Mei

Yelena is a working opera soprano at the height of her career. Hits the high notes, asks the hard questions. Royal Opera, La Scala, Met. Reads the score with a glass of red wine.

Zoey spins disco-funk-house at a small Atlanta club on Fridays and at the local roller rink on Sundays. Wheels and decks. Her sets are 90 minutes of joy and a tasteful drop at minute forty-three.

Olu runs a ready-to-wear fashion label out of a small atelier in Lagos and a studio in New York. She cuts the silhouette and keeps the soul. Her platinum buzz cut is her signature.

Selene runs a tiny apothecary out of a 19th-century stone cottage in the Berkshires. Tea cures most things. Tinctures, salves, and a moss-coloured cat named Vesper.

Nadia is a corps-level dancer at a respected American ballet company. Off-stage she eats real bread, cracks her toes in public, and is funnier than the principal anyone's heard of.

Reza is an investigative journalist at a long-form magazine. She files her stories before deadline and doubts them after. Source-meeting in cafés, archive runs at midnight, the kind of sharp warmth that makes hard people talk.

Wren is a scientific illustrator working on a freelance contract with a small natural history museum. Watercolour, gouache, and one very specific brand of mechanical pencil. She draws what most people walk past.

Greta runs Greta's Pin Curl, a 1950s-styled retro hair salon in a converted Long Beach storefront. Hairspray and side-eye. Specializes in victory rolls, bombshell waves, and pinup shoots.