Chapter 15
Fifteen
In the morning, the Ferrari was in the garage, her couch empty.
Drostan checked in, after which Cadenza passed several hours quadruple checking flight prices and listing the last of her performance gowns in online classifieds, while her thoughts played on loop, accelerando like the first act finale of The Barber of Seville—Venice, money, Fates, Spinning, Venice, money, Fates, Spinning—till she thought she’d scream.
Instead, she called Reyna, to meet for lunch.
She clanged down the metal stairs—Venice, money, Fates, Spinning—pausing at the Ferrari on her way out, fingers tracing is roof. “See you tonight, bello mio.”
“See who tonight?” a voice asked. She yelped, spinning to face it.
“Sorry,” Canon said, a few feet away. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to check on you.”
“By giving me a heart attack?” She pressed a hand to her chest, catching her breath. “I’m fine.” Venice, money. “I’m having lunch with Reyna.”
“Let me drive you in my car. Who knows if someone snuck in the garage last night.” He pointed at her loaner.
“Taran kept watch, so I’m sure it’s fine.” Fates, Spinning. “And Drostan’s coming with.”
“Where is Taran?” Canon asked, face too innocent again. “I would think he’d want to drive you.”
She busied herself in her purse to avoid his eyes. “He’ll be back.” Venice, money.
“Cadenza—”
“I need to go.” She wrenched open the car door, but Canon stepped in her way.
“Cadenza. Look at me.”
“What?” she snapped. Fate, Spinning.
“I want you to be safe.”
She exhaled heavily and looked him in the face. Concern carved lines on his face—the face of a friend. Her pulse calmed, pernicious thoughts fading.
“Thank you. I needed that.”
He took her hand again, gently this time. “You’re welcome.”
A beat of regret plucked at her. “Why can’t you be a normal human being all the time, Canon?”
He frowned, face closing. “What does that mean?”
She sighed. “It means thank you, I’ll be fine. Please let me get in my car.”
“Ok.” He moved away from the loaner, hands up in surrender. “But I want to talk to you about something before you go, and I want to be totally upfront, so there’s no misunderstanding.”
She tossed her purse in the car. “About what? Because I think you were pretty upfront about your feelings, or should I say, your terms, last week.”
“That’s fair, that’s fair. I won’t say I don’t deserve that.” He paused. “But I know. About Taran.” He pointed at the Ferrari.
Cadenza’s heart raced, and her eyes widened. She cleared her throat to cover her reaction. “Know what about him?”
Canon raised an eyebrow. “Cadenza, I heard the two of you talking the other night. I saw him try to jump through the gap in the fence. I know about the curse.”
“Where are you going with this?” Her heart sank. What kind of exchange was he hoping for with this information?
“I’m not going anywhere with it.” He folded his arms and leaned against the car.
“This is me leaving behind any advantage at the negotiation table, if you’ll forgive the expression.
I’m simply being transparent, and for two reasons.
One, we all need to be upfront with each other about this situation if we’re going to keep you safe.
And two,” he hesitated, and she could see him wrestling with his defenses.
The mask split, real-Canon staring at her earnestly from the crack.
“I know I made a clear offer last week, but the situation has changed. Last week your life wasn’t in danger.
I want you to be safe. Please, let me bring my security people in, whether you reconsider my offer or not.
Although, I hope, the situation now being what it is that you will reconsider. ”
“Canon—”
“He isn’t even human half the day,” he interrupted, gesturing at the Ferrari.
“He’ll never be at a performance for you, let alone be able to fix this problem and keep you safe.
” The crack in the mask sealed, a sales pitch tone creeping into his voice.
“I can protect you. I have the resources for the life you want. I’m the better choice for you—I can go places with you, Cadenza. ”
She stamped her foot. “Canon, this is not an election! I am not a market share, or a demographic to be won over.”
“That is what you want, though, isn’t it?
” Canon asked, almost to himself. “The stage, travel. Your ambitions fulfilled.” He stared through her with unfocused eyes.
“No. It’s changed.” He dropped his arms to his side.
“What you want most, it’s changed.” His eyes came back to the present, and he stepped closer. “You’ve changed.”
Cadenza swallowed. Had she changed? She was still going to get herself to Italy. But this last week, how much of her attention had been on proving to her mother she had what it took, and how much on someone else? Her eyes flicked to the Berlinetta.
“People change, Canon,” she said. She thought of the times his mask cracked, or he set it aside, and her anger melted. “I hope you figure out how someday.”
She drove the car out of the garage, watching in her rearview mirror as Canon stared after her.
Canon watched Cadenza drive off, fingernails digging into his palms. Why didn’t she get it?
The two of them made sense. He’d passed on any number of women because they didn’t make sense with him.
Sure, they’d been intelligent and beautiful, but he couldn’t have built anything with any of them.
They offered no advantage in what he wanted out of life, and he couldn’t have propelled them forward in what they wanted.
Partners should help each other succeed.
He and Cadenza could do that for each other.
If she’d let go of her pride and this idea that she had to do everything all on her own, she’d see that.
He stomped over to the Ferrari and aimed a kick at the back tire. “The irony. A sports car that can’t take her anywhere.” He paced around the car. “Cadenza’s extraordinary, she deserves better than you and you know it. But you’re too selfish to encourage her to do what’s best for her.”
Cadenza’s words came back to him. Why can’t you just be a normal human?
Normal. He snorted in derision. Anyone could achieve “normal.” Anyone could achieve average.
Anyone could achieve anonymous.
He’d learned that early on in life, arriving home from fifth grade one afternoon to find his mother leafing through travel brochures.
“Look at this one, Canon!” she’d said, eyes shining. The brochure boasted scuba diving lessons at a resort in Laguna Beach. “Extraordinary Encounters with Sealife!” hovered in gold letters over a couple posing with dolphins.
He handed her his essay while he perused the brochures.
“A ‘C’?” she asked with a frown.
“What’s wrong with a ‘C’?” He tossed the pamphlet back on the table. He’d worked hard on that essay. Didn’t grown-ups remember how difficult five paragraph essays were? “A ‘C’ is technically average, it’s not failing, Mom.”
His father came in from the garage, home from work for the day. He hummed tunelessly, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Family vacation time coming up,” he announced.
His mother perked up and waved the brochure. “Look at this one, James. Mr. Pearce said the company would pay for—”
“I booked the cabin,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “We’re all set.”
Canon exchanged a look with his mother. Every year his father took them to a cabin on Turlock Lake. Canon enjoyed the swimming and the fishing and the scrambling about on the shore looking for critters, but his mother looked pointedly down at Canon’s essay and the message rang clear.
There was nothing wrong with Turlock Lake. Technically, it was a vacation. But the same cabin, at the same lake, year after year, did not rate an “A.” It did not rate “extraordinary.”
His father shuffled out of the room, oblivious to the look his mother gave him. But Canon saw. Fifteen years of a “C” marriage shot weary daggers from her eyes at his father’s back.
His mother fixed Canon with a stare and tapped the travel brochure.
He rewrote it, resubmitted it to his surprised teacher, and got an “A.”
And he’d sworn to build himself an extraordinary life with no unraveling shirt cuffs. But his brand of extraordinary didn’t tempt Cadenza, and now her desire was changing. He would lose her.
Vasilios’s words taunted him. Be the cog or be the hand that turns the wheel.
Canon’s gift wasn’t enough anymore. He needed to up his game.
He yanked out his phone and dialed his other employer. “I need to talk to you.”
The sun shimmered like a gong through the mellow tune of warm pine needles as Cadenza stepped out of the car. The residential street turned to gravel and dirt, crossed a trickle of a stream, and led to a cluster of tucked-away cabins. But to the left of the trail hulked a steep incline of granite.
On the phone Cadenza had been so stressed she didn’t really think about Reyna’s suggestion that they meet at Twain Harte Rock for a picnic lunch, but now that she was here, with the sun and the pine trees and the quartz in the granite tinkling steel drums in the afternoon light, she thought it was genius.
Although, she thought as she trekked up the granite slope, Drostan staying close to keep watch, but far enough not to intrude, rock is a woefully inadequate word. More like half a mountain.
A lake lay at the top of the trek. The Rock acted as a natural dam, allowing just a trickle of water to spill over, forming the creek at the bottom. Reyna, however, waited not at the top, but just below, where the incline leveled out enough to sit down.
“The best spot for the view,” Cadenza said as she sat next to her.
“You know it.” Reyna handed her a bottled water.
“Thanks. I haven’t been up here in so long I forgot I’d need that.” She took a long drink.
“I figured.” Reyna chuckled. “But we all come home eventually, don’t we?”