Chapter 84 Taylor
Taylor
Six Months After the Fire
One October day, the weather turns a page, the unusually hot autumn switching to a brisk, proper fall. With it comes a reality check. Taylor dons a repurposed Lingua Franca cashmere sweater and knocks on Sam’s door.
“I’m ready,” she says.
They walk quickly, with intention, though he is just mimicking her pace. If she stops even a moment, she thinks, she might not keep going.
It takes mere minutes from their apartment to reach Greenwich Lane, yet inside her, emotions layer, like thick coats of paint. As they turn the corner, they pass a lion sculpture seemingly guarding the street’s entrance—a detail she never noticed before. She never got close enough to notice.
The tears are fresh on her face, and Sam gives her shoulders a squeeze.
They make their way past redbrick townhouses.
Trees on both sides lean forward to meet in a spidery canopy, their leaves partially fallen.
A boy whizzes by on a scooter, his mother scampering behind.
There is that contained sense of neighborhood, of family order, canvases created: dinners and routines, Saturday playdates and Sunday morning pancakes. Lives lived—not lives lost.
Finally, they reach number 2, and only then does it hit Taylor that claustrophobia has not walked along with them.
Like the rest of the street, this townhouse emanates peace.
A set of three stairs lead up to the wooden front door; the street-level windows don wrought iron grilles and window boxes filled with autumn’s mums and kale.
Gray suede-looking drapes cascade down on the inside.
Below, on the basement level, are a set of half-size windows not covered with any type of metal grille.
The glass is clouded, as if covered with an opaque cloth.
These windows are too small, she supposes, to need security bars; nobody would be able to break in through them.
And nobody could break out.
Taylor recalls what her father had once told her: The building itself was like a giant chimney. She can see that now, the way it rises, the outer brick walls like the outline of a smokestack. The furniture inside like logs, fuel for the fire roasting within. The roof: an unfortunately closed flute.
“You okay?” Sam asks, and she shrugs. They stand shoulder to shoulder, closer than they need to.
Taylor tries to put herself on the other side of the small basement window, in the moment that claimed her mother’s life, a moment with which she is now all too familiar: the choke of the thick smoke, the singeing heat, the ominous crackle of things burning.
What did her mother think about in those last moments? Was it panic; was it regret? Did her mother think of her? Or did she not think at all?
For Taylor’s whole life, before her fateful conversation with Aunt Gigi, it had never occurred to her that her mother might not have even registered the fire. That she might have been in a drugged stupor.
Her mother, it turns out, was one of the lost girls.
The evidence had been there, all along, contained in the photo of her mom in the Boston bar.
When Taylor finally really examined it, looking past the mirage of who she thought her mother had been, she saw the uneven hem on her mother’s cream jacket, the sleeve button falling off.
The subtle rip in her mother’s hose. Her too-skinny frame.
Taylor exhales slowly. “It’s a weird thing to realize someone was not who you thought they were,” she says.
“I bet.”
She turns to him. “But it’s shaped me, you know? Like, maybe I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I knew the truth all along. Maybe…” Maybe I wouldn’t have been so materialistic, so drawn to wealth. But is she materialistic? Or is it that she’s naturally into fashion, like Vivian said?
Taylor’s been mulling over this question as of late, and the more she thinks about Vivian’s assessment of her, the more it niggles at her.
Perhaps Vivian’s view is skewed. After all, it seems to Taylor that people with money like to make desire out to be somehow more elevated, refined—an upper-class rebranding of want.
Why can’t want just be want—and called like it is?
“I really don’t like my job at the med spa,” she suddenly admits, feeling all kinds of raw. “I thought I would, but I don’t.”
“You going to do something about it?” Sam shifts the Red Sox hat on his head.
“Well, I need a job, so no, not right now.”
“You’re young; you’ll figure it out. Or maybe you won’t, and that’s okay, too.”
“I know I like fashion.” It feels good to say it, out loud—the want. But then she frowns. Is it fashion she likes, or is it everything it represents? It’s not really about the clothes themselves—it’s more about who wears them and the places they get to wear them, isn’t it?
Her phone buzzes, and when she sees who’s calling, heat immediately rises to her cheeks. She silences it, sending the caller to voicemail. She glances up at Sam, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“I know you like fashion. You’re good at it, too,” he replies, scratching his head beneath the hat. “Just keep at it, slow and steady; that’s how I built my career.”
“Thanks,” she replies, almost curtly. She’s annoyed by his response, but she can’t pinpoint why.
“Hey, you wanna talk about…” He gestures in front of them.
She stares hard at the basement windows, as if doing so will unlock some secret. Her tears have long dried. After a while, she gives up, shrugs. “I don’t think there’s anything to say.”
“Well, you didn’t get claustrophobic and pass out, so that’s something.”
She laughs. “True. Maybe the Knox fire cured me.”
“Nah. You cured you.”
They start walking back down the street, and her phone buzzes again, this time with a voicemail notification.
It was a chance encounter when Taylor ran into Peter outside the Knox a few weeks ago.
She’d gone by, curious about the status of construction, now nearly complete.
Peter had looked so dapper, standing on the sidewalk clutching a set of architectural plans, dressed in a fine Italian designer wool pea coat, a light stubble on his cheeks.
“Taylor!” he’d said, with surprise. “It’s nice to see you.
” He’d just returned to town, “fresh out of another stint in rehab,” he admitted, somewhat sheepishly, and that vulnerability had felt to her like an invitation, a door slowly being opened.
They stayed on the sidewalk chatting for forty minutes, until it had become obvious that although convention dictated they should bid each other goodbye, they weren’t ready to.
So, ever since, they’ve been in touch—and not just over the phone.
Her heart quickens as she recalls the last time she saw him: the half-drunk bottle of expensive Barolo at the bedside, the crown of Peter’s head moving slowly down her navel, the 600-thread count Egyptian sheets rippling beneath them like the Nile.
Damn, those bedsheets deserve their sticker price.
The Knox is hiring; we’ve got a lot of roles to fill. Are you interested? Peter asked her the other day. He’s calling to follow up; she owes him an answer.
But Taylor doesn’t have one yet.
As she and Sam reach the end of the street, Sam pauses to check his watch. “Hey, want to grab a croissant at Ly’s Pastry Shoppe? I think it’s still open. My treat?”
“I can’t. I have to stop by the med spa and finish up some paperwork from yesterday.”
“No worries. Next time.”
But as they part ways, Taylor doesn’t head in the direction of the office.
Instead, she wanders aimlessly, turning down one block and then another.
Under the web of tree branches, she moves from one shadow to the next, lost in her thoughts.
She’s reminded of those car rides she used to take in North Carolina, how she’d drive for hours without a destination.
Just keep at it, slow and steady, Sam’s voice echoes in her mind—and a restlessness starts building in her like a brewing storm.
He doesn’t understand her—not really. It’s probably why she never fully opened up to him. She never could show him the real her—not all of it, at least. Only bits and pieces, toe dips into the ocean.
Why can’t want just be want—and called like it is?
Taylor’s long tried to deny the yearnings inside her, to reshape them, even, like molding wet sand. But the castles she’s been attempting to build keep collapsing.
Why can’t want be want? Desire just desire?
She repeats these words like a mantra, and her feet start moving like they have a mind of their own. Zigzagging through the streets, Taylor finds herself heading north. As if pulled by a current, she cuts through the Public Garden, dipping beneath willow trees, slipping past manicured hedges.
She soon reaches the main thoroughfare of Beacon Hill, where the wrought iron lampposts stand tall and steady like lighthouse beacons.
A few quick turns later, she’s stepping onto the cobblestones of Clapboard Street and directly into the postcard.
Taylor feels light now, effortlessly gliding over the bumpy terrain as if it’s the yellow brick road.
The stately redbrick buildings fold her within their embrace: velvet curtains drawn, crystal chandeliers warmly lit, brass door knockers polished to a gleam.
Like they’ve been expecting her.