Page 23 of The Quiet Rebuild

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Should I? I mean, is there something I should know?”

Lindsey smiled, realizing that she was in the company of someone incredibly “offline.” He hadn’t grown up watching television. He lived in a magical world of his own creation, a world of birds and nature and travel. She smiled inwardly.

Back in the car, Jake handed the bags back to Lindsey, who peered inside, her eyes enormous. Was she hungry? Lindsey couldn’t tell. She buckled her seat belt and reminded herself that she had to treat Taylor Charron like everyone else. Taylor was in trouble. Her emotional state was ragged at best. But how could she help her? What could she possibly say?

But Jake wasn’t held back by any uncertainty. As he drove them to the beach, he asked, “How is it at the Harbor House?”

“Oh, it’s nice,” Taylor murmured. “Winona is a sweetheart.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to stay with so many people at once,” Jake said. “Do you get on each other’s nerves?”

“Not yet,” Taylor said, although this wasn’t entirely true. Lindsey knew. Taylor chuckled gently.

When they reached the beach, Jake tugged a blanket from the trunk and spread it across the sand, so that Lindsey, Taylor, and Jake could sit in a line and watch the water as they ate. Long before Taylor took her first bite, Jake pulled out his phone and began showing her photographs of the birds Lindsey and Jake had discovered that morning. Lindsey smiled foolishly, watching Taylor’s expressions, which alternated between incredulity and joy.

Eventually, Jake spotted another bird down the beach, one he wanted to get closer to, and he left Lindsey and Taylor alone with their snacks and their glasses of wine. Sunlight warmed their cheeks. Lindsey tore at her piece of baguette and cheese, wondering what to say.

But it was Taylor who spoke first. “Thanks for getting me out of my funk, or whatever that was.”

Lindsey looked at this woman, this star. “Are you all right?”

Taylor raised her shoulders. “I got a text from my dad. Apparently, my mother passed away. It’s a total shock. I haven’t seen either of them in many years, and I didn’t know she was sick. But it was also the way he texted it. It felt so sterile. Like we hardly ever knew each other.”

Lindsey remembered when she’d learned about her own mother’s death, how it had rattled her. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Taylor,” she breathed. “That’s awful.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it. I came to Nantucket to, like, heal? But all I’ve done since I got here is hide myself away. And now…” She shook her head. “There’s the funeral to deal with. There will be interviews, I guess. Probably my agent will want me to ‘use’ this opportunity to generate pity and find a new gig. But I don’t think I have the energy.”

“That’s heinous,” Lindsey whispered.

“That’s Hollywood,” Taylor said.

Taylor took a bite of pain au chocolat and chewed slowly. Lindsey found herself praying that Taylor would eat more, that she’d fill out her aching bones. Down the beach, Jake continued to bird-watch, his eyes alert, his motions slow so as not to scare the birds off.

“Your boyfriend is someone special,” Taylor said suddenly.

Lindsey let out a sharp laugh. “I met him last night,” she explained when Taylor gave her a look.

“Wow. It seems like you’ve known each other for years,” Taylor said. “There’s trust there.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Taylor set her food to the side and stretched out on the blanket, so that her blond hair spilled out behind her, and she looked angelic. “Going to that funeral means facing many, many people I haven’t seen in a long time,” she said. “It means acknowledging the mess I’ve let myself turn into.”

“You’re not a mess,” Lindsey told her.

Taylor looked at her, her hands splayed across her forehead.

“Trust me, I’ve seen messes,” Lindsey said. “I’ve been a mess. You’re not a mess.”

Of course, she said this to make Taylor feel better. But in some ways, it felt true.

“It’s impossible to let anyone into what’s really going on,” Taylor said softly. “It’s impossible to explain yourself fully. Isn’t it?”

Lindsey nodded, searching her heart for a way through this.

“I hope you know we’re here to listen to that. To try our best to understand it,” Lindsey said, thinking of her sister, of her mother’s vision for the Harbor House.

Jake returned a moment later, exuberant from his bird-watching excursion and eager to show off his photographs. Lindsey watched as Jake flicked through them, angling the phone toward Taylor Charron, a woman he’d never seen before, despite her appearance in hundreds of magazines, thousands of articles, five sitcoms, and twelve movies. He lived in another world.