Page 31 of Nantucket Gala

Henry sighed and shook his head. “I told him I had Sophia’s approval to write the script.”

“Oh.”

Henry raised his chin to look at his grandmother. He expected her to scowl with disappointment, but her smile was cagey, as though she were about to burst into giggles. He didn’t understand it.

“It’s just as I always said,” Greta offered. “You have to do what you want to creatively. And you can ask for forgiveness later.”

Henry palmed the back of his neck. “Barry seems eager to get started. But what he read is only a draft. I want to change it here and there. I want to understand the Natalie character a little more.” His head throbbed with an incoming headache. “When I go back to LA, I might ask Sophia more about her. Maybe she had a hand in hiring her for The Brutal Horizon. Maybe she saw the beginnings of Francis and Natalie’s affair.”

Greta furrowed her brow. “Remember, you aren’t trying to make a documentary. You can deviate from the story whenever you please.”

But Henry was beginning to think that wasn’t so. Sophia was a real person. She’d spent decades of her life in that big house in Beverly Hills all by herself.Alone with her maids and her memories, he thought.

“Why do you think Sophia never wanted to write this story herself?” Henry asked finally.

Greta took a sip of tea and cast her eyes to the dark window. From where they sat in silence, they could hear the waves crash along the beach.

It reminded Henry of what it must feel like to live in a lighthouse.

“I’ve wondered that myself,” Greta offered.

“Right? She was such a talented writer. Why didn’t she try to make it on her own after Francis left for Europe? Or why didn’t she go with him to Europe in the first place? Why did she hibernate? Why did she give up?”

“It sounds like you have a lot of questions to answer,” Greta pointed out.

“But you must remember what it was like for her after Francis left.” Henry dug deeper. He felt his grandmother was hiding something but wasn’t sure why.

Greta leaned back in her chair. She didn’t look at Henry when she said, “Sophia was devastated when Francis left, obviously. She didn’t want him to go.”

“But why did he go?” Henry demanded. “Did he escape the legal system?”

It occurred to him that he wasn’t entirely sure how all that worked. Maybe France had agreed to hide him because he was such an artist. To Henry, that sounded vaguely French.

“No,” Greta said, laughing gently. “But there was a smear campaign against him. Everyone was sure that Francis Bianchi was a murderer. All of his producers backed out ofThe Brutal Horizon. Many high-profile actors said they wouldn’t work with him. If he wanted to continue to make films, he had to do it elsewhere.”

Henry pressed his lips together and realized they were hard and chapped.

“I have to figure out why Sophia didn’t go with him,” Henry said, his head down as he watched the steam unfurl from his tea.

Greta touched Henry’s hand. “Don’t get too carried away, Henry. Remember this is just a story.”

“It could be my first big break,” Henry said, suddenly terrified. “I need it to be right.”

Chapter Eleven

June 1985

Nantucket Island

When Sophia turned the corner back to the hotel, she first spotted the paparazzi. They were strewn like vultures across the sidewalk, their cameras flashing at the hotel, several with hands on their hips, talking to one another beneath the sweltering sun, probably asking about their newspapers and magazines and how much they were paid for a good photograph. Sophia wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand, she was thrilled thatThe Brutal Horizonwas getting so much press. But on the other, she wasn’t accustomed to being photographed. The idea that so many people across the world knew her as Francis Bianchi’s wife—as his third wife, in fact—both thrilled and annoyed her. She couldn’t very well sit down with each one of them and show them who she really was. She couldn’t tell them what she really wanted to say. Francis didn’t really love his second wife, and he felt forced to marry his first wife because of the time they were living in. After all, it was another era with different morals, and… Well, basically,he married Sophia because he loved her, and it was really the first time that’d happened. So what did they want to say to that? Would they print that in their magazine? Would they tell the truth for once?

She couldn’t say all that. So she had to let them think whatever they wanted.

She couldn’t even tell them she was pregnant.

She couldn’t tell Francis, either.

That was the worst of all—the lack of control.

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