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“Should we call Aurora?” Will asked, eyes to the sky as, against all weather predictions, dark clouds began to layer, casting the table in shadow.
“She didn’t leave a cell phone number,” Ella said.
“How did you talk to her?” Will asked.
“She called from a landline,” Ella explained as she began to gather dirty plates. Raindrops splattered her arm as the new artists laughed and shrieked, in love with this new place, its immaculate beaches, and its spontaneous summer rain.
“A landline. Wow.” Will shook his head as they all sprung into action, clearing the leftover food from the table before it got soggy. Greta, laughing, yelped for her china and silverware, and Alana, Julia, Scarlet, and Catherine flung into action to collect everything. Just before a lightning bolt struck the darkening sky, Jeremy and Charlie carried the large table back to the garage, where it wouldn’t get soaked.
Lucky for them, the back porch of The Copperfield House was fit for such an enormous group. Greta clapped her hands and cried out, “Welcome to Nantucket! The weather is as unpredictable as our lives. Now, who would like another glass of wine? A cocktail? It’s your first night on the island, and I want to make sure you don’t forget it.”
As the new artists asked for fresh drinks, Will disappeared and returned with a Bluetooth speaker to play blues songs, which fit the mood and the gray-blue sky above. Ella crossed her arms and leaned against a post, watching the sand darken beneath the torrential downpour. It was a remarkable scene, one that demanded songs to be written or paintings to be painted. But all she could think about was Aurora, somewhere out there. She hoped she was safe.
ChapterThree
The bus had been late, but Aurora had been later, watching as exhaust fumes were coughed from the back of the clunky bus. Exhausted after a full day of traveling, she dropped her suitcase and her guitar case and cried at the bus stop, at a loss about how in the heck she was going to make it to Hyannis in time for the last ferry. Already, she’d messed up her first and probably last opportunity to “make it” as an artist and musician— and she hadn’t even gotten to the artist residency yet. This was so typical. She could never catch a break.
Another bus came twenty-five minutes later. It probably wouldn’t get her to Hyannis port in time for the last ferry, but at least it got her in the orbit of the artist residency— and she had to take it. She had no other ideas. As she lurched onto the bus, she handed the fare to the driver, who didn’t make eye contact with her and instead said, “You need to put that guitar under the bus.” By the time she stepped back out, the growling clouds overhead had burst open, and they drenched her as she slid her guitar case (her most treasured belonging, as it had been her mother’s) into the belly of the bus.
The bus ride to Hyannis was a little less than an hour. During that time, the rainclouds threatened to drown all of New England, as though this was the story of Noah. Aurora listened to her old iPod and hummed to herself, trying to cheer herself up. Not long after that, the bus driver yelled back, “Whoever is singing back there needs to shut up!”
When the bus dropped her off at the port, the rain hadn’t let up in the slightest and instead had intensified. Aurora stood beneath the bus stop and gazed out at the frothing Nantucket Sound, which separated her from that glorious Copperfield House, where Bernard, Greta, Ella, Alana, Quentin, and Julia had promised her “an entire month of uninterrupted creativity.” Aurora had never been allowed that before. Now, even though they’d “chosen her,” she wasn’t sure she would make it.
The clock on her iPod said it was nine-fifteen in the evening, which meant she was more than two hours late for dinner. She slumped against the wall of the bus stop, listening to the growl of her stomach and the shimmer of the rain across the water. As the last ferry had left fifteen minutes ago, she was beginning to rethink her decision to come all the way to Hyannis— maybe it hadn’t been so clever after all. Once it quit raining, maybe she could leave the port and use some of her last cash for a hotel room. From there, she could call The Copperfield House and explain what had happened. But whathadhappened? She’d woken up late and lost track of time, neither of which were good excuses to use with the only people in the world who believed in your art.
“Idiot,” she muttered. It had been a long time since Aurora had spoken to anyone but herself. She wondered if she’d self-sabotaged the residency, as she was too terrified of what the Copperfields would think of her when she arrived. She knew she was rough around the edges. At thirty-five, her hair was filled with strands of gray, and she certainly wasn’t as trim and pretty as she’d been in her twenties (not that her beauty had gotten her anywhere back then).
Just as she’d begun to give up on herself, to consider hitchhiking back to where she’d come from, something caught her eye. There, steaming across the water toward the shore, was a fishing boat, sputtering as it drew closer to land. When it reached the docks, a man in a slick blue raincoat leaped from the boat and secured it with many complicated loops in a sopping-wet rope. He then spoke loudly, hands on his hips, to the other guys in the boat, gesturing out toward land. Nobody involved in the procedure looked happy; their hair was wild and wet from the storm.
As the man in the blue raincoat turned and walked along the dock, headed for a little wooden cabin on the shore, he stalled for a moment, having seen Aurora. Aurora huddled up at the bus stop, touched her hair nervously, sensing that she looked half-insane, just sitting there, waiting for no ferry to come. And for reasons that she would never understand, not now nor deep into the future, the man in the raincoat redirected his path and headed up toward the bus stop, where he stopped, the rain splattering his shoulders and the hood of his coat, and said, “You know, the last ferry left about twenty minutes ago.”
Aurora couldn’t help it. She laughed. Her laughter wasn’t necessarily anything she recognized, not this far into the devastation that was her life, but it was musical and free sounding at least, and it made the man in the raincoat smile.
“I take it you already know that,” he said, stepping closer so that she could make out the dark blues of his eyes and the wild locks of his dark hair.
“I got that hint, yeah.” Aurora couldn’t stop smiling.
The man turned back and waved to his buddies on the fishing boat, only one of whom waved back, as though they were in some kind of dispute.Who would ever fight with this handsome, kind stranger?
“Are you headed to Nantucket?” the man asked.
“I was supposed to be there hours ago,” Aurora explained.
“You got a vacation planned?”
Aurora palmed the back of her neck nervously. “I’m supposed to be at an artist residency. The Copperfield House?”
The man’s eyes lit up with recognition. “I heard it was opening back up to artists. Wow.” He paused, smiling mischievously as he added, “You know, Greta Copperfield doesn’t like it when people are late for dinner.”
Aurora’s lips parted in surprise, and her stomach bubbled with the horror of what she’d done— that she’d been so rude to Greta. But immediately, the man burst with laughter, adding, “I’m just teasing you. I’m sure they’re worried sick you’re not there yet. Listen, we’re just here to drop a few things off in that cabin over there, and then, half of us are heading back to Nantucket. Join us.”
Aurora took a deep breath, studying his face for any signs she shouldn’t trust him. Growing up, Aurora’s mother had said that Aurora shouldn’t trust anyone, that everyone was out to get her for her youth, money, artistic talent, or just for her time.
“I’m Brooks, by the way,” the fisherman said.
“Aurora.”
Brooks’ smile widened. “I’ve never met anyone with that name. It’s beautiful.”
