Hydraulic Level Five (1) (5 page)

I had. After the split, Samuel had Sofia and Alonso—they’d moved to New York for a year to be with him. I had the Valdez boys, pulling me out of very dark times with everything from skydiving (I sprained my ankle) to mountain climbing (sprained my other ankle). I had new passions in which Samuel played no part. Now that he’d moved on to someone else, maybe…

I’d met and dated men since Samuel. I’d even slept with a few and felt sick afterward—partly because I wanted them to be Samuel, and partly because I
hated
that I wanted them to be Samuel. Did he ever really love me
that way
, or had he confused friendship love with romantic love? If I was ever to escape from the churning vortex that was Samuel Caulfield Cabral, I needed answers.

It was here, sprawled on the area rug of my living room floor, my body absorbing merlot like a warm wine cork, I decided I’d do whatever it took to get unstuck.

Molly dropped an elbow over her eyes and groaned. “I’m supposed to see this Dylan-wannabe tomorrow with Cassady, one of his ‘friend dates.’ I’ll be lucky if the little people with jackhammers in my head keep it to a dull roar.”

“Samuel asked me on one of those a while back,” I murmured.

Molly shot up from the ground. “A friend date? No! When?”

“Two years ago, after Thanksgiving. Want to see?” I sat up and held the coffee table to steady my tilt-a-whirl brain, then opened my account and pulled up four emails. Molly skimmed them over my shoulder, gasping:

Kaye, come with me to Denver next Saturday? The Twiggies are playing at Three Kings Tavern—think you’d like them.

“How did you reply?”

“I didn’t.”

“Kaye!”

“I replied to the first one. I just…didn’t know what to do with the other three.”

“So instead of facing him, you tucked tail and ran?”

I grimaced. “Something like that.”

She pushed me out of the way and leaned over the keyboard. “You are going to reply to him now, missy.”

Dread filtered into my veins, followed by an odd recklessness. Why not reply? After that Thanksgiving, he couldn’t possibly dislike me more. And maybe, if he replied, I might get the answers I needed.

“This is kind of like drunk dialing. Drunk emailing.” I tossed a piece of popcorn at her. It soared over her head and bounced under my dining room table. “What should I say?”

“You could start by apologizing for missing the concert.”

“Fine. You type, I’ll dictate. ‘Dear Cabral…You white-hot unholy cliff-hucker.’” Molly glanced back at me, unsure. I waved for her to continue. “Trust me. ‘Sorry I missed The Twiggies concert. I do like them, you’re right.’ That’s it.”

She shrugged and typed the rest. I read it over her shoulder, swaying a bit:

Deer cabral, you white-jot unjoly cliffhuckr. sorry I missed the twigging concert. I do lick them, your right That’s it.

I clucked at all of the mistakes. “No no, delete ‘That’s it.’” Molly back-spaced, clicked send, and clapped her hands gleefully.

“Kaye, you did it! That man is not going to know what hit him.”

I stared at the screen, my face blanching. “
No
.” Diving for the keyboard, I clicked into the Sent folder and saw the brainless, double entendre-riddled message sitting there, dated just seconds ago. “Molly, you actually sent it?” There had to be a way to retract it, take it back,
something
. I considered pulling my laptop apart and destroying whatever tiny port of sail waved that doomed virtual message to sea.

“Hey, s’okay. You know Samuel, he’ll get a kick out of it.”

“You’re right about one thing.” I peered through my fingers at the embarrassing, irretrievable message. “He definitely won’t know what hit him.”

I hoped Samuel still had a sense of humor.

Chapter 4: Peel Out

Paddling into the core current.
A downstream lean is needed to remain balanced.

I T
RIED
N
OT
T
O
C
HECK
my email account every hour. When my phone buzzed, I forced myself to wait a full minute before I read the message. Each time, I held my breath…then exhaled when I saw the sender was Molly, or a client, or my mother, or one of the many monthly newsletters I subscribed to for my job. What did I care if the Denver Zoo had a new exhibit coming, called “The Scoop on Poop”? Who paid money to see a heap of animal crap, anyway?

After a week, I gave up hope of his responding. Either he was paying me back for not replying two years ago, or he didn’t want to out of respect for Caroline. Knowing Samuel, it was probably the latter. He wasn’t one for playing games with other people’s heads—just his own.

So, if he didn’t want to talk to me, why in the name of pogo-sticking Peter was I on my way to his book signing?

Molly.

“Remember, smug and professional,” Molly commanded as she whipped around curves on the rock-lined road to Boulder. “There’s no revenge sweeter than rubbing your hotness in his face.” Cassady choked in the front passenger seat as he swallowed green tea from his thermos. I patted his shoulders and felt them quake with laughter.

“Yes, Molly, I remember. How about I rub my
happiness
in his face, instead?”

She ignored me.

“Besides, this isn’t revenge per se,” I continued. “This is getting answers. Untangled.”

“Whatever you want to call it, Kaye.” I saw her roll her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Walk confidently up to that table—”

“—look him in the eyes—” I echoed for the hundredth time.

“And say in a sultry voice—”

“Welcome back, Cabral,” I replied in my best sultry voice.

Cassady now laughed aloud. “Wasn’t that a seventies sit-com?”

I slapped my forehead. “You’re right, it’s too cheesy. How about I just say ‘Samuel’? That’s sultry, right?”

“Why don’t you just be polite and normal?” Cassady reasoned. “That will make a bigger impression.”

“Why do you think she wouldn’t be polite? She’s not going in there to rip off his face. She just needs to project confidence.” Molly glanced at me over her shoulder, the Subaru veering to the right as she did. “Confident, not killer—right, Kaye?”

I desperately clung to the handle above the door. “Molly, road!”

“Oh!” She swerved back into her lane just as the right tires of her Subaru rumbled along the shoulder, kicking up wet gravel.

Cassady reached over Molly’s massive car organizer to fiddle with the radio, settling on a classic rock station. To Molly’s not-so-secret glee, he’d asked to tag along and have Samuel sign a book for his sister. “How’s the studying going back there?”

“Still skimming.” Samuel’s latest,
The Last Other
, launched two days ago. Despite the high demand for copies, I managed to obtain one from the bookstore after work. But with our entire TrilbyJones team putting in long hours to prep for the new Rocky Mountain National Park campaign—“Colorado’s Craziest Adventure”—I had no time to read. Now I rushed through the book.

While there was a romantic subplot in the series, it didn’t belong to Neelie, for which I was eternally grateful.
The New York Times
hailed the series as “brimstone beauty in a post-apocalyptic landscape.”
The Guardian
described Samuel Cabral’s work as “bound together in a masterfully allegorical black ribbon.” Whatever. The books were action-packed, epic mysteries set in various mountain ranges, which Samuel’s mythology inhabited. Each book culminated in some sort of bizarre good-versus-evil showdown. Caught up in the struggle was Neelie Nixie, a naïve but well-meaning water sprite on a quest through ashen wastelands to discover the fate of her friends: Nora, Noel, and Nicodemus.

Many of the storylines were taken straight from our imaginative playtimes in St. Vrain Creek, which ran the length of Lyons. When we were little, Samuel had come up with dramatic rescues from tree forts, leaps over the river into enemy territory. Like the scene I read right now: Neelie rappelled down a mountainside in the Alps with her crew, uncovering another clue in a long string of tense arrows that pointed to the conclusion.

The Last Other
was the final book, thank goodness. Now that the
Siren
series was finished, I felt more magnanimous. When I took myself and Samuel out of the equation and read the story for what it was—simply a story—it was good. But then I’d stumble across another little characteristic, such as Neelie biting her fingernails, and feel resentment once more. For the record, I didn’t bite my fingernails…not since last week.

“Kaye, do you know how it ends yet?” Molly called, yanking me from the book.

“No, I’m only about half-way through.”

“Did he write about me?”

“Ummm…sorry.” I was beyond certain the “Molly” character was a rosy twelve-year-old who’d shipped off to boarding school in the fourth book, but she disagreed. She still waited for a hip, New Age nixie to strut onto the stage of Samuel’s series in vintage cowboy boots. I caught a glimpse of Molly’s disappointed face in the mirror. The only sound was the pleasant, steady beat of the windshield wipers and Cassady’s fingers drumming the dashboard.

“So, Kaye, had any trouble with the media this time around?” he asked.

“Not so much. But I’ve stayed with Molly the past several days.” By now, I was an old pro at laying low following a
Water Sirens
book release. “My apartment phone’s probably ringing off the hook, and so are Mom’s and Dad’s. They aren’t too happy with Samuel right now.”

“How’d they figure Neelie was based on you?” When the first book was released, Cassady was somewhere in northern California, working at a vineyard and boycotting razors.

“After
Water Siren
’s success, one of the local reporters rooted into Samuel’s past and played a matching game with his real-life acquaintances and the book characters.” I explained how the reporter concluded that one Kaye Cabral, née Trilby, was the inspiration behind the author’s quirky heroine, “Neelie Nixie.” The news feature was picked up regionally, then nationally, making my life an insane obstacle course of the media. I’d gotten a new cell phone number and email address for friends and family only, had our receptionist screen all guests, and installed a peephole and deadbolt on my front door.

Alonso told me Samuel was concerned about the press reaction to the reporter’s findings. I asked him to tell Samuel, “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Be glad I’m not suing for invasion of privacy.” Alonso, kind man that he was, insisted his son hadn’t meant to be malicious. In the following books, Neelie wasn’t as recognizable, but the damage had been done. It didn’t matter whether Neelie’s traits were mine or not; readers just assumed they were.

“Five minutes, Kaye,” said Molly. “Better skip to the end.”

Hazy-eyed, I saw that we were already in the outskirts of Boulder. Crap! I flipped to the last few pages, searching for Neelie’s name. I didn’t see it. I turned back a few more, but still no Neelie. Odd, wouldn’t his main character be in the last scene? There was Nora…Noel…ooh, Molly’s character was back from boarding school…but no Nicodemus. And no Neelie.

“Molly, slow down—look out for that news van backing up,” Cassady said calmly.

I glanced up and gasped, letting the book fall shut. We were smack dab in the middle of a three-ring circus—local media trucks, cameramen covered in plastic ponchos, cars fighting for parking spaces, honking horns, hundreds of fans with brightly-colored umbrellas standing in lines out the door, just to get their book signed. Nerves shot through my body and settled in my stomach. I had no idea the signing would be
this
big. When TrilbyJones planned similar events, we’d kept them low key per Caroline’s request.

“Maybe I should just wait to see him at the rehearsal dinner.”

“We’re here, we’re going in.” Molly hit the horn as a beat-up Festiva pulled out in front of her.

“But Monday’s my name-change hearing. I don’t think I should be sick for it, and with the rain…”

“Do you even need to be present for that?” Cassady pointed out.

“Kaye! How is it possible that you can dive head-first into whitewater rapids and not bat an eye, but when it comes to having a friendly exchange with your ex-husband—who, may I remind you, was your best friend for years—your feet freeze?”

I took a deep breath and repeated my mantra.
Answers. Answers. Answers.

“There’s no way you’ll find a parking spot anywhere near the bookstore,” Cassady said. “Why don’t you and Kaye go in, and I’ll find something down the street, eh?”

Molly gazed passionately at Cassady, as if he’d just suggested they elope to Vegas. Opening their doors, they flipped up their hoods and dodged around the car, ignoring the honking drivers behind them. Molly swung my door open and pulled me into the rain.