatin is so pleasantly distracted by Dot’s stories about working as a lifeguard in high school that she decides to shelf the rest of her email until tomorrow. 

***

“I still think I should be allowed to slip in a ‘fuck you’,” Fatin complains the next morning, fidgeting with her empty coffee mug. 

“You should be,” Dot says patiently. “But in the adult world — ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Fatin grumbles. “In the adult world you can’t just tell people to fuck off. Even when they totally have it coming. Okay, how’s this for an ending? Everyone is free to an opinion, but I feel that Mr. Galanis’s repeated personal attacks are highly unprofessional and I trust that you will understand my concerns and respond appropriately. Best regards, Fatin Jadmani.”

“Perfect. I’d say send it now before you get tempted to add the expletives back in.”

Fatin scans it once more for typos, then sends it off into the great unknown. And now all that’s left to do is wait. 

***

The reply comes sooner than she expected, around midday. She must’ve really given Rilke a fright, Fatin thinks with some glee. 

Dear Ms. Jadmani,

First of all, I’d like to offer my sincere apologies for Jeff’s columns. I completely understand your concerns, and I can assure you that the excerpts you sent me were never in the copies of the articles that he sent to me for final review, something that I find highly disturbing and will certainly be discussing with our editor-in-chief, Gretchen Klein.

As the editor of the Literature & Arts section, I am limited in my jurisdiction — Gretchen is the one in charge of making major personnel decisions. While I agree that Jeff’s comments crossed several lines, I am unable to take any extreme action against him simply for distasteful comments. I will of course bring up your concerns to both him and Gretchen, and advise him to modify his tone in the future.

I’m sorry that I can’t give you better news. But without ironclad proof that Jeff is targeting you specifically, my hands are tied. 

If you would like to discuss this further, you can reach me at [XXX-XXX-XXXX].

Best,
Leah

P.S. I feel I should note that I do not share his opinion of your playing. 

“Dorothy,” Fatin shouts, her head spinning with rage as she jumps up from her desk. “Dorothy, I cannot believe this fucking cunt!”

“What, what did she say?” Dot says a couple moments later, appearing in the doorway of Fatin’s room

“She — she won’t fucking do anything!” Fatin exclaims, motioning Dot to come over and look at her screen. “Listen to this, ‘without ironclad proof, my hands are tied,’ I mean, what more does she fucking want?”

“Well, she did say she’d bring it up with the boss editor lady,” Dot offers. 

“Right, classic cop-out response,” Fatin huffs. “ ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll toootally get my boss on it, don’t you worry.’”

“Huh,” Dot says, peering at the computer screen. “I don’t know, Fatin, it kinda sounds like she wants to help but can’t. And, hey, it looks like you’ve got yourself a fan, she likes your playing. Or, at least, doesn’t hate it.”

“Yeah, right. Fucking condescending bullshit,” Fatin mutters darkly. “She probably just tacked that on so she’d look like less of a bitch.” 

Dot chews on her lip, then turns to Fatin. “Are you gonna call her?”

“Damn right I’m gonna call her,” Fatin declares, already picking up her phone and dialing the number from Rilke’s email.

It rings once, rings twice, then three times, and then — goes straight to voicemail. Fatin’s jaw drops, and she’s too stunned to even speak, so she ends the call and turns to Dot, whose eyes are wide in disbelief. 

“Did she just send me…to fucking voicemail?” Fatin says, her voice wavering with anger. 

“Okay, maybe…” Dot starts slowly. “Maybe she hit it by mistake. Call again.” 

Fatin redials. It rings once, ring twice, and then — straight to voicemail. Again. Even quicker than last time.

“Hi Leah Rilke, it’s Fatin Jadmani, you know, the one who doesn’t have ‘ironclad proof’ that your coworker is harassing me,” Fatin spits sarcastically into her phone. “And I just wanted to ask, is this a fucking game to you? You tell me to call you if I want to discuss this further, and then send me to voicemail? Twice? Well, if you think that’s funny, I’m sure you’ll find it hilarious when I call your boss and tell her what a slimy, no-good, spineless, two-faced — ” 

A beep cuts her off, and maybe it’s for the best, but it stokes the flames of Fatin’s anger enough that she hurls her phone across the room with a growl. Fuck, she’s going to need to replace her screen after this week. 

“Dude,” Dot says, approaching Fatin and holding out her hands in front of her like she’s trying to calm a charging rhino. “Okay. I — this Rilke lady is clearly just as much of a dick as Galanis, but like, maybe you should cool off a little before you call her boss.” 

All Fatin can do is offer a couple sharp nods, trying to run through the grounding exercises she’s worked on with her therapist. Five things she can see, four things she can hear…

***

Fatin manages to make it through the rest of the afternoon without breaking anything else in the apartment, or giving Rilke’s boss an earful, and around three, her phone rings with a call from an unfamiliar number.

Well, a slightly familiar number, because Fatin knows she dialed it twice earlier today. 

“Who the fuck do you think you — ” Fatin starts, but is cut off halfway through her sentence.

“Fatin, good to hear from you, I’m glad it worked,” the voice on the other end says, and Fatin assumes this must be Leah Rilke. It’s not the kind of voice she expected — she sounds young, or at least, not screechy and middle-aged like Fatin expected for a magazine editor, and her voice has this sort of raspy quality that makes her sound very mysterious. And familiar, like an itch in the back of Fatin’s head. Where does she know this girl from? Or does she at all? Maybe she doesn’t. 

“What worked?” Fatin asks, too confused to say anything more combative.

“I was hoping my email would piss you off enough that you’d call me,” Leah explains casually.

“You…what?” Fatin says, a little disarmed at how unruffled Leah is by this entire debacle. 

“I was hoping,” Leah repeats, like she’s talking to a toddler. “That my email — ”

“Okay, whatever, I get it,” Fatin cuts her off. “Just…get to the point.”

“Right,” Leah says briskly. She sounds slightly out of breath, and Fatin can hear some cars in the background, so she figures Leah must be walking right now. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier, sending you to voicemail. I couldn’t speak freely in the office, but I called you as soon as I was out the door. I’m guessing you didn’t end up calling Gretchen, because I would’ve gotten chewed out by now if you did.”

“Right,” Fatin says. “I didn’t.”

“Great.” Leah sounds relieved. “I mean, wouldn’t blame you if you did — ” she chuckles lightly. “But it would’ve been kind of a headache for me.”

“A headache for you?” Fatin echoes in outrage. “Are you — are you for real right now?” 

“Very much so,” Leah says, still unbothered. “Now, if you’re interested, I may have some information that could help us both.”

“What? What do you mean, information that could help us both?”

Leah pauses for a moment, and all Fatin can hear is the light huff and puff of her breathing as she walks. 

“I want Jeff gone just as much as you do,” she says finally, then continues, speaking in a rush, and getting more and more out of breath as she goes on. “But I can’t get him fired just for being a jackass. Like I told you, I can’t do shit if I don’t have hard evidence. The fact that he sent me misleading final articles for review is bad, but I know my boss, and she’s a free speech freak, so she’ll probably just tell me I shouldn’t stifle his creative voice. But if I could prove that, aside from being a raging misogynist and total piece of shit, he has a bone to pick with you specifically….” 

Leah pauses to catch her breath, and Fatin takes a stab at finishing her line of thought: “…then you’d have a solid enough case to get him fired?” Fatin hopes she’s on the right track. Leah was talking very fast and Fatin’s not sure if she caught all of it. Plus she was so shocked by the fact that she's actually on Fatin’s side after all that it had taken her a moment to get back in the conversation. 

“Precisely.” Of course this Leah Rilke girl is the kind of person who would say “Precisely” out loud in a conversation. 

“Okay…so where do I come in?” Fatin asks warily.

Leah sighs. “I can’t go after the proof myself. It’ll look like retaliation, and it puts my job at risk too. That’s why I had to get you to call me. I didn’t want to leave a paper trail of me tipping you off.”

“So you want me to, what, snoop on him? Dig up some dirt? Hire a PI?”

“I don’t think you’ll need to hire a PI, unless I’ve totally overestimated your abilities,” Leah chuckles. “But yeah, that’s the idea. You do some sleuthing, bring it to me, I fake being surprised and bring it to Gretchen, then bye-bye Jeff.” 

This is a really bizarre twist in an already bizarre situation. But Fatin enjoys a bit of intrigue, so what the hell, she’ll bite. 

“Okay,” Fatin says. “But what if I don’t find anything?”

“You will,” Leah says, suddenly sounding very serious. “I promise you will.”

“Wha — how can you be so sure?”

“I’m only going to say this once, so listen closely,” Leah says, her voice darkening even more, and Fatin wishes she had a mental image of this girl, who just seems so familiar somehow, but Fatin just can’t place her. She’s definitely too young to be one of her mom’s clients, and hopefully also too young to be one of her dad’s conquests, although, unfortunately, Fatin can never be 100% sure about that last one. 

Fatin nods, then realizes Leah can’t see her, and says, “Okay.” 

“Seriously, take notes if you need to. And if anyone asks you later, this was an offhand comment that you read way too much into.”

“Jeez, okay. I’ll say it came to me in a dream, how about that?” Fatin rolls her eyes and reaches for a Post-It note and a pen. “Ready.”

Leah speaks slowly, giving Fatin time to absorb what she says: “It’s personal for him. Jeff has it out for anyone with the Jadmani last name.” 

Personal — Jeff — anyone — Jadmani last name. 

“What…what do you mean?”

Leah lets out a clearly irritated exhale. “What part of listen closely and I’m only saying it once and I don’t want to get fired did you not understand?”

“Christ, you’re prickly,” Fatin snips. “Sorry, Secret Agent Rilke.”

“Funny,” Leah says flatly. “Prickly, me, when you’re the one who — you know what, never mind. You get me the evidence, I’ll handle the rest. Got it?”

“Got it, but — ”

“Awesome. Listen, it was a real treat to catch up, but I gotta go,” Leah says crisply. 

“Wait, wait, catch up? Have we met before?” Does Fatin know this girl after all?

There’s a long pause. 

“Yeah, we, uh, went to high school together,” Leah says awkwardly. “I guess — yeah, I guess you really don’t remember me, which is fine, I mean, we only spoke to each other, like, maybe once, so I was kind of being sarcastic when I said catch up — ” 

Leah finally sounds thrown off after keeping her composure remarkably well for the entire conversation, and Fatin feels like shit for not remembering her. It’s not even like they went to a big school; they went to a tiny performing arts high school in the Bay Area and, fuck, Fatin remembers now, Leah Rilke, she was like, a writing girl, which would explain her current occupation and, more importantly, would explain why they never spoke to each other.

But Fatin has a mental image now, albeit a hazy one. A tall, brown-haired girl; pretty, seemed like a bit of a loner. Quiet, but intense; that much Fatin could tell even from a distance, and she’s getting that impression again from this conversation, that Leah is wound tightly. 

“— but I used to go to the orchestra concerts, and I remember you from that — well, and obviously I sort of kept up with your career, at least since I started editing the Arts column — ”

“Yeah, Leah, I remember you now.” Fatin knows that doesn’t sound very convincing, even though it’s true, and she adds, “I knew I knew you from somewhere, I just couldn’t figure out where.”

“It’s cool if you didn’t,” Leah says uncomfortably. “I’m not exactly…memorable.” 

Fatin isn’t sure what to say to that, because it’s clearly not not true given that Fatin didn’t quite remember her, but it’s also not entirely false, since Fatin did sort of remember her. 

“Well, it was nice to catch up anyway,” Fatin jokes, trying to lighten the mood a little. “And I’ll make sure you’re the first to know as soon as I’ve got dirt.” 

“Alright, cool,” Leah says, sounding distracted, or maybe just still feeling awkward. “Yeah, keep me posted.”

“Alright,” Fatin says, and wonders if she should say something else, but then Leah ends the call. 

***

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Dot says as she spins the dining chair around and straddles it, resting her elbows on the back of the chair. “You’re, what, going to blackmail this guy?”

“Not exactly.” Fatin pokes at her takeout, rearranging the fried rice around on her plate. “Leah seems to think he has some connection to me. And if I can find that connection, then she can prove to her boss that he’s targeting me out of personal spite and get him fired.”

Dot furrows her brows. “So she’s not, like, in cahoots with him after all?”

“If anything, she’s in cahoots with me now,” Fatin says, with some pride. “And actually,” she continues thoughtfully, “it kinda seemed like she doesn’t like him. She said something about retaliation. Like, that if she was the one to look for dirt on him, it would look like she was retaliating.”

“Maybe they were fucking,” Dot says, raising her eyebrows. “And had, like, some super messy, poetic breakup.” 

“Ugh, I bet there’s so much drama with writers,” Fatin laughs. “Like, imagine breaking up with someone, and knowing they’re going to write you into their next short story as a villain.”

Dot grimaces. “Yeah, no thanks. Just key my car like a normal person.”

“Exactly,” Fatin agrees. “Don’t think I could ever date a writer.” 

“What if — ” Dot says, popping an entire crab rangoon into her mouth, and the next words come out sort of muffled. “ — you, like, have to go undercover and seduce him to find his secrets.”

Fatin bursts out laughing. “Jesus, Dorothy, you’d make a shitty secret agent. You know there’s a million reasons that wouldn’t work, right? First being, he knows who I am?”

“Oh, yeah.” Dot frowns, then brightens as another idea occurs to her. “Well, maybe you should seduce this Rilke chick. You said she has a sexy voice anyway.”

“I did not say that,” Fatin gasps. “I said she has a raspy voice.”

Dot points a crab rangoon at Fatin and gives her a look. “You said husky. Which is basically sexy.” 

“It is not,” Fatin protests. 

“Sure, keep telling yourself that,” Dot deadpans. “Anyway, what’s your plan of attack?”

Fatin motions for Dot to pass her a crab rangoon, and considers as she chews. 

“Well, she said anyone with the Jadmani name,” Fatin says slowly. “And obviously I didn’t, like, personally wrong him, or at least, if I did, I don’t remember. So maybe…it isn’t necessarily me he has beef with.”

“Huh,” Dot says, stroking her chin absentmindedly. “Oh, shit, what if your mom, like, sold him a haunted house or something and now he wants revenge?”

“I don’t think the kinds of houses my mom sells would be haunted,” Fatin chuckles. “But…I think we’re on the right track.”

“Possessed by an angry ghost?”

Fatin rolls her eyes. “No, beef with one of my parents.”

“Ohhhhh.” 

“I don’t know, I’ll have to sleep on it,” Fatin says, moving to clear the table. “I’ll start investigating tomorrow.”

“You know what might get you in the right frame of mind?” Dot says hopefully. 

Fatin groans. “Please do not suggest more Survivor reruns.”

“Dude, there’s so much backstabbing and betrayal and, like, snooping and eavesdropping on that show, I bet you’d pick up some good tips.” 

Fatin stares at Dot for a moment, and Dot tries to give her puppy dog eyes, but Dot sucks at puppy dog eyes, so it kind of just looks like she’s constipated. 

“Fine, but I’m not watching that shit sober, so you’re making me a drink.”

“Anything you desire, your highness,” Dot jokes, bowing to Fatin.

“Aw, you love me,” Fatin says, ruffling Dot’s hair affectionately as she straightens herself up.

Dot flips her off as she heads to the kitchen, her hair still mussed. 

***

Fatin feels like she needs some kind of, like, high-tech blue-light blocking glasses and maybe one of those cringe gamer headsets and an electro-funk soundtrack to accompany her very intense hacking activities as she opens up her laptop and carefully types “Jeffrey Galanis” into the Google search bar. 

It returns the usual results — a couple links to Amazon and Goodreads for his book, an author website, an alarming lack of social media links, a lot of irrelevant people with the same name, and of course, all his articles for Leah’s magazine — Fatin’s not sure why she’s started thinking of it as “Leah’s” magazine; if anything it’s probably Gretchen’s magazine, but she figures since Leah is her strongest non-negative association with the magazine, that’s who her brain is attaching it to.

She tries out the author website first, and, in an unsurprising turn of events, it’s nauseatingly self-congratulatory: “Jeffrey Galanis, a Bay Area native, takes home territory as inspiration in his hit debut novel, ‘The Nature of Her,’ the story of a young woman’s coming of age in a sleepy Bay Area town. Critics have lauded Galanis for his portrayal of a girl on the precipice of womanhood, and the lengths to which she is willing to go to feel like the main character in her own story.”

Okay, Fatin is getting a sort of creepy vibe from that. Like, sure, he’s probably not the first dude to write a coming of age story about a girl. Fine. But still, that plus the whole “the lengths to which she’s willing to go” (…weird?), plus the unnecessary amount of attention he gives to Fatin’s attire in his columns on her, it’s all just adding up to give her a massive ick. He clearly has some kind of complex around women. She wonders again what Leah’s beef with him is, and if it has something to do with…well, his whole deal.

Plus, it’s making her eyes nearly roll out of her head to read all this praise of the guy, most of it clearly written by himself or his publicist. 

So she goes back to the search results and checks out the Goodreads page. Just like last time she checked, he’s hovering between 2 and 3 stars, which gives her a little swell of satisfaction. 

Hm…should she write a petty, scathing review of his book? As payback for all his petty, scathing columns? No, no, not now…but she should file that idea away. Maybe after he’s fired from the magazine and he thinks he can’t get any lower, then she’ll show up out of the blue and knock him down to rock bottom when he least expects it. Perfect. 

For now, though, she needs to focus on finding that connection between him and her. There must be one, since she’s pretty sure Leah’s not the type to lie about that kind of thing. Not that she knows Leah that well. But, contrary to what Fatin may have thought twenty-four hours ago, the girl does seem to have a sense of integrity and moral fiber. 

So Fatin scrolls through Goodreads, feeling her life force return to her with every single shitty review that she reads. Although at a certain point they become sort of disturbing, and Fatin finds herself hoping that Leah never actually was involved with this guy, because he sounds like a legit creep and a half. 

‘Galanis’ descriptions of the main character feel really objectifying and fetishistic, without any self-awareness or some kind of indication that his intent was to critique such descriptions. It got to the point that it became extremely uncomfortable to read and I could not in good conscience finish the book.’ 

‘All I can say is if I found out Jeffrey Galanis lived in the same city as me, I would move. If he ever becomes a writing teacher, I may have to call the police, because this man should not be within three miles of any girl under the age of 25. Maybe even 30. Maybe even any woman at all.’

‘The professor character seems weirdly like a self-insert of Galanis, down to the area of expertise (contemporary fiction writing) and the name (Jake Maharis? Really?) …which is all the more concerning given the storyline where [spoiler] he seduces the main character, who, need I remind you, is in HIGH SCHOOL?!!’

Unfortunately, there are more than a few glowing reviews, and Fatin makes sure to glare at each of them for a few seconds before moving on, hoping that her psychic beams of hatred will make it to Galanis somehow. 

And then, attached to one of the few five-star reviews, she sees a familiar name. 

Esther Wolfe. Why is that name familiar? 

‘Jeffrey Galanis was a beloved student of mine at East Bay Academy of Art, and it has been my great pleasure to read his debut novel. It is the stirring tale of…’

Fatin stops reading after the first sentence, because fuck that. But that’s where she knows the name from. Mrs. Wolfe. Did Fatin ever have her for English? Shit, Leah probably did. Shit, how should Fatin follow up on this thread? What does she even know about Mrs. Wolfe? Not much, although from what Fatin remembers, she seemed to follow the blueprint of “quirky English teacher.” 

Maybe Fatin could email her, pretending to be a fan of Galanis’s, and see if Mrs. Wolfe has any interesting tidbits to share. 

Hm. Or, even better, Fatin could talk to her in person. She’s due for a trip back home anyway, to do her good-daughter tour of duty, and she might as well kill two birds with one stone and see what she can dig up on Galanis while she’s there. Besides, although an email is convenient because it can be printed out and referred to, Fatin knows her strengths. She managed to send a perfectly serviceable email to Leah, but she knows her talents would shine much more with in-person schmoozing. Plus, people are generally more likely to say something without thinking in person than in an email. 

So, Bay Area road trip it is, then. 

She decides to shoot a text to Leah, trying to be vague so as to not leave a “paper trail”, since Leah is clearly a little paranoid about that. But she figures Leah might like to know that Fatin is making moves.

Fatin Jadmani 3:29pm
Heading home for a few days. Thought I’d visit the old stomping grounds. Should I tell Mrs. Wolfe you say hi?

Leah responds not even five minutes later.

Leah Rilke 3:33pm
Good plan.
Yes, please do.

***

“This is where you grew up?” Dot breathes in astonishment as they turn into Fatin’s neighborhood. 

“Yup.” 

“Okay, so weird question but like,” Dot presses her face against the window, enthralled by the huge mansions. “Did you play outside and shit when you were a kid? Like, when I was a kid, I’d go kick around a ratty old soccer ball in the street with the other kids. But did you guys, like, have fucking soirees or something? Did you have to RSVP to playdates?”

“Yeah, no, my mom never let me play outside,” Fatin says, shaking her head. “Bet she wishes she did though, ‘cause maybe if I’d been able to run around more as a kid, I wouldn’t have been such a pain in her ass as a teenager.”

“Were you really that bad?” Dot laughs. 

“Dorothy, I was a menace,” Fatin says, only half joking. “You know how my parents split up at the end of high school because my dad was cheating on my mom?”

“Yeah,” Dot says apprehensively. 

“Well, you know how she found out about it?”

“No,” Dot says, even more apprehensively. 

“His dick pics got ‘mysteriously’ — ” Fatin takes a hand off the steering wheel to do air quotes. “— forwarded to everyone on his contact list.”

“Let me guess…” Dot starts, raising her eyebrows at Fatin. 

“Right on the money.” 

Dot hums thoughtfully, and really, Fatin was expecting a far more scandalized reaction. She’s not sure if she should be relieved that Dot isn’t making a big deal out of it, or offended that Dot seems to be so unsurprised. 

“So, if anything,” Dot says playfully, “you’ve kinda mellowed out since then, huh?” 

“Oh, exponentially,” Fatin laughs.

She decides she’s relieved at Dot’s reaction, definitely relieved. There’s no way Dot’s judging her, Dot doesn’t do that shit. The only people Dot judges are stupid contestants on Survivor. 

“So…what am I walking into here?” Dot asks nervously as they pull into the driveway of Fatin’s house.

“No drama, hopefully,” Fatin assures her. “Dad lives across town, my brothers are at college, and Mom is always busy as shit. She’ll probably make us have dinner with her while we’re here but otherwise she’ll stay out of our hair. We’ll be free to — ” Fatin wiggles her eyebrows. “ — investigate.”

“Are you gonna see your dad this trip?” 

Fatin shrugs. “Probably should. Just so I can say I’m not a shitty daughter.”

“Do you want a buffer?” Dot offers.

Fatin shrugs again. “Might not be a bad idea. We’ll see when the time comes. But thanks for offering, my dearest Dorothy. You really are my knight in shining armor.”

“Okay, I retract my offer,” Dot says, fake-gagging as she opens the car door. 

“No, no, this is very exciting,” Fatin gushes, getting out of the car and skipping over to Dot, linking their arms together. “You’re finally meeting the parents. Just don’t try to ask my dad for my hand in marriage. That’s, like, so last century.”

***

They have a fine dinner with Fatin’s mom; she shows an appropriate level of interest in Dot’s life despite the fact that Dot is not a concert musician, tech entrepreneur, aspiring CEO, or something similarly obnoxious, and she doesn’t pester Fatin about her concert schedule, so Fatin chalks it up as a success. Fatin sets Dot up in one of her brothers’ old bedroom and tells her to rest up for their big day of sleuthing tomorrow. 

For her own part, Fatin cozies up under her bedspread, smiling at the faint smell of her laundry detergent. It’s always strange being back home. Sometimes she comes home and feels like everything changed while she was away and she doesn’t know this place anymore, but sometimes it’s like she’s walked right back in time, a decade back, and she’s suddenly a teenager again, like she never even left. 

Both are disconcerting, in their own way. 

The funny thing is, when it comes down to it, she doesn’t actually have much tying her to this place, other than the memories. She’s spent so much time flying all around the world that the Bay Area just becomes a story she tells herself, some words to say in interviews when they ask her where she grew up. And she doesn’t keep in touch with anyone from here, other than her parents and brothers. 

Well, and now maybe Leah Rilke. Sort of. Does she come home often? Living across the country in New York, maybe she doesn’t. Does she miss it? Does it feel like a part of her? Or does she consider herself a New Yorker now?

Fatin rolls over and huffs. Now is not the time to be getting all curious and philosophical about Leah. She should harness this energy and focus it all on Galanis, and uncovering his secrets.

And she drifts off to thoughts of orchestrating Galanis’s downfall, a placid smile on her face as she imagines how it’ll feel to get the phone call from Leah telling her he’s finally been sacked. 

Chapter Text

Fatin decides to bring Dot along to her rendezvous and schmooze sesh with Mrs. Wolfe, mostly because she has a hunch that Dot will have some entertaining thoughts to share about her high school, and she’s proven right almost immediately. 

“You cannot tell me this is a real school.” Dot cranes her neck around wildly, staring at the various buildings across campus. “It looks like a fucking…I don’t know, art gallery. Or a nursing home for super rich people.”

Now that Fatin isn’t a student there anymore and she is able to see it through Dot’s eyes, yeah, it does look like anything but a high school. The curved roof of the music building makes it look a bit like a Sydney Opera House knockoff, and the library could pass as modern art — in fact, Fatin thinks she recalls that it was designed by an alum who had gone on to become an acclaimed architect. 

Did she really spend four years here? How is it that she barely even recognizes the place now? 

Well, again, the philosophical musing will just have to wait because she’s a girl on a mission. She drops Dot off at the library and instructs her that if anyone seems suspicious of her being here, she should look them straight in the eye with the most disgusted sneer she can muster up, say, “You really don’t know who I am?” and then storm away. Fatin then heads over to the English building, where she’s barely ever set foot apart from the occasional required classes, but where she assumes Leah spent most of her time back in the day. 

And again, she tries to see it through someone else’s eyes — this time, Leah’s. Leah probably found those literary quotes all over the hallway inspiring rather than cheesy. She probably participated enthusiastically in the “Take-a-Book-Leave-a-Book Nook”; maybe she even left cryptic notes in her books for the next reader to try to parse. 

Fatin passes the time until the period is over by reading the “Get to know the Lit Mag” corkboard outside Mrs. Wolfe’s classroom — another thing she imagines Leah partook in; maybe that was what got her started on her current trajectory. Their school does not have harsh bells to signal the end of class, as apparently someone decided long ago that it was too disruptive to the learning process. Instead, teachers are expected to simply end lessons more or less at the right time; although, Fatin is discovering as she checks her watch every minute or two, Mrs. Wolfe seems to be a bit long-winded. 

Finally the door opens and students start pouring out, some of them looking like they’ve just achieved enlightenment, some looking like they’re escaping a warzone. 

Okay. Showtime.

Fatin raps lightly on the doorframe and fixes her most charming grin on her face. 

“Hey, Mrs. Wolfe?” She takes a brief pause, pretending to second-guess herself, hoping that if Mrs. Wolfe feels bad about not recognizing her, she’ll get flustered enough to let more information slip. “You — you probably don’t remember me; I think I was in your class in ninth grade, probably, like, twelve or thirteen years ago.”

Mrs. Wolfe squints at her for a moment, looking appropriately panicked. 

Fatin extends a hand timidly in front of her. “Fatin Jadmani. I played cello.” 

“Oh, of course, of course,” Mrs. Wolfe exclaims, throwing her hands out to the sides, her countless bangles jangling as she does so. “Well, Fatin, to what do I owe the pleasure? As I recall, although you were quite an accomplished musician, you were not a particularly eager English student.”

She has a twinkle in her eye, and Fatin thinks she might have miscalculated slightly because it looks like Mrs. Wolfe actually does remember her after all. So Fatin might not be able to work the “ooh, I’m just so sweet and innocent, don’t you feel bad for forgetting me” angle. Hm. There is another angle she could try. She’s not sure if Leah would fully approve of it, but, well, it’s for both of their good, isn’t it? So she’ll understand. 

“Well, it’s a funny story,” Fatin chuckles lightly. “A bit of a saga, actually. Do you have a minute?” 

“Sure,” Mrs. Wolfe says, and sits back down at her extremely overcluttered desk. “Pull up a chair, dear, do you want some tea?” 

“Oh, it’s not that much of a saga,” Fatin backtracks, dragging a chair to the other side of the desk and sitting. She does not need to get roped into a whole afternoon tea situation here. “Just, you know, like, a mid-length, um, sort of novella, I guess.” 

Mrs. Wolfe throws her head back and laughs. “Fatin, you have a truly incisive wit!” she exclaims, like she’s in a fucking Jane Austen novel. Okay, Fatin needs to do this quickly because she’s not sure how long she’s going to last with this lady.

“Right, so.” Fatin smiles sweetly. “I have this book club going with my — ” She needs to play this up, so she really puts a lot of oomph into the next part. “ — very dear friend — you might remember her, Leah Rilke?”

Mrs. Wolfe gasps and claps her hands together. “Do I remember Leah Rilke? Oh — ” Mrs. Wolfe moves a hand to her heart and looks wistfully at Fatin. “She was such a bright girl, truly a fine mind. Who could forget her final paper on Hamlet, my goodness, it was illuminating — really, revelatory — ”

“Yes, she really is something,” Fatin agrees, mostly just to shut Mrs. Wolfe up. Although it does occur to her she doesn’t think she’s ever read anything that was actually written by Leah. Does Leah do any writing for the magazine, or does she just edit stuff other people write? Okay, off track, off track. “Anyway, our most recent read was this book by an East Bay Academy alum — Jeff Galanis, maybe you know him?”

“Oh, my goodness, do I know Jeff Galanis?” Mrs. Wolfe speaks with the same rapturous tone that she’d used for Leah, and Fatin has to suppress an eyeroll. She’s sure more superlatives are coming, but some of them might be of use to her, so she lets it happen. “Another one of my — ” Mrs. Wolfe pauses, then whispers conspiratorially. “Well, I don’t like to use this word, but he was one of my best students. Not the most attentive during class, but quite brilliant.” 

“Oh, I’m not surprised,” Fatin simpers, keeping the sticky, sickly smile locked on her face. “His book was — really — ” She searches for a word that might impress Mrs. Wolfe. What would someone like Leah say? Fatin looks up at the ceiling lights, trying to seem thoughtful rather than desperate. “ — fluorescent,” she finishes, hoping that will resonate. 

Mrs. Wolfe is silent for a moment, gazing blankly at Fatin, and Fatin feels some sweat collecting on her forehead. Then Mrs. Wolfe breaks into a grin. “My my, Fatin, where was this mind a decade ago? You have such a fascinating way of expressing yourself — ”

“Oh, you’re too kind,” Fatin says hastily. Shit. We need to get back to Jeff. “Really, I think Jeff’s book inspired me, you know, opened up some new areas of my mind.” 

“He does have a way of doing that, doesn’t he,” Mrs. Wolfe sighs. “He has quite a unique way of looking at the world.” Yeah, you could say that. “I was so pleased to see him go into writing, although — ” She lowers her voice again and leans in towards Fatin. “Well, the book was well-received at first, it shot right up the charts, but later there was this terrible backlash — but you know, some people just don’t understand literature.”

“No, they really don’t,” Fatin echoes mechanically, leaning in too. She senses she might be close to a breakthrough here, so she makes sure to try to show through her body language that she’s hanging on to Mrs. Wolfe’s every word, like she’s just dying to know everything about Jeff. Which, of course, she is. 

“And — ” Mrs. Wolfe heaves a sigh and shakes her head. “It’s really such a shame what happened with him and his wife.” 

“Oh, yeah…?” Fatin says, inflecting her tone slightly, trying to thread the needle well enough that it’s up to Mrs. Wolfe’s interpretation to decide whether Fatin already knows and is agreeing with her (in which case Mrs. Wolfe is free to share more details without feeling like she’s betraying Galanis’ confidentiality) or doesn’t know, and needs more information (in which case Mrs. Wolfe will hopefully fill her in). 

“Oh, yes, he was quite heartbroken,” Mrs. Wolfe says, nodding sagely. “A decade of marriage, to end that way, with such — such flagrant betrayal — ”

Alarm bells blare in Fatin’s head. This is something. Something that could lead her to dirt. Betrayal? Who betrayed whom? — But she can delve into it later. She just has to wrap this conversation up and put a bow on it, then she can be on her merry way and dive into whatever pile of dirt Mrs. Wolfe just excavated for her.

“Oh, it’s so awful,” Fatin agrees. 

“He was in a bit of a slump after that, I must say. Professional as well as personal. I tried to perk him up a bit — even invited him to speak at the school. And wouldn’t you know it, our Leah took quite a shine to him,” Mrs. Wolfe says brightly, and Fatin’s stomach drops. “He took her under his wing, it was quite inspiring to watch. I think mentoring her helped him get his feet back under him, and, well, I’m sure you know the rest, how he got her that job out in New York.” 

“Yeah,” Fatin says, forgetting to sound bubbly and cheerful. He got her a job in New York? Is that at the magazine? How does this factor in to Leah wanting him gone? This is all getting very complicated, and she really hadn’t bargained on accidentally uncovering shit about Leah in the process of trying to uncover shit about Galanis. “Yeah, she told me all about that,” she says, unconvincingly, but Mrs. Wolfe doesn’t seem to be paying that much attention to her anyway. 

“Oh, I’m just so glad that you and Leah connected,” Mrs. Wolfe says, giving Fatin another one of those wistful looks. “I always worried about her, you know, it never seemed like her social circle was very big. It was just her and — oh, that boy, I think he was into film, you know, movies and such — well, either way, I’m pleased to see you found each other. And how did you — ”

“Oh, it’s another long story,” Fatin says, trying to keep smiling but finding that the difficulty is increasing by the second. “She can tell it better than I can.” Mrs. Wolfe opens her mouth but Fatin preemptively cuts her off. “I’m so sorry, I have to get going, but it was just so lovely to see you again.”

She stands and reaches for Mrs. Wolfe’s hand again, giving her a friendly nod and a cheesy fake smile. 

“You’ll give Leah my regards, of course?” Mrs. Wolfe asks, clutching Fatin’s hand in both of hers. “She’s always welcome to shoot me an email, or whatever it is the kids do these days.”

“Of course,” Fatin echoes. “She told me to tell you she says hi, too.” 

“Oh, lovely, lovely,” Mrs. Wolfe says, closing her eyes in bliss. 

And with that, Fatin is finally able to extract herself and escape to the hallway, feeling a sudden kinship with the students who had stumbled out of the classroom looking shell-shocked. 

***

Dot seems perturbed by Fatin’s silence when they meet back up at the library. She doesn’t force the issue — she’s good about that, giving Fatin breathing room when she needs it — but Fatin can tell by Dot’s awkward movements and the fact that she’s keeping her distance from Fatin that she’s concerned. 

“So, did you…” Dot starts uncomfortably as they walk across the parking lot to Fatin’s car. “Um, get any dirt?” 

Fatin pulls the hood of her windbreaker up to try to stave off the grey drizzle that she’d forgotten is ever-present here. “I think I got, like, too much dirt.”

Dot laughs nervously. “That can’t be possible. Can it?”

“No, I mean — ” Fatin sighs. “I don’t know, this is kind of…escalating. I did find some useful shit out about Jeff. But…”

“But? Isn’t that good?”

“I mean, of course. But it kind of seems like Leah is involved in this whole thing too somehow, and…” Fatin trails off again, chewing on her lip. 

“It doesn’t really feel right to air out her dirty laundry?” Dot guesses. 

Fatin nods, remembering that Dot can be really astute when she puts her mind to it. 

“Look, she had to know what she was getting into when she put you up to this,” Dot reasons as they get into the car and, thankfully, out of the light rain. “She seems smart. I’m sure she knew it was possible that you’d find stuff out about her in the process. If she knew the risks, it’s fair game.”

“Yeah,” Fatin mumbles. “I guess so. Still feels kind of…slimy, somehow. I mean, do I tell her that Mrs. Wolfe told me shit about her?”

Dot shoots Fatin a worried look. “Jesus, what did she say? Is this, like, legit dark?”

“No, no,” Fatin says quickly. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think so. It sounds like — well, Mrs. Wolfe said he sort of…mentored her.”

“Um, red flag,” Dot says, her eyebrows raising.

“Yeah, exactly.” Fatin frowns, then decides she really doesn’t want to think about that any more than she absolutely has to right now. “But, the good news is, I found out his marriage ended because someone cheated. From the sounds of it, it was his wife. So, that’s a lead.”

“Huh,” Dot says. “Wait, do you think — ” Then she cuts herself off. 

Fatin does think. She has a thought, but she really doesn’t want to think it. But it would make sense. But it would also mean — well, it would mean dredging up some shit that she’d really hoped she could just keep avoiding. 

“Yeah,” Fatin says quietly. “I think…I think I need to think about this a little.” 

Dot just nods sympathetically as Fatin puts the car in drive and takes them home to her mom’s house. 

***

Both Dot and Fatin’s mom give Fatin her space that afternoon; Dot, she knows, does it deliberately because she can tell this whole thing is weighing on Fatin, while Fatin’s mom is just too busy on with clients to notice anything’s off. Fatin takes her cello into the sunroom and plays for a while, accompanied by the gentle pitter-patter of rain on the glass, while Dot sprawls on the settee and reads through some of her brothers’ comic books. She gives herself permission to not scrutinize her own performance, taking the time to just play for fun, rather than “practicing”. And she wipes her mind clean of any other thoughts than hearing the music in her head as she plays it. 

It’s a nice feeling — a blank mind — and Fatin has a couple more days at home to figure shit out, so she decides to take the rest of the day off from investigating. She drives Dot all across town, showing her little bits and pieces of Fatin’s youth: the conservatory where she took lessons with Mrs. Du Pont, favorite restaurants, bars she sweet-talked her way into, houses that her mom has sold. 

They bring back takeout for dinner, and Fatin’s mom purses her lips slightly, but doesn’t complain, so Fatin chalks it up as another successful dinner with mom. 

Afterwards, she figures it might be a good idea to text Leah to give her a vague update on her progress.

Fatin Jadmani, 7:15pm
Mrs. Wolfe sends her regards. She sure does love to gossip! 

Like before, Leah replies quickly. 

Leah Rilke, 7:17pm
That she does. 

Hm. Kind of a dry text. Fatin would expect Leah to be a more wordy texter, given the whole English student thing she has going, but maybe Leah just still feels awkward about interacting with Fatin. Well, unfortunately Fatin is about to make the situation a little more awkward, but she figures Leah should probably know just in case Mrs. Wolfe brings it up sometime.

Fatin Jadmani, 7:23pm
Btw, I may have led her to believe that we’re besties
Thought I should give you a heads up

Leah Rilke, 7:23pm
Lol

What…that’s it? Just “Lol”? 

Okay, Fatin really shouldn’t be this offended about it. She and Leah have no relationship to speak of; even co-conspirators would be a stretch. She doesn’t even like her, really. Or, at least, she doesn’t really know enough about her to know whether she likes her or doesn’t. 

Still, she kind of feels like she’d be backing down from a challenge if she let Leah get away with just sending a “Lol” back. Like, that’s weak sauce, even for acquaintances. She resolves to try to get an actual conversation out of Leah before she goes to bed. 

Fatin Jadmani 7:32pm
Has the weather here always been this shitty? Swear I have mold growing in my hair

Wait, shit. Was the mold comment too weird? 

Leah Rilke, 7:33pm
Lol

She can’t be serious.

But then Fatin sees the typing bubble come up again, to her relief.

Leah Rilke, 7:34pm
I haven’t been back in years. It’s funny, in my memories it’s always sunny. I almost don’t want to ruin the mental image by visiting again.

Okay, wow. Fatin feels like she needs to catch her breath. That totally made up for the dry texts earlier. So she’s gotten her answers to what she was wondering a few days ago, then. Leah doesn’t visit, but she still thinks fondly of home. So fondly that she doesn’t want to burst her own bubble. It’s sort of…poignant. (Now there’s a word Mrs. Wolfe would approve of.) 

Fatin Jadmani, 7:37pm
Nostalgia’s a bitch huh?

Fatin doesn’t really do poignant. And she’s not really sure if she’s allowed to pull at the thread that Leah dangled in front of her. Especially since she already feels like she knows more about Leah than she’s supposed to, after Mrs. Wolfe’s allusions to her and Jeff. 

Leah Rilke, 7:40pm
Seriously!!
Ok, it’s almost 11 here, so I’m going to bed.
Keep me posted.

Fatin sends a thumbs up back and then puts her phone down, running over the events of the day again. Leah’s final text had reminded her that Fatin has some decisions ahead of her and, potentially, some difficult conversations as well. 

Should she talk to her mom first, or go directly to her dad? Going directly to her dad would be more efficient — just one and done, and then she won’t have to dredge all that shit up for her mom too. But then, maybe talking to her mom would help her get a lay of the land, so that she’s not going into the conversation with her dad totally blind. 

Well, she can deal with it tomorrow. Tonight, Dot has more Survivor on the agenda. 

***

Fatin and Dot spend most of the next morning lazing around, drinking coffee and dabbling in some of Fatin’s brothers’ video games, laughing at each other’s inability to hit the right buttons at the right time. 

Fatin scrounges up three portions of lunch, leaving one with Dot and taking the other two with her as she wanders up to the second floor to seek out her mom, who is probably working through lunch as usual. Fatin might have to play the “I-only-come-home-once-in-a-while” card if she wants to get a word in. 

Her mom is, as expected, holed up in her office, standing by the window with her phone held up to her ear, looking out at the yard as she gestures with her free hand. Fatin clears her throat lightly, leaning against the doorframe, and her mom turns around and holds up a finger, not quite looking apologetic or anything as sentimental as that, but at least not glaring at Fatin either. 

So Fatin takes it as an invitation to come in. She places the plates on the coffee table, then moseys around the room, pretending to be engrossed by the modern-art vase on the bookshelf that only holds one flower stem at a time, and wondering if her mom has any family photos of Fatin and her brothers — she wouldn’t expect them to be on display, but surely they’re at least stuffed into a drawer somewhere, aren’t they? 

“Fatin,” her mom says finally, turning to her with a slight smile. “Thanks.” She nods at the food. “Now, want to tell me why you’re buttering me up?” she asks, sounding amused. 

Ah, that’s the mother she knows and loves. Can’t get anything past her, can I, Fatin thinks, with only a little bitterness. 

“What, can’t I bring lunch to my wonderful, genius, very cool and hardworking mother with no ulterior motives?” Fatin jokes, dropping down onto the couch while her mother settles delicately into her office chair and rolling herself to the far side of the coffee table. 

“I know my daughter, Fatin,” her mom says silkily, reaching for the plate Fatin brought. “You’re too much like me to believe in such thing as a free lunch.” 

Fatin’s instinct is to bristle against her mother, to contradict her, to tell her she’s wrong about Fatin, like she’s been wrong about Fatin so many times before. Instead, she takes a moment to close her eyes and breathe in, like her therapist taught her, creating a tiny little oasis of calm around her so that she has the space to look at her mother’s words from a detached vantage point. 

And, well, her mom is right. Strings are always attached, it’s just a matter of whether you wise up in time to see them or not. She brought her mom the food because she wants something from her. Hell, even Leah didn’t just offer to help Fatin out of the goodness of her heart — she’d benefit too if Fatin could find dirt on Galanis. 

It’s a kind of depressing way to see the world, but Fatin supposes it’s better than getting burned. 

Still, if her mom’s gonna be like that, Fatin won’t bother with the niceties. 

“Does the name Galanis mean anything to you?”

Fatin’s mother freezes, fork halfway up to her mouth. Her face pinches in on itself, nose wrinkling, eyebrows drawing closer together, lips puckered. 

“Why would you ask me that?” her mom says flatly, laying her fork down and pushing the plate away from her. “Why would you open up that door again? After all the — ”

“Mom, I’m sorry, I know, but — I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” Fatin pleads, already regretting bringing this up. “Look, you don’t have to tell me anything — I’ll pry it out of Dad, but I just wanted to know — before I did — if there’s even anything to pry out of him, you know?”

“Why are you asking?” her mother repeats, more insistent. 

“This guy, Jeff Galanis — ” Fatin starts. Her mother’s face grows even more contorted with disgust. And Fatin — she couldn’t say for sure why; maybe she just wants to spare her mom the added distress of the whole review column situation — decides to lie. “ — he’s the friend of a friend. Acted like he knew who I was when we met. I figured if he wasn’t a client of yours, there was only one other way he might know my name.” 

“Friend of a friend?” her mom echoes warily. “You mean, boyfriend of a friend?”

Fatin shrugs noncommittally. 

Her mom makes a vague tut of disapproval. “You’d best hope your friend wises up,” she says acidly. “Galanis — both of them are nothing but bad news.” 

Fatin feels her stomach drop again, just like when she was talking to Mrs. Wolfe. She can’t help but think about Leah again, and wonder how she fits into this, and hope that her connection is only tangential (although the more she hears, the more she has a feeling it’s not).

“Ask your father if you want,” Fatin’s mom says breezily, rolling back over to her desk and turning away from Fatin. “You’re a big girl.” 

Fatin slinks out of the room with her plate of food, leaving her mom’s almost-untouched plate on the coffee table. 

***

“So I think I’m gonna go see my dad tonight,” Fatin says glumly, and Dot looks up from another comic book in surprise. 

“Yeah?” She knows Dot knows why. Dot’s not going to try to talk her out of it, but Fatin knows if shit hits the fan, Dot will be on the other end of the line, because she always has been. If Fatin wasn’t so sure of that, she probably wouldn’t be able to work up the gumption to visit her dad. 

“Yeah,” Fatin says. “I’ll go after dinner. Think you can survive an evening with Rana?”

“I’ll just introduce her to the wonders of the Survivor franchise,” Dot jokes. 

Fatin snorts. “Good luck with that. Too bad my brothers aren’t here. They’d love you. Birds of a feather, I swear.” 

“Seriously, if you need anything, holler, okay?” Dot says, scrunching her eyebrows a little in that way she only does when she’s being especially sincere.

And Fatin must really be nervous, because she doesn’t even give Dot shit for it. 

***

Fatin’s only been to her dad’s apartment a few times since her parents split up. She tries to make sure to visit every time she’s home, just so she can say she checked all her boxes and no one can accuse her of shirking her daughter-duty. But, well, key word tries. And, if she’s being honest, she doesn’t try all that hard. So, it’s possible that for the last few years it’s sort of…slipped through the cracks. She keeps in touch with him by the occasional email, though, at least. 

She’d texted him beforehand to make sure he was around, so she knows she won’t be showing up completely unannounced. Still, there’s always the possibility that she’ll be arriving just as some girl five years younger than her is leaving, the thought of which makes Fatin want to barf all over her dad’s welcome mat. 

Today, she’s in luck, though, because her dad is very much alone when he opens up the door. He beams when he sees her, and she makes sure to keep her mouth in a perfectly straight line. 

“Ah, my favorite daughter,” he exclaims, throwing out his arms.

Fatin folds her arms and smiles tightly at him. “Hi dad. Can I come in?”

He nods, letting his arms fall to his sides, chastened by Fatin’s coldness. It’s been years, she knows, but — well, if Fatin didn’t hold grudges, she wouldn’t be here at all, would she, digging up dirt on Jeff Galanis?

They chit-chat semi-awkwardly for a while; Fatin gratefully accepts the glass of prohibitively expensive red wine her dad offers, and tells him about her latest tour. Surface-level stuff, only touching on her professional exploits; she dodges all of his questions about her personal life, and he, to his credit, doesn’t push it. 

Finally, she decides she’s had her fill of small talk. 

“So, I didn’t come here just to catch up,” Fatin says, spinning her wineglass around slowly. 

“I figured as much,” her dad says with a half-smile. “You are your mother’s daughter.” 

Fatin can’t figure out if she’s proud of that, or if it irritates her. So instead of lingering on it, she cuts to the chase.

“Does the name Galanis mean anything to you?” 

Yes, she uses the same line she used on her mom. It’s not like they’re going to compare notes. 

And her father’s face darkens just as quickly as her mother’s did, although her father doesn’t pull inward like her mom’s did, but rather downward, into a severe frown. 

“I haven’t heard that name in…god, ten, fifteen years,” her dad mutters, almost to himself. “Fatin — ” He looks up at her, anger flashing in his eyes. “Why are you asking me this?”

God, deja vu. 

Only this time, she thinks she’ll get more mileage if she tells her dad the truth. Might as well give him a little nudge towards a guilt trip. 

“This guy, Jeff Galanis — ” Fatin watches her father’s expression carefully, and somehow, he manages to look even more unhappy at the mere mention of Jeff. “ — He’s been writing these horrible reviews of me in his stupid little magazine, like, mega targeted shit. For, I don’t know, a year and a half now? It’s getting ridiculous. And, I know it sounds crazy, but one of his coworkers tipped me off that it might be something personal. So I did some digging, and…” 

Fatin pauses, letting her dad fill in the blank. It led me to you. Much to my fucking displeasure. 

Her dad sighs and stands up, wringing his hands. “Fatin, I never wanted you to get dragged into any of —”

“Well, tough luck, because I’m in it,” Fatin interrupts him. “Now, don’t you think the least you can do is fill me in?” 

“Fine,” he says, his voice hard. “You really want to know? His wife — well, his wife at the time — she was — we were — involved.” 

Fatin had guessed as much, but that doesn’t stop the bile from crawling up her throat at her father’s explicit admission of guilt. 

“I broke things off after — well, after your mom found out. Back when I still thought maybe we could — ” He stops, shakes his head, then starts again. “Marie — she didn’t take it well. Got very…persistent. Showing up at my work, she even went so far as to go to some of your mothers’ open houses. I had to be very clear with her, and eventually she backed off. But then, when Jeff found out…” 

Her dad pauses again, eyebrows wrinkled, lost in thought, and Fatin taps her toes impatiently.

“I blocked her number, you understand,” her dad says seriously, as if she gives a shit. Fatin nods along anyway. “I completely severed ties with her. But Jeff — well, he was not happy. He must’ve found my email somewhere, and he started sending these — threats.”

Fatin might legit throw up now, and she starts covertly looking around to try to figure out where her dad keeps his trash can. If he’s one of those under-the-sink-trashcan weirdos, she might be out of luck. 

“They were — well, some were sort of, shall we say — abstract. He was a literary guy, right, so, there was a lot of…metaphor. It was hard to figure out what the hell he was even talking about. But it was worrying enough that I considered getting a restraining order against him.”

“Did you?” Fatin asks immediately, and disappointingly, her dad shakes his head. “Do you at least still have the emails?”

Her dad opens his mouth, then closes it, looking slightly puzzled. “I mean, I could probably dig them up — ”

“Great,” Fatin says briskly. “Do that. Send them to me.”

“What do you need them for?” her dad asks incredulously. 

“To get him fired,” Fatin responds simply. “And out of my hair.” 

“Fatin,” her dad says, looking at her with a mix of disapproval and fear. 

“Don’t start,” Fatin says sharply. “Look, let me make this simple. You fucking owe me. Big time. For all that shit you put us through. So send me those emails, and don’t think about it too hard.”

Her dad heaves a deep sigh. “All right. I know a losing battle when I see one. I’ll send them tonight.” 

“Send them now,” Fatin demands. “I’ll wait.”

Her dad, true to his word, seems to know a losing battle when he sees one, so, after only a moment’s hesitation, he retrieves his laptop and starts trawling through it for the decade-old emails from Galanis. Fatin sits in silence, barely-formed thoughts running through her head. She doesn’t really want to deal with any of them, though, so she focuses on trying to see if she can make her wine glass “sing” by dragging her finger around the rim. 

Fatin couldn’t say how long it takes — it could’ve been a few minutes, or maybe an hour. But eventually her dad looks up and nods at her.

Fatin stands, giving her dad a smile that’s actually half-genuine. “Thanks. See you…” She almost says next time I’m in town, but she doesn’t want to give him false hope. “…when I see you.” (He could always come to one of her concerts if he really wants to play the supportive dad.)

By the time Fatin gets back to her car, it’s nine, and she has a couple texts from Dot checking in on her status. She replies to Dot saying she’s OK and will update her when she gets home. 

And then, Fatin's hands, completely of their own accord, start texting Leah.

Fatin Jadmani, 9:04pm
Hey, can I call you?
I know it’s late, sorry. If you’re asleep ignore this (duh)

She doesn’t actually expect a response, since she knows it’s nearly midnight in New York and, besides, Leah doesn’t have to be on call for Fatin, regardless of how in-cahoots they may be. So she starts the drive home, taking the scenic route, up the hill she always drove to as a teenager to look down at the city (or make out with whoever was in her roster on any given day). 

She parks at the top of the bluff and opens her email — and, thank god, she finds a handful of forwarded emails from her dad. She skims them, just barely, because she’s not sure if she can stand to read them closely, and decides that, yeah, this should be more than enough to prove Galanis has it out for any and all members of the Jadmani family. 

And then her phone rings. With a call from Leah Rilke. 

“Hey,” Fatin says. 

“Hey,” Leah echoes on the other end of the line, sounding a little bleary and extra raspy. “So…”

“Um,” Fatin starts, and, to her dismay, finds that her voice is a little uneven, maybe in danger of breaking sometime soon if she isn’t careful. So she takes a deep breath in and tries to steady herself. “So, I think I have evidence for you.”

“Yeah?” Leah prompts, still sounding only half awake, and Fatin wonders if she should’ve just waited until tomorrow morning. Then again, if Leah wasn’t up for a phone call, she didn’t have to, well, call. 

“Yeah, I like — ” Fatin laughs bitterly. “Followed the breadcrumbs, or whatever. Led me to my dad, go figure. But I guess you must’ve already known, or you wouldn’t have known to tip me off.” 

“I’m sorry, Fatin.” Leah sounds fully awake now, and serious. “I really, really am.”

“I know. Thanks. Not your fault,” Fatin says quietly. 

“Are you okay?” Leah asks, hesitant and timid. It’s sweet of her to ask, Fatin thinks. She doesn’t need to care, but she seems to anyway.

“Yeah. Sucks to open old wounds, but hey, if it gets him fired, it’s worth it.”

“You can say that again.”

That reminds Fatin that Leah also has some kind of Jeff beef, and it’s not like they’re going to keep in touch after this, so if Fatin wants to know why, she might as well just ask.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Sure.” Leah sounds a little nervous. 

“Well — ” Fatin chickens out at the last minute. Feels kind of unfair to spring that on her, since it might open Leah’s own old wounds that she’d rather not deal with, especially not at midnight with a near-stranger. But Fatin does have another question anyway, one that’s sort of related, and could get her the same answer in a more roundabout way. “How did you know there was something to find?” 

Leah is silent for a long moment. When she speaks, her tone is measured and careful. Not overly guarded, but still sounding a little like she’s walking on a tightrope. 

“I used to know Jeff pretty well. You could say we have…history. But you probably already guessed that.” 

“Yeah,” Fatin murmurs, so faintly she’s not sure if it even made it into the receiver. 

“He’s told me a lot of stuff about his past. It wasn’t too hard for me to piece things together once I got the email from you.”

“I —” Fatin starts, as another unfair question comes to her. This time, she asks it. “Why couldn’t you have just told me?” 

Another long pause from Leah. “Well, mostly because I was worried about losing my job. But also…I mean, I didn’t really think it was my place. I hardly know you. Would you really have wanted to find out like that?”

“I guess not,” Fatin sighs. “And I appreciate you trying to help in the first place. That was — you didn’t have to do that.”

“It was the decent thing to do,” Leah says quietly. 

“Well, then, I guess you’re a decent person after all, Leah Rilke,” Fatin jokes. 

Leah chuckles sleepily. “I do what I can.”

“Okay, I should probably let you go to bed, but I’ll forward you those emails when I get home. Although — ” Fatin grimaces. “Fair warning, you might not wanna read super closely.” 

“Sounds good,” Leah yawns. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Sounds good,” Fatin repeats. She’s about to hang up when Leah speaks again. 

“Hey, wait, you know that bubble tea place by school?” 

“Uh, yeah.”

“Would you go there for me? If you have time?” Leah asks sheepishly. “I miss that place. Nothing here is as good.” 

“I’ll add it to the agenda,” Fatin promises. 

Leah yawns again. “Sweet. All right, good night Fatin.” 

“Night, Leah.” 

***

By the time Fatin gets back home that night, she’s honestly too drained to do much other than assure Dot that she got the goods and that they can debrief the next morning. Which they do, over bubble tea from the place Leah had reminded her of. 

“Since when are you a food blogger?” Dot teases as Fatin snaps a photo of her drink. 

“Oh, I’m sending it to Leah,” Fatin says absentmindedly, pulling up her messages with Leah. 

When Dot doesn’t say anything, Fatin looks up to see that Dot has an annoyingly smug look on her face. 

“What? She asked me to come here, like, in her honor,” Fatin says defensively. 

Dot raises her eyebrows even higher. Right. Fatin can see how that didn’t make it sound less…suspicious. 

“Dorothy,” Fatin scolds her. “I’m perfectly capable of having a good old-fashioned business relationship. Come on. Didn’t I say I’d never date a writer? Plus, I don’t even really know what she looks like. Last time I saw her was ten years ago.”

“Was she pretty?” 

“Yeah,” Fatin replies with a shrug. “She was cute.”

“You know you could probably, like, stalk her on Instagram,” Dot says, slurping her tea. 

Fatin gives Dot a look. “Are you enabling me, Dorothy? Do you want me to fly out to New York and hook up with her?”

Dot rolls her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. I just think it would be nice to put a face to a name.” 

Fatin is already pulling up Instagram and typing in “Leah Rilke”. Right, so much for her self-control. 

“Shit, I don’t think she has one,” Fatin groans. “That totally tracks, though. She seems like the type to not have social media.”

“Oh, you’re the Leah expert, huh?” 

“Oh, fuck off,” Fatin laughs. “We were supposed to be discussing my big revelations from last night anyway.”

“Yeah,” Dot says, turning serious again. “How did it go? You were back late.”

Fatin decides to leave out the fact that she called Leah. She’s not sure if Dot would ever let her hear the end of it. 

“I guess it went about as well as it could have,” Fatin says slowly, stirring a few boba bubbles around the base of her drink. “My dad was…well, my dad. As usual, it’s everyone’s fault except his. Basically we were right, it was a total mess, he was fucking Galanis’s wife and Galanis started sending him these emails…” 

Fatin opens her phone and pulls up the emails. Now that the initial shock has worn off, they’re kind of funny. She hands her phone to Dot, whose face adopts a mixture of disgust and disbelief as she reads. 

“Subject line ‘The winter of my discontent’? Is this guy for real? ‘When you and your loved ones feel an icy chill descend upon you know that that is my wrath’…” Dot laughs nervously. “What the hell?” 

“Right?” Fatin agrees. “Like, this is so much weirder than saying ‘I’m gonna fuck with you and your family forever’. Again, would not go near a writer with a ten-foot stick.”

“Unless it’s Leah,” Dot says without missing a beat, her eyes still glued to the emails. 

“Dorothy, please,” Fatin groans. “Not happening.”

“Have you sent it to her yet?” Dot asks, then — “‘Love’s promise has been severed by your cruel hand’, oh, my god.” 

“Yeah, I sent it last night. She said she’d let me know when she has news.” 

“Hopefully soon,” Dot says. “This seems pretty — what was the word she used?”

“Ironclad,” Fatin supplies.

“Oh, she texted you back, by the way.” Dot hands Fatin’s phone back and raises an eyebrow. 

“Don’t say it like that.” 

“Like what?” 

***

Fatin and Dot elect to leave early that day, missing dinner with Fatin’s mom, which nobody seems too upset about. Fatin’s mom says a cursory goodbye, still a little chilly towards Fatin after their lunchtime chat the day before. She doesn’t ask if Fatin found what she was looking for, and maybe it’s better that way. 

The drive back home is quiet and rainy, and they arrive late enough at night that they are both only capable of yawning out a brief “good-night” before going to bed. Fatin hasn’t heard anything from Leah all day, but she’s sure that’s nothing to panic about. Leah probably has a lot to deal with on most days, and then trying to navigate this whole clusterfuck on top of it all — Fatin can’t really blame Leah if she doesn’t have the bandwidth to keep her updated. 

Still, an update would be nice. 

But none comes, and Fatin has to content herself with hoping for the best.

***

The next day, Fatin practices halfheartedly all morning, unable to stop checking her phone, her heart jumping into her mouth every time the sunlight hits it and makes it look like the screen is lighting up. She even opens up her messages with Leah, on the off chance that she missed something. But no, the most recent thing there is Leah telling her that the bubble tea looks tasty, a day and a half ago. 

Okay, it’s been a day and a half. That feels like enough time for something update-worthy to have happened. 

She sends a quick text — anything to report? — and puts her phone somewhere she can’t see it, because she needs to get focused. Then, of course, she retrieves it immediately, because what if she misses a text from Leah? 

The call finally comes midway through the afternoon, and Fatin isn’t ashamed to say she picks up on the first ring, flinging her cello bow to the side and nearly knocking over her instrument in her haste. 

“Yes?” Fatin says immediately. 

“I have good news,” Leah says, with the telltale short breaths and background noise that signify she must be calling Fatin from her evening commute.

“Is he…” Fatin starts. 

“Fired,” Leah finishes giddily. “So totally fired. Gretchen ripped him a new one, made him pack his desk up in front of all of us, oh, god, Fatin, you should’ve seen the look on his face.” Leah laughs, sounding a little delirious. 

“Fuck yeah.” Fatin feels a grin spreading over her face too. “Got his ass.”

“Got his ass,” Leah agrees. “Big time. Man, if looks could kill, I’d probably be six feet under right now.”

“Be careful,” Fatin says, suddenly possessed by some mother-hen instinct that she didn’t even know she had in her. “Like, he knows it was you, right? What if he starts harassing you?”

Leah is silent for a moment, and Fatin hastily adds: “Sorry, not to like, bring the mood down when we should be celebrating.” 

“No, it’s a fair point,” Leah says. “Well, I already had him blocked on everything not work-related, and Gretchen told the security guy at the building to call the police if he sees Jeff, and he doesn’t know where I live, so I think I’m good for now.”

“Still,” Fatin says, “Just keep an eye out, will you?”

“I will,” Leah says seriously. “Hey, thanks for your help. I know it can’t have been easy.”

Fatin senses the conversation winding down and finds herself disappointed. Maybe she really shouldn’t have killed the mood like that. Is this it, then?

“Yeah, no problem,” Fatin says awkwardly. “I mean, thank you for your help. If you hadn’t tipped me off…”

“Of course,” Leah says. “Teamwork makes the dream work, right?” 

Fatin snorts. “Right.”

Fatin expects Leah to end the call then, or say goodbye or something, and waits, holding her breath. 

“Hey, look, um,” Leah fumbles around a bit in a rather endearing fashion. “Are you coming to New York any time soon? Like, for a concert or something?”

“Well, now that I don’t have to worry about being review bombed by Jeff Galanis, I might,” Fatin says playfully. “Why?”

“I was just thinking — maybe I could take you out to dinner when you’re in town — I mean, financed by the magazine, of course, just as an apology for this whole mess. I already cleared it with Gretchen,” Leah says in a rush. “But, um, no pressure, if it’s like, weird.”

Fatin’s heart beats a little faster. She’s woman enough to concede that she likes the idea of being able to put an updated face to that husky, raspy, and — fine, she’ll admit it — sexy voice. And she’s kind of glad that her brief correspondence with Leah Rilke won’t be ending forever right here and now. 

“I’d like that,” Fatin says. “It probably won’t be until later this spring, but my manager has been bugging me to get back out to the East Coast anyway, so I can make it happen on the soon side.” 

“Great,” Leah says, and Fatin can’t quite tell if she’s pleased on a business level or a personal level, but she supposes it doesn’t really matter. “Drop me a line when you’re in town.”

“I will,” Fatin promises, already wondering just how soon her manager can put this into motion.

Her first call after they hang up is to him, and he’s very pleased to hear that Fatin is lifting the East Coast embargo. He seems taken aback when she asks him to get a tour set up as soon as humanly possible, but promises that he should be able to pull something together. All the big venues are off the table on such late notice, but maybe some smaller, more intimate recitals would be a good idea anyway to get her back in the swing of things. 

Fatin agrees to everything he proposes, maybe a little to quickly, and by the end of the week she’s got herself a mini-tour from DC to Philly to New York to Boston, and a departing flight set for two months from now. 

Chapter Text

Fatin wishes she could say that the next couple months pass in a blur and that she spends all her time practicing, not devoting a single minute to thinking about Leah or their dinner. 

That would, unfortunately, be a lie. She thinks about it disturbingly often, and it’s annoying on a lot of levels, but the most annoying part is that she doesn’t even know what this girl looks like, at least not any further than a blurry, decade-old memory of wavy dark-brown hair, a strong jaw, and sharp green eyes. No, wait, were they blue? Shit, Fatin can’t say for sure. But who knows what she looks like now? She could be totally ugly. So Fatin shouldn’t get too invested. That’s what she reminds herself every few days in an attempt to temper the little butterflies that tend to spring up in her stomach when she remembers Leah’s sleepy late-night voice. 

Still, when Fatin boards the cross-country flight to Washington DC, she might be more nervous for dinner with Leah than for any of her recitals. 

Although she’s a little glad to escape Dot, who keeps teasing her about her “date”. Fatin tries to protest, but she’s not sure if she really believes it herself. It’s stupid, she knows. Every time they talked they were focused on the mission. She doesn’t think Leah was ever really flirting with her, nor was she ever really flirting with Leah. 

“But she did invite you out to dinner,” Dot had reminded her. As if Fatin could forget. 

“To apologize for the whole Galanis thing,” Fatin had reminded her back. 

There’s no reason to think it’s anything other than a formality. 

But Fatin can’t say she doesn’t kind of hope — pending final details of Leah’s current appearance — that it is more than a formality. A little nagging voice in the back of her head is saying that if it was really just business, it seems like editor-in-chief Gretchen Klein should’ve taken her herself. 

***

The DC and Philly recitals go off without a hitch. Her venues are intimate — libraries, schools, even the occasional church — and although it’s always a little scary performing solo with no one to bail her out if shit goes haywire, at least she doesn’t have to worry about missing a cue or miscounting her rests. 

Being back in New York City is another kind of homecoming for Fatin — a return to the place where she transitioned from student to professional, the launchpad of her career. It doesn’t have the same bittersweet tinge as the Bay; instead, Fatin finds herself smiling as she walks down the crowded streets, reminiscing about her early twenties. 

It was messy and stressful and she doesn’t think she’d want to do it over again — the end-of-semester jury performances and the paralyzing fear that she’d never amount to anything outside of the practice rooms, at least, she’s happy to leave in the past — but success has blunted the sharp edges of those memories, and Fatin knows she’s lucky she can say it was worth it. 

Extra worth it now that she’s gotten rid of that cockroach Jeff Galanis. 

She has some time to kill before meeting up with Leah, so she takes a stroll around the Upper West Side, trying to find all her old haunts from college. She hadn’t had a ton of free time to go exploring back then, so she’d mostly gone to the same places a million times. She finds some of them, her coffee shop and her bar, and sticks her head in, just for old times’ sake. There’s a hint of spring in the air, and as she continues her walk, cutting through central park, she remembers the way she’d bounce down the sidewalks when she started realizing summer break was right around the corner. 

All in all it’s a much more peaceful memory tour than the time she’d spent back home. And as the sun starts to sink below the buildings, she figures it’s time to make her way to the restaurant she’s meeting Leah at. It’s some hole-in-the-wall Italian place in Brooklyn, lots of brick and exposed bulbs. Teetering on the verge of being hipster-ified, but for now still resolutely clinging onto the grunge and poor service that makes it legit.

Somehow she beats Leah there, and after she gives the greasy-haired host Leah’s name, he leads her disinterestedly through the main room, out the back door to a cozy patio with rickety heat lamps and trellises that are probably very pretty and green in the summer. There’s not that many people there, and she can see through the windows into the restaurant, so at least she’ll have some notice when Leah shows up. 

She fishes around in her purse for her compact mirror and primps a bit, just to help herself feel a little more prepared for whatever is next. Her hand shakes slightly as she holds up the mirror, which is extremely embarrassing, but no one needs to know. A quick reapplication of lipstick, a couple stray hairs tucked back, and she figures she’s good to go.

When she lowers the mirror a bit, she nearly drops it altogether, because she catches sight of what must be Leah Rilke and her stomach drops. Shit, this is so much worse than she expected. 

Sheer panic overtakes her and she does the only thing she can think to do — what she always does in moments of acute distress: she whips out her phone and texts Dot. 

Fatin Jadmani, 6:34PM
DOROTHY
SOS
CODE FUCKING RED

Her phone starts to slide out of her hands as she follows Leah’s progress through the main room, and she quickly shoves it into her purse, wincing internally as her hand brushes up against a small, rectangular envelope that she now wishes she hadn’t brought. 

But she manages to compose herself, plastering a “normal-levels-of-excited-for-this-and-definitely-not-getting-any-ideas-about-it-being-a-date” grin on her face as the most drop-dead gorgeous girl she’s ever seen sits down in front of her with a shy smile. 

So this is Leah Rilke. Fatin remembered her mostly right — at least, in a very basic sense. She does have brown hair, but it looks so soft and shiny that Fatin almost wants to reach out and twirl a lock of it around her fingers just for the hell of it. And she does have a strong jaw, but Fatin hadn’t realized that that strong jaw also came with full lips and a smile that is somehow the perfect combination of innocent and knowing. Fatin was definitely wrong about her eyes, which are not green, but instead a very arresting shade of ocean blue that makes it hard to focus on anything else.

“Hi,” Leah says, holding her hand out right as Fatin’s phone starts vibrating insistently in her bag. Shit, probably Dot. Still, she can only put out one fire at a time, so she swiftly reaches into her bag, hits the silence button without breaking eye contact with Leah, grabs the envelope and — shit, she flew too close to the sun and now she doesn’t have a hand to shake Leah’s with. 

So she tosses the envelope on the table between them, prompting a confused glance from Leah, then takes Leah’s hand and shakes it. 

Okay, mission accomplished, not really with flying colors, but it’ll have to do. 

“Hey,” Fatin says, feeling little prickles of electricity on her palm. She lets go as soon as possible. “You must be Leah Rilke.” 

No shit, idiot.

But Leah just giggles and blushes slightly. Interesting. “Leah Rilke,” she repeats playfully, “who you did not remember from high school.” 

“Hey — once you reminded me, I remembered,” Fatin says redundantly, but Leah doesn’t give her any more flack for it, just giggles some more. Very interesting. 

“Well, it’s nice to re-meet you.” Leah’s gaze turns again to the envelope. “You come bearing gifts?”

Fatin would very much like to hold that envelope up to the candle in the middle of the table and watch it go up in flames, but it’s too late now. 

“It’s really nothing,” Fatin says quickly, gesturing for Leah to go for it. “Just — well, you’ll see. I figured I should thank you. I mean,” she corrects herself. “I wanted to thank you.” 

“Hm.” The shy smile stays in place on Leah’s lips as she picks up the envelope and turns it over, then slips a long, elegant finger — oh, god, did Fatin seriously just notice her hands? She is so totally screwed — under the envelope flap and shimmies it open. The only sound is a series of muffled buzzes from Fatin’s purse that must be the worried texts from Dot. 

“Do you need to get that?” Leah asks, raising an eyebrow and nodding at Fatin’s bag, and Fatin considers just getting up and running away, because this is all beyond embarrassing, but she doesn’t think she could rip herself away from Leah if she tried, so she just chuckles nervously. 

“Um, yeah, no, it’s just my roommate — she’s kind of a helicopter mom, you know, always gets nervous when I’m traveling,” Fatin lies, pulling out her phone and holding back a groan as she sees, as expected, a couple missed calls and a slew of missed texts from Dot. 

Dorothy, 6:37pm
Dude what? Are you OK?

Missed call: Dorothy, 6:38pm

Dorothy, 6:39pm
Did u just decline my call? You bitch
Leah is rubbing off on you huh

Dorothy, 6:40pm
Aren’t u supposed to be at dinner with her btw?
Pls answer so I know ur alive
Hello????!!!!
FATIN

Missed call: Dorothy, 6:41pm

Fatin types out a quick text to Dot, thankful for the distraction from having to watch Leah open that stupid little card. Although Fatin can’t avoid hearing Leah open the card, on account of it being a very stupid novelty card that plays Fur Elise when opened. Ugh, so stupid. 

Fatin Jadmani, 6:42PM
Am alive

Dorothy, 6:42pm
Why SOS?!

Fatin Jadmani, 6:43pm
She’s super hot
Like insanely attractive
It’s really bad

Dorothy, 6:43pm
Oh fuck you
Thought Galanis was outside your hotel with an axe or something
Go charm her socks off

Fatin tucks her phone back into her bag, then looks up in time to see Leah looking at her with a curious expression on her face, somewhere between confused and happy.

“Fatin, this is super sweet, you really didn’t have to,” Leah says softly, examining the first of Fatin’s little offerings, which is a ribbon-wrapped ticket to her concert the next night. “I was going to come anyway, you know. I already bought tickets.”

“Oh,” Fatin says. That hadn’t occurred to her — that Leah might actually have wanted to see her play enough to independently buy tickets to it. Wait, tickets? Plural? Shit, is she bringing a boyfriend? Was it super presumptuous to only give Leah one ticket? Does she think Fatin thinks she doesn’t have any friends? 

“No, it’s good, because my friend was disappointed she couldn’t come since I’m going with — ” Leah winces slightly. “ — my boss, Gretchen. She insisted.”

“Ah,” Fatin says, and wishes she had something more articulate than that, but she’s saved by Leah moving on to the other item in her envelope of goodies, which is a ludicrously expensive gift card (like, probably a lifetime supply) to that bubble tea place back in the Bay.

“And — ” Leah waves the gift card, smirking slightly. “Are you trying to lure me back west?”

“No, no,” Fatin exclaims quickly. “No, I just thought, I don’t know, that’s like, the only thing I actually really know about you is that you like that place, so I…kind of went all in.” 

“The only thing you know about me,” Leah echoes thoughtfully, smiling at the gift card, the soft, warm light from the candle flickering on her face and making her look extra glowy. “Well, we’ll have to change that tonight, won’t we?” 

Fatin doesn’t swoon. She does not swoon. She refuses to swoon. 

But, okay, fine, she swoons a little bit. Leah’s voice is just so husky, and the candlelight is just hitting her face so perfectly. 

Fatin rests her elbow on the table, and rests her chin in her hand, and bats her eyelashes, and smiles, and says, “I guess we will.”

So they do. There’s a lot of ground to cover. Despite the fact that they went to the same high school and grew up in the same area, they basically lived in different worlds. 

Fatin learns that Leah’s favorite Shakespeare play was Hamlet, and makes sure to tell her how rapturously Mrs. Wolfe had complimented her final essay, even ten years after the fact. She learns Leah didn’t know the first thing about classical music until her magazine started covering it, and that she bragged to everyone in the office for a whole month that she went to high school with the Fatin Jadmani. 

And in exchange for this, Fatin tells Leah that her parents’ original instrument choice for her had been piano, but Fatin insisted on cello. She tells Leah about her brothers, and how she has an embarrassing level of secondhand video game knowledge that she absorbed through osmosis from them. She skips her parents, though, since Leah already knows the highlights.

She learns that Leah’s best friend in high school — the one Mrs. Wolfe mentioned, an aspiring filmmaker — was named Ian, and that they drifted out of touch after Leah moved to New York. Leah is a bit cagey about that part, and Fatin wonders if there’s more to that story. Specifically, she thinks about the timeline of Galanis starting to “mentor” Leah, and wonders if it coincided with her separation from Ian, and she feels a twinge of nausea. 

And she learns that Leah, in her youth, used to dream of being a novelist. But that she gave up on that to come out to New York and get a sensible 9-5 job. 

The more Leah talks, the more it feels like she’s talking around something big. There’s something looming at the center of so many of these stories, and Fatin has a feeling it all comes back to Galanis. 

But after nearly two hours of sitting there talking, Fatin comes to the unfortunate realization that she should probably go back to her hotel room rather than propose a nightcap. She has a very strict “get the best night sleep possible before performances” policy, because nothing is more embarrassing than screwing up in front of an audience because she’s hung over or even just plain tired. 

“This was really fun, thank you,” Fatin says as she slings her purse over her shoulder. 

“Yeah, it was,” Leah agrees. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right? I mean, from afar, I guess. Or do you, like, sign programs after the concert?”

“Aw, since you’re such a big fan, of course I will.” Fatin teases, and is rewarded by Leah’s cheeks turning slightly pink. “We can even take a selfie.”

***

Fatin’s venue of the night is a modest high school auditorium, which is a setup she’s familiar with — she’s here, the audience is there, and she can’t see them. Though she has to confess she’d actually been enjoying the more intimate vibe at some of her other performances where she and the audience were on more level footing, like that one she did at a cafe in DC, or the matinee at an indie bookshop in Philly.

But tonight she’s glad she can’t see the audience, because she thinks seeing Leah might challenge her focus slightly. Even knowing she’s there is enough to throw Fatin off a little bit. She’s a seasoned professional, so it doesn’t seriously affect her performance, but she finds that intermission, which she usually spends centering herself and mentally rehearsing problem spots of the next set of pieces, brings some unbidden thoughts of Leah, and whether she’s enjoying the recital or not. 

She shoves it out of her head for the second half, and puts out what she thinks is, all things considered, a pretty passable performance. Galanis probably wouldn’t agree, but Fatin remembers with a smile that he is now utterly irrelevant. 

After the recital is over, she posts up at a table in the hallway with her Sharpie and a bottle of water, and signs programs for everyone ranging from timid high schoolers to their overbearing parents to the occasional random other community member. 

She barely registers who’s coming up to her table, just signing and chit-chatting and smiling for the occasional photo op. As things are winding down, a trio of programs lands in front of her and, as she’s midway through signing them, she looks up to see a tall blonde woman with her hair in a French twist, a girl with long, curly brown hair and a nose ring, and in between the two of them, what seems to be a walking bouquet of flowers. 

The hands holding the flowers adjust their grip slightly, and all of a sudden Leah’s face appears. Fatin can’t help but grin. 

“Fatin, this is my boss Gretchen — ” Leah says, struggling to balance the huge bouquet in one arm while pointing at the blonde woman with her free hand. “ — who is responsible for these — ” She points to the flowers. “And this is my friend Nora — ” The other girl holds her hand up and wiggles a few fingers in a sort of half-wave. “ — who was just dying to see you for herself.” 

“I wouldn’t say I was dying,” Nora clarifies evenly, gazing at Fatin. “But I enjoy Bach, and Leah speaks so highly of your talents that it piqued my interest.”

“You were talking me up, huh?” Fatin teases Leah. 

“Super-fan, what can I say?” Leah jokes self-deprecatingly, with a slight grimace, like she’s a little embarrassed that Nora exposed her like that.

“Fatin, I’m really just so terribly sorry about this whole mess,” Gretchen says solemnly, wrenching the flowers out of Leah’s hands — Leah looks momentarily surprised, then amused — and presenting them ceremoniously to Fatin. 

“It’s really all right,” Fatin says, accepting the flowers. “I mean, part of the biz, right? Keeps me on my toes. But, yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“I assure you I sent Jeffrey packing with his tail between his legs,” Gretchen continues. “And I suspect he will find it difficult to get work in the future considering I put word out with every editor I know to avoid him like the plague.”

“Oh,” Fatin says, and Leah looks like she’s stifling a giggle. “That’s — great to hear. Thanks.”

Gretchen looks at her blankly for a moment, and Fatin wonders if she said something wrong.

“Well, I would love to stay and chat,” Gretchen announces abruptly, “but I’m afraid I have to hurry home for my midnight meditation class.”

“Midnight meditation,” Fatin says, trying to keep a straight face while Leah hides behind her hands. “That sounds interesting.”

“Yes, midnight is the optimal time to align your energies,” Gretchen says without a hint of irony. “Pleasure to meet you Fatin, and if you ever need a bit of good PR, keep us in mind.”

She slips Fatin her business card, and before Fatin even has a chance to say, “Nice to meet you too,” Gretchen has turned and left the table, not a hair out of place in her sleek blond bun as she walks away. 

Leah finally succumbs to the laughing fit she’s been trying to hold back this whole time. Even her friend Nora indulges in a sensible chuckle. 

“Did she just…like, offer to run a good story about me if I get caught in a scandal or something?” 

Leah nods and wipes her eyes. “Yup.”

“Is that, like, ethical?”

“Absolutely not,” Leah says, laughing again. “But Gretchen plays by her own rules.”

“I’ve met her on a couple other occasions,” Nora chimes in. “And can assure you she’s just…like this.”

“Wow.” Fatin shakes her head in awe. “Hey, well, I’ve got to stay here a little longer, but do you guys want to grab a drink after?”

“Yes — oh — shit, are we holding up the line?” Leah looks behind her in distress. There’s not that many people left, but still, when she turns back to Fatin she looks embarrassed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to monopolize you.”

Fatin fights the urge to wink and say, “Monopolize me all you want.” Instead, she says, “Anything for a pair of super-fans like you.” She still winks, though. 

Leah rolls her eyes, but smiles as she picks up the signed programs.

“No selfie?” Fatin mock pouts. 

“Um,” Leah stammers, immediately blushing. “I didn’t — we can — ” She turns to Nora in alarm.

“I can take a photo of you,” Nora offers, with what Fatin thinks might be a mild smirk. Interesting.

Fatin jumps in, since Leah seems to be struggling with complete sentences. 

“That’d be great, thanks Nora.” 

She stands, hands Nora her phone, and beckons Leah over. Leah obliges, and, after only a moment’s hesitation, puts her arm gingerly around Fatin’s shoulder. Fatin, feeling a little emboldened by how flustered Leah seems, but also not wanting to make things too much worse for her, lets her hand rest gently on the small of her back. 

“Okay, on three, say ‘Fuck Jeff Galanis’,” Nora prompts. 

They laugh instead of saying it, but Fatin figures that’ll probably make for a cuter picture anyway. And when Nora hands her the phone to check, Leah’s arm still loosely around her shoulder, Fatin thinks it paid off. They’re both mid-laugh, but captured at exactly the right moment so that they look carefree and candid rather than deranged or like they’re about to sneeze. 

“Cute,” Leah says, looking at Fatin’s phone, and then seems to realize how close her face is to Fatin’s. She clears her throat and removes her arm from Fatin’s shoulders, then takes a tiny step back. She looks like she’s about to say something, so Fatin waits, but then she starts getting a deer-in-headlights look, so Fatin bails her out again. 

“So I’ll see you guys later, yeah?” She nods encouragingly to both Nora and Leah. “Just text me a place and I’ll meet you there?”

“Sounds good,” Leah says faintly, still looking at Fatin, and Nora has to all but steer her onwards and away from Fatin’s table. She looks back over her shoulder and smiles and waves at Fatin, and, yeah, this is all very interesting, and Fatin has a funny feeling she might not be the only one here who might have developed a bit of a crush. 

***

About an hour later, Fatin finally arrives at the bar Leah texted to her — mercifully Leah picked somewhere close to the recital venue — a little out of breath because, yes, she rushed, and yes, she’s nervous. 

Fatin waits outside for a second, checking herself in her compact mirror. She has a few flyaway hairs, and her makeup is not quite as crisp as it was five hours ago, but she’s at least not showing up in her full concert attire (she’d actually stowed a change of clothes in her cello case in the hopes that a scenario like this would present itself). So she pushes open the door and is greeted with a quiet little dive bar, off the beaten path but not so underground that it’s seedy. 

And there’s Leah, sitting at a high-top, nursing a glass bottle of beer, which for some reason surprises Fatin, because she didn’t have Leah down as a beer girl. Then again, what Brooklyn hipster wouldn’t love a craft IPA?

Fatin slides into the seat across from Leah, and Leah gives Fatin a smile that is somehow the most alluring possible mix of shy and open. It’s like, she’s happy to see Fatin, and she wants Fatin to know she’s happy to see her, but she’s also a little self-conscious about how happy she is to see Fatin and is trying not to be obvious about it. 

Or maybe Fatin’s reading too much into it. 

“No Nora?” Fatin asks, trying to sound disappointed. 

“Oh, yeah, she doesn’t like staying out late,” Leah says with a shrug that also doesn’t seem terribly disappointed. “So I guess it’s just you and me.” 

Yeah, Leah definitely doesn’t sound disappointed about that last part. 

“What’s that? Any good?” Fatin nods at Leah’s beer, and her heart speeds up a little bit when Leah holds it out to her. God, what is wrong with me? Why am I all flustered about a pretty girl offering me a sip of her drink?

Fatin takes a tiny sip, not breaking eye contact with Leah — Dot would never let her hear the end of this, seriously, a sexually charged sip of beer? — then clears her throat and nods. 

“Not bad,” she says uselessly, and hops up to order one from the bar before Leah can add anything else. 

As she waits for the bartender to meander on over to her, she mentally splashes cold water on her face. Get it the fuck together Jadmani. She’s been on a million dates, with a million men and women. This isn’t even really a date. But the point is, even if it was, there’s no reason why it should feel out of the ordinary. Everything is fine and normal. 

Fine and normal. Fine and normal. This is Fatin’s mantra as she walks back to the high-top. 

And it is fine and normal. They laugh and joke about Gretchen — Leah tells her some frankly unbelievable stories about Gretchen’s workplace antics — and Leah compliments Fatin on her performance. It’s all fine and normal. 

And then a couple beers in, Fatin makes a potentially vibe-killing move. 

“So, sorry, I have to ask,” she says, fidgeting with the flimsy cardboard coaster that’s doing a lousy job of keeping condensation off the table. “I know it’s probably none of my fucking business. But — ” 

She pauses, again unable to take the final plunge. It feels wrong to pry about something so sensitive. But she wants to know, because — and she knows this is a crazy thing to say about a girl she’s spent maybe three hours with in person — she’s finding that she seems to care about Leah. 

Leah sighs across from her, not sounding angry, but weary, like she was expecting this all along. 

“You want to know about Jeff. About me and Jeff.” 

Fatin nods, risking a glance up at Leah and trying to look as apologetic as possible. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Fatin says. “It’s just — Mrs. Wolfe was telling me — ” And then it all comes spilling out. “— that he, like, mentored you when you were in high school, which, I don’t know, it just seems gross, and I read the reviews of his book and between that and what he wrote about me I think it’s safe to say he’s a total creep, and I guess I just wanted to know…” 

“Wanted to know what?” Leah asks weakly. 

Fatin chews on the inside of her lip. “If I need to, like, murder him, I guess.”

Leah chuckles, looking down at her beer. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t stop you.”

“Look, you really don’t have to tell me if it’s like, too much,” Fatin says, itching to reach out for Leah’s hand, but feeling like that would be yet another overstepping of her boundaries. 

“No, I think you deserve to know,” Leah says evenly, although she doesn’t quite meet Fatin’s eyes. She takes a deep breath. “So, yeah, he mentored me. You probably won’t be surprised to find out it…turned into more than that.”

Fatin isn’t surprised, but it still sucks to hear it officially confirmed. 

Leah shakes her head slowly and continues. “I was seventeen, and god, I really thought I was in love with him. And that he was in love with me. And, I mean, maybe it was true. Thing is — ” She grimaces. “I may have let him believe I was eighteen. And then he found out I wasn’t. And then that was it.”

Leah laughs sarcastically and starts rocking her beer bottle back and forth on one of its edges, almost manic in her movements. 

“Except it wasn’t,” Leah says bitterly. “He broke it off, but couldn’t stay away. We were on and off and on and off for years. He convinced me to come out to New York, said it would be better for my career than trying to hack it as a novelist. He even put in a good word with Gretchen to get me the job here.”

Yeah, murder definitely sounds like the answer. Grisly, slow, torturous murder. 

“You know what finally broke us up for good?” Leah says, looking up at Fatin, her eyes a little shiny. 

Fatin shakes her head, a microscopically small movement, afraid that if she moves too abruptly she’ll spook Leah, but wanting to demonstrate that she’s paying attention. 

Leah finishes off the last of her beer, then sets the bottle down unsteadily and smiles crookedly at Fatin. 

“I got promoted to editor. He didn’t.”

“Jesus,” Fatin breathes. “Fucking slimebag.” 

“Yeah.” 

“He deserves worse than what we did,” Fatin says, feeling a little emotion creep into her voice. “Way fucking worse.”

“I know.” 

“Shit, Leah, I’m sorry.” Fatin finally decides to take a gamble and extends her arm slowly, gently across the table, and when Leah doesn’t move away, Fatin covers Leah’s hand with her own. For a moment, they’re frozen like that. Then Leah smiles gratefully at Fatin. And then she sends Fatin into a state of short circuiting by flipping her hand over so they can fully hold hands. 

“It’s all in the past now,” Leah says, not quite convincingly. “I’m just glad he got some karma.”

“Hey, speaking of karma, you know what I was thinking a while ago?” 

Leah tilts her head and raises her eyebrows, inviting Fatin to continue. 

Fatin slips her hand out of Leah’s and leans forward on her elbows. 

“So you know how Galanis wrote that book? Have you seen the Goodreads reviews for it?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty bad.” A corner of Leah’s mouth turns up, and Fatin thinks those shitty reviews probably make Leah just as happy as they make Fatin. 

“Well I was thinking,” Fatin says conspiratorially, “wouldn’t it be fun to make them even worse.”

Leah breaks into a grin and she leans forward too. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“Yes,” Fatin says. “I was going to do it anyway, but now I feel like maybe we should team up. I was gonna wait a while, let him think this all blew over, then bam — ” She makes a fist with one hand and punches it into her other palm. “Hit ‘im with the old review bomb. Give him a taste of his own medicine. You want in?”

“Fatin, it would be my honor,” Leah says seriously, putting a hand over her heart. 

“Good, ‘cause I’m gonna need someone who’s good with words,” Fatin jokes. 

“Oh, you think I’m good with words?” A smile plays at Leah’s mouth. 

“Well, honestly, I can’t say for sure,” Fatin admits sheepishly. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually read something you wrote. But I assume you are. I mean, if Mrs. Wolfe singing your praises is anything to go by — ”

Leah groans and puts her head in her hands. “Oh, my god, she is so overdramatic. Let me guess, I’m like, absolutely brilliant and a total genius.”

“Basically,” Fatin chuckles. “But I guess I’ll have to wait ‘till you finish that novel to see for myself.”

Leah purses her lips. “Right. My novel. The one I haven’t touched in three years.”

“Yeah, that one,” Fatin confirms. “Just finish it. I’ll make, like, twelve sock puppet accounts and give you a ton of 5-star reviews on Goodreads.”

Leah snorts. “Wow, my hero.” 

“I do what I can,” Fatin shrugs, and the crazy thing is, looking at Leah, she thinks she’d definitely do something that cringey and tryhard if it meant making her smile. 

Oh, she’s a goner. 

***

They stay till the bartenders start sideyeing them, trying to soft launch them out of there so they can close, and the two of them tumble out the door clinging onto each other and laughing at some joke Fatin’s already forgotten by the time she gets caught staring. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Leah murmurs, her features soft and warm under the streetlight. 

“Um —” Fatin laughs self-consciously, then decides to take the plunge. Sure, it’s a gamble, but it always is, and Leah’s given her some pretty ironclad signs tonight that this isn’t a bad idea. 

She leans in, but she soon discovers there isn’t as much space between them as she thought there was, and instead of a tender peck, it ends up being a rather inelegant smack of her face against Leah’s. 

She pulls back immediately, and claps her hand over her lips, as if she can prevent her traitorous mouth from pulling some dumbass stunt like that again. She glances at Leah in shock and alarm for only a millisecond before looking away, at the pavement, at the street, at the cars, wondering if she should maybe hail a taxi and skip town. 

“Sorry,” Fatin mumbles, her words muffled by her hand. “I have no idea what the fuck that was.” 

“I’m assuming — ” Leah starts, then interrupts herself by dissolving into giggles. But she must see the look on Fatin’s face, because she gets it under control quickly and clears her throat. “I’m assuming it was supposed to be a kiss?”

“Mm-hm.” Fatin’s voice comes out a little strangled and very high-pitched, and she brings her other hand up so that she’s hiding her whole face in her hands. 

There’s nothing for a moment, then a gentle tap on her knuckles.

“Well, don’t you want to try again?” Leah says gently, with a hint of her laughter from a moment ago lingering in her voice. 

Fatin peeks through her fingers and sees Leah smiling encouragingly at her, without a hint of condescension, looking just as angelic as she did a couple seconds ago in the glow of the streetlight. 

“Um,” Fatin squeaks, then takes her hands off her face and collects herself. “You know,” she says unsteadily, “I think it might be your turn to try.” 

If Fatin were on her game, it probably would’ve sounded a lot more suave than it actually did. As it is, it just sounded sort of squeaky. But Leah doesn’t seem to mind, a corner of her lip twitching before she leans in and kisses Fatin, with what might be exaggerated gentleness, but Fatin doesn’t really care enough to untangle that, preferring instead to tangle her hands in Leah’s hair. 

***

Dorothy, 9:15am
[link]
did you guys bang last night lol

Fatin squints at her phone in confusion. 

Fatin Jadmani, 9:17am
huh? no we just went out for drinks
ok we kissed a little but we did not bang
why do you ask

Then she taps on the link, and it takes her to an article on Leah’s magazine’s website. A review for her concert, and when she checks the author byline in a panic, thinking maybe Galanis has come back to haunt her, she finds instead the words “Arts & Literature Editorial Board.” That effectively means Leah, right? 

She reads on, puzzled.

You could be forgiven for thinking you won’t be able to concentrate on any music when Fatin Jadmani walks onstage. She has a captivating presence, the kind of person who can silence the room just by raising her bow and hovering it over the string. You hold your breath, a charged silence filling up the room, until suddenly, without pretension or drama, with a quick movement of her elbow, she begins playing…

Fatin doesn’t realize her mouth is hanging open until she notices her jaw starting to hurt. Leah wrote that? Leah thinks that highly of her? 

Dorothy, 9:22am
You have to admit she’s writing like someone who totally got laid 

Fatin Jadmani, 9:23am
or maybe im just a great cellist dorothy
did you ever think of that

Dorothy, 9:24am
Is that what they call it these days?

Fatin Jadmani, 9:24am
shut your mouth

Fatin huffs and puts her phone down right as it starts ringing with a call from Leah.

“Hey,” Fatin answers with a smile. “Long time no—”

“Is the review totally over the top?” Leah blurts out. “I’m so sorry, if it’s like, weirdly admiring or something I can pull it. I know you’ve had enough weirdness from the magazine already and I don’t wanna sound like I’m some kind of stalker too, although I guess like, at least I have a good opinion of you — ”

“No, no,” Fatin cuts her off. “I was touched. Seriously, if this is what you being a stalker looks like, I’ll take it. But…” She pauses, considering whether this is too bold. “What’s your official review of the date?”

Leah chuckles on the other end. “The editorial board was very impressed.”

“Well, please inform the editorial board that a valid opinion can’t be formed until at least three dates, because one good one could totally be a fluke.”

“Well,” Leah echoes, “I suppose the code of journalistic integrity would dictate that the editorial board should do its due diligence.”

“Wait, so, that’s a yes, right?”

“Yes,” Leah laughs. “Are you going to be in town for a bit?”

“Just for another day,” Fatin says, fighting warring feelings of giddiness and disappointment, because she wants to see Leah again — but her schedule doesn’t seem to permit it. “Then I’m heading back to the Bay. Hometown tour coming up and all that. But now that I know I won’t get run out of town by Galanis every time I come to the east coast, I should be back more often.”

Leah hums on the other end of the line. “Well, I’m overdue for a trip back home anyway. What do you say we hit that bubble tea place and brainstorm some insults for our Goodreads review?”

“Sounds perfect. It’s a date.”

“All right,” Leah says. “See you then.”

“See you then,” Fatin says, and the call ends, and Fatin grins, and she keeps grinning, visions of blue eyes and lychee bubbles running through her head. 

Dorothy, 9:35am
This is gonna be such a fun story to tell at your wedding