Page 1 of Nantucket Reflections
ChapterOne
Summer 2025
Nantucket Island
Having such an extraordinarily large book launch wasn’t customary, especially not for a publishing house the size of Julia Copperfield’s. But after Julia secured the rights to what many were calling “the biggest and most important artist memoir in decades,” Julia, her staff, and the rest of the Copperfield family decided it was the perfect opportunity to go “all out” on a party. They even hired an official event planner for the occasion, along with Nantucket’s best caterers and pastry-makers and musicians. It was going to be the biggest event of Julia’s career and was bound to launch her publishing house into even bigger leagues, which would mean more book sales for the rest of her clients, plus her father, Bernard Copperfield, who was set to release another novel at the end of this year. A lot was riding on it. But mostly, Julia was optimistic.
Maybe she shouldn’t have counted her chickens before they hatched, so to speak.
The evening before the launch ofA Journey into the Night, Greta Copperfield insisted on having her entire family over to The Copperfield House to eat and relax before the big day. “Let me cook for you and pour wine for you and listen to you complain,” Greta said over the phone, laughing. “You’re going to be too exhausted to feed yourself.”
Julia was still at home with her husband, Charlie, going over the last of her to-do list and pulling her hair out. Charlie was across the kitchen table from her, tying his shoes and mouthing for her to get off the phone and stop working. He whispered, “You’ve checked that list a thousand times now. Everything will be fine.”
“Is that Charlie?” Greta asked over the phone, having heard him.
Julia rolled her eyes into a smile. When it came to her mother, there was no hiding, not emotionally nor in any other way. “I’ll get ready and come over ASAP.”
“You live less than ten minutes away,” Greta said. “I’ll be expecting you in fifteen or less.” She hung up, leaving Julia’s head whirling.
“You and my mother,” Julia said to Charlie, shaking her head. “Why can’t you let me drive myself crazy with panic?”
Charlie grinned and popped out of his chair to kiss her on the cheek and the forehead. “We know what’s best for you,” he told her. “Put your shoes on! Let’s go!”
Charlie drove them to The Copperfield House, his head tilted as Julia ran back through her list of fears and worries about tomorrow. But Charlie was right. Everything Julia could already plan for was taken care of. Even the so-called “most secretive artist of her generation” had reached Nantucket Island that morning and was resting up before the big event tomorrow. The preorders for the book were in, landing Julia’s publishing house millions of dollars in revenue for the year. Julia took a breath and gazed out the car window at the Nantucket Sound, which glinted turquoise in the light. Everything would be fine.
At The Copperfield House, Julia sat on the back porch with her sisters, Ella and Alana, and her mother, Greta, sipping white wine as she watched the Copperfield kids kick a soccer ball around the sand. Ella and Alana were pestering Julia for information about the artist behindA Journey into the Night, uninterested in waiting for tomorrow’s big reveal.
“But you must have met her,” Alana said, whipping her dark hair behind her shoulders. “I mean, you’re publishing her book!”
“I haven’t,” Julia told her for what felt like the tenth time. “I’ve read her book, so I know all about her upbringing and how she became the artist we know as CAT. But I don’t know her real name, not yet. She’ll reveal that tomorrow at the party!”
Ella closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s insane. I mean, I never thought she’d come out with her name. It’s almost sad, in a way. It’s like the big mystery will be over.”
“Why do you think she wanted to hide behind a fake name?” Alana asked. It felt like a singular Alana question, proof that Alana couldn’t fathom appreciating your art more than the fame you could get out of it. As an ex-model and an ex-actress, it stood to reason she wanted all eyes on her.
“Alana, darling, she’s an artist, not a fame chaser,” Greta said.
“Sure, but you put your name on your books, Mom,” Alana reminded her. “You want to claim what you’ve done as your own.”
Greta’s eyes glinted with surprise. Julia took a long sip of wine.
“Maybe she’s been in hiding,” Ella speculated. “Did the book say where she grew up?”
“She’s from Europe,” Julia said mischievously. “That’s all I’ll tell you. You have to read the book to find out more!”
“We’ve all preordered it, obviously,” Alana said.
“I’m going to freak out if it’s someone we already know,” Ella continued. “Maybe it’s someone already famous. An alter ego.”
Julia laughed and tried to change the subject. She didn’t want to give any of tomorrow’s big news away too early. She trusted her sisters, of course—but she also knew how delicious a secret was, especially in the big reveal. She wanted them to experience it tomorrow in all its glory.
What Julia had previously known about the artist known as CAT was what everyone else knew. CAT was a mysterious artist who had grown in popularity after a series of murals she’d painted throughout Europe. Like Banksy before her, CAT had slipped unnoticed into the night and painted everything from ancient walls to popular hotels, sometimes taking aim at enormous corporations or gentrification but always making a statement that instantly went viral. The fact that CAT was always referred to as a woman, despite never having been seen, was because most of her murals depicted women, and CAT felt like a female name. She’d wound up the imaginations of art appreciators and travelers, and she’d even drawn several imitators, which were debunked later by art specialists who’d gone to the sites and researched CAT’s work and decided that, no, those imitations were not CAT in the slightest.
When Julia received an email from CAT herself last summer, asking that she publish a memoir and reveal herself for the first time to the public, Julia hadn’t known what to do. She’d gone from panic to euphoria back to fear that CAT wasn’t legitimate. Immediately, she’d called a lawyer friend of hers, Susan Sheridan of Martha’s Vineyard, who’d gone over the necessary legal framework of revealing CAT to the public and said she was pretty sure it was all in the clear. After that, Julia had read over CAT’sA Journey into the Nightand recognized it for what it was—one of the most important documents of an artist’s life thus far. The rest was history or would be, she supposed.
Charlie, Quentin, Will, and several other Copperfield men carried picnic tables to the sand outside The Copperfield House, and Julia and her sisters, along with their daughters, set the tables, laughing with one another as the early evening orange sunlight played across their faces. Julia took a moment to look over at the porch, where her daughters Rachel and Anna played with Anna’s new baby, and Julia’s son, Henry, sat with his arms around his new girlfriend, the pianist Madeline. It felt remarkable that they were all there together, the massive Copperfield clan, now more than three years after Julia and the rest of the family’s big return to the island. So much had happened, and so much still was bound to happen. But they were going to conquer it together, side by side, with plenty of meals to get them through.
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