Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 63 of 78

Kylie dried the last plate and looked out at the beach altar. The white linens hung still. Then a cold fact hit her. Kara had two lines to speak before the music began. Kara had never seen the ceremony's flow. If she spoke her cue at the wrong moment, Kylie would sing too soon or too late, and Arianna would miss her opening on the guitar. Kylie found Kara on the sand near the palms. Kara stood with her arms crossed, watching the water. She wore plain clothes, no cape, careful not to touch the fragile linens Kylie had tied between the potted trees. Kylie still felt the old caution around her. She had trusted few people since Malia. But Kara had flown the dresses and the puppy here without leaving a trace, and she had asked for nothing. "We have a problem," Kylie said. "You know your two lines. But you don't know when I start singing after them." Kara turned. "Tell me the order." "You speak. Then you go quiet. I sing one verse alone at the gate. Then I walk to Arianna, and she plays. If you talk over my first note, I stall. If she doesn't hear my last word clean, she can't come in on guitar." Kara nodded once. "Then we walk it. Now." They stood at the makeshift gate by the house steps. Kylie marked Kara's spot with a bench. She had Kara say the two lines, then raise one hand and hold it there. "When your hand goes up, I know you're done," Kylie said. "I start on that." They ran it. Kara spoke, lifted her hand, held still. Kylie sang the first line of the verse into the empty air. The timing landed clean. But on the second pass, Kara dropped her hand too early, and Kylie came in before the crowd would have settled. "Hold it longer," Kylie said. "Count three after your last word. Then lift." Kara counted under her breath. They ran it again. This time the pause felt right. Kylie sang, walked six steps across the sand toward the two palms, and stopped where Arianna would stand. The music had a clear road now. They ran it four more times. The fountain hissed behind them. Kara held the same beat every pass. Her voice stayed flat and even, exactly the two lines, nothing added. "That's it," Kylie said. "Don't change a thing." "I won't," Kara said. She lowered her hand and looked at the altar. "You built all this yourself." "With her." Kara almost smiled. "Then it'll hold." Kylie walked back toward the house. The last gap in the ceremony was closed. Kara knew the flow, the pause, the cue. When Kylie sang at the gate in a few hours, no mistimed word would stall her, and Arianna's guitar would come in right on the beat. Now only the dressing and the walk to the water were left.