“Well…” Vinyl drawled, walking through the corridor and peeking into the offices. “Nothing has changed but the name.” She looked into her brother’s office, where an old newspaper still rested. “So it seems.” Her steps slowed down as she reached the end of the corridor, coming to a halt in front of the familiar door.

“Vinyl…” Octavia said cautiously, placing her hand on her lover’s shoulder. She’d never been to the label before, but this was Vinyl’s life… And, glancing at the door, she knew exactly whose door it was… Whose door it had been. “If you don’t want to-”

“No,” Vinyl said with determination. “No. I. I will.” She took a deep breath and shut her eyes. “It’s my label. It’s my office. It isn’t Dad’s office anymore.” Forcefully, she grabbed the handle and opened the door.

Vinyl gasped a little upon seeing the insides of the office. It was an empty, barren wasteland. Only the desk remained, standing still in the middle of the vacuum and the sharp, eerie silence of the room. The spinner took a step inside hesitantly. “I knew Neon made a mess out of the office, and that it had to be cleaned… but…” She felt her knees weaken, and Octavia stormed over to her, ready to catch her if she fell; but Vinyl straightened herself. “Okay. I… This is for the better. We can use this as a storage room.” She managed a weak, faulty smile. “Some changes are for the better. Little changes that… that…” She walked over to the wall and sat on the floor by it.

Octavia walked over to her hastily. “Vinyl, love, if you want to leave or, um, if you want to tell me something, I…” She sighed and leant against the wall. “What I mean is, I’m always here for you.”

“When I was little,” Vinyl said, “I listened to a lot of classical jazz. But Neon, he couldn’t distinguish between jazz sub-genres.” The spinner chuckled, remembering the brighter parts of her childhood. “So he bought me Bill Evans’ On Green Dolphin Street. I loved the music,” Vinyl assured, “but I loved the cover art even more. The bridge, the old house in the background, and the lonely lamppost.” She sighed, closing her eyes and enjoying the memory.

Octavia didn’t date interrupt her: not just verbally, but with an uneasy nod or a curious sound: she knew how sensitive Vinyl’s hearing was. Instead, she just sat on the floor next to her lover and lent her her ears.

“So one day, I was walking around,” Vinyl continued, frowning as she spoke. “Neon and I had just had a row, so I was on edge, walking towards wherever my feet were guiding me, and smoking cigarette after cigarette. I didn’t really see where I was going, but eventually I ended up in some dark and crazy nook of the city, on the outskirts.” The woman paused, looking around the near-empty office. “There was a bridge in front of me. And, just on the other side of the bridge, there was an old house, from, like the Thirties or something.” Vinyl sighed dreamily. “There was a great cherry garden there, with little white cherries. I would sneak out there and pick them up.”

Vinyl fell silent, and Octavia, while realising that her lover needed to get this off her chest, still asked, “Why are you telling me this, love? I mean,” she quickly offered, “it’s a nice story, but… is there something beneath it?”

“Yes and no.” Vinyl groaned and got up from the floor groggily. “It’s just, I guess, an example of change. Pertaining to our previous argument. I mean, there was a house and a cherry garden.” She offered Octavia a hand, and the cellist stood up as well.

“And now the house is gone?” Octavia asked sympathetically.

“Last time I checked, the house and the garden are still there,” Vinyl said, walking towards the door. “But the cherry trees don’t bloom anymore.” She froze, looking over the office just with her eyes. Then, with a heavy sigh, she waved her hand. “Let’s go, Tavi. Let’s see if Frederic wants to join the F Records as a session pianist.”

Octavia laughed, her heart soaring upwards at the mention of her friend getting to know her lover in normal circumstances. Maybe they could bond over music? She and Vinyl had bonded over music for sure. “You decided to keep the name?”

Vinyl shrugged, closing the door behind her as she left. “Let it be a homage to our new session pianist. If he decides to take up the offer.” She wrapped her arms around Octavia, who smiled boldly and pushed Vinyl into one of the empty offices.

“Oh…” Octavia traced Vinyl’s cheek with her fingers, holding the spinner’s waist with the other hand. “I’m sure he will.” She leant over, making sure that her hot summer breath was falling onto Vinyl’s ear. “How about some steamy sex in a steamy office?”

Vinyl exhaled in content, forgetting all her worries. “I thought you’d never ask.”

***

“When I was a kid, we…” Neon laughed, stopping himself from launching into a tale. “No, wait, that sounds like I’m about to unfold a story for you. Let’s just say, we all had our special places when we were kids, right?”

The doctor nodded in silent agreement, writing down scribbles on his paper.

“When I was a kid, there was this tiny amusement park by the pond. Crazy rides and whack-a-moles, nothing but.” Neon took out a cigarette and lit it without asking. “That was my special place. When Dad got rough, I ran there and whacked those fucking moles, one by one.”

The black man opposite him lit a cigarette as well. “You had to find an outlet for your aggression, and it is quite noble that you didn’t take it out on your peers.” He put down the pen and took a deep drag.

“That’s not the point,” Neon objected, placing the cigarette into the ashtray after a few short, concentrated puffs. “When I grew up a little and became an early teen, the amusement park was closed. But then my sister found an old house by the river, with a cherry garden. It became her special place. She thought I was far when she went there to be on her own, but,” Neon chuckled, “I was nearer than she could imagine.” He lifted his eyes to the doctor. “Round the corner there was a baptist church. They didn’t build it: they took an old jazz club and repurposed the building.”

Neon took back the cigarette. “I met their priest when he was playing guitar by the underground, singing about how not paying for your fare was stealing from your brother.” The man laughed, placing the cigarette back without taking a drag. “I didn’t like the message, but I liked the music. We made friends.” The doctor raised his brow. “It was all right and honest,” Neon assured. “They thought he was a paedophile, but he really just loved children.” Neon emphasised, “In the pure sense of the word.”

“So you were escaping to the baptist church after you’d made friends with the priest?” The doctor extinguished his cigarette.

Neon nodded. “Pretty much.” He sighed and picked up the cigarette once again, inspecting it closely. “I have no idea why I told you all this. I wanted to say something completely different.” The doc raised his head questioningly. “I’ve talked to Madeline today. It felt… all right. A nice, friendly talk. There is some tension on her side, and I suppose there is some tension on mine, but, all in all, I hope we can be friends.”

“That’s good to hear.” The doctor smiled.

“Yes.” Neon sighed, extinguishing his cigarette. “Good to hear.”

***

“Truce?” Vinyl offered her hand cautiously, feeling like a high general in wartime. Granted, this was a very similar situation: two parties on a neutral territory (Octavia’s flat, in this case). The spinner didn’t know if she could believe this man, the smiling man who had once had her label - and her girlfriend. But peace was necessary. Yet, peace didn’t equal trust.

“Truce.” Frederic shook the tiny hand with a smile. Then, he opened his arms wide, as if attempting a hug. “And complete disarmament on my side.”

Octavia nodded, smiling. This was good. Peace was good. Maybe, in a while, they would be able to make friends and do things together, the three of us. Yes, and a threesome would be- Devil Octavia began to suggest, but Angel Octavia hit her with a stick. Hard.

“Well,” Vinyl drawled, “I’ll keep a knife, just in case.” Vinyl was speaking half-jokingly but with steel in her eyes still.

For a moment, Octavia flinched, but Frederic just let out a good-natured laugh. “All right,” he said warmly, “where’s the piano? You need me to record something, but I can’t just sit there writing sheet music,” he explained. “I need to improvise a little, then improvise some more, then I remember some of the passages and put them down to paper.”

“Here’s the rub,” Octavia chimed in, pointing at the corner of the large room. “We don’t have a piano, so here’s a full midi keyboard connected to a laptop, which kinda sounds like a piano.” She winced at Frederic’s deadpan stare. “Yeah… Just try it?”

The pianist shrugged and walked towards the midi keyboard, sitting on the stool conveniently prepared by the cellist and the spinner. He took a few chords and nodded in appreciation. “Well, the feeling of the keys is a little off, but the sound is almost like a real piano.”

“Of course,” Vinyl replied a touch defensively. “My VSTs are amazing.” She sat on the sofa, eyeing the pianist curiously. “So…” She shrugged. “Are we interrupting or-?”

“I need to hear your tune first,” Frederic said, rotating on the stool to face the women. “You asked me to make an intro and do piano part for the first part. I’ll still need to hear the whole tune,” he explained, “in order to see just how sharp is the transition to the second part. To know how to finish the piano part.”

Vinyl nodded slowly, this time with a shade of respect that seemed to Octavia a very good omen. She got up and, approaching the laptop, hit the spacebar. The music erupted out of it, and Frederic closed his eyes, vanishing in the sound altogether, becoming null, disintegrated in the beats and the cello. Once the song was finished, he asked Vinyl to put it on again. Once the cello cued in, Frederic pressed his fingers against the keys and began to play. At first, he played seventh chords, bright, sparkling, serene. They mixed so well with the general theme of the river floating downwards. When the electronica part intenisified, the chords grew weaker, then turned into diminished ones, creating a warning: there’s a waterfall ahead! beware! And, just as the silence on the record pointed towards the fall, he quickly withdrew his hands, and nothing interrupted the drop.

“Well…” Frederic rubbed the back of his head and smiled. “Something like that. I have a general idea of what to play in the intro, but it’s not yet fully formed. Of course, this is a rough draft, but…” He shrugged. “Feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes.”

“Frederic, that was wonderful!” Octavia chimed in, wrapping her arms around the pianist, much to Vinyl’s displeasure. “I think we’re on to something here. So…” She looked at Vinyl hopefully, as if asking if they could adopt a puppy from the streets. “Are we taking Freddie as our session pianist?”

Vinyl looked at the bright, cheerful man, and she saw a pure, untainted passion in his eyes. But it wasn’t passion for Octavia. It wasn’t even passion for their tune or music in general. It was a passion for the piano. His eyes held the love for the instrument, such love that Vinyl questioned herself if this man really was as honest as Octavia had pictured him. A man with such a love could not be a hypocrite or a bad man.

So, the spinner smiled back. “Of course. His music is just what we need to hear.”

Next Chapter: 10. Finishing Touches Estimated time remaining: 21 Minutes