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  “But they stopped it,” Cate murmured. “They called the police, called an ambulance. They stopped it. Noah—his sister said he didn’t really see the ones who hurt him either.”

  “We’ll talk to him again,” Riley assured her. “He may remember more. Celebrities often get mail from fans, some obsessed fans, some who develop an unhealthy and possessive fantasy.”

  “If I get mail, it goes to the studio, or to my agent. I’m not really a celebrity.”

  “You’ve been in four movies,” Riley pointed out. “And you’ve generated a lot of media attention. Your relationship with Noah generated quite a bit not long ago.”

  “If there’s been any mail like what you’re saying . . .” She gripped Lily’s hand. “The call.”

  “What call?” Riley demanded.

  “In June, when the company was performing their out-of-town openings, someone called on my cell.”

  She told them all of it, told them about the call over the winter in L.A.

  “You no longer have the phone?”

  She shook her head at Riley. “I realize that was a mistake, but I just—”

  “Reacted,” Wasserman finished. “Have either of you received any other calls that felt disturbing? Or wrong numbers, hang ups?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Nothing like that,” Lily confirmed. “Do you think the calls are connected to what happened to Noah?”

  “It’s something we’ll look into. Any other attempted contacts?” Riley asked. “Anything that’s made you uncomfortable?”

  “No. I mean, people usually recognize Lily when she’s out, and sometimes they’ll come up to her. Since the last movie I did came out, I’ve had a little of that, but it’s not mean.”

  “You’re taking classes at NYU.” Wasserman smiled at her, then glanced at his notebook. “Has anyone paid any particular attention to you, maybe asked you out?”

  “A couple of people asked me out, but there wasn’t any push after I said I had a boyfriend.”

  “You said he often meets you on campus. So you’re seen together.”

  Cate looked back at Riley. “Yes. You mean a white girl and someone who’s not white.”

  Riley met Cate’s gaze steadily. “If this attack was racially motivated, it could make it a hate crime. We take that very seriously. If anyone makes a push now, we need to know about it.”

  “You will.”

  “And if we could have the names of the friends you had dinner with? Someone might have noticed something off,” Wasserman explained. “Someone paying too much attention to you and Noah.”

  “Sure. I don’t know all their last names.”

  “We’ll take care of that.” Riley set down her empty cup.

  “Can I get you more coffee?”

  “No, thanks. It’s good coffee.”

  Cate gave them the names she remembered, rose when the detective rose. “I know you might not find them. I know things don’t always, even usually, wrap up like a movie. It’s just, Noah didn’t deserve this.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Riley slipped her notebook back in her pocket. “Neither of you did. Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “I’ll see you out.” Lily walked them to the door, then turned back to Cate. “Doing okay?”

  “Yes. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, telling them everything I can think of, it’s movement. It’s not just letting it all push me into a corner.”

  “All right. I need to call your grandfather. You should call your dad. I’m going to call our director. He’ll need the understudies for Noah and me tonight.”

  “Not for you, no. No.”

  “I don’t want to leave you here alone tonight, sweets.”

  “And I don’t want to disappoint a houseful of people coming to see Lily Morrow’s Mame. The show goes on, G-Lil. We both know it. I’m okay. I’m hoping Bekka texts to say I can go see Noah. If not, she promised to put me on the list so I can at least ask about how he’s doing. And I can send or take flowers so he knows I’m thinking of him.”

  “Tell you what, you come to the theater tonight. You can watch from the wings. Unless you’re sitting with Noah, you come with me. That’s a good deal.”

  “Okay. I’ll go call Dad.”

  Bekka texted to come at four, to plan on a fifteen-minute visit.

  She brought flowers, a cheerful summer bouquet. They kept the room dim, as before, the shades drawn. But this time his right eye slitted open, watched her come in.

  She moved to him quickly, took his hand, kissed it. “Noah. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  But that right eye looked away as he said it, and his hand lay unresponsive in hers.

  In that instant, that hard line between what was and what is, she knew he didn’t mean it. Knew he’d already taken the first step away from her.

  Still, she went to see him every day. During his surgeries, she sat at home with her phone, waiting for Bekka to text his condition.

  When he went home—to his parents’ home—to recover, she texted once a day. Only once because she knew he’d taken several more steps away from her.

  Summer blurred into an autumn that held the heat like a lover. She enrolled in two adult education courses. One for conversational French, one for Italian.

  Language, she thought, pulled her in. She’d take the rest of her year, explore that, explore herself. Then she’d need to decide what to do with her life, her skills.

  She was prepared when Noah texted her, asked to come by and see her on a Wednesday afternoon. A matinee afternoon, she noted, when Lily would be at the theater.

  October brought the gorgeous dying color to the parks, that change of light that gleamed off the river. And since the day held balmy, she brought Cokes outside, drilled them down into the ice in a bucket. Unless that had changed since summer, Noah liked his Cokes.

  She trapped nerves in a locked corner when she walked to answer the buzzer. Though prepared, her heart still stumbled.

  “Noah. You look great. Oh, it’s so good to see.”

  He’d grown some scruff, heavier on the chin and above his lip. He looked older, had lost some weight she hoped he’d build up again soon.

  Though his eyes met hers, she read what was in them.

  “Let’s sit outside. It’s pretty out, and I’ve got Cokes. Lily said you went by the theater last week.”

  “Yeah, I wanted to see everyone.”

  “You look ready to go back.” She smiled at him as she opened the drinks. A Sullivan knew how to play a role.

  “I’m not going back. Not to Mame. Carter’s had the part for three months. I’m not taking it away from him. Anyway.”

  Since he didn’t take the glass she held out, she set it down as he wandered to the wall.

  “I know they never caught who hurt you.”

  “I didn’t see them, not that I remember. Nobody did.” He shrugged. “The cops did what they could.”

  Did he hear the thread of bitterness in his own voice? she wondered.

  “Bekka says you still get headaches.”

  “Some. Not as bad. They’re easing off like the doctors said they should. I’m back in dance class. Taking some voice because, you know, it gets rusty. I auditioned for Heading Up. It’s a new musical. I got it. Second lead.”

  “Oh, Noah.” She’d have gone to him, but felt the wall between them, as solid as the one at his back. “That’s great, just great. I’m so happy for you.”

  “I’m going to be busy, with workshops, with lessons, then rehearsals. It’s my first major part, and I need to focus on that. I won’t have time for a relationship.”

  Prepared, she thought, she had been prepared. And still it cut so deep. “Noah, I’m happy for you. You don’t have to use something you’ve wanted and worked so hard for as a reason. We haven’t been together since that awful night. Sometimes one awful night changes everything.”

  “I know it wasn’t your fault.”


  “No, you don’t.” Bitterness, yes her own thread of bitterness slipped out. She struggled to pull it in again, knot it off. “You were the one hurt, the one in the hospital, the one in pain, the one who lost a part he worked for. Part of you, at least, feels it’s my fault. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t my fault. It’s what you feel.”

  “I can’t do it, Cate. I can’t handle the press—and they tried to keep it from me after, but I saw and heard the stories that came out after that night. They said your name when they were pounding on me. I don’t know how to forget that.”

  “It matters to you, as much as what they did, it matters to you what they said. And the press matters to you. So you blame me.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  She just shook her head. “You blame me. Your family blames me. For a while I blamed myself, but I’m not going to do that. It’s not my fault I fell in love with you. It’s not my fault you’ve stopped being in love with me.”

  He looked away again. “I can’t do this. That’s what it comes down to. I can’t do this.”

  “You were the first one who looked at just me, wanted just me. I’ll never forget that. You can’t feel that way about me now, so you can’t be with me. I can’t be with you, same reasons.”

  She took a long breath. “The person you are came here to tell me to my face. The person I am can let you go without blaming either one of us. So.”

  She lifted her glass from the table. “Break a leg, Noah.”

  “I better go.”

  He moved to the glass doors, paused. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” she murmured when he’d gone.

  Then she sat, shed a few silent tears over the sweetness faceless strangers had stolen from two lives.

  PART III

  TENDING ROOTS

  To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition . . .

  —SAMUEL JOHNSON

  The voice is a wild thing. It can’t be bred in captivity.

  —WILLA CATHER

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As her grandfather had once told her, life was a series of turns. Most of her life, Cate felt she’d taken those turns at someone else’s direction, or in reaction to another’s action.

  The day of her great-grandfather’s memorial and the night that followed equaled a tectonic shift, forever altering her life’s landscape. Still, in the midst of the quake, she’d turned toward courage.

  Years later, she’d turned to fear after her mother’s ambush.

  Her loss of the joy and passion for a profession she’d loved, had intended to pursue, shifted her life yet again, and changed her direction to New York.

  That first sweet coffee date with Noah turned her world yet again. Losing him forced her to take another turn.

  It was time to stop reacting and choose her own direction.

  When Hugh took a project filming in New York, settled into the condo, Lily extended her contract as Mame. And Cate began to hunt for her own apartment. It was time, she felt, she decided to claim real independence, and find out who she was living on her own.

  At nineteen she could speak conversationally in Spanish, French, and Italian, and often volunteered as an interpreter, for the police—thanks to Detective Riley—for shelters.

  She spent three months with her father in New Zealand while he filmed—on the condition she could serve as his assistant. She enjoyed every moment.

  When she returned to New York, she continued the search for her own place, and turned twenty.

  A new chapter, a new apartment, a new chance to explore.

  But it was a chance encounter at a busy little bistro that shifted her life yet again.

  She sat with Darlie—also filming in New York—over tiny salads and glasses of spring water. Over lunch, they caught up, Darlie’s work and life in L.A., Cate’s in New York.

  “The physical training for this one’s been killer. Three hours a day, six days a week.”

  “But look at those guns.”

  Her hair Tinker Bell short, her body seriously ripped, Darlie flexed, studied her biceps. “They are seriously awesome.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “I have to admit, I like being strong, and doing an action film, playing an actual adult. I really get to kick some ass—and get mine kicked. We’re shutting down part of Chinatown tomorrow for a scene. You have to come see.”

  “Text me the particulars, and I’ll see if I can work it into my busy schedule.”

  “From what you’ve said, you are pretty busy. Learning Russian now?”

  “Dabbling.”

  “Interpreting.” Darlie nibbled on some arugula. “And you’ve moved into your own place. How does that feel?”

  “Strange and wonderful at the same time. I stuck with the Upper West because it’s close to my grandparents and made them feel better. Plus, I know and like the neighborhood.”

  Deciding a little flatbread couldn’t hurt, Darlie broke a piece in two. “I like New York, but I’m a California girl. Anyway. No men squeezed into that busy schedule?”

  “You sound like my new neighbor. ‘Pretty girl,’ ” Cate said in an accent reeking of Queens. “ ‘How come you got no boyfriend? How come I don’t see boys knocking on your door?’ ”

  Cate lifted her water glass. “And that brings another neighbor out. ‘She maybe like girls.’ ” A Russian accent this time. “ ‘It’s okay if she likes girls.’ ”

  Cate rolled her eyes as Darlie laughed. And back to Queens. “ ‘You like girls? You got a girlfriend?’ ”

  “I thought New Yorkers didn’t interact so much.”

  “In my building they do. So when I explain, because they’re both standing in their doorways waiting, that I like boys, but I’m just not seeing anyone right now, I realize too late I’m now a project.”

  “Uh-oh, not the blind date fix-her-up.”

  “ ‘I got a nephew.’ ” Queens. “ ‘He’s a good boy. Smart boy. He’ll take you to coffee.’

  “ ‘I talk to young Kevin who works at the market.’ ” Russian. “ ‘He has a pretty face and good manners.’ ”

  Enjoying herself, Cate gestured with her glass. “About this time, yet another neighbor—this guy who lives down the hall—comes out of the elevator with his little mop of a dog, George. George sees the first neighbor and starts . . .” Cate let out a series of high-pitched yips. “Because she always gives him a little dog biscuit. She pulls one out of her pocket, tosses it to George, and keeps talking about her nephew with the other one rooting for the guy at the market. So then George’s dad, hearing all this, chimes in.

  “ ‘Leave da girl alone.’ ” She used deep, gravely New York now. “ ‘She oughta play da field. Pretty young girls got oats to sow, too, amirite? Sow dose oats, girlie.’ ”

  With an eye roll, Cate stabbed a grape tomato. “All this just because I took out the trash.”

  “Excuse me.”

  A man stepped up to the table. Somewhere in his middle thirties, Cate gauged, with a pleasant face made intellectual by horn-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m going to interrupt. I was sitting just behind you, and heard. You have a serious talent with voices.”

  “I . . . thanks.”

  “Sorry, I should introduce myself. Boyd West.” He looked at Darlie. “We actually met once, briefly. I don’t expect you’d remember.”

  “Yes, I do. You’re married to Yolanda Phist. I met you when we were working on Everlasting.”

  “That’s right. Nice to see you. If I could just sit down for one quick minute.”

  He did, and turned his attention back to Cate. Shoving his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he talked fast, a kind of whirlwind of words.

  “I’m directing an animated short—a small but important project for me. We’ve cast most of the roles, but I haven’t found anyone who works for me for the key. It’s about a search for personal identity, finding your place in a chaotic world, and making that place matter. Have you ever done voice work?”
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  “No, I—”

  “Sorry, I keep interrupting, but I just recognized you. You’re Caitlyn Sullivan.”

  Her shoulders wanted to hunch, but he grinned, so open and delighted, she felt herself relax again.

  Before she could speak, he plowed on.

  “This is, well, kismet. I’ve admired your work, but I had no idea you had this kind of voice talent. I’d love to send you the script. In fact, I’m going to give you the script. I was just having lunch with my producers, and going over some things. Wait.”

  He got up, went back to the table where a man and a woman sat, grabbed a script, came back.

  “Take this one, and my card.” He pulled out a card case, scribbled on one of the cards. “That’s my personal line. It’s a small project, and I could only pay you scale, but it’s an important one. I won’t keep you, but read it. Just read it, and get back to me. Great meeting you, nice seeing you.”

  When he started back to his table, the other two rose. They glanced back at Cate before they left.

  “That was . . . very surreal.”

  “Don’t say no. Read the script,” Darlie insisted. “He comes off a little jumpy and intense, but Boyd West has a solid reputation. He directs small, vibrant jewels. And you do have talent, Cate. You’ve had some really shitty runs, but that doesn’t mean you waste what you have.”

  “But I don’t know anything about voice work.”

  “You’ve got an amazingly fluid voice, you can act. West is a good director. If the script has any appeal for you, what have you got to lose?” Smiling, Darlie nibbled on another leaf. “Kismet.”

  Cate didn’t know about kismet, but she knew a good script when she read one. And her life shifted again, with her at the wheel, when she took the role of Alice in the animated short Who Am I Anyway?

  She found her place in sound booths, with headphones, in the closet she soundproofed and set up as a studio in her apartment. And in time she converted the second bedroom in a new apartment as work rolled in.