by Anita Hughes
“I was hoping to stay here.” He hesitated. “Olivia and I have so much to catch up on. I brought a whole bag of photos, I almost broke my back dragging them through the airport.”
“Felix would never allow it,” Hadley stated. “And Esther doesn’t have time to make up another room.”
“I’ll make up the room,” Olivia said.
She should be furious at her father and insist he stay at a bed-and-breakfast in St. Jean or a hotel near the airport. But she couldn’t remember her parents saying two words to each other and now they’d had a whole conversation. Didn’t she deserve four days with the two people who created her?
“It’s the twenty-first century and you and Felix are married,” Sebastian commented. “It’s your house too.”
“It is spring break and I’m sure the hotels are full,” Hadley sighed. “Every New York hedge fund manager has a private jet parked on the runway. I suppose you could have the guest suite in the pool house.”
“I sleepwalk at night, you wouldn’t want me to fall into the pool.” He walked into the hallway. “You must have a den with a comfy leather sofa.”
Sebastian strode past the dining room with its high-backed velvet chairs and bright geometric rug. He entered a room with paneled walls and an antique desk.
He glanced at a gold-framed painting and gasped. “There it is! I knew it didn’t belong in a stuffy living room on Central Park.”
“When we got married Felix wasn’t keen on displaying a painting by my ex-husband,” Hadley said, following him. “But he has come to appreciate it; it is a fine piece of art.”
“The Miller Girls,” Sebastian breathed. His eyes gleamed and he looked twenty years younger. “Do you remember a collector who offered me one hundred thousand dollars and I wouldn’t part with it? I was twenty-six and thought I was going to be the next Van Gogh or Cezanne.”
He turned to Olivia.
“We were staying at a game preserve in Kenya. You were three years old and you spent your days chasing zebras and looking through a pair of binoculars.
“Hadley wanted to go back to Nairobi; the nights were cold and you only had one jacket. But then we reached the foot of Mount Elgon and we had to stay. All I needed was three days to get the color right.” He pointed at the painting. “See how the sun is reflected on your hair. And look at the shawl your mother was wearing. It probably cost five Kenyan shillings, but she looked like a queen.
“For the next year we carried it everywhere. It was our good-luck charm; I sold every canvas. God, we saw amazing places: underwater caves in Vietnam and mountain villages in China.” His eyes dimmed. “Until we got to Thailand and everything went wrong.”
“I have to go,” Hadley said suddenly. “I’m meeting Felix at the tennis club for lunch.”
“I can sleep here.” Sebastian waved at the brown sofa. “All I need is a blanket and a bottle of scotch.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Felix likes to come down for a cigar.” Hadley shook her head. “I just remembered Esther made up the room at the end of the upstairs hall. It only has a shower but there’s a view of the bay.”
“Olivia will show me and then we can go to the beach together.” Sebastian put his arm through Olivia’s. “Does Felix have an extra pair of swim trunks? In Japan you can only buy Speedos, and I’m not going to the beach in a pair of men’s underwear.”
* * *
Olivia entered her room and picked up her sunglasses. Sebastian was getting settled and she said she had to grab a paperback book and a tube of suntan lotion. But really she needed a few moments to herself. Her father was in St. Barts to celebrate her birthday! If she left her door open she could hear him humming a song.
Her bedroom had a wood floor and gauze curtains and orange plaster walls. She usually loved curling up in a chintz armchair and gazing at the white sand beach and grand palm trees. But now her heart raced and she couldn’t sit still.
She wanted to know so many things about him: What were his favorite movies, did he like chocolate ice cream, was he afraid of spiders? And she wanted to tell him about herself: She was allergic to pineapple but loved melon. She twisted her ankle ice skating when she was nine and convinced her mother to get a black Labrador for her eleventh birthday. It didn’t last long. Felix was allergic and they had to give it away.
It was almost like they were pen pals meeting for the first time. They had been pen pals of sorts. She wrote Sebastian dozens of letters over the years and her most cherished possession was the wooden box containing his replies.
She opened the bedside drawer and took out a square box. She picked up the first letter and began to read.
Giza, Egypt
My darling Olivia,
I am sitting at the foot of the Great Pyramids and wishing one of these camels could fly. I would hoist myself on its hump and soar all the way to your sixth birthday party.
Do you remember when I used to read you The Swiss Family Robinson and The Jungle Book? You didn’t understand a word; you were barely five. But I hoped if I read out loud about jungles and waterfalls the desire to see the world would creep under your skin. Like when your mother sang to you while you were in the womb.
This is the first time we won’t celebrate your birthday together and I am terribly sad. But I gaze up at the pyramids and know what we have will survive. All the sand and wind could never erode my love for you.
I’m sure Hadley is reading this to you and wondering why I don’t deliver the sentiment in person. One day when you’re older I will explain it to you. For now, just know I love you more than anything and wish you the happiest birthday full of cake and presents.
Your loving father,
Sebastian
Olivia folded the letter and put it back in the box. Sebastian was her father and no matter what excuses he made, he’d spent twenty years traipsing around the planet without seeing her. Could she really forgive him because he appeared with a bag of photos and a smile that could light up Times Square?
But if she sulked around all week, she’d spoil her birthday and possibly Finn’s proposal. Suddenly she thought of Finn and gulped. What would Sebastian think of Finn?
She searched her closet for a hat and thought it was impossible not to like Finn. He had short blond hair and blue eyes and strong shoulders from years of doing crew. He grew up in a leafy suburb of New Jersey where the houses had English gardens and tennis courts and a chauffeur. He graduated from Princeton and one day he’d be a partner at the family law firm.
But she thought of the way Finn packed a tuna salad sandwich for lunch because restaurants in Midtown charged twenty dollars for a Caesar salad. He wore his grandfather’s Bulova watch because he didn’t trust anything else to tell the exact time, and in four years he had never picked her up a minute late.
She slipped on her sandals and stood on the balcony. White clouds drifted across the sky and the air smelled of frangipani and hibiscus. She shielded her eyes from the sun and wondered what Finn would think of her father.
Chapter Two
HADLEY PEERED OUT THE DOOR of the pool house and heard her car peel away. She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and turned back to the ironing board.
She didn’t really have a lunch date with Felix but when she’d stood in the library with Sebastian and Olivia she suddenly realized she needed to be alone. Now she touched the iron to see if it was hot and had to laugh.
She was incapable of telling Felix the orange juice was fresh squeezed when she forgot to buy oranges, even though juice from the carton tasted exactly the same. She could never change her birth date on her passport like some of her friends and if she couldn’t sell an artist’s work she fixed him a martini and gave him the bad news. But Sebastian had been in St. Barts for an hour and she was already telling a little white lie.
Esther would be angry with her for ironing the pillowcases; she had her own method of doing things. But Hadley found ironing so relaxing: the hot iron crisscrossed the fabric and you had t
ime to think.
And she had so much to think about. She should be happy Sebastian was here; she had been the one who invited him. Even if she’d stopped walking the invitation to the post office fifteen years ago, had anything really changed? Olivia was still his little girl and he was still her father.
But Sebastian was like the most expensive cognac. It went down so smoothly, you thought it didn’t have any effect at all. You ended up dancing all night and thinking the stars were a string of pearls and the sky was black velvet. Then you woke up in the morning with a parched throat and a pounding headache.
She wasn’t worried about herself. Being around Sebastian was like having the chicken pox: once you were exposed, you became immune. But Olivia barely remembered him; she was as susceptible as a baby who hadn’t yet received its shots.
She turned over the pillowcase and thought about the year after Sebastian left. Olivia drew pictures in a sketchbook to show him when he returned. She checked the mailbox every day and Hadley watched her stand on tiptoes and something caught in her throat.
Then Felix entered their lives and attended Olivia’s school plays and ballet recitals. They all drove up to the Hudson Valley to see the leaves change, and Olivia wore a satin flower girl dress and a coral bracelet to their wedding.
Felix and Olivia developed a genuine respect for each other and they both loved French movies and Renaissance art. Nothing made Hadley happier than sitting at the glass dining room table and having a lively conversation about books and music.
But nobody was like Sebastian. The moment he entered a room the whole world lit up, and when he turned to you, his smile felt brighter than the sun.
Did she really believe he’d missed the first quarter century of Olivia’s life and had suddenly appeared to make amends?
She remembered when Olivia was two and they visited the floating markets in Bangkok. Sebastian carried Olivia on his shoulders and they sampled sliced coconut and water chestnuts. Olivia saw a red bolt of fabric and pulled at it with her fists.
Sebastian approached the salesgirl and complimented her on her stall. He hadn’t seen such gorgeous fabrics anywhere in Bangkok. Did she make her shawl herself, where did she learn to sew?
Sebastian showed her his empty pockets and said he would come back and buy a scarf and maybe a shirt. The woman insisted he take something now and cut a piece of fabric from the red bolt.
What could he possibly want? She knew from gossip in the art circles that he hadn’t painted an important piece in years. But there was always an industrialist in Brussels or a polo player in Palm Beach who wanted a Sebastian Miller on his wall.
Sebastian used to laugh that it was the collector who never traveled anywhere that didn’t have five-star hotels or designer boutiques who wanted a street scene in Guangzhou hanging in his Fifth Avenue penthouse.
She suddenly thought about Felix and felt a little faint. What would he say when he discovered Sebastian’s jacket on the coatrack and his slippers in the upstairs hallway?
And they really didn’t need Sebastian delving into their marriage. Sometimes she thought Sebastian should have been a forensic accountant or a psychiatrist; he had a way of asking questions that made you squirm.
She folded the pillowcase and was sure she was worrying for nothing. Sebastian was in St. Barts because he wanted to celebrate Olivia’s twenty-fifth birthday.
She had watched him drink in Olivia’s slender cheekbones and dazzling smile and remembered Sebastian when he was in love. He invested everything in a single emotion and you felt bigger than the entire coast of Africa.
Hadley leaned against the ironing board and remembered when they met, at a guesthouse in Cape Town during the rainiest week of the year.
* * *
Hadley fiddled with the phone cord and gazed out the window of the guesthouse. The bed-and-breakfast in Cape Town belonged to a friend’s parents and it was everything she could imagine. There was a white picket fence and a bright red front door and stone walls covered in ivy. The guests ate buttermilk rusks and drank muddy coffee in the tile kitchen and at night the dining room table was set with platters of tomato bredie and pots of vegetable stew.
And the garden! When Hadley inhaled the sweet aroma, she thought it was worth the grueling flights and endless bus rides to get from Connecticut to South Africa. There were African lilies and honeysuckle and purple daisies. A willow tree shaded an iron bench tucked among beds of roses and orchids.
She had slept for sixteen hours and then showered in the communal bathroom. She slipped on khakis and a red sweater and grabbed her guidebook. There were so many things she wanted to do: see the African penguins at Boulders Beach and drive up Chapman’s Peak to watch the sunset. Explore the fishing boats at Gordon’s Bay and visit the Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens.
But then it started raining and she decided to curl up with a book in front of the fireplace. Everyone said the weather in Cape Town in August was as unpredictable as a teenage girl. One minute the northwest winds made it impossible to wear a skirt, the next the sun came out and you wore the thinnest cotton dress.
But for two days, the rain played on the gray slate roof. When she peered outside the air was misty, with a biting chill. Then she discovered the airline had lost her bag with her rubber rain boots and nylon jacket.
Now she put the phone down and sighed. She had been hopeful her suitcase would arrive, but it seemed as likely to be in Amsterdam or Istanbul. If she spent money on rain gear she wouldn’t be able to browse in the shops on the Victoria & Albert Waterfront, but if she stayed in the guesthouse she wouldn’t see Cape Town at all.
“You’ve been sitting in that spot for two days.” A man her age entered the living room. He wore a gray rain jacket and held a ceramic mug. “Some people come to the guesthouse to relax and enjoy the food. The bunny chow is delicious and the bobotie is like my mother’s meatloaf topped with a baked egg. But you’re missing out. We’re only a few blocks from the Martin Melck House and they have an exhibition about Nelson Mandela.”
“Don’t you think I want to go outside,” Hadley demanded. “I waited for six hours on the tarmac in Greenland because I booked the cheapest flight. I rode a bus from the airport that bumped so badly, I looked like I tumbled down a staircase. And I spent twenty grand on a taxi from the bus terminal because I had no idea the guesthouse was only a fifteen-minute walk.” She paused. “And then it started raining and the airline lost my luggage. I can hardly climb Lion’s Head in a cotton sweater and a pair of Keds.”
“They call winter the ‘secret season’ because you never know what the weather will be like.” The man pulled out a chair.
“It doesn’t seem like a secret to me.” Hadley frowned. “It hasn’t stopped raining since I arrived.”
“It has to rain or the colors wouldn’t be so vibrant.” He pointed to the garden. “Have you seen such bright oranges and sunny yellows? Yesterday I hiked to the top of Table Mountain. The hills belong in Ireland and the ocean is like Tahiti and the waterfalls make you think you’re in Polynesia.”
“I haven’t seen anything, I may as well go home,” she sighed.
“It can’t be that bad.” He set his mug on the table. “Go to the market and buy a pair of boots and a raincoat.”
“I’m staying here for free because the guesthouse belongs to the parents of a friend,” she explained. “I’ve made out a daily budget for entrance fees and bus tickets and braised sausage with chutney. If I spend the money on clothes I won’t be able to buy a milk tart.”
“You wouldn’t be missing out,” he said and his face broke into a smile. “Milk tarts are so sweet, they make Dunkin’ Donuts seem like health food.
“The great thing about traveling is talking to strangers. You’ve never met them before and you won’t see them again. It’s like going to a psychiatrist without the lumpy sofa and plastic plant.” He held out his hand. “Sebastian Miller, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Hadley Stevens,” she said and no
ticed his eyes were as green as the hills behind the guesthouse.
“Let’s play a game,” he suggested. “It will help pass the time until it stops raining.”
“No, thank you, I’m terrible at backgammon and I always lose at Monopoly.”
“I wasn’t thinking of a board game.” He looked at Hadley.
She flushed. “Just because I’m traveling alone doesn’t mean I’m that kind of girl.”
“I didn’t think you were.” He glanced at her high-necked sweater and white sneakers. “I mean a word game. Tell me three facts about you, the more outrageous the better.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked, studying the way his dark hair touched his collar.
“Because the only magazines are Ladies’ Home Journal and I happen to have read the Robert Ludlums on the bookshelf.”
Hadley curled her hair around her fingers and shrugged. It wasn’t going to stop raining soon and she’d finished the paperback she brought on the plane.
“I’ll go first,” he suggested. “I grew up on the north shore of Chicago and we had a house with a rose garden. When I was eleven, I asked my mother if I could give her roses to the girl next door. She told all her friends at the country club how mature her son was … until she discovered I gave them to Sally’s mother in exchange for homemade chocolate chip cookies.”
“That doesn’t sound too outrageous,” Hadley laughed.
“I attended a Jesuit school and when I was fourteen the boys brought in Playboys and hid them in their desks. I was more interested in my father’s stack of National Geographics. Then my class took a trip to Florence to see Botticelli’s Venus.” He sipped his coffee. “I realized there was nothing more miraculous than a beautiful woman and if you could spend your life sketching her glossy hair and luscious thighs you walked with the gods.”
Hadley wrapped her arms around her chest and felt oddly naked. “And the third?”
“I believe in three things. That without Michelangelo we’d still be living in the dark ages, that the best men in history were the ones who drafted the American Constitution. And the greatest mystery isn’t how the pyramids were built or whether the Loch Ness monster exists.” He paused and looked at Hadley. “It’s why we fall in love.”
