Chapter 10
Ten
Cadenza flipped through her sheet music, making last-minute mental notes—which songs the band wanted to play at a slower tempo, where they’d decided to insert instrumental solos—while pre-show jitters jumped in her belly.
Someone knocked on the dressing room door, and a stagehand peered in. “You have visitors, Ms. Cavalieri.”
“I do?” She poked her head out of the door and found Canon, in a tailored suit, his arms full of red roses. Next to him, Mr. Pearce leaned on his silver-handled walking stick.
“Canon? What are you doing here?” She didn’t remember telling him tonight was her first performance at the club.
Static crackled in her ears. The earthsong wavered in and out, and she pulled at her ear. Where was this coming from? Please behave tonight, she begged the music.
“Just wanted to wish you luck.” He laid the bouquet in her arms. “Vasilios happens to be a member of the club, so I came with him.”
Canon’s backer touched his cane to his forehead in greeting.
“Thank you.” She breathed in the sweet-water scent of the roses, harp chords vibrating from the petals. “They’re beautiful. You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged, and real-human Canon showed through. “I wanted you to feel supported.” He glanced over at Mr. Pearce who gave a tiny nod. “And as beautiful as they are on their own, those roses are improved with you holding them.” His mask slipped back into place.
Cadenza’s own smile faltered. If Taran drowned her in drums, the different versions of Canon gave her whiplash.
“I’ll put those in a vase for you, Ms. Cavalieri,” the stagehand said, taking the bouquet.
“Thanks.” Cadenza folded her arms across her stomach to prevent Canon from claiming her now-empty hands. “How did you know I was performing tonight?”
“Drostan mentioned it,” Canon said. “Vasilios and I thought we couldn’t let your first performance go by uncelebrated.”
“That’s really very kind of you, Canon, thank you. And Mr. Pearce.”
“Please, you must call me Vasilios,” he reminded her.
“Of course,” Cadenza said, distracted. If Drostan knew, and Canon knew, Taran must know too. They all lived in the same house. “Did Drostan come too?” She tried to keep her voice casual.
“No.” Canon shook his head. “I asked him if he wanted to come, but he said he had to help Taran with something.”
“They would have been welcome at my table,” Vasilios said. “I am able to bring more guests.”
The earthsong dropped again, and Cadenza grabbed the wall, dizzy.
“You alright?” Canon reached for her.
“Two minutes, Ms. Cavalieri,” the stagehand called down the hall. She waved in acknowledgement.
“I’d better finish getting ready.”
Canon looked at her doubtfully, but Vasilios tapped him on the arm. “Of course. We’ll take our seats. I’m looking forward to finally hearing the voice Canon has raved so much about.”
Cadenza retreated to the dressing room. Canon had come to hear her sing.
Canon had come.
Taran had not.
She ran a lint roller over her dress. Fixed a pin in her hair. Told herself the tightness in her stomach had nothing to do with disappointment. She had no right to be disappointed.
I mean, really, what happened last night? They’d eaten fudge. Talked. Laughed. Taran had walked her home. He hadn’t kissed her goodnight.
You read too much into it, Cadenza. You always misread people. And you didn’t even invite him, so you can’t expect him to be here.
At least no more static buzzed in her ears. She rolled her shoulders back and marched down the corridor to spy out the audience from backstage.
Dinner at the Learmonth Country Club was a formal, four-fork event.
Thomas consulted with the chef—imported from Milano—about each day’s menu, and the dress code gave the club’s wealthy members ample opportunity to flash their designer formal wear.
Waitstaff moved through the room, serving the first course while candles on each table echoed the glow of the chandeliers.
Cadenza spotted Canon and Vasilios at a table near the front before the stage manager ushered her on stage.
A spotlight splashed a puddle of gold around her, and she couldn’t help thinking of the gold of Taran’s eyes. Had she really read last night so wrong?
The band started into the first set. Time to sing.
Leaving behind the vibrato of opera in favor of the mellow jazz stylings she’d worked on with Thomas, Cadenza flowed through the first song.
The earthsong answered her. Tendrils of melody rose up through the floor and played with the bass and piano already on stage with her.
She let it rise but kept the leash short.
The diners dropped their salad forks to clap after the first song.
Canon clapped the loudest.
What if Taran were the one clapping instead?
The band plunged into the second number. The earthsong rose to her knees, wrapped its end-of-summer bass guitar notes around her hips.
Focus. Control. She clenched her fists and belted out the second verse.
Vasilios leaned over to make a comment to Canon and Canon nodded, a smug smile playing over his face.
Cadenza allowed herself the luxury of another what if, imagining Taran’s relaxed grace replacing Canon’s politician veneer at the table.
His drums rolling through the room. A dangerous daydream pounded through her head.
Taran, not at the front table at Learmonth Country Club, but in the front row of Teatro la Fenice. Clapping the loudest, for her.
The music jumped from her hips to her throat. It clutched at her diaphragm, strummed at her vocal cords.
She pushed back, hard, but the band swelled in a crescendo and the earthsong clung to her. Human-made music, earth-made music, and her control over them both crashed into each other.
Electricity buzzed and zapped along the ceiling. The chandeliers exploded, glass raining onto the tables and dinner guests. The stage monitors blew out in a screech of feedback and Cadenza’s microphone cut out.
But the earthsong didn’t release her voice.
The diners’ screams quieted. Every eye turned to the stage. Cadenza’s voice rolled through the space like an energy blast.
No! She fought for control, dragging the song back note for note like hauling in an overloaded net from the sea. The music’s hold on her voice broke, and she staggered backwards, gasping.
Silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Thomas leapt onto the stage. “We appear to be having some electrical issues. Thank you for your patience while we clean this up and assure that no one was hurt.”
Voices buzzed through the hall. Staff appeared to clear off the tables and sweep glass off the floor. Cadenza escaped offstage, heart pounding. When she turned back, she found Thomas staring at her, glasses off and face grim.
The earthsong was quieter the next day and through Brylee’s lesson that evening, leading Cadenza to think she was right that releasing the music also calmed it. If only releasing it didn’t also wreak havoc.
She clanked down the metal stairs to the Ferrari. At least Thomas hadn’t fired her after the debacle last night. Not that he had a reason to connect her to the power surge; he didn’t know what she was. But the way he’d looked at her made her worry.
She slipped off her shoes and clambered to sit cross-legged on the hood of the car and watch the sun set out the garage door. “He can’t know what I am,” she reassured herself. “I don’t even know what I am.”
She groaned, raking her fingers through her hair. So many years of working for control. “And now the lights explode when I sing.”
A text from Canon buzzed on her phone.
Hey, I have an idea about Italy. Meet me on the porch at the cottage.
“Che ne dici, bello?” She showed the text to the Ferrari’s windshield. “Can’t be worse than no idea, right?” She slid off the hood hoping he’d be good-guy Canon today.
When she arrived, the porch swing creaked softly as he swung back and forth, mixing with the low whistle of the oaks next to the cottage.
“Hey, what’s up?” She skipped up the steps, and he waved her over. Cadenza sat sideways in the swing, studying his face and trying to guess which Canon he was going to be.
“So, I have an idea.” He cleared his throat, a sliver of vulnerability cutting open his usual mask.
Maybe real-person Canon?
“And it might sound crazy but hear me out.”
“Ok.” Cadenza pulled her knees into her chest and settled against the arm of the swing. “I’m listening.”
“Promise?”
She laughed ruefully. “Crazy seems to be my normal lately. Tell me your idea.”
“Ok. I explained the problem to Vasilios, and he had a simple fix.”
“You what?” She straightened. “Canon, these are my personal financial issues.”
“I know, I know,” he interrupted, hands up to stop her argument. “But I needed to brainstorm, and he’s a good sounding board for me. Just listen.”
Cadenza huffed. “Fine.”
He swallowed and took a deep breath. “I’m just gonna get straight to it. Marry me.”
“What?” She jumped out of the swing.
“You promised to listen.”
“Yes, to an idea about paying for my trip to Italy.” She gawked at him, back against the porch railing.
“Let me explain.” Canon rose to follow her, speaking fast. “I think we could be really good for each other. After the picture from the Open House ran in the paper, it circulated online too.”
“Canon,” she cried. “You were supposed to fix that!”
“Yeah, but what I’m saying is my approval ratings skyrocketed because of that picture.
Because of you. When people see you with me, and think that you like me, it makes them like me too.
” He stepped in closer, eyes bright. “I’m good at what I do, you know I am.
Drostan pays me accordingly. Even then I’m obviously not planning on staying in sales.
Once I really get going in the political arena I’m not exactly going to be strapped for cash. ”
She stared at him, but there was no ultrabright smile, no sales pitch in his voice, and her mouth dropped open as she realized he was serious.