DAISY LEANED OVER THE BALCONY and gazed at the sun spreading over the Aegean Sea. White houses gleamed in the morning light and the ocean was a sheet of sparkling diamonds. She saw cliffs spotted with purple flowers and boats pulled up on the shore and thought she had never seen a more beautiful sunrise.
She remembered the dinner party last night and flinched. At first it was intoxicating being in a room with Academy Award winners and U.S. senators and a male model who was on the cover of GQ. The crusted feta cheese was delicious and Blake uncorked endless bottles of Moët & Chandon.
But then an old family friend cornered her next to the grand piano and asked if she planned to follow Brigit’s footsteps and join the family foundation. Daisy had rolled Santorini cherry tomatoes around her plate and murmured she felt terrible about the conditions in Ecuador but she had no desire to dig houses in the mud.
The costar of Blake’s new movie had asked where she could find Daisy’s designs and Daisy wanted to reply they only existed on her glass dining room table and in the sewing room of her best friend’s brownstone. Instead she swallowed another glass of champagne and smiled, saying that as soon as she returned from Santorini she was lining up meetings with buyers at Bergdorf’s and Saks.
She’d glanced around the dining room at the glittering chandeliers and flickering candles and wanted to say she had a terrible headache and was going to bed. But then she caught sight of Blake whispering in Brigit’s ear and a warmth spread through her chest.
For the last six months of Brigit’s marriage, Brigit had acted like a schoolgirl afraid of failing a math test. When Daisy joined Brigit and Nathaniel at Serafina for their weekly pasta dinner, Brigit’s cheeks were pale and her shoulders tensed. She’d wrapped buckwheat fettuccini around her fork and exclaimed it was the best thing she’d ever tasted as if she was enjoying her meal for two. Nathaniel had slumped in his chair with his baseball cap pulled over his ears and sipped his third strawberry basil martini.
But now Brigit’s hair was glossy and her skin glowed and a smile played on her lips. She took Blake’s arm and introduced him to a Vanderbilt and a DuPont and a cousin of the Kennedys’. Daisy studied Blake’s smooth dark hair and tan cheeks and thought they looked like a movie poster.
* * *
Daisy gazed at the blue domed roofs and didn’t want to go downstairs and bump into any lingering guests eating yogurt with walnuts and honey. She didn’t want to explain she hadn’t brought a date because she hadn’t had a boyfriend since she’d split up with an artist who’d used her tiny apartment to hang his sketches.
She slipped on a yellow blouse and long floral skirt. Her hair was wound in a ponytail and she strapped on leather espadrilles. She ran down the circular staircase and raced down the stone steps into the garden.
The steep path to Fira was crowded with old men leading donkeys. There were racks of brightly colored postcards and stands selling watermelon and apricots. She entered a café and inhaled the scent of cinnamon and vanilla.
She sat at a table by the window and ordered black coffee and fruit salad. She looked up and saw a man with curly hair and brown eyes. He wore a cotton shirt and had a silver camera slung over his shoulder.
“You need to eat more than that.” He walked over to her table. “The Corner restaurant serves the best omelets in Fira with feta cheese and bacon and green onions.”
“I can’t swallow anything until I drink some very black coffee.” She grimaced.
“Late night?” the man asked. He had a British accent and a small dimple on his chin.
“You’re Nathaniel’s friend, the photographer.” Daisy started, suddenly feeling as if she’d forgotten to put on a blouse. “I shouldn’t talk to you outside of the villa.”
“I thought Americans were supposed to be friendly.” He pulled out a chair. “Nathaniel went for a hike and I have no one to eat breakfast with. Could I join you?”
Daisy slipped on white oval sunglasses. She didn’t want Robbie to report back to Nathaniel that the bride’s sister was terribly rude.
“I suppose it’s alright,” she relented. “I won’t be here long, I’m only having coffee.”
“Of course you will, there’s nothing to do in Santorini except sit at a café and drink iced coffee and eat honey baklava.” Robbie smiled. “Then the sun gets so hot you can’t walk on the cobblestones, so you go back to your hotel and take a nap. In the evening, you climb to the castle in Oia to watch the sunset and think you didn’t know such beauty existed. Then you sit at another café and do the same thing again.”
“Have you been here long?” Daisy giggled.
“Nathaniel and I arrived yesterday, but I’ve spent a lot of time on Greek islands.” Robbie shrugged. “You have to think like a local, or you’ll end up with a sunburn and blisters.”
“I drank too much champagne last night,” Daisy admitted. “I hardly ever drink champagne, but everyone kept asking where they could find my dresses.”
“How long have you been a designer?” Robbie asked.
“About four months. Before that I was pastry chef and I spent a summer clerking at a law firm.” Daisy poured sugar into the ceramic cup. “I was trying to decide whether to go to law school, but I couldn’t imagine spending my life sifting through files to find the one sentence that could change someone’s life. What if I got it wrong? I’d never forgive myself.” She sipped her coffee.
“Have you always wanted to be a photographer?”
“When I was twenty I spent two months between university terms working as a line cook in Provence. Then I traveled around Europe with the Nikon camera I got for my birthday and pretended I was Richard Avedon or Helmut Lang.” Robbie grinned. “I thought if I could show my parents I had talent I wouldn’t have to go back to London and study trigonometry. One day I walked past the embassy in Istanbul and it blew up. All these people sitting in cafés drinking Turkish coffee or laden with shopping bags were suddenly caught in an international incident.
“I didn’t stop to think, I just started taking pictures,” he continued. “I never realized life could change in an instant. One minute you’re a tourist bartering for a woven jacket, the next you are surrounded by blood and screaming.
“I sold the photos to Time magazine and was hooked. I traveled to Tokyo after the tsunami and Nepal to cover the earthquake. I arrived in Paris hours after the attack on Charlie Hebdo and I was on the airstrip when soldiers returned from Iraq.
“I photograph other things, of course, but so much of life is focused on acquiring shiny objects. It’s important to remember the greatest thing we have is the will to survive.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get on a soapbox. I’ve learned having coffee with a pretty girl on a Greek island is as good as it gets.”
“You are lucky to be certain about your future,” Daisy murmured. “Brigit has always been sure about everything: what kind of puppy we should get when we were children, where to go to college, what brand of lipstick to use. I bring home ten shades of Bobbi Brown lip gloss and have a dozen coffee flavors in my cupboard and every time I find the perfect career I discover something I’d rather do.” She fiddled with her napkin. “I love creating sketches and choosing fabric but fashion design is as hard to break into as the Olympics.
“The only constant in my life is Edgar, my French bulldog. But he makes terrible conversation and he drools at dinner.”
“Sometimes if you choose your path too early it doesn’t work out,” Robbie mused. “Your sister got married when she was twenty-four and now she’s getting married again.”
“How do you know when Brigit got married?” Daisy asked.
“Nathaniel showed me an article in Town & Country.” Robbie shrugged.
“She knew exactly what she was doing. Brigit and Nathaniel were perfect for each other.” She jumped up and grabbed her purse. “I have to go, I have an appointment at the hair salon.”
“Daisy wait, I didn’t mean to offend you.” Robbie stood up.
“This is Brigit’s wedding and it’s going to be the most wonderful weekend,” Daisy said hotly. “Tell Nathaniel if he tries to spoil it, I’ll make him wish he never met me.”
* * *
Daisy hiked up the path to the villa and sat on a wooden bench. She glanced at the hot sun and clear blue ocean and a silver cruise ship. Old women carried baskets of cherry tomatoes and a yellow taxi navigated the narrow road.
She remembered telling Robbie that Brigit and Nathaniel were perfect for each other and flinched. She was determined that Nathaniel wouldn’t ruin Brigit’s wedding, but how could she say something so foolish? Brigit and Blake were like Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, everyone stopped when they entered a room.
She plucked a daisy from the side of the road and resolved not to talk to Robbie alone again. She pictured his dark curly hair and large brown eyes and sighed. It was unfortunate because he had a lovely English accent and the fried eggs with green onions he’d ordered was delicious.
* * *
Sydney stood at the window and let out her breath. Everyone had told her Santorini sunsets were exquisite and she must pack sensible shoes so she could hike to Oia and see the whole caldera lit by a purple flame. But no one mentioned that the sunrises were just as spectacular. She gazed at the shimmering ocean and tile roofs and thought it was as if you’d emptied a paint box and all that was left was blue and orange and yellow.
It wasn’t even eight a.m. but Francis had already slipped on a pair of shorts and a shirt and mumbled he was going to make some early morning calls. Sydney calculated the time difference in New York and thought it was unlikely any stockbrokers or bankers would be in their offices at midnight. But he had that look on his face that didn’t allow her to ask questions so she turned over and pretended to go back to sleep.
Now she gathered the remnants of last night: a bottle of cognac they’d brought upstairs after the party, a red Armani tie draped over an armchair, the silk nightie Francis had slipped off her shoulders.
She hung her Jil Sander sheath in the closet and pictured the dining room of the villa filled with their closest friends. She had glanced around at Brigit in her pink satin gown and Daisy in a long embroidered dress and Francis wearing an impeccably tailored pin-striped blazer and thought it was easy to be happy.
Daisy really did look beautiful, her hair falling in long curls and tied loosely with a silk ribbon. Sydney bit her lip and hoped her designs would be a success.
She remembered Francis catching her eye while he gave his toast and for a moment the odd tenseness of the last ten months was erased. The whole night was perfect: dancing with him to Frank Sinatra, the constant sound of laughter and glasses clinking, Brigit’s flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
It had been so long since she’d seen Brigit with her customary bounce to her step. She pictured her at three years old on the stone porch at Summerhill. She remembered her skipping down the steps until she reached the pond. She’d wobbled on the grassy banks and clapped wildly at the ducks.
She thought about the tennis trophies she won as a teenager and the gold diplomas with the honors tassels from Dartmouth and Columbia. She pictured the afternoon she and Nathaniel burst into the Park Avenue town house flashing the diamond-and-sapphire ring and Sydney thought Brigit looked so in love.
Sydney folded her silk nightie and remembered the time two years ago when Brigit pulled up the driveway at Summerhill. It was a Friday afternoon and Sydney stood on a ladder, trimming the trellises.
* * *
“Darling, I wasn’t expecting you and Nathaniel until tonight.” Sydney climbed down from the ladder. “I’ve collected vegetables from the garden. We’re going to have tomato soup and zucchini lasagna and blackberry tarts for dessert.”
“Nathaniel isn’t coming.” Brigit approached the porch. She wore a beige linen suit and narrow pumps and carried a Tory Burch clutch.
“I know he’s been working odd hours on the novel, but I was hoping you’d both join us this weekend. The Whites’ daughter is getting married next week and we’re invited tomorrow for steak and oysters.” She fiddled with a rose. “I thought being married to a stockbroker was difficult. Francis is always getting up with Tokyo and going to bed with Zürich. I can count on one hand the number of breakfasts that haven’t been interrupted by a frantic client because the market was closing somewhere and the stocks were plummeting.”
“Nathaniel isn’t coming at all,” Brigit said slowly. “He walked out of the apartment, he’s not coming back.”
Sydney glanced at Brigit and noticed her cheeks were pale and her blond hair had escaped its clip. She took her arm and led her into the living room.
“Sit down and tell me everything.”
“I come home at night and never know his mood.” Brigit sat on the paisley love seat. “Sometimes he says his fingertips are on fire and he’s going to be the next Faulkner. Lately he’s slumped on the sofa with a bottle of whiskey and a comic book.
“Yesterday I suggested he bring his laptop to Summerhill so I could read his new chapters,” Brigit continued. “He said there were never going to be any new chapters if I kept hovering over his shoulder like the evil witch in Snow White.”
“He probably spent the night at his parents’ apartment,” Sydney replied. “Call him and tell him he can drive out with your father tonight.”
“When I came home from work this afternoon his duffel bag was gone and his drawers were empty.” Brigit twisted her hands. “He left a note that he was wrong, he’d never be Steinbeck or Thomas Wolfe. He couldn’t even write a decent James Patterson thriller.”
“Nathaniel has always been temperamental,” Sydney mused. “Do you remember when you were children and you got the part of toad in The Wind in the Willows? He refused to participate if he wasn’t the lead. You finally told the camp counselor you didn’t want to wear a costume with warts. The day before the performance he came down with a mysterious stomachache and you ended up playing the part.”
“He didn’t even know the lines,” Brigit murmured. “He would have been a much better frog.”
“Once your father lost a good client and wouldn’t answer my calls,” Sydney continued. “I tracked him down to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis sampling every kind of Bloody Mary. I ordered steaks and a baked potato to soak up the vodka and took him home.”
“That’s not all the note said. He told me to keep the apartment,” she whispered. “He said it was a gift from his parents to us and it was the least I should have.”
Sydney glanced at the dark wood floors and white wool rugs and pink marble fireplace. She saw the high-beamed ceilings and french windows opening onto the lawn. She thought of all the wonderful moments they’d celebrated in this room: Daisy’s acceptance into Swarthmore, Brigit’s entrance into the law review, her and Francis’s twenty-fifth anniversary with a black-tie dinner including the governor of New York.
“Marriage is all about luck.” She leaned against the floral cushions. “You tried as hard as you could.”
“Marriage isn’t anything to do with luck,” Brigit retorted. “It’s about commitment and love and hard work.”
“Of course it’s about luck, do you think things would be different if Nathaniel’s book of short stories was a success and he was the toast of New York?” Sydney asked. “He’d be giving talks every night at the New York Public Library and the Strand bookstore. You’d attend literary soirees full of Pulitzer Prize winners and congratulate each other on being so clever.”
“He’s worried about the new novel,” Brigit explained. “He can’t write a sentence without erasing it.”
“He lost his nerve. If the short stories ended up on the New York Times Best Seller list, he’d finish this novel faster than a speed typist.” Sydney finished her drink. “Marriage is just like life, it needs luck to survive.”
Sydney fiddled with her glass and thought of the day her marriage ran out of luck, on her forty-second birthday at Le Bernardin. She glanced at a family portrait above the marble fireplace and remembered when she’d met Francis, at the International Debutante Ball.
It was the most exclusive debutante ball in New York and the Waldorf Astoria ballroom was filled with Astors and Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. Sydney stood in a corner, sipping champagne with crème de cassis. She wore an ivory Oscar de la Renta gown with a pink sash. Her blond hair was brushed to her shoulders and she wore a diamond necklace.
“I can’t imagine why your date left you alone when the band is playing ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’” A young man had approached her. He wore a white tuxedo and had a pink rose in his buttonhole. “He’s practically asking someone to steal you away.”
“I can dance with whomever I like,” Sydney replied, noticing he was very tall and had a dimple on his chin.
“At the International Debutante Ball?” He raised his eyebrow. “I read the rule book. Every girl has two dates, a military officer and a civilian, and other men have to ask their permission to dance.”
“One of my dates twisted his ankle and the other was allergic to oysters,” Sydney admitted. “I seem to have ended up alone.”
“In that case, may I?” Francis held out his arm. “I have two left feet when it comes to fast dancing but I’m quite good at a waltz.”
After they danced to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole they made their way to the buffet. They filled their plates with stuffed mushrooms and glazed duck and sat on the bottom of the grand circular staircase.
“I have one semester left at Harvard and then I’m going to join the family stockbroking firm. It’s on the fifty-fourth floor of the Chrysler Building with a view of the East River.” Francis nibbled a canapé. “I enjoyed playing football on Boston Commons and eating clam chowder at Boston Chowda in Faneuil Hall but I could never live in New England. The bars close at midnight and everyone talks as if they have a head cold.”
“I’ve lived in the same Park Avenue town house my whole life,” Sydney said. “My mother thinks the entire world consists of Saks and the Metropolitan Museum and the dining room at the Carlyle. I like Manhattan but I prefer the country. I’m happiest at Summerhill.”
“Summerhill?”
“It’s my grandparents’ cottage in East Hampton,” Sydney explained. “The house is a hundred years old with a barn and a pond. When you stand on the porch you can see the Long Island Sound.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Francis murmured.
Sydney studied his light brown hair and blue eyes and felt her chest tighten.
“Maybe I can show it to you.”
* * *
Every weekend in the spring Francis drove his brown Jaguar from Boston to New York. Sydney squeezed her classes at Barnard into four days so they could take long weekends in Vermont and Cape Cod. She sat in the passenger seat with her hair wrapped in a Hermès scarf and thought she really was lucky. She was twenty-two and falling in love.
Francis proposed the day after graduation and they got married on New Year’s Eve in the ballroom where they’d met. Sydney stood at the window of her suite at the Waldorf Astoria in her Givenchy gown and saw the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and the red and green lights on the Empire State Building and thought the whole city was celebrating their marriage.
* * *
Sydney fiddled with her earrings and remembered the night of her forty-second birthday. Brigit had just graduated from Spence and was spending three weeks at a language school in Paris. Daisy had at the last minute decided to be a counselor at a summer camp in Maine.
“Darling, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Sydney had said, when the maître d’ led them to the table.
The gold tablecloth was set with a crystal vase of pink roses and a bottle of vintage Moët & Chandon. A rectangular box was wrapped in gold tissue paper and tied with a pink ribbon.
“Do you remember when we met at the International Debutante Ball?” Francis asked. He wore a white dinner jacket and his salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back.
“Everything in the room was gold and pink: the gold centerpieces and pink-and-gold floral arrangements and gold inlaid china. You wore an ivory silk gown with a pink sash and I thought you looked like a princess.”
Sydney opened her mouth to say something but Francis pressed the gold wrapping paper into her hand.
“Brigit is going to Dartmouth and Daisy will graduate in two years,” he began. “I’ve been thinking about the stockbrokerage and it’s time to turn it over to someone else.”
“You’re forty-three,” Sydney replied. “You’re hardly going to spend your days at the Carlton Club having two-martini lunches.”
“I know we contribute to the New York Public Library and the Guggenheim. But I want to do something for children who have never owned a book or seen a painting,” Francis said. “I want to start a charitable foundation and travel to Asia and Africa and build schools and libraries.”
“You want to leave the firm?” Sydney’s eyes were wide and a pit formed in her stomach.
“I’ve thought about this for a long time. The best part is once Daisy graduates we could travel together.” Francis poured two glasses of champagne. “We could see the whole world, not just the lobby of the Grand Hotel in Rome or the dining room in the Connaught in London.”
Sydney gazed at the baked snapper and charred green tomatoes and suddenly wasn’t hungry. She looked at Francis and bit her lip.
“I’m pregnant.”
“What did you say?” Francis gasped.
“It was Mother’s Day weekend, you brought me Belgian waffles and strawberries and fresh squeezed orange juice.” Sydney looked up. “We left the tray on the bedside table and spent the whole morning in bed.”
“But I thought you couldn’t…” Francis’s cheeks turned pale.
“Get pregnant because I’m too old?” Sydney smoothed her hair.
She thought of the years after Daisy was born when they’d tried so hard to have a boy. Francis longed to teach a son to fish and take him to baseball games at Yankee Stadium. But nothing happened and finally they agreed they were too old for diapers and sleepless nights.
Francis ate a bite of pan-roasted monkfish and sautéed mushrooms. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked at Sydney.
“Well, that is exciting news.” He clutched his champagne glass. “You’re as beautiful as you were eighteen years ago, you’re going to be a wonderful mother all over again.”
“You can still start the foundation,” Sydney urged. “I can manage a baby on my own.”
“It can wait. You didn’t open your gift.” Francis pointed to the gold box.
Sydney untied the pink ribbon and took out a diamond bracelet with an emerald charm of a globe.
“It’s spectacular.” She fastened it around her wrist.
“It was all the places we were going to go.” Francis’s shoulders tensed and he suddenly looked older. “I’ll take it back and get something else.”
“Of course I’ll keep it.” Sydney gazed at Francis’s blue eyes and the dimple on his chin and a smile lit up her face. “I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”
* * *
Sydney zipped up a beige Eileen West dress and walked back into the bedroom. She thought of everything that had come afterward and shuddered. A Belgian chocolate wrapper lay on the bedside table and she realized she was starving.
She was going to go downstairs to the kitchen and have dark coffee and fruit and yogurt with honey. She suddenly pictured Francis, his cheeks tan from the Greek sun and his eyes sparkling and thought maybe their luck had changed and everything would be different.