Page 24 of The Sun and the Moon

Cadence

Sydney’s laugh is like a sunbeam. Warm and glowing, golden, somewhere safe to curl up and nap.

When it appears because of something you’ve said, it’s hard not to feel like you could do anything.

Emboldened with energy, alive with purpose.

I feel silly and overdramatic as the thought takes shape, but at least she doesn’t know I’m thinking it.

“Dad has never invited me on a tour,” she says, her laughter dying down. Her smile clings to her face. “Now I know why.”

“I didn’t even know people still kept photos in their wallets,” I reply.

I had told her about how fast he whipped out pics of her when he heard there was another pilot on board the tour car.

He was retired, with a daughter Sydney’s age, and Rick was in a mood to show off.

“The guy looked like he was about to choke when your dad said you were the youngest female pilot in your fleet.”

“Bragging rights,” she says, clearly just as impressed with herself as her father is.

“This guy’s daughter is a dental hygienist,” I reply.

“Important work for sure,” she counters.

“True, but no one likes going to the dentist,” I finish.

“I actually find it relaxing. And mine still gives me a lollipop when I leave cavity-free.” She grins to show me her cavity-less pearly whites.

“I always thought it was weird the dentist gives candy out. Like, do they care about teeth or not? Pick a side.” She laughs again, shorter and sharper, but just as warm.

I had to bring the mood up after I filled her in on the weird text chain between Rick and Greg—who I learned from her is also a retired pilot (LA is lousy with them), one of Rick’s old buddies, and will be in Solvang this weekend. At least we know we now have another angle to our sleuthing.

Chicken pops up from the spot on Sydney’s lap where he’s been curled in a ball since the drive started, wrapped in a baby blanket covered in ducks and clouds.

“Uh-oh,” Sydney says, running her palm over Chicken’s head and down the length of his spine. Her eyes flick up to the road and she grabs her phone.

“Pee break time?” I ask.

“You made it almost a whole hour, buddy,” she says in a baby voice. Chicken turns a groggy gaze on Sydney and licks her right on the tip of her nose. The affection is gentle and sweet, like you’d expect from two bonded best friends.

“We can pull off in about half a mile,” she says, pinching to zoom out on the map so she can see locations.

We’re going through the hills around Malibu right now in an area called Calabasas, one of the wealthiest cities in the United States, with more celebrities per square mile than Beverly Hills.

“There’s a little park not too far from the road.

Yelp reviews are decent. Lots of grass.” She looks directly into Chicken’s eyes.

“Plenty of lush grass to do your business.”

Her care that Chicken has a plush place to pee is giving me the warm fuzzies.

Most of the people I have dated have thought my interest in nature, both flora and fauna, was quirky at best. Even dating people within my field didn’t mean we would immediately have a connection on that topic.

And if we did, the stress of that close proximity to my work made getting close outside it a lot harder.

My vigilance is something I’m proud of, even if I know it comes from growing up with a mother who made herself the main character and expected me to perfectly act out the supporting role in her life.

Sydney programs directions to the park, and I follow them, winding through a few neighborhood roads—beside some fancy big-ass mansions—toward the mountains.

We have to detour about five minutes, but when we pull up, it’s clear the extra time was worth it.

The area is framed at the back by the mountains in the Topanga State Park.

Quiet, with a small playground and a walking path.

I turn into the parking lot, which is only populated by a couple of other cars.

Sydney hooks Chicken’s leash to the metal toggle on his blue collar and opens her door to climb out.

I shut the driver’s-side door and take in the view.

Sydney wore a pair of skintight yoga pants and a lightweight Burberry sweatshirt.

Her hair is in a messy high bun, making it look even more like spun straw, and her face is mostly free of makeup, with the exception of mascara and a nude gloss.

Her shape really is an hourglass, a full, swooping, curvy hourglass.

She bounces around the green with Chicken, trying to convince him to go ahead and do his business.

“I think he wants to stroll,” she says, looking my way. I’m glad I have sunglasses on so she can’t see how my eyes are fixed on her. I meet up with her on the grass, and we walk in a diagonal toward the park, slow and plodding so Chicken gets his fill of sniffs in.

“You never told me what happened with Moira and your reading?” I ask, nervous. I sound it, too. She takes the corner of her lower lip between her teeth and nibbles. “Yikes, that bad, huh?” I brace for something bonkers, some tale that’s authentically and dementedly my mother .

“No, it really wasn’t,” she says. Her eyes aren’t hidden behind shades; she doesn’t look right at me when she says it.

“You don’t have to try to spare me—nothing could possibly surprise me.”

“Oh, really? Would you be surprised to learn she had a photo of you in her Reading Room?”

“She has a photo of me?” This does give me pause.

“You didn’t know?” she asks.

“Where was it? Her desk or the altar?”

“What the hell is an altar?”

“The shelf with the crystals and candles. She used to keep a photo of a villa in Tuscany there,” I reply, shoving my hands in my pockets. I feel suddenly chilly even though the temp hasn’t changed.

“So it’s, like, for manifestation?” Sydney asks.

“I’m surprised Ms. Left Brain Pilot knows about manifestation,” I goad her.

“I’m from LA. It’s like the bible of the West Coast.” She grins, and I laugh, which startles Chicken out of his pee stance. “That’s where it was, yes. Surrounded by crystals and candles.”

“Great, good to know she’s crossed yet another boundary I set for her.”

“You set a boundary that she wouldn’t manifest for you?” Her nose scrunches up with confusion, but the smile on her face lets me know just how silly she thinks that is.

“I told her not to do any spells to try and bring me back to LA.”

The word spells does seem to throw her a bit, but not so much that she dwells on it.

“I don’t know if it was that , but you were younger in the picture, and you were holding a hummingbird in your hand. You looked…happy.” She pauses, blinking, as if trying to conjure it from memory. “Happy and free.”

My mind is flooded immediately with the memory of the day I took that photo—or, I guess, the day Moira took that photo of me. Without prompting from Sydney, I realize I want to tell the story, and somehow, I know she wants to hear it.

“My bedroom window was right next to that tree branch,” I begin, glancing to her face, looking for a reaction. Her eyes settle on me. “There had been a young female hummingbird building a nest outside of the window. Right where I could see it, and she didn’t seem to mind when I watched.”

Chicken stops at a patch of dandelion, and Sydney doesn’t prod him to move along too quickly.

“I can’t believe that she let you watch her,” she says, urging me on. Interested in a story just about me.

“I couldn’t, either, and I got really invested.

Like, didn’t want to go to school for fear I’d miss something invested,” I continue.

“But, of course, I did go to school, and one of those days she vanished. I watched all night, the next morning, but she didn’t come back.

I was sure something horrible had happened to her—I got obsessed and started trying to, like, solve the mystery .

Looked up everything I could about hummingbirds’ mating habits and nest-making habits—they can be really vicious, especially during mating season. ”

“Fair. It’s probably pretty brutal out there.”

“Like, even mating itself can take a dark turn.” She makes a yikes face and I match it. “But there was no way to know what had happened, and that nest was going to sit outside my window forever as a reminder, because I didn’t want to move it. Like, what if she came back?”

“This is devastating,” she says, and she really sounds like she means it. But then, her brow quirks up. “But in the photo…”

My smile spreads, pleased at how invested she’s getting.

“The next spring, a hummingbird showed up at the same spot. She was a little plumper, bigger, older-looking than the other one.” Understanding breaks like dawn over her face, and her mouth falls open in awe.

“And she used that old nest material, which was still there, though a little weathered, to build a new one.”

“You think it was the same bird?” she asks, her voice round with awe.

“I read that sometimes adolescent females will practice building nests before they are ready to actually use them. When I was in college, I did some volunteering at the Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, and the rangers there had observed the habit in real time.”

“She was doing that,” she says, her voice happy. Chicken barks at the change in her tone of voice. She bends, ruffling his ears. “So why was she in your hand in the photo?”

“I hung a feeder outside my window so she didn’t have to go far for fuel.

I spent a lot of time in the tree, or near the tree, and one day she just came up, that zzzz of her buzz drawing me out of the book I was reading, and I just knew.

She wanted to sit with me.” A lump forms in my throat as I try to recount this part of the story.

“I was alone a lot. I think she might have known I was lonely.”

Her expression falls. My eyes drop from the sadness in her face to see her hand twitch, almost lift toward me, like she wants to reach for mine.

I have the urge to close the gap.

The sound of pee softly pelting grass below yanks both of our attention to Chicken, who has finally, with incredible comedic timing, decided to do his business.

“Good job, sir!” Sydney congratulates him, doing a little cheer.

His stoicism is iconic. She snorts, then her eyes trail back up to mine and her smile contracts a little.

I force a smile, trying to brighten my expression to something less Eeyore.

“Cadence.” She says my name, lets it sit in the air like a smoke cloud between us.

“I would have liked to climb that tree with you. Just FYI.”

She whirls, walking back toward the car a little too fast for the ancient Chihuahua on her leash. I stand in a daze, hoping the high in my head will clear before I make it back behind the wheel.