postcards from isla (on hold until 2024)

01 - remembrance

HER DATE LEANS across the table, shoulders hunched and eyes bright. Isla tastes the challenge before she hears it: bittersweet, arrogantly sour. It is a taste she's familiar with, hardening the senses, impossible to digest. Her stomach twists with the glooming promise of a forgotten appetite. White teeth grow sharp, tongue dancing along the edges.

"So," Holden begins, a small smile blooming on his face, "how did you become a producer?"

Tonight, the Italian restaurant is decorated with champagne and flickering lights on its deck. Crisp air is a sticky saccharine, turning into pale violet, a little warm when it brushes her dark hair back. Holden flirts with her as he asks questions, brows straight over glinting green eyes, a slight sheen glazed over the pupils. He's handsome in a careful way, a golden way—as all her dates tend to be—and branded with stiff social elegance. Holden is All American, studded with stars and The Beatles' lyrics. He probably brought kegs to college fraternity parties and let girls casually borrow his designer button-downs. He probably donated annually to charities and volunteered at animal shelters in his spare time.

And in a way, she is envious of what that feels like.

Isla's mouth quirks to one side. Holden looks: hungry, intrigued, entertained. The man across the linen table grins, gaze dropping down to the shade of her lipstick, and she takes a slow breath. He watches, hooked. Isla grins with authority. "I majored in music production and engineering in college," she explains clearly. Holden tilts his head. "I had a few internships as a songwriter during senior year, and Angeles Entertainment reached out to me with a full-time position as long as I officially graduated."

"Really?" he prompts, another heavy brow raised. Isla tries not to stare at the new wrinkles on his temple. "Produced anything that I know?"

A silent alarm rings at the back of her head at his condescending tone. Most men she dines with are comfortably inside the music industry—rookie singers and musicians she's met at listening parties—and more times than most, Isla can pinpoint the moment when she's seen as competition over dinner. It comes in the inquisitive gaze, in the questioned credibility. Even now, she notices the sharp expression and the dimple peeking out in suspicion faster than a shark smells blood. It's disorienting until it isn't anymore.

Isla nods—a curt dip of her chin. "The album we listened to on our way here and the song that the restaurant played once we entered," she says, unwavering.

His eyes widen: "Shit," he deadpans, blinking quickly. "Are you serious?"

The smile she gives him is velvet over knives. "I don't know," Isla drags on, taking a bite of overcooked pasta and beginning to chew. "Look at the album credits and let me know once you figure it out."

She challenges him subtly, and Isla watches as he takes the bait; his shoulders straighten subconsciously, nose wrinkling just a bit at the tip. She knows she's won, but it doesn't feel like a victory, not really. It feels a lot more like diminished pride and overemphasized insecurity.

Holden laughs, eyes glinting, but the sound is waxy and strained. "Sure, sure," he promises. "Did you grow up in Los Angeles too, then?"

"Unfortunately not," the producer admits, a new kind of warmth seeping through her words. Her syllables curl at the ends like butterfly wings. "I'm from New York, but I go back to Brooklyn to visit my parents every summer."

At the back of her mind, Isla constantly wonders how long she'll do this before either giving up entirely or letting go of the nightmare that she still holds dear. She wonders whether she should marry someone like Holden, someone both utterly attainable and unattainable at once. Someone who views her as a thrill and a game to beat on the charts, eventually moving onto greater, newer things. He's attractive, Isla admits to herself. People want him. I should want him.