Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
October 2024
J ames reached the Italian restaurant at ten minutes to seven and was led to a table laden with flickering candles. He was oddly nervous, checking his watch and his phone. He ordered a bottle of wine plus sparkling water for the table. All day, he’d been aimlessly walking around Manhattan, listening to his favorite songs as the October sun sparkled overhead. He’d worked up an appetite. He was ready to eat.
And he was ready to talk, too.
He hoped his dinner companion wouldn’t be too late.
His thoughts drifted to when he’d met Stella Sutton in her hotel room two weeks ago. They’d talked about everything. They’d held hands. There wasn’t a single glimmer of current romantic love between them. But they still remembered the love they’d once shared. And they acknowledged how beautiful that love was—now and forever.
It felt like the closing of a very long chapter.
Now, a familiar face entered the Italian restaurant. James got to his feet, smiling generously as she strode toward him. He opened his arms, and she spoke his favorite word.
“Dad!”
Taylor looked beautiful. She hurried to hug him, then fell into the seat opposite him and began telling him all about sound check. The guy in charge at the venue had “absolutely no idea what he was doing” and then stormed out.
“Our drummer had to figure it out because they didn’t have anyone else to take over,” Taylor said. “So I was whacking the drums and playing bass at the same time. It was a big mess. They better find someone else for the gig tonight.”
“I can do it,” James said.
Taylor perked up. “That’s right. Duh! I always forget you’re such a great musician. I’ve barely heard you play your guitar in, like, years.”
James’s cheeks were inflamed.
“But yeah. I guess I read that book about you,” Taylor remembered. “You’re basically a musical genius in it.”
“I was never a genius,” James said. “Stella was in love with me. And we always think the people we love are geniuses.”
Taylor tilted her head. “I never thought of it that way. I always just assumed everyone thought Aiden was a genius, too.” She laughed. “Did you think Stella was a genius?”
“In a way,” James said. “I thought she was insanely creative and a very good conversationalist. We had loads of great talks out on the Aegean. I wish I would have recorded them.”
“She put some of them in her book,” Taylor reminded him.
But they weren’t verbatim, James wanted to tell her. They lost the magic of the original conversations. Or they were better than the original conversations.
They were fiction.
But instead, the server arrived to take their order. Taylor got pizza; James got tagliatelle.
“I can only have one glass of wine,” Taylor said. “I want to stay sharp for the gig later.”
“Of course.” James raised his glass. “To you and your tour!”
Taylor was now officially on tour. They had a brief stopover in Manhattan before proceeding to Boston, Providence, and down the coast. It wasn’t lost on James that she followed in Stella’s book tour’s footsteps. He’d followed it vaguely since he’d last seen her but hadn’t allowed himself to listen to any interviews. He needed to distance himself.
“So,” Taylor said after they’d ordered, “you have to tell me what’s going on. Did you see Stella again?”
James blushed in a way that gave himself away.
“You did!” Taylor cried.
“I did,” James admitted. “But it wasn’t romantic. We just talked.” And talked and talked and talked.
“That’s so cool,” Taylor said. She didn’t seem surprised that it hadn’t been romantic. “Did she seem different?”
“Not really,” James said. “She was still really fun and lively.”
“Did you tell her you still have the sailboat?”
“I did,” James said, remembering how much Stella had laughed when he’d said so. “I showed her a photo, and she said it looked three hundred times more sturdy than it had in 2001.”
Taylor grinned. “Are you going to keep talking?”
“I don’t know,” James said. “She texted last week, but…”
“Let me see the text,” Taylor demanded.
James winced and passed his phone over so that Taylor could read it.
STELLA: Hey, James. Thanks again for the wonderful evening. I wanted to thank you, especially for what you said about my ex-husband, Matt. You forced me to see what was right in front of me. Matt and I met in Boston the other day and talked and talked and talked. I don’t know if we’re going to try again—but we’ve opened the door. I never could have done that without you.
STELLA: I hope you can find a way to apologize to your ex-girlfriend and move forward together. I hate to see you in pain.
STELLA: I love you. I will. Forever.
Taylor gasped when she finished. James took his phone back and looked at his daughter.
“Is she talking about Kinsey?” she demanded.
James nodded. “She is.”
Taylor leaned back and crossed her arms. “Did you talk to her?”
James closed his eyes, remembering last week’s dinner with Kinsey. They’d met at a pizza place down the block from her apartment. She’d laughed about the tabloid photos and asked him about Stella; he’d apologized profusely—for not being emotionally available and not showing his love for her. He’d told her, I do love you, Kinsey. I want to try again.
But Kinsey had told him she was seeing someone else.
And James heard himself say, I’m happy for you.
He was too late.
Now, to Taylor, he said, “I did talk to Kinsey. I apologized.”
“And?” Taylor asked.
James shook his head. “I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
Taylor sighed and reached across the table to touch her father’s hand. “It’s good you were honest with her. And I think this is all really good. It means that you’ll know how to open yourself up next time you find someone. You’ll be more willing to give yourself over to love.”
James shook his head. Tears were in his eyes. “How did you get so wise?”
Later that night, as James did sound for Taylor’s gig with Bad Habit, he watched his “little girl” on stage, playing the heck out of her bass, as his heart ballooned with pride. Her hair swung wildly around as Aiden scream-sang into the mic. James’s ears hurt. He didn’t care.
It occurred to James he’d never told Taylor she was the reason he’d left Stella behind in Greece. Maybe Taylor already knew. She was no dummy. She’d done the math.
Toward the end of the gig, Taylor spoke into the mic, thanking James, “the sound guy who stepped in at the last minute. He’s always there for us.” She winked at him, and the crowd laughed although they didn’t know what was so funny.
James had no idea what was next in his life.
But as long as it included music and his daughter, he supposed he would be all right.
After the gig, James grabbed drinks with the band and walked back to Greenwich Village. Although he felt about twenty-seven, he knew from the creak in his back and the ringing in his ears that he was very much in his mid-to-late-forties. He would only get older.
Passing by a bookstore, he paused to look at the turquoise copies of The Athens Affair in the window. It was hard to believe that the book had changed so much of his life. His past had erupted through time and space to shatter his world.
The book was sold for eighteen dollars and forty-two cents.
It was now a number-one New York Times bestseller.
“Good luck, Stella,” he breathed into the glass in front of the books. “I wish you nothing but the best.”