Will laughed.“Really?I knew you were in and out of the scene, but I couldn’t remember who you met.”
Stevie found Ella’s eyes and saw that Ella suddenly remembered.Ella’s lips parted with surprise.She looked at Stevie, then at Grayson, and didn’t say anything for a good ten seconds.“You used to come to the burger place,” she said finally.“Before Stevie left town.”
Stevie’s heart shot into her stomach.Ella hadn’t just remembered.Ella had put two and two together to figure out that Grayson was Joni’s father, and that this meeting was heartbreaking and confusing.Stevie wanted to escape.
“I guess we both left town at around the same time?”Grayson suggested.“We went in opposite directions.”
“I guess we did,” Stevie breathed.
A beat passed.Ella slid her fingers through Stevie’s and tugged.“Stevie and I need to put a few things away,” she explained to Grayson and Will.
“We already took everything downstairs,” Will said, none the wiser.
Ella gave him a meaningful look.“We forgot something.”
“I can help you!”Will said.
“No.”Ella was stern.“Stay with Grayson.He came all the way from Manhattan.Show him a good time.”
Will shrugged as Ella tugged Stevie into the crowd, back down the hallway, and into the warmth of the main house.Most everyone at the party was still in the concert hall, but a few stragglers remained by the fire, sipping wine and watching the snow come down.Stevie felt as though she were in a dream.Back there was her ex, the father of her daughter.If she went up the stairs, would she meet some other impossible person?Picasso?David Bowie?Frida Kahlo?
Anything seemed possible now.
ChapterNineteen
Ella hurried Stevie into her childhood bedroom and shut the door behind them.Stevie looked meek and bug-eyed, as though she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.Ella’s heart felt like a drum.“Stevie?Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Stevie sat at the edge of Ella’s childhood bed, winced, then let out a strange and musical laugh.“It’s not like I planned any of this,” she said.“You’re the ones who invited him.I was happy never to see him again.”But as she said it, Ella could see the cracks in her words.
Ella sat beside her old and dear friend, her head throbbing with all the time that had gone by.“He doesn’t know about Joni.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Stevie said.“He left town without telling me what was going on.I had to find out about his baby and his engagement through the gossip channels.We hung out almost daily and said we loved each other.And just like that, we abandoned each other.”She snapped her fingers, her eyes glinting.“It made me question my own heart.Maybe I didn’t understand love.Maybe I still don’t.But when I saw him in the crowd today, I felt something I haven’t felt since I was twenty years old.And Ella, it’s terrifying.”A sob escaped her throat.
Ella wrapped her arms around Stevie.
“The irony is that Joni really wants to know who her father is,” Stevie offered.“Her husband insisted that I spill the beans.But I didn’t want Joni to see the life I hadn’t allowed her to have.I didn’t want her to know that we’d been poor, so poor, and we never needed to be.I could have called Grayson and said, ‘Hey, you have another baby in California!’and he would have given us everything we needed.But I was too proud.I’m still too proud.”
Ella’s head swam with everything Stevie endured.While Ella and Will’s band had soared into mid-level fame, Stevie had struggled, raised a baby by herself, and sold health insurance.At forty-five, she was done floundering.She was claiming her power.It must have felt particularly insulting to have Grayson waltz back into her life with his mega-bucks and his claims about “saving the planet.”
Ella cursed herself for ever inviting Stevie to the Copperfield House.She cursed Will for ever inviting Grayson into their home.
“It’s a terrible fate,” Stevie said finally, laughing.“I should have known better than to ever get back on stage again.It opens my heart to too much trauma.”
“No,” Ella insisted.“You were born to sing.”
After that, she told Stevie, “We’re going to find a way through this.Tell me what you want.”
“I think I want to stay up here for a little while,” Stevie confessed, lying down on Ella’s bed and adjusting her head against the pillow.“Life feels too heavy right now.”
They remained quiet for a moment, listening as Christmas carols sung by Aurora swelled up from the residency side of the Copperfield House.Stevie’s eyes glinted with tears, but she wore a soft smile.Ella touched her hand.
“I’ll be downstairs,” she said, sensing that Stevie needed a few minutes alone.“Text me or come find me whenever you need something.I’m happy to bring you supplies.Christmas cookies.Bottles of wine.Anything to get you through this.”
Stevie thanked her.“I just want to listen to the music,” she confessed.
* * *
When Ella left her childhood bedroom, she heard the fluttering of footsteps on the stairs as though someone was running away from her.Curious, she raced after them, but didn’t catch whoever it was before they disappeared into the growing crowd in the living room.
