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When Aurora headed out for the festival mid-afternoon, several hours before her performance was set to begin, she walked onto the porch to find Barbie and Felicity sipping tea and chatting, yet again, about their art. There was no end to them giving themselves away.
“Are you headed to the festival already?” Felicity asked.
Aurora swallowed, not used to telling anyone where she was headed. Then again, it was obvious where she was going, wasn’t it? Everyone knew about the concert. It wasn’t like she could lie.
“I am.”
“We can’t wait to see you perform,” Barbie said. “And rumor has it that the entire island has heard about you. We’re going to demand encore after encore! Ella and Will’s band will just have to go on late.”
Aurora stuttered, unable to smile and unsure if Barbie was joking or not.
“Is Brooks coming by?” Barbie asked.
“Oh. I don’t know.” Aurora bit her lip, realizing that Brooks, too, would know exactly where she was today, whether she wanted him to or not.
As Aurora hovered on the porch, waffling between whether to go to the concert at all or just get on the ferry, grab a bus, and get off the east coast once and for all, she heard herself ask, “How can you be sure nobody will take your art from you? That nobody will take advantage?”
Barbie and Felicity exchanged looks. If Aurora wasn’t mistaken, Felicity looked slightly confused, almost shocked by her question.
“I think everyone gets inspired by other people’s art all the time,” Felicity said. “I mean, don’t you have artists and musicians who inspired you over the years?”
Aurora realized she’d been misunderstood, that maybe, across the world, nobody was really capable of understanding her. It had been the same with her mother.
“Yes. I suppose you’re right,” Aurora lied. “Anyway, I’ll see you both later?”
As Aurora walked back downtown to the festival, sounds of guitar, piano, bass, and drums streamed through the salty air, sounding dreamlike from a distance and more staccato and purposeful closer-up. At the red tent, Aurora dropped off her guitar, grabbed a bottle of water, and then made the rounds at the four stages, catching a folk singer, a family band, a punk rock band, and a solo harpist. The range of music abilities and genres impressed her. It was rare to have so many different sounds swirling around you at once. It made her forget, at least momentarily, about her own complicated and very loud thoughts— many of which seemed to contradict one another.
Although she knew she shouldn’t, Aurora got in line to have a glass of wine, if only to calm herself down for a little while. She then sat a little back from the main stage, sipping and studying the crowd. Nobody seemed especially fascinated with the current gig, and instead, they turned and spoke to one another. It was almost impossible for Aurora to imagine what it was they said in conversation. One woman held up her wrist and touched a bracelet, as though she wanted to show it off. A man adjusted his salmon-colored hat over and over again and gestured vaguely at something in the distance. A child spun in circles as his mother spoke above his head, smiling and laughing as though her son actually made her happy rather than wanting to scream, cry, and sleep (like Delilah to Aurora).
How was it that people just knew, intuitively, how to talk to one another? Maybe that had been covered in school during the years after Aurora had dropped out. Maybe she’d missed something enormous in the socializing department. Or maybe she was just crazy.
No! She couldn’t believe that. She wouldn’t. She’d watched her mother splinter away into so many personalities, only one or two of them nice. Aurora had picked up the pieces of Delilah’s life so many times that Aurora had lost track of where her life had ended and where her mother’s had begun. Aurora didn’t have anyone in her life to do that for her.
As Aurora got back in line for a glass of wine, she checked the time to see that it was already six-thirty— which meant she went on stage in an hour. A wave of jitters swept through her, and she gripped her knees and forced herself to breathe. A woman in front of her asked if she was all right, if she needed water, and Aurora wanted to scream that she didn’t need anyone. As she righted herself, she spotted Brooks wandering through the crowd on the other side of the square, clearly hunting for her. Shoot! She’d hoped he’d gotten the hint and decided to stay clear of the event. Clearly, he didn’t know that she was already on to him.
Aurora ordered her wine and ducked into the red tent to mentally prepare and hide from Brooks. She couldn’t get closer to him, not now that she was so close to getting everything she’d ever dreamed of. Brooks had clearly come to rip away her new fame, to make it his own.I should have left him when I had the chance, was something her mother had said about numerous boyfriends. Aurora thought that, now, too.
As Aurora sipped her wine, she lost track of Brooks and instead fixated on another figure in the crowd: Greta Copperfield. Over the years, Aurora’s mother had spoken of Greta considerably, often calling her “the only woman in the world who ever truly understood my work.” Greta was one hundred percent of the reason Aurora had wanted to come to The Copperfield House in the first place. She’d wanted to bask in this “love” her mother had spoken of, especially in her most coherent moments.
But now, Aurora had a much different suspicion.
Before Aurora’s birth, Delilah had been a resident at The Copperfield House (a fact that haunted Aurora nearly every night and had been one of the main reasons she hadn’t been able to sleep). It had been before her schizophrenia diagnosis and before she’d lost her ability to make art.
And this begged the question:had Greta had something to do with Delilah’s illness? Had she taken her artistic talent away?
Oh, the thought of this made Aurora fume. She sipped more of her wine, her thoughts rolling at the unfairness of it all. Greta had a husband; she had a family. As she paraded through the crowd, laughing at things strangers said, Aurora grew increasingly angry that her mother was dead while Greta had been allowed to go on living.
Around seven, Ella popped into the tent, smiling at Aurora, who couldn’t manage a smile in return.
“Hi! I heard you were in here. Just wanted to let you know we need you backstage so they can mic you and everything.” Ella’s smile never waned.
Aurora thanked her and followed Ella through the crowd, careful not to look anyone in the eye. Brooks’ voice came from somewhere in the masses, calling her name, but thankfully, Ella didn’t hear it and just strode forward, around the side of the stage, and into the back. There, Ella’s entire band awaited— all in black, looking sleek. Aurora remembered seeing them on magazine covers back in the day, when being in a rock and roll band had seemed the epitome of romantic to her. Now, they smiled at her as though they’d known her all along.
“Aurora! Ella has told us so much about you,” the keyboardist woman said with a smile.
Aurora glanced at Ella, genuinely concerned.What could Ella have said? What did Ella know about Aurora that Aurora, herself, didn’t know?
On the stage across the square was a couple in their twenties, the woman on guitar and the guy on keys. A drum machine kept a steady beat as their harmonies rose over the crowd. Oftentimes as they sang, they looked at one another, making eye contact. Aurora’s heart swelled.Were they really in love? Or was it just a performance?She couldn’t tell.
