Page 15 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

Well, that plan got fucked.

Sydney’s text, sent moments after we left the restaurant last night.

She followed it up with an apology, which she didn’t need to do.

It isn’t her fault Moira bent the conversation to her will.

I spent the rest of the night until I passed out worrying my mother’s probing her about her beliefs, digging at her surface to try to see what was underneath, would spook her.

Sydney doesn’t seem easy to scare. She also doesn’t seem like a person who likes to be fenced in.

That conversation was barbed wire meant to trap.

I just can’t figure out if my mother is setting the trap solely for Sydney or for us both.

I can’t even examine the notion that she knows Sydney and I met at Kismet—there’s no logical reason to think that she would.

But the spooky terror my mother dredges up in my soul isn’t based on logic, reason, or any of the things I hold most dear.

It’s a deeper root, the kind you can’t just pull out.

One that, in order to fully understand, you’d need an advanced degree in psychology and an endless well of time and patience. Neither of which I have.

I won’t give in to the gnawing at my brain trying to convince me she was manipulating Sydney into discussing cosmic concepts because she knew how we met. Where we met. And even why.

You’ll meet your soulmate at Kismet, all because of me.

The specificity is a coincidence.

Sydney is not a romantic interest.

As if on cue, a black Audi rolls up to the curb opposite my rental car, and the bodacious blonde who is very much not in question climbs out.

Dressed in painted-on jeans and a flouncy cobalt-blue sweater that hangs off one shoulder, exposing it bare.

She closes the door with her ass because her hands are full with two to-go cups and her purse.

She scans the road before crossing in front of my car to the passenger door.

She falls into the seat, the scent of rose and jasmine filling the car, likely from her perfume.

She whips off her sunglasses, tucking them into her hair glamorously.

She lined her upper lid in a shimmery golden brown before sweeping it with a similar coppery color.

The combo, multiplied by the sweater, turns her eyes sapphire.

“Okay,” she says, thrusting a cup toward me. “Green tea with honey and lemon.”

I take it, openly baffled. “How did you know my order?”

Only one corner of her lip curls. “The coffee shop yesterday,” she says. “I pay attention to details, Ranger Girl.”

“Ranger Girl?” Apparently the only sentences I can muster this morning come in the form of questions.

“Trying it out,” she replies, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Ranger Girl.” She says it again, the other corner of her lip curving up.

“I like it.” I can’t tell if it’s the nickname or her little twist of a grin that sends a thrill straight through my center.

Regardless, I take a deep drink of my tea to drown out the sensation.

“Tell me we’re not just staking the place out,” she says. “Not after last night.”

Her lips flatten—all whimsy gone in a flash. I can feel her disappointment pulse through the air. I’m hoping the plan for today will help dispel the lingering bad taste of last night from her tongue.

“We very much are not just staking the place out,” I reply. “We’re going to follow Moira while she runs errands.”

Her eyes narrow. Interested, but skeptical.

“How do you know she’s going to be running errands?”

“I called Lola,” I say. “Told her I wanted to come by to go through some old stuff in the garage but didn’t want Moira to be around while I did it.”

“And that didn’t send up any red flags?”

“She’s acquainted with the bad blood between Moira and me. It would probably be more of a red flag to her if I was actively seeking out one-on-one time.”

“A legendary feud,” she says. The phrasing stokes those same warm embers in my stomach.

“Lola has her own mother issues,” I reply, trying to tamp down the heat. “She’s empathetic to the cause.”

“Unfortunate that she relates,” she says, fiddling with a tiny loose thread on the edge of her sweater.

All I know about Sydney’s mom is that she passed away, leaving Rick to raise Sydney alone for the rest of her teenage years.

I don’t know what it would be like to lose a mother, especially that young, especially if you were close to her.

It feels like a tricky topic, considering my mother is still very much alive and until this week I was actively choosing no contact.

There’s a difference in removing a person from your life and having that person taken away.

I’m staring too long. I flick my eyes back toward Kismet, sip my tea.

“But it’s convenient,” I say, voice rocky.

“Glad she’s on your side,” Sydney says, a subtle shift in the way her voice sounds. It’s like she doesn’t want to let the mother talk get to her. Like she’s shoving it away, burying the emotion rising up. The pain.

To me, other people’s feelings are like the ocean’s waves, treacherous, consuming, fascinating but overwhelming. It’s been that way as long as I can remember, and it’s made everything from my friendships to my romantic entanglements rife with complexity.

Shutting people out is just easier. A fact that, I can admit, may not entirely be my mother’s fault, even if it’s been made more complicated from the force of her influence. My mother connected my own skill with empathy back to an inherited psychic ability.

Back to her. The origin of everything.

And then she used that to try to convince me that becoming just like her was my path to success.

Kismet was supposed to come to me at some point, but when I told her I didn’t want to do what she does for a living, that inheritance was snatched back as fast as it was offered.

I guess, except in the event of her untimely death.

But even then, I’d expect her to have planned for it.

She’ll have seen it in the cards and willed the place away from me in spite.

“Lola told me Moira has a few errands to hit in town before the weekend.” I have to lock all the rumbling thoughts and feelings firmly behind a steel door. I shouldn’t be daydreaming about Kismet or the life I could have had if my relationship with my mother were different.

I can and will focus on the task at hand.

“So you want to tail her?” Sydney’s voice is underscored with new energy. I feel relief as the conversation moves along. “What makes you think we’ll learn anything worthwhile? Her errands could be, like, the dry cleaner and Trader Joe’s.”

“Because one of her errands is the bank,” I reply. “Lola talks a lot.”

Her lips tug toward a smile and she sits back in the seat. “Well done, Ranger Girl.”

There it is again. That bolt of heat. The nickname-smile combo is lethal. Addictive. I don’t immediately shut it down, even if I probably should. Her shoulders drop down into a more relaxed stance, and she sips her coffee, calmer. She looks toward Kismet, her eyes raking over the facade.

The face , as Moira has always called it. Kismet has always felt especially alive. Serving the community as it does, all those people coming in and out, all that energy flowing through the doors, seeping into the wood beams.

Living, breathing, and completely unique.

“Did you always live here?” she asks, not looking away from the house.

“I was born on the Westside in a tiny apartment. Midwife, no drugs, all her.” I wouldn’t believe the story if not for the framed photographic proof displayed proudly on a shelf in the dining room. Grainy, just her on a bed of blankets, holding a new, gooey me.

“I was a hospital baby. Epidural and induced. Late to my own birthday,” she says, her smile soft but a little sad. She looks back to me. “That’s what Mom said.”

“Early and angry, according to Moira,” I reply, pointing to myself. She laughs, a bright sound that breaks up the heaviness in the air.

“Honestly, I could see it.” Her eyes take me in, and I wish there were somewhere to hide away. “How long until you moved to Kismet?”

“I think probably two or three years. My earliest memories are on the porch, looking up at that tree.” I point to the fir, hoping it will push her focus back to the house and off me.

It works. Her eyes trek the expanse as the memory crashes into me of many hours spent alone with nothing but the company of that wild thing .

You and the tree aren’t that different, you know , I hear Moira say from somewhere far away, as if the words approach on the wings of a bird seeking shelter in the very same tree.

There was something about the wild parts of this suburban world that always felt more real to me than the concrete or the shiny skylines ever could.

“She opened Kismet when I was still in diapers,” I add, desperate not to get lost in these feelings.

“What a bizarre place to grow up,” Sydney says, her voice pensive. “Don’t you think?” She looks back at me to confirm.

I’m taken aback by the question.

Growing up, I was the weirdo at my school.

The girl with the psychic mom. The girl with no dad.

The girl with no friends besides the trees and the creatures that live in them.

But it wasn’t like anyone ever asked me how I felt about it all.

It wasn’t as if anyone ever wondered if this was what I wanted my childhood and adolescence to look like.

“Sorry,” she says, likely course correcting due to the way my face scrunched up when she asked the question. “I just mean having so many people in your space, like, all those strangers in and out, the way they must have acted toward Moira—or you.”

“No, you don’t have to be sorry,” I fumble through. “No one’s ever asked me what I thought of it.” Her eyes droop as understanding registers. It blasts through me like a warm breeze. I have to swallow the frog of feeling in my throat. “I’m just surprised.”