by Nancy Thayer
To her surprise, Cameron responds, “True. It’s tragic really, especially because you’re so beautiful.”
This stops her in her tracks. Has anyone called her beautiful before? Ben has, of course. She takes a sip of sparkling water.
“Tell me,” Cameron invites, “what inspired you to become serious?”
He’s not making fun of her. He seems genuinely interested. Emily gives herself time to pause and gather her thoughts. “Nantucket. The light. The air is exhilarating. But the sea, the harbor, the water … that’s what fascinates me. Always has, ever since I was a little girl. As long as people don’t keep spilling oil into the water …” She stops, not wanting to get political.
But Cameron’s eyes are steady and warm. “Beautiful and green, as well? You’re too good to be true.”
“I’m real,” she insists, holding out her hand. “Feel.”
Cameron draws his finger lightly from the tip of her ring finger up her palm to her wrist. “Yes, you’re real,” Cameron says. “I am, too.” He draws the lightest of arabesques over the delicate skin of her wrist, his eyes instant messaging her about what he could do to other delicate skin on her body.
The waiter clears his throat. They pull apart. A pulse thrums in Emily’s neck. She stares down at her lap, confused. What is she doing?
She’s skirting dangerous territory. At university, the male grad students are either tech geeky and gauchely earnest, or arrogant earthy-crunchy pilled wool-sweater types, in a hurry to save the world and to be the first and most famous for doing so. This guy knows how to enjoy life.
The waiter puts a quiche and salad in front of Emily. Cameron has fried quail. For a few moments they focus on their food.
“You,” Emily begins, clearing her throat. “Tell me more about you.”
“As I said, I work on Wall Street, for Endicott, Streeter, and Towle. I’m another ordinary broker, brash and greedy.”
She narrows her eyes in doubt. “Are you brash and greedy?”
“My family certainly is. I try not to let money control me, like it does everyone else in my family. Although, I have to add in the interest of honesty, I do like what money provides.”
“Where do you live?”
“Upper East Side. You?”
“In an apartment in Amherst right now. My parents live on East Eighty-sixth, and I stay with them when I’m in New York. They’ve recently bought a place in Sarasota, so Dad can play golf in the winter. And, of course, there’s our Nantucket house. That’s where I feel most at home.”
“Lucky you,” Cameron tells her.
They eat slowly, drawing out their meal, not wanting to leave the table, the restaurant, this shining spell, but finally Cameron pays the check, and all too soon they’re outside in the bright autumn sunshine.
Cameron puts his hand on her waist, escorting her a few steps toward the street. “Do you know where I’d like us to meet next?”
“Tell me.”
“Nantucket.”
Oh, dear. She shakes her head to clear it. Nantucket means Ben. Not a good idea for Cameron to go there. “It’s rather boring in the fall,” she says. “No one’s there except people who rave about cranberry bogs.”
“Hmm. Well, then, what’s the best season?”
“Summer, definitely.”
“I guess I’ll have to keep in your good graces until summer,” Cameron says, surprising her by pulling her to him and thoroughly kissing her right on the street in broad daylight. He bends her back slightly, one hand on her waist, one on her head, and she has the delicious sensation that they’re posing for a photograph: Rich Young New Yorkers in Love. Oh, she’s not in love with him, but she does admire the brightness of his hair and the lightness of his disposition.
When he ends the kiss, he steadies her with his hands on her shoulders and looks at her frankly. “I don’t want to wait until summer to see you again.”
Shaken, confused, Emily stalls. “I’ve got to be up in Amherst all fall, working on my master’s.”
“Could I come up some weekend to take you away for a day trip? Think how good a change of scenery would be for your mind.”
Emily hesitates, then decides. “Yes. Yes, please come up. I’d enjoy that.” After all, she tells herself, it won’t be a date. It will simply be—fun.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A number of published writers—Maureen Orth, Charles Graeber, Maggie Shipstead, Julie Hecht—spend part of the summer on the island, and Maggie often helps Greta and Artie White cater their dinner or cocktail parties. Most of the people are relaxed and unpretentious, so they chat easily with Maggie as she passes through with trays of champagne or shrimp.
Maggie could ask one of the writers to help her find an agent. Actually, some of the guests are agents. First, she has to finish her book. Seldom nervous around the wealthy, she becomes slightly breathless at literary gatherings.
She’s not ready yet, she reminds herself. She’s started a novel, but she’s trashed more than she’s kept. She tries to write short stories, but that’s a completely different genre, requiring different pacing and structure. She’s young, and she needs to take time to find her voice.
This fall a kind of gentle melancholy accompanies her as she goes through her days. Summer friends leave, Maggie’s got less work, more time to walk and write, and yet she feels lonely and dull without the summer people. She’s not depressed, exactly, but at odds with herself. She misses Emily but, in a fussy snarky way, she wants Emily to miss her more and to do something about it. Email and texting isn’t enough. Ben’s doing fantastic work for a conservation group, but at home he drags himself around like a dying slug.
Several times Maggie’s been at the Box or Lola’s with friends and seen Shane across the room with Paulina, his stunningly gorgeous Bulgarian girlfriend. They’re obviously in love. They can’t stop touching each other. She doesn’t want Shane, but she’d still like to have what they have.
That autumn in Amherst, Emily dives into her studies with a renewed determination. Her work is challenging, forcing her to think about real-world problems with mathematical solutions. She visits the island often, sometimes to see Maggie, sometimes for a formal coffee-and-friends-only meeting with Ben, but mostly to spend time by herself walking along Nantucket’s different waterfronts: the harbor, the sound, the ocean, the ponds.
Some Sunday mornings she rises early to go birding with Ben. Afterward, they have breakfast with the rest of the group, and then she feels so close to Ben, so much a part of a community, a tribe. These days she and Ben don’t discuss the future. And they don’t have sex. They don’t even kiss. He’s punishing her, or that’s what it feels like.
At school, she works incredibly hard. Often she bikes away from campus into town where she strolls around, getting a latte, sitting at a sidewalk café watching the world go by. She needs to rest her mind from her studies and her eyes from the computer screen.
And if she occasionally thinks about Cameron Chadwick, what’s so wrong with that? She doesn’t want to go to bed with him, she doesn’t! Really. But it sort of perked her up, that weekend in New York, his frivolous flirting, his easy charm, so different from Ben, who often carries a heaviness in his stance. Cameron doesn’t worry about the future of the world, she’s sure. She’s not betraying Ben by thinking about Cameron any more than thinking about Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s not as if she’s ever gone down to Wall Street to find Cameron in his office. She hasn’t even looked up his phone number.
Yet somehow she’s not surprised when she answers her cell one Friday evening to hear Cameron’s mellow voice.
“Hey, Emily! It’s supposed to be a glorious autumn day tomorrow. Why don’t I drive you into Boston and we’ll check out the Museum of Fine Arts?”
She’s already told Ben she won’t come to the island this weekend. He’s involved with work, as always, so he won’t be coming up here. It would feel so good to escape the drudgery of statistics, graphs, and multisyllabic scientific words. And if the
y go to the museum, that makes it an intellectual outing, not a date.
“I’d love to,” she tells Cameron.
If Ben asks her about her day, she’ll be honest. She’ll tell him she met Cameron at Tiffany’s wedding, and he called on the spur of the moment. Not that Ben will call. They don’t even email every day. For all she knows, he could be dating someone else. But no—Maggie would have told her. Should she tell Maggie she’s got a date with Cameron? Well, Emily doesn’t have to tell her everything!
And it’s lovely to be driven along the winding roads beneath canopies of scarlet and gold leaves. The sun is warm, the air cool, the breeze playful as Cameron speeds his black Mercedes convertible along Route 2 toward Boston. He sets the volume high on his music, and a wild, thumping bass line combines with the light flaming through the maples to ignite an elation in Emily’s heart. She’s still young, and today the world is bandbox bright, blazing clean, sparkling as if diamonds were falling through the air!
How has she allowed herself to become so serious, so boring and sober? She’s a healthy young woman, with a body as well as a mind. Lifting her face to the sun, she laughs.
When they reach Boston, Cameron slows the car down, but Emily’s euphoria remains. As they drive through the city, people stare at them enviously from the sidewalks, and Emily revels in the illusion she and Cameron cast, of two blond, wealthy young people who possess the world.
With Cameron, she feels like she could possess the world. It’s a seductive feeling.
They go up the wide marble stairs and into the long galleries of masterpieces, past Monets, Manets, Picassos, and Warhols, past Turners, Constables, and Holman Hunts, pausing to study paintings that catch their interest. Bucolic scenes of sheep and shepherds, battle scenes with fallen horses and spears, women with beauty marks on their cheeks and feathers in their hair, fat cupids lounging on clouds, display themselves along the walls. Emily’s pleased that Cameron doesn’t insist they discuss every painting and share opinions; rather than following him, she prefers wandering around the room until she finds something she likes. He doesn’t talk too much, although he pauses before a glass case filled with antique sterling silver sugar bowls, tea canisters, and pots. “Richard Shaw,” he murmurs to himself. Glancing at Emily, he adds, almost apologetically, “We have some of his.”
“Mmm,” she murmurs, but she’s impressed.
After a while, Cameron says, “My eyes are crossing. Let’s go to the gift shop. Maybe they’ll have a book on Shaw.”
In the gift shop, Emily helps him search the books. Cameron chooses a hardback on British silver. As they wait in line before the cash register, Emily idly surveys the jewelry in the glass case.
“See anything you like?” Cameron asks.
Emily smiles. “Of course.”
“What about this?” Cameron taps his finger on the glass, indicating a necklace of moonstones and amethysts. “That would be amazing on you.”
“It’s beautiful,” she agrees, and for a moment she wants it with all her heart. She wants it more than anything she’s ever wanted in the world. Of course, she could always buy it …
“I’m going to buy it for you,” he says.
Pleased, she protests, “Oh, Cameron, that’s sweet, but no.”
“Miss?” Cameron aims his smile at a saleswoman. “Could we have a look at this necklace, please?”
Unlocking the case, she carefully lifts the necklace up into the air.
“Turn around now. I’ll fasten it on you and let’s see how it looks,” Cameron instructs.
Emily can sense the other shoppers watching her as she holds up her blond hair while Cameron clinches the clasp, his cool fingers touching her warm neck. It’s heavier than it looks. The stones are big.
She’s flushed with excitement, so the necklace is as cool as chips of ice against her burning skin. The necklace lies across her collarbone, but Cameron reaches out and unbuttons the top two buttons of her sweater, folding them back.
“There,” he says. “Now I can see it. Wow, the stones make your eyes look as blue as the sky.”
“The necklace is five hundred and forty dollars,” the saleswoman tells him.
“We’ll take it,” Cameron decides.
“Cameron—”
“Please,” he says. “I’d like to buy this for you.” He smiles at her so innocently, how can she refuse? It would be insulting to.
“All right,” she agrees. “Thank you.” Leaning forward, she kisses him lightly on the cheek. “I really do love it. It’s beautiful.”
“So are you,” he says.
His breath is sweet, his lips soft, his face saved from being angelic by the mischievous fire in his eyes. What deal has she sealed by accepting such a present? Would she be so very bad to have a fling with him? He’s wildly sexy, but also incredibly nonchalant about it. As he walks her to the car, he speaks of his great-great-grandfather who started hauling coal in Pennsylvania as a boy and worked his way up to president of his own energy company. Cameron’s grounded, realistic, nobody’s fool.
The sun is sinking as they drive back to Amherst in the swift little car. Emily feels young, carefree, privileged—and why shouldn’t she? Is it so wrong to enjoy herself? Is it so terrible to prefer a Mercedes and champagne to a coughing old Jeep and cheap beer? Isn’t that the American dream? Shouldn’t somebody live it?
They arrive back in Amherst in the early evening. Emily’s hair is tousled from the wind, her face slightly wind- and sunburned. She’s deliciously exhausted yet also exhilarated, as if she’s been sailing all day. Stretching her arms, she murmurs, “Mmm, I feel so happy.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Emily’s surprised. “What?”
“I’m starving. How about Italian food with lots of garlic and wine?”
Garlic, she thinks, not what one would eat with seduction in mind. On the other hand, red wine …
As they are ushered into Angelo’s, Emily can feel the stones of her necklace glowing like captured comets, and she knows her wind-pinked cheeks make her blue eyes brighter. And beside her is this tall, blond, gorgeous man, with his confident stride, his impeccable clothes, his understated and elegant manners.
Antipasto is served first, followed by a rich, subtle, satisfying osso buco, perfect for the fall evening. Cameron quietly orders a red wine by name, and they eat, drink, and talk until their lips are glistening with olive oil. For dessert, they have cannoli and espresso, and then, sated, they lean back in their chairs. They sigh simultaneously, and laugh at themselves.
“Cameron, this has been a perfect day.”
He reaches over to take her hand. For a moment he simply holds it, running his thumb along her palm, as if reading her future. Then he glances up at her.
“Does that mean the day is over now?”
She knows what he’s asking, and she knows what she would like to say. But there is the possibility that this man could be … more than a passing acquaintance … more than a casual affair. The thought nearly splits her heart in two. She loves Ben.
Yet here he is. Her body is begging.
“Cameron,” Emily replies gently, removing her hand, “I’m involved with someone on Nantucket. We’re in the middle of—I guess it’s a kind of a negotiation, or confrontation. It’s a mess, is what it is. I don’t want to go to bed with you”—Emily’s not sure she can explain—“experimentally,” she concludes.
“I wouldn’t mind experimenting,” Cameron jests, immediately adding, “Emily, it’s fine.”
She relaxes, both relieved and disappointed.
“I’ll drop you off and make the drive back to Manhattan,” he tells her. “I have work to do tomorrow anyway.” He signals the waiter. Turning back to Emily, he says, “But let me say this. I knew the moment I saw you, you were special. Damn, that’s trite, but—we really do seem to get along, don’t you think?”
Overwhelmed in the glow of his charm and gorgeous, aristocratic face, stunned by his ease and his serious admission of at
traction to her, Emily can scarcely speak. You don’t have to have sex with another man to be unfaithful, she thinks. She could never, ever, tell Ben about this day. She manages to agree, “We do have a good time.”
“Good. I’ll leave it with you, then. If you want to see me, well, give me a call.”
Cameron drives her to her apartment in an old Victorian house in Amherst and walks her to the door. In the shadows of the streetlights, he takes her in his arms and pulls her to him. He smooths back her hair from her face. He bends down, and with lips silky with wine, he kisses her for a long time. Her body rises up to him like a flower to the sun.
“Thank you for today,” he says. “I hope you’ll call me.”
Emily can’t speak. Her throat is tight with tears, her heart thudding with a guilty, insubordinate desire. But then she says good night, and goes inside, alone.
Part Four
Siren Song
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Emily steps off the little nine-seater plane that jostled her over the swollen gray waters of Nantucket Sound from Hyannis to Nantucket. She takes a deep breath. She’s going to spend this special Christmas Stroll weekend entirely with Maggie. Maggie has no idea that right now Emily has no desire to see Ben.
“Emily!” The moment Emily sets foot in the airport terminal, Maggie’s there in a flurry of black curls and emotion, squeezing Emily in a tight hug, glowing like the sun. “You’re here, you’re really here, and Ben doesn’t get you for one hour this weekend. You’re all mine!”
Emily can’t help but laugh. Maggie’s good mood is contagious. She allows herself to be whisked out of the airport and into Maggie’s Bronco.
“Everyone wants to see you. I’ve got so much planned for us. We’re having dinner at Pazzo tonight with Kerrie, Delphine, and Robin. Tomorrow we’ll do the Stroll, watch Santa arrive by Coast Guard, go shopping at the craft fair—fabulous stuff, I can’t wait—and hear Robin Knox-Johnston read ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ at the library. Then—oh, my God, this is so exciting—you and I are going to get glammed up and attend a cocktail party thrown by Stevenson Braig, the author who wrote the true crime book? I met him when I worked a cocktail party and Marilyn O’Brien told him I write, too, as if I really do, which I guess I do, and he’s ancient, but incredibly nice and he knows everyone …”
