Stars Rise

XLIII. All I Want Right Now Is Lunch With My Friends

The sun was at the zenith attracting suspicious frowns and glances as I strolled with fleets of pedestrians down hot Soliara City streets basting in humidity and sunshine.

Nothing uncommon about the heat. Most of the world manages to go on like normal, I called Candra to meet for lunch downtown at peak lunch bustle on Frons Street with sparse but desperate hope for a patio table. Pass a strip of dozens of empty patio tables, almost like normal, people either stare suspiciously at (but not right at) the sun or sit inside and avoid it.

"Is Franco meeting us at the restaurant?" I ask.

Never can tell if they're together. Candra resists the heat, not a drop or so much as a thin sheen of perspiration, white dress looks cool, open toes in high heels, red hair up off her neck in a red ponytail massive, must weigh at least two pounds. She was made for roasting sunstroke climate. I'm soaked about to die of sunstroke.

"Think so," says Candra, not glancing up at the sky.

"Thanks for meeting me. I'm avoiding going home."

"Do they know who's responsible yet?"

"No." I not they know. I know who's responsible yet. Pause for traffic, car street intersects pedestrian street, transit and a few remaining cars get to go. Don't think about who's responsible. Stream of traffic trickles to a drip and pedestrians flood over roads again. We flood in with (never against) the tide but south on Laurea Avenue is much more placid, like Candra's face when she's this pensive. "What are you thinking?" I ask, breaking her pensive process.

She shakes her head, tamed mane disagrees, red tail whipping left, right, left, as if she hadn't realized she was deep in thought and she really doesn't want to tell me what she's thinking about. "Nothing. It's nothing. I shouldn't say anything."

She really doesn't want to tell me, but I beg. "Please, Candra. Tell me what you're thinking."

"All right," she says, she looks from side to side (red tail whips left, right, left) at the other pedestrians and lowers her voice so no one will overhear. "It's just ... I always wondered why the orphan girl — Aurelian Nova — moved in with the Potestas family. And now this happens." Don't think about who's responsible.

"I don't follow." My jaw clenches, hard to speak through. Not sure I want to know any more, but it doesn't stop me from asking. "Why wouldn't we take in an orphan after her every living relative was murdered?"

"You're right. I just couldn't help but think a girl with her charm could have slipped in with anyone. She needed someone to take care of her, but she had her pick, didn't she? Why the boss, why not some handsome engineer?"

"Maybe because she isn't manipulative like that. She's not what you think she is."

"She's not?" says Candra innocently.

"I don't think so." Don't think about — "I guess if she has me fooled she's doing a good job." Or not. It might not take much to have me fooled.

Candra stops in the tracks of her open toed heels. "Stephen, what if she picked your father to cling to not because he's rich and powerful and can provide for her without the pesky bonds of marriage, but because she's after something else."

"Like what?"

Candra shrugs and leads me on. Toward the restaurant. Then she says, "Maybe she wants to hurt the boss. Maybe she thinks he was somehow involved."

"Involved in what?"

"In the tragic end and downfall of the Dasilva family. I know how ridiculous that is, but does she?"