you reconnect with a musician you used to perform alongside. you’re both retired now, she teaches music and you own a coffee shop, and the years have been hard — maybe they would have been easier if you’d spent them together. it’s a good thing there’s always a chance for a fresh start.
She sits down across from you in the cafe. She looks down at her hands on the table as she spins one of her rings anxiously around her finger.
You clear your throat awkwardly and try to begin. “So… you don’t play anymore?”
“God, no,” she shakes her head. “Not professionally, anyway. I mean I’m a music teacher- just nothing on stage. That part of my life is behind me.”
“That’s a shame,” you smile. “You were so talented.”
“So were you.”
You go silent. It makes you nervous to think back on all of those years, to recall memories of stage lights and the instrument in your hand and Isadora in the wings watching and preparing for her own performance the next night. The two of you were unstoppable back then.
“You’re teaching?” You ask. “Are you at Nevermore?”
She nods, meeting your eyes.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s different,” she admits. “I thought my students would be more…”
“Attentive?”
“I suppose. I thought they would consider music as more than a class credit for a required elective.”
“Like we did,” you say. “We were such nerds when we were in school…”
“It paid off,” she shrugs, “for a while.”
You take a sip of your coffee and she follows suit with her own. It’s fresh and rich and steaming hot, a product of your own cafe. You’ve been running it in Jericho for years now, ever since you quit the spotlight that came with performing music with Isadora. And after the two of you lost contact, you were truly out on your own.
“You opened this place,” Isadora observes as if reading your mind. She takes a look around, her awed gaze moving from the workers at the cafe counter to the tables, the drinks, to you. “It’s beautiful. Really. The Halloween decorations look so nice, too.”
“Thank you,” you smile, looking out into the cafe. You’ve strung Halloween themed garlands to drape down the counter and you’ve stuck window clings to the windows of witches, zombies, and goblins, and tiny decorative plastic pumpkins have been placed on tables around the shop.
But even despite the pleasantry, neither of you know what to say. And you can’t even really say there is much at all that you want to say to Isadora. You stopped performing together, you separated, and that was that. You went your separate ways and both of you were better for it.
“I found a couple of records the other day,” she says. “There were some at Nevermore, they were displayed as… memorabilia. An example of ‘outcast success’ to inspire the students. Music of mine and music of yours was displayed. I kept them, you know. I stole them from the music room… but if you’d like to come over and listen to them sometime…”
“I would love to.”
“Are you free tonight?”
You’re always free for her. So when evening rolls around you find yourself knocking on her door, waiting anxiously with your hands stuffed in the pockets of your coat and the cold October air biting at you through the fabric.
The door opens, she stands across from you. And though she’s not standing out in the cold like you are, she’s dressed in just as many layers, as many sweaters, and in one hand she holds a mug of hot tea.
“You came,” she muses, as though surprised. Then she backs away from the entry. “Don’t just stand out in the cold.”
You smile and follow her inside, releasing a heavy breath as the warmth of her home encompasses you.
“Let me get you some tea,” she offers, rushing into the kitchen before you can protest. “It gets a little drafty in here, it’s nice to have something warm to hold. Power went out the other night, actually, and it was just awful.”
“I can imagine,” you nod. But despite her claims, her home is beautiful — it’s small in a way you consider quite cozy, the living room bearing a deep brown sofa and two armchairs, all adorned with autumnal white, orange, and crimson throw pillows and thick, heavy blankets.
Isadora comes back with your tea, passing it into your hands and leading you over to the sofa to sit down. She takes an armchair near you and picks up a record on the coffee table, one of yours from your old days of performing, and hands it to you.
You look at the date of release and a small smile makes its way to your lips. “I can’t believe how fast the years have gone by.”
“For both of us,” she says, picking up the record below it: one of hers. “It’s like another lifetime.”
“I’m glad it’s not. Otherwise we wouldn’t have met.”
She shakes her head. “I think we would’ve found a way. I would have come into your coffee shop and I would have seen the person behind the counter and struck up some useless conversation about the weather or sports I don’t watch because I would have thought—”
She stops talking, staring down at the record.
“What?” You press. “What would you have thought?”
Isadora meets your eyes. “I would have thought you were incredible. Just like I always have.”
“Our meeting is fated, then? In every lifetime?”
“One way or another. Does that sound bad?”
“No,” you correct. “It sounds beautiful. And it sounds right. I don’t know what I would have done without you in this lifetime, let alone any other.”
“It looks like you’ve done pretty well in the years since we last met.”
“It looks like it,” you agree.
She understands. Because it looks like she’s done alright too, but it just looks like it, and looks can be deceiving.
You take a sip of your tea. Raspberry.
“It’s so strange,” she says quietly, “talking to you again. It’s been years but it feels like we’ve been together for… forever.”
“Maybe things would have been easier that way,” you agree. “After we both stopped playing music, it felt like…”
“There wasn’t an excuse anymore,” she finishes, “for us to talk.”
“Exactly.”
“You don’t need an excuse,” Isadora says, standing and moving to sit down on the sofa next to you. “I hope you know that you never need an excuse. You never did.”
“Is this some sort of first date?”
“Do you want it to be?”
“Yes,” you answer without hesitation.
“Then it is.”
“And how did you imagine this night going?”
She considers it, shifting a little closer to you, fiddling with a loose thread on one of the sleeves of her sweater. “Well, I thought you would come over and I would make you that tea. Then we would sit down and I would show you these records and bring up how beautiful autumn is in Jericho.”
“You haven’t done that part yet.”
“Autumn is so beautiful in Jericho,” she says in a fake, exaggerated voice, holding up a miniature plastic pumpkin decoration from the coffee table to accentuate it.
“Then what?”
“Then I planned on you sort of, well, falling in love with me all over again.”
“Again?” You smile, deciding to tease her. “Have I been in love with you before?”
“Of course you have. It’s obvious.”
“Then carry on.”
“That’s all I came up with,” she shrugs. “I’m not all that good at being charming.”
an isadora fic was originally going to be the last day of my halloween event but I decided to post something early :)
also! I just made a rlly gay discord server to talk about queer fandoms and connect with ppl and EVERYONE is welcome whether ik you or not so if you’re interested here is the link to join!!
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
annaxmalina
dededos
areudirty
