“Good Lord. In twenty-five words or less?” She smiled at him, more than a little awed by what he had just told her. The Nastassos name alone was enough to startle anyone. They were one of the biggest shipping families in Greece. And now that she thought of it, she vaguely remembered hearing about him. He was the black sheep of the family, and she thought she'd heard that he'd been married several times. The third time he had married it had been on the front page of the paper in San Francisco, he had married a distant cousin of the queen.
“What were you thinking?” He looked at her in a childlike, open fashion, in the enormous silver car, with the chauffeur staring stolidly straight ahead.
“I was thinking,” she said, looking at him honestly, “that I think I've read about you.”
“Have you?” He looked amused. “Let's see, you wouldn't have read about my marriage to Brigitte, she was my first wife and we were both nineteen. She was the sister of a boy I knew at Eton. But my second wife perhaps, Anastasia Xanios.” She loved the way his tongue slipped over his words, his accent was delicious. “You might have read about her, or perhaps Margaret”—he looked at her with his big black eyes—”the queen's cousin.” He was so outrageous that she laughed.
“How many times have you been married?”
“Four.” He answered her honestly.
She counted backward in her head and looked at him with a grin that matched his own. “Then you left one out.”
He nodded, but the smile dimmed. “The last one.”
“Which one was she?” Serena had not yet understood that this was not like the others.
“It was … she was French. She was a model.” And then he looked at Serena with dark, tragic eyes. “She died from an overdose last January. Her name was Hélène.”
“Oh, I'm so sorry.” She reached out and touched his hand. “I really am. I lost my husband too.” All she could think of was what he must have felt when his last wife had died. She still remembered the incredible pain of losing B.J. and it had been more than four years.
“How did your husband die?” Vasili was looking at her now gently.
“In Korea. He was one of the first casualties, just a few days before war was declared.”
“Then you've been through it too.” He looked at her oddly. “It's so strange. Everyone jokes about it… married four times … another wife. But each time it's different. Each time …” He looked at Serena and she almost wanted to cry. “Each time I love as though it were the first time … and Hélène, she was only a child. Twenty-one.” Serena didn't ask why she had done it. She assumed that the girl had committed suicide with sleeping pills, it was the only kind of drug overdose she could imagine. He shook his head then and held tightly to Serena's hand. “Life is a strange place sometimes. I very seldom understand it. But then again” —he cocked his head to one side with a boyish smile—”I no longer try. I live my life from day to day.” And then he sighed softly. “I have my work, my friends, the people I work with. And when I'm behind the camera, I forget it all.”
“You're lucky.” Serena knew only too well that hard work dulled the pain. “You don't have any children, Vasili?”
“No.” He looked sad and then shrugged with a small smile. “Maybe I haven't met the right woman yet. Have you children, Serena?”
“One. A little girl.” His eyes lit up at her answer.
“What is her name?”
“Vanessa.”
“Perfect. And she is blond and looks exactly like you?” His eyes danced.
“No. She is blond and looks exactly like her father.” Serena laughed.
“He was handsome?” Vasili looked intrigued.
“Yes.” But it all seemed very far away now. Four years was a long time.
“Never mind, little one.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek and she had to remind herself that he was not a friend but a photographer she was going to work with. But it seemed hard to believe that she hadn't known him for years. She felt oddly comfortable with him now, and captivated, as though he had flown her to a foreign land. He might as well have, she realized as the car stopped a few minutes later and they got out. They were at a seafood restaurant at Sheepshead Bay. It looked fairly scruffy, but inside was the rich smell of steamed clams and melted butter, fish cooked in herbs, and fresh bread being warmed. They had a marvelous lunch, undisturbed by anyone, and it was close to five o'clock when they emerged.
“That was absolutely divine.” Her stomach felt full, she felt comfortable and relaxed. She would have liked to stretch out somewhere for a nap, as Vasili put an arm around her shoulders and swung his sweater in the air. It certainly didn't feel like an afternoon when she should have been working. She looked at him with a warm smile, and he stood aside with a bow, as the chauffeur opened the door and she got back into the car. Once ensconced beside her, he leaned forward and gave the driver instructions, and she realized a few minutes later that they were not going home. “Is this another adventure?” After all, Sheepshead Bay was not her usual luncheon fare. But Vasili only smiled secretively and took her hand. She could no longer bring herself to feel pressed about the time, or agitated. She had nowhere to go except home, and there was no one there. “Where are we going?” She leaned back against the comfortable upholstery with a smile.
“To the beach.”
“At this hour?” She looked surprised but not alarmed.
“I want to see the sunset with you, Serena.” It seemed an odd idea but she didn't really want to object. She was more comfortable with this man than she had been with anyone in years. And more than that, she was happy. He suffused her with a kind of joie de vivre that she hadn't remembered in a very long time, if ever.
The driver knew exactly where Vasili wanted him to go, and he drove through assorted ugly little suburban communities, until he reached the right one, and drove the enormous Bentley sedately up to a small pier. There was a ferry boat tied up and bobbing in the water, and their timing had been perfect, there were already half a dozen people aboard.
“Vasili?” For the first time Serena looked worried. “What is this?”
“The ferry to Fire Island. Have you been there before?” She shook her head. “You will love it.” He looked so sure about what he was doing that she was no longer unnerved. “We won't stay long. Just long enough to see the sunset and walk on the beach, and then we'll come home.” For some reason she trusted him, everything about him seemed to suggest to her that she would be safe with him. He had a way of imparting the impression that he was totally in control and one could rely on him.
Hand in hand with Vasili she boarded the ferry, and they set off for Fire Island. The ride took half an hour, and they got out on the island on a narrow little pier, and then he walked with her straight across the island to a beach that took her breath away, it was so lovely. It stretched out for miles, a narrow sandspit in the ocean, perfect white sand, and soft waves for almost thirty miles.
“Oh, Vasili, it's incredible.”
“Isn't it?” He smiled. “It always reminds me of Greece.”
“Do you come here often?”
He shook his head slowly, his black eyes burning into hers. “No, Serena, I don't. But I wanted to come here with you.” She nodded, and then turned away, not sure of what to say. She didn't want to play games with him. But he was so open and so appealing, and he had a magnetic quality about him that drew her to him. They walked on the beach for a while, and then sat down to watch the sunset, and they sat that way for what seemed like hours, in the growing dusk, his arm around her shoulders, each of them listening to his own dream. At last he stood up slowly and pulled her to her feet, she had her sandals shoved into her pockets, her hair was loose and blowing softly in the wind, and he touched her face with his hand, and then very gently he leaned toward her and kissed her, before walking slowly down the beach with her, and then back to the pier. They said little on the ferry ride home, and she was astonished to realize that in the last few minutes of it she fell asleep with
her head on his shoulder. But he was that kind of man. He teased her about it once they were back in the Bentley, and they laughed and joked on the rest of the ride home. An hour after they had stepped off the boat from Fire Island she was in front of her door on East Sixty-third Street, and it was difficult to explain what had happened in the past eight hours. It was just after ten o'clock, and she felt as though she were returning from a magical journey with this extraordinary black-eyed man.
“See you tomorrow, Serena.” He said it very gently, and did not try to kiss her again. She nodded, with a smile, and waved as she unlocked the outside door and disappeared into the building, and as though in a dream she drifted up the stairs.
38
As relaxed and magical as the day before had been, the day of working with Vasili at the studio was a day of grueling devotion to his work. He shot unrelentingly for hour after hour, in the studio, in the car, with the male models, with the children, head shots of Serena, and shots of the car alone. She watched him work and realized that even Andy Morgan hadn't worked that hard when she was photographed by him. There was a kind of manic excitement about Vasili, a physical electricity that filled the room, and when the day ended, everyone in the studio was drained. Vasili himself was drenched with perspiration, his navy-blue T-shirt stuck to him like wallpaper, and he used a towel to wipe his face and his arms, and then sat down with a broad grin. The smile that exploded in his eyes seemed to be just for Serena, and she felt herself drawn to him as she had been again and again, and she sat down beside him with a warm smile.
“You should be very pleased.” Her voice was gentle, and his face was very near to hers.
“So should you, Princess. You were fantastic. Wait until you see the shots.”
“Í assume we're through.” There was disappointment in her voice as she said it, and she looked amazed when he shook his head. “We're not? You can't really mean to shoot more, Vasili. We got everything imaginable today.”
“No, we did not.” He attempted to look outraged, but his laughing eyes would not play the game. “We only did studio work today, tomorrow we work outdoors.”
She grinned at him. “Where?”
“You'll see.”
And the next day she did. He had found a series of hills and a rugged little canyon in New Jersey, and she drove the car, hopped out of it, lay on the hood, pretended to change a tire for him, did everything but overhaul the engine, and at the end of the day, she was even amused. Not only did he get to know his subjects but he apparently got to know his objects too. She teased him about it as they drove back to the city together, and he congratulated her again on her style.
“You know, Princess, you're damn good.”
She looked at him happily as she flung back her mane of blond hair, and longed to touch his. “So are you.”
He dropped her off at her door that night, and two days later he called her. “Come and see what we've done.”
“Vasili?”
“Of course, Princess. I have the proofs and the contact sheets to show you.” It was unusual for the model to see them before the client, but he was so excited about what he'd shot that he wanted her to rush right over to the studio, and she did. The photographs he had got of her were sheer genius, prizewinning quality, truly remarkable photographs, and he was ecstatic, and when she saw them, so was she. As was Dorothea Kerr at the agency, and the client, and everyone involved with the job. And by the following week Dorothea Kerr had scheduled them again together four more times.
“Look who's here!” She teased as she walked into the studio for the third time. “Not tired of my face yet, Vasili?” She had wanted a vacation, but after working with him, she had given up the idea. It was more exciting to work with Vasili, and she knew that he wouldn't be in the States for very long. Besides which, there was still that odd magnetism about him, and she was always haunted by the memory of the sunset they had shared on Fire Island. Whenever they worked together, she remembered those moments, and when she had slept on his shoulder on the ferry. The memories suffused her face with a gentle quality that showed in the photographs later, and the work they did together was like ballet or fine art.
“How's my princess today?” He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, and then he smiled at her. The job they had to do was a quickie, and this time they were finished in a few hours. They knew each other so well that it was easier and easier to work together, and after the shoot was over, he pulled on a fresh T-shirt and looked over his shoulder at Serena. “Want to go out for dinner somewhere, Princess?”
She didn't hesitate for a moment. “I'd love it.” And this time he took her to Greenwich Village, to his favorite bar. They ate spaghetti and mushrooms and a giant salad, white wine, and afterward they wandered through the streets and ate Italian ice.
“Don't you ever miss Italy, Serena?”
She hesitated for a moment and then shook her head. “Not anymore.” She told him then about all that she had lost there, her parents, her grandmother, both palazzi. “I belong here now.”
“In New York?” He looked surprised, and she nodded. “Wouldn't you be happier in Europe?”
“I doubt it. I haven't been there in so long. I lived in Paris for a few months with my husband, but it all seems so long ago now.”
“How long is it?”
“Eight years.”
“Serena.” He looked at her squarely then, his black eyes brilliant with a kind of fire. “Would you work with me in Paris or London? I'd like to work with you again, and I don't spend that much time here.”
She thought about it for a moment. He was wonderful to work with, and together they created something very rare. There was an extraordinary undercurrent between them, she wasn't quite sure what it was, but it appeared in the photographs every time. “Yes, if I could make arrangements for my daughter.”
“How old is she?”
“Almost eight.”
He smiled at Serena. “You could bring her along.”
“Maybe. If it was only for a few days. She has to go to school.”
He nodded. “Let's think about it.”
“Are you leaving soon?” Serena looked disappointed, and she glanced at him as they passed through Washington Square and left the Village.
“I don't know.” He looked at her strangely. “I haven't decided yet. But I've almost finished all the jobs I came here to do.” And then he shrugged again, like a remarkably beautiful schoolboy. “Perhaps I should try to drum up more work.” Serena laughed. They had only been working together for a week, but their hours together had been so long and intense and filled with hard work and feeling that it was difficult to believe that they hadn't worked together at least a hundred times before. “What are you thinking?”
She looked at him with a smile. “That I like working with you, and that I'll miss you.” And then, almost shyly, “I've never become involved with any of the photographers before.”
“That was what Dorothea told me.” He looked at her teasingly. “She said that you are a pro, and that I wasn't to try any of my tricks on you.”
“Aha! Do you usually use tricks?”
She was teasing, but he was not when he answered. “Sometimes. Serena …”He seemed to hesitate and then decided to tell her. “I am not always the most circumspect person.” But that much was apparent about him. “Does that matter to you?”
“I don't think so.” She answered quickly, but she wasn't entirely sure what he meant. All photographers were a little wild sometimes. He wasn't the only one. The only thing different about him was that he had been married four times.
“You know.” He stopped walking and turned to face her. “You are such an unusual woman that sometimes I don't know how to tell you what I'm thinking.”
“Why not?” She frowned, afraid that she had seemed stiff or perhaps stuffy. If they were to be friends, he should have been able to be himself. “Why can't you tell me what you think?” Her eyes clouded and he moved toward her and gently kissed her.
“Vasili …” She lowered her eyes and then raised them again to look at him, but he didn't let her continue.
“It's all right. I don't expect you to love me. I've been a crazy man all my life. And one pays a price for that.” He sighed as he said it and smiled a sad little smile. “It makes one quite unsuitable for anyone decent.”
“Don't be silly.”
But he held up a hand again. “Would you want a man who had had four wives?” His eyes bore into her as he asked her.
“Maybe.” Her voice was soft as satin. “If I loved him.”
And his voice was as soft as hers. “And do you think you could love such a man … perhaps … if he loved you very, very much … ?”
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