The Mechanical Muse

Chapter 10 (Part 2)

I had forgotten about Cassandra and her quest for justice because I had not seen her around campus, nor had u/CrochetCass posted much except about her menagerie of crochet animals—out of sight, out of mind was the principle of the day. The same applied for Carmen, whom I saw around campus from a distance, but never approached. I had seen enough to know that good things never happened to those who lingered around her: she attracted trouble, and reveled in the power she held over others. And it was a pity, too, since she could be fine company when she chose to be. I chose instead to occupy my time with people who were always fine company. This included Prof. Rubinowitz, whom Elise and I visited on occasion. He was his usual self, and wouldn't have understood, much less cared about, my problems with Cassandra anyway.

I remembered Cassandra the day before the recital, when I spied Cassandra leaving the empty recital hall holding a laptop bag and what looked like a case of power tools; she wore a baseball cap, jeans, and a shirt from the music school. I darted behind a pillar, and when she left, I went into the recital hall, not knowing what she could have actually done but fearing the worst. The piano was stored in a side area when not in use, leaving an empty stage and a few hundred seats that would be filled. My mouth went dry, both because of Cassandra and because there were going to be a few hundred knowledgeable audience members watching me tackle one of the most beloved pieces of the classical repertoire.

I looked around for a few minutes, but found no obvious signs of sabotage, and realized what I didn't know was unlikely to hurt me. The next most logical step was to message Valdez; I had already told him of our very awkward breakfast, but he had been too distracted by the "vengeful ex" idea to believe Cassandra's actions would have consequences. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," he had said to me in an attempt to appeal to my good literary sense; I bristled at the sexism, but was willing to accept the idea that there were powers beyond my own understanding at work.

"Saw Cassandra leaving the recital hall with power tools and a laptop," I wrote. "Think she's planning something."

"LMAO no kidding," he wrote back. "Lucy says hi."

"I say hi back," I wrote. "Should we do something?"

"What's she going to do, shoot you? It will be fine. Good luck tomorrow. The three of us will be there. Lucy says to break a leg."

I'd rather she had not used that phrase. I didn't respond further, but chose instead to speculate at Cassandra's motives, or the life she had been living in parallel to mine—in other words, what had driven her to such drastic measures. Had she stashed a gun in there? Was the piano going to fall through a hole in the stage and take the performer with it? I imagined her, during the recital, standing underneath and carving a circle with a buzzsaw like a cartoon, and chuckled at this thought before it suddenly became unfunny. She did not miss me, or have any desire but to see me pilloried—that was certain. But had she spent the past few weeks watching our meteoric rise secretly plotting our demise? What visions of glory had she seen in the fountain's mist? I had to admire her optimism, if not for how I'd reformed already and really did not need to be caught up in all of this.

Lucy and Valdez, the two people I assumed would most understand the power of a scheme, were too swept up in their own success to care, but there was one important person I'd not yet told, someone who was in the basement practicing those Chopin variations, and who was already prone to anxieties about the simplest things—her ice cream order, which outfit to wear for the recital (my answer of "you'd look beautiful in anything" was deemed insufficient), if piano majors actually made money. On this last point we could commiserate together, but that was beside the point: she had to know, whether she wanted to or not.

I was there a few hours earlier than my usual time, and knocked on her door; she let me in, gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and sat me down next to her piano bench.