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And so the mattress march continued on, two bottles of soda clinking together.

Chapter 19 Signy, Fortune

Typically, Signy and Otto spent a couple of hours after dinner listening to the Friday Night Live Jam on K-NYT, which he enjoyed and she had grown to. But on a night like tonight, when the rain was pouring and the reception was terrible, they resorted to plan B: whatever Otto was in the mood to put on and talk over.

“Ah, I just love the layers in this,” Otto said from his easy chair, pointing at the speakers filling the living room with sound. A shelf crammed with nothing but boxes of memory sticks stood alongside, each filled with rips of various albums and recordings. You could listen to music online, sure, but Otto lived in dread fear of a server bank going down, denying him access to that one specific recording of that one specific show. His was a hoard well curated.

Otto bopped his gray-haired head along to the music, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “See, this is why people who get snobby about pop are missing out,” he said. “Listen to that. Listen to those chords. Nothing is wasted here. This isn’t fluff, this is a well-oiled machine. It’s got structure. Mm!” He closed his eyes and tapped his feet. “These kids know what they’re doing.”

Signy, balled snugly up in a corner of the couch, cradling her half-drunk mug of chicory, took his word for it. She loved listening to music, but she couldn’t dissect it like he could. It made her very happy to skim the surface in the company of someone who understood everything that flowed underneath. “What’s this band called?”

“Pocket Posey,” Otto said.

“Where’d you find them?”

“Sam gave me this,” he said. “You know how she is—cool kid like that always knows the new stuff.”

Signy smirked, given that the cool kid in question was in her early forties. “How’s it going with her new boss?” she asked. “I forgot to ask last time she was in.”

Otto shook his head. “He’s a traditionalist.”

“Oh, no,” Signy said, grimacing.

Otto gave a knowing nod. “Doesn’t like breaks, doesn’t like chitchat, doesn’t leave people alone when they go home. Just wants to push updates and doesn’t care how.”

“Poor Sam.” For as good as she was with code, her reward thus far had been a string of truly maddening employers. “How’s she handling it?”

“Heh, well—” Otto pointed again at the speakers. “There’s a track on this album called ‘The King Can’t Swim with His Pockets Full.’ So. You know. She’s finding outlets.”

Signy made a mental note to make sure she had some cilantro starters in stock when Sam next came by. Sam enjoyed cilantro, but never kept it alive for long. “I love not having a boss,” she said.

Otto rocked his head in ambivalence as he reached for the cookie tin. “They’re not all bad,” he said. “Margaret was a gem.” His former producer, and a dearly missed friend.

Signy smiled. “I wish I’d met her.”

“Me too,” Otto said, crunching a peppermint wafer. He offered Signy the tin; she shook her head. “Although I think you might’ve butted heads.”

“Really?” Signy laughed. “Why?”

“Because you know what you’re about, and god help us, so did she.”

“That doesn’t mean we’d have to fight.”

Otto gave her another wry look. “Henry once said—oh, hang on—” He got to his feet, took hold of his cane, and walked to the radio cabinet.

“What is it?”

“I don’t like this next track as much.” He tapped his thumb on the controls to skip ahead. “Henry once said there were three things to always be prepared for: eruptions, funerals, and Margaret.”

Signy snorted at that. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you how they got along.”

“Heh. Well.” Otto grinned as he took a few careful steps toward his chair. The music shifted to something more mellow. “If we weren’t in production, they were thick as thieves. Before we hit post, though”—he paused as he began to fold back down, and didn’t speak again until he’d landed—“there was no quicker way to burn his biscuits than for him to get a note like ‘Margaret says the closing theme needs to be six seconds shorter.’ He’d go storming down the hall, they’d fight like rain and baking soda, and I’d make myself scarce.” He chuckled to himself. “She gave me a world of shit when I told her I was marrying him, but she cried like a baby at the wedding. Got us the nicest gift, too.”

“What was that?” Signy asked, sipping her chicory.

“Tickets for an eclipse flight. You never went on one of those, did you?”

“No,” Signy said. Sightseeing flights had gone the way of the kiddie catapult well before she’d grown old enough to go.