Chapter 2
Two
The recording session the next day proved simple. Two versions of a jingle that Cadenza could have sight read in her sleep. While not classically trained, Canon had a smooth, pleasant voice that he’d adapted well to mesh with hers. She checked her phone when they finished. Not even noon yet.
The receptionist in the lobby stopped her on the way out. “Your boss had to run back up to the dealership, but he said he could be back in a couple of hours if you want to wait for him.” Cadenza had ridden with Drostan to the studio that morning.
“I can give you a ride back up the hill,” Canon volunteered. “No point in sitting here for two hours.”
“Thanks,” she said. He’d behaved himself during the recording. Riding in the car together for ten minutes should be fine.
“Great.” He held the door for her on the way out. “Do you want to get some lunch before heading back? There’s a great to-go deli around the corner.”
Cadenza hesitated. That sounded too close to a lunch date.
Maybe she’d gotten the wrong impression of him yesterday, and he was handsome, in a polo shirt, Ken-doll type of way, but living in Sonora again was a temporary situation on the way to a permanent career.
She had no intention of dating anyone right now.
“That’s ok, I wouldn’t want to keep you from the sales floor.”
Canon shrugged and flashed a smile. “I’d be on my lunch break right now anyway. And I’d like to get to know my new neighbor.”
“Wait. Neighbor?” she asked. Drostan hadn’t mentioned anyone besides the two of them living on site.
“Yeah, Norroway’s roommate. Deli’s over one street.” Canon gestured to the west and started off down the sidewalk, leaving her to follow if she wanted that ride.
“I moved up from Hayward when I got this job,” he continued. “And bunking in his spare room was the easiest arrangement. I didn’t have to waste time looking for a place, so I could get to selling faster. And I think Drostan enjoys the company since his boys are gone.”
“His boys have been gone since I was little though,” she said.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know, it just seems like he broods about it sometimes.
You know, like sitting at the window with a glass of whiskey staring out at the garages kind of brooding.
I figure he’s remembering working with his sons.
I try to have a weekly game night with him, chess or Stramash or something. I think it helps cheer him up.”
Cadenza stopped on the sidewalk, surprised. “I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t peg you for the kind of guy to sit and play board games with a man three times your age.”
Canon paused alongside her. Next to them, yellow roses dripped over the fence of one of the historic houses of downtown. He tapped a blossom starting to lose its petals.
“Our society tends to shunt older people off to the side. I like helping them feel like they’re still enough, you know? Still people.”
Cadenza resumed walking. “How long have you been working for him?” They turned a corner onto the main thoroughfare of downtown Sonora.
Originally a gold rush town, the main street still featured wooden plank sidewalks.
Most of the Old West-style storefronts housed antique shops and restaurants catering to tourists from the Bay Area, but the first shop window on the corner showed off New Age supplies. Cadenza gasped.
“It’s still here!” She ran to the window and pressed her hands to the glass.
Trinkets from all over the world filled the shop.
Tarot cards based on Celtic myths. Incense from Japan.
Statuary from India. Reminders that a world existed beyond this town.
That there was Somewhere Else to go. “This was my favorite store in high school.”
Canon joined her at the window. “Interesting. I haven’t been in before. But I’ve only been here about a year and a half. So, not as long as you spent here, I gather.”
Cadenza pulled back from the window display.
Three streets over was the apartment she’d shared with her stepmother and her sisters after her father had passed away.
Giulia, the eldest, had already been out on her own when their Babbo died.
Chiara had been sixteen; she’d only had to deal with their stepmother as the sole parent figure for a couple of years before going away to school, but it had been six years for Cadenza.
Six forever-long years of being essentially ignored.
“Yeah, I grew up here. Hadn’t planned on coming back.” She turned away from her high school haunt and continued up the street without speaking until Canon turned aside at a narrow storefront.
He held the deli door open for her. “You know, I have a superpower.”
Cadenza pulled herself out of her thoughts. “Oh, yes?”
“Oh yes,” he echoed. “All truly great salespeople do.”
“Alright.” She joined the line at the counter, Canon right behind her. “I’ll bite. What, oh Super Salesman, is your amazing power?”
Canon pretended to check that no one was listening, then leaned down and whispered, “I read people. What they want. What they feel is lacking in their life. That’s how I know the best thing to sell them.”
Cadenza raised an eyebrow.
“Here, I’ll show you.” He turned to the deli clerk.
“BLT with sprouts and avocado for me. And…” He pursed his lips in thought, perusing the menu board, before whispering something to the clerk.
He gave Cadenza one more look before adding, “With butter instead of mayo please. And prosciutto and cantaloupe on the side of both orders.”
Cadenza pulled out her phone to pay for whatever sandwich Canon had ordered for her, but he held up his hand to stop her.
“No, no. My treat.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I picked your lunch, so I’ll pay for it,” he said. “What if I got it wrong?”
“Does that happen often?”
He gave a modest shrug. “Well, no. But, you know, there’s always a non-zero probability, right?”
She snorted but gave in. It was hard to argue with such moxie. “Ok, fine, you win.”
Canon smirked. “I usually do.”
They left the deli and walked to Courthouse Park, a green break of lawn, trees, and benches in a street of shops all rubbing walls with each other. Canon dusted off a wrought-iron bench with a flourish, unwrapped her sandwich, and proffered it on a napkin.
“Alright, Superman, moment of truth.” Cadenza took a bite. “Wow. Salami, mozzarella di bufala and sundried tomatoes. Ok, yes, I admit it, this is one of my favorite sandwich combos. Congratulations,” she teased. “You obviously have a very promising career as a deli clerk ahead of you.”
He stood and swept a low bow.
“So what else do you think I want?” She meant it as a joke, but Canon’s face turned serious. The sun speared through his hair, turning the dark blond to gold and throwing shadows that hollowed his cheekbones. His shadow covered her, and unease sparked down her arms.
“You want the world to know your name,” he said. “You want to be famous. And more famous than…” He paused, his eyes taking on an unfocused look. “More famous than your sisters and your mother.”
A chill rippled through her, despite the late-summer heat, and the sandwich turned sour in her stomach.
Canon knew she was a singer, so guessing she wanted success wasn’t a stretch.
But despite her reminiscing, she hadn’t mentioned out loud that she even had sisters, let alone the on-again, off-again competitiveness of their relationship.
She certainly hadn’t talked about her mother.
Canon sat back on the bench, and the sun’s heat washed over her again. Her stomach relaxed, and she flushed, embarrassed for even considering Canon might have some kind supernatural gift.
“So, you what? Googled me? And found famous sisters.” She tried to keep her voice light, to hide her irritation that he’d looked her up ahead of time, and that what he’d found was not her own merits, her own hard work or accomplishments, but her sisters’.
That he’d found a connection to Ilaria at all surprised her.
Her mother didn’t claim anyone who couldn’t add to her own success.
“Maybe.” Canon leaned forward. “Or maybe I’m just that good.”
Cadenza rolled her eyes and rose from the bench. “Or maybe you’re just good at freaking people out. Sales is just storytelling, right? Tell the right story and you get what you want from people.”
Again, she covered her anger with a joking tone. She was going to have to work with this man, and live near him, at least until she left for Italy. Might as well keep it cordial.
Canon stood too, laughing. “Hey, whatever moves cars off the lot.” He wrapped up the rest of the lunch and led them back toward the car at the recording studio.
“But seriously, ambition is nothing to be ashamed of. You want to be famous? You want to be the best? Then own it. I certainly don’t plan on selling minivans to soccer moms for the rest of my life. ”
“And what illustrious line of work do you see yourself in, Mr. Richards?” She waved a hand in the air in mock pretension.
“Politics, of course. Now there’s an arena where a good story can get you what you want.”
The scent of sweaty salami competed with comforting wafts of Pennzoil. The remains of Cadenza’s lunch with Canon sat wilting on top of a mechanic cart next to the Berlinetta. Her bank account wouldn’t allow her to waste it, but every time she tried to take a bite, her stomach cramped.
“‘Ambition is nothing to be afraid of,’” she quoted Canon to the Ferrari’s engine block.
His blatant assessment of her rankled, most of all because he was right.
“But if you want something, you have to go after it. You can’t just expect it to land in your lap.
” She replaced the oil cap, repeating the lesson her Babbo had drilled into her as a child.
Ambition was something she had plenty of, and she had embraced the responsibility to make her dreams come true herself quite young.
But when Canon said ambition, the word felt dirty.
Like he thought he’d found a fellow imbiber in some backroom vice.
She straightened, swiping at the grease on her hands with a shop towel.
She’d have to get another nail brush. Anyone hiring a singer for an event generally frowned at the 1040-under-fingernails look, and she had to stay ready in case her agent called with a gig.
She laughed at the thought of showing up in jeans with dirty nails.
“Honestly,” she addressed the Ferrari again. “It’d be more comfortable than sequins and heels, but we do what we have to, vero?”
The arts thrived on competition. Ambition was vital to staying afloat.
Besides, music lived everywhere for her.
Rhythm vibrated through the ground. Melody tumbled on the breeze.
The earth sang to her, begged for her voice to weave it into form.
She kept that to herself of course, but with music all around her, an opera star mother and two older sisters already performing—what else would she have chosen to be but a singer?
“And if I’m going to be a singer, I might as well be a successful one.
” She let the hood of the car snick closed and paced a circle around the Berlinetta, fingers tracing the sleek frame.
Even this Ferrari—metal and oil and leather, all things that originated from the natural world—had a tune buried inside.
If she could coax it out, maybe she could figure out how to fix it.
A simple oil change, fresh gas, and a new battery from the on-site repair shop’s supplies had come first since she didn’t know how long the car had been sitting idle.
She’d found no rust, no corrosion, nothing cracked, weathered, missing.
All the electrical systems checked out; the scanners even insisted the car had power.
It wasn’t uncommon for the starter in an F12 to go bad, but a bench test said it was fine.
But none of those were things that Drostan’s team couldn’t have done.
Whatever was wrong was deeper. She sank into the driver’s seat and turned the key she’d found in the glovebox.
Nothing. Not even a click.
Hands on the wheel, she chided the machine. “If you want something, you have to make it happen.”
She groaned at her own words and thunked her head against the seat.
She was trying to make it happen. Private voice lessons all through high school, a bachelor’s degree in voice from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, an apprenticeship with the San Francisco Opera.
And all along the way, trying to give people what she thought they wanted.
What they thought an opera singer should be.
She glared at her hands. That definitely didn’t include dirty fingernails.
If only people’s songs were as easy to pick out as the ones in the world around her, but she’d never heard earthsong from another person.
Cadenza drew in a deep breath. Held it. Blew it out. She cleared her stalled career from her thoughts, focusing on the car. Give me your song …
A melody ghosted across her skin, flickering in and out of reach. Her eyes drifted closed to listen, but the tune refused to materialize.
So often she had to keep the music at arm’s length. Keep it under control so she could focus and interact with the people around her. Why was this song so hard to draw out?
“Va bene, bello mio. Keep your secrets for tonight,” she whispered to the dashboard. “I’ll figure you out, don’t you worry.”
Tomorrow she’d pay a visit to one of her father’s colleagues in Modesto.
People still remembered and respected his work.
If she called in a few favors owed to him, she could get some parts to try, maybe a new starter anyway.
Because she would make this car run again, for Drostan.
Just like she would make her career take off.
Her stomach growled. She climbed out of the car and grabbed the sandwich off the tray.
No point in starving.