“He looks like something someone has sculpted,” Mira once told her when she and Vinay were visiting them in California and they had gone to the beach. Harry had gone for a swim, and when he came out of the water, she had watched openmouthed and said, “I can see why you married him even though he’s not a doctor.”
Sanya felt smug that she was one up on Mira in the husband attractiveness department. Vinay had already lost his hair and was sporting the bald Bruce Willis look.
Just a year or so ago, Mira had again mentioned Harry’s looks when she had seen a profile of his company in the Chronicle. He outshone the other four partners in the firm with ease.
“How can he still look like this at his age? How can you stand this beauty?” she asked.
Because I don’t see it anymore, Sanya had thought, though she hadn’t said it. After two decades of waking up with this man, he had become normal, no more stunning Greek god, just Harry. Familiarity did that. Everything that was special and unique became rote, mundane. He probably felt the same about Sanya. When they had met he found her beautiful, attractive, even exotic. In those early days he’d watch her sleep, and when she would awaken, he would say, “My god, you’re like an Indian princess. I love looking at you.”
He didn’t say such things to her anymore. But, twenty times a day, he asked her if she was okay.
Katrine took Sanya away from the others to show her the azaleas she had planted at the end of the garden.
“I love gardening,” Katrine told Sanya. “I want to have an apartment in the city because I love living in the city; and then I want a nice kolonihave. Do you know what those are?” she asked, and when Sanya shook her head, she explained how many Danes who lived in the city would purchase a piece of land in a “garden colony” where they’d have a small shed and a garden. The first kolonihave allotments were made all the way back in 1814 in Jutland so city dwellers would have access to their own gardens. “And in my kolonihave, I’m going to have a greenhouse and grow all kinds of flowers.”
“That sounds lovely,” Sanya said.
Katrine shrugged. “But I don’t know how it all fits. I start business school this September at the Copenhagen Business School. I mean, someday Daddy’s business or part of his business will be mine. Jonas isn’t interested. And even though Daddy is selling IT Foundry, he’ll still be on the board of the company and he’ll still have shares. They’ll come to me.”
Katrine was so sure of what her future held. Sara was interested in not knowing, in enjoying the adventure of uncertainty. She never thought of Harry’s business as having anything to do with her, and it didn’t. He was a partner, and when he left someone would buy him out. There would be money and some assets, yes, but Sara wasn’t interested in any of it. She never talked about her future in terms of Sanya and Harry. Her future was her own. Maybe this was the difference between dynasties and regular people.
“But I can have a garden and a business, can’t I?” Katrine said. “Nowadays women can have everything.”
“Yes,” Sanya said. She felt a rush of affection for her, probably stemming from her attraction for her father.
“But I’m just nineteen,” Katrine said. “What do I know? Right?”
“Just because you’re nineteen doesn’t mean that you can’t know yourself,” Sanya said.
And that was when he came.
Ravn walked up to them brusquely, like he wanted to run but was controlling himself to walk. He did the Danish thing, or was it the French thing, of leaning into Sanya and kissing her on one cheek and then the other. She felt his lips, cool and firm, and the smell of his cologne and the brush of his stubble. It was only for a small moment, but just like in the movies, time stood still and they both closed their eyes to savor it fully and drench their senses in that touch.
Time moved at its own pace when he moved away to put an arm around his daughter and kiss her forehead.
“My daughter loves gardening,” he said.
“So I hear,” Sanya said.
Mandy then, opportunely, called out for Katrine, and they were alone.
“How are you?” he asked, their eyes holding each other, and they were both smiling widely, happiness a real and tangible emotion.
“Good,” Sanya whispered.
“Really? Since when?” he asked. “Because I started to feel good just now, right this moment . . . since I saw you.” He spoke with such feeling that Sanya’s breath came out in a whoosh.
I’m not ready for this, for him, she thought. He was unreal with his intensity and his focus, with passion that oozed out of him. Or I’m imagining all of this, and he’s just a scumbag who is hitting on a woman in front of his wife.
“I’m reading a feminist novel that my daughter got me from a secondhand bookstore in Paris,” she said without thinking, to break the connection, to quash the rise of emotion.
“Is it a good book?” he asked without breaking stride, without seeming surprised at the change in the emotional weather around them.
“I don’t know,” Sanya said. “I’m struggling with it and can’t seem to get into it. I used to read a lot; now it’s like a giant step.”
“I’m reading a book as well,” Ravn said. “It’s a biography of Caesar.”
“Tell me something about it,” she asked.
“There is this quote from Caesar that speaks to me,” he said, and then, looking into Sanya’s eyes, he said softly, “What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.”
“What are you both discussing so intently?” someone asked. It took Sanya a moment to realize that Lucky had walked up to them, breaking the enchantment.
Ravn looked at Lucky in bewilderment, as if asking, Why are you here?
Instead of answering him, Ravn only smiled. “I think dinner is ready,” he said, and ushered them back to the patio where a large dining table was set with place cards.
Sanya did not sit next to Ravn.
Everyone appreciated the food. Apparently Mandy was a great cook. Maybe it was the Indian genes, but Sanya needed a little more flavor—some heat. She had a craving for a spicy curry as she ate only a quarter of her bland salmon.
“When Mandy cooks, we all just skip lunch and breakfast,” Penny said. “She’s amazing. And she’s such a great mother, too. You know how everyone we know has an au pair. I mean we’d be lost without Jinny. But Mandy never had help.”
“Not to raise my children,” Mandy said proudly. “But, Penny, I didn’t work. You are a career woman.” She might have put it as if she were rationalizing giving Penny a reason for why Jinny was the one helping her children eat instead of their mother, but it was evident that Mandy didn’t think highly of career women.
“We never had an au pair,” Harry said. “Sanya managed everything on her own. And sometimes when I look back I’m not quite sure how she did it. She worked just as hard as I did at her career, and she still took Sara to her soccer games and whatnot. She went to all the parent-teacher meetings, even baked cookies for school.”
“I bought the cookies at Whole Foods,” Sanya said flatly. What is Harry up to now?
Harry never talked about Sanya like this. Never even told her that he appreciated what she had done, the work she had done to raise their child so he could be who he wanted to be professionally. This was all part of the Sanya is crazy so let’s be nice to her routine.
If she could have thrown up, she would have, and after all that champagne, it wouldn’t have been difficult. She felt irritation simmer inside her, replacing the emptiness that had become a familiar companion for months and erasing the surge of lust and passion for Ravn.
“Sanya used to be a successful management consultant,” Lucky piped in. Now it was his turn to unruffle the feathers. “And Sara is an excellent person as well, all thanks to Sanya. If Harry had raised that girl, she’d have turned out to be something else.”
He said it jokingly, but Sanya knew he believed it and so did Harry, just as her parents an
d sister did. Sara was not ambitious because Sanya raised her. If Harry had raised her, she’d be so much more ambitious.
“I think it’s great that Katrine wants to go to business school and play an active role in your business,” Harry said to Ravn. “Sara, our daughter, she’s . . . much more interested in yoga.”
Sanya shut the noise out. She was getting tired again.
Her therapist had told her that she shouldn’t hear everything Harry said about Sara or their lives as a judgment on Sanya as a mother and wife. She sometimes felt like one of those rats in a cage, running and running and running with nothing happening. It was like sitting on an exercise bicycle. You pedaled and pedaled and pedaled and were still where you started.
There were too many people here, she thought. Too many people. Her vision was getting blurry. So blurry that she couldn’t even see the man with a scar on his cheek, and if she couldn’t see him, she couldn’t use him as a crutch as she had the past few weeks. She looked around and felt hysteria bubble through her. It was too soon. All this was too soon. She shouldn’t have come tonight. It was too soon to have a crush. Too soon to drink champagne. It was all too soon.
She wanted to leave. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to hide under the covers and stay there. She didn’t have the energy to eat the poached pears that Mandy had promised were divine and that would be served for dessert with a crème anglaise. It was just all too soon.
Her heart started to beat fast. She felt the garden swim around her, and she held on to the arm of her chair. It would pass. She knew it would. She just had to breathe. Just breathe and it will be all right.
“You look pale.” Ravn’s voice came to her through the merry-go-round the world had become. He was standing behind her pouring water into her glass.
Sanya couldn’t speak. The voice was locked in her throat.
She gripped the arm of her chair even more tightly so that the world would stop spinning. And she turned to stare into the black eyes of the man with a scar on his cheek. Harry and Lucky and the others were far away, holding on to plates with bloodred pears.
Ravn held a glass of water near her face. “Drink,” he said.
She drank, and as she did, the world stopped spinning, and when she was done she whispered softly, “Thank you.”
On their way home Sanya interrupted Harry as he spoke about how different the lives of their hosts were to theirs and asked him, “Why did you marry me?”
Harry braked smoothly, not because of her question but because there was a red light. He turned to look at Sanya. She watched the glittering red streetlight.
“What kind of question is that?” he asked.
She didn’t say anything but waited for him to respond.
“I married you because I fell in love with you, head over heels,” he said as the light turned green and he accelerated.
“Are you still in love with me? Head over heels?” she asked.
“I’m still in love with you,” he said without waiting a beat. “I fell in love with you because you were positive and full of energy, you believed in the universe the way I never had. You were close to your family even though they drove you out of your mind. I’ve never been close to mine; I feel nothing for them. I loved that you took care of everyone. I loved that every time you looked at me, your eyes went wide like you’d found a treasure at the end of a rainbow.”
“But what if I’m not any of those things anymore?” Sanya whispered. “I’m not that positive person . . . I never was. I was faking it the entire time.”
“You’ve not changed as much as you think you have,” Harry said.
“And maybe you’re just fooling yourself,” Sanya said.
“I know you better than you think I do,” he said.
He had driven up to their street and was now looking for a parking spot. He found one remarkably quickly for a Friday night and angled the car to parallel park.
She waited for him at the door of the apartment building because he had the key. He paused before opening the door and put his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “I’m not fooling myself, not about you. You are and have always been the light in the darkness. You brought color into my life. What I’m scared about is that I have taken and not given and that you don’t love me anymore.”
Sanya took a deep breath and nodded. She knew he wanted her to say, Don’t worry, I love you, I still love you, and I always will. But she wasn’t Old Sanya anymore. She didn’t say things just because they were the right things to say.
“I need time,” Sanya said.
He smiled and kissed her lightly on the lips. His lips were different from Ravn’s. They were warm and soft, indulgent . . . and hers.
“I know. I have faith that we will work through this,” he said.
Sanya felt a pang of loss. Their roles had really reversed. Now he had faith in the universe and she was the pessimist.
Chapter 11
The Swedish Summer House Plan
Penny invited Mandy for coffee at Café Plateau on Strandvejen the day after the casual barbecue. And even though Mandy had protested—she had just finished with her personal trainer at the gym and was sweaty and messy—she arrived with coiffed hair and in a DVF wraparound dress and Gucci sandals that showed her properly pedicured toes.
For Penny, there was no one else to go to but Mandy during a crisis, and as crises went, this was right up there with a zit on her forehead the first time she had walked for YSL at Paris Fashion Week. Even then Penny had called Mandy, who had walked her away from the ledge and sent her packing to makeup.
Penny ordered a café latte for Mandy, while Penny was on her second glass of Malbec, the house wine for the day.
Café Plateau had opened a few months ago and was just what Strandvejen needed. It was like a little piece of Parisian heaven in the heart of Hellerup. The café could seat twenty and served a limited breakfast and lunch menu, cocktails and wine for the after-work crowd, and, at all hours, the usual range of café lattes, cortados, and chai lattes. All drink orders came with a bowl of nuts—usually toasted almonds or, with wine, green olives.
Mandy sat down and wrinkled her nose as she held the latte glass with both hands. She turned around and smiled at the young man at the counter. “Could you make me another one? Hot, hot. Please.”
“I can just microwave that one for you. It’s just been there for like two minutes,” the young man suggested.
Mandy smiled all teeth and said, “I’d like a fresh one, please.” Then she took the warm glass of latte and placed it on the counter, her smile intact, and put down a fifty-kroner note next to the glass and came back to sit with Penny.
“I’m worried, Mandy. I’m really worried about this whole tax thing, and I think IT Foundry is involved somehow. I don’t know how, but Mark and Ravn have been up to something together,” Penny said.
“Ravn won’t tell me anything,” Mandy said in a hushed voice, because this was Hellerup, and you never knew who was listening.
“He doesn’t tell anyone anything if there’s trouble, only if there’s good news,” Penny said irritably. “Did you see him yesterday at the barbecue? He was so serious. Something is up, Mandy.”
Mandy believed, truly believed in the man of the house being the man of the house. She had grown up in a tiny town in Oregon, or what movies liked to call Small-Town America. Her father had worked in a bank, and her mother had been a homemaker. She had two older brothers, and both of them still lived in Cedar Hills, with a population of just over ten thousand. One of her brothers had a clothing store at the Cedar Hills Shopping Center, while her oldest brother worked at the same bank her father had retired from. They were married and had two children each. She hardly ever saw her brothers, especially since her mother had passed away a few years ago and her father lived in a retirement home. Her brothers’ lives today were no different than their lives had been growing up in Cedar Hills.
Going to school in that small town she had dreamed of Prince Charmi
ng. A gallant prince on a white horse who would get her out of her miserable life, but she had not expected to find him. It was a fairy tale, and she knew that fairy tales did not come true.
She met Ravn in San Francisco, where she had gone for a July Fourth weekend with her friends. She had been studying at a community college in Beaverton. She was a sophomore with no idea as to what she was going to do with her life. She knew she would have to get married, and she was hoping it would not be to Rick Briscoe, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to whom she’d lost her virginity. Rick had never even talked about going to college, and right after high school he had started working in his father’s Italian restaurant, Bella Italia in Cedar Hills. She’d had her fill of eggplant parmigiana.
But Mandy had something that neither her friends nor her brothers possessed. Mandy was beautiful. With her blond hair and delicate features, Mandy was an intense mixture of innocence and sensuality all bundled into one. Her town’s Marilyn Monroe with slimmer hips. For a while she had wondered about going to Los Angeles and trying her luck at the movies, but, thank heavens, she’d met the love of her life before she could do something that foolish.
Ravn had been perfect. With his accent, his money, and even with that hideous scar on his cheek, he had been a breath of fresh air. They had met at Fisherman’s Wharf, and it had been love at first sight. People joked about it and mocked it, but for Mandy it was the truth. One look and she was deeply and madly in love, and not only because she knew how much the Omega watch he wore cost.
Just six months after that meeting at Fisherman’s Wharf, Ravn and Mandy were married.
Ravn came to Cedar Hills and met Mandy’s family before he whisked her off to Denmark, where he made her part of his family. His family didn’t mind that she wasn’t Danish and didn’t come from money. They came from money. They felt they had enough.
Mandy could see that even though Ravn and she lived in a small apartment in the city when they were first married (he was working his way up, he told her), the family money wasn’t going anywhere. It would come to the only son. It would come to Ravn. And then when it had, he had invested in IT Foundry and made it the grand success it was.
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