Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
It took all of Stevie’s strength to rip her eyes away from Grayson’s.
Audience applause filtered out, but her ears continued to ring with the intensity of their set.
Mostly, to keep in line with Greta’s vision, they’d played Christmas songs, but Stevie had sung them as though she were on the edge of heartbreak.
She’d felt Grayson’s curiosity about her.
She’d felt his need for her. She’d also felt her inner rage, remembering how they’d abandoned each other during her tremendous time of need.
I never told him, she thought now as she unplugged her guitar, clearing the stage for the next musician.
He doesn’t know about Joni. He should know about Joni.
He should know that I wasn’t strong enough to keep her from leaving me.
He should know that his daughter left me, just like he did.
Her thoughts chased themselves in circles.
She thought she was going to throw up.
As she stepped off the stage, a beautiful French woman with sharp cheekbones appeared before her. She was maybe twenty-five, wearing a black jumpsuit and her hair in messy curls. “That was so wonderful,” the woman said. “You are the very best singer I have ever heard.”
Something about the urgency in the woman’s eyes gave Stevie pause. “Thank you,” she said. She didn’t trust her own voice.
“Really,” the woman pushed, clasping her own hands. “It has been a very long time since someone’s voice cracked me open.”
Stevie was caught off guard. Something about the woman’s face tugged at her. It was then Stevie realized that she looked so much like Joni. She was speechless.
Suddenly, a man appeared beside the French woman. Stevie knew better than to look up at him. Slowly, all the pieces of the puzzle were clicking into place.
“Papa,” the French woman said, raising her chin, “was she not wonderful?”
Stevie’s hands shook so violently that she thought she might drop her guitar.
She hated how foolish she felt. In Grayson’s eyes, she probably looked old, washed-up, and sad.
She didn’t have the money to buy herself the right oils, creams, and face treatments to make herself look young and pretty.
She wore her years on her face. She was proud of them, sometimes.
“She was electric,” Grayson said.
At this, Stevie forced herself to look at him, and a shiver went down her spine. Just as she’d felt at twenty, Grayson’s gaze made her feel like more than the meek West Virginian she was. He gave her the force of twenty women. He made her feel the weight of her big, beating heart.
“Camille,” Grayson said, “I had the pleasure of listening to Stevie perform in Manhattan before you were born.”
Stevie closed her eyes. It was too much. Maybe she was dreaming.
“You are very lucky,” Camille said. “Both of you are lucky to have experienced the New York City of that era anyway. Everyone is telling me that I am twenty years too late.”
Stevie forced herself to look at the young woman, the young woman who’d once been the unborn baby who’d taken Grayson from Manhattan. She was Joni’s half sister. It didn’t take long for tears to drift from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Stevie said. “Performances are always emotional for me.”
“We are also crying!” Camille said. She touched Stevie’s shoulder. “You are a star.”
After that, Camille disappeared through the crowd, leaving Stevie and Grayson alone together. Stevie wet her lips. She couldn’t drop Grayson’s gaze, not now. It was too intense.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Grayson said.
“I didn’t know you’d be here either,” Stevie said.
“It feels strange,” Grayson offered. “I mean, I haven’t seen you since…”
“It’s been twenty-five years,” Stevie said.
In her mind, she could hear Joni’s first cries in the Los Angeles hospital room. She’d promised to take care of her. She’d promised that Stevie was all Joni needed. But Joni had needed her father. Joni had needed Grayson.
At that point, a woman Stevie had been introduced to earlier arrived on stage with an acoustic guitar and began to sing.
Her name was Aurora. For a moment, Stevie and Grayson turned to watch her, wordless, as her beautiful and melodious voice streamed through the crowd.
Her songs were more background music than Ella, Will, and Stevie’s performance, and people slowly turned toward the food table, chatting about the music, the food, and Greta’s divine party.
Stevie needed a drink more than anything.
Without saying anything to Grayson, she turned and rushed for the drink table, where she grabbed a glass of wine and took a long, eager sip. Grayson took one for himself and raised it to her. “To old times,” he said.
Stevie allowed him a meek smile. She imagined spitting it out immediately. “I had your baby. I was in California, raising your baby alone, while you raised Camille in Paris.” She imagined the hush from the crowd. She imagined Grayson falling apart.
But she wasn’t much for drama. Her heart raced.
“How are you?” Grayson asked, which felt like a flimsy question, given the circumstances.
When she said she was okay, Grayson pushed it. “Where have you been living?”
“Los Angeles,” she said.
“And have you been making music?”
She shook her head. “I recently started again,” she explained. “Life got in the way.”
Grayson scratched the back of his neck. It was strange.
His mannerisms were the same as they’d been when he was twenty-four, when she’d ached to be near him.
He smelled the same, too. Not his cologne, which was something else, something expensive.
But the scent beneath the cologne, his essence, was the same.
Stevie closed her eyes and swam with memories.
“I can’t believe how long it’s been,” Grayson said again. He sounded disappointed, as though he’d hoped she’d tell him more about herself. As though he’d wanted a reunion that he could tell his friends about in Manhattan.
But what could they say to one another? The truth was too powerful.
The crowd parted to deliver Ella and Will to the drink table. Ella was flushed after the concert, and Will beamed like a much younger man.
“Ella! Will!” Grayson said exuberantly. “You didn’t tell me you were playing with the iconic Stevie Franklin! You know, we knew each other back in the day?”
Will laughed. “Really? I knew you were in and out of the scene, but I couldn’t remember who you met.”
Stevie found Ella’s eyes and saw that Ella suddenly remembered. Ella’s lips parted with surprise. She looked at Stevie, then at Grayson, and didn’t say anything for a good ten seconds. “You used to come to the burger place,” she said finally. “Before Stevie left town.”
Stevie’s heart shot into her stomach. Ella hadn’t just remembered. Ella had put two and two together to figure out that Grayson was Joni’s father, and that this meeting was heartbreaking and confusing. Stevie wanted to escape.
“I guess we both left town at around the same time?” Grayson suggested. “We went in opposite directions.”
“I guess we did,” Stevie breathed.
A beat passed. Ella slid her fingers through Stevie’s and tugged. “Stevie and I need to put a few things away,” she explained to Grayson and Will.
“We already took everything downstairs,” Will said, none the wiser.
Ella gave him a meaningful look. “We forgot something.”
“I can help you!” Will said.
“No.” Ella was stern. “Stay with Grayson. He came all the way from Manhattan. Show him a good time.”
Will shrugged as Ella tugged Stevie into the crowd, back down the hallway, and into the warmth of the main house.
Most everyone at the party was still in the concert hall, but a few stragglers remained by the fire, sipping wine and watching the snow come down.
Stevie felt as though she were in a dream.
Back there was her ex, the father of her daughter.
If she went up the stairs, would she meet some other impossible person? Picasso? David Bowie? Frida Kahlo?
Anything seemed possible now.