Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
August 2024
I t was the morning of the book launch. Stella was cross-legged at the kitchen table, shivering with nerves as Chloe refilled her mug of coffee. Chloe just got the approval to drink coffee again, and Stella watched as she spooned sugar into it until it practically crystallized. Stella wanted to have a conversation to get her mind off the day ahead, but all Stella could think of was, Chloe, did you have time to clean the bathroom yet? Or Chloe, did you remember to take that paper to school? And she didn’t want to nag, not today, so she kept quiet.
“You’re going to be great, Mom,” Chloe said as she sat down.
“I just can’t believe we sold that many tickets,” Stella said. “I’ve never spoken in front of more than five people in a business meeting.”
Suddenly, Stella’s phone buzzed with a video call from Logan. Stella answered it and winced at the tiny video image of herself in the corner. She looked tired. She needed makeup and more coffee.
Logan looked tired, too. And the dorm room behind him looked like a dog had torn through it in a frenzy. But his smile was serene, and he wished her a happy book launch. “You’re going to kill it,” he said.
“Thank you for calling,” Stella said. “It means so much.”
“Wish I could be there, Momsy,” Logan said. It was a new nickname that Stella didn’t particularly like. More than that, it sounded as though Logan’s voice had gotten even deeper since they’d dropped him off at college two weeks ago. How was that possible?
Stella asked her son several more questions about his upcoming week of classes and the friends he’d already made. Logan’s short answers made Stella crave more. But he needed his privacy, she supposed. He had his own life now.
“Love you, honey,” Stella said when it was time.
“Love you, too,” Logan said.
They hung up.
Matt came by at eight fifteen with donuts and flowers. Stella hugged him tightly and led him into the kitchen. It would not be bizarre to let Matt into the house they’d bought together.
Matt had been extra attentive ever since Bruce left for Paris. It never felt romantic. But it felt like a bit more than a friendship, too. Textured with love.
Chloe went upstairs to shower after eating a donut, leaving her parents alone. A comfortable silence fell between them. Stella sighed and cleaned her hands with a napkin.
“It’s the big day!” Matt enthused.
“It’s hard to believe,” Stella offered. “I’m dying of nerves.”
“You don’t look it,” Matt assured her.
Stella tilted her head. She hadn’t yet asked Matt if he’d read The Athens Affair. She wasn’t sure she wanted his feedback.
She was frightened that he would say, I always knew you were in love with someone else during our marriage. That’s why we had to get divorced.
She was frightened that it was really true.
But Matt didn’t mention whether he’d read it or not. Maybe that meant he didn’t care.
“I wish the book launch was this morning,” Stella joked. “I can’t believe I have to be nervous till five o’clock.”
Matt chuckled. “What are your plans today?”
“Nothing,” she admitted. “I should have made arrangements.”
“Let’s hang out as a family!” Matt suggested. “If Chloe will deign to hang out with us.”
Stella smiled. “Mandy is welcome, too.”
“She’s coming later,” Matt said. “But she’s working till four.”
To Matt’s and Stella’s surprise, Chloe agreed to hang out until the book launch. They went for a long walk on the beach, swam in the pool, made real margaritas for the adults and fake margaritas for Chloe, and put together multilayered sandwiches that packed plenty of flavor. Sometimes, throughout the day, Stella allowed herself to forget what was headed for her—the book launch! She even allowed herself to forget about the divorce and about Bruce leaving for Paris.
When Chloe went inside to charge her phone, Matt sipped his margarita and said, “Do you mind if I ask you about Bruce?”
Stella made a face, but she didn’t reject him. “Okay.”
“Has he reached out at all since he left?”
“I asked him not to,” Stella said. “I needed a clean break.”
Matt nodded. “I understand.” He put his margarita back on the hot concrete and lay back in his sun chair. “I wonder what’s going through his head right now. Meeting his ex after so long. Seeing his son reconnect with his ex-wife. It sounds so messy.”
“I can’t get involved with his mess,” Stella admitted.
Matt raised his eyebrow. “But we don’t really have a mess on our hands, do we?”
“No. And I prefer it that way.”
Matt reached over and squeezed Stella’s hand between the chairs.
Stella drove herself to the Sutton Book Club to clear her head. It was four fifteen when she arrived. She and Esme had already set up everything: a massive table and chairs for the book signing, a chair for the reading, the microphones, and enough audience seats for half the tickets sold. “The rest can stand,” Esme had said with a wave of her hand.
It was going to be tight in the Sutton Book Club. But the microphone would pipe Stella’s voice out on all floors of the Sutton Book Club, plus another few speakers set up outside. It meant not everyone had to be crammed inside to hear her voice.
Esme was already there, of course. Just as ever. She was in the kitchen with her daughters Rebecca and Bethany. Valerie, the event planner, had been instrumental in setting up the event itself and was off to the grocery store to grab some supplies they’d run out of.
Rebecca, Bethany, and Esme hugged Stella tightly and congratulated her.
“It’s such a big day!” Esme said.
“I never could have made it here without you,” Stella said.
Rebecca had made sensational snacks for the event—salmon puffs, empadas, and stuffed mushrooms. Now that the Sutton Book Club was also a part-time restaurant, they’d gotten an alcohol license, and plenty of wine bottles were at the ready, standing in a glossy line on the table under the window. Stella watched as Esme worked side by side with her daughters, the daughters she’d missed so much that it had nearly destroyed her. Stella hated that it had taken Larry’s death for the girls to come back. But they needed each other now. More than ever.
Guests began to arrive at four thirty. Stella was anxious, hovering near the book signing table and shaking people’s hands. The book had technically come out a few days ago, and several readers already had copies and wanted her autograph.
“I tore through it the first night I got it,” a woman in her early sixties announced as she handed a pen to Stella. “You captured just what it felt like to fall in love for the first time. Of course, when I fell in love for the first time, I was in Providence, Rhode Island. That’s quite different from Greece.” She chuckled, throwing her head back.
Stella smiled. “Did you stay in love?”
“Goodness, no,” the woman said. “He left me in the middle of the night for a woman he’d met at the diner that morning. What a rush, right? But I met my husband six months later, and we had six children.”
“That’s a great story,” Stella said. “It sounds like you were ready to find your husband. That first guy just needed to get out of the way.”
The woman cackled.
To sign her book, Stella wrote: To finding the one! Love, Stella Sutton
Stella wondered if all of her fans would find ways to tell her about their love life throughout her book tour. Today was only the beginning, after all. In two weeks, she would be in Manhattan, then Boston, then Charleston, then Miami. In all, there were twenty-two cities. It was nightmarish but also her dream.
She would really miss Chloe, though. Thank goodness for Matt. He would be there for her every step of the way.
Not long after that, Stella’s family arrived: her father, her mother, her brothers, their wives. Stella’s cheeks were hot as she hugged them. She had a hunch none of them had read the memoir. Opening up to one another in that way wasn’t really a Sutton thing. But they wanted to be supportive, and Stella was grateful.
“Always wondered what you were up to in Greece,” her father said. “Guess the entire world will know now.”
Her mother swatted him. “We love you, honey. We’ll get seats near the back so we don’t make you too nervous.”
Stella thanked them and watched them walk in a line through the aisle to the back.
Fans continued to mill in, ask for autographs, and grab their seats. Several more women told her about their first loves—and how they’d lost them. Stella worried the stories would run together.
Not long after that, Matt, Chloe, and Mandy came in. Mandy hurried up to the table excitedly and shook Stella’s hand. “Congratulations, Stella!”
Did Mandy read the book? Stella wasn’t sure what to make of that. She wasn’t sure how much of her life she wanted to share with Mandy. It already felt like too much.
But she couldn’t stop anyone from reading The Athens Affair. It was out there. It was public.
Gwen, the literary agent, arrived a few minutes later. She hugged Stella excitedly and said, “I knew from our first video call that you would be somebody special!” Stella figured it was easy to say that after the book had gone viral, but she still appreciated the sentiment. Gwen took a salmon puff and told Stella about the book review published that morning in The Guardian. “You’re going to have a big international audience!” she announced. “Get ready for it!”
Stella felt as though she floated through the next hour. She talked to as many people as she could, sipped her wine, and smiled, smiled, smiled. Her face hurt.
Once, Matt walked past and squeezed her arm. “Remember to enjoy it,” he whispered. “It’ll go too fast.”
Esme announced in the mic it was time for the reading. Tears sprang to Stella’s eyes. She’d never done a reading before. Nervously, she milled back to the mic and opened the book. She’d decided to start from the beginning to set the stage for the rest of the novel and not give anything away.
She smiled out at the audience, but their faces were blurry. She hoped her voice didn’t warble.
“Good evening,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt. “I want to thank everyone for coming out to Nantucket Island, to one of my favorite places in the world, the Sutton Book Club, run by my aunt Esme.”
Stella smiled and gestured toward Esme, who blew her a kiss.
“Writing this book has been a remarkable journey of self-discovery,” she continued. “I never imagined I could write an entire novel. But my aunt Esme pushed me to tell my one big story. Most people in my life didn’t know that I had one.”
The audience chuckled knowingly.
“After I do this reading, I’ll take questions and answer everything I can,” Stella said. “Tonight, I’m an open book for you.” She wet her lips. “All right. I’ll get started. Wish me luck.”
The room quieted.
It was time to begin.