Nantucket Gala (A Nantucket Sunset #12)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Christmas Day 2024

Los Angeles, California

S ophia Bianchi returned to the living room with a pair of enormous sunglasses hiding her eyes and a big yellow trench coat whipping out from her shoulders. “They aren’t delivering,” she said. “I can’t believe this. What kind of Chinese place doesn’t deliver on Christmas Day?”

Henry popped back up from the sofa and clasped his hands together. He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not, so he lent her a loose smile, one he used to use as a teenager when he got whatever he wanted. Life wasn’t like that now.

“We’re going to have to go to them, I’m afraid,” Sophia said. “I can’t wait another moment. I’m starving!”

Sophia whipped around, her trench working like a cape, and led Henry through the back halls of the massive mansion, all the way to the garage, where her three sports cars were parked. All were convertibles, naturally, and all of them were powerful colors—purple, red, and yellow. Today was purple, apparently, although it made Henry wonder how she chose. Henry got into the passenger seat and buckled his seat belt. All he wanted in the world was to text his grandmother right now and ask her what she got him into. But at the same time, he was having a better time than he’d had in months. This era in Los Angeles had been the loneliest of his life. Never had he so fully indulged the concept that he might not make it at what he dreamed. Never had he so fully imagined himself dying penniless and alone.

I was meant for something , he thought for the hundredth time. I hope it’s whatever this is.

“Let’s go!” Sophia Bianchi called, whipping backward down the driveway and through the winding roads of Beverly Hills. Her silver hair spread out behind her like a flying carpet. Henry allowed himself a moment of amazement right before Sophia slammed on the brakes and cried out.

A squirrel was in the middle of the road. Henry’s heart pumped in his chest. It looked up at them curiously as though it had never seen a car before. This was obviously unlikely in Los Angeles.

“Come on, little guy,” Sophia said, exasperated. “He’s looking at me the way Quentin Tarantino did at a party in the nineties.”

Henry twisted his head to stare at her. “You met Quentin Tarantino?”

“Met him? Of course. He was always at all the Hollywood parties back then. He wanted to be somebody, which meant he got himself in the mess of everyone else. And back then, strangely enough, I was still allowing myself to linger in the mess.”

Henry tried to calculate what this meant. Number one: Sophia had partied with the Hollywood elite after Francis’s fall from grace. Did that mean Francis had fled Hollywood and left the mansion to her? Or were they still married back then? He itched to return to his phone and get to the bottom of this. All the dates and gossip were probably listed somewhere online. But right now, he had to “live in the moment.” It was Christmas Day, and Sophia wanted to celebrate.

He’d never seen an older woman drive so quickly. They were far over the speed limit until she whipped into a space in front of the Chinese restaurant and cut the engine.

“Nice parallel parking job,” Henry said, steadying his breath.

“When you’ve lived in Los Angeles as long as I have, you better know how to parallel park,” she said, raising a single eyebrow. “Shall we trade so you can show me your stuff?”

Henry laughed and waved his hands. He would never trust himself with such an expensive automobile. “You’ll have to take my word for it. I can do it.”

Sophia winked.

Henry followed Sophia into the Chinese restaurant, where they were seated at a booth near the window. There was only one other occupied table—a family of four, who either didn’t celebrate Christmas or who’d burned their Christmas dinner and fled here for sustenance. Sophia didn’t take her sunglasses off. Henry wondered if she was worried about being recognized. But he hadn’t even known she existed till earlier today.

Maybe she’s really arrogant , he thought.

Or just private.

Sophia ordered half the menu without asking Henry what he wanted, plus a cocktail for herself and a beer for Henry. Henry watched the server take the menus back and scurry to the kitchen. Sophia folded her hands under her chin and blinked at him from behind her sunglasses. He could see the density of her eyelashes.

“How long have you lived here, Mrs. Bianchi?” Henry asked, remembering what she’d said about parallel parking.

“I was eighteen when I moved out here,” she said. “1976.”

It boggled Henry’s mind to think that far back.

“How old are you, Henry?”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“So young!”

Henry let out a small laugh. “I don’t know. I feel a lot of pressure to make things work for myself professionally. My mother doesn’t approve of what I want to do. Neither does my father.”

“And your grandmother? What does she think?”

“She’s proud,” Henry said. “But you know how she is, I guess?”

Sophia beamed. “She’s one of the smartest and most driven women I know.”

Their drinks arrived. Henry filled his mouth with beer.

“I wanted to ask that, too. How did you first meet my grandmother?”

Sophia tilted her head. “You don’t know?”

Henry didn’t want to say that he didn’t know anything and was dying for every detail, so he just shook his head.

“Your grandfather Bernard was Francis’s protégé back in Italy,” she explained. “That was before he met your grandmother in Paris. Before Bernard gave up on filmmaking. It must have been the early seventies?”

Henry’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know Grandpa wanted to be a filmmaker.”

“It was a brief and fiery time of his life,” Sophia said. “But he loved your grandmother and writing far more than he loved film. What year would they have moved to Nantucket?”

Henry shook his head. “Beats me.”

“It must have been 1973 or 1974.”

“Even before you came out to Hollywood,” Henry said.

“Right. But I didn’t meet your grandparents until after I met Francis, obviously. He introduced us on a trip to Nantucket in the early eighties.” Behind her glasses, Henry could see her squint. “I’m trying to figure out which of those children is your mother. Goodness, I couldn’t believe how many of them they had. Four! How does anyone keep track of four children?”

Henry did not say that they didn’t keep track of them. Everyone left in the nineties when Grandpa went to prison. They only just found one another again.

We were still picking up the pieces.

It was best not to drudge up the darkness of the past.

“There was the pretty one who went on to be a model,” Sophia counted on her fingers. “There was the quiet, bookish one. And there was the one who was always singing.”

Henry smiled. His mother and aunts hadn’t changed a bit over the years.

“I think your grandmother mentioned that Alana never had children of her own,” Sophia deduced. “And because you’re interested in writing, I have to guess you’re Julia’s kid. The bookish one.”

Henry applauded her. “You have a great memory.”

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Sophia said. “I can remember everything. It’s painful. But it’s served me well, too.”

Henry scrutinized her face and tried to imagine what she’d been like in the eighties when she’d married Francis in an iconic ceremony, one the internet said was “a who’s-who affair of Hollywood elite.” Martin Scorsese had given a speech. Quentin Tarantino hadn’t been on anyone’s mind yet. He’d been nobody.

“Did my grandparents go to your wedding?”

“They couldn’t make it,” Sophia said. “Too many children! Too many artists at the residency. Too many things to do.”

Henry smiled. “What were they like back then?”

“Probably about the same as they are now,” Sophia said. “Your grandmother was wildly intelligent and creative, and Bernard was always trying to keep up with her. Of course, I was the least surprised of anyone when rumors of Bernard’s affair circulated.”

Henry perked up. Like everyone else in the Copperfield clan, he knew all about Marcia Conrad and the violence she’d wrought.

“He didn’t cheat,” Henry pointed out. “Marcia Conrad set him up.”

Sophia removed her sunglasses to show her glinting eyes. “That’s right,” Sophia said. “I’d forgotten.”

But it was clear from her expression that she didn’t really believe what she said.

She still thinks Grandpa cheated , Henry thought, incredulous. But he couldn’t argue with her. She was the sort of woman who was perpetually set in her ways.

The food arrived. Platters of chicken and beef and fish, bowls of stew, dumplings, and sauces filled the table. Sophia looked pleased. She clicked her chopsticks together and instructed Henry on what to eat first. She clearly came here all the time and wanted to champion their best dishes.

Henry burned to ask her what she’d been up to since Francis’s demise.

He burned to ask if she believed Francis had really murdered someone.

He burned to ask why Francis wasn’t sent to prison.

Bernard Copperfield himself had spent decades in prison—and he’d never been accused of murder.

But Henry wanted to let Sophia take the lead. He didn’t want to scare her away.

So they talked about other things. He asked about what Hollywood had been like during her acting days. He asked about the famous people she’d met and what their wedding had been like.

Sophia had a great deal to say, perhaps because every woman loved to recount the details of her wedding, regardless of what happened afterward. They had six different cakes, she explained, and she’d worn three dresses throughout the evening.

“That’s common these days,” she said. “Women love to have a costume change. But it wasn’t common back then. People thought I was quite provocative. I liked to give them a show. And Francis loved that I was like that. He said I was the leading lady of his life!”

Henry laughed at the right times and asked all the right questions. He discovered within himself that he was studying her, but he didn’t know why.

Maybe he wanted to write about her.

Perhaps he wanted to write about Sophia and Francis and Francis’s demise.

But how could he get away with it? This was her story. Regardless of how famous she’d once been, she was still just a person with personal memories and personal attachments and personal fears. And Grandma Greta hadn’t pushed him to meet Sophia for his own personal gain. She’d asked him to come here so he and Sophia wouldn’t spend Christmas alone.

Still, Sophia tugged at his creativity.

As they scraped their plates clean and finished their drinks, Sophia leaned over the table and wrapped her hands around her mouth. “Can I let you in on a secret, Henry?”

“I’m all ears,” Henry said.

“But you have to promise to keep my secret to yourself,” Sophia continued. “Can you do that?”

Henry laughed. Outside, the wind swept through the fronds of a palm tree and sent the trunk waving. “I don’t see why not.”

Sophia bowed her head and took a breath. “All right. Here it goes.” She wiggled in her seat. “Francis Bianchi didn’t write A Cataclysm . He didn’t write A Sacred Fig , either.”

Henry’s ears rang. What he was hearing was sacrilegious. It went against everything he understood about two of his favorite films and his favorite screenwriter, Francis Bianchi himself.

“Are you sure?” Henry asked.

Sophia’s face darkened. “I’m sure.”

Henry crossed his arms over his chest. “All right. Who wrote them?”

Sophia put the tip of her finger on the table. “I can hear the doubt in your voice.”

“There’s no doubt,” Henry tried to assure her, although it was a lie.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I do,” Henry pressed. “But who wrote the scripts? And why did Francis cover it up? Why would he taint his legacy like that?”

Sophia waved her hand to beckon the server over. Without looking at the bill, she handed him what looked like three one-hundred-dollar bills. “Keep the change.”

The server looked unsurprised, as though Sophia came in and did this kind of thing all the time. “Thank you, Mrs. Bianchi. Merry Christmas.” He hurried away.

“Let’s go back to my place, shall we?” Sophia got up before Henry could answer.

On the drive back to her Beverly Hills mansion, Henry cursed himself. Why had he asked if she was sure? He’d immediately cast his doubt upon her. He’d immediately suggested she was wrong.

But Sophia had been married to Francis during that time. If anyone knew the truth, it was her.

They didn’t talk the entire way home.

Sophia parked in the garage, got out, and entered her mansion. Henry gave his thigh a light punch and followed her in. Outside, the sky was darkening to a blue bruise. In the hallway, Sophia stood with her hand on a closed door.

“Listen, Sophia,” Henry stuttered, trying to work his way back into her good graces. “I’m sorry about what I said. I do believe you. I was just caught off guard.”

Sophia raised her eyebrow and opened the door to reveal what looked like a study. A mahogany desk stretched across the far wall, and what appeared to be at least two hundred books lined either side. Sophia entered the shadows and pulled open the bottom desk drawer. From within, she removed a big, dusty binder. This, she shoved into Henry’s arms.

“Open it,” she said.

Henry felt nervous. He felt like he wanted another drink.

Slowly, he opened the binder to find a yellowed script for A Cataclysm . Upon it were notes in blue, notes for changes and alterations to be made in the next draft. The handwriting didn’t look like a man’s handwriting. And in this version, at least, the first scene in the script didn’t start where the published movie actually began. It was clear this was an earlier version, a first draft.

It occurred to Henry that back then, they didn’t have home computers to just print and edit and reprint. Everything had to be done by hand or by typewriter.

He felt as though he were peering deep into the past.

Henry raised his chin to look at Sophia. “What is this?”

Sophia’s eyes were filled with tears. “It’s the first draft of A Cataclysm . I wrote it in 1977 when I was nineteen years old.”

Henry sucked in his cheeks and looked back down at the script.

Was Sophia a crazy old woman telling stories? Or had she held on to this secret for decades?

“If you flip through that binder, you’ll find numerous other versions,” Sophia continued. “I fine-tuned it for years. I worked on A Sacred Fig for years, too, before I finalized the version you see on the screen. Oh! And here.” Sophia reached over to flip to the final document in the binder. It was titled A Brutal Horizon , and it looked slightly newer than the others. “This was the movie we were getting ready to film. I worked on it for over a year. But as you know, it was never made.”

Henry felt woozy. He stared down at the title of this forgotten and never-made film. It was hard to put all the pieces of the past together. But it was clear that she wanted him to try.

“So everything before A Cataclysm ? Francis Bianchi wrote those films himself?”

“As far as I know,” Sophia joked. “But it’s also likely he stole those ideas as well. He was a pretty good director, but he wasn’t an ideas man.”

“Those first films of his weren’t good,” Henry offered.

“You and I both know that,” Sophia said with a laugh.

Henry shook his head. He still wasn’t sure he wanted to believe this. She was an old woman. She had all the time in the world to doctor old scripts and make another reality seem true.

But why would she do that?

“You can look those over if you like,” Sophia said, suddenly sounding nervous. “I’ll make you another drink.”

Henry wanted to put the binder down and run out of the house. But what was he running toward? His lonely apartment in Echo Park? His failure?

“Have one last drink with an old woman on Christmas,” she urged. “It’s been a pleasure getting to know you. It’s really taken me back.”

Henry bowed his head and stepped into the hallway, clutching the binder to his chest. He followed her into the living room, thinking about the immensity of this secret if it really was true.

Why had she trusted him with it?

How was he supposed to keep it to himself?