Page 22 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

My only visit to the Universal Studios theme park was with the one friend from my adolescence who Moira never managed to get her hooks into.

Hannah Zhou. She was the new student at school, and she mistook my loner status for approachability when she befriended me the first day of eighth grade.

From Singapore originally, her family immigrated to the States when she was two, first to New York City, then Washington, DC, for her dad’s work.

Their move to LA was supposed to be temporary, which made me feel less terrified about being her friend.

She and her mom had committed to seeing all the theme parks, big and small, that SoCal had to offer.

Disney, Knott’s Berry Farm, Legoland, and, of course, the Los Angeles mainstay, Universal Studios.

They went over Thanksgiving break and invited me along.

All my memories of it—and my brief but potent friendship with Hannah—remain the only fond ones I’ve retained of the entirety of my eighth-grade experience.

“Take a seat right up front, Cadence,” Rick says, pointing to a spot up ahead inside the tour guide’s carriage.

The empty white-roofed, navy-blue-sided open-air tram emits a low hum, ready to set off toward the throngs of guests waiting to board for the tour, one of the most popular “rides” in the park.

There are sections to the vehicle, and Rick and I will sit in the second.

The front is where the driver sits, a woman named Flo, who is communicating with Rick through a walkie, saying that we’re about to head toward the gate to pick up passengers.

Rick is giving me a free ride and an up-close view of his showmanship. I’m hoping we have some downtime to chat during the parts of the ride that don’t require he have his microphone on.

I drop into the seat, crossing my legs. He climbs in through the other side, swiveling his neck to look at me. “Don’t forget to keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle for the duration of the tour.”

“Noted,” I say, raising my hands dramatically before folding them in my lap. Someone calls over his walkie-talkie, giving him a green light to proceed.

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” I say. “I haven’t been here since I was a teenager.”

“Can’t abide that,” he says, cheery but affronted at the same time. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen. Fall of eighth grade,” I recite, thinking about the awkward long-legged girl desperate to win a toy from the Simpsons carnival.

“They’ve added a lot to the tour since then. You’re going to love it,” he says with pride.

“Can’t wait,” I reply. His smile is broad and comes easily. Like resting bitch face but a whole lot happier. “When I rode it back then, I loved the part where Norman Bates follows us onto the road. And seeing all the bungalows and the active soundstages.”

“You’re an LA kid,” he says a little dreamily.

“Makes sense that you love movie sets.” Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how much of an LA kid I really am.

Having left it behind a long time ago for college, and then having stayed away as I worked up to a full-time position with the National Park Service, I don’t feel as connected to the place where I was born as I used to.

I like to keep my origin story—and not just the psychic-mom part of it—a secret at work.

Which means I don’t often chat about how firmly my roots lead back to LA.

We are now in line, queuing toward the stalls that hold the waiting customers. Rick takes a gulp from his giant water bottle—a Stanley, as if he were a millennial mom.

“How long have you been doing this job?” I ask.

I know he left piloting full-time when Sydney was in high school, but I’m not sure what the trajectory was that took him from commercial airline pilot to tour guide at Universal Studios.

It can’t have been a straight line. It’s a fun gig for someone with a performer’s itch who doesn’t want to act, sure, but more a retired guy looking to stay sharp job than a career path.

“I was a consultant for a while on sets,” he says, adjusting his aviators on the bridge of his nose.

There’s a smidge of white lotion staining the corner, and I bite back the urge to chuckle.

He’s such a buttoned-up guy in appearance, and then he’ll have these chaotic elements that feel totally incongruent to the image he projects.

The poorly applied sunscreen being one of them.

The car eases forward until we’re one away from loading up.

“That’s so cool,” I blurt. He chuckles, not surprised by my reaction. There I am being an LA kid again. “What did that entail?”

“They’d hire me to read scripts, give notes on aviation-related elements.

Sometimes I’d come out to live sets and give feedback.

I never flew for a film or anything, but I did explain how to look like you know what you’re doing in a cockpit to Ryan Gosling one time.

” He lowers his aviators and turns to look at me, making sure I can see his brows waggle.

I snort. Ryan Gosling is quite the charmer, I have to give him that.

“Very cool guy,” he adds brightly.

“Glad to hear it,” I say, smiling.

Flo eases the truck forward before putting it firmly in park to let the families, solo travelers, groups, and couples file on board safely. I feel eyes on me, knowing my presence at the front of the car is an anomaly. Even if it’s their first time on the tram ride, even if it’s their twentieth.

A little girl wearing a Rosalina t-shirt and carrying a star purse climbs on and takes the seat closest to the front, forcing what I assume is the rest of her family—a grumpy-looking dad in socks and sandals, a younger sibling inexplicably wearing goggles, and a mom with a visor on to block the sun—to sit there as well.

The little girl is the only one who looks properly excited for this ride.

I turn my attention back to Rick, since the rest of the loading process will take a few minutes and I don’t want to drop the thread of his tour guide origin story.

“You were telling me how you became a tour guide,” I say in that leading way that hopefully gets him going again.

“Ah, right!” he says with a snap. “The whole consulting gig paid well but was pretty inconsistent, as you can imagine, and while I had my 401(k) for retirement and I had money socked away, I got restless between jobs and wanted something more to fill that time.”

“And your mind went to tour guide at Universal Studios?”

“I was on a set—I’ll point it out when we pass by today—and the tour came by. I could hear the guide chattering about the history of the studio, saw all those happy faces, and it reminded me of my wife and me bringing Sydney here every summer break. It felt like a link to the past, simple as that.”

The welcome video starts playing, introducing the ride, and I know we won’t have much more time to chat before he has to turn on the mic and charm the customers.

“What was she like as a kid?” The question blurts from my lips, surprising me. This is not the kind of investigation I’m supposed to be doing right now.

“Birdie?” he asks, chuckling.

Birdie. His nickname for her. If she was a bird, she wouldn’t be easy to catch. The thought makes my stomach seize. As if I want to catch her, hold her in my hand, hold on to her forever.

“She was a spitfire,” Rick continues. “Smart, but not just with her academics—which she, of course, excelled at. She had this keen ability to notice details, never missed anything, never let it go if you tried to pull one over on her. Transparent to a fault, horrible liar.” I bite back a laugh and pass it off as a cough.

Her skills have improved only slightly as she has gotten older, but I don’t see that as a bad thing.

Normally, at least. For the purpose of our scheme to root out Moira’s motive for marrying Rick, I wouldn’t mind a bit more finesse.

“Did she always know she wanted to be a pilot?” I ask. I’ve wondered how much of that decision was for herself and how much was because she felt guilty her dad retired early. I can’t see Rick’s eyes behind his aviators, but the set of his jaw goes rigid at the question.

He’s saved from answering by the sound of the instructional video winding down. Time to turn on the charm. He flicks on the mic, and his lips rise into an automatic, larger-than-life smile.

“Hello, hello, everybody, and welcome to the world-famous Studio Tour at Universal Studios in beautiful Hollywood, California!” This greeting gets a chorus of cheers from the audience, which feels like the appropriate word for the people taking this tour.

“Are we excited to be here, everybody?” More cheers.

I glance around at the family on the front bench seat.

The Rosalina stan is clapping animatedly, her father and brother look like they’ve started to fall asleep, and Mom is nursing a cup that is likely full of one of the park’s many alcoholic beverage offerings.

Smart woman. I wish I had thought to grab one on the way in.

Rick goes through his own safety and housekeeping brief, and once everyone has more than thoroughly assured us that they all have a pair of 3D glasses, we’re off toward the lot.

He removes his aviators now that the camera is on him, and with every bit of history he reveals (most of which I somehow still remember from the one visit in the eighth grade), the mood of the audience becomes more unified.

Everyone listens, laughing at his jokes—which are plentiful.

Even that sleepy dad and boy in the front start to perk up.

But for me, watching him charm the audience only dampens my mood.

He’s more than a nice guy who’s worked hard all his life.

He’s a man who approaches the world, despite all its flaws and all the ways he’s been wounded, with the hopeful optimism of a dreamer.

If I weren’t absolutely certain Moira was up to something, I’d almost believe they were made for each other.

I inwardly kick myself at the urge to give in to the idea that soulmates aren’t just a ruse my mother uses to make money.

But entertaining the idea that soulmates might really exist isn’t something I can let myself do.

Then, my mother would be right, and all her pushing, prodding, and manipulation would come into question.

Fit beneath that rose-colored light, I would have to start to question whether running from Moira’s premonitions was really the right path for me at all.

?An icon of the Universal Studios backlot tour, the 3D Fast & Furious—Supercharged portion is a favorite of most people, but I have a tendency toward motion sickness. We’re midway through the chase sequence when I finally have to lift the glasses from my nose for relief.

My eyes immediately catch on Rick’s cell phone, lit up in his hand, as he types out a message rapid-fire with both thumbs. I shouldn’t peek. No matter the objective, a person’s texts aren’t the business of a prying onlooker. Even if I’m trying to help with my nosiness.

But I do look, knowing full well that a text he feels the need to reply to in the middle of a tour is probably urgent. Might even contain a clue.

The text thread is with GREG and from the fast glance I can manage to get of the screen, I see it’s about money.

The word alone is a cold block in my stomach.

Greg: Hey bud—Pam and I are a go for this weekend, but she’s on my case again.

Rick: She has the right.

Greg: She does, she does. Where are you at on that loan?

Rick is typing his response, so I read it in real time.

Rick: I’m grateful for your help, you know that, but we’re not to any firm numbers yet—though should be soon.

He sends it. Waits. And then when he sees those telltale three blinking dots, he adds: Moira promises it will all sort out.

And then he signs the text with his name like it’s an email.

If there was a pit in my stomach at the mention of money, this last exchange feels like a fist clenched around my throat.

They’ve known each other for three months.

What financial situation could the two of them have gotten tied up in during that time?

Rick doesn’t seem like an impulsive individual—speedy engagement to my mother notwithstanding.

Whatever mess they’re in, all signs point to Moira as the reason why.