Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
It was five days before the Christmas party at the Copperfield House.
Saying Greta was “frantic” was an understatement.
Although Ella, Alana, and Julia took turns telling their mother how prepared she was and how perfect it would all be, Greta seemed to add things to her to-do list by the hour.
She went to the grocery store anywhere between two and five times a day, so much so that the cashiers had begun to make bets about how often they would see her.
“She needs to be stopped,” Ella said to Stevie as they set up in one of the practice rooms at the Copperfield House. “She’s going to make herself sick!”
“I’d love to see someone try to slow her down.” Stevie grinned. “The woman’s got a fire in her. She won’t rest till the new year.”
Ella laughed and sat down at the little desk to go over Stevie’s newly written lyrics, most of which she’d scribed during her epic drive across the country.
“But I’ve had a lot of inspiration since I arrived,” Stevie confessed, her eyes to the ceiling.
“That room upstairs is so quiet and warm and nice. And the other artists are always working, always building one another up. At first, I thought maybe they didn’t want someone new in their cohort, but we all took to each other right away.
” Stevie looked bashful, as though she wasn’t expecting to be liked at all.
Ella was mystified at this. Who in their right mind wouldn’t like Stevie?
And how was it possible that Stevie’s daughter had cut her off?
Most of Stevie’s lyrics, Ella now saw, delved into the tragedy of Stevie’s breakup with her daughter.
Stevie spoke of loneliness, of giving her entire heart to her daughter, of her daughter's rejection.
She wrote with a sense of heart that would connect with any listener, Ella was sure.
Ella was surprised by how honest it felt.
“They’re raw,” Stevie confessed, strumming her guitar and watching Ella flip through her lyrics. “They probably need to be edited a bit.”
“They’re from the heart,” Ella corrected. “They’re wonderful.”
Ella explained that their agent, Greg, had peeked at some of the videos Laura made of Stevie, Ella, and Will performing together. “He loves what he’s seen so far,” she said. “He wants us to arrange a little tour for spring. Would you be up for something like that?”
Stevie’s cheeks were peach and pink, echoing her joy. “I don’t have a single thing planned for the new year,” she said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure the rest of my life is wide open. Let’s do it!”
For the better part of that afternoon, Ella and Stevie rehearsed the new songs, fine-tuned some of the key changes, and waited for Will to join them on the drums. When he finally appeared, his face was slack and very pale, so much so that Stevie’s voice cut out, and she asked into the microphone, “What’s up, Will?
Are you feeling okay?” She quickly turned off the mic and blushed, her face marred with worry.
Ella hurried over to him and touched his shoulder. She’d seen Will at every stage of sorrow and illness, but she struggled to gauge where this expression put him.
To Ella’s relief, Will tried to laugh it off. “I just got a call from Water Works. Calvin says they’re going in a different direction with the song.”
Ella’s heart lifted. Was that all? Just some silly company run by some silly, wealthy guy?
“It’s okay, honey,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “The offer was a surprise anyway, wasn’t it? And we’ll be fine without the gig.”
Stevie looked at them expectantly, not understanding. Ella turned to explain, “Some really wealthy guy was going to feature our song on his commercial.”
“He’s not just any wealthy guy,” Will countered. “He’s actually doing something with his money. He wants to clean up the oceans by 2035. How many wealthy people do you know who’re working for that kind of future?”
“But it’s not like our music was going to help that happen,” Ella said, her voice tender.
Will sighed and sat in front of the drums, adjusting his sticks in his hands.
“I know that. It’s just a song. It’s just a commercial.
You know, I was thinking about when we were younger.
Stupidly, I really thought music could save the world.
I thought if I wrote the perfect song, everything would change.
But then you get older, and you realize how young and idealistic you were.
You realize music is just music.” Ella had never heard Will talk like this before.
Silence rang out in the practice room.
“I still think a great song can change things,” Stevie said quietly. “Does that make me naive?”
“No,” Ella assured her, although she wasn’t sure if that was true. “I can think of some songs that transformed my outlook on things. They certainly changed my heart.”
Will flipped his drumstick in his hand, contemplative. It was clear he needed to bang his drums, to get out of his own head. “It’s weird,” he went on. “I didn’t hear from Grayson at all. Just this Calvin guy. I don’t get a good feel for him. He seems slimy. Not like Grayson.”
“I’m sure Grayson’s busy. He’s in Paris, remember? He’s got a life we don’t know anything about,” Ella said. “And you said that you guys really bonded. Maybe he’s embarrassed that Water Works can’t go forward with the contract. But business is business, Will.”
“Grayson?” Stevie’s voice cracked.
Ella and Will turned to look at their friend, wavering next to the microphone. Her eyes were enormous platters.
“Grayson Harris,” Will supplied. “I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”
Stevie folded her lips. “Maybe.”
Ella felt as though the air in the room tightened. Ella studied Stevie’s face, searching for clues. But Stevie fixed her smile almost immediately.
“Should we get started?” Stevie asked.
Ella nodded. She swiftly walked Will through the alterations they’d made to the songs so far and how they planned to play them for the Christmas party. Will caught on to everything quickly, just as he always did.
Soon after, Greta appeared in the doorway, smiling. She told them that she couldn’t wait to hear their set at the party. “Everyone’s counting on you!” she cried, before disappearing. Maybe she’d decided on another fifty-odd jobs she needed to do before the party.
After they finished rehearsing the next song, Stevie staggered from the microphone. “I need a break,” she said, giving them a false smile.
“You okay?” Ella’s head rang with confusion. During the last few takes, Stevie’s singing voice had been especially powerful, as though she were experiencing heartbreak all over again.
“I’m fine,” Stevie assured her. “Just tired. I was up late, writing and rehearsing.”
“That’s the way of the Copperfield House,” Will said. “People come here and get obsessed with their craft. There’s an energy. It’s infectious.”
Stevie said she felt it. “It’s scary,” she agreed, turning the knob and disappearing.
Ella and Will sat in silence for a few seconds. Ella studied the door, listening for Stevie’s return. “Something’s going on with her,” she said.
“She’s just excited,” Will affirmed. “And everyone gets weird around Christmas.”
Ella laughed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He wasn’t always so aware of the unsaid, of what circled in the air between people. But she loved him anyway.
* * *
Their rehearsal finished for the day, Ella and Stevie parted ways and promised to meet up again as early as tomorrow to practice and walk on the snowy beach. There was a darkness in Stevie’s eyes, something Ella couldn’t fathom and felt too frightened to ask about.
“The more we play together, the more I wish I had stayed in New York,” Stevie said before walking down the hall.
Ella’s head rang with possible answers. She imagined saying, “Everything happened the way it was supposed to!” or “We’re here together now!” But she knew that Stevie was swimming with regret. She didn’t want to force her to feel anything she didn’t want to.
Back in the kitchen of the Copperfield House, she found Laura and her cousins, Scarlet and Anna, decorating Christmas cookies like their lives depended on it.
“Grandma says we have to do three hundred before the end of the day,” Scarlet said, grimacing into a smile.
Ella assessed the stack of frosted cookies and sighed.
“I guess you need help,” she said, sitting next to Laura and picking up a reindeer cookie.
As she sat and smeared frosting, she listened to her daughter, her brother’s and sister’s daughters discuss the intricacies of being a twentysomething in a world so different from Ella’s.
The three of them were quite impressive.
Scarlet was a documentarian who helped her father, Quentin, make hard-hitting pieces.
She also helped her mother, Catherine, with difficult-to-carry journalistic pieces, some of which touched on family secrets from generations ago.
Anna was a young mother who’d lost her fiancé right after he’d proposed and subsequently discovered her pregnancy.
Now, she was happy and in love with someone new, a guy she’d met right here at the Copperfield House.
Anna was telling Laura about the beauty of being a new mother. “All of your priorities change,” she explained, reaching for another cookie. “Everything you thought you cared about, everything you thought that mattered, all flutters out of your head, and you become free in a way.”
“Free?” Laura looked surprised.
“Maybe free isn’t the word.” Anna wrinkled her brow. “But you’re free from everything you once thought that mattered.”
“Free of grad school,” Laura said, glancing at her mother.
“Maybe you’re free of too much inner criticism,” Scarlet guessed, although she was still child-free. “Maybe all this love pours out of you, and you have no time to think anything bad about yourself.”
Anna snapped her fingers. “That’s pretty close!”
Ella watched her daughter’s expression as she took in this information.
She looked like she wasn’t sure if she believed it.
And then, because she knew Greta wasn’t watching, she ate the very cookie she’d just decorated.
Anna and Scarlet burst into giggles and did the same with their most recent cookie.
“At this rate, we’ll never be done,” Scarlet said.
“Girls!” Greta called from somewhere down the hall, “I’d better see stacks and stacks of frosted cookies!”
Scarlet called back with her mouth full. “We’re almost done!”
At this, the girls cackled louder, holding their stomachs.
Ella grinned along with them, feeling like an outsider from their girlhood troupe.
Oh, but she was grateful for their words of wisdom for Laura.
As her mother, she knew she could only give Laura so much advice before Laura rejected her.
Ella’s tactic was emotional support. Her approach was to be there. But she didn’t want to overwhelm her.
Plus, Stevie’s story about her own daughter terrified her. What if, one day, Laura looked at Ella and thought, no, I don’t want this, you’re not good enough?