She had made a conscious decision to take a break from the notebooks, to immerse herself in physical tasks and give her mind a rest. She had started with the bedroom, careful not to disturb any of Lily-Mae’s treasures as she stripped and remade the bed, then cleared a drawer in the bureau for her own things. She couldn’t live out of her suitcase for three weeks. When she finished there she moved on to the kitchen, emptying cabinets, washing dishes, scrubbing counters. She did the same in the bathroom, then ran a load of laundry. The place still looked like a warehouse, but it would do for a few weeks. Nothing left now but to get started on the boxes.
On impulse, she yanked down a carton from the nearest stack and dropped down beside it on the floor. It was nothing but newspapers, she saw as she pulled back the flaps, yellowing editions of the New York Times dating as far back as 1957. There seemed no rhyme or reason why they’d been kept, no sequential dates or common thread among the headlines to explain why they might have been worth saving.
Curious, she wrestled the next box down from the stack, delighted to discover that she had stumbled onto a treasure trove of vintage fashion magazines—Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Charm, Mademoiselle, and Vanity Fair, all dated between 1950 and 1960. Her heart beat a little faster as she lifted out the top issue. She really should press on, she told herself, stay focused on what she was supposed to be doing, but vintage fashion had always been her passion. She couldn’t very well set them aside without at least flicking through a few. Besides, she’d been thinking of trying a few retro pieces. Maybe she’d pick up some ideas and hit the ground running when she got to Milan.
Forty minutes later, Lily reluctantly set aside the May ’58 issue of Bazaar, ready if not eager to get back to work, when she saw something that made the hairs on her arms prickle to attention—a woman who could have been her mother, who could almost have been her, gazing up in full color from the cover of Vogue magazine.
It was Lily-Mae, of course, breathtaking in a sheath of emerald green silk. She was looking straight into the camera, her sea green eyes heavy-lidded and beckoning, her head tilted slightly, spilling waves of red hair over one creamy shoulder. It was almost impossible for Lily to wrap her head around. Somehow, inconceivably, a poor girl from Mims, Tennessee, had made it all the way to the cover of Vogue.
She was surprised when the image began to blur in a rush of tears. She dashed them away, still staring at the cover photo. There was no disputing that Lily-Mae and Caroline were sisters. And yet, the longer Lily studied the image, the more she began to notice subtle differences. Lily-Mae’s jaw was softer, her cheekbones higher and more delicately sculpted. And there was just a bit of a pout to Lily-Mae’s lower lip, the kind of bee-stung fullness women now paid big money to attain. Caroline’s mouth had always been thin, and tended to turn down at the corners, as if a lifetime of bitterness had etched itself into her features.
But there was something else, too, that Lily couldn’t put her finger on, something dark and quiet lurking behind that camera-ready smile. Sadness? The word startled her when it came. Was she only imagining it? Because of what Rhona had said at lunch? She stared at the cover again. No. It was there, beneath all the beauty and glamour: a shadow hiding behind the eyes, invisible perhaps to the casual glance, but laid bare by the camera.
This was what Rhona had seen, and what her mother and grandmother hadn’t, the sadness that was always with her, even at the height of her career. The more Lily thought about it, the more inconceivable it seemed that a girl like Lily-Mae, who, aside from her beauty, had never had a single advantage, had managed to reach the pinnacle of her profession. That she had was a fact, but no one started out on the cover of Vogue. How had she gotten there?
A light went on as she glanced at the magazine-strewn floor. Suddenly, she knew why Lily-Mae had saved them. She was there, somewhere, in every single one of them. This time, when Lily began turning pages, she wasn’t looking for fashion details; she was looking for a face. She found it, too, after a bit of careful searching, smaller ads in the earlier issues, near the back and shot mostly in black and white, selling hats and gloves, the occasional wristwatch. But as the dates advanced, so did the size and prominence of Lily-Mae’s photos, modeling Dior, Chanel, and Pierre Balmain. There were head shots, too, glam ads for lipstick, soft drinks, and something called Pearl-Glo Beauty Cream.
It was like thumbing through a glossy time-lapse of her aunt’s career. It hadn’t lasted, though. Something had happened, something that sent her here, to Sand Pearl Cottage, to live out her days alone—and to die. Perhaps that’s what all this chaos was really about—a lifetime, tidily boxed in preparation for the end. Had she known she was sick? Dying? The unsent letter seemed to indicate that she had. How awful it must have been, awaiting death all alone, writing letters she never meant to send.
God, she needed a glass of wine. Two, actually, if she was going to keep dredging up those kinds of thoughts. In the kitchen, she pulled a bottle of chardonnay from the fridge. She was still hunting for a corkscrew when a quick tap sounded on the glass doors. She whirled toward the open doors to find Dean standing there.
“I thought I’d try knocking this time. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t. I was just . . . I didn’t hear you come up the steps.”
He pointed to the wine bottle still in her hand. “Happy hour?”
“Something like that. It’s been a bit of a day.”
“Did I catch you at a bad time?”
Lily shrugged, torn between telling the truth and being polite. She opted for polite. “No, you’re fine. What’s up?”
“I just came by to apologize about last night. It got kind of weird when Rhona showed up, and then the whole lecture when you got in the truck. Let’s just say I wasn’t at the top of my game.”
Lily smiled uncomfortably at the mention of Rhona. She’d rather he not know how she’d spent her afternoon. “No need to apologize. I had a nice time. A great time, actually. I think I needed to get out and get away from all this.” Lily paused, waving her arm at the newly created mess. “As you can see, I haven’t made much progress.”
Dean briefly scanned the living room. “Wow.”
“Yeah, I know. I made it worse.”
“I’ll say. On top of the plumbing and electrical issues, I think it might qualify as a fire hazard now, too. Are those magazines?”
“Yes. Fashion magazines, with pictures of my aunt in them. It was so amazing. I was going through them, not really paying attention, when all of sudden I looked down and there she was, staring up at me from the cover of Vogue. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I knew she was a model, but I had no idea she was such a big deal. My mother skipped over that part.”
“Maybe she was jealous.”
“Maybe.” Lily reached down to retrieve one of the magazines. “That’s her,” she said, holding up the copy of Vogue. “Lily-Mae Boyle.”
Dean whistled softly. “I can see why they’d put her on the cover. She’s a knockout. You look just like her, by the way, but then you probably already know that.”
“I look like my mother, who looks like her sister.” She sighed as Dean handed back the magazine. “She really was beautiful, though, wasn’t she? She just had . . . something. And who’d ever believe it—a poor kid from Mims, Tennessee, wearing Dior on the cover of Vogue?”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about her.”
“I didn’t when I got here, or at least not much. But I found a set of notebooks in a box under her bed. Diaries, I guess you’d call them, from when she and my mother were girls. I’ve been reading some pretty awful stuff over the last two days. Things that affected my mother, too, though she’s never breathed a word about any of it.”
“And what did your mother say when you asked her about it?”
“She hasn’t said anything. She’s ducking my calls.”
“Oh.”
>
“Right. So here I am, trying to piece it together on my own. It’s like being caught between a treasure hunt and a ghost story. It’s mind-boggling.”
“Which explains the wine.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“What if I told you I have a better cure for what ails you?”
Lily eyed him warily, not sure she liked where this was going. “Such as?”
“A walk,” Dean said simply.
“A walk is going to cure what ails me?”
“A walk out there will.” He hiked a thumb toward the open doors. “The sea. The sand. And a nice long walk. I promise, there’s nothing better for a boggled mind. Besides, I deserve a do-over.”
“Will this walk of yours include another sunset?”
“That’s up to you.”
Something about his answer, soft and slightly husky, made Lily hesitate. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. She eyed the wine bottle on the kitchen counter as she weighed her options. Gulp half a bottle of chardonnay and dig around in a few more boxes, or take a walk in the sea air to clear her head?
“Okay, you sold me. Give me a minute to throw on some shorts.”
“Or you could just put on that little turquoise swimsuit.”
Lily arched a brow at him. “Will we be swimming?”
Dean grinned, feigning sheepishness. “No, probably not. But you can’t blame a guy for trying.”
FIFTEEN
It was the time of day Lily liked best, when the sun began to soften and slide, painting everything with a warm, golden patina. There was a fresh breeze blowing in off the gulf, warm and salty where it kissed her bare skin. It was good to be outside, to walk along the shore with the sun on her shoulders and the warm, wet squelch of sand between her toes.
It was good to have company, too. They strolled side by side, silent and in no particular hurry, shoulders brushing now and then as they navigated the incoming waves. The truth was she had been relieved to look up and see Dean in the doorway. For all her curiosity, she was finding the excavation of Lily-Mae’s past more daunting than expected. It was a prickly business, dredging through old memories, but it was doubly so when the memories belonged to someone else, when every discovery begged a new question, instead of offering answers.
Dean halted, shielding his eyes to watch a pair of kiteboarders skimming dizzily over the waves. Lily moved on a few paces, then stopped, too, bending to pluck a shell from the sand. It was perfect in her palm, creamy white, with pale pink striations that reminded her of a sunrise. On impulse, she tucked it into her pocket, thinking of the jar of shells on Lily-Mae’s bureau. Perhaps she’d start one of her own. Three weeks wasn’t much time, but it would be fun while it lasted.
“So, tell me about being a fashion designer,” Dean said, surprising her. She hadn’t heard him approach. “How old were you when you knew it was what you wanted to do?”
Lily shoved a handful of hair off her face, then shrugged. “I can’t remember when I didn’t know. When I was little I used to cut up my mother’s old dresses to make clothes for my dolls. It drove her crazy. She kept buying me all these doll clothes and I kept giving them away. No doll of mine was wearing off-the-rack. I don’t know where it came from. Maybe it’s some recessive fashion gene from my aunt. What about you? How did you decide to become an architect? Were you designing beach houses at age eight, out of erector sets and Lincoln Logs?”
“Hardly. I didn’t know what a beach house was when I was eight. I grew up in a three-bedroom ranch, the same one my father still lives in. When I was seventeen I went to work as a mason’s apprentice, and I fell in love with stone. That’s when I knew I wanted to design houses—the kind that would still be standing in fifty or a hundred years.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why? What did you think I was going to say?”
Lily abandoned her hair to the wind and resumed her pace. “It just sounded funny coming from a guy who wants to knock down a house he built last year.” She shot him a pointed look. “And my aunt’s cottage.”
“To build a better house, I told you. I can show you the plans if you want.”
Lily stopped again, facing him with hands on hips. “Can I just tell you—if this is your idea of a do-over, you seriously need to think about going back to charm school.”
He grinned at her, clearly unscathed. “What can I say? I’m an enigma.”
“I thought you were a cliché.”
“Oh, I’m that, too. And I cook. Which reminds me—I bought a couple of salmon steaks this afternoon. We could throw them on the grill, whip up a nice salad, eat out on the deck. I’ll even throw in that sunset.”
“You bought a couple of salmon steaks?”
Dean managed to look sheepish. “Yes. One for me, and one for you.”
Lily sighed for effect. “Yesterday, it was the mail. Today, a walk. Do you ever do anything without an ulterior motive?”
“Almost never. But seriously, this is the real do-over part. Say yes.”
Lily hesitated. Dinner, two nights in a row. It sounded like a bad idea. Although certainly better than the can of clam chowder she’d planned to open. Besides, she couldn’t remember the last time a man had cooked for her. If it started getting weird she’d just leave. It wasn’t like she’d have far to walk.
He was impressive in the kitchen, Lily had to give him that, keeping up a steady stream of conversation while he diced vegetables and whipped up a lime-butter sauce for the fish. Dog thought so, too, shadowing Dean’s every step in case he was called upon to clean up any drops or spills.
“Maybe you should have been a chef instead of an architect,” she told him as she watched him snip several sprigs of dill onto a cutting board. “You’re pretty handy with a knife. How did you learn to cook, by the way?”
“When your mother takes off you learn pretty quick how to feed yourself—and your father. Plus, it relaxes me. I come home at the end of the day, put on a little music, sip a little wine. Which reminds me.” Stepping to the fridge, he pulled out a bottle, then dug out a corkscrew and a pair of glasses. A few minutes later, he pressed one of the glasses into her hand.
“It isn’t French, but it’s good. A buddy of mine owns a place out in Napa. He’s only been producing a couple of years, but he seems to know what he’s doing. Not that I’m an expert. I just know what I like.”
Lily ventured a small sip. It was good. And after ten years in France she was something of an expert. She watched as Dean stepped out onto the deck with the salmon steaks, laying them down on the hot grill with a delicious hiss.
“Can I at least set the table?”
“No, you cannot. I’m taking care of it. You just sit there and drink your wine.”
It only took him a few minutes to gather what he needed and carry it to the small bistro table outside. Then he was back in the kitchen, rinsing lettuce for the salad.
“Onion or no onion?”
“What? Oh, no onion.” She watched as he began tearing the bright green leaves into a bowl. “Honestly, this is too good to be true. If I had waited for Luc to cook, I would have starved to death.”
“You two live together?”
“No,” she said a little too sharply. “He wanted to, but I was afraid he might—”
“Get the wrong idea?”
Lily nodded. “He did that a lot. He always had to make things so complicated.”
“How long were you together?”
“Four years, on and off.”
“On for him, off for you?”
Lily cocked her head at him. Not because it was an odd question, but because it described perfectly the somewhat tempestuous relationship she’d had with Luc. “Mostly, yes. It always felt like we were out of sync. Probably because we were. He was a good guy, a great guy, but we wanted different things. He was looking for the swing set and the white picke
t fence, and I’m not.” Lily took a long sip of wine, then stared into her glass. “I know it sounds funny, but those things have never been on my radar. Maybe because I didn’t grow up that way myself. The only relationship I’ve seen close up was a disaster—enough of one to know it isn’t going to happen to me.”
“Your parents divorced?”
“Worse. They stayed together.”
Dean’s hands stilled over the tomato he was seeding. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it like that. Sounds like we both got the fuzzy end of the parental lollipop.”
Lily waved the remark away, not wanting to give the wrong impression. “It wasn’t traumatic, just . . . strained. My father was wonderful, but he stayed gone a lot—business travel—though I don’t think he minded. I missed him terribly, but part of me knew how unhappy he was at home. My mother wasn’t—isn’t—an easy person to live with.”
Dean reached for the wine bottle and topped off both their glasses. “Well, aren’t we a pair. Though I must say, it’s nice to meet a woman who isn’t so distracted by her biological clock that she can’t have a little fun.” He picked up his glass and took a quick sip. “Grab the salad and come outside. I need to turn the fish.”
Lily stared after him a moment as he disappeared, then grabbed the bowl and her glass and trailed out after him. The sun was going down in earnest now, a flat red disc set against a blushy pink horizon. Moving to the railing, she watched it slowly sink, no less captivated than she had been the night before.
A moment later, Dean was beside her. “Every one is different.”
“Sorry?”
“Sunsets. Every one is different. You can stand in the same place, day after day, and they never look the same twice. That’s what keeps it fun—the surprises. You never know what to expect, so you keep watching. It isn’t predictable. Or complicated. You just take it as it comes.”
His voice had changed subtly, taking on a hushed, silky quality that might have been reverence for the sunset but felt like something else entirely.
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