Page 12 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

They seated us on the balcony at a table for four.

The neon-green light of the movie theater sign glows against the dark sky.

They’ve lit a candle and turned up the heater, and in the dance for seats, Sydney and I ended up next to each other, across from my mother and Rick, like two teenagers at a family dinner.

My phone buzzes with a text.

I tug it out of my back pocket to make sure it’s not from one of my coworkers.

I originally slotted myself off for three days, not intending to stay through the engagement weekend in Solvang.

I had hoped I could come here, blow up whatever plan my mother was working on with this guy, and bolt home.

But now that Sydney is a factor—strictly as a partner in this scheme—I don’t think I can run back to the mountains to avoid the debris of this relationship explosion.

I’ll have to finesse the situation a lot more now, which will require a longer time frame than initially expected.

It’s not Devin texting back to confirm he’s covering my rotation on the trails for the next few days.

It’s not Nika, who I briefly checked in with before booking my flight and who had the decency not to press me on the reason for my sudden departure, though she likely assumes it had something to do with the letter I received.

A part of me wanted to tell her more—take the opportunity to connect.

A very small part.

The text is from Sydney.

I put my phone under the table ledge, opening my menu to serve as a buffer so I can check it without prying eyes.

You catch more flies with honey

I want to cut her a glare, but I’m acutely aware of my mother’s attention. I glance up to see she’s perusing the menu, chattering with Rick about appetizers, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t also perceiving my every move.

I settle on sending the annoyed-face emoji instead.

She’ll know something is up if I get friendly

Just suggesting you ease up on the vinegar douse

Three blinking dots.

Slowly let the sweetness in

“Should we grab champagne for the table?” Rick asks, breaking us from our covert convo.

“This is a celebration.” So earnest. He looks like a male version of his daughter, except for the salt-and-pepper hair.

Big, doe-like blue eyes, a downturned mouth, wide, glistening smile that draws you in, strong jaw, and strong presence.

“Wouldn’t you agree, dear?” Rick turns to my mother, the term of endearment hovering in the air like a wasp.

The waiter arrives just in time for her to smile back, wink, and say, “I’ll never turn down some bubbly.”

“A bottle of your finest,” Rick says to the waiter.

“Or maybe just a bubbly that you couldn’t buy at the gas station,” Sydney chimes in.

“No need to break the bank on us, Dad.” Clever girl.

This is such a good icebreaker, immediately getting the pretense that we can’t discuss money or other more personal topics out of the way. Setting us up to launch our scheme.

“Let him spoil us,” Moira says, looking at Sydney. “Who’s it gonna hurt?”

Sydney’s face doesn’t ever slip from the sanguine expression—that go-with-the-flow energy she is so good at giving off. But I can feel her nerves jolt, an electric current, a Spidey-sense that practically makes the hair on my arm stand at attention.

The waiter looks uncertain until Rick’s face cracks open with a smile, a laugh rumbling in his throat. “Finest champagne it is.”

“And some whipped feta with honey,” Moira adds. “Extra naan.” Her eyes travel to me. “Anything to add, Cadence?”

“You seem to have it covered,” I reply, closing my menu even though I haven’t decided what to order for my entrée. My stomach is a violent storm. I might just stick to liquids. I turn my attention to Rick as my mother’s eyes bore a hole in the side of my face. “Thank you for the champagne, Rick.”

For a second, no one speaks. Whether because this is the most I’ve said at one time since we’ve all met or because the awkwardness of this situation is finally starting to dawn on the parents and now they aren’t sure how to surmount it so we can enjoy our dinner.

I ball my hands into fists against my thighs, letting the short tips of my nails dig into my palms. As a rule, I rarely try to lead conversations in social settings.

I’m much more content to ride out the ebbs and flows of empty silences if that means I can keep my input to a minimum.

“Moira, Dad told me you two met on that dating app for the over-fifty crowd,” Sydney says, her voice easy and charming. I’m struck immediately by a bolt of gratitude that I’m not trying to tackle this thing alone, relying on my skills—or lack thereof—of communication.

“Silver Sweethearts,” Rick pipes up, reaching across the tabletop to take Moira’s hand, right between their sets of silver cutlery.

“Silver Sweethearts,” my mother repeats, lifting her free hand to rest it on top of their clasped ones.

“Although, I joined through the website—Lola helped me, as you know, Cadence.” She focuses on me.

My eyes, my reaction. She’s trying to position us as having communicated about this before, like a normal mother and daughter would.

“I’m sure you didn’t give her a choice.” I’m surprised when the words leave my lips, and even more surprised when she laughs.

“There’s always a choice.” Light flickers in her eyes, brazen.

This is exactly what she wants. While I push connection away, Moira runs headlong into it.

“But even without Lola’s support,” she continues, “I felt that soul-deep certainty that always accompanies an intuitive hit from the Universe that it was the right thing.” She lets her gaze drift over to Rick’s face.

It settles, stays, turning into something almost gentle.

All the hard lines, those sharp cheekbones, her piercing eyes—all tender.

For a second she looks more like me than ever before.

“And look at us, within a day Rick had sent me a nudge.”

“And she had messaged me to get a cup of coffee.”

The waiter reappears with a bottle of Bollinger, hitting the pause button on the rest of the story as he makes a big show of removing the metal cap on top of the cork.

“Shall I do the honors?” he asks Rick. His teeth gleam. “Or would you prefer to take the reins?” He lifts his brows in question. Rick releases my mother’s hand to raise both of his in the air, waving them dramatically in surrender.

“I couldn’t, I couldn’t. You’re the expert,” he says, flashing a smile that’s somehow even more charming than the young waiter’s.

Something tells me Rick very much could and probably would find some way to make it magical if he did.

But he’s letting the waiter do his thing—not trying to steal the show—and I can’t help but feel a surge of respect that he is.

The waiter positions his thumb at the rim to pop it open, then works it slowly from the confines of the glass until it slips free without bubbling over.

“Bravo!” Moira chimes in. “Didn’t waste a drop.”

Historically, my mother is a red wine drinker almost exclusively. I’ve never known her to do bubbles or whites, and as a rule, sweet is always out.

“Is it spilling or just toasting with an empty glass that’s considered bad luck?” Rick asks, taking a glass from the waiter’s hand and passing it over to Moira.

“Bad luck isn’t real.” The words, said in unison with my mother, create a harmony of her deeper tones with my brighter ones.

“You don’t think so?” Rick asks as the waiter passes another glass to me. I follow Rick’s lead and hand it to Sydney. Our eyes meet briefly as our fingertips touch.

I seal my lips, happy to let Moira chime in first. She was the one who taught me that the events of your life aren’t determined by luck.

But by action.

“And you do?” Moira asks, sounding surprised but giving him a little wink. It’s weird to see her playful in this way. Caring, like she wants to make sure Rick is in on it with her, but I have a hard time believing she’s not setting him up somehow.

The waiter retreats, leaving the bottle to the side of our dining space, tucked neatly inside a bucket of ice.

“Pilots are some of the most superstitious people on the planet,” Rick says. He looks at Sydney, mouth spreading in a grin. “You still wear the little birdie?”

“Every time I fly,” she says. “Wheels aren’t going up without it.”

My hands go clammy. Something about this makes me feel trepidatious, but I don’t know why. It’s like the way it feels when a storm is brewing in the distant sky. Crackling, darkening, but still not close enough to make you batten down the hatches.

“And you live by this superstition…” Moira offers that Mona Lisa smile of hers, the one that seems to say I know something you don’t know, but I’ll never tell .

“Why? Because you have reason to believe, or because you don’t?

” This question could be for either of them, but my mother only directs it toward Sydney.

“I don’t get the question,” Sydney says with a cultivated boredom. “Sorry.” Shrug.

My mother doesn’t flinch.

“Let’s see,” Moira says, setting her champagne flute down on the table. Her fingernails tap the stem once. “Sometime in the past—before you started wearing the little birdie ?” She quirks her brow in question.

“A birdie pin I got her,” Rick says, sounding proud. “Because she’s my little Birdie girl.”

“How sweet,” my mother says, her eyes drifting to Rick briefly, softening momentarily, before returning to Sydney.

“Sometime before you started wearing the pin, you either had an experience that made you believe you needed this charm to keep you safe, or you didn’t, and you began wearing the charm as a precaution created from a shared belief. Between you two, possibly?”

I watch the Sinclairs for their reactions.