Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
June 2024
I t was raining in Manhattan. James grabbed his bagels with cream cheese from the bagel shop employee—a twentysomething with three rings in her left eyebrow—and ducked under his hood, headed for the apartment in Greenwich Village. It occurred to him that the rain had followed him from London to the States. Maybe his doom and gloom generated the storms rather than the weather patterns.
The streets were crowded with tourists wearing ponchos they’d purchased for cheap in Times Square. They looked silly, as though they were extras in a play set in Manhattan. James briefly made eye contact with a woman who looked sort of like Kinsey, and the idea that the real Kinsey was just uptown, performing the rituals of her everyday life without him, nearly shattered him. He’d genuinely thought they were getting back together when he left London. He’d genuinely let himself believe that she was pregnant with his child and that he’d get a do-over when it came to romance, family, and life.
But that book had foiled his plans.
Or he’d foiled those plans when he and Kinsey had broken up in the first place, and he’d gone back to London.
What was it Kinsey had said? That he seemed so cold? That she’d never known if he really loved her?
What was he supposed to do about that?
James got home at ten past eleven and returned to his article about Frank Baxter. It had been five days since the interview, and he wanted to send it off to his editor by the end of the day. It was a fine article, yet something about his writing felt strained and unnatural.
He knew it was because he was distracted.
He knew it was because of the turquoise book he kept on the corner of his desk and did not read.
The bell rang at noon. James stood to answer it, surprised by their punctuality. Back in his day, rock stars showed up whenever they felt like it. They didn’t agree to meet at noon for bagels and actually arrive on time. But Taylor and Aiden were clearly in a different league.
“Dad!” Taylor passed a bouquet to Aiden and hugged him tightly. Aiden shook his hand.
“Great to see you again, man,” Aiden said.
James looked at Aiden, remembering their first meeting—how he’d assumed Aiden was a scummy rock star who would ruin his daughter’s life. But now, Aiden was pulling the bagels out of the bag and spreading them with cream cheese with the air of someone who was accustomed to taking care of others. He asked James how his flight back from London was. Aiden asked, “Which city do you prefer to live in?”
Taylor arranged the flowers in a vase and set them in the center of the table.
“London or New York? Man, I don’t know,” James said.
“You headed back soon?” Aiden asked.
James thought, What about the baby? Then I remembered there was no baby.
“Maybe,” James admitted. “I get a little more work over there.”
Aiden finished spreading the cream cheese, and they feasted. James asked Aiden plenty of questions about life on the road and was surprised at how articulate and poetic Aiden was.
“I found another version of myself out there,” Aiden admitted, “and I didn’t always like him.”
“What do you mean?” James asked.
“It’s not that I got too rowdy,” Aiden said. “I knew enough to keep myself in line. But I got despondent sometimes. I had to remind myself that I was chasing my dreams on tour. That it was all a part of the grand plan I’d always had for my future.”
“Achieving your dreams can be so difficult,” Taylor agreed. “You put everything into hitting this big goal. And then you get it, and it’s like, now what?”
James wasn’t sure he’d met such centered and focused young people before. He’d been a mess at their age.
“But we’re going back on tour in the fall,” Aiden said. “Thank goodness Taylor can come with us. She’s the best bassist we’ve ever had. And she keeps me in line on the road. She makes me go to bed on time.”
“But I’m taking online classes this time,” Taylor explained with a shrug. “I think it’s healthy to keep my mind alive when we’re on the road.”
Taylor took a bite of bagel and glanced around the room. But her face transformed a split-second later. She chewed, swallowed, and pointed at the desk. “Why do you have that book?”
James followed her finger to the turquoise-blue The Athens Affair. His heart sank.
But Taylor was already on her feet. “I saw this on TikTok,” she explained. “But I didn’t think it was out till August! I already pre-ordered a copy.” She picked it up and held it out in front of her as though it were holy.
James cursed himself for not hiding the book in his desk drawer.
“I mean, I thought you only ever read music biographies,” Taylor joked.
“A friend gave it to me,” James said. His throat felt tight.
Taylor tilted her head. “Was it Kinsey?”
James’s cheeks were hot.
“It must have been her,” Taylor insisted. “It’s getting released through her publishing house.”
James raised his shoulders. “Yeah.”
Taylor gave him a look that seemed to ask, Is Kinsey why you came back? But she didn’t pry.
Instead, she said, “Have you read it yet?”
“Not yet. I’ve been working a lot,” he said, although this was a lie. He’d spent much time walking the streets and staring into space, fearing whatever was inside that book.
What would the book tell him about himself? What would it tell him about his past?
“I really want to read it,” Taylor said. “Could I borrow it?”
“She’s a fast reader,” Aiden said. “She can speed-read.”
I can’t let her read it. She’ll know it’s me immediately. She’ll put it together in a snap.
“I was going to start it today,” James lied.
Taylor flipped through the book happily. “It’s rare that a memoir gets so much buzz before it comes out. But her daughter posted a video of this writer—Stella Sutton—unboxing the books and talking about how it was her life’s dream to publish a novel. It was cute.”
James’s heart lurched. Daughter. Stella has a daughter.
He bit his tongue to keep from asking to see the video. He shouldn’t want to see it.
“Well, let me know when you finish it,” Taylor said. “I want to support women in the arts.”
“Will do,” James said.
He’d tell her he lost it or something. Better yet, maybe she’d forget.
In a sense, James thought it was funny that a book by Stella Sutton was the reason Kinsey was so upset with him. It was as though Stella’s ghost had swanned in from the past to ruin his future. In a way, he deserved it.
He certainly couldn’t dispute the fact that he’d loved Stella more than he’d loved any woman on earth. That was his long-standing story. That was the foundation upon which he’d built his life.
Stella and James forever.
It was why he’d named his sailboat after her.
That had been a complicated time.
He’d still been married to Nancy when he bought the boat. Nancy hadn’t wanted him to buy it. She’d said it was silly, that it would go to waste. She’d already mentioned divorce twice by then, which was part of the reason he’d wanted the boat in the first place. He’d wanted the boat to guard his heart from the sorrow that awaited him on the other side of the divorce papers. When he’d bought the boat and had it painted with its name— Stella —he’d known his marriage was really over.
He’d considered reaching out to Stella, then. He hadn’t known where she was or what she was up to, but he’d dreamed of sailing along an eastern coastline with his sailboat Stella for all to see. He’d imagined she’d see the boat and call his name. He’d imagined she’d swim out to sea and come aboard and kiss him in a way that transported them through time.
We would have been happy together.
We would have lasted.
If only.
If only.
James stayed up late that night finalizing the article about Frank Baxter and sending it off. After that, he took The Athens Affair off his desk and pressed it against his chest. What had possessed her to write this? What had she been thinking?
For the first time, he opened the back jacket. There was no photograph, but there was a bio.
Stella Sutton lives on Nantucket Island with her daughter and son. This is her first novel.
James’s heart pounded. There was no mention of a husband. Did it mean she’d gotten divorced and changed her name back to Sutton? Or did it mean she’d never gotten married? Maybe she’d adopted her children and raised them on her own.
So many possibilities that make up life.
James went to his laptop. Before he could stop himself, he typed in her name. He felt invasive.
But Stella didn’t have much of an online presence. She didn’t have social media. She had a website for pre-orders of her book, but she hadn’t included an author headshot for some reason. The only image of her he could find was located on TikTok—in the video Taylor had mentioned. But he couldn’t bring himself to watch the video. He didn’t want to see her like that. Not for the first time in more than twenty years.
But there was a link on her website that gave him pause.
BUY TICKETS for The Athens Affair book launch at the Sutton Book Club on August 24, 2024.
James took a breath.
Over the years, he’d been to his fair share of book launches for friends or musicians who’d written autobiographies. Usually, there was a nice array of wine and plenty of pretentious conversation. The writer might do a reading, a few people asked questions that were more like statements, and then everyone celebrated till the wee hours of the morning.
He’d never been to a book launch for a book about his own life.
James went to the window and peered through the curtain at a city glossy with rain. It was nearly one thirty in the morning, but the streets were still vibrant with life. Such was the way of Manhattan.
He wondered what it was like in Nantucket at this time of night. He wondered what the ocean sounded like. He wondered if anyone else stayed up late.
He thought, A braver man than me would go to Nantucket for the book launch and face Stella for the first time.
But James didn’t feel like an especially brave man anymore.
He wasn’t sure if he’d ever actually been brave to begin with. Maybe it had all been for show.