Chapter 9
Nine
Midday sun blazed through the sales building’s glass walls. The heat seeped through Cadenza’s jeans, chiming like a mallet on xylophone keys. She checked the time on her phone.
Again.
Ungh! Stop it! You don’t care how long it takes to get to this evening, she told herself. It’s just one time, because you’re leaving for Italy.
She paced around a bright yellow Lamborghini Aventador and pictured clocks evaporating. The door chime sounded, but it was just Canon.
“Hey.” He waved and stowed the rest of his lunch behind a desk.
“Hey.”
Four more minutes.
She hummed the opening line of “La Traviata,” imagining stage lights flooding over her.
Three minutes. Then thirty minutes, then—
Come on, Cadenza. Stop it. You have twenty-five days to raise the rest of the money.
Her phone’s email alert pinged, Ilaria’s name glaring at her from the screen. Ice crystallized in Cadenza’s stomach. Now what?
Ciao cara,
As it turns out, the niece of the direttore also is interested in the part. So we will need to know sooner if you can come or not. Can you have your ticket and the money by the middle of the month? Fammi sapere.
Baci,
Ilaria
Cadenza stopped pacing, legs frozen in horror. “No. No, no, no, no!” She raked her hands through her hair. “She can’t—I can’t—”
“Hey, hey.” Canon rushed over and took her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“My mother! That’s what's wrong.” She spun away from him and kicked the Lamborghini’s tire with a frustrated grunt.
“What did she do?” He turned her to face him.
“I need to have my ticket—and $3,000 of freaking bribe money in two weeks. Two weeks! Or the director’s niece gets the part.” She shrugged Canon off and threw her hands in the air. “That’s not enough time. She knows that’s not enough time! Why dangle this in front of me just to rip it away?”
“Ok, forget your mother,” Canon said, voice earnest, face inches from hers. “You are going to Italy, Cadenza. You were made for this. We’ll figure it out.”
Cadenza stilled and stared at him. No hint of an angle lurked in his voice. No expectation of exchange. Why couldn’t he be this Canon all the time? This Canon made it sound possible. She liked this Canon.
“Everything ok?” Reyna asked from the doorway. “Doesn’t sound too happy in here.”
Cadenza cleared her throat and stepped away from Canon. “No, yeah, sorry. I’m ok. Come on in.” She beckoned Reyna over. “Canon, this is Reyna Weyland. We’re rehearsing together today.”
Reyna shook Canon’s hand. “Yes, Cadenza and I are singing a duet together.”
“Canon Richards,” he said, the ultrabright smile returning in full force.
“Cadenza and I sang a duet together. Although I’m sure you two are performing something much more impressive than a car commercial.
So, I better let you get to practicing.” He turned back to Cadenza, and his sales-floor mask slipped away again.
“I’ll catch up with you later. We’ll fix this, ok? ”
He inclined his head to Reyna and went to leaf through papers on his desk.
Cadenza laid a hand over her heart, exhaling slowly through pursed lips, then led Reyna out the side door and down the estate road. “My place is out back. Thanks for being willing to meet here.”
“No problem. How’s your head?”
“A little better today, thanks.” The bruise was darker the second day, but Cadenza was less stiff.
Reyna tossed her blue braids over her shoulder and pointed back at the showroom. “Canon seems really attentive. And he’s cute. Good for you.”
“What? No.” Cadenza blanched. “We’re just friends. When he acts like a normal human being.”
Reyna squinted at her. “Are you sure?”
“Well, I’m sure. He could use a little enlightening.” Cadenza rolled her eyes, and Reyna laughed.
“So, if not Canon, is there someone else?”
Cadenza punched the code into the garage keypad, and the door rolled away revealing the Ferrari. She gave it an affectionate pat on the way to the stairs. “Just this handsome guy.”
“Aw, no.” Reyna grinned at her. “That sounds like denial to me. Who is he?”
Cadenza dropped her keys trying to open the apartment door. “Who’s who?”
Reyna crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Listen to you. ‘Who’s who?’ Ha! It’s all over your face. Come on, spill the tea.”
Cadenza glanced at Reyna from where she knelt to retrieve her keys, sure the blacksmith must be mocking her. No one had ever actually said “spill the tea” to her before. Like a friend. She stood slowly, taking in Reyna’s open smile.
“The tea?” She unlocked the door and led Reyna into the living room where she had her keyboard set up. “The ‘tea’ is named Taran and is meeting me this evening for…a date?”
“Ok, ok,” Reyna said. “Now we’re getting there. Why is ‘date’ a question?”
“I mean, he didn’t actually say ‘date.’ He just asked me if I was free tonight. I don’t even know what we’re going to do.”
Reyna clapped her hands. “A surprise date, even better! You’ll have to tell me all about it tomorrow.”
Cadenza smiled slowly, relaxing. “What about you? Are you seeing anybody?”
Reyna pulled a binder out of her bag and flipped to their music. “I’m crushing on this one guy, Noah. We’ve been out a few times, but we’ll see how it goes.”
She wiggled her shoulders and sat next to Cadenza on the piano bench to fill her in. Reyna’s enthusiasm for Noah made Cadenza giggle. Part of her wondered if this is what other women did with their sisters growing up. Share secrets. Laugh.
“I guess we better actually sing, huh?” Reyna jostled Cadenza with an elbow.
Light string music plucked its way over her skin and Cadenza caught her breath.
Right. She’d been so distracted by the thought she might be making an actual female friend, she’d forgotten said female friend was the second person she’d ever heard music from. At all. In her life.
“Oh, yeah.” Cadenza checked the time on her phone, hoping she hadn’t taken too long to answer. The piano bench wasn’t that big. She could contrive to touch Reyna again while they sang to test out the music. Make sure it wasn’t a fluke. “I have a girl coming for a voice lesson at two.”
“Uh-huh,” Reyna smirked. “And then you have the rest of the afternoon to count down. Is that what was going on when I got here? Canon trying to convince you to let him help you pass the rest of the afternoon?”
Cadenza’s smile faded as she remembered her conversation in the showroom.
Two weeks.
She sighed. She’d need the next two weeks to go as slowly as the rest of today if she hoped to earn the money in time.
The F12’s engine exploded to life, echoing off the walls of the garage. Cadenza drank it in while the Gaelic melody of the car coursed through the metal frame.
“Three more hours to kill.” She stroked the steering wheel. “You wanna run, bello?”
The track stretched deserted in the late evening sun. Cadenza slipped on her sunglasses against the light lancing off the asphalt and double checked the stands. No Canon on his phone this time.
Not that she was going to let the music lead again. Not after last time. The earthsong rose at that thought like a child testing the rules. A drone hummed from the ground and vibrated up her spine. The Berlinetta’s melody jumped into the mix, shivering through her chest.
Cadenza ground her teeth and tightened her control. No. She shifted gears, and the Ferrari shot down the straightaway, the music subsiding. Cadenza’s thoughts, however, refused to be so easily shut down.
Two weeks.
Two people.
During rehearsal, she’d brushed up against Reyna’s bare arm several times and each time brought the string song.
But only when she touched her. If she wasn’t in contact with her skin, Cadenza heard nothing.
And when she did touch her skin, Reyna’s music sounded on the same level as the rest of the world’s music.
Only Taran’s drums rocked through her like an earthquake.
Or, she snarked, maybe I should say Reyna’s music is the same volume as the rest of the earthsong when it isn’t trying to either swamp me or disappear entirely.
She pushed the Ferrari faster. She didn’t need any of this. She was here to get money, get to Italy, and get her mother to admit she was as good a singer as Ilaria or her sisters. She didn’t need any more evidence to add to her mother’s accusation that she was pazza. Crazy.
Singing dandelions.
Crazy.
A man with antlers.
Crazy.
A woman with full red flowers encircling her hair.
The memory came rushing back, the images jumbled and screaming.
She’d been late for school. She was always late for school when the dandelions sang. She’d run out of the house to play with them. She remembered that; that was normal. But the music had done something not normal for her five-year-old self that day.
The memory started to slip, and Cadenza strained to hold it. The earthsong had pushed at her, scared her. Crawled into her throat for the first time that day, while the antlered man and the flower-crowned woman just stood there, watching her, waiting. Judging.
Her mother had yelled at her. “What will people think? That I am crazy and taught my daughter to be crazy too?”
Cadenza slammed on the breaks and the Ferrari screeched to a stop. Her heart thudded against her ribs, a metronome on speed. She shoved the memories away, crammed them back into the recesses of her mind. They weren’t real. That hadn’t really happened. She’d imagined it. Or dreamt it.
“I’m not crazy.” She gulped in air, squeezing the steering wheel till her fingers cramped.
I’m in control. I’m in control. I’m in control. Cadenza hummed the words to herself until it was true.
“I am not crazy.” She tossed her hair back and sniffed. “And I have a date to get ready for.”
There was a knock at her door just after dark, sending her heart skittering.
She ran her fingers through her hair one more time, checked there was no lipstick on her teeth, and opened the door.
Taran smiled, golden and beautiful, at the top of the stairs, hands in his pockets.
Even standing still, movement flowed through him. An easy, ready-to-act grace.