19. Chapter 19
Caitlin and Melissa wanted to do some shopping and invited me along. High Street in Inverness offered just enough boutiques and storefronts to keep them entertained without overwhelming me completely.
“I want to get Angus a good wedding gift, but it’s so hard to figure out what he’d like,” said Caitlin. “What do brides usually get their grooms, Abby?”
“You could get him a really nice watch. Some men like bracelets. Or cuff links?” I suggested.
“Maybe something to go with his kilt—a new kilt pin, or a new sporran,” added Melissa.
Caitlin bounced on her toes. “That’s a great idea. Something unique to him.”
I furrowed my brow. “Remind me what a sporran is?”
“You know,” Melissa’s face lit up with barely contained laughter. “That furry little pouch dangling right over the—”
“It’s a traditional accessory,” Caitlin cut in, giving Melissa a light smack on the arm. “Kilts don’t have pockets, so men need somewhere for their essentials.”
Melissa pressed her lips together but couldn’t hide her grin. “Still looks like a fancy fanny pack to me.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes, the corner of her mouth twitching upward despite herself. “You do know what a fanny is over here, right?”
Melissa’s hand flew to her lips as her cheeks bloomed with color. Caitlin shook her head and smiled.
We ducked into a jewelry shop, a golfing shop—a swing and a miss!—and finally a kilt shop where we browsed through kilt pins and sporrans. Nothing really called to Caitlin. Discouraged, we continued down High Street until we spotted a used record store that looked fun.
The musty scent of aging vinyl greeted us as we entered a cramped room lined with record bins.
The collection spanned decades—everybody’s gran had an amazing collection of Benny Goodman and Broadway musicals, and everyone’s uncle had a lot of 60s psychedelia.
Then the GenXers had sold all their 90s grunge CDs, and occasionally, new artists still released physical copies as well.
While flipping through albums, Melissa suddenly froze over one particular sleeve. She caught my eye and waved me over.
As I stepped up beside her, she tilted the album cover toward me. “I swear I’ve seen this face before,” she whispered, her finger hovering over a young man with tousled dark hair and a goatee.
We looked at the album. The band had several hits back in the day. Quite a few, actually. There’d been some kind of tragedy. A death.
Caitlin came over. “Are you guys ready? Angus loves music, and he has a good vinyl collection. But albums are probably too fragile to pack to bring back to the Stat—”
“Oh, remember this band?” Melissa asked cautiously. “They were really popular and had all these hits—then the lead singer died.”
“Wait—I know her face.” Caitlin whipped her head between us. “Are you telling me Angus’s ex was the front woman for this band?”
I flipped the album over, scanning the small print on the back. “Caitlin, look—Angus is credited. He was in the band too.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. Yet she snatched the record from me, her eyes narrowing as she examined the goateed musician’s face more closely.
“I used to listen to them in college.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s actually him? That’s Angus?” She looked up at us, her expression caught between disbelief and dawning recognition. “I’ve known every word to their songs for years, and I never once realized…”
I watched Caitlin’s eyes dart across the liner notes. “This never came up?” I asked.
“I knew all the details. I knew he’d been in a band before his pub’s house band.
I knew he was in a serious relationship with the singer and that she died, and it broke him.
He hadn’t sung like that with anyone since she died…
until we were snowed in at New Year’s last year and we played together.
He told me later that it felt like he was whole again.
Oh my God. I mean, he told me everything, I just never really pieced it all together. ”
“So he wasn’t lying. Just omitting,” I said
Caitlin pursed her lips. “He actually didn’t even do that. He told me he sometimes liked to invest in startups. He told me he’d saved up the money for the pub. He told me all about this girlfriend and how broken he was after her death. He must have thought I knew what he was talking about.”
She marched straight to the register, album clutched against her chest. “I’ll take this one,” she said, then hesitated. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything else by them, would you?”
The clerk checked the band name. “I do. An older woman in town drops them off every once in a while. She must’ve been quite a fan, because she seems to have everything.”
Caitlin opened her phone and found a picture of Angus’s mother. “Is this the woman?”
The clerk nodded, smiling. “Yeah, that’s her!”
Caitlin fumbled with her wallet, nearly dropping it twice as she counted out pounds and pence.
“Your fiancé’s a rock star!” Melissa whispered.
We were still giggling when we hit the street.