Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Paris and Positano
T he night after they met Gregor for the first time, Julia found herself awake with jet lag and a million phone calls to make.
There was no end to this nightmare, no end to the slog of fear and trying to mend this, a cycle that was only met with fear again.
None the wiser, Charlie was fast asleep in bed, dreaming Parisian dreams, dreaming of tomorrow’s croissant and walking through the city streets.
Julia was grateful. At least Charlie’s health, both mental and otherwise, was something she didn’t have to worry about.
First up was a call to the local Nantucket police about the potential Eastern European men who may or may not have taken Lucia and thrown her in the back of their car.
The more that Julia reflected on that scene, the stranger it became.
But frustratingly, the men and Lucia hadn’t been seen or heard from.
It meant they were either on Nantucket or anywhere else in the world, which wasn’t helpful in the slightest. Julia thanked the cop and hung up, her stomach thrashing.
After that, she called Nicole about the newest strategy for their publishing house PR, which sounded grim and uncreative and just as lost as Julia felt. Nicole’s idea was to continue answering questions, follow the lead of the public, and keep an open mind about their thoughts.
“But the public doesn’t know anything for sure,” Julia reminded her, still frustrated.
“I’m the one who double- and triple-checked so much of what Lucia wrote in her memoir.
I’m literally on the front lines here, with the most information, besides maybe Lucia or CAT herself.
And they’re speculating based on a few videos? ”
“So you’re saying you think Lucia is maybe CAT now?” Nicole asked, her face dumbfounded on the screen.
“I don’t know. I’m saying that none of us know, but that I know more than the people who are posting on social media about it. I think,” Julia said, pulling at her hair.
“Do you think this is some elaborate prank by CAT herself?” Nicole suggested, not for the first time. They really were running in circles. “Maybe it’s going to make her even more money because yet another copycat tried to ruin her. Maybe Lucia is on CAT’s payroll.”
“None of that helps us either,” Julia said, although she wondered what Gregor would say about that. When she hung up with Nicole, she decided to text him about it, and he responded five minutes later.
GREGOR: It would certainly bring a greater mystique to the CAT brand, but I can’t imagine that CAT herself would arrive at that idea.
Maybe she’s working with a brand strategist?
Oh, it hurts me to say it! I always liked how pure and non-corporate she seemed.
(Although I know she ended up taking money from various companies. Artists have to eat! Ha ha.)
JULIA: It hurts me, too. I want to think CAT is better than whatever this scheme is. But if she’s all that pure, then Lucia Colombo can’t have anything to do with her. Lucia is sort of monstrous. I hate to say it.
GREGOR: It’s certainly a pickle you’ve gotten yourself involved in.
JULIA: A pickle is a nice way of saying it.
Julia passed along Gregor’s thoughts to Nicole, who didn’t appreciate them and said they didn’t help at all. Julia understood Nicole’s stress levels and decided not to take anything she said personally. Her panic was similar.
“But at least you’re in Paris,” Julia’s mother, Greta, said on the phone a few minutes later. “Isn’t it divine? Tell me everything you’ve eaten so far. Tell me, do you remember the French we used to speak when you were little?”
“I remember a little,” Julia said, which was mostly a lie, but she wanted to make her mother happy. Wanted to make her think she’d given her tremendous tools for this situation.
“I wanted you kids to be worldly,” Greta said. “I wanted you to know there was so much out there to discover. And look at all of you! All four of my children and all of my grandchildren make me proud.”
Julia smiled into the phone, grateful that at least one person in her life was happy right now. Greta pestered her for information about what else she was going to do while she was in Paris and when she thought she might come home.
“I don’t know,” Julia admitted to the last question. “We might have to keep following CAT’s trail. I don’t want to come back to Nantucket empty-handed, so to speak. I want to have a lead so we can approach this Lucia situation head-on.”
“Darling, people have been looking for CAT for years,” Greta reminded her.
It meant that if other, more professional people couldn’t find CAT, why did Julia think she could? But Julia had a leg up on them, she explained to her mother. “I read Lucia’s memoir.”
“But that might be a fake, honey.”
“Not all of it can be,” Julia said, convinced of it. “Through the process of editing it, too much of it was verifiable. And it really feels like Lucia at least knows CAT, even if she isn’t CAT.”
“Why do you think that?” Greta asked, her voice dripping with doubt.
“I just have a feeling,” she said. “I can’t explain it.”
Greta told her a few of the goings-on back in Nantucket, how Henry had gone back to Los Angeles for a few business meetings and taken Madeline with him, how Aurora had come by and shown her a few of her new songs, how Greta had a new idea for a novel that she was refusing to tell anyone about.
“I’ll send you the fifth draft or so,” Greta promised Julia with a smile in her voice.
“I’d love to publish it,” Julia said to her mother, “but I know you’re too important to the literary community to have your books published through my house.”
“Don’t be silly, honey,” Greta said.
But neither of them said what they were probably thinking: that there was no telling how long the house would remain open.
After that, Julia finished with her favorite event—talking to Anna about Anna’s baby, Julia’s grandchild.
It was a truly monumental thing, becoming a grandparent.
Julia didn’t want to miss more than a week or two of her grandbaby’s life.
The fact that Anna—whose fiancé and the father of her child had died in a freak accident not long after they had gotten engaged—had found a partner to raise her baby with was something that Julia thanked her lucky stars for every single day.
Over the phone, Julia blew a kiss at Anna and the baby and said good night.
It was only then, long past two in the morning, that Julia found the will to sleep.
* * *
As promised, Julia and Charlie spent the following day as tourists in the City of Light, going to the Eiffel Tower, pinching pennies to go to the Musée d’Orsay, walking all the way to the Sacre-Coeur so they could see the city stretched out like a blanket before them.
At the Luxembourg Gardens, they watched a twenty-something couple get engaged and applauded till they had tears in their eyes.
They discussed how they had originally become engaged to their first partners, with Julia explaining that Jackson had always wanted everything to be a big show.
“It didn’t feel like me,” Julia said, her shoulders slumped. “It was the one time of my life I was young and beautiful and ready to be married, and my engagement felt like it should have happened to somebody else.”
Charlie took her hand and said, “You’re just as beautiful now as you were then. More so, to me.”
Julia’s heart swelled.
Julia knew that Charlie had been incredibly Charlie with his engagement, keeping things lighter and easier.
As he described the scene, Julia took his hand, knowing it wasn’t easy for him to talk about.
Charlie’s first wife had passed away tragically, and Julia always wanted him to know that he could talk about it if he wanted to.
She never wanted him to think that his first marriage wasn’t valid or that he couldn’t continue to love her.
What use was jealousy in a marriage, anyway?
By the end of a full day in Paris, Julia had made up her mind about where they needed to go next: Positano. She showed Charlie a photograph of it and watched his face transform.
“Look at that water!” he said, taking her phone. “What color would you say that is?”
“Turquoise? Sea green?”
Charlie nodded. “How do we get there?”
Julia got online and found two cheap flights from Paris to Naples.
Because they’d never been to Naples, they decided to stay in the city for one night before heading to Positano for the detective work to begin.
Charlie got online immediately and began to research the best pizza restaurants in the city, with the goal of eating at least one entire pizza by himself before they left.
At Charles de Gaulle Airport the following morning, Julia and Charlie sat waiting for the plane to board, sipping coffees and people watching.
It wasn’t long till Julia overheard a few British people talking about CAT and the drama with the publishing house.
Julia’s face wasn’t widely known, and her name wasn’t anything these people would recognize, but her publishing house’s name was smeared everywhere, including here in this airport.
“I mean, maybe Lucia is just a con artist? But they needed to do their due diligence, you know?” the girl was saying, flipping her blond hair over her shoulder.
“Remember when CAT did her London mural?” the other said, looking giddy. “I think it’s the best one she's ever done.”
“That was peak CAT,” the first agreed.
“I was really excited for CAT to make her big reveal,” the second continued. “But maybe it’s not what I actually want?”
“It would be weird if Banksy went around, introducing himself as Banksy,” the first affirmed. “I think we need a little mystery in our lives?”
“Maybe that’s what the publishing house didn’t understand,” the second said.