“Hell yes, I miss it. Why do you think I fell apart over a little bit of Bach? That was my audition piece for the Philharmonic. I practiced it so much it’s probably imprinted on my DNA at this point. My life used to revolve around the cello. I just lived in this bubble where nothing else mattered. I guess that probably made me kind of oblivious to anything else. I’d barely even dated when it happened. But yes. I miss being onstage. I miss the crowds and the other musicians. I miss the long black skirts and the smell of resin, all of it. But being here, with the team, it helps. And dancing. There’s no cello in tango music, so it feels safe. And I’m obsessed with practicing. I need something to practice every day or I fall apart.”

“I hear that,” I say.

“Yeah?” She looks up at me for the first time in a while. For a moment, I think I might take the opening. But then I think about Luke. I think about how many times I called Emily, how eventually she just stopped answering.

“You know, I can picture you as a musician,” I say instead.

“You’d barely recognize me,” Cali says.

“Really?” I ask.

“Oh yeah. Here, I’ll show you,” she says, picking up her phone and scrolling through a photo album. She hands it to me. It’s a sleek professional photo of Cali onstage with her cello. She’s wearing an ankle-length black skirt and a conservative white blouse with a pussy bow. Her hair is longer and coiled tightly at the nape of her neck in a wide chignon.

“It’s like you in a parallel universe,” I say. I’ve only ever seen Cali in bright colors, short shorts, with her short hair that shows the shape of her uncannily perfect head.

“I know,” Cali says, “it’s been quite the hair journey. I felt like I had to wear it straight all the time, it was so much work. It literally took me hours and about a half-dozen products.”

“I like it now,” I say. “I mean both are pretty but . . .”

“I like it now too,” she says, smiling wistfully and running her fingers over her scalp. “And it’s a good thing, I don’t think I could have made it through TSA with my hair arsenal.”

“What are you girls doing out here? Dinner’s ready and Gianluca finally decided to grace us with his presence and . . . oh dear, serious faces! Everything okay?”

“Yes! I was . . .” I say, manically trying to cover for Cali in Gemma’s sudden presence. “Just feeling a little out of it.”

Cali smiles. “Gemma knows,” she tells me. “and Edward. They’re the only ones.”

“That dreadful old bastard,” Gemma says, coming to Cali’s side and rubbing her back.