Destination Texorami

Martin ducks into a room in the family wing and takes a back door into the servants' passages for his and Folly's walk down to the stables. Once they arrive, Martin calls for a horse. Folly doesn't recognize the name; it's not one of his usual choices. It takes her a moment to realize that he has only called for one horse to be saddled.

When the groom brings the horse around, Folly sees that it's a big bay. There's room for both of them to ride him, even if it will be a bit friendly.

Martin hands Folly up and then mounts behind her. He slides his arms around her waist and takes the reins, pausing to let her get comfortable before they ride out.

His route takes them out of the stables and to the north, around the west side of the mountain. Martin doesn't seem to have anything to say, and doesn't press Folly for conversation. After a while, he begins singing. Some of the tunes are familiar to Folly, but others are not.

"... two were fishes and the other was me ..."

The faintest touch of rose in the sky blossoms, then grows, and it's dawn. Then, later, daylight.

"... the serving boys you saw last night, they are not here today ..."

The mountain path is different from the one Folly recalls taking on previous trips. She's not sure quite what in the early morning gloom just yet, but it is.

"... 'Son,' he said, 'grab your things, I've come to take you home' ..."

After a while, Martin pulls out a waterskin and offers Folly some before drinking himself.

"... Shoot me the pot and I'll pour me a shot ... "

The mountain they're on is much smaller than Kolvir, Folly realizes.

"... just go put on your cleats, and come and trample me ..."

They come off the mountain and into hills that Folly knows aren't the ones on the north side of Kolvir.

"... it's not your fault, but your honesty touches me like a fire ..."

They ride past a herd of llamas on a hillside, and the llama-herder waves at them. Martin waves back.

"... but I showed him a thing or two by blowing the jail to hay-ull ..."

The hills flatten out further and then they're on a flat plain.

"... my infatuation has led to the deflation of my opinion of myself ..."

In the distance, there are trees, and Martin urges the horse to a gallop towards them. When they get there, Folly happens to look back, and the grasses of the plain are a different color from the grasses of the plain they rode through to get there.

"... and then she fell into my arms, beside the banks of Avon ..."

They stop, then, to break their fast quickly and stretch weary legs and let the horse drink from a convenient creek. Soon enough, they're back ahorse and moving again.

"... twenty-five bucks? f**k that s**t ..."

The trees seem to thicken as Folly and Martin ride onwards.

"... the latest one by Barbara Cartland, or something in that style ..."

Their character is slowly changing, too, and Folly notices that it's getting a bit warmer. Maples and such have given way to soaring pines.

"... you love her, and she loves him, and he loves somebody else, you just can't win ..."

And thence, after a while, to magnolias and cypresses.

"... and I don't wanna wind up being parted, broken-hearted ..."

Folly has begun to notice that it's not only hot, but damp, in a sort of unpleasant tropical way.

"... the swan was in her movement, and the morning in her smile ..."

The horse is occasionally crossing little streams and such. After some more time, the ground itself becomes damp and a little squishy.

"... and I love the ground whereon she stands ..."

Moss covers more and more of the trees.

"... let the broken sky break above our heads ..."

The changes still come, but they are slower and more subtle. Time seems to have stabilized, too, and it's now late afternoon.

"... you make me feel like I am clean again ..."

Along a bayou path, Folly and Martin see something moving. Martin touches the horse and it moves along a little more quickly. He's singing more softly now, and although Folly knows his voice is wearing out, she doesn't feel that that's the reason.

"... cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul ..."

The sun begins to slide below the horizon, slowly, lingeringly.

"... you shine like the moon over water, and you darken the sky when you leave ..."

And the full moon rises, low and heavy in the sky.

"... give me cof-fee, ja-va, cup-pa joe ..."

Then they break out of the jungle-like woods at the water's edge. There's a dock with a small sailboat tied to it. In the moonlight, Folly can read the name of the boat: the Bonne Chance.

Up the shore a ways there's a cabin, and lamplight shines from the windows. As Martin dismounts and helps Folly step down, the door bangs open and a voice calls, "Who's there?"

Martin calls back, "It's Mr. Chance, Jim."

"Oh, Mr. Chance!" A tall black man comes out of the cabin with the lantern and walks down to meet them. "Glad to see you back. It's been a while."

Martin says, "I've been busy. Folly, this is Jim, who watches my boat for me. Jim, this is Miss Folly Mayhap. She's a very good friend of mine. She may come here sometime in the future without me, and that's OK."

Jim looks skeptical for a moment, then accepts it. "Yes, Mr. Chance. Miss Mayhap, welcome to San Lucien."

"Thank you, Jim," Folly says, smiling warmly. Her eyes shine in the lantern light almost like a cat's, but with twice the curiosity. She extends a hand to shake his. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Jim looks startled, but shakes her hand. His is strong and callused. "Mr. Chance, you goin' up to the house tonight?"

"Don't think so. We'll just stay down here tonight, and be on our way tomorrow. Can you take my horse up to the stable for me, though?"

"Yes, sir. A pleasure, Miss Mayhap." And Jim leads the horse away, the other direction down the coast.

The sailboat has a small cabin. Folly can see that there is some electronic equipment, and a locked metal trunk, but the most important piece of furniture is the bed. Martin helps her remove her boots, then his own. Not a moment after that, they're curled up together like bugs in a rug, and soon enough, asleep.

Folly sleeps like a rock and is wakened in the morning by the scent of breakfast. Martin is clambering into the cabin with a large tray filled with breakfast foods: bacon and sausage, eggs, grits, a short stack, and biscuits with gravy. He sets the tray down on the metal trunk and says, "This is yours. I've already eaten."

He's changed clothes, although he probably hasn't had a bath.

Folly is still Not A Morning Person, so it takes a few moments for things to come into focus, mentally as well as visually.

She knows she dreamed all the night long, strange vivid dreams of playing poker with a black man and a bay mare and cards sharp as knives, and the pot full of all her old lovers, though she couldn't remember who had bet them or who won in the end. And some of it was true, too, but now she was having trouble working out which bits.

And wasn't the world supposed to end? But as she takes in her surroundings -- boat, bed, boyfriend, breakfast -- she decides maybe she doesn't mind so much.

She runs her fingers through her hair and looks with bleary-eyed contentment -- and more than a little amusement -- from Martin to the lavish spread and back again. "How many of me are there?" she asks, grinning. But she grabs a plate of food and tucks into it with relish, for champagne and cute little finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off don't go very far when you're dancing.

She has left a conspicuously vacant spot next to herself in case he wishes to join her.

Which he does. He takes the occasion to steal a piece of bacon from a plate and nibble on it.

"How's your....?" she asks between bites of food, gesturing vaguely with her fork in the direction of his injury. That he changed shirts unassisted is either a very good sign or a very bad sign, she thinks.

"Haven't had a chance to look at it. I'll need you to change the dressing before we leave. I have waterproof stuff here," he says.

"Sure," Folly says, smiling gently. "Soon as I'm done eating."

"Before we head out of here, we need to figure out what we're doing in Texorami. I'd prefer a simple extraction, but since we're waiting for Dad, that's not an option. So what's the plan?"

"Mmmm. Plan. Yeah." Folly slows her eating to a thoughtful nibble while she ponders.

"So, I've probably been gone for years," she offers after a moment. "Really anything could've happened in that time: maybe Soren lives in Riverside with a wife and a dog and two-point-five kids; maybe the Brew got bought by yuppies and turned into something dreadful -- a martini bar. I mean, they were in the middle of an apocalypse when we left, right?" She flashes a grin at Martin, but it doesn't quite hide her concern over what they might find.

Martin doesn't say anything to that, but her concern is reflected in his eyes.

"Anyhow, I think a little research is in order before I go blowing into my old haunts. I say we hit the library for a couple hours, find out what's been written about the band lately, who's doing what, how to find them. Whether they're playing this week." She smiles, a bit wistfully.

A moment later, her expression turns serious. "And how much of a stir my sudden reappearance is likely to cause. And by extension how hard to work at keeping it under wraps."

She has now stopped eating entirely but continues pushing her eggs around absently with her fork. "And I, uh, should probably talk to my mother."

"Oh. Yeah. That." Martin finishes the last bite of bacon, chews, and swallows. "Listen, I was kind of a jerk yesterday morning. I'm sorry about that. You know it really doesn't matter to me who your dad is, right?"

Folly sets aside her plate and gives Martin a comforting smile. "I know," she says. "And you weren't a jerk for reacting to it any more than I was a jerk for bringing it up. We needed to acknowledge the possible freaky, now it's done and we move on." She gives a little shrug, so confident in their feelings for each other that a little thing like her unknown parentage seems but a trivial threat.

Martin smiles, then.

"But that's not the only reason for checking in with Mum," she continues, "although it is one reason. Also, though...." She pauses, and sighs, obviously not on the same sure ground where that relationship is concerned. "Well, she's my mother. She deserves to know that I'm alright, right? I mean, for all that she's... had everybody, she doesn't really have anybody, y'know?" She shrugs again, but with less confidence. "Or maybe she does. Dunno. But... well, there you go."

"Yeah, I can kind of imagine. Even the hole is a big place in your life, right?" Martin says, a touch wistfully.

Folly nods. She looks a bit wistful herself, and her hand fidgets against her knee as if her mind were struggling to contain her body.

He shakes his head then, as if clearing it, and continues, "But, Folly, you know you can't go back, right? You're not thinking you're going to, like, split time between Amber and Texorami? Get Dad to cut a CD with the band or anything? Because that's a recipe for unhappiness."

Folly looks at Martin with a terribly sad smile on her face and wraps her arms tightly around her own midsection.

"So, Soren wasn't actually born in Texorami, did you know?" she says. "His mom and stepdad moved there when he was about eight; and I know he felt like a total outsider. He would say things about home -- 'Well, at home we do it this way,' or 'I'm sure skiing will be fine, but I'd really rather spend my holiday at home' -- and even after years in Texorami, he always meant the country of his birth."

She has started rocking back and forth slowly. She probably doesn't realize she's doing it.

"It was five or six years before he finally got a chance to return to that home, to spend the summer with cousins while his parents traveled. When he got back to Texorami, I asked him, 'How was home?'"

Folly stops rocking and looks at Martin again.

"And he said, 'It wasn't.'" She smiles again, that same sad smile.

"So, yeah, I know," she concludes. "I've known for a long time."

He gathers Folly into his arms and holds her for a moment. Then he picks up her fork and spears a bite of egg, offering it to her. "Eat up. You're gonna need your energy for the trip. Besides, it'll get cold."

Folly, now looking far less sad, smiles up at him and complies.

After breakfast, Martin opens the locked metal trunk. The lock reminds Folly of the bicycle lock Soren had when they were teenagers, except it seems to be difficult to unlock, probably impossible for anyone who doesn't know the trick.

Martin unpacks the trunk enough to get at the first aid kit. Most of the contents seem to be weapons of one sort or another. He pulls out a rifle and shows it to Folly. "Corwin's. Still worked when I brought it here. I've got some ammo too. I hope we never need it."

Folly nods and gives the gun a closer look. She's no weapons expert, but she handles the rifle like she's got at least half a clue what she's doing with it.

There's also a trident with wicked barbs, and some knives, and other things Folly probably doesn't want to inquire too closely about. Eventually he pulls out the medical kit and a supply of waterproof dressing.

Martin can slide out of the linen overshirt easily, but he needs help with the T-shirt. Folly realizes that it is the same one he was wearing the night before.

The wound itself is clean. Random's stitches are even, and Martin hasn't done anything to tear them up. He tries very hard to remain still as Folly tends him and then seals up the dressing again.

Folly's hand is gentle and soothing against Martin's shoulder. She is downright vigilant about keeping that hand focused on its task, however, and speaks very little as she works.

Afterwards, he digs in the trunk and finds a pair of swimming trunks and a T-shirt for himself. He fishes around a little more and finds some boxer shorts with a button front and a shrunken T-shirt, which he hands to Folly. "Put these on. We're gonna swim."

Folly thinks about that a moment, and then a smile spreads slowly across her face. "You weren't kidding about getting wet," she says, and then hastens, giddily, to get ready.

After the somewhat embarrassing moment that involves changing clothes without any privacy, Martin sorts out the contents of her bag. Clothes and jewelry are all put in the trunk; her trumps and his, and anything small and useful, like identification from Texorami that has survived this long, go into a small waterproof bag. Martin puts the bag into the pocket of his trunks.

He also straps a wicked-looking knife to his leg; the trunks hide it, mostly.

When everything, including the loose electronics, has been packed away, and the trunk locked with the sticky lock, Martin leads Folly up onto the deck on the side away from Jim's shack. Together, they jump into the warm tropical water.

Folly thrills to the feel of her body slicing the surface, being submerged. It's one of the things she has missed about Texorami these past five years: water warm enough to swim in.

When they float back up to the surface, Martin says, "Take a deep breath, because we'll be under for a while. And hang on to me, no matter what."

Folly nods. In her mind she holds the feel of the longest note she could ever sing; she blows out all of her stale air to make room for it, then fills her lungs 'til there's no more room for breath.

Then they are underwater again. Martin's a strong swimmer, the strongest she's ever been in the water with, and he pulls her along as if she were a part of him. If Folly keeps her eyes open, she's dazzled a little by the morning sun on the water, and the changing currents, and the glittering movement of sea life.

After a few minutes--longer than she would have expected--Folly realizes her chest is beginning to hurt, and she really, really needs a breath of fresh air. She tugs anxiously on Martin's arm, and he pauses. Instead of swimming for the surface, wherever it is, Martin pulls her close and touches his mouth to hers.

Folly starts to gasp, involuntarily, and the air rushes out of her lungs, into Martin's mouth. Little bubbles escape where the seal of their lips isn't perfect. Then, equally involuntarily, Folly breathes in, sucking the air from Martin's own mouth. It's a touch stale, and Folly can taste the remnants of his own breakfast, but Folly's starved lungs are blessedly satisfied, at least for the moment.

They swim onward.

After a few more minutes, Folly's lungs begin aching again, and she pulls Martin's arm to get his attention. A few powerful strokes in what Folly doesn't think is the right direction bring her to the surface of the water. When her head breaks the surface, she gasps, disoriented. Martin is there, steady.

She holds onto him for support, tightly enough that he can feel her heart pounding with exertion, with excitement... perhaps even with fear.

When she regains her bearings, Folly can see that it's night, and there are lights off in the distance. Martin lets her recover, then heads for the lights. After several minutes of bobbing along on the surface with Folly in tow, Martin's feet hit bottom. They walk the rest of the way onto the nearly-deserted beach.

Folly notices she's wearing a bathing suit now. It's a one-piece suit in the same blue-green as the shorts and T-shirt she was wearing before. Martin is wearing the same shirt and trunks he was when they leapt off the side of his boat.

Folly lets out a quiet chuckle, hardly audible over the sound of the waves, but is otherwise silent as she follows Martin onto the beach. She keeps her hand in Martin's, partly for comfort and partly so that she won't misstep as she gazes, wide-eyed, at her surroundings.

It's a mostly-deserted beach. The lights, and whatever civilization they represent, are some distance down the beach. Martin and Folly collapse and rest for a while.

Some long time later, the sun comes up, and Martin and Folly walk down the beach to civilization. First, there's a public shower, where they rinse off all the sand. Next, a brief shopping expedition solves the clothing problem.

(Folly, incidentally, opts for the college-student-on-spring-break look, not only because it'll make such an inconspicuous disguise in Texorami, but also because, frankly, none of these little beachside shoppes ever seem to carry anything in the way of proper leather trousers....)

Within a couple of hours, Folly is soaking in a tub in a room at Motel 9, and Martin is napping on the bed.

When Folly dresses his wound again, she finds that Martin has definitely strained it with all the swimming. When she chides him, he suggests that breaking the trail was necessary.

A few hours more, and they're dressed in their new clothes, renting a car. It's old, and red, and a convertible. Martin takes the wheel and heads out onto the highway. "Sing me a story," he suggests.

Folly nods and watches the landscape for a few moments, feeling it, hearing it, finding what's missing, figuring how to get there from here.

The ocean, there on their left -- good. Gotta keep that, always.

The road, the sound of wheels on pavement, the smell of traffic -- good. It will get bigger later, but what they have already is a whisper of the motif to come.

That takes care of the rhythm and bass. Now for a melody. Folly takes a deep breath, settles back against the seat with the wind in her hair and her eyes half-closed, and starts her song.

She starts with the gardens -- the garlic and avocados and orange trees and artichokes -- and not just the sights but the smells as well, sweet and sharp and tang and mellow, ocean-salt and fields left fallow, citrus and spice and the produce of home -- as it grows by the road near the ocean by the truckload, all along the road to Texorami.

(Her voice is low and earthy and rich and savory, and Martin can almost taste the peppers and the blood oranges.)

Martin begins humming along with her, and after a time, they pass through a dazzling veil of the sort Folly has begun to recognize.

And then the sun -- the size, the brightness, shining its lightness in golden-and-whiteness to dapple the ocean like diamonds in motion with sunset rays that pierce the haze to set ablaze the winding ways to Texorami.

(Folly is almost in a trance now, singing as much with the landscape as about it, her melody high and bright and strong and full of warmth and joy.)

Another veil, and this time the shape of the steering wheel has changed in Martin's hands, and Folly knows the car has changed too, and it's just like the red convertible that trumpet-playing friend of Bastien's used to have that she admired so much.

A beacon, a lighthouse -- it pierces the twilight like knives through a skylight, the dance of its beams like a thing out of dreams, like a fairy-fire sweeping the earth like a living thing, keeping just out of their berth like a living thing, hiding just out of their sight 'til it reappears, lighting the night with an eerie delight as they glide the seaside ride to Texorami.

And always, always, the sound of the surf as it's pounding the turf in an endless dance all along the expanse of the road to Texorami.

(There's a strange eager urgency to her song now, like something out of myth, where everything means more than it seems and stories lurk under every rock, all once-upon-a-time and night-before-Christmas-y. Martin may feel that Folly is singing part of her own history, of a hundred van-rides home through the near-dark, toward a comfort infused with the buzz of promise and possibility.)

And now the road, the petrol bass, expanding, crescendoing, changing its pace, it merges and grows like a surge from below to emerge in a rise toward the night-pink skies, and the lanes full of cars sweep along toward the stars...

And another veil and another and another in time with their tune and the sweep of the light from the lighthouse.

...'til they all crest the hill and are awed by the thrill of the sight of the city, a jewel in the night shining brighter than light from the stars and the moon...

And the last dazzling veil breaks just in time for them to see a sign coming up in the distance ...

(Folly takes a few deep breaths as she blinks at the sight in front of them. She is exhausted, and almost out of voice -- but she smiles with pure joy as their headlights sweep past a little green marker: Texorami... 15. "...And you can follow the signs from here," she says, beaming.)

...and there endeth the tune of the road to Texorami.

Martin follows the signs into town, checking the landmarks and asking Folly to verify them for him. With each one that she passes, Folly is more and more certain that she has sung them true and she's home at last.

In the end they settle on a Vacation Inn for the night, and she and Martin slumber on the ticky-tacky double beds with the air conditioner blasting, just the way they used to on tour sometimes when they could afford it, except that they're not doubled or tripled up. And in the morning, it's a cornily-named breakfast at Danny's, just the way they used to, except sometimes at three in the morning. A few of the patrons give them odd looks, but it's nobody Folly knows, so she thinks nothing of it.

Then they're off to the library.

Folly picks up a newspaper and begins to browse through it, looking for news of Happenstance or any of her friends. After a few minutes, Martin finds her and taps her on the shoulder. "Sweetie?" he says, and something about the way he says it clues her that something is very wrong. "This was in the new arrivals."

He hands her a book. Hardback, and probably not even cracked yet, by the look of the spine.

The woman on the cover is Folly's mirror in the same way that Syd is Martin's. Folly recognizes the portrait; she was there when it was taken. The book is titled "I, Brij: Life at the Center of the Hurricane".

"I think we're gonna have a hard time being inconspicuous," Martin says quietly.

Folly takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them again, she says with a wry smile, "Ah, that's Mum for you -- she always could make my life difficult without even trying."

For all that this is a challenging turn of events, there's a good measure of relief behind Folly's words; after all, 'Autobiography in New Arrivals' means 'not dead'.

Folly tucks the book and the newspaper under her arm, making sure that the latter obscures the former from the glances of onlookers. With a gesture for Martin to follow, she weaves her way to the reference section, where she grabs a couple of Texorami phone books -- business and residential -- and then looks for an inconspicuous spot to continue their research. She tries to keep her head down, but not conspicuously so -- to 'fly casual,' as it were.

Martin flies casual, turning the second copy that he's carrying cover-inward and following Folly.

When they find an out-of-the-way table, Folly dumps the phone books on them and pulls out the pen and pad of paper she nabbed from the motel. She makes a short list of names and places -- Soren, the Furrowed Brew, Haven, Bastien -- and hands it to Martin. "At least maybe we can find out if they're still in town," she says quietly.

Martin nods and takes everything to make the phone list.

At the bottom of the list is written "Mum's unlisted," followed by a smiley-face with its tongue sticking out.

Folly intends to return her attention to the arts calendar of the newspaper. But first, she can't resist peeking at the chapter titles in her mother's book, to see what grabs her attention.

"The March of Folly"?
"Stairway to Amber"?
"Portrait in Absinthe"?
"Mid-Mourning"?

Folly blinks, and thumbs her way through the book to that second one. It could just be a chapter about how Folly's music always gave her a headache, couldn't it?

It's the chapter about how Folly apparently followed Syd on the road to nowhere. Several stories of how she vanished that night after a partial gig at the Furrowed Brew are recounted. The case is described as "still open", but Brij seems to feel that "Martin Chance" took advantage of her daughter's longing to see her missing (read: dead) lover, and lured/kidnapped her away.

Brij claims to be holding out hope for Folly's return, but everyone else is pretty sure she's dead, and that Martin killed her. When the police searched Folly's apartment, they found a gun of unknown make under her couch, no prints. It's one of the small oddities of the case.

After a few minutes Martin comes back. Underneath the note about Mum, he's added "So are Soren and Haven". Next to Bastien's name, though, there's a number.

Next to the Furrowed Brew, there's only a question mark.

Folly stares at the question mark and frowns. Damn, damn, damn, that can't be good. But at least they've got one lead.

"Thanks, sweetie," she says quietly. "Maybe we can drive by later, see what's become of it. Or, wait --"

Folly looks up at Martin with an amused and slightly embarrassed look on her face. "Man, I've really gotten used to life without electronics, haven't I? What we need is a computer."

"I've already tried that," says Martin. "I always like to know what kind of a net a place like this has. I think you should come take a look at what I've found." He doesn't seem happy.

When Folly follows Martin over to the terminal, she sees that he has several pages bookmarked for her to view. Several of them are about of the critically-acclaimed band Happenstance and its breakup after Syd and Folly vanished. One of them is a conspiracy theory page about their disappearances. One of them is a memorial to the Furrowed Brew.

The only one that's at all hopeful is the one about Soren. He's a producer now, and his recording studio has a web page.

Folly hands off her book to Martin, directing his attention to the chapter she just skimmed (in particular the parts about him) before turning her own attention to the studio webpage.

She peruses it for a few minutes, adding any contact information she finds -- phone numbers, street address, even email addresses -- to her list. She also tries to get a feel for whether Soren is a big-name producer now, based on the list of artists he's worked with and whether the site makes mention of any awards or other recognition for his work. If he's some hot-shot now, she may need a better plan than just phoning up the studio and asking to speak with him....

Soren is a hot niche producer. He has parlayed his credits with Happenstance into working with independent artists and groups. He's critically acclaimed, but doesn't do a lot of work with major labels and the like. He seems to concentrate on young groups, and often performs with his bands in intimate venues.

As Folly reads through the web site, she hears Martin leafing through the chapter of her mother's book. He occasionally sighs or makes a 'tsk' sort of noise.

Folly blinks and looks down at the newspaper she's been toting around, scanning for today's date. Just how long has she been gone, anyway?

It's been something like eight or nine years in Texorami since Martin took her to Amber. Texorami time is probably about 1.5:1 with Amber time now.

Folly curses under her breath and shoots an apologetic look at the computer screen, as if she could send Soren telepathic messages just by making faces at his webpage.

She nudges Martin's elbow and says, "I think I've got the info I need. Now all we need is a phone."

"Should we go back to the room?" Martin asks. "Or do we need to find a public phone? Maybe we should just go over there."

He frowns. "Or do you want to try your mother's place first?"

Too quickly, Folly responds, "No-no-no-no-no-no!" She flushes slightly, and with a sheepish grin adds, "We are not even going to think in the direction of my mother's place 'til we've dorked you up a little, okay?"

Martin starts to say something, and then the light bulb goes on over his head. "O-kay," he says.

He starts rummaging around in the drawers under the computer desk and fishes out a pair of old black glasses. He puts them on for Folly to inspect. "This good?"

Folly grins. "Well, I still wanna jump you, but it's a start....

"And as for Soren...." Folly leans back in her chair and chews her bottom lip thoughtfully. On the one hand, calling ahead would give Soren a chance to prepare, to rearrange his schedule if he needs to....

On the other hand, a phone call from her, out of the blue, after nine years away, is likely to be dismissed as a prank call -- or if it's not, it'll probably cause such a disruption that she might as well just show up unannounced.

"What the hell," she says after a moment. "Let's just go to the studio."

"Yeah," says Martin. "That's what I thought too."