The session wrapped as evening painted Manhattan's skyline in shades of amber and rose, the kind of light that turns memory to myth. I watched through the control room window as Beyoncé gathered her things, her movements carrying that distinctive grace that would become legendary. The day's work had yielded more than just master recordings—it had birthed possibilities that even my future-worn mind couldn't fully grasp.
"You want to grab dinner?" she asked, appearing in the doorway with her bag slung over her shoulder. "I know this little spot in Brooklyn that makes jazz feel like prayer."
My heart lurched. In my original timeline, we'd discovered that place together years later, on a rain-soaked evening when fame had made privacy a currency more precious than platinum records. Now here she was, offering it up like a casual gift, unaware of how the symmetry of it all made my hands tremble on the mixing board.
"He's got plans," Rico interjected before I could respond, his tone carrying the weight of manufactured certainty. "Label meeting about the Williams sisters' project, remember?"
The lie was smooth, practiced. Rico didn't know my secret, but he'd developed an uncanny instinct for when I needed an escape route. I caught his eye, grateful for the intervention. Some moments from the original timeline needed to stay intact, and tonight's dinner—the one where she'd meet her first husband—was one of them.
"Rain check?" I offered, trying to keep my voice light despite the knowledge of what this particular rain check would cost us both in terms of time.
She nodded, disappointment flickering across her features before being replaced by that professional smile I'd seen her perfect over decades of public life. "You better make it worth the wait, Marcus Johnson."
*If you only knew*, I thought, watching her go. When she reached the door, she turned back, silhouetted against the corridor light like a photograph I'd seen a thousand times but never actually taken.
"That bridge we recorded?" she said. "I've never heard anything like it. It's like... like you wrote it for a voice I haven't even found yet."
The accuracy of her observation sent a chill down my spine. In my previous life, that particular vocal technique had become her signature—something she'd develop three years from now during a late-night session in Atlanta. I'd built the melody around a future that technically didn't exist yet.
"Maybe you'll grow into it," I said softly.
After she left, Rico turned to me, his face etched with the particular concern he reserved for moments when he thought I was being too clever for my own good. "Man, you're playing with fire," he said, starting to pack up the session tapes. "Girl like that, she sees things others don't."
I began powering down the equipment, each switch flip a small surrender to the inevitable march of time. "Sometimes the best way to keep a secret is to hide it in plain sight."
"Yeah? And what secret you hiding, kid? Besides the fact that you produce like you got thirty years experience tucked in that teenage brain of yours?"
I forced a laugh, but it came out hollow. Through the studio window, the last rays of sun caught the dust motes dancing in the air, each particle suspended in its own moment of perfect possibility. The scene reminded me of another studio, another sunset, twenty years and a lifetime away, when an older Beyoncé had looked at me across a different mixing board and said, "Some people don't make music—they remember it from somewhere else."
"We should get those tapes to the label," I said, deflecting Rico's question. But as we packed up, I found myself humming the counter-melody we'd recorded, its notes carrying the weight of futures both remembered and reimagined.
The truth was, every song I helped create in this new timeline was a letter to the future—each chord progression and arrangement a carefully coded message to a woman who wouldn't be my wife for another decade, assuming I didn't accidentally erase that possibility with every choice I made.
Outside, New York's evening symphony was beginning its familiar crescendo of car horns and distant sirens. I pulled my jacket closer, feeling every one of my thirty-five years despite my teenage reflection in the lobby's mirrored walls.
"You want a ride?" Rico asked, jangling his keys.
I shook my head. "Think I'll walk. Clear my head."
He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "Just remember, whatever chess game you're playing? The pieces don't always move the way you expect."
As I watched him drive away, I thought about Maria's words about letting things unfold naturally. The irony wasn't lost on me—here I was, armed with knowledge of two decades of music industry evolution, yet the most complicated production I had to manage was the delicate architecture of coincidence and circumstance that would lead to my own happiness.
I turned toward home, letting the city's rhythm wash over me. Somewhere in Brooklyn, in a jazz club I wasn't supposed to know about yet, destiny was unfolding without my interference. For tonight, at least, that would have to be enough.