Downstairs, Ella found Alana, Julia, and her mother in a little circle, discussing how well the party was going and how brilliant the hors d’oeuvres were.Well, Alana and Julia were saying that, gushing with compliments, while their mother beamed and insisted that everything was “okay, but it probably could have been better.”
“No, Mom,” Alana asserted.“Everything is perfect.”
“Ella!”Julia hugged her.“You were marvelous.And Stevie’s such a raw talent.”
“I genuinely can’t believe she didn’t make it big,” Alana said.“I guess I was already in France when you guys were playing music in the city?I would have loved to see her perform in her twenties.”
“She finished when she was twenty, actually,” Ella said sadly.
Greta’s eyes were shadowy.“But she’s found her way back to it.Like me with writing.And my family.”She touched Alana’s cheek and smiled.
As they spoke, something out of the corner of Ella’s eye tugged her around.Laura stood in the corner with Danny, whispering furiously, the liquid of her ginger ale shaking dangerously.Danny wore an expression that Ella couldn’t read.What was going on?But before Ella could guess, Laura and Danny disappeared through the crowd and into the residency.They had the air of people on a mission.Ella guessed it had something to do with their cousins.She couldn’t imagine what would happen next.
ChapterTwenty
Twilight glinted across the snow on the beach outside the Copperfield House.Grayson stood quietly at the edge of the beach, his boots dropping deeper into the white.His ears filled with the rush of the waves and the caw of the seagulls.From within the house came the sounds of more Christmas music and what had to be more than a hundred revelers.A part of him felt tugged back into their world.But another, darker part, told him that he belonged out here, in the snow and cold.
He’d seen Stevie again, and she’d run away from him.It forced him to put that era of his life into perspective.The story was complicated, with many different storylines bouncing into and ricocheting off one another.But in essence, his father had taken him back to his life in Paris.He’d left Stevie without an explanation.He’d left without saying goodbye.
Maybe she wanted an apology.Perhaps that was why she’d looked at him as though he were a ghost.
As he stood on the beach, a little plastic bottle skidded up onto the sand.He didn’t hesitate before hurrying over, dropping down, and picking it up.It was a vitamin water of some kind, a brand he didn’t recognize, although it seemed like they were inventing new ones all the time.He felt an urgent desire to cure the ocean, fix the environment, and stop the utilization of all plastics.But he also realized how difficult that would be.
He couldn’t be a perfect father, a perfect husband, or a perfect environmentalist.
All he could do was bend down, pick up a plastic bottle, and make sure it was recycled.
He sighed and considered sitting on the cold, wet sand, but knew he would regret it in a moment.
“Papa?”Camille’s sweet voice carried over the beach and pulled him around.“What are you doing out here?”
Grayson turned to watch as she meandered through the snow and sand and froth to get to him.Her coat was thick, making her look like a big, sophisticated marshmallow.Her eyes stirred with questions he knew he couldn’t answer.Maybe it had been a mistake to come.
“Are you having a good time?”he asked.
Camille nodded and adjusted her winter hat.“The Copperfield cousins have shown me a lovely time.Scarlet is a very funny lady, and Laura…” She paused contemplatively.“Laura is pregnant.Did you know?”
Grayson nodded.Will had just told him about his daughter’s surprise pregnancy and how she still hadn’t told her ex-boyfriend about the baby.His heart felt tugged.
“Laura and I were just talking about it,” Camille admitted, her eyes toward the horizon.“Her ex-boyfriend is in Brussels, but he reached out to her.He wants to talk again.She doesn’t know what to do.She feels too proud.I told her I would feel the same way.”
“Sometimes pride is all we have,” Grayson said gently.
“Yes, but I am beginning to question that.”Camille smiled to show she was half teasing, though her eyes reflected her seriousness.“If I gave in fully to my pride, I would not be here with you in America.I would be in Paris, miserable, waiting for something to happen.Instead, I’m in Nantucket for some reason.I’m in Nantucket with a secret.”
Grayson laughed, confused.Like Genevieve, Camille sometimes spoke in riddles.“We all have secrets, and things we’re proud of, and things we’re not so proud of,” he said.He decided that he’d leave the party soon, that he’d thank Will and go back to his hotel to rest.Tomorrow, they’d take the ferry and the bus and the train back to the city, where he’d throw himself back into Water Works and make the world a better place, marginally.He’d try.
“That woman.That singer,” Camille said.“She is very proud too.”
Grayson shot his daughter a look.Was it possible that Camille had sensed the intensity between him and Stevie?Her eyes told him that she’d detected it, that she was in tune with everything.Sometimes it boggled his mind to think of a woman’s brain.What didn’t they know?
“You were in love with her,” Camille said, raising her eyebrows.
Grayson bowed his head and shoved his hands into his pockets.He’d put the plastic bottle in his coat, and it was wet and cold against his fingers.“I was young,” he said.“We were both really young.”
“You left her for me,” Camille said.
Again, it seemed Camille had intuited far more than she should have.Grayson betrayed himself with a bug-eyed look.“I mean, no.We weren’t really together.”Grayson stumbled over his words.“We were dating, yes.But we both, um.We went our separate ways?”
