Page 12 of Nantucket Reflections
When it hit eight in the morning, Susan Sheridan called Julia instead of the other way around. Julia’s adrenaline spiked. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and answered.
“What a night you had,” Susan said, her voice bright but intellectual, ready for anything.
“I don’t even know how to start something like this,” Julia admitted.
“This other CAT, this Lucia Colombo,” Susan began, “do you know where she is?”
“She checked out of her hotel. She might be off the island. I don’t know.”
“But it’s her real name, isn’t it? You have that on her at least,” Susan said. “It means she can’t get too far if she tries to travel.”
“How do I find someone like this? A private detective? What?” Julia’s thoughts ran in circles.
“She committed a crime,” Susan reminded her.
“I mean, she wrote a book. It isn’t illegal to write a book,” Julia said, standing up and pacing the kitchen. She could feel Charlie’s eyes on her from the corner, where he nursed a cup of coffee and read the same news she’d been up all night burning through.
“But she advertised that book as non-fiction. She impersonated someone and tried to capitalize on it,” Susan said.
“But CAT isn’t a real person, per se. Is she?” Julia took a breath. “I can’t help but feel stupid. Like, I didn’t check all my boxes. Like I got too excited and ran with something.”
“I checked up on her, too, remember?” Susan said. “Whoever Lucia Colombo is, she’s smart. She knew how to create a story with very few and very small holes.”
Susan told Julia not to feel stupid and to hang on tight. But Julia couldn’t help but feel out of her mind with grief, watching as more and more preorders were canceled and her publishing house was demonized. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her career going.
Due to the chaos of the book launch and her inability to make any big moves, Julia went back to The Copperfield House that afternoon to be with family. Her son, Henry, was there, drinking iced tea with Greta on the back porch, while his girlfriend, Madeline, played piano on Bernard’s grand. It was a pleasant and dreamy sound that brought tears to Julia’s eyes. Greta tried to force her to eat lunch, but chewing felt laborious. Julia felt she was nursing a broken heart. It reminded her of that time three years ago, when her husband had left her to take a job in China and she’d fled to Nantucket. She thought her grief was over.
Henry and Madeline had many ideas about what she should do next. Because they were in their twenties, every option seemed valid and almost exciting, for them at least.
“You should go to Paris and find her,” Madeline said.
“Or Positano,” Henry suggested, eating a slice of toast. “You should ask around about Lucia and see if anyone knows who the real CAT might be.”
“Yeah!” Madeline cried. “Maybe she’s still there. Perhaps Lucia is her enemy or something. Maybe she painted another mural to teach Lucia a lesson in the midst of her ‘big reveal’?”
“So much drama.” Greta put her hands on her hips.
“Italians are dramatic.” Madeline giggled.
“But that drama’s why we’ve gotten so much of the world’s greatest art,” Henry pointed out. “Da Vinci.The Godfather!”
“Those are your two great examples?” Madeline teased.
Henry shrugged. “I’m a screenwriter! I’m supposed to loveThe Godfather.”
Eventually, Julia found herself where she felt most comfortable in her father’s study, watching as he smoked a cigar out the window and toward the pink clouds of sunset. Somehow, an entire day had passed. She was telling her father that she’d reported her interest in Lucia Colombo to the police, but they’d told her that Lucia hadn’t yet left the island, at least not through any available ferries. That didn’t mean she hadn’t left via a private sailboat.
“I feel hopeless, Dad,” she told him, slumping over in her chair.
Bernard arched a white eyebrow and puffed his cigar. “You have to remember your other writers, your other clients,” he said. “You have to keep going for them. They’re relying on you.”
What Julia couldn’t tell her father (another of her clients) was that if she had to return every single preorder forA Journey into the Night, the publishing house might not recover.
“Keep hustling,” her father said. “Find a few new clients this week. Don’t let yourself grovel. It’s all we Copperfields can do. Remember?”
But at that moment, there was a knock on the door, forcing Julia from her downtrodden reverie. Bernard called, “Come in!” and Henry and Madeline burst through the door, waving their phones.
“She’s singing karaoke at The Rusty Nail!” Madeline cried.
