Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
I t was the first evening of Renée’s absence from the brownstone, and Aria hated to admit how lonely she was.
Feeling like a ghost, she wandered through the empty ground floor, her feet skating over the hardwood.
She tried to imagine the many lifetimes the brownstone had gone through in the past few decades—the affairs Philip Wagner had had, the stories they’d told one another.
How many of Philip Wagner’s mistresses had assumed that he would leave Dorothy for them?
How many of them had thought that theirs was a singular love?
Was that every woman’s mistake? The thought that every love was unique and enormous? Was that her mistake with Thaddeus?
Just then, Aria’s mother texted from Nantucket.
HILARY: Renée just spent the past hour talking to your dad and me about what happened after her father’s death. Suffice it to say, she doesn’t know if her mother killed her father, and she doesn’t really care (as insane as that sounds). There’s bad blood going back further than that.
HILARY: She’s had a very hard time.
HILARY: We still don’t know what happened with the most-recent ex, though.
Aria grimaced and wrote back.
ARIA: I can’t believe Renée told you all that. She’s been SO QUIET all week. She doesn’t even say hello if we’re both in the kitchen together.
ARIA: Where is she staying?
Hilary explained via text that she’d made up a room for Renée in the guest wing of the estate.
HILARY: She’s a mystery to me. I’m fascinated but terrified.
HILARY: And look at this…
Aria’s mother sent photographs of what appeared to be a photo album from the year 1981. In it were numerous pictures of Renée, Dorothy, and Rachel, who’d died shortly after the photographs had been taken.
It looked like the perfect, idyllic Nantucket summertime. Aria knew it well.
Her head felt heavy. Before she could stop herself, she found herself back on Thaddeus’s social media, looking at photographs from his recent trip to a museum near Shoreditch.
He looked happier than she’d ever seen him.
Her fingers hovered over her screen, and her heart dared her to write to him, just to check in. But what good would that do?
But at that moment, Gina texted.
GINA: Girl, come out! Meet my friend! We’re at Station 12, not far from you.
Aria groaned. Was she really going to go out with Gina again?
Then again, anything felt better than roaming through the brownstone and thinking about her failed relationship. She hurried upstairs, put on a black dress and a dash of lipstick, and left within fifteen minutes.
Station 12 was a fancy cocktail bar with ice cubes in perfect squares and soft blue lighting.
Aria spotted Gina and a handsome blond guy in the corner, both dressed in suits, as though they’d come here from the office and hadn’t left.
When Aria reached them, it was clear they were more than tipsy and talking louder than was necessary in such an intimate place.
But Aria was surprised by how pleased she was not to be alone.
She ordered a cocktail that cost more than twenty dollars and reminded herself that she was making more money than she ever had, all because of Dorothy’s will. She could actually afford places like this, making a living, doing what she loved to do. It was remarkable.
Gina introduced her friend as Xavier Peterson, a guy who worked on her floor. He was handsome and charming and probably soulless. Aria shook his hand and asked, with a jolt of bravery that surprised her, “Have you always wanted to handle other people’s money?”
Xavier cackled and slapped his thigh. “You didn’t tell me she was one of those, Gina.”
Gina’s eyes sparkled. “She abhors people like us because she thinks she’s above it.”
Aria’s cheeks burned. Was she so transparent?
“I don’t hate you,” she said, stuttering.
“You’re an artist. We get it,” Gina said. “But the world has always needed people like us!”
“The world needs artists, too, Gina,” Xavier reminded her.
Gina made a face, then burst into giggles. Aria felt on display.
“We’re teasing you,” Gina told her, reaching out to touch Aria’s shoulder. “Aria’s been a great friend of mine since college.”
“I can’t believe you’re embroiled in the Philip Wagner situation,” Xavier said, shaking his head. “What are the chances?”
Just then, Xavier pulled out his phone to show off the paparazzi photograph taken of Aria outside the brownstone last week. The headline under it read: Wagner Brownstone
“We’ve been talking about him for hours,” Gina confessed. “We’re so curious about how he made his life work. He came from nothing and literally changed the way people make money. I mean, say what you want to about money, Aria, but we all need it to survive.”
Aria flared her nostrils and filled her mouth with the too expensive cocktail.
For a little while, they spoke of other things. Xavier talked about his Ivy League school and the woman he’d recently broken up with because he didn’t like the way she ate her food. It felt like an episode of Seinfeld , except that Aria wasn’t laughing.
But Gina and Xavier found a way to return to Philip Wagner.
“Have you found anything that belonged to him?” Xavier asked Aria now. “At the brownstone?”
Aria shook her head, remembering the office at the top of the stairs, where, she was pretty sure, some of Philip Wagner’s important documents remained. She hadn’t gotten there yet.
“There has to be something in there,” Gina said. “Something we can use?”
“I say we go back to Aria’s place and dig around a little bit,” Xavier said, rubbing his palms together.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Aria said, her heart thudding.
Gina gave her a pointed look. “Aria, come on! You used to be so fun. And it’s not like Xavier and I will take anything from the brownstone. We’ll just, you know, try to see things from Wagner’s perspective. We’ll try to get a handle on his tremendous life.”
Aria stuttered. “He hasn’t lived there in decades. I mean, he died almost thirty years ago!”
“All the more reason it isn’t a big deal!” Xavier insisted. “He’s long-dead, but he took all his creative financial wisdom with him. It isn’t fair, is it?”
Gina nodded furiously. Aria felt backed into a corner. On the one hand, she didn’t want to return to the brownstone by herself and longed for companionship during this difficult time. On the other, she hated that Gina and Xavier acted like hyenas, circling their prey.
Was Aria the prey?
“Say you’ll do it,” Gina blared angrily. “Say you’ll take us there.”
Aria realized that this had been Gina and Xavier’s plan all along.
Aria excused herself to the bathroom and gripped the edges of the sink, looking at herself in the mirror.
She needed to stage an escape plan. But when she left the bathroom, she found Gina and Xavier already at the door, waiting for her.
They’d paid for her bill, apparently. How kind of them.
Aria raised her chin and walked past them, her tongue burning.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she told them. “I’m starting to feel, um, not very good.”
But Gina and Xavier remained by her side during the five-minute walk. Aria tried to shake them off, to no avail.
But when they rounded the corner and saw the brownstone, Aria’s heart leaped into her throat.
Someone was standing on the stoop, preparing to knock.
It was a man. Mid-twenties. She knew him, sort of. His face was etched with fear.
Aria realized she’d left the lights on in the kitchen, which meant that he thought she was home.
“Who is that?” Gina asked, her voice filled with wonder.
It was then that Aria came up with a strange and exhilarating plan, one that probably wouldn’t work. Maybe it was her only hope.
“Logan! There you are!” Aria cried when they reached the steps.
Logan, the man from the bagel shop, the man who’d run away from her when Renée had shown up spontaneously, demanding to know who she was, leaped around, his hand on his heart.
Aria didn’t wait for him to protest. “I was waiting for your call,” she said, hurrying up the stairs, leaving Gina and Xavier behind.
“My friends walked me back, but they’re going home now.
They have work in the morning. Those stocks won’t trade themselves!
” At the door, she stuck the key in the lock and didn’t turn back around as she grabbed Logan’s hand, pulled him in, and slammed the door behind them.
From inside, she could hear Gina and Xavier saying terrible things about her, calling her awful names she would never repeat. They called her crazy. They said they never should have invited her out.
Gina said she’d never liked her, not even in college.
Aria stifled a laugh. It was strange what you learned about yourself after college. Life began, and you discovered who you really were.
She wasn’t a person who could ever be friends with Gina.
Miraculously, Logan was in the foyer with her, watching as she triple-bolted the lock.
“Are you locking me in?” Logan asked with a smile in his voice. “You know I can just undo them myself, right?”
Aria let out a soft laugh. She let herself gaze into his eyes, then remembered herself and said, “Wait. It’s really good to see you.” Her body was flushed with warmth.
She didn’t know why he was here and didn’t want to ask him. She didn’t want to chase him away again.
But he told her, anyway. “I saw your picture in the news, the one here at the brownstone?”
“Ah yes. The paparazzi photo,” Aria said, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve never been famous before.”
Logan laughed. The air buzzed between them, expectant. “Some of the articles speculated that you were a relative of the Wagners. But one of the sites called your mother, who explained everything about why you’re here and what you’re up to.”
“Admit it. You thought I was squatting here.” Aria crossed her arms.
“It looked a little fishy, didn’t it?”
Aria laughed and passed by him, entering the kitchen to open a bottle of wine. It felt fortuitous. He’d come at exactly the right time.
“Will you stay for a glass?” she asked, waving the bottle. “Or do you have somewhere to run off to?”
Logan chuckled. “I have nowhere to be.”
Because most of the brownstone was void of furniture, they took their wineglasses to the stoop outside and sat, watching the dark street as they drank.
The city buzzed with life. It was the literal opposite of Nantucket Island, where the only sounds came from the frothing ocean.
They clinked glasses, and Aria found herself falling into Logan’s eyes.
It was strange. A part of her wondered if this was exactly the romance Dorothy Wagner had wanted her to have. A summertime romance that helped her get over Thaddeus.
It was like Dorothy had written the story in the stars.
“How was your meeting?” Aria asked, remembering the producers and how frightened he’d been.
“They loved the shirt.” Logan laughed.
“A Philip Wagner original,” Aria declared.
“I didn’t know that then,” Logan said. “Maybe the guy was lucky. Perhaps that luck rubbed off on me. I don’t know. But the producers signed me on.”
Aria’s heart leaped. She punched him on the arm, lightly. “That’s amazing! Congratulations!”
Logan grinned. “I didn’t bring the shirt back.”
“You can keep it.” She waved him off. “I have no use for it.”
“Your job is to redesign the brownstone,” Logan said.
“And manage the emotional volatility of Dorothy’s daughter,” Aria added.
Logan gave her a blank look, so Aria filled him in.
The woman who’d come storming into the brownstone was Renée Wagner, the only living daughter of Dorothy and Philip, who’d come to the brownstone after the death of her mother, apparently because she’d gone through a breakup and had nowhere to be and no money of her own.
“You’ve got yourself a high-grade mess.”
“You can steal it for your next animation project.”
“But it sounds like you have a few mysteries to unravel,” Logan said. “You don’t know if Dorothy killed her husband. You don’t know what happened to the younger daughter. You don’t know why Dorothy hid herself away for so long.”
“There are plenty of reasons to hide yourself away.” Aria thought of her own broken heart after Thaddeus, about her fears that she’d never be enough for anyone. “Life has a way of ripping you down. Maybe it just got to be too much, especially after all she’d lost.”
Logan tilted his head back, as though he wanted a new perspective on her. After a long pause, he said, “You’ve been a mystery to me since we met, Aria. It’s like you surprise me at every turn.”
Aria rolled her eyes, not sure whether she could trust him. “I’m sure I surprised you the most when I spilled all that coffee on you.”
“Sure. That was a big one.” He wet his lips, his eyes twinkling with the street lamps. “Can I kiss you?”
It was such a surprise that it took Aria’s breath away.
She nodded.
The kiss that followed felt like wind. It knocked her head back and took her to another dimension. It filled her with a longing she hadn’t thought possible.
When their kiss broke, Logan held her head with his hands and let out a soft laugh. In the back of Aria’s mind, she thought, Uh-oh. I can’t let myself fall for him. It’s too fast.
But it was like she couldn’t help herself.