Jamie was contemplating how Sonny and Esme could drive each other crazy and still love each other so much so obviously when she noticed a very familiar head of royal purple hair bent over a tablet. Her heart did that thing again, that slow roll that thrummed like the bass line in a song. The colors in the room seemed to shift and brighten. She blinked to clear her vision. They had become brighter.

She looked distractedly at her new friends. “I have to go, okay? I’ll be back in a minute for my coffee cake.” Neither was surprised. She didn’t ask why. Sometimes you had to go where the colors led you.

They bickered on softly behind her.

“Aw, look, baby got bit by the love bug.”

“Keep this up and you can sleep in your love bug in the parking lot tonight.”

“Why are you like this? You know you love me.”

Ignoring them, Jamie crossed the diner to a little round table with one diligently working occupant. Jamie held her polka dot clutch in front of her in sweaty hands. Her brown curls were sticking to her neck. She felt grimy from the flight over. Her feet hurt from walking. She hadn’t dressed to travel, not really. She’d dressed to impress and yet she felt all kinds of unimpressive right now.

She licked her lips and cleared her throat. Shit, what do I say?

She didn’t have a moment to think of anything as Kieran (the Kieran Dillahunt!) lifted her head to shoot Jamie a wary look that seemed to dissipate almost at once.

“Uh, hey.”

Kieran closed the cover on her tablet. “Hey.”

She was even more intimidating in person. Her eyes were wider than they seemed on-screen. Her features were overall just more. She was more. She was real. Her skin was the sort of brown that had come from outdoor adventures and under that mishap of a dye job her hair was as sun-kissed as her face. Jamie hadn’t noticed that before. Jamie’s words deserted her again.

Kieran wrinkled her upturned nose and bit her lip. “Have we met?”

Jamie realized she’d been standing awkwardly for a while now and reddened, shaking her head in internal mortification. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

The older woman offered Jamie a hand to shake. “I’m Kieran.”

Jamie shook on her hello. “Jamie Lovely.”

A smile bloomed on Kieran’s watchful face.

“Oh, how lovely. I adore your name.”

“I adore your everything.” Jamie shook her head. “Sorry. Wow, assume that sounded way less bizarre in my head.”

Kieran laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.” The chair across the table from her jerked and it took Jamie a moment to realize Kieran was pushing it with her foot. “Wanna sit? I don’t think my mate’s coming any time soon. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I never mind making new friends. Sit with me.”

Jamie sat and with perfect timing more suited to a movie than real life, Esme moved in to deliver her coffee cake. Sonny shot her a thumbs-up from the counter, at which Jamie had to grin. This could be okay. Maybe.

She turned back to see Kieran inspecting her canary yellow pinafore and polka dot top.

“Have to say, I’m loving the yellow motif. Not everyone can pull that off.”

Jamie touched the scalloped collar of her blouse, self-conscious and trying not to show it. “It’s my thing. Between you and me, I kinda have a thing for bumblebees and the color yellow. I know it’s dumb--”

Kieran leaned toward her, her large brown eyes curiously narrowed. “BumblebeeLovely?”

Jamie froze. Her mouth went dry. She started looking for the exits. She wasn’t really going to do this now? This couldn’t be how things turned out. “How do you know that name?”

“It’s you. You’re BumbleBeeLovely.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You sort of gave the game away going pale like that. You don’t need to be frightened or whatever panic mode you’re going into right now. You’re all right.”

“I wasn’t trying to creep on you. I know how much you hate that. You talk about it. I was just...here and you were here. I don’t know what I wanted.”

Liar. She pinched the bridge of her nose where her sinuses had started to throb. She got the worst headaches whenever she got anxious like this. She had crossed the country just to be here and now she couldn’t even--she couldn’t look at the woman she’d been following online for years. Her dream woman. The woman who made her see rainbows and stars.

“I should go.”

When Kieran spoke it wasn’t to tell Jamie to stay. She didn’t really seem like she was talking to Jamie at all.

“You’ve left comments on all my videos. All of them. Even the old ones from MySpace. I didn’t know anybody still used MySpace. For years and years, before I was anybody, there you were.” Kieran Dillahunt in awe? Jamie wasn’t sure she believed it. The girl who could have anything as far as Jamie was concerned, in awe of her spending a little too much time watching her talk about makeup, exes, home renovation, and cooking ramen at 2 am? No. She didn’t believe a word of it.

Jamie twisted the blue striped cloth napkin in her hands, counterclockwise left, clockwise right, till it was taut as nautical rope and wrinkled from the fists she’d clasped it in. Her hands was mottled pale and bloodless pink. She could pinpoint every fine black hair on her freckled arms, was able to count each brown spot that dotted the back of her fingers. She could see the world in all its many hues because of this woman. But what did she have to give Kieran that Kieran might actually want? She couldn’t think of anything. Hadn’t she thrown the things that made her unique away?

Jamie swallowed her oddly-timed grief to meet Kieran’s eyes. They were as brown as a perfect shot of espresso. “There was something about you testing drugstore products that’s really endearing. You’d make these...faces.” Jamie tried to pull one, but she knew she did a terrible job as Kieran covered her eyes in laughing horror. Her smile was even better in person. HD didn’t have a thing on her.

“Do I really look like that?”

“Not as much now. It’s in your voice, I guess. I can just hear it. You’re better at keeping a straight face than you used to be.”

Kieran pulled one of her disgusted expressions, bold eyebrows furrowed, nose wrinkled, mouth pinched to a pout. “Corporate sponsors.”

“I get it.”

“I hope you never do.”

“I’m not made to be internet famous. I get by okay offline.”

“I wish I could. I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like I’ve wasted all this time building a brand and...what else? Where can I take this? Who’s going to be listening to me when I’m 40 and past my sell-by date? Who’s going to care?”

“Lots of people. You’re not the only one getting older. We all have to figure out what we can live with and who we want to be as we age. I know what I have, I even know what I want, but that’s not forever. Nothing’s forever.”

“I wish more things were.”

Jamie clicked her nails on the rim of her plate, trying not to fidget overmuch lest she upset the Parisian-style table.

“I...Look, if this is too personal, you can tell me go to screw myself, but I was wondering when you got your colors?”

“I...” Kieran blanched, looked off to the side. She had made her money in translating the greys she saw better than most to colors that even the uninitiated could love. She had not once in fifteen years mentioned seeing in color, but Jamie was smart. “What makes you think I have them?”

“You complimented my dress.”

“It’s a beautiful dress. It suits you.”

“I think so, too. I didn’t know how gorgeous it was until...I got mine.”

Kieran stirred her coffee with a serious look on her face. Not ‘I’m being paid to say this is good’ serious, serious like whatever she was thinking really meant something.

“I got this comment recently,” she began. “I always get comments, but I’m so busy I don’t often get to respond individually unless somebody has a request. Sometimes, I get flustered or I don’t know what to say. Other times, I’m just shit and I forget or I’m just not in the mood.” She played with the handle of her coffee mug, refusing to meet Jamie’s eyes. “I’ve been getting your little notes for a long time and I just had this...I had this feeling, can’t even describe it. Like I should say ‘hello’ finally. So I said hello.” She squinted against the memory of it. “Then you liked the comment and I remember thinking, ‘What a funny shade of blue. Rather ugly, isn’t it? Not even like the sky.’ Look at me, wondering about the color of the sky when I hadn’t even seen it before. But some random person on the internet said hey back to me and suddenly I knew. I just knew.”

“I don’t...You’ve never said anything. How could you know it was me?”

“I always noticed you. You have to notice somebody who’s always around.”

Jamie tried valiantly to talk past her closing throat and failed. She held on to the table.

“You can’t pay attention to every single person who leaves a comment, there isn’t time for that, but you’re usually one of the first. I remember I was up late one night, I’d just had a bad breakup and I was talking to my friend Grey Goose, and I saw you. Again. I just wanted to see what you were like. You have all your stuff linked together, I guess, so I just wandered from profile to profile. You were cute.” She laughed, shamefaced. “You had someone at the time, some gorgeous person. You looked happy. Equis, wasn’t it?”

Equis had been Jamie’s significant other for two years after college. They were funny and gorgeous and meant to travel the world. This trip to New York was the farthest Jamie had come in all their years, only Equis had needed more.

“We were for a while. We just weren’t meant to be together for the long haul. I think they’re in Trinidad for the summer.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to Carnival.” Kieran could go any time.

“I’ve never thought about it, but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Do you travel much?”

“You know the answer to that already. Do you?”

“Not really. I guess I haven’t been with someone who makes me want to go anywhere else. That probably makes me seem boring; I’m just easily pleased.” And easily scared of how people were so easily lost.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting the everyday things. People need those more than anything.”

You were my everyday thing, she wanted to say, but even in her head the declaration sounded hokey and too much.

Kieran broke the silence. “You know, you’ve got these brilliant freckles. I’ve always wanted to tell you that.”

Why didn’t you, she thought and felt instantly ungrateful.

“Nobody thinks they’re brilliant. I’m just used to them. It’s my face; they’re part of my face. Ta-da!” She felt like a moron making a spectacle, but Kieran’s answering giggle made the feeling worth it. Just this conversation had made the trip worth it.

“Well, it’s a good face you got there.”

“Yours is better.”

“You’re so lovely.”

“Pun intended.”

“A little. But I’m being on honest. What’s a girl like you doing talking to me when you can have anybody?”

“Not just anybody.”

Kieran reached across to the table to squeeze her hand. Her hands were soft and manicured, her nails were painted a geometric pattern of forest green and the bluest ever blue. Jamie’s new favorite colors. “The only anybody that matters now. Just me and you.”

The next video Kieran posted was months late and took place in Borneo. It starred Kieran and Jamie, having a blast, making a mess, and being stupidly, colorfully in love.