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Greta winced. “We had that news crew come by yesterday morning. Aurora came just in time. Brooks dropped her off.”
“They really jumped into that relationship quickly,” Ella said, again sensing something amiss.
“Yes, well. You know, we’ve had all kinds of artists at the residency over the years,” Greta began. “And it’s not up to me to criticize anyone’s process because every artist, writer, musician, and filmmaker is different. We once had a method actor at the residency, and he bossed everyone around and pretended he was the King of France. It was funny for a while. But I digress.
“Aurora has approached the residency with a very individual process, obviously. For that first week, she kept very different hours than the others, which is fine. But yesterday, she revealed a side of herself that scared me. She accused DeeDee Jenkins of coming after her. Of stealing from her. And DeeDee abruptly cut the interview short and said she just wouldn’t use Aurora’s part.”
Ella’s jaw dropped. “Wow.”
“It was like Aurora was being a diva. But her eyes were so sharp and scared looking, as though she were a cornered animal,” Greta tried to explain. “I wanted to talk to her about it, to see if she was all right, but before I could, she’d run off to her studio and begun to paint. Later on, Barbie came over to the family house and said that Aurora really, really didn’t want her painting to be featured on the news, so I called the station to make sure it wouldn’t happen.”
“Well. Not everyone wants fame,” Ella suggested. “But you’re right. This sounds a little strange. Maybe psychosis or something? Although, maybe it was an act?”
“You never know, I guess. But it got me thinking about another resident we had here in the eighties,” Greta continued, reaching for her purse to draw out several yellowed envelopes. “Delilah was a painter with a very particular and strange perspective, but one I fell in love with. Let’s just say it wasn’t for everyone. After she left, we wrote one another letters, but hers took a strange turn a little later on, especially into the nineties.” Greta hunted through the letters and pulled one out from the year 1987— then read aloud. “I’ve given birth. I don’t know who the father is. Isn’t that horrible? What kind of monster am I? Anyway. I named her Aurora because I believe she’ll be someone’s light— even if she isn’t mine.”
Ella’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me?”
Greta sighed and folded back up the letter. “That was thirty-five years ago. And in my mind’s eye, Aurora and Delilah are so similar. It can’t be a coincidence.”
Greta went on to say that after she’d noticed how strange the letters were getting, she’d begged Delilah to come to The Copperfield House to visit. “Bring your daughter,” she’d said. But Delilah had continued to pin the blame of her failed career on almost everyone she’d ever met, not including Greta and Bernard, and had refused to travel much at all— except when she decided, spontaneously, to move from place to place. “That way, they won’t know where to find me,” Delilah had written in a particularly wild letter.
“It broke my heart to know she was falling apart. And I was really frightened for that little girl,” Greta went on. “But I regret to say that I never answered her in 1997— and we lost track of each other after that. I think I wrote to her again in 1999, but by then, she’d moved, and I…” Greta’s eyes filled with tears of regret. “It was clear to me that I was one of the only people Delilah trusted in the world, and I abandoned her.”
“Mom, you hadn’t seen her since the eighties!” Ella said, her heart breaking.
Greta wiped a tear from her cheek. “I was up all night, reading these letters and trying to get up the courage to go to Aurora’s room and show them to her. But I’m scared that the letters will hurt her somehow. That they’ll push her even deeper into whatever strange state of mind or psychosis this is.”
Ella stuttered. “We have to do something for her.”
Greta nodded. “I can’t imagine what happened to Delilah. But I can see the pain in Delilah’s eyes, reflected in Aurora’s. And it kills me that I didn’t try harder to step in when I could.”
Before Ella could respond, Laura, Scarlet, and Ivy hurried back up the beach, laughing wildly, giving the secluded beach a wonderful soundtrack. Greta stood and waved to them, her eyes heavy with tears, yet her smile alight. It was clear she appreciated all she’d been given and all she’d fought to get back, even as a dear friend of hers had, presumably, lost everything. Aurora was all that was left.
ChapterThirteen
Thursday night, Aurora was in the practice room at The Copperfield House, strumming her guitar and singing one of the songs she planned to perform at the Nantucket Music Festival on Saturday. Her voice filled the small space but was swallowed by the insulation on the walls, which kept the other residents at The Copperfield House from going insane with her non-stop practicing. She’d been in the room since two in the afternoon— and it was now nearly nine. It was as though she’d lost a bit of time.
But when it came to music and art, Aurora was a perfectionist. She could feel it in her gut when a song was coming together— or when it needed to be scrapped, replaced with something else. And when it came to the four-song arc that she’d plotted for Saturday, no song was out of time or out of tune. The lyrics evoked the power and individuality and broken-heartedness she needed them to, and her voice sounded spot-on— nearly like her mother’s, but with a raspy quality that had been compared to Stevie Nicks’ voice.
Since yesterday’s disastrous news interview, Aurora had kept a low profile. Although she suspected Greta was up to something, perhaps even selling Aurora’s secrets for tremendous profits, Aurora was too smart to make a big scene and accuse her. As soon as Greta understood that Aurora knew what she was up to, Aurora would lose her power. Even worse, she worried that Greta would manipulate Aurora, tell her that she was mentally ill, and put her away.
And she wasn’t mentally ill.She couldn’t be. Right?
Aurora stopped strumming her guitar abruptly, wrapped her hair into a tight ponytail, and stepped out of the practice room to fetch a glass of water. On the way to the kitchen, she nearly stumbled into Andy and Tom, Andy with a video camera and Tom carrying a portable synthesizer. They looked at her as though they’d never seen her before— which was something Aurora understood. She didn’t fit within the context of their work, and therefore, she didn’t exist right now.
At the kitchen sink, Aurora filled a glass of water, drank, then refilled it for another go. It was then she spotted the note taped beneath the telephone, which read:
AURORA! Brooks called. He says to call him back tonight.
Aurora frowned, removing the note from the wall and considering what to do next. On the one hand, yesterday, she’d been overly willing to group Brooks in with DeeDee Jenkins and Greta, those who’d conspired against her. But then again, Brooks had been nothing but kind to her, making her coffee and breakfast, holding her hand, and kissing her in a way that negated gravity. Her stomach twisted up in knots. Before she’d fully thought it through, she dialed Brooks’ number, her heart thrumming until his voice came on the other line. Oh, she loved that voice!
“Hi, Brooks.”
“Aurora! I was worried nobody told you I’d called.” Brooks was smiling through the phone. “Barbie said you’d been in the studio for hours. That interrupting you was the same as disrespecting you.”
“Barbie’s sweet,” Aurora said, even as she thought privately that Barbie had given too much of herself to DeeDee Jenkins and was, therefore, naïve.
“Are you done for the night?” Brooks asked. “Reason I’m asking is that I have tomorrow off, and I wondered if you wanted to come over, then wake up for a sailing adventure tomorrow morning.
