The Sound of Serendipity Read online

  THE SOUND OF SERENDIPITY

  Books by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  The Mystic Waters Series

  Mystic Waters

  Chasing the Tide

  The Reigning Waves

  Other Books

  Crashing Souls

  The Sound of Serendipity

  Souls Collide

  Delta Lie

  THE SOUND OF SERENDIPITY

  a novel by

  Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  ANTERIOR BOOKS

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE SOUND OF SERENDIPITY. Copyright © 2016 by Cynthia A. Rodriguez.

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9904189-8-6

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-9904189-9-3

  Anterior Books

  P.O. Box 832469

  Miami, FL 33283

  www.anterior.us

  Cover design © Hang Le byhangle.com

  First Printing

  For the ones who loved Maddox first

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Some people think the beginnings of stories are the most exciting parts. From the first wail to the first page, the beginning is supposed to draw you in. It’s that initial breath, that opening sentence that makes you think, this is good.

  But there are moments throughout your life so supremely right they catch your breath. They happen on that Tuesday you forget your umbrella. Or as you step out to grab lunch. When you least expect it, your life has become something you could only dream of.

  I watch it happen every day.

  I have a need inside of me to live more than my own life. I want to know what it’s like to experience it all. Every story I come across.

  Like my current barista. She’s a bit frazzled. Her hair is in a topknot, and she’s wondering how the hell she’s going to deal with the morning rush without losing her mind. It’s in the wideness of her eyes and the way she loses her patience for a moment when she accidentally gets whipped cream on the counter. There is a tired puffiness to her features but she’s still here, though the way she cleans the whipped cream away says she’d like to be elsewhere.

  I, unlike so many others, wonder why. Why is she tired? Was she up late? If so, what for? What kept her from calling out sick or quitting, besides being a responsible adult? What is her story?

  While she wipes her hands on the apron around her waist and smiles at me before asking for my order, I’m going through millions of stories in my head. One of them might be hers.

  I point to the blueberry muffins.

  “Muffin and black tea, please.” No pumpkin-spiced disaster here, I think to myself as I take in the Halloween décor.

  She smiles bigger this time and clutches her hands to her chest.

  “You’re a lifesaver.” Her gratefulness over my plain taste makes me smile but it feels tight, so I let it go. She’s already getting my order together with a speed at which only a seasoned and confident worker would be comfortable moving. It impresses me that she can look so tired but work so quickly.

  I look behind me as I dig in my purse for my wallet. The line isn’t as long anymore. I hand her my debit card, and I know that if I make small talk with her, she may open up and tell me why today isn’t really her day. But, as usual, I can’t quite strike up a conversation. There’s never a right word to say, and once I open my mouth to try, the moment is gone. She’s onto the next customer. Still, I smile at no one in particular and grab my items.

  I head toward the door and hold it open for someone who is too busy to thank me.

  These things—missing moments of kindness, missing moments in general—I don’t mind them. I don’t mind that I’m nearly invisible to people. The autumn city wind makes my skin prickle as I step quickly and confidently toward the park’s entrance.

  It is possible to be lonely in the greatest city in the world. I am constantly in contact with someone, in one form or another. Yet, I’m quietly begging for my own great moment.

  The wind has the leaves scattering like they’re looking for a second chance at life or something else to cling to. They remind me of myself. I head toward my usual spot. Central Park is beautiful enough to evoke that romantic and wondrous feeling of life and possibilities but still popular enough that, on any given day, people are here and their stories are continuing for anyone interested and willing to pay attention.

  I sip my tea and pull out my phone, and I watch.

  Sometimes I pretend to read a book. Most times I fiddle with my phone when someone notices my inquisitive eyes. Truly, I want to live all of their lives. So I do. I catch wind of affairs. I watch as friendships end and relationships begin. I bear witness to many engagements. People gravitate toward the park. Some sit on benches beside me and others walk. Sometimes I follow. But I usually save the following for one person.

  Of all of the thousands of people I’ve seen, he’s the one I can’t get out of my head. He causes me to place my headphones over my ears and pretend I’m not hanging on his every word as I keep a safe distance between us. He must know I’m here for him because, just as I try to picture him with his brown eyes and perfectly crooked smile, he appears. I sit up straighter, and he walks slowly toward me. No companion so far. No beautiful woman wrapping herself in his arms to make me feel inadequate.

  These women, they’ve perfected the art of conversation. They know where to touch him, how to make him laugh. I’ve merely perfected the art of watching from the sidelines, wishing it were me.

  Yes. I have a massive crush on this man, with his downtown swagger and uptown persona.

  As if on cue, a redhead approaches him. She’s grace personified, and when I glance down at my tea, I feel the opposite. I can hear her laugh from where I sit and it isn’t too loud, isn’t too annoying.

  Unlike his last female friend—I can still hear it, the loud cackle making me want to leave. But did I? No. I blamed it on the way he looked around like he wasn’t quite under her spell. A bolder woman would’ve whisked him away from the hyena, but I figured he was better off with her than with the woman prior. Brunette, like me, but that was where the similarities ended. She talked endlessly, and even when he opened his mouth to speak, she droned on until I could see the boredom in his eyes as they strolled past me. Still, he left with her, and I was sure that wherever they went, talking wasn’t on their minds.

  But today, the redhead is perfect. She is charming and beautiful, and he laughs at her jokes just as she laughs at his. Her smile is easy, and I’m so sure that, because I wasted my time watching and doing n
othing, I’ve missed my chance. Still, he doesn’t hold her hand. Their hands sway openly at their sides and I wonder how warm his would be, even now as the fall winds pick up. I can see their chemistry as they approach, and I immediately glance down so he won’t see me watching. As he walks by, I strain to hear their conversation.

  “So, I’ll see you around then?” she asks, her voice full of hope. I look up to see her tuck a red–gold lock of hair behind her ear and smile. I look away again before she notices.

  “Yeah, sure,” I hear him say, and though my eyes are on the phone, I close them. I hardly ever get to hear his voice this close. When I glance up, they’re standing a few feet away from me and she leans in to kiss him. My eyes are trained, waiting for their moment of impact. As terrible as it is for my heart, I can’t stop watching. When she pulls back, her eyes catch mine. I look away before she can think anything of it, taking in the trees and making like I’d been looking around.

  “Take care, Chelsea,” I hear him say, and I don’t look up again until her footsteps sound far enough away. Glancing back and forth between them, his steps are lighter while hers are slow and deliberate, and I wonder what I just witnessed. It seemed like fate, but maybe I didn’t know anything. I sip my forgotten tea. Yeah, I don’t know anything.

  As I watch him head toward the park’s entrance, my phone rings.

  “Hey, dad,” I say before sipping my tea, which is getting cooler by the second.

  “I need you to come by the office, Emmy.”

  I glance around and press my phone closer to my ear, trying to listen for any sound of distress.

  “Everything okay?”

  “I know I was supposed to give you the day off, but I need your ear.”

  I bite my lower lip in anticipation, already walking away from my bench, my movements so jerky that I spill some of my tea.

  “Whose record?”

  “The one you’ve been waiting for. Get down here! I’m in studio seven.”

  I let out a small shriek and look around again. When I notice people watching me, I duck my head and quicken my steps. Without a backward glance, I drop my tea into the trash and stuff my muffin into my purse.

  We hang up as I flag down a cab, stepping just off the curb, my right hand up and out. When one stops almost immediately, I’m filled with relief and I climb inside. I open my mouth to tell the driver where to go when the door on the opposite side of the cab opens and someone shuffles in beside me.

  Brown eyes meet mine and those perfect lips spread crookedly. He takes a moment, his eyes squinting, the laugh lines around them on full display. He’s trying to place me. As if he realizes I’m no one, he shakes his head and smiles again. Impersonally. A smile he has at the ready for any nameless woman.

  “Mind sharing a cab?”

  I nod a few times and mumble something. He tells the driver where he’s headed and pauses to look at me again. Those brown eyes feel like bright spotlights. I tell the driver where to take me, pulling a little at my scarf. It’s a few blocks to Kingsley Records. I could’ve easily walked it.

  But if I’d walked, I wouldn’t be sitting here beside him, I tell myself as I sit back. What are the odds? This is it. This is where every dream I’ve ever had will come true. He’ll ask me where I’ve been his whole life, and we’ll laugh over the days I used to watch him with other women.

  “You work there?” His interest has me sweating. It’s so cool outside, and yet, in this cab it’s so hot that I worry he’ll see sweat bead on my forehead or upper lip.

  “Sometimes,” I offer. Somehow he knows I’m not the one up front with the microphone in my face. He sees my long brown hair and skin dotted with random beauty marks, my wide eyes, and my lips that remain closed when I’m not speaking as if I have no smiles to spare.

  “Maybe that’s where I know you from.”

  I shrug and keep my gaze on the city as we crawl through traffic. “Maybe.”

  “Yeah, that has to be it. I never forget a face.” I chance a look, and he’s still looking at me. “Seriously, I know you from somewhere. We didn’t….”

  He gestures back and forth between us and I shake my head, my lips tight. I wasn’t that lucky.

  “I think I’d remember you.” He smiles and it’s flirty and adorable, but I roll my lips together and look away.

  I would never tell him that he knows me as someone who watches him from afar. His own one-woman audience. I’ve been doing it for months, and I feel like I know him. But as I glance his way and take in his features up close, I realize I don’t know him at all. I don’t know the mole on his jaw or the scar on his ear, and since we’re in such close proximity, I definitely know that I don’t know his scent.

  But the women I envy know. They know it all. Though I try not to let it bother me, though it shouldn’t bother me, it does. I’m in this cab with this near stranger and all I can think about is how I’ve dreamed of this moment since the first time I saw him and how remarkable I’ve always hoped it would be.

  He’s peering up out of the cab window, and I try to hide the way I look at him through my lashes but he catches me. His smile is quick and he’s shaking his head.

  “I didn’t realize women blushed anymore.” His smile widens as I shift in my seat a little. “Certainly not a woman living in New York City.”

  “How do you know I live here?” I ask, finally, finally finding my voice.

  He leans forward and I inch back a little. His smile morphs into a smirk. “For one, you said you worked at Kingsley Records. Second, I can tell by the way you flagged down this cab. Assertive. None of that touristy uncertainty.”

  He watched me grab this cab? I had somehow caught his eye. Whatever did the trick, I want to make sure I do it again. His eyes are all I’ve wanted on me for months.

  “And you decided to join me?” I’m attempting to flirt now that I know he watched me too. Maybe not for months but the few minutes that I stepped off the curb to head to work…I made him notice me.

  I’ve seen his lips kiss women, seen his hands hold other hands, and those eyes have only just glanced my way. Under his eyes, those things I witnessed fade. It’s no longer important what his lips, hands, or eyes have done. Right now he’s facing me and those lips are parting to speak again, much to my pleasure and panic.

  “Does it bother you to be forced to endure my company on your way to the office?” Though his lips are curving sweetly around his words, I don’t hear humor in his voice. Those eyes darken, and it’s like he’s reeling me in. I have to stop myself from falling into him even though I’m sitting down. Those damn eyes. In order to save myself, I shrug and turn away. Back in my shell I go.

  I didn’t miss the way he said, “the office,” like it’s some sexy secret or a place where people do anything but work.

  Is the man of my dreams trying to pick me up after having just left the company of another woman? It’s all so cheap and disappointing, but he doesn’t know that I know what he was doing fifteen minutes ago.

  I wonder what business he has with my father. In all of my time at the label, I would’ve remembered seeing him. Though I only work a few days a week, I know our entire roster of artists. I wonder if he’s a singer. The more I sit here, the more I notice things I didn’t before. His brown leather jacket is worn. His hands tap against the dark denim covering his thighs as he glances out into traffic, and I peg him as an artist immediately. Only they fidget that way, constantly hearing a beat in their brain. I let my eyes run over the soft-looking fabric of his hoodie, taking my time and wondering if he feels my eyes as they travel over him slowly.

  We hit a pothole and jostle against one another. I bite the inside of my cheek as his hands reach out to steady us—one hand on my far shoulder, the other on the arm closest to him. I try not to be obvious as to how uncomfortable I am by his touch. All I can think is that I’m hot in this cab and I sweat in heat, like any other human being. It doesn’t help that he’s too beautiful for words and now he’s touching me. I squint
my eyes shut for a second, praying to God he doesn’t feel my possible perspiration. This is not going the way I imagined. Not at all.

  “Hey. Everything okay?” I open my eyes.

  He’s so close I have to lean back a little. I can smell the cinnamon on his breath, and I wonder if he’s the type of guy to eat mints or the type to chew gum and now my eyes are so wholly fixated on his mouth, I feel like I’m under a spell.

  All through this cab ride, I’m wondering and wondering about him. I look away because I’m bothered by the fact that I can’t force this interaction to be magical. I’m not that remarkable of a person, not that confident—certainly not in this situation—nor am I bubbly enough to make him pay extra attention. Not the kind of attention that would last more than a night, anyway.

  “Fine. I’m fine.”

  I spare a glance in his direction, and his tongue peeks out to wet his bottom lip. I scoot away a little and he does the same.

  “Do I stink? I swear I don’t have cooties,” he says playfully. His eyes smile at mine.

  Is he flirting with me again? Was he flirting with me at all? Or am I being held hostage by the car fumes, seeing a mirage? I test my theory and brush my pinky against his. He’s real. I smile.

  His eyes flit down to our hands and back up to me when the cab stops. He looks away and thanks the cab driver before handing him cash.

  “That should take care of her fare as well.” The door opens and the cool air hits us. The muted city sounds become louder, piercing through our bubble.

  “It was nice to meet you,” he says half-heartedly as he turns back to shut the door. I want to tell him he hasn’t even met me. That he doesn’t know my name and I don’t know his but, as usual, the moment is gone.

  Before the door closes I hear someone yell, “Maddox!”

  He looks toward the sound and now I know his name. Maddox. I’m reminded that I don’t know him. The feeling the reminder leaves me with…I can’t place it. Slight melancholy with a hint of longing. But it sounds like the car door shutting and the music I hadn’t noticed the driver was playing. Soft rock.