Chapter 7
It was the first week of the new year when Taylor Charron received word that she’d been selected to be in the first group of women at the Harbor House.
When she read the email, she was taking a bath in the vintage bathtub on the second floor of the Beverly Hills place, covered in suds, with a glass of wine and a bunch of untouched novels on the chair beside her.
The email seemed to call out to her: you can’t stay in the bath forever, no matter how much you want to. And it was true—that was exactly what she wanted.
We’re excited to welcome all eight of you for our first session.
Please know that this will not be an easy process.
We will dig into the heart of ourselves.
We will find ways to move forward together.
Please remember that it’s essential to bring with you the utmost respect for all other participants.
While it is not expected that we will all become friends, we are on a journey together, one of spirituality and turning within.
Taylor groaned inwardly. When was the last time she’d “turned within”?
She tried to think back over the previous few months of her life, a long string of baths, glasses of wine, and hours of television.
Why had she thought she could better herself at the Harbor House?
She vaguely remembered a television spot on the news, the story of Stella Vanberg and her hopes to “better broken women.” But Taylor was no longer sure that she could be “bettered,” so to speak.
Taylor prepared herself to write an email, thanking Gwen and the women of the Harbor House, but also saying no thank you. She imagined writing: The thing is, I can’t get out of the bath, let alone fly across the country to spend six weeks with a bunch of people I don’t know.
But as she began to type out the email with the tips of her fingers, she dropped her phone into the bath. She was so surprised that after it splashed inside, she just gaped at it, there underwater. Could she do anything right?
It wasn’t till a week after that that Taylor managed to buy a new phone.
By then, she’d more or less concluded that the Harbor House certainly couldn’t hurt her.
Maybe it would be fun to spend a bit more time on Nantucket.
From April 1st to May 15th, she could explore the island, maybe make a pretend friend or two, and stage her next era.
Before leaving for Nantucket, Taylor packed three suitcases of clothes and other belongings, put tons of things in storage, then rented out her Beverly Hills place to a prominent tech couple.
They also had three children who were called “geniuses of future tech.” Meeting with them frightened Taylor because she didn’t know many tech-oriented people and couldn’t fully understand how their minds worked.
But as she pulled away from her house for the last time, her heart swelled with happiness for both the family and the space.
That big of a house deserved a family in it.
It deserved to feel the love between four humans, rather than the darkness within one single divorced woman who spent most of her time in a bathtub.
Taylor hired a private plane to take her from Los Angeles to Nantucket Island. She landed on April 1st, during a horrible East Coast storm. Rain pelted the little plane, making the world feel blurry and uncertain. When the wheels were finally on the runway, Taylor felt herself breathe again.
“Welcome to Nantucket Island,” the stewardess said, helping Taylor with her bags. “Are you staying long?”
“I don’t know yet,” Taylor answered honestly, although she was slated to stay for six weeks.
The true question was: who on earth would want Taylor in their midst for a full six weeks?
Taylor could barely stand to be in her own head for five minutes.
A taxi picked Taylor up at six in the evening.
According to the email itinerary, the Harbor House had prepared a welcoming party for them, set for seven.
Taylor wasn’t sure if a welcoming party sounded at all like her cup of tea.
She hadn’t been to a party since her Thanksgiving dinner, which hadn’t exactly been fun. Why would this be any different?
But the Harbor House itself—it had to be said—was truly beautiful.
It felt like it had been born in a different and more elegant world.
Stepping out of the taxi, Taylor caught her breath, gazing at the numerous windows, the fine brickwork, the sweeping grounds, the trees that were already filled with buds for the approaching spring months, the thrashing ocean just beyond.
It was rugged and stormy, with a brilliant energy that contrasted with her sleek Beverly Hills.
It was also terribly cold. She zipped her coat to her chin.
Suddenly, two women hurried out of the Harbor House and into the wind. One of them was Gwen, the woman in charge, but the other was one that Taylor didn’t recognize.
“Welcome!” Gwen called, reaching out her hand to shake Taylor’s. “How was your journey?”
“Fine. Fine.” But Taylor hardly recognized her own voice. She grabbed one of her suitcases, as the other two women grabbed what was left and hauled it to the wrap-around porch. Soon, they were in the warm foyer, within which Taylor could hear the echoing voices of other women.
“Taylor, right?” Gwen asked.
Taylor nodded. Gwen didn’t say her name as though she’d always known it. Rather, she said it as if Taylor were just another participant at the Harbor House.
“I’m Gwen, and this is Candice Vanberg,” Gwen said.
“Ah. You’re Stella’s daughter,” Taylor said.
“One of them,” Candice said. “We’re thrilled that you could make it for our first round. My mother would be so happy.”
Taylor’s own heart pumped with sorrow. She wondered what it was like to think about a mother with fondness and love, the way Candice thought of hers.
“We’ll show you to your room,” Gwen said, beckoning for two employees to grab Taylor’s suitcases and take them up the stairs.
As Taylor walked behind Gwen and Candice, she studied the space around her: the artworks, the glowing hardwood floors, and the lush tapestries and rugs.
It felt like entering into another dimension.
Gwen was talking about how arduous the redesign process had been, explaining that when they’d taken it on last year, the Harbor House had been meant for single families.
“But that’s ridiculous,” Gwen said. “There’s so much space! ”
“It’s beautiful,” Taylor said, and she was surprised to feel that she wasn’t lying about that.
Her room was probably about half the size of her bedroom back in the Beverly Hills place.
She walked around the edges of it, gazing out the window at the beach and the water down below.
Gwen was telling her about the welcome party and how it would begin in about half an hour.
“We can’t wait to have everyone meet each other,” Gwen said.
She looked like she might start floating off the ground.
Maybe she was nervous. Taylor knew this had taken hundreds of hours of preparation.
For Gwen’s sake, she hoped everything went all right.
Once Candice and Gwen had gone, Taylor fixed her makeup and put on a black dress.
Embarrassment began to bubble in her stomach, but she told herself to ignore it and shove it away.
All the women here at the Harbor House were here for a reason.
They weren’t going to ogle Taylor Charron, even if they knew Taylor Charron’s story already. Were they?
Eventually, a full twenty minutes after the welcoming party began, Taylor went down the stairs.
She heard a conversation, some of it bubbling and some of it quiet.
She could feel seven different personalities, all bumping up against one another.
It felt a little like going to school for the first time.
Fright set in, and she stopped in the hallway outside.
She heard them introducing themselves, saying, “I’m Casey,” and “I’m Michelle,” and “I’m Winona.
” Taylor took a step back, realizing she wasn’t up for it. She couldn’t do it.
Maybe they shouldn’t have picked her. Maybe she was going to let Gwen down.
But she couldn’t think about that now. She turned on her heel and hurried back to her room, where she removed her dress and got under the covers.
She’d begun to shake uncontrollably, as though she was coming down with a cold.
She tried to get herself to think of Stella Vanberg, of all Stella Vanberg had gone through and how brave she’d been.
But instead, she found herself thinking of her own mother—Veronica Charron, whom she hadn’t seen in years.
She remembered the first time she and her mother had discussed going out to Hollywood so that Taylor could audition and “become a star,” whatever that meant.
They’d been in the kitchen of their Ohio home, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and dreaming what it might be like to have more money than they knew what to do with.
Taylor must have been five or six at the time, far too young to think about money in any concrete way.
But she already knew that for her mother and father, money was a constant source of stress.
It made them scream at one another, which kept Taylor up late, worrying about the fate of her parents’ marriage—and fearful that she would never have a brother or sister to play with.
Taylor didn’t have any real acting experience.
She’d been the star of her ballet recital, and she’d enjoyed all the compliments, but she hadn’t thought of it as a viable path forward.
Her mother suggested she try out for a local commercial the following week, a secondhand furniture ad, and Taylor agreed.
At the audition, Taylor stood side by side with other little girls and put on her biggest smile.
Taylor got the job almost immediately, and the paycheck gave Veronica and Greg Charron a bit of solace in a cruel world.
Taylor noted that money was the key to her parents’ happiness and, therefore, her own. She would make this work, if she could.
When Veronica first took Taylor to Los Angeles for an audition, they stayed in a motel on the outskirts of town, one with a pool whose concrete was cracked all the way around.
Grass burst out of the cracks, and ants buzzed everywhere, including into the rooms. Her mother packed a variety of costumes for her auditions and drove her in a rental car all over town, her long nails tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel.
She gave Taylor mini pep talks, reminding her that this was their ticket out of Ohio.
But try as she might, Taylor couldn’t get a second audition for anything, not during that first trip.
She and her mother flew back to Ohio more than two weeks later, devastated.
Veronica couldn’t even look at Taylor. She was that disappointed.
Of course, Greg Charron was not only disappointed.
He was angry. He screamed at Veronica all night, demanding why she’d wasted so much money on motels and costumes when it was clear that their little girl wasn’t going to make it.
He called her delusional. Veronica told him that she was going to make it work.
They were going to find something for Taylor. “Taylor will be a star!”
It wasn’t till Taylor was seven or eight that she nabbed the six-episode arc on a major sitcom.
In the show, she played the niece of the sitcom family, one staying with them for a few months after a family emergency.
Usually, she entered the sitcom stage, said a few one-liners, made the audience cackle with glee, then left.
She was cute and small and all-American in a way that people all over the country liked and approved of.
The funny thing was that while this episode arc was airing on television across the United States, Taylor and her parents were back in Ohio.
Taylor had needed to return to school, and there had been no reason to remain in dodgy motels, waiting for more auditions.
Veronica Charron was right: as soon as the episode arc began, their phone began to ring.
Taylor had “it,” whatever “it” was, and more and more producers wanted her.
Very soon after that, Veronica and Taylor moved out to Los Angeles full-time so that Taylor could attend auditions and fully commit.
Greg remained in Ohio for the time being, at least until Taylor could pull something together for all of them.
It was a lot on Taylor’s shoulders, but she told herself it didn’t matter, that this was her destiny.
Unfortunately, not everything went well, especially not at first. Frequently, the stress got to Taylor, and during auditions, she forgot her lines and cried.
The first agent she landed in Los Angeles dropped her after this happened a third time, and Veronica spent all evening screaming at Taylor, asking her if she was really up to this.
Taylor told her again and again that she was. “I want this, Mom. I want to be famous. I want to be rich.” It sounded cartoony, even back then.
Soon after, Veronica nabbed Taylor a new agent, and not so long after that, Taylor had her first-ever show.
It was a kids’ show, another sitcom, and she played the best friend of the main girl.
They had little magical adventures in which they had to hide their abilities from the adults.
What Taylor remembered from that time was this: the adults on set were cruel.
The actress who played her “best friend” didn’t really like her and thought she was a nobody from Ohio.
She started puberty and got into trouble, sort of, with her agent, who told her it was too soon.
But that job lasted another three years.
Taylor was reeling in money, so much so that Greg Charron was able to quit his job back in Ohio and move to Los Angeles.
They bought a big, beautiful house in Beverly Hills—not far from the one in which Jason and Taylor had lived.
Taylor saw herself on billboards. She was recognized by random people in restaurants and at ice cream shops.
She felt her power growing even as she struggled to manage it.