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“I hope you boys were good sports about it,” Greta joked.
“No bad words were spoken,” Will said, “although my ego was pretty bruised when my son finally took the last set from me.”
“I fought hard for that set,” Danny said, tapping his chest.
“You act like you just won Wimbledon,” Laura said, rolling her eyes.
Ella glanced back at the house, burning with curiosity about their last remaining resident: Aurora. According to Alana, she’d been drawn into the “real world” that morning by Brooks. But had she remained? Or had she scurried back upstairs to blot out the light with the curtains of her room?
As though the universe had heard her questions, a beautiful couple stepped around the side of The Copperfield House— Aurora with her gleaming auburn hair and Brooks with his taut muscles and wild curls. They were happy, full of smiles, like a magazine advertisement, and Brooks’ hand seemed perpetually glued to the base of her back, as though he didn’t want her to get away.
“Good evening!” Aurora approached with her chin held high, as though she hadn’t just missed every single dinner Greta had made for the rest of the residents.
“Aurora, hello!” Bernard stood to greet her.
“I hope you don’t mind that I brought a friend?”
“The more, the merrier,” Bernard assured her. “We always have too much food.”
“Yet, we always manage to eat it,” Greta said, her eyes alight as she pointed out two chairs for Aurora and Brooks, directly across from where Ella sat next to Will.
As Aurora sat across from Ella, her eyes lifted to find hers, and Ella’s heart thudded with a mix of curiosity and fear. Something about Aurora and Brooks’ very spontaneous romance felt erratic and out of sorts to her. But it wasn’t like she knew Aurora enough to know if this was strange. Maybe Aurora fell in and out of love every couple of weeks. Maybe that was the fuel she needed to make her art and music.
By comparison, Ella was just a normal, ordinary, monogamous woman. It was a miracle she’d managed to make any art at all.
“Where are you coming from?” Ella asked Aurora as she loaded her plate with salad.
Aurora blushed. “Brooks and I scoured the island today. I don’t think we spent more than a couple of minutes anywhere.”
“I showed her some of my top-secret spots,” Brooks said, laughing.
“I wonder if they’re the same as our top-secret spots,” Alana joked.
“I guess we’ll never know,” Brooks said.
“Unless we run into each other there, of course,” Alana said.
“And what did you think of the island, Aurora?” Ella asked.
Aurora sighed and dropped her shoulders back. “It was astounding, really. I can see why so many artists wanted to come to The Copperfield House over the years.”
“I wish I could have some of that inspiration you seem to have found today,” Barbie joked. “I was a mess! I think I only wrote one hundred bad words.”
“I didn’t work at all today,” Aurora said, wincing.
“I think it’s all a part of the process,” Greta said.
As dinner and dessert faded out and the sun began its sharp descent into the ocean, everyone separated into private conversations, and laughter echoed across the table. Brooks left for a little while to enter the house, and Ella noticed that Aurora’s face had grown slack, as though Brooks was the only thing propping up her mood.
“Aurora,” Ella said, smiling. “I wanted to tell you. Your singing last week at that bar was extraordinary. I mean, I’d heard your recordings, but that was something special.”
“She hasn’t shut up about it,” Will told Aurora. “What was it you said? That your soul flew out of your body?”
Aurora’s cheeks were flushed. Nearly too quiet for Ella to hear, she whispered, “I really am sorry about that. I mean, I don’t know exactly what happened, but…”
“What! You don’t have to be sorry. Heat stroke is a crazy thing,” Ella said.
Aurora shrugged and glanced back at the house, as though she prayed with all her might that Brooks would return and save her from conversations with anyone who wasn’t him.
