Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Summer 2020
A t the same time Matt and Stella signed the divorce papers, James Atkinson was on the tip of the dock outside his rental house in the Florida Keys, staring down at a wet rope. A dull ache thrummed behind his eyes, and the sweltering sun cast sweat beads down his neck and back. He muttered angrily under his breath.
The rope had once secured his pride and joy sailboat— Stella —to the side of that very dock. The sailboat was gone.
But the sailboat wasn’t the only thing missing from James’s little house that day.
James tugged his cell from his pocket and called his daughter, Taylor. But after just two rings, the call cut out and sent a horrible alarm through his ear. He winced and pulled the phone away from his face. Cell service wasn’t so great on the island. Somehow, it had worsened since the pandemic, but James couldn’t say why. There was a sensation that everything about the world was upside down. That it could never be put to right again.
James glanced at his small beach house, his hands resting on his hips as he took in the view of the property he’d retreated to when things had spiraled in London back in mid-March. Manhattan hadn’t been an option either. With the pandemic, he craved open space, salty ocean air, and a sense of freedom. So he’d found an island in the Keys—Tavernier—with a tiny population of just two thousand and caught the next flight out. The sailboat he had stored in Miami made the trip down to the Keys easy. London felt like a distant nightmare he’d finally escaped.
James stomped back down the dock. The boards wiggled and whacked together beneath his feet. Once inside, he filled a glass with water and tried to call Taylor again. When was the last time he’d seen her? This morning, maybe? Hadn’t she said she was going for a bike ride? But James had been in his office, working on an article for an online music magazine that was due at the end of the week. The article required intensive listening to a brand-new album from a nearly forgotten British rocker in the midst of a comeback. James had started the album thinking he would pan it but emerged from his office with tears in his eyes. The rocker had gone out of his way to make something sensational. James hoped people would read his review and take heart. Music isn’t dead. There’s still so much left to discover.
But James couldn’t think about the album any longer. He had to track down Taylor and figure out what happened to his boat.
James’s little rental had two bedrooms, one for him and one for Taylor, his office, a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out at the turquoise water (and usually his sailboat), and a kitchen with a stove that only liked to work part-time. It had been the perfect bachelor pad until Taylor’s mother had called him up in mid-May and begged him to take her in. “Manhattan is insane right now,” Nancy had said. “I don’t want her here.”
James understood that. He was frightened, too. But when he suggested Nancy come to the Florida Keys with Taylor—to save herself from Manhattan—Nancy had said she’d made alternate plans. He knew there was a man in her life. Most likely, bringing her daughter along would cramp her style.
James pressed his hands against the cool of the counter and considered what to do. He had no food in the fridge and no beer in sight for later. His plan had been to sail to the opposite side of the island to do some grocery shopping, maybe grab a beer at the pub, and then sail back to cook for him and Taylor. The town was six miles away, and he didn’t have a car right now.
James would have to figure something else out. He always did.
James put on a clean T-shirt and a pair of shorts, grabbed his wallet, and struck out the door that faced the road. Nobody on the island ever locked their doors, and he’d gotten out of the habit of it, too—something he’d have to return to do if he ever moved back to London or Manhattan. How could I ever leave this? he asked himself of Florida, then laughed. He was out of his mind with the heat. He needed to go swimming.
But fear about Taylor’s whereabouts tugged at his heartstrings.
That’s what being a father means, he thought. It means endless worry.
It had been easier to worry about her from across the Atlantic. She told him bits and pieces of her life. Nancy shared a little bit more although she’d confessed, “Taylor doesn’t tell me anything!” But now that Taylor was “under his jurisdiction,” James was perpetually panicked. Was she eating enough? How was her mental health? Was she bored? What was she hiding? James had been eighteen once. He knew being eighteen meant hiding most of your real life from your parents.
James had grown up in London, and Taylor had grown up in Manhattan. They were city kids, quick on their feet, eager to live and live and live. James was equally proud and terrified of the fact that Taylor was so much like him.
A couple of minutes down the road, James paused at a convenience store, where he considered buying a pack of cigarettes. Then he remembered his promises to Taylor, so he didn’t. But at the edge of the parking lot was a teenage boy with his moped. It gave James an idea.
“Hey there.” James approached slowly. He didn’t want to freak the kid out.
The kid looked up with bored eyes. These kids only ever want to be on their phones, James thought. They’re immune to the outside world.
“I live right down there, but I’m having some car trouble,” James explained, pointing backward with his thumb. “Would you be willing to rent me your moped for the afternoon?”
The kid blinked at him.
“Obviously, I’ll pay,” James said, pulling out his wallet. “I just need to get to town.”
“I’m going to town, too,” the kid said.
James smiled. He could easily call a taxi, he knew, but the taxi drivers on the island were often quite late or didn’t show up at all.
“I can take you,” the kid said. “For fifty.”
It was steep. But the kid knew he was dealing with a desperate man with cash. So James pulled a fifty out of his wallet and handed it over. “I’ll tip you when we get there,” he said.
James sat behind the kid on his moped, keeping his balance with his hands on his thighs as they whizzed toward town. They passed vacation villas and little shacks and the fishing port, where the fishermen relaxed beneath awnings, already done for the day.
The kid dropped James off near the sailboat docks. He tipped him ten and thanked him, and the kid sped off, going a little faster than normal, maybe in celebration of making a quick buck. James remembered what it was like. At that age, a little bit of money would take you far.
James walked through the sailboat docks, looking for his Stella . There were numerous glossy boats, many with mahogany interiors, leather seats, and televisions. Millionaires sat sunning on decks, adjusting their visors. They were very good at pretending nobody else was around although the boats were packed in like sardines.
James went up and down the docks for nearly an hour. There was no sign of Stella .
He was beginning to lose hope.
James walked to a little bar near the harbor, where he ordered a golden beer and sat at a round table in the shade. The bar was mostly empty, save for a few sailor-types playing cards in the corner. James wasn’t sure what to do. He knew what the right thing to do was. But was it what he really wanted?
With a heavy sigh, he pulled out his phone and tried to call Taylor again. This time, it rang and rang and rang, and she didn’t pick up.
Come on, Taylor.
Don’t screw up even more of my life.
There it is again: resentment. Anger.
I need to cut that out.
It isn’t the girl’s fault.
None of it is.
James grimaced and dialed Nancy.
“There he is. Mr. Adventure,” Nancy answered. She sounded slightly sarcastic and not-so-slightly tipsy. He pictured her in the Hamptons at Mr. Handsome’s beachside house. But he knew Nancy would never get in any water that wasn’t chlorinated.
“Hey, Nancy.” James wanted to die on the spot. “How are you?”
“I’m brilliant,” Nancy said. She said it in a fake British accent, which meant she was in the mood to make fun of him. “How’s our girl?”
James swallowed. “That’s why I’m calling.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
James closed his eyes and envisioned the following conversation. He’d tell her Taylor had run off with his sailboat. Nancy would accuse him of bad parenting. James would accuse her of—what? She’d be right, wouldn’t she?
James felt cursed.
But suddenly, there it was—sailing into the glistening harbor. His Stella ! It was confident, the sails full. And his daughter was guiding it expertly, just as he’d taught her.
James felt a wonderful wave of pride.
“I just wanted to let you know she’s doing wonderfully here in the Keys,” he explained. “Thanks again for giving us so much time together.”
“Oh?” Nancy’s sarcasm melted. “Oh, well. That’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It really is.” James got up and paid for his beer. “I hope you’re having a good summer. I’ll see you when school starts?”
“September first,” she reminded him. “But she needs to be here a few days before that so we can get everything arranged.”
“Of course,” James said. “As long as it’s safe in Manhattan again.”
“It will be,” Nancy promised.
It was typical of Nancy to think she knew what the future would be. That was how she’d always been when they’d been together. Always telling him what was what or what would happen or how to live.
But the truth was, nobody knew what would happen with the pandemic. It had come out of nowhere and completely changed the world.
James stormed down the dock to help Taylor tie up the sailboat. Blond and blue-eyed and almost as tall as him, Taylor finished a perfect knot and waved.
“Hey, Dad!”
James felt his anger melt away. Still, he lent an edge to his voice when he said, “You just took off with the boat without asking?”
Taylor laughed. “I yelled into your office. Maybe you didn’t hear me. You were listening to music really loudly.” She then bent down to show off a bucket of fresh fish. “I got these from a guy on the other side of the island. He said to cook them with garlic butter! So that’s what I’m going to do.”
James’s heart swelled. His daughter had thought of their dinner for tonight. It was touching.
She’d probably had an adventure today. He could see it in the electricity behind her eyes. But her adventure was her secret. He had to allow that.
“You didn’t think I was going to take off for good, did you, Dad?” Taylor asked.
What could James say? That he, himself, had once run away from home? That he knew what it was like to see the open sea and want to keep going?
But instead, he said, “I knew you’d come back. I just had to come into town to get some groceries.”
Taylor snapped her fingers. “Avocados. And limes. For guacamole with the fish.”
“Whatever the chef wants, she gets,” James declared.
Together, they glided down the sun-dappled dock and headed for the grocery store. They smelled of sea salt and sweat and sunshine. And their hearts were bouncy and glad—here in their hiding place from the rest of the world.
But that night, over garlicky fish and guacamole and corn chips, Taylor smiled across the table at him and asked the question he’d been dreading.
“Were you dating anyone back in London?”
James tapped his napkin over his lips and grimaced. Did he want his daughter to think he was a total loser? Or did he want to reveal his own secrets and, therefore, betray something about himself?
Taylor took a big, slippery bite of fish. “Cat got your tongue?”
James laughed. “Why the big interest all of a sudden?”
“Because Mom dates people.” Taylor shrugged. “I figured you dated, too.”
“What kind of people does your mother date?”
Taylor raised a single eyebrow.
“I don’t care,” James explained with a wave of his hand. “Your mother and I split up twelve years ago. It was another lifetime.”
“I always assumed it was because of me,” Taylor said, then gave him a delicious smile. “The divorce, I mean.”
James knew she was toying with him. Basically, all of her friends’ parents were also divorced. It was almost expected. Staying together was no longer the norm. Some of her friends’ parents had even married other friends’ parents to create enormous patchwork families.
It was a very close-knit community of wealthy families in the Upper West Side. James had once been a part of that until the divorce, when he’d moved to Greenwich Village and then, eventually, back to London. The job had been irresistible. Good money. Music reviewing. Free concerts. Interviews with his favorite musicians. By then, Taylor had been fifteen and didn’t need him or even want him around very much. Nancy had said, “You’d be a fool not to take it.” And England had opened its arms to him.
Life was the strangest thing he’d ever known.
“Come on. There had to be someone,” Taylor said. “Some London lady!”
“Well, even if there had been someone, it’s pretty clear she’s gone.” James gestured around their little house on the beach. “Unless she’s hiding here somewhere. Is she in the closet? The bathroom?”
Taylor giggled. “You just wanted to be an old man, hiding away in the Florida Keys. And then I came down here and ruined it.”
“I’m forty-two,” James reminded her for the millionth time. “If that’s old, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Nobody says that anymore,” Taylor said.
“ I say it,” James shot back.
“Okay. But were you ever in love at all after the divorce? Twelve years is a long time to have nobody,” Taylor pointed out.
James’s neck was hot. He wasn’t sure how to tackle these big life questions. He wasn’t sure how to appease her.
So he decided to tell the truth. “I haven’t been in love in the past twelve years, no.”
Taylor’s shoulders drooped. “That’s crazy sad, Dad.”
She looked at him with so much pity. James thought it might kill him.
“I just think you deserve someone to share your life with,” Taylor said, sounding far more adult than she should have. She sounded a lot like James’s friend Stephan back in London, who’d said, Normal people spend their lives with partners.
But what did it mean to be normal? James had never pretended to know.
He’d never wanted to live a normal life.