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“So I can eat my yogurt in private, obviously,” Remy said. “My brother would kick my ass if he saw me eating…what is this…Fruit on the Bottom Razzmatazz.”
“That’s the best one!” Vivi said. “What’s your brother got against yogurt?”
Remy shrugged a little and, now that he knew a camera wouldn’t catch him, sat on the couch that was more or less the most comfortable thing he’d ever sat on. He peeled open the yogurt as he answered, “My brother believes in a few basic food groups. All involve off-brand Fritos, much to his girlfriend’s dismay.”
“Val is older, right?” Vivi asked. Remy made a noise of concurrence, and she went on, “I have a younger brother.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mm-hmm. Three years. He wants to be an actor. Maybe. He’s studying drama, anyhow.”
“You guys close?” Remy asked, staring at the spoon absently as he spoke.
Vivi hesitated for a few moments—long enough that Remy stopped staring at the spoon and became very certain he’d asked the wrong thing. Finally, she said, “Not really. He was only ten when my first album released, so he’s kind of…I mean, he’s been Vivi Swan’s little brother ever since, you know? People online are so terrible to him. It’s like, when they get tired of calling me overrated or fat or a heartbreaker, they set in on him,” Vivi said.
“The internet is full of assholes, though. I’m sure he knows that.”
“Yeah, but he also knows why those assholes came after him,” Vivi said, voice a little sharper. It made Remy still, though not from discomfort—from familiarity. He knew this tone, this exhaustion, the weariness of being told something wasn’t your fault when it so clearly was. It was always terrible to be lied to but even worse when you’d already accepted the truth.
“What about you and Val? You’ve always been so close?” Vivi asked, sounding both eager and hesitant to change the subject.
“Yeah—definitely. We were all we had. Crazy weird religious family thing,” Remy answered.
“Makes sense,” Vivi said thoughtfully. “What about your parents?”
Even Celeste only knew scant details of his and Val’s life in Florida, their family, their past, and she’d had to earn that knowledge over the course of years. Yet here he was, wondering if he should grant Vivi rights to it in…days? Twelvehours, maybe, if you lined up every conversation they’d had end to end. Vivi had one of those voices, though, one of those faces and those eyes and that tone that made you want to tell her things.
Remy fought it back.
“It’s complicated,” Remy said, settling for an incomplete truth. “They never really believed in the music thing.”
“Really? Even after Quiet Coyote?”
“Especially after Quiet Coyote. If it’s not a praise song played on an organ, they’re not interested,” Remy said.
Vivi exhaled loudly into the receiver. “Can’t please everyone, I guess,” she said. A long pause went by, and Remy found himself smiling through it, though he wasn’t sure why. “Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t keep you on the phone just to entertain me, huh? I can go work on the song.”
Remy nodded, even though she couldn’t see him, and thought about how he’d agreed to attend the Bus Three group thing in the hotel tonight. The prospect sounded terrible, now, when there was…this.
Remy grimaced as he spoke. “Yeah, I should probably get back anyway. Besides, I already drank all your sparkling water. If I stay, I might eat all this yogurt.”
“You can have all the yogurt,” Vivi said immediately.
“Oh.” He paused then spoke cautiously. “Want to work through the song again and I’ll just hang out on the line and jump in if I hear anything? I have some work to do on my laptop anyway.”
“Yes,” she said, sounding almost relieved. She was smiling, though again Remy wasn’t sure how he knew that. “I’ll put you on speaker. I’m putting the phone down now.”
“Got it,” Remy said and listened to the rustle of movement. He passed the phone back and forth between hands to make it sound like he was doing the same. Instead, he lay back on the couch, toeing his shoes off as he did so. He didn’t have anything to work on, not really—or at least, nothing more interesting to him than the idea of closing his eyes to screens for a little while.
He listened to the hushed scratch of Vivi playing the song, notes dancing off her fingertips so quietly that he could barely hear it. She must have been writing something down as she did it, as she’d pause every now and again and he’d hear the rustle of paper. Remy wondered how her fingers looked on the strings—he’d never seen her play so quietly, never seen her play without being on a stage surrounded by lights. He thought her fingers might arc over the strings like jointed rainbows.
He thought they were probably beautiful. How could they not be?
