Chapter 20
It pleased Taylor to no end that, on the first night in the Nantucket house, both Candice and Lindsey decided to stay the night.
Taylor had stretched sheets and blankets over the guest beds upstairs—the only real furniture she’d committed to thus far—with the hope that she could host them.
Now, tucked in her bed down the hall from each of them, Taylor felt a softness that she associated with childhood, or somebody else’s version of childhood, at least. She felt as though she’d fallen into a family.
The following morning, Candice convinced them to go out to breakfast. She had a favorite vegan-friendly spot in downtown Nantucket, and she wanted to people-watch and take a walk along the boardwalk afterward.
Taylor rode to town in Lindsey’s car, flicking through the radio stations as the wind fluttered through her hair.
“I have so much to do this week,” Taylor said, laughing.
Tomorrow, she was having more secondhand furniture delivered—in line with her environmentally friendly vision for her future.
And she had several meetings coming up with environmentalists, ocean specialists, accountants, and other celebrities eager to get in on the ground floor of her foundation.
“But there’s always time for breakfast, right?” Lindsey asked, laughing.
Taylor grinned. “Absolutely.”
At the breakfast table, Candice, Lindsey, and Taylor spoke about what they remembered of their teenage years.
Candice and Lindsey had grown up on Nantucket and had numerous hilarious stories of sneaking out and going to beach parties.
Taylor, of course, had been a full-time actress at the time, bringing in enough money for her mother and father and their extravagant lifestyle.
But Taylor, too, had her share of teenage stories.
She talked about boys, about period cramps on set, about pimples that made various directors over the years panic.
“What was I supposed to do?” she asked, laughing.
“I was fifteen! I was oily! My mother nearly flipped over the snack table on set!”
Lindsey and Candice howled with laughter. It felt good to be heard this way. It was commiseration. And really, these were funny stories, if you stripped away all the heartache.
Toward the end of breakfast, Taylor got a message from her agent: Call me. Taylor showed the text to her friends and asked, “Do you think she’s mad that I don’t want to act anymore?”
“Take the call.” Lindsey shrugged. “Maybe it’s time for you to part ways, anyway?”
“Yeah! Fire her!” Candice said, teasing.
Taylor laughed and stepped out of the bustling breakfast spot to make the call. Almost immediately, her agent answered, saying, “Taylor, where have you been?”
Taylor hesitated, taking in the sight of the boardwalk before her, the sailboats shifting gently in the water behind the railing. Everything smelled of butter and fish.
“The thing is,” her agent went on before she had a chance to answer, “they want you on The Today Show. Next week. They want to talk about your, um, new mission? Some environmental thing?”
Taylor was floored. “I’m sorry?”
Her agent explained everything she knew.
The world was increasingly excited about Taylor’s new “angle,” as she called it, and The Today Show wanted to shed more light on it.
“I guess this could help your career in some way,” her agent said tentatively.
“I mean, more face time on television means more people thinking about you, right?”
“I don’t want them to think about me,” Taylor told her. “I want them to think about the foundation.”
Her agent stuttered. “Um? All right.”
There was a strangled moment of silence. Taylor tried to picture her agent in her brightly lit office in Santa Monica. Always, she wore linen and little sandals. She’d busted herself over the years to secure gigs for Taylor and Taylor’s career and Taylor’s dreams.
Could Taylor really abandon her like this?
“Listen,” Taylor began.
But her agent already had something else to say.
“If all things go well at The Today Show, we can line up another string of interviews in New York City that week. I’m thinking everything from podcasts to appearances with videographers and social media stars.
What are you thinking? If you’re in, I can get started right away. ”
Taylor was taken aback. She hadn’t been thinking about the media strategy. She’d been thinking about oceans, ocean life, and ocean birds. But she reasoned now that she needed to get the word out about her foundation to as many people as possible. Maybe her agent could help?
“I’m in,” Taylor said, surprised at the joy in her voice. “Let’s do it!”
When Taylor returned to the breakfast table, Lindsey and Candice turned and asked, “Did you fire her?” in unison.
Taylor laughed and shook her head. “Who wants to go to the city next week?”
Both Candice and Lindsey said they were in.
The next few days sped by. Taylor monitored the delivery of sofas, a dining room table, and multiple chairs.
She went to the grocery store, cooked herself delightful and healthy dinners, made more spreadsheets, and practiced speaking in the mirror about her environmental foundation.
It wasn’t till Friday—three days before she was set to appear on the news—that her agent called her and told her, panicking, “You don’t have a name for your foundation! ”
This was true. Always, Taylor had assumed the name would fall from the sky at the right time.
But it was crunch time. The Today Show would need a name as soon as possible.
So Taylor called Lindsey and Candice for an emergency meeting to discuss names.
Lindsey invited Jake along for the ride, and Candice dragged Frank along as well.
They met at the Salty Pirate, a fun and lively Nantucket bar filled with islanders. For hours, they mulled over names.
“I guess the Salty Pirate is taken?” Frank joked, staring into his glass of beer.
Taylor laughed. “I don’t want to steal anything from anyone.”
“Everything is already taken!” Candice said. “There’s another Harbor House near Big Sur. And there’s another one somewhere in Latin America. We didn’t know till after we established the name.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to steal on purpose,” Taylor said.
“Maybe something to do with oceans?” Jake suggested. “Ocean Alert. Or Ocean Star.”
“Ocean Star?” Lindsey asked, smile widening.
They burst into laughter.
“You’re right. It’s terrible,” Jake affirmed.
Taylor was quiet, furrowing her brow. When the name occurred to her—when it literally dropped out of the sky—she was initially too frightened to say it aloud. She didn’t want to upset Lindsey. “I don’t know,” she whispered, “but what about something to do with Maya? Maya’s Ocean, maybe.”
Lindsey’s lips parted with surprise. But there wasn’t anger in her eyes, not even a hint of it. Taylor knew she hadn’t overstepped.
“She loved the ocean,” Lindsey affirmed, her eyes fluttering to the table. “It would be a beautiful way to memorialize her, if that’s something you want to do.”
Taylor’s heart swelled. “It is.” She couldn’t imagine a better way to uphold the life of her dear friend’s daughter, a little girl she’d never been allowed to know. If only timing had been different. If only Maya could have lived to be a teenager and an adult.
When they left the bar that night, Lindsey threw her arms around Taylor and thanked her. “Maya is more real to me every day, now that I’ve faced the past,” she said. “Thank you for facing it with me.”
On Sunday afternoon, Taylor, Lindsey, and Candice set out for New York City in Candice’s car.
Their trunk was lined with suitcases, most of them Taylor’s, as she was finding it difficult to decide what to wear on television.
She remembered the days of having a stylist, of having someone make all those decisions for her.
But she told herself those days were through.
As they neared the city, Taylor noticed that Candice’s eyes looked dreamier and dreamier.
She understood that NYC had been Candice’s home for decades.
It was the place where she’d had her babies and built her career.
It was the place where her husband had ripped their family in two.
Taylor could only imagine the depths of sorrow Candice swam through as a result.
But still, she’d leaped at the chance to go back.
It was decided that Candice would stay with a friend not far from her old place, so she could meet her daughter, Sarah, when Sarah had time.
Taylor and Lindsey grabbed rooms in the same hotel, mid-size ones that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, as Taylor’s money was now meant for a greater purpose than personal comforts.
To unwind at the end of the day, they had dinner in the hotel restaurant, then had a small glass of wine before retiring.
Taylor was meant to be at The Today Show at three thirty in the morning to prepare.
Lindsey and Candice were going to come around six thirty so they could watch the interview behind the cameras on set.
As their wines emptied, Lindsey caught Taylor’s eye and asked her if she was nervous. “I guess you’ve been on camera thousands of times,” Lindsey said, backtracking. “Nerves probably have nothing to do with it.”
But Taylor admitted she was. “This is the first time I’ve ever stood up for something that wasn’t pure selfishness,” she said. “A lot is riding on that. I want it to seem genuine.”
“It is genuine,” Lindsey reminded her. “As long as you show how much it means to you, it will come across.”
Taylor hoped she was right.
The following morning, a dark car appeared on the street at three fifteen to pick Taylor up. Taylor slid into the back seat before the driver had the chance to open the door for her. “Good morning!” she said brightly, wanting to seem easy, eager.
“Hi! Good to see you again!” the driver said, smiling back at her in the rearview mirror.
“Again? We’ve met?” Taylor asked, wincing at herself.
“You wouldn’t remember. I drove you a few times in LA,” he said, pressing the gas lightly. “This was maybe eight years ago?” He hesitated. “From what I hear, things are different for you now.”
Taylor laughed. “As different as can be, I think.”
The driver turned at the light and continued, “You seem different, I think. Suppose you don’t mind me saying so. You seem lighter. Happier.” He paused. “I don’t mean to overstep.”
In her old life, Taylor might have been angry at such a comment from someone she didn’t know. But now, she found she welcomed such generosity. She was different. And she was grateful for the soul-seeking and work she’d pushed herself through to become whoever this iteration of Taylor was.
For the first time since filming in Tokyo, Taylor found herself in a makeup chair, chatting with the makeup and hair stylists and preparing for the interview.
They were seasoned workers. They took years off her face.
When they finished, Taylor was led to a waiting room where a variety of vegan breakfast foods awaited her. They’d been told what she liked.
Not long after she arrived, a set worker with a headset on knocked on the door.
Taylor called her in. The set worker introduced herself as Maggie and said, nervously, “We’ve had a situation next door.
The expert being interviewed after you- his waiting room unfortunately flooded?
And we were wondering if he could share your space for a little while.
You’ll be going on camera before him. It won’t be long now. ”
“Oh! Flooding. That’s terrible.” Taylor was on her feet.
“It happens. We’ve had so much rain this year,” the set worker said.
Taylor considered linking the rain up with climate change, but then told herself: save it for the news. “Send him in. I don’t bite,” she said.
What Taylor expected was an old scientific expert, some sixty-something professor type with glasses and a big beard.
But the man who entered the room was in his mid-forties, with red-brown hair speckled with white and green eyes.
When he introduced himself as Will Hamner, a shiver went down Taylor’s spine.
“I’ve read about you!” she said, shaking his hand. “I read a few of your academic papers. The one about the sea turtles was particularly illuminating.”
Will laughed and sat in the chair opposite her, reaching for a banana. “Thank you. Wow. It’s rare for someone founding an environmentalist foundation to actually read academic papers. They’re so dry.”
Taylor’s cheeks burned. “I want to do this the right way.”
“From what I’ve read about Maya’s Ocean, you’re off to a good start,” Will said. “Actually, that’s why they’re bringing me on today. They want me to talk about the efficacy of your foundation and how I see it growing.”
Taylor hadn’t known they’d asked an expert. She struggled to breathe.
Will leaned toward her, narrowing his eyes. “I can’t say for sure what will happen. Nobody can. But what you’re doing, or what you plan to do, is incredibly brave and forward-thinking. I’d love to help you as much as I can, if you want that.”
Taylor was taken aback. “Thank you,” she stuttered. “My friend Jake, he’s an ornithologist. He recommended your work to me. He’s a big fan. He’s the one helping me the most on all this. I was so uninformed until very recently. I’m trying to fix that.”
“It’s a great achievement,” Will said. He split open the top of his banana and took a small bite. It felt normal, as though he and Taylor had eaten together many times before. “By the way,” he said. “Out front they were talking about you. They said you’re some movie star?”
Taylor laughed, throwing her head back. For it was then she realized that Will Hamner had no idea who she was, nor what she’d done, nor about the sitcoms she’d starred in or the man she’d loved. To Will, she was a brand-new environmentalist, an idealist with a deep pocketbook.
She wondered if this meant she could begin again.
But before she could say anything else, the same set worker with the headset came back to call her to the camera. “We’re ready for you,” she said, urgency in her voice.
Taylor’s eyes widened. She turned to Will, who wore a nervous smile. “I’ll see you after,” he told her. “Break a leg.”