Chapter 1
One
Norroway Automotive was a far cry from the opera halls of Venice.
Cadenza wove through the ranks of new and used cars in the front lot, the sun flashing off windshields, and heat mirages rising off the asphalt.
Her feet remembered the quickest route to the showroom even though she hadn’t been there in twelve years, just as she’d driven the road here without having to navigate.
She hadn’t expected to use either route ever again. Yet despite having one sister singing professionally in Napoli and the other in Venice, their family’s agent had booked Cadenza here, in this back-highway, Central California town she’d hoped never to see again.
To sing car dealership commercials and the national anthem at short track races.
Not that she could complain. Neither her career nor her finances put her in a position to play diva. This gig didn’t pay much, but if she wanted to come up with the money for her mother’s proposition, she’d need every cent.
Nerves fluted in the pit of her stomach, and she paused outside the showroom door. Heat from the asphalt radiated through the soles of her shoes. Bass notes flowed, tendril-like, from the ground. They played around her ankles, vibrated in her calves.
Not right now. She glared at the ground.
A melody shimmered in the streams of sunlight—a melody no one could hear but her. It trailed between her fingertips while the bass climbed her spine, insistent, palpable.
No, she scolded. I need to focus.
The music receded with a petulant trill, and Cadenza took a deep breath. Better.
She tossed her hair back, squared her shoulders, and put on her best smile before pulling open the showroom door.
The front lot held the everyday cars—commuter sedans, minivans, used pickups—but the showroom housed Drostan Norroway’s specialty of high-end import models.
Her heels clicked on the marble floor, and a salesperson emerged from behind an Aston Martin Vantage to greet her.
His eyes widened for half a heartbeat before a smile worthy of a dentist commercial settled on his face.
“Welcome to Norroway Auto. How can I help you?”
Cadenza shook his hand. “Cadenza Cavalieri. Drostan is expecting me.”
“Oh, yes. He mentioned you’d be arriving today.” He still had a hold of her hand. “Canon Richards. I can show you to his office if you like.”
“That’s ok. I remember where it is.” She reclaimed her hand as politely as she could and cut through the rows of sports cars to a hallway of offices.
Her father had been the only mechanic Drostan Norroway trusted to work on his Italian imports, and as a child, Cadenza often accompanied him on his jobs here.
When she tired of helping her father work, Drostan would pull out a package of turtle chocolates and tell her fantastic tales about the family heirlooms from Scotland on display in his office.
She shook herself. Nostalgia was not why she was here.
Earn enough money to get to Venice for the chorus part her mother had promised her.
That was why she was here. Never mind that her mother’s promises tended to be as shaky as Cadenza’s finances.
If she could just get there, she’d be in with professionals and get noticed.
Get offers, find a position with a company. Start a real career.
A gravelly voice drifted out an open office door, singing along to an old Dougie McLean song.
Cadenza’s posture softened. Yes, being back in her hometown was a pitstop on the way to her opera dreams, but it would be good to see Drostan again.
The last time had been at her father’s funeral; she’d been young enough for him to call her “Caddie” and for her to call him “Uncle Drostan” in return.
“Hello?” Cadenza knocked before pushing the door the rest of the way open.
“Caddie!” Drostan’s gray beard split into a grin as he shoved away from his desk. “Give your Uncle Drostan a hug, lass.”
Apparently twenty-four years old was still young enough for him to call her Caddie.
He wrapped her in a hug, and some of the nerves in her stomach faded away. A feeling rushed through her, unfamiliar at first. Then it hit her. Home. Famiglia.
How long had it been since she’d felt that?
Drostan pulled back. “Look at how you’ve grown! Last time I saw you, you weren’t but yea high.” He held a hand to his middle. “Come away in, dear.” He waved her into the office and fixed mugs of tea while she looked around.
“They’re all still here.” She pointed to a collection of heirlooms, Drostan’s stories coming back to her.
A leather arm brace that had deflected an arrow in a Jacobite battle.
The stirrup from a saddle used in cattle raids.
The dagger that Drostan swore had been instrumental in persuading the Roman, Hadrian, to build that wall.
“Oh, aye,” he chuckled. “The ‘story things’ you called them when you were wee. It’s true, not much has changed around here.”
Cadenza nodded at a framed snapshot on the desk of Drostan with his two sons. “How are Ruairi and Cyrus doing?” Both boys had already been out of the house when she’d been a child, so she’d only met them a few times.
“Oh, they’re fine, fine. Working off in…
” He waved in a vaguely southern direction while he rummaged through a mound of papers on the desktop.
“Ah ha! Here they are.” He handed her a set of keys.
“For the apartment. There’ll be paperwork and such, of course, for the singing contract, but you’ll be wanting to get settled first. Come on.
” Drostan ushered her out of the office.
They drove Cadenza’s car past several repair garages to the back of the Norroway Automotive complex, where the road split.
To the right, it ran down a small hill to a cottage where Drostan lived out of sight of the sales lot.
To the left, the road curved past another garage and led to the half mile short track where Cadenza would be singing at the races that Norroway Auto hosted.
Oak woods and a large, open field stretched on the other side of the track.
“Just in here. Opener’s on your keys.” Drostan pointed to the garage on the left, and Cadenza pushed the button on her new set of keys.
Overhead lights flickered as she pulled her sedan inside.
The garage was empty except for a car shrouded in a cover, like furniture in an unused house.
Metal stairs climbed the back wall of the garage to the apartment door.
The smell of tire rubber and oil-soaked cement rolled over her when she stepped out of the car.
It smelled like her father, and she breathed it in deep.
Cadenza made to hoist a duffle bag out of the trunk but hesitated. “You sure I’m not going to be in the way here?”
“Wheesht!” Drostan banished the idea with a wave of his hand. “It’ll make it easier for the races if you’re here. And it’ll be lovely to have more company on the estate.”
Cadenza smiled to herself. She’d forgotten how he always referred to the automotive grounds as “the estate.”
“Besides.” He threw a glance at the covered car before hefting a box out of the back seat and trundling up the stairs.
“We don’t use this garage anymore save for storage.
This was one of the first buildings we put up back when we opened.
The apartment used to be the staff lounge.
” He indicated a window in the wall of the living room that overlooked the garage below.
“But it should serve. We cleaned it up and kitted it out after booking you.”
Cadenza dropped her duffle bag on the couch. “We?”
“Aye, young Canon and myself. You’ll have met him on the way in. He works the sales floor. Could sell water to a drowning man, that lad. Has a fair voice as well. He’ll be singing in the commercial with you.”
“Great.” She faked a smile, not sure yet what she thought of Canon-the-salesman who-held-her-hand-too-long. But first impressions could be deceiving. If Drostan liked him, maybe he was a decent guy.
They clanged down the metal stairs for another load of Cadenza’s belongings, and the shape of the covered car caught her eye.
“What’s under here? It looks fast.” She ran a hand over the roof, appreciating the silhouette.
“Oh, that?” Drostan averted his eyes from the sheet-covered car and busied himself with a suitcase.
“It’s just … something that doesn’t want to go anymore.
” A buzz sounded from his pocket, and he checked his phone.
“Caddie, dear, I’m wanted up front. I’ll let you finish getting settled.
The keypad code is on the back of the garage door opener.
Tomorrow we can head to the studio for the first commercial, alright? ”
“Sounds good. Thanks, Drostan.” Cadenza leaned against the mystery car and watched him jog back up the road towards the showroom. Recording started tomorrow. Good. A month was not a long time.
She patted the covered car. “You don’t want to go, and I don’t want to stay.
What a pair. Still …” She rubbed the keyring in her pocket.
Radio commercials and amateur car races weren’t the trajectory she had envisioned for her singing career.
But it did mean no more living out of her car or crashing on friends’ couches.
No more lying to her agent that she was “just fine” for fear of being dropped as a client.
She had a place of her own again. At least temporarily.
Because living in Sonora again was … Definitely. Temporary.
One more trip up and down the stairs was all it took to cart the rest of her belongings up to the apartment.
Sliding glass doors led from the living room to a balcony with a view of the grounds and old Highway 108 that ran through her hometown of Sonora, past the Norroway “estate,” and farther east. Beyond the highway rolled the foothills, on their way to becoming the Sierra Nevada.