Kieran made her meeting on time, barely. Smiled winningly when her editor questioned her progress. Produced her first draft that was actually, sort of okay and not complete rubbish as feared, and breathed a sigh of relief when she got an extension of a whole month. A month! That was a lifetime in publishing.

Kieran danced in the ladies room in delight where she’d retreated to collapse in relief in relative privacy. Ziggy reapplied her own lip gloss and then Kieran’s when she realized her hands were shaking too much.

“Enough Monsters for a week. You’ll blow out your heart.”

“And you’re on espresso number what now?”

“I can take it.” Ziggy smiled like the smartarse she was. Kieran didn’t really mind. Ziggy was the brilliant one. She’d arranged the best publicity for Kieran when she was starting out on MySpace and then expanded their reach when YouTube took off for the stars. Kieran wouldn’t be who she was if her college roommate hadn’t taken pity on her and made her a star.

“Have I told you I love you today?”

Ziggy considered that. “Probably. But do go on.”

Kieran threw her arms around her best friend. “I love you. You are noble, made of the stuff of stars and should be married to Cate Blanchett, for only you are worthy of her beauty and greatness.”

“Shit, that was almost a marriage proposal. I should be married to Cate Blanchett, shouldn’t I?” Ziggy smiled at her own reflection and at Kieran’s beside her. “At least we’re evenly matched.” She turned around and propped herself on the sink. “And you brought your best today. Good. I’ve been worried about you.” That worry began to seep back into her expression. Kieran hated Ziggy’s worried face.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re depressed. Talk to someone?”

“I will.”

“Kiki, please.”

“I am and I will. I just...I used to think I didn’t care about getting my colors. I used to think they didn’t matter, but now I wonder if maybe there’s something off about me. That’s why they’ve taken so long.”

“For a woman with no colors, you did good on the color block dress.” Ziggy gestured to the green Gap number Kieran had unearthed from her wardrobe and the dark blackish-purple shag pullover she’d bought at a designer outlet sale where they cut off the tags. Like blueberry pie smeared on my chin, Patriarch purple (Hex #800080). It was a violent delight against her skin.

Kieran blinked. Stepped back as if she could retreat from the shag itself though she still wore it. From her very own skin though it clung to her skeleton as skin was wont to do.

“Fucking hell.”

“Kiki? What is it?”

“Color.” She curled her fists to see her pale palms mottle pink and white and as the blood moved under her skin. Her manicured nails were green and blue. She knew this. She’d known this when she painted them using a geometric nail tutorial she’d found during an insomnia-fueled YT binge earlier in the week. Navy like New York at midnight, green as Central Park at dusk. You wear the things you love like a ring on your finger. She wore New York.

“You got them. Why didn’t you say something?”

Kieran shook her head without looking away from herself. Her shoes were the wrong shade of purple to match her shrug. She was slightly out of step with herself. She was usually more coordinated. But I’ve never done it from sight, only translation. This is a new skin. This is just new.

“I didn’t realize. I don’t know...But when?”

“You tell me. You’d have to be the one to know.”

Kieran wanted to close her eyes and think back, but back where? Yesterday she’d seen in black and white and the shallow in-betweens. Today there was so much to see and she’d overlooked every bit. From the gross muddle of greyish mauve that carpeted the floors of the publishing house to the featureless glass and steel of the editor’s office, there hadn’t been much to see. Ziggy’s car was black. Her hair was black. Her eyes were a dark enough brown to fool those unwilling to look closer. Kieran hadn’t seen a thing because she hadn’t looked. She was looking now.

“You think I would have noticed. I see colors all the time. I just don’t...”

“See-see them?” Ziggy offered, a touch of laughter in her voice.

“Shut up.”

Ziggy softened. “Hear me out.” Ziggy took her hand and led her to the ubiquitous sofa in the corner of the ladies’ room. “You’ve been seeing stuff for a long time. You translate grey like a second language. It’s like reading: once you know how, you don’t do it consciously. It takes effort not to do it. For you, imagining colors as they’re meant to be seen is your reality. Why would you notice something you could already do?”

“But why can I do it? Who made do it?”

“Who do you think?”

She shrugged.

“That’s not going to help. You have to try, for your sake. You have to find who makes you happy.”

“That do you a lot of good,” she sniped.

Ziggy’s face fell and then set into a hard, unforgiving expression. She stood and paced away from the couch, before she spun back around to wave a chastising finger in Kieran’s direction. “Nope, you’re not turning this around on me. Fuck what happened to me. This is about you. This is about finding your bliss. I found mine and it got away. Forget about me.”

Kieran covered her face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m being awful because I haven’t slept right in months. I can’t create.”

“You just did.”

“A craft and beauty book. Yeah, real hard shit.”

“Seems like it.”

“I’m wasting my life.”

“That’s a choice, then. Turn your creativity into a business that makes you happy. You have the know-how, you have the funds, we have the connections. Tell me what you want and I’ll do my best to make it happen.”

“Even if I’m a raging arsehole?”

“It’ll take me longer and I’ll spend a lot of time ignoring your text messages, but yeah. Because you may suck but I’m pretty awesome despite the association.”

Kieran hugged her friend from behind and accepted with good grace that she wasn’t being hugged back. “I’ll be nicer when I’m happy.”

“Sure you will.” Ziggy patted her head. “Go home, woman. Find what makes you happy and get back to me. Just finish the book, for god’s sake. If I get one more 11 pm phone call from this guy, I’m getting a restraining order.”

“It is starting to seem a little intentional, huh?”

“Not a little!”

They giggled together, unmindful of the office workers wandering in and out of the bathroom with raised eyebrows. They’d been getting looks since freshman year; it was way too late to care about their bad reputations.

“And while we’re on the subject of you being too good for me: You’re the only person I know who can pull off floral all-year-round. And in those colors!” Ziggy’s sundress was peach all over and leafy green in details with lavender blooms blossoming from hem to square neckline to bell sleeves. She looked like she’d fallen asleep inside an artist’s sketchbook and become its centerpiece.

“It was my grandma’s. I just up-cycled it. Made it more modern. You know me.”

“Queen of DIY. That’s why I love you.”

Ziggy’s lingering enmity melted altogether. Kieran was forgiven. They were always forgiving each other.

On being dropped off at home with a forehead kiss and an order to rest for fuck’s sake from Ziggy, Kieran threw her green and purple ensemble in the hamper and changed into jeans and a leather jacket that belonged to her first Manhattan girlfriend, Jude. When they broke up Kieran had willfully refused to give it back. Jude had kissed her and said keep it with a wink. Kieran missed Jude the most when she thought about missing anybody. She didn’t think of her much these days.

She spent entirely too much time thinking about lovely bumblebees.

This is getting pathetic. Enough now. No more fantasies. I’ve got work to do and a soulmate to find. Must prioritize.

She needed a change of scenery. All she could think about when she looked around her condo was what she wanted to change. All the colors, so lovely on their own, were a hair out of step with her vision of them. Why hadn’t anybody said anything? Didn’t they know? Maybe her content wasn’t the problem; maybe all the users who used to swear by her got their colors and realized she didn’t know quite what she was talking about. She did now.

She recorded a quick voice memo on her mobile to go to Sherwin-Williams for new paint and plastic tarps. It was so time for change at Casa Dillahunt. Redecorate later, write now. Deadlines approach faster than a Tasmanian devil at an emu buffet.

Kieran gathered her tablet, a notebook, and a collection of multicolored (!!!) pens in her slouchy shoulder bag and made for the Black & Gold. She needed air and she needed a green tea frapp. Creativity waited for nothing, not even soulmates.

I have a soulmate out there. It was a freeing feeling. Maybe she wasn’t a complete disaster. She grinned at strangers on the street and they glared at her. She only laughed. That’s New Yorkers for you. It wasn’t some kind of panacea for her depression or anything, but it was nice to know she wasn’t alone in the universe, after all.

Kieran took to her favorite bistro table at the Black & Gold after catching up with Esme and Sonny at the till. They were bickering over who made better crepes as if they didn’t share the same recipe and the same kitchen and buy all their ingredients together. The Black & Gold was Sonny’s brainchild first but one day Esme had shown up to interview for the job of line cook and that had been that. Only this year had Esme bought her way into the business, making her and Sonny 50-50 partners in the cafe and in life. Despite their bickering and the constant eye rolls batted back and forth between them, it was easy to see they loved each other. They lit up the coffee shop with the looks they shared; their clasped hands raised the temperature in the room. Kieran would have been envious, had been envious in the past, but now she had hope. Maybe love wasn’t just for other people anymore.

Contrary to her intention to work hard on her second draft, Kieran couldn’t keep her mind off her colors. The shop was always bustling, but it seemed so much livelier today. The colors popped everywhere she looked. Hair burnished gold and brass in the sunlight filtering through the picture glass windows. Vibrance was turned up to 14 on every skin tone like they’d all been sun kissed after a day on the beach. Even the dirtiest sneakers might as well have been scrubbed to perfection. Something that felt impossible after thirty years of life on Earth had for Kieran finally become reality.

She tapped lightly at her touchscreen, filling another page with her thoughts on creativity. She was on her Elizabeth Gilbert grind today. Think Big Magic, not Eat Pray Love. Anything seemed possible for her. She was typing in pink just for the hell of seeing magenta streak the page letter by letter.

Pausing for a moment to take a bite of her fruit tart, she flipped to the YouTube app to answer a comment. She was on a roll today. Every snatch of color, seafoam green in someone’s hair, red braids, gold layers made her ecstatic. There was a rainbow Kieran had been aware of without experiencing it to the fullest. She lingered over each comment with a smile, yet every so often she found her finger scrolling back up to the top of the section.

Her first words to the woman who had been there from the beginning. They weren’t even bad words. They just weren’t enough, were they? Not nearly. She found her focus narrowing on the last thing BBL had written, or well, done.

The little thumbs-up she’d given Kieran’s reply. Kieran hadn’t expected a real response. It would have been nice, but the comment section was no place for a debate unless you wanted every person with a busy finger butting in. It was a perfect rebuttal. Simple, easy.

Blue.

Kieran tipped her head, oddly contemplative.

She was sure she’d seen that shade of blue before.

She had. She had seen it. She’d seen it last night just before bed. Not as an after-image imposed on grey. As a vivid hue filling her vision in real time. She’d been too keyed up and burnt out to pay it any mind, but she had seen it.

Kieran bit her lip. She clicked to BBL’s profile where a bumblebee-themed header explained all there was to know about the woman herself. The website of her coffee shop in Nashville was the same. She had a thing for bees, hence the username.

BumbleBeeLovely flew around Kieran head like a song with wings. All yellow and black and buzzing out loud. Like the mobile phone Kieran elected to ignore.

All yellow and black...The loudest and most vibrant of her colors yet.

Kieran rubbed frantically at her still-tired eyes. She really had to kick her energy drink habit.

All yellow and black where before had only been dull grey.

BumbleBeeLovely. Of course it’s supposed to be you.