Drew smiles, and I have to look away—otherwise I’d have to admit that it makes him even better-looking. “There’s only one way to find out. Have dinner with me.”
His arrogance makes me want to hit him again. “Did you not hear anything I said? You’ve ruined my life. I’m not going out with you.”
“Okay, then.” He shrugs. “I guess you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life—the rest of your lives—wondering how things might have been.”
I start to walk away. Thoughts are tumbling through my head so fast I can barely keep up. Immortality. Responsibility. Khered. When I glance back over my shoulder, he’s still standing there with an amused look on his face. Damn him—he’s right. I am always going to wonder.
“One meal,” I shout back. “One hour. And that’s it.”
Twelve
Drew is waiting out in front of the slightly shabby restaurant as I walk from the bus stop on 24th Street. The sun is still high overhead, and I wonder why he wants to eat at the same time as old people. Probably so that Francesca won’t catch him. I doubt he’ll even eat anything, but then again, neither will I. I’m here on a fact-finding mission, and that’s all.
“You came,” he says, turning the full force of his smile on me. “I wasn’t sure you’d get the message I left at the studio.” I almost miss the glance at the ankh that’s prominently displayed around my neck.
“I got it.” I look up at the sign on the restaurant. “Salvadorian?”
“Is it okay?” He looks genuinely concerned. “I love the pupusas here.”
“I’ll let you know.” I can hear the irritated tone in my voice, but I can’t help it. If it wasn’t for Drew, I’d be eating dinner with Griffon. My mind flashes to him and I wonder what he’s doing tonight. And who he’s doing it with.
The bell on the front door dings as Drew holds it open for me. This place isn’t what I expected—fluorescent lighting and small formica tables surrounded by worn red vinyl chairs. Not exactly what I pictured as a restaurant Khered would like. Nice to see that Drew isn’t going out of his way to impress me.
“Hello, Señor Drew!” says an older woman as she comes out from behind the counter to give him a kiss on both cheeks.
“Hola, Maria,” Drew says. They chat in Spanish for a few moments—his accent is flawless, of course. Maria glances at me and he gives her a big smile. “Esta mi amiga Cole.”
“You are welcome here,” Maria says in halting English with a large smile, grabbing both of my hands. For a split second I wonder if she’s Akhet too, but all I feel is genuine warmth. “Please, sit down. Would you like a menu?”
I wasn’t going to eat, but the smells from the kitchen are making my stomach growl. “Sure.”
The chairs scrape the floor as we pull them out and settle down facing each other over the small gray table. Maria hands me a menu and then winks at Drew before she walks back to the counter. Drew doesn’t say anything, just sets his phone faceup on the table.
I look over the top of the laminated menu. “Expecting a call?”
“No.” He pushes a few buttons and numbers start racing across the screen. “I’m setting the timer. Should the hour start now, or from when I met you out front?”
I try not to smile. “From now is fine.”
“Great,” he says. “I got a six-minute bonus.”
I scan the unfamiliar dishes on the menu, not knowing what to get.
“Do you eat pork or chicken?” Drew asks.
“Both.”
“I’d try the pork, chicken, and green chile pupusa platter. It’s one of the best I’ve ever had.”
“Okay,” I say, ordering his recommendation when Maria comes back to the table with our water.
“I hope you’re not planning on stealing food off of my plate,” I say when Drew doesn’t order anything.
“Maria already knows what I want,” he says. He looks around the small restaurant with something that looks like pride. “I used to come here a lot when I first moved to San Francisco. For just a couple of bucks you can get enough food to last you the entire day. After a while, Maria started slipping a few extra things in here and there with my orders.” He shrugs. “It was just nice to be in a place where someone noticed you, you know?”
I nod. That’s why I like going to the same café every day. We may not be on cheek-kissing terms, but I don’t ever have to tell them what name to write on my cup. “How long ago did you move here?”
“Four years ago,” he answers. “When I was sixteen. Got off the bus with a backpack and a duffel bag and not much else.”
“Hmm,” I say, reassessing one view of him.
“Hmm, what?” he asks.
“Nothing. It’s just that I thought you were older.”
“I’m twenty in this lifetime,” he says. “For all that age really matters.”
I think about the way Mom and Dad still treat me like a kid. “For a lot of people, it does really matter.”
He laughs. “I see your point. The fact that I can’t legally drink or even rent a car is a complete joke.”
“So you were all by yourself?” I feel old enough to make my own rules, but I don’t know if I’d want to land in a strange city alone.
Drew plays with the straw wrapper on the table. “Yep. My parents aren’t Akhet, and I got tired of being told what to do. Emancipated myself, got on a boat and then a bus, and finally landed here.” He drags the wrapper through a drop of water and it expands like a wriggling worm. “They were pretty angry about it at first, but I know that was because they were scared for me. Can’t blame them, really. Things are better now, though. I try to get back to Australia and see them as often as I can.”
“Why San Francisco?”
“Something was just pulling me here; it felt like this was where I was meant to be. I didn’t know why then,” he says, then looks up at me. “But I do now.”
It’s my turn to study the cracked tabletop, and I’m relieved when Maria comes with our food so that we have something to do. So much of me feels like I shouldn’t be here, that I’m betraying whatever might be left of me and Griffon just by agreeing to see Drew, but there’s a tiny part of me that wants to understand this thing we started five hundred years ago. To find some answers to the questions my memories are uncovering.
“Enough about me,” Drew says, as we both dig into our food. “What about you? Besides teaching at the studio, what do you do?”
“I’m in high school,” I say, like that explains it all.
“But what about after? College?” He looks down at my left hand. “Or Juilliard, maybe?”
I pull my arm under the table. “Not anymore.”
“I thought you still played.”
I shake my head. “Not like before. I . . . can’t.”
“Well, maybe not right now, but what about next year?”
“It’s not going to happen,” I say, not wanting to hear him recite all of the possibilities. That’s what everyone does when I talk about not being able to play, and I’m tired of it. There are no possibilities. I might as well move on. “My playing career is over, and I just have to face that fact. I’m never going to be the next Suggia or Ma. It’s over.”
Drew chews thoughtfully, not seeming to mind that I just about bit his head off. “You like Suggia?”
I stare at him. Nobody outside of my music friends has ever heard of Guilhermina Suggia. “Of course. She was only the most groundbreaking female cellist in history. There aren’t that many recordings because it was so long ago, but I have a few. But it wasn’t just the music, it was the way she lived her life, refusing to settle for anything less than the best, not letting the fact that she was a woman stop her from getting to the very top, even in the days when female cellists were almost unheard of.”
“What’s your favorite?”
“Recording? Probably ‘Kol Nidrei.’ It’s just so emotional—you can feel what she’s feeling as she moves through the piece.”
Drew nods. “That�
��s a good one.” He pauses and glances around the restaurant, which has been rapidly filling with people as we eat. He leans over the table. “I saw her do the Moór double concerto in Paris. It was life-changing.”
I sit back. “In 1913? With Casals?”
“That’s the one.” Drew finishes eating and folds his napkin over his empty plate. I have nothing to say to that. How can you come up with a response when someone tells you that he saw the cellist you admire more than any other play in concert—a concert that took place a hundred years ago?
I feel almost jealous. “I’d give anything to have been there.”
Drew looks thoughtful. “Maybe you were. Even though you don’t remember everything about your past, you should stop thinking in the limited terms of one lifetime. If you were alive then, it’s possible that your paths crossed.”
I consider this. From what I remember I was alive then, and playing the cello, although not at her level. I’ve been slightly obsessed with Suggia from the minute I heard her name. Is it possible that it’s not just admiration, but memory? “That’s crazy. I never thought of it that way.”
My thoughts are interrupted as Maria comes and takes our plates. As we sit waiting for the check, I can sense that Drew is thinking about something bigger than Guilhermina Suggia. “You can ask me,” I tell him.
“Ask you what?”
“Whatever you’ve been keeping quiet about this whole dinner,” I answer.
He grins, and once again I’m struck by how handsome he is. I look out the window instead of at him.
“I do have one question,” he finally admits.
“I figured.”
Drew clears his throat. “What happened to you after I’d gone? I was taken away . . .”
“By the soldiers,” I say. “I remember.”
“Right. For some ridiculous, trumped-up charge of treason against the crown.” He laughs bitterly. “I never thought they’d actually go through with it.”
“But that day in the hallway, as the soldiers took you away . . .” I take a deep breath and look at him before finishing the sentence. “We never saw each other again, did we?”
“No.” There’s pain in his eyes as he tries to continue. “I was imprisoned in the Tower and executed a few months later.”
“I saw what you wrote on the wall. In Beauchamp Tower. Ad vitam aeternam.”
For once, Drew looks surprised. “You did? When?”
“Last spring. I was on vacation in London. I didn’t know what it meant then; I was only getting flashes of memory. But still, I knew it was important.”
He sits back in his seat. “Wow.” He’s silent for a second. “I remember carving that, thinking that you’d never see it. Hoping that you’d never be in the Tower to see it.” Drew lifts his eyes to meet mine. “Which is what I wanted to ask you. What happened to you? Did you marry again? Even if I was gone, you should have lived out your life in comfort. There was enough money, and I’d made provisions that should have kept you well into your old age.”
“You don’t know?” I’d never considered that fact.
He shakes his head sharply. “I’ve searched, but there are no records. It’s like you just dropped off the face of the earth.”
“In a way, I did.” I look around to make sure nobody is listening. “I was executed not long after you were killed. A few months maybe, as close as I can figure.”
Drew’s eyes are angry as he brings his fist down hard onto the table. “Damn! That was not the agreement.” He starts to reach for my hand across the table, but pulls back quickly, remembering, his eyes searching mine for the truth. “You’ve got to believe me, I never would have gone if I’d thought for one minute that’s what would happen. I agreed to surrender only if they left you alone. Otherwise, I would have fought to the death to keep us together. The king . . . was smitten with you.” I smile as he slips into the more formal speech of our first lifetime together. “I guess I figured that his adoration would keep us both safe,” he continues.
I remember my thoughts as I sat in the Tower, waiting to meet my fate, hearing the workmen pound at the platform that was to host my death. “I think that’s what went wrong,” I say, knowing as the images form that I’m right. “All I remember is that the king propositioned me and I refused him. I think that’s what got me killed.”
Drew’s phone vibrates and I look to see it marking the end of one hour. I’m a little annoyed to discover that I’m disappointed. “We can stay,” I say without thinking, enjoying being able to talk about this freely, to maybe find some of the pieces that are missing from my memories.
“No. You said an hour, and it’s up.” He picks up the phone, his motions exaggerated as he puts it in his pocket and slips his arms into his jacket. Just as we start to get up, Drew puts both hands on the table, and I can see his arms trembling as he locks eyes with me, a sad smile behind them. “At least you remember that much. You refused the king, a gesture that cost you your life,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Because that’s how much you loved me.”
Thirteen
Focusing on not focusing on anything is harder than it sounds. I always play better when I don’t think about the notes or the music and just let instinct take over, but with all that’s been going on, clearing my mind isn’t easy. As the bow glides over the cello strings, I can tell that my fingers are getting stronger and finding the right places on the board more often. When I finish the piece, even I have to admit that it doesn’t totally suck. Not stage-worthy yet, but not completely awful either.
“That was nice,” Mom says, watching from the doorway. “Best I’ve heard you sound.”
Since your career ended, I finish for her in my head. “Thanks,” is all I say out loud.
She takes a few steps into my room. “Are you feeling better?”
“I guess,” I say cautiously. I haven’t talked to her about Griffon at all. There’s too much I’ll never be able to tell her. “Why?”
Mom walks over and sits on my bed, looking around the room like she’s never been in here before. “I have eyes. I know something happened between you and Griffon.”
I nod, afraid to say anything. Just thinking about Griffon is enough to make me start bawling like a baby.
“You know you can always come and talk to me about things like that. I’ve been around a while. I might even be able to help.”
“Thanks,” I whisper. “We broke up.” I blink back the tears that form just from saying those words.
Mom leans over and puts her arms around me. At first I pull back—Mom and I don’t hug that much anymore—but then I relax into her and feel more relieved than I have in days.
“Want to talk about it?” she asks.
“No,” I answer. “It’s over. I just have to move on.”
Mom pulls back and puts one hand on my cheek. “Oh sweetie, nothing is ever over.”
“You don’t know that.” I sniff and run the back of my hand over my eyes.
“Maybe I do,” she says, and this time I’m content to let her have the last word.
We sit quietly until Mom straightens and takes a deep breath. “Dad’s coming down for brunch. Are you about done practicing?”
“Dad’s coming here?” Despite the fact that he lives in the apartment above ours, he’s rarely shown up for a meal since the divorce.
Mom holds my gaze steady, like she’s daring me to say more. “Something wrong with that? He is your father.”
“Nope. Nothing wrong with that. Let me just put this away and I’ll be right in.”
I set the cello in its case, trying to ignore the heaviness that settles in my chest every time I touch it. I know it’s stupid, but I haven’t polished the wood in weeks, because I think that maybe some of the fingerprints on it might be Griffon’s. We’ve had no contact at all since the last time at his house, and I know I’m being ridiculous by trying to hold on to even dusty traces of him, but I can’t help it.
The table is set for three like it always
used to be, but instead of Kat sitting across from me, Dad is shaking out his napkin. Kat hasn’t even been gone a week, but since that first outburst, Mom hasn’t said too much about it. My contact with Kat has been limited to four texts and two status updates, so I guess her fabulous new life in London is taking up a lot of her time. I always knew that she’d be moving out anyway at the beginning of the school year, but it’s still weird, like more than one person is missing from the house.
“Well, this is nice,” Dad says, breaking the silence.
Mom shoots him a glance. None of us are supposed to acknowledge that nice, normal family meals aren’t what we do every day. “It is. Can you pass the bacon, please?”
“Sure.” For a few excruciatingly long minutes the only sound in the room is the clinking of silverware on the plates.
“How’s it going at the studio?” Dad finally asks me.
“Fine.”
“Did I hear you practicing earlier?”
“The improvement is amazing,” Mom answers for me. “I’m not saying she should start booking recitals anytime soon, but we might want to look at getting back into the Conservatory before school starts.”
“I’m right here,” I say irritably. “And I’m nowhere near good enough to even think about the Conservatory at this point.”
“You’re wrong,” Mom says. “And you’re going to be a senior this year. We need to start making some decisions about Juilliard or continuing with the Conservatory program once you graduate.”
“I have been making some decisions,” I say, although that’s a complete lie. “I’ve been thinking about applying to Cal and maybe UC San Diego.” I’ve pulled those two schools completely out of thin air, but I get a feeling of satisfaction from just saying them out loud.
“To do what? Neither of those schools has a music program worthy of your talent.” Mom puts her fork down on her plate; the pretense of actually eating is over. “We’ve talked about Juilliard since you were a little—”
I cut her off before she can say any more. “Mom, face it—Juilliard is completely off the table, and so is the Conservatory. I was thinking I should look into something else. History maybe, or English lit.”
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