Page 12 of Nantucket Gala

“She’s proud,” Henry said. “But you know how she is, I guess?”

Sophia beamed. “She’s one of the smartest and most driven women I know.”

Their drinks arrived. Henry filled his mouth with beer.

“I wanted to ask that, too. How did you first meet my grandmother?”

Sophia tilted her head. “You don’t know?”

Henry didn’t want to say that he didn’t know anything and was dying for every detail, so he just shook his head.

“Your grandfather Bernard was Francis’s protégé back in Italy,” she explained. “That was before he met your grandmother in Paris. Before Bernard gave up on filmmaking. It must have been the early seventies?”

Henry’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know Grandpa wanted to be a filmmaker.”

“It was a brief and fiery time of his life,” Sophia said. “But he loved your grandmother and writing far more than he loved film. What year would they have moved to Nantucket?”

Henry shook his head. “Beats me.”

“It must have been 1973 or 1974.”

“Even before you came out to Hollywood,” Henry said.

“Right. But I didn’t meet your grandparents until after I met Francis, obviously. He introduced us on a trip to Nantucket in the early eighties.” Behind her glasses, Henry could see her squint. “I’m trying to figure out which of those children is yourmother. Goodness, I couldn’t believe how many of them they had. Four! How does anyone keep track of four children?”

Henry did not say that they didn’t keep track of them. Everyone left in the nineties when Grandpa went to prison. They only just found one another again.

We were still picking up the pieces.

It was best not to drudge up the darkness of the past.

“There was the pretty one who went on to be a model,” Sophia counted on her fingers. “There was the quiet, bookish one. And there was the one who was always singing.”

Henry smiled. His mother and aunts hadn’t changed a bit over the years.

“I think your grandmother mentioned that Alana never had children of her own,” Sophia deduced. “And because you’re interested in writing, I have to guess you’re Julia’s kid. The bookish one.”

Henry applauded her. “You have a great memory.”

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Sophia said. “I can remember everything. It’s painful. But it’s served me well, too.”

Henry scrutinized her face and tried to imagine what she’d been like in the eighties when she’d married Francis in an iconic ceremony, one the internet said was “a who’s-who affair of Hollywood elite.” Martin Scorsese had given a speech. Quentin Tarantino hadn’t been on anyone’s mind yet. He’d been nobody.

“Did my grandparents go to your wedding?”

“They couldn’t make it,” Sophia said. “Too many children! Too many artists at the residency. Too many things to do.”

Henry smiled. “What were they like back then?”

“Probably about the same as they are now,” Sophia said. “Your grandmother was wildly intelligent and creative, and Bernard was always trying to keep up with her. Of course, I was the least surprised of anyone when rumors of Bernard’s affair circulated.”

Henry perked up. Like everyone else in the Copperfield clan, he knew all about Marcia Conrad and the violence she’d wrought.

“He didn’t cheat,” Henry pointed out. “Marcia Conrad set him up.”

Sophia removed her sunglasses to show her glinting eyes. “That’s right,” Sophia said. “I’d forgotten.”

But it was clear from her expression that she didn’t really believe what she said.

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