“Leo and Virgo!” Nic rushed at the girls, her arms in a wideVlike an inverted cowcatcher. Before either of them knew what was happening, they were being hugged. Ursula stood at a more respectful distance, as though she were waiting in line at an ATM. “Theirnames are Zadie and Finn,” she corrected her wife, then addressed the girls. “If you couldn’t tell, Nic’s really into astrology.” Then in a loud whisper, “I think it’s all bullshit.”
“You only think it’s bullshit because you’re a Taurus. It’s in your nature,” Nic said with a wink.
Ursula rolled her eyes dramatically. “Since Nic takes the day shift, I only have to put up with this a few hours a day.”
“That must be weird being on different schedules like that,” Zadie commented.
Ursula shrugged. “It’s not so bad. It just means I get to eat a lot of pizza for breakfast.” She moved toward the kitchenette and opened the refrigerator door. “Do you girls want anything to drink? We’ve got Diet Coke and— Nic, whatisthis?” she said, holding up an unmarked jar of pale pink liquid with globules floating in it.
“It’s prickly pear kombucha.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I made it.”
Mercifully, Ursula returned the strange jar to the fridge, pulled out two cans of Coke, and handed one to each of the girls. Zadie cracked hers open with a satisfying hiss while Finn fiddled nervously with hers. She was about to inquire about the ledgers when Nic spoke. “So do you ladies camp often?”
“I do,” Finn answered, trying not to let her impatience show.
“Yeah, my sister is the camper. I’m just along for the ride,” Zadie added.
“Oh, really?” Nic was courteous enough to feign surprise that the young woman in the platform sneakers and skintight jeans was not a seasoned camper. “You know, when Ursula and I bought this place, she had never camped a day in her life.”
Ursula glared at her wife playfully. “Yeah, well, at least I didn’t almost blow us both up.”
“What happened?” Zadie asked.
“It was the night we met,” Nic began. “We were at a party. I saw her over by the firepit, stacking logs.”
“She told me I was doing it wrong.”
“I was flirting.”
“Then she poured lighter fluid all over it,” Ursula said, shaking her head, then turned to her wife. “How much did you have to pay in damages again?”
“I don’t remember. Whatever a garden shed costs.”
“It was a lot.”
“You still went out with me, though. That’s worth a million sheds.”
Ursula arched an eyebrow while attempting to hide a smile. “Anyway… you guys didn’t come over to hear about us. How about we talk in my office?”
She stepped through the beaded curtain, and Zadie and Finn followed her into a hallway. At the end of the hallway was a door, and behind the door was what could best be described as an observatory. Most people would have referred to it as a sunroom, but unlike a sunroom, all the windows were on the ceiling. It didn’t really have any walls, either, as every vertical surface was covered up by rickety wooden bookshelves lined with old astronomy textbooks, musical instruments in various states of disrepair, and hundreds of clear plastic tubes filled with rolled-up paper. The only bare patch of wall was occupied by a yellowing roll-down star chart that looked like it had been lifted from a high school in the 1970s. An even older wooden drafting table sat in the center of the room, cluttered with sheet music.
Ursula attempted to straighten up the clutter on her table. “Make yourselves comfortable.” Zadie and Finn looked around for somewhere to sit, but the only other chair was being occupied by a wooden crate filled with piano keys.
“This place is awesome,” Finn said, looking up at the night sky through the windowpanes.
“Thanks. Obviously, it wasn’t original to the trailer. Nic built it for me three summers ago. Before that, I was storing all my music stuff in the front office.”
“Is Nic a six, too?”
Ursula shook her head. “I think that’s why she got so into astrology. She wants to understand that world, and why I can do what I do, so she can help me in some way. I joke about it, but I wouldn’t take that away from her.”
Finn knew the feeling. She would do anything—including studying astrology—if it brought her closer to understanding her mom. “So what do you do in here?”
“A lot of things, but mostly, it’s where I come to document star songs.”