No Time To Blink

by Dina Silver

  He and I met in Greenwich during the summer of 1970, which I was quick to term “the summer of disappointment” when my parents didn’t show up for my graduation from Mount Holyoke. They were traveling with friends on the Orient-Express at the time and sent my two eldest sisters to be with me instead. I cried for a good hour on the train ride home but never confronted my mother. We just didn’t talk about things like that in our family.

  A good portion of my childhood had been spent trying to get my mother’s and father’s attention. At first, I began by excelling in sports. My freshman year of high school, I ranked fifth in the state for girl’s tennis, yet my mother attended only one match the entire year. When that didn’t work, I switched to rebelling. I gave up tennis for smoking weed and staying out past curfew, but all that did was validate her indifference toward me. Once my priorities were back on track, I would’ve bet my inheritance that graduating from college might have garnered some significant interest on her part, but I would’ve lost.

  She viewed emotional weakness as being unappreciative. If I’d told her how disappointed I was that she’d missed graduation, she would’ve chastised me for making her feel bad.

  But things turned around pretty quickly.

  One morning, early in the summer, two girlfriends and I rode our bikes to Tod’s Point, an incredible spot located on a peninsula jutting out into Long Island Sound with walking trails, kayaking, and beach access. On days when we’d tire of the snack bar at the Belle Haven Club, we’d drive out to the Point with a picnic basket, but that day we were all stuck with bicycles. We exhausted the morning by gossiping and sunning ourselves with baby oil when I spotted a man leaning against the concession stand, looking very out of place. The first thing I thought was that my mother would’ve made a derogatory comment about his appearance. The second thing I thought was how attractive he was. He was smoking a cigarette with his arms crossed and a Labrador puppy at his feet. Standing about six foot three with thick black hair, he had caramel-colored skin, mirrored sunglasses, and wore a very small bathing suit for a man of his size. His short-sleeve button-down shirt was hanging wide-open, revealing an ample amount of chest hair. There was nothing about him that screamed “prep-school graduate,” and I couldn’t have been happier.

  “Those suits are very popular over in Europe,” my friend Pamela said.

  “Maybe he thinks this is a nude beach,” Caroline added with a snicker.

  “Too bad it’s not,” I said, leaving my gaze on him.

  Then, as it often happens when people stare at each other, he sensed me. I willed it to happen, and it did. I was taking my time uncoiling the chain from my front bike tire when he turned and faced me. He pushed his glasses up onto his head, and Caroline squeezed my arm. “He’s looking at us,” she said.

  “He’s looking at me.” I quickly slid my feet into a pair of white Keds and placed my kickstand back down. I wore a light-blue sleeveless terry-cloth cover-up that accentuated my long legs. “Wait here for a minute,” I said to my friends, and walked in his direction. A breeze carried the scent of a nearby barbecue, and as I got closer to him, I could hear the squeals of little children splashing in the water. He was grinning by the time I reached him, and my heart was pounding at the same pace the puppy was panting.

  “Can I help you?” he asked with a trace of an accent I couldn’t place, and flicked the cigarette butt into the sand.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.” I tilted my head. “I’ve spent my entire life here. You’re the one that looks out of sorts.”

  “Do I?”

  I bent to pet the dog. “Is she yours?”

  “For the moment,” he said. “Her name is Sheba.”

  “She’s so sweet. I love dogs. We have three beagles at home.” Sheba nipped at my fingers until I stood. “What brings you to Tod’s Point?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

  “And you’ve seen everyone else that’s ever been here before?” He narrowed his eyes.

  “Maybe I have.”

  “Maybe you’ve been too busy with your own group of friends. Perhaps spending your entire life here, as you say, has made you indifferent when it comes to meeting new people at the beach?”

  I shook my head. “Not many new people around here, mostly locals.”

  “I see, and you came over to me because you know I’m not a local?” He lowered his chin. “You don’t look like the beach police to me.” He raised an eyebrow and looked me over from head to toe in a way that I’d become accustomed to from men, and even some women.

  “I came over because I wanted to.” I shrugged and blushed a little.

  He let out a heavy, robust laugh that drew a few stares from people standing nearby in the soda line. “I’m flattered.”

  I squared my shoulders and extended my hand. “I’m Catherine Clarke, but my friends call me CC.”

  “It’s nice to meet you Catherine. I’m Gabriel.” He stood up off the wall he’d been leaning against, took my hand, and kissed the back of it. “Please let me know, as we get better acquainted, of course, when I, too, may call you CC.” His voice was deep, and his eyes were dark. He could have told me he modeled for GQ magazine, and I would’ve believed him.

  “I look forward to it.”

  “Do you live around here?”

  I nodded. “Yes, Belle Haven. It’s a little neighborhood within Greenwich. Not too far.”

  He glanced at Caroline and Pamela, who were staring at us like spectators at a tennis match. “That’s quite a bike ride from here,” he said and then reached forward and brushed some sand off the front of my dress. The gesture ruffled my nerves and made my heart race. I wiped my brow and smiled.

  He pulled his hand back, and our eyes locked. There were dogs barking in the background and bicycle bells ringing in the distance. I could still smell the food from the grill behind the concession stand.

  “We usually drive, but none of us had access to cars today,” I added.

  “Girls from Belle Haven without cars of their own?”

  “So, you’re familiar with the area?” I laughed. “A travesty, I know. We all have too many siblings.”

  “I’d offer you a ride, but I don’t have the room.” Gabriel checked his watch. “I have an appointment later, and I really need to get cleaned up. It’s in Belle Haven, as a matter of fact.” He met my gaze. “I hope to see you again.”

  I crossed my arms. “Likewise.”

  He lifted the puppy, serenaded by the sound of the waves lapping offshore, and walked toward the parking lot.

  “Sander wouldn’t be too happy to see that grin on your face,” Caroline said when I came back to where she and Pamela were standing.

  “Sander had his chance.”

  Pamela placed her hands on her hips. “You and he are through?”

  “Through,” I said and turned my attention to the parking lot, but there was no sign of my new friend. “There’s something very familiar about that man.”

  “Maybe he was our limo driver last weekend in Manhattan?” Caroline cracked.

  I slapped her on the shoulder. “You’re so rude.”

  She just laughed. “Maybe he’s Sander Crawley’s limo driver.”

  I rolled my eyes. Sander Crawley and his family were the epitome of Greenwich perfection. The term old money was almost never mentioned without the Crawley name uttered in the same sentence. He was everything my mother hoped one of her daughters would wed. In fact, if I had a dime for every time she reminded me that his family came over on the Mayflower, I’d have been able to afford my own ship.

  Sander and I had been high school sweethearts and had lost our virginity to each other after the senior prom, in the pool house on his parents’ estate. He was a kind, good-looking, impeccably polished, thoughtful boy whose etiquette and good manners could rival those of Prince Philip. But I would always think of him as just that: a thoughtful boy. Never a man. We decided to see other people after college, and he confessed to me that my own mother had
tried to fix him up with my sister Margaret when she’d heard we broke up. He and I had a good laugh. It’s cruel to say about a nice person like Sander, but he was a dime a dozen in Greenwich. If a man met the approval of my mother, chances are I was likely to reject him. There was nothing more I needed to know about country clubs and golf games. I longed for someone to talk to me about places I’d never been and things I’d never seen. I didn’t need to spend the rest of my years in Connecticut drinking Bloody Marys at 9:00 a.m., sipping clam chowder at noon, and playing tennis until 5:00 p.m., only to come home for an hour nap and wake up to a pitcher of martinis while my kids were being fed by someone else. These opinions of mine were precisely what my mother viewed as unappreciative.

  Two hours later, I was sitting in my cousin Laura’s house, down the road from my family’s home on Field Point Drive. She and I were the same age, and Laura had just graduated from Dartmouth, like most of our relatives. And despite having four sisters of my own, I felt the closest to Laura. She’d suffered through my high school heartaches; she’d helped me forge my mother’s signature after I’d been suspended for cheating on an exam. She’d been the one who took the blame when Mother found marijuana in my pocketbook. And she was the only one who truly understood what it was like to have parents like mine, who were more interested in their next martini than their next of kin. When you’re young and cared for—clothed and fed with the proverbial roof over your head—you never question your circumstances. And when you’re privileged, you’re simply chastised for dreaming about anything that might threaten the status quo. Mother’s insistence that I live my life according to her plan, coupled with her lack of compassion for anything I wanted, left me with little to do but challenge her at every turn. Given the opportunity to talk with each other about our lives and struggles and joys and feelings, I think Mom and I would’ve gotten along swimmingly. She was fun and gregarious and loved a good time, like me. But when it came to dipping below the surface and discussing emotions and opinions, it simply wasn’t done. She considered it painfully gauche to listen to anyone’s hardships. Least of all her own daughters’.

  Laura and I had been sitting in her family room off to the left of the foyer, with its high ceilings and enormous wrought-iron chandelier. In the center of the main wall was a stone fireplace with mahogany shelving on either side that showcased rows of books and framed family photos, while the back of the room was anchored by a bay window and a window seat overlooking the yard. I was sprawled across a couch, flipping through Cosmopolitan and reading an article predicting the popularity of go-go boots, when Gabriel walked through her front door.

  “What on earth?” I nearly spit out my iced tea. “What is he doing here?” I lowered my tone to a whisper while Laura continued to page through another magazine.

  Laura eventually looked up and followed my eyes to the front entry. “Who?” she asked and then turned back to me.

  Gabriel was talking with the housekeeper who’d let him in. He hadn’t noticed us, as we were slightly out of his eyeshot.

  “Why is he here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I have no clue. I think he’s a friend of my father’s. He mentioned someone was stopping by, but he told my mom he wouldn’t be staying for dinner. That’s all I overheard.”

  “Your father’s friend? Do you know him?”

  She slapped the magazine down in her lap. “Do you?”

  Just then, my uncle David met Gabriel in the foyer and led him out of view. I snatched the magazine and covered my face.

  “What’s the matter with you?” She laughed and took it back.

  I sat up and turned around, trying to get a glance out the windows behind us that overlooked the limestone terrace, but there was no sight of them. “We met today at Tod’s Point. What do you mean he’s a friend of your father’s? How old is he?”

  “I don’t know. Not as old as my dad, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “He’s here for some sort of summit. He’s a doctor or medical salesman or something. I don’t know.” She waved an unconcerned hand. “I think his father knows mine somehow through the club.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How else does anyone know anyone around here?”

  She went back to reading her magazine, and I leaped off the couch and scurried to the bay window, where I had a better vantage point standing on the seat cushion. Gabriel was out back with his hands in his pockets, looking very relaxed. I thought about how hot it had been earlier at the beach and how I’d willed him to notice me. I tried it again from behind the glass, but he and my uncle walked out of view before I could wield my mind controls.

  Just as I was about to hop down off the window seat, I heard a man’s voice.

  “CC?” My uncle questioned my bare feet on his upholstery.

  I stepped down and scratched the back of my head.

  “She was seeing if the pool cleaners were still out there,” Laura interjected. “We were going to have a swim.”

  Gabriel hadn’t said a word, but I could sense his astonishment as though it were another person standing beside him. Feigning disinterest, I let my eyes wander everywhere else in the room but his direction.

  “I’d like you to meet Gabriel Haddad,” my uncle David began. “He’s Serine Miller’s brother.”

  Serine Miller was an elegant and clever Lebanese woman who was married to one of the largest and most successful restaurateurs in the area. I never saw her without full makeup and jewelry. Her forearms, covered in gold bangles, announced her presence before she was ever seen, like a cat with a bell on its collar. She and her husband, Michael Miller, owned four restaurants in Manhattan, two in Greenwich, and were considered local culinary royalty. They single-handedly had converted diehard fans of clam chowder and lobster rolls to Middle Eastern foods such as hummus, baba ghanoush, and falafel.

  “Nice to meet you,” Laura said, and he nodded with a smile.

  I cleared my throat and took a few steps forward, imagining Laura’s eager eyes on me from behind. “We met at the beach this morning,” I said, smiling the instant my eyes landed on him again. He was curiously good-looking in a very “European way,” as Mother would say, yet his features were angular and faultless. He was wearing navy linen slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled, exposing more of his naturally tanned skin. Almost Waspy and just on the verge of fitting in . . . but not quite. Perhaps that’s what was so intriguing about him. It was exciting to be around someone different. Someone who’d quietly landed himself in the middle of my world, much like a grenade before it explodes.

  Uncle David couldn’t have cared less. “I see. Well, the pool cleaners left about two hours ago.” He rolled his eyes and started to exit. “If you two would ever look up from those magazines,” he mumbled on his way out.

  “We meet again,” Gabriel spoke, bending forward in somewhat of a bow.

  Laura got up off the couch. She and I were both tall, and yet he still towered over us. “Care to join us for a swim?” she said.

  He turned to her. “Thank you, but I have to be getting back to my sister’s place. Perhaps you two would like to join us for dinner?”

  “CC and I are having dinner at the club with some girlfriends,” she said.

  “Perhaps another time, then.” He gave us a nod.

  “What happened to your puppy?” I asked. “Sheba?”

  “I bought her for my nephew. She’s with him now.”

  My aunt Harriet yelled for Laura to come to the kitchen, and Gabriel took it as a sign that he should leave.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I offered.

  We walked through my aunt and uncle’s foyer, past the double staircase, and out onto the gravel driveway where a white Corvette was parked. As soon as our feet hit the stones, he reached for a pair of sunglasses dangling from his shirt pocket and put them on.

  “Nice car,” I said and loosely ran my fingertips over the hood.

  “It belongs to my brother-in-law, Michael.” Gabriel opened the driver’s
-side door with the key. “Perhaps you’d like to go for a ride sometime?”

  I swung my arms gently. “I’d like that very much. I would also have liked to join you for dinner tonight. Thanks for the invitation.”

  “How can I compete with the Belle Haven Club? I know your family has always enjoyed it there.”

  The comment about my family eluded me as I rambled on. “I can taste the entire menu with my eyes closed. In fact, I was weaned off baby formula with their Bookbinder’s soup, but we’re meeting some girlfriends we haven’t seen in months . . .”

  He laughed and crossed his arms. “You don’t remember meeting me before, do you?”

  I remained still for a moment before shaking my head. “No, where?”

  “At your club. You were just a teenager then, maybe sixteen or seventeen,” he said, studying me. “You were quite outgoing. I could hear you laughing from across the room. And who could forget that hair of yours? It’s like sunlight.”

  He placed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the hood of the car. “It must’ve been five years ago. I was a guest of a guest—if you will—of your mother and father’s.” He looked up, thinking for a moment. “A yacht party of some sort.” He shrugged.

  I was taken aback. “You know my parents?”

  “I’ve met them only once, and it was a long time ago. My friend Shep, Tom Sheppard, was the connection. Tom and I met one summer when I was here visiting my sister. His parents know your parents.”

  “Did you recognize me at the beach this morning when I came up to you?”

  “Yes.”

  I raised a brow. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I was enjoying your inquisition too much.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that you remember me and my hair”—I yanked the ends—“from all those years ago?”

  “There are some people in life you just never forget.” He grinned.

  Gabriel’s compliment floated between us and then scattered as soon as I heard the crunch of gravel from behind. “We better get inside,” Laura said, shielding the afternoon sun from her eyes with her hand. “Nice meeting you, Gabriel.”