Santorini Sunsets

by Anita Hughes

  “Yes, I’ll marry you.” She nodded.

  He slipped the sapphire-and-diamond ring onto her finger and took her in his arms. He kissed her slowly, tasting of roast beef and watermelon. He grabbed her hand and ran to the driveway.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he opened the door of his white BMW.

  “To Manhattan to see your parents. They’re waiting at their town house with a bottle of French champagne and a platter of Russian caviar.”

  “I’m starting work tomorrow, I can’t go in with a hangover,” Brigit protested. “And I never understood how anyone could like fish eggs.”

  “I can hardly tell my future father-in-law I don’t approve of his choice of hors d’oeuvres. When our daughter gets married we’ll celebrate with fish tacos.” Nathaniel jumped into the driver’s seat. “If you douse caviar in salt and wash it down with enough champagne, it’s actually quite delicious.”

  Brigit smoothed her hair and suddenly felt a pit in her stomach. She turned to Nathaniel and frowned.

  “How do my parents know we’re engaged before I do?”

  “You’re from one of the oldest families in New York.” Nathaniel started the engine. “I couldn’t expect your parents to approve if I didn’t ask them first. Even if we lived across the lawn from each other since we were five years old, they’re giving up their most precious possession.”

  Brigit gazed at Nathaniel’s straight nose and tan cheeks and her shoulders relaxed. They were perfect for each other and Nathaniel understood everything about her.

  “What if I had said no?” she asked.

  Nathaniel put the car in gear and drove down the long gravel driveway. He stopped under a wide oak tree and kissed her softly on the mouth.

  “I would have done everything I could to change your mind.”

  “I’m an attorney.” Brigit was suddenly giddy from the weight of the sapphire and diamond and the feel of Nathaniel’s mouth on her lips. “I don’t reverse my decision easily.”

  “I’d spend the rest of my life convincing you if I had to,” Nathaniel whispered. “There’s nothing I want more.”

  * * *

  She remembered the next ten months of black-tie dinners and cocktail receptions. She was so exhausted from her terrifying workload and the never-ending invitations that sometimes she wanted to beg Nathaniel to wait. They needed a couple of years to get settled and then they would plan a wedding.

  But he’d bounded into her office with her favorite sesame noodles and brochures of honeymoon destinations and her heart had lifted. She cracked open fortune cookies and thought none of it mattered if they weren’t together.

  * * *

  She fingered the plastic bucket and remembered waking up at Summerhill the morning of the rehearsal dinner. She’d slipped on her white cotton robe and sat at the dormer window. She’d gazed at the dew on the grass and the mist hanging on the sound and felt her heart pound.

  She wanted to race across the lawn and climb over the stone fence to Nathaniel’s parents’ estate. She wanted to pound on the door until Nathaniel shuffled downstairs in his plaid boxers. She wanted to say they were too young to get married; they should be focusing on their careers and planning summer holidays in Spain.

  She glanced at Daisy asleep in her white-canopied bed and thought it was all slipping away. Just yesterday they used to fight over who could borrow their mother’s cream angora sweater.

  She tied the robe around her waist and climbed the narrow staircase to the nursery. She gazed at the child-sized table and chairs and the dollhouse with its pink curtains and smiled. She and Daisy hadn’t played up there in decades but her mother refused to remove the Nancy Drew books or take down their crayon self-portraits.

  She sat on a pink wooden chair and pulled her knees to her chest. She was always so sure about everything: that Dartmouth was perfect because the academics were excellent but it wasn’t a pressure cooker like Harvard. That she wanted to be a lawyer because the best way to help people was to give them information.

  She gazed at the sapphire-and-diamond ring and wondered why she was nervous. Was she just wistful their childhood was over or was she afraid they were being hasty?

  She heard footsteps and saw a figure in a yellow robe and silk slippers. Daisy’s hair was tied in a long ponytail and her face was free of makeup.

  “Who gets up at seven a.m. on the day before her wedding?” Daisy yawned. “You’re supposed to sleep until noon when your maid of honor pulls you out of bed and drags you to the nail salon.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you.” Brigit sighed.

  “I like sharing a room,” Daisy replied. “It reminds me of when I was six years old, and I was afraid the tooth fairy wouldn’t come. You climbed into my bed and said I should go back to sleep. You’d make sure she wouldn’t forget me.”

  “I had to ask my bridesmaids to stay at Summerhill,” Brigit said. “It didn’t seem right to make them stay at the Hedges Inn.”

  “Mom loves having people around.” Daisy grinned. “I think it finally hit her that you’re leaving. She keeps wiping her eyes and saying her allergies are terrible.”

  “What if this is all wrong?” Brigit looked up. “Nathaniel and I have never even lived together, what if we can’t agree on which cereals to stock in the pantry? And we’re so competitive, do you remember the summer when we were fourteen and I beat him in tennis?

  “The next day he came down with the flu and couldn’t leave his bed for a week. I was so worried, I took him chicken soup and his mother said he was at the club. He’d been taking secret tennis lessons because he couldn’t face me until he was sure he would win.”

  “Do you know why you’re competitive?” Daisy asked. “Because when you and Nathaniel are together no one else exists. You might challenge each other but he would defend you against the rest of the world. I hate losing a sister but you are perfect for each other.”

  “Do you really think so?” Brigit asked.

  Daisy picked up a Barbie doll and stroked its blond hair. She looked at Brigit and her eyes were suddenly bright. “I’ve known it since I was ten years old.”

  * * *

  Brigit sat at her dressing table, brushing her cheeks with powder. It was almost seven p.m. and in a few minutes she’d walk over to the Cabots’ lawn for the rehearsal dinner. She slipped on diamond earrings and fastened a gold necklace around her neck. She gazed at the blue Dior cocktail dress and tried to stop her heart from racing.

  She heard the door open and turned around.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “We promised we wouldn’t see each other in private until the wedding.”

  “I brought you something,” Nathaniel said. He wore a crisp white shirt and tan slacks. His blond hair touched his collar and he wore a yellow silk tie.

  “We’re not supposed to exchange gifts until just before the ceremony.” Brigit took the square box wrapped in silver tissue paper.

  “You know how impatient I am with presents,” Nathaniel replied. “I left a dozen roses on your desk in physics class at Dartmouth because I wanted to surprise you on your birthday. Your professor was allergic to flowers and tossed them in the garbage.”

  “You bought two dozen more and sent them to my dorm room.” Brigit smiled.

  “Open it,” Nathaniel urged.

  Brigit untied the silver ribbon and opened the box. She drew out a yellow plastic bucket and two orange shovels.

  “Just because we’re getting married, doesn’t mean we will stop having fun,” Nathaniel said. “We can still go ice skating on Town Pond and eat crab at the Chowder House. We can spend whole weekends reading trashy novels and listening to nineties music on SiriusXM.”

  Brigit glanced at Nathaniel and her eyes filled with tears. He knew her better than anyone and everything was going to be perfect.

  “There is something inside,” Nathaniel whispered.

  Brigit took off the lid and saw a black velvet box. She snapped it open and discovered a diamond-
and-ruby pendant with an antique clasp.

  “Even when we’re eating cotton candy on the Fourth of July, I think you’re the most desirable woman in the world.” Nathaniel fastened the pendant around her neck. “And a beautiful woman deserves exquisite jewels.”

  Brigit glanced in the mirror at the glittering diamonds and rubies and gasped. She turned and kissed Nathaniel softly on the mouth. He ran his fingers over her breast and slipped one hand under her panties.

  “Daisy could walk in at any minute.” Brigit giggled, feeling the familiar warmth spread through her body.

  “I told her you have a craving for Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio Pistachio ice cream.” Nathaniel drew her onto the bed. “I checked, you don’t have any in the fridge. She’s going to have to go all the way to Montauk.”

  * * *

  Brigit heard laughter coming from the library and inhaled the scent of cigar smoke and jumped. She glanced at the yellow bucket and orange shovels and felt a pain in her chest.

  Why had Nathaniel been the one who seemed stuck in college? In the second year of their marriage she woke at five a.m. to go to Equinox before she went to the office, while he stayed up watching Jimmy Kimmel and slept until noon.

  She pictured him hunched in front of his laptop with his baseball cap pulled over his blond curls and knew it wasn’t that Nathaniel was afraid of growing up. He was terrified of failure.

  She glanced down the hallway and saw the library door was still closed. She opened the bucket and peered inside. She saw that it was empty and felt strangely disappointed, as if she’d bitten into a custard and someone had removed the cream.

  She put the bucket in the box and retied the ribbon. She placed the box on the marble counter and decided she would return it in the morning. She climbed the circular staircase and opened the door of her bedroom.

  Chapter Four

  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.”