Memories of Santorini, page 6
Sienna smiled. “Thank you, Father. The lobster is delicious.” She looked at the waiter. “Do you have a doggy bag?” she asked, pointing to her father’s salmon. “I’d really hate for that to go to waste. And another champagne cocktail would be nice too.”
7
“He’s so manipulative,” Sienna ground out between gritted teeth. Two days after that lunch, she was still angry with her father.
“That’s the nature of the beast,” Aunt Teresa quipped.
Sienna was taking another long lunch, this time at Aunt Teresa’s house. She was starting to love long lunches and didn’t even feel guilty. They were seated in her aunt and uncle’s gorgeous sunroom filled with light and green plants and blooming flowers all year round. Aunt Teresa called it her indoor garden.
Uncle William was one of the top attorneys in the Bay Area. The house in Saratoga was a showpiece, with a formal living and dining room, because Aunt Teresa and Uncle William entertained often. Despite their wealth, Aunt Teresa was down to earth, a mother figure, and the only person Sienna could run to with her troubles.
“He’s become so controlling since the divorce. And it’s not Bron’s fault. Maybe he’s just worried she’ll leave him because he’s so old.”
Aunt Teresa patted her hand. “Did you ever consider that he was always manipulative and controlling and you just didn’t see it?”
Knowing her mother was coming to lunch as well, Sienna had arrived early to do a data dump on her aunt. She told her about the birthday party when her father lied about Matthew, compounding it with a “fabrication” about Bron, then the lie about her mother not wanting her to be in the wedding, and finally about Mr. Smithfield and the complete lie, not fabrication, that lost Sienna the job. All because he supposedly was looking out for everyone’s feelings and knew what was best.
“I’m not saying he hasn’t always liked to have things his way. He’s a man, after all,” Sienna said. She’d worked with a lot of men, and most of them liked things their way. “But this is different,” she insisted. “He deliberately sabotaged the job because he didn’t want me working for his competitor.” She shook her hands as if she could shake out the agitation. “Sure he offers me a job, but I know how it would play out. I’d be under his and Matthew’s thumb doing all the grunt work. But I want my own clients to service. I want to be a partner.”
“I know how hard it is, sweetie,” Aunt Teresa sympathized. “But now you can see what it was like for your mother.”
Sienna shook her head, her hair flying. “I’m telling you, he is so much worse.”
“Maybe you finally caught him at it.”
Sienna pursed her lips stubbornly. “I would have caught him long ago if he was doing this for years.” She looked at her aunt. “I worry about Bron. What’s she getting herself into?”
“Bron’s a big girl. She worked for him, and she knows what he’s like. She’ll be able to figure out if he’s not the right man for her.”
“Sure. But she’s already pregnant.”
The doorbell rang through the house. Her mother. The heart-to-heart was over. She hadn’t even gotten around to asking Aunt Teresa’s advice.
The sisters hugged when her mother entered. They couldn’t be more different in personality, but they both had the same beautiful deep brown eyes, silky dark hair now streaked with gray, and figures that men would have drooled over in their younger days. Not that either of them had lost their shape. It was just that they were, well, older.
It was a fact of life that men going through a midlife crisis—like her father—wanted a younger woman. It was truly sad that older women became invisible no matter how beautiful they were. Luckily, Uncle William would never cheat on Aunt Teresa.
She thought over her aunt’s comment. Had her dad always been controlling, but just better at hiding it before? Sienna didn’t know. For so long, she’d thought all the problems were her mother’s fault.
And what about her mom? She was broken by the divorce. Or maybe thirty years with a man like Donald Walker was enough marriage for any woman. She’d probably never marry again.
She and her mother gave each other awkward air kisses on both cheeks. It had been like this for years. She didn’t think it could ever change.
“Let’s eat,” her aunt said. “I know you have to get back to work, Sienna.” She waved them over to the linen-draped table as if they were dining in a five-star restaurant. Salad plates had already been set out.
“I’m so sorry about that job you wanted,” her mother said. Aunt Teresa must have told her. Not that Sienna minded.
“Thank you. I’ll find something. Maybe even another opening at the same company.”
“But do you really want to go there if they’ve already passed you over?” Her mother obviously didn’t realize how insensitive that was.
“They didn’t pass me over.” Sienna did her best to keep the irritation out of her voice. “They were just looking for someone with a different skill set.”
But why had they hired Jeffrey Deck? Maybe Matthew was overstating his objections. Jeffrey couldn’t be that bad if he made it into Smithfield and Vine.
Her mother smiled. “I’m sure they couldn’t find anyone better qualified than you.” She seemed to try too hard.
Sienna recalled what her father had said as he walked away, that her choices would come back to bite her in the ass just the way her mother’s choices would bite her in the ass too.
She tried to look at her mom with fresh eyes. Mother kept Sienna from going on all those outings, saying her brother and dad needed male bonding. She’d shut Sienna out of that relationship, as if being a girl meant she wasn’t good enough. And she wasn’t wanted.
As she listened to her aunt and mother chat about charities and garden clubs and Nonni and Poppa, she realized again that it was always her father saying things for her mother. As if he was her voice.
She closed her eyes, bringing those times to mind, her father saying she should stay with her mother and keep her company while he and Matthew did their bonding thing. As if he was trying to save her mother’s feelings, just like he’d told that lie about Matthew to save Bron’s feelings, or the so-called fabrication about the wedding and how it would save her mother’s feelings. And the lie about Smithfield and Vine, which was supposed to save her from making the biggest mistake of her life.
It was always her father saying the things she’d blamed her mother for.
She opened her eyes again. Words came unbidden to her lips, and she let them out. “I’m sorry for the way I turned down the trip you’d planned, Mother. I was angry about something else, and I took it out on you.”
Her mother gaped, but Aunt Teresa’s smile brimmed with approval.
“It’s okay, honey,” her mother murmured, as if a louder voice would ruin the mood. “I understand. About the wedding, I mean. But I would never stop you from being a bridesmaid. And I’m happy that you’re friends with Bron.”
Sienna tried to detect an ulterior motive, even a lie. But the only look on her mother’s face was hope.
Maybe it was her father’s recent lies. Maybe it was the way he’d sabotaged her interview in order to get what he wanted. Maybe it was the yearning in her mother’s eyes. Whatever it was, Sienna did the most spontaneous thing of her entire life. “I’ve got a lot of vacation time saved up.” She shrugged as her two mothers stared at her. “I think I can swing it. When did you say you wanted to go?”
Her mother’s voice was quiet with surprise and awe. “The middle of June.”
Sienna pulled out her phone and checked her calendar. “That’s over two months away, certainly enough notice for the company to handle my absence.”
She didn’t have accounts anyone else couldn’t handle easily, but she’d give her clients advance notice. If one of them needed her, she was only a phone call away. Hopefully the market wouldn’t crash while she was gone. “I’m sure I can handle it, but I’ll confirm with my boss.”
Her mother clapped her hands, her mouth an O of delight. “That would be wonderful. I’d love for you to come.”
Sienna stopped short of making a promise she might have to break. “I’ll do my best to make it work.”
If her mother’s goal was to fix the relationship, then Sienna could give her a chance.
“She’s so serious,” Angela said after Sienna returned to work. “I wish she could lighten up a bit.”
Teresa snorted a laugh. “She’s just like you. When did you ever lighten up?”
Angela flattened her lips, flared her nostrils, and crossed her eyes in an attempt to lighten up. “Point taken. I hate that she’s so unhappy with her job. Although I’m not sure she’d be any happier at Smithfield and Vine.”
“She just wants to build a life that your ex-husband doesn’t have a hand in.”
Angela let out a long sigh, wrapping her hands around the warmth of her coffee cup. “Did she tell you how he tried to use my hurt feelings to boot her out of the wedding?”
“The bridesmaid thing?”
Angela nodded. “He had the nerve to tell her I’d called him—” She put her hand to her chest in affront. “—and that I’d said I was uncomfortable with her being in the wedding.”
Teresa gaped. “Asshole. How do you know all this?”
“His fiancée came to see me. She wanted to change my mind. Sienna didn’t tell you?”
Teresa put her hand flat on the table. “I don’t like to reveal what Sienna confides to me.” She eyed Angela as if afraid of her reaction, but Angela was well aware her daughter preferred talking to her aunt over her own mother. “I’m going to tell you anyway. Because I think he’s escalating.”
There was a hitch in her heart rate as if she’d suddenly developed an arrhythmia. “What did he do this time?”
“Sienna asked him to call Smithfield and put in a good word for her.”
“Oh God,” Angela muttered.
“And instead—” Teresa’s voice seethed with outrage. “—he told Smithfield that she didn’t think the job was the right fit for her.”
Angela covered a gasp. “What the hell was he thinking?”
“That he could push her into working for him so she didn’t work for the enemy.” She air-quoted.
“God forbid she ever works for him.” Angela put a hand to her forehead like a swooning romance heroine.
Teresa waved her fingers. “She won’t. But here’s what I have to say about your ex-husband.” Teresa had never liked or trusted Donald. “His manipulation and underhandedness used to be more subtle. Now he seems to think he can lie with impunity, as if no one’s going to challenge him.” She leaned closer. “You need to tell Sienna the truth before he does. I think he’s planning something.”
Angela felt that arrhythmia again. “He said something like that when I confronted him about the wedding. I told him I didn’t like him using my name to spread his lies.” She breathed in slowly, let the air slide out again. “And he made a crack.”
“About telling her?”
Angela nodded.
Teresa nodded too. “He’ll slap her with it and make you look as bad as possible.”
Angela bit down on her inner lip. “I wanted Sienna to come to Santorini with me and feel what it was like to be young and free and on the trip of a lifetime. And how things could just happen. I’ve already decided it’s the perfect spot to tell her the truth.”
“That’s a couple of months away. You better hope he doesn’t get to her first.”
“I’m certainly hoping. Once she knows, it’ll give me a whole new sense of freedom,” Angela whispered. “Even though I’m worried about how Sienna will react, Donald can no longer hold this secret over me.”
Teresa brought her brows together. “You’re not going back to Santorini to find him, are you? Or introduce Sienna to him?”
Angela didn’t need to ask who Teresa meant. “I was supposed to meet him in June.” But she hadn’t gone back to Santorini. Everything changed, and she’d never seen him again. This trip was like a pilgrimage to the mistakes of her past.
“You’re thirty years too late.” While the words were harsh, Teresa’s tone was gentle.
“I’m too late, period,” Angela said.
“Then why go back and torture yourself?”
She didn’t know how to explain it. “I just want to remember how it felt. To be young. To be in love. To have hope.” She dipped her head, focused on the cooling coffee in her cup. “I want to believe that it’s possible to experience that feeling again, now that I’m divorced.”
Teresa snorted. “I wish Donald was out of our lives forever. He’s like a bad smell that keeps hanging around.”
It was such an apt description that they laughed. Donald was the bad smell that had everyone looking around to see who’d done it. Only they can’t figure it out.
Teresa sobered. “I just don’t think you can go back to a place where you’ve lost everything and expect to feel better. If you want to start over, do it here.”
“I don’t expect to feel better,” Angela insisted. “But I also don’t think I lost everything there. I gained Sienna. And I learned what genuine love was.”
Teresa tutted. “You knew him for three weeks. That’s just starry-eyed lust. And because you didn’t love Donald when you married him, you turned this guy into a fantasy that no one can live up to. Even if you found him, he wouldn’t be the man you dreamed him into.”
She’d certainly had her fantasies. Even with Donald, she’d been caught up in the romance of being the sole focus of his attention along with the glitter of his lifestyle, just like her mother was. It was only on Santorini that she saw how she mistook being desired for true love.
“You’ll never be able to understand, Teresa, because you’ve been with the man you love for so long. But love can happen just like that.” Angela snapped her fingers.
She’d seen him, and she’d fallen. Hard. Never to recover.
“Have you ever Googled him?”
Angela poured herself another cup of coffee. “An internet search would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“Seriously? How many Xandros Daskalakis can there be?”
Xandros. His name slipped off her tongue when he touched her. Tall and muscular and beautiful, with dark wavy hair and the most piercing blue eyes she’d ever seen. She’d always thought black hair meant brown eyes, but his eyes reflected the Santorini blue of the water. When he looked at her, it was as if he knew her soul. And she knew his. It wasn’t some tawdry romance between a girl on vacation and her tour guide. She didn’t truly believe Xandros picked up a new woman every tour, despite what her mother had convinced her when she was young.
Teresa, on the other hand, had always believed Angela when she said that his love was true. She’d just never thought it could last.
Angela could still hear her mother’s voice all those years ago. “You stupid, stupid girl. How could you let this happen?”
She’d whimpered like a lost child. “But I love him, Mama.”
“You sound like that idiot girl in West Side Story.” Mama put her hands together in prayer. “I love him,” she mocked Angela in a high falsetto. Then she jammed her hands on her ample hips. “I will not let you throw your life away on a beach bum.”
“He’s not a beach bum, Mama. He’s a tour guide.”
Her mother had glared. “Even worse. He probably picks up a new girl every tour.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
Mama had laughed. “You’re a silly girl. What makes you think he’d even want that little baby?” She poked Angela’s stomach. “You think you’ll fly over there in a year, and he’ll welcome you and the bambino with open arms? You’re even more stupid than I thought.” Mama shook her finger. “You will not embarrass me. Not one month away from your wedding. You will not think about that boy again. You will not write to him. You will marry Donald Walker and let him think that baby is his, do you understand me?”
“How am I supposed to make Donald believe it’s his baby?”
Mama narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done out in that boathouse. And don’t give me that innocent look.”
She couldn’t deny it. She’d slept with Donald, even the night before she left on her trip. If only she’d waited until she’d met Xandros.
Her mother kept on at her. “Go over there tonight and seduce him. Before your holiday and after your holiday, he must sleep with you.”
What would her life have been like if she hadn’t surrendered to her mother’s browbeating? Would Xandros have been waiting for her in that small café on Santorini? Would he have welcomed Sienna? She had only the dreams she liked to tell herself, but she would never know the truth.
Her mother’s voice stayed with her. “Make sure Donald thinks that baby is his.”
Angela had, and they were married. She had a daughter and then a son. Then Sienna had her accident, falling out of a tree, a branch stabbing her leg. A doctor had pulled Angela aside to say that Donald’s blood didn’t match. They’d used her blood for a transfusion. Even then, she thought she might get away with it. Until she’d overheard a nurse telling Donald as well.
He’d made her pay from that day forward. He hadn’t divorced her, but he’d made sure the children hated her.
Teresa reached across the table to fold her fingers around Angela’s. “Maybe we should tell Sienna now. We can do it together to soften the blow.”
Teresa, though always supporting her, had believed Mama might be right. Xandros wouldn’t be waiting for her. He wouldn’t want a baby. And Teresa encouraged her to marry Donald for appearances’ sake, telling her it wouldn’t be so bad, that he had pots of money, that her life would be comfortable, and her kids would be her solace. The first years had been comfortable, if not loving. Angela loved both her children with all her heart. Her mother, however, never became the toast of Silicon Valley the way she’d wanted, even with her son-in-law’s connections.
