A good plan.
I met Gweneth on the ferry. I was pregnant with Leo, irritable in the summer heat, tired of Christmas in the summer, suddenly longing for family now that I’d be adding to it. I missed my father, weirdly, after so long. I’d found myself imagining how my mother’s eyes or sister’s mouth might look on a baby, if I would see my family in the hands or laughter of a child. I even grieved the fact that my mother would not be there when the baby was born, but perhaps all woman feel that way. Pregnancy made me so emotional, in fact, that it frightened me. I constantly worried about the dire things in the world, what might befall a child I loved so intensely even before it was born.
Simon had gently pointed me toward the city and an exhibit on the Bloomsbury Group, which both eased and stimulated me, just as he’d known it would.
Gweneth sat down next to me on the ferry, a tall, slim woman with a stylish air, and offered me an ice cream. “Hokeypokey,” she said. “Can’t go wrong.”
“As far as I’m concerned, no ice cream goes wrong.” I paused. “Except coffee.”
“You’re American!”
“Canadian, actually.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s what you all say, though, isn’t it?”
I laughed and stuck to my made-up story. “I grew up on the west coast of British Columbia. Vancouver Island.”
“Hard to take the island out of the women,” she said, nodding. “I saw you at the exhibit. Which one is your favorite?”
“Vanessa, completely. That earth mother vibe. I want to go live in her farmhouse. You?”
“Duncan. I’m madly in love with him, of course. I know exactly why Vanessa loved him.” She licked her ice cream. “I’ve been to that farmhouse. You can feel her in every room. I wrote a dissertation on the farmhouse itself, as a design idea.”
I fell right under her spell. We talked art and artists, then books and writers, all the way back to our respective homes, hers only four blocks away from mine, and we’ve been fast friends ever since.
This morning, she’s waiting for me in our usual spot, near the water. Her long blonde hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, and she’s wearing a tank and NorShore leggings that show off her long, lean figure. “Earthquake this morning—did you feel it?” she asks.
I give a curt nod. No one outside my family knows how badly I react to tremors. “Did you hear where it was centered?”
“Offshore.” She gestures at the water sudsing restlessly, splashing hard against the land.
“Good.”
“Mm.” We set off at a brisk pace, hands swinging. Sometimes we can walk a long way without talking, but today my news is so momentous, I can’t wait. “So we bought a new house.”
“Already! The last project was only finished last week.”
“Right. But Simon heard through the grapevine that Veronica Parker’s sister died.”
She stops dead, her mouth open. “No.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Yes. You are looking at the new owner of Sapphire House.”
“You’re joking.” Her face is both blank and blazing.
“No. It’s done. He bought it outright.”
“Good God. He’s even wealthier than I thought.”
I take her upper arm and move her body toward the trail that circles up a mountain on the north head of this finger of land. “His father still owns great gobs of land.”
“Oh my God!” she cries. “You know I love her so much. You have to take me inside!”
“Of course. I want your help.”
“When can we go? Not today. I have tons of work to do. But this weekend?”
“Yes. Absolutely. I told the kids we could go over there too. You can come with us.”
“Are you flipping it?”
“No.” I pause as we start walking up the hill. The sun is bright and hot on my shoulders. “We’re going to live there.”
“No, you can’t!” Gweneth flings her arms up. “I need you here.”
“It’ll take a while.”
“Oh, but then you’ll be way over in Mount Eden, and I’ll never see you anymore.”
“No. We’ll make a date and meet in some fab coffee shop in every neighborhood in Auckland once a month.”
She takes a sip of water from her bottle. “All right. And you’ll have to have grand parties in that house.”
“I will. I promise.” We start to climb seriously and focus on our breath while we acclimate.
“Hey, hey, can we bring it down a notch?” I gasp.
“Sorry.” She slows. “We should have a welcome party or something.”
I take a long gulp from my CamelBak. “That sounds like fun. I’m not sure when we’ll fit it in, but we can try.”
“I know!” She gives me a wide-eyed glance. “When did everything get so busy? I was never so busy when I worked.”
“You didn’t have children. Each child takes approximately forty-eight hours per day.”
“Ah. That’s what it is. No one told me that.”
We hike in silence for a while. To our right stretch the harbor and the irregular coastline of the city. To the north is Rangitoto, an uninhabited volcanic island popular with tourists. In the far distance stretches a line of mountains meeting the sea, the whole scene painted in blues—blue water, blue mountains, blue skies. I never thought I would find a place more beautiful than the northern California coast, but this is outrageous. “Amazing. I never get tired of that view.”
“That’s why I never leave. I wanted to as a girl. Go to Paris and New York and all those places. But I visited, and none of them matched this.”
I was luckier than I could have expressed to have washed up here. It was all blind luck, ridiculous timing, a good decision made at a moment of crisis. My throat tightens at all that I would never have known.
And right behind it, a subtle worry crawls down my neck again—that television camera, right on my face the night of the club fire. I had been in the CBD with Nan and was headed back to the ferry when I saw the news crews. Before I registered what was going on, I stared right into it for the space of three heartbeats.
Careless, but honestly—how many news events happen on an average day? Not even a cataclysmic nightclub fire would spend much time in the spotlight.
At the top of the headland, we pause briefly, leaning on a bunker built in WWII, and catch our breath. It’s one of the best views I know of anywhere—the islands and Rangitoto, the skyscrapers of the CBD, the quaint tumble of villas along the Devonport seafront.
“We are so lucky,” Gweneth said.
“Yes.” I bump her shoulder. “We have each other.”
“Sisters,” she says, flinging an arm around me. “Forever.”
No one will ever be my sister except Kit, but I can’t bear a life without close female friendships. “Sisters,” I agree, and lean my head on her shoulder, looking east across the water to where my sister lives. For a faint, foolish moment, I wonder if she is looking toward me too, across time, across the miles, somehow sensing that I am still alive.
Chapter Nine
Kit
I ride the elevator down to the eighth floor. It’s still very early on a Friday morning, so there aren’t many people about—it’s between the crack-of-dawn, before-work crowd and the post-school-run moms. The area is nearly empty, only one person swimming laps.
The pool is wildly inviting, full Olympic length, the water a rich turquoise, maybe three lanes wide. Windows look out to the high-rise-building forest, and I’m cheerfully anticipating a good swim as I kick off my flip-flops. The man in the pool is swimming vigorously, powerfully, and comes up for air at the far end where I’m standing.
Damn.
Of course it’s Javier.
“Of all the gin joints in all the world,” I say.
“Pardon?” He gives the word its Spanish intonation as he wipes water from his face. A face, I note with some despair, that is just as fabulous as it was yesterday. Maybe even better.
“Never mind,” I say, and pick up my towel. “I won’t bother you.”
He easily hauls himself out of the water and stands there with wet skin and powerful shoulders and modest swim shorts still showing a lot. “No, no, please. I’m nearly finished. You can have the pool.”
“Stay. It’s plenty big enough for both of us.”
“Sure?”
I feel like an idiot. “I’m sorry about last night.”
A twitch of his shoulders. He gestures to the water. “A race?”
“That’s not fair. You’ve warmed up.”
“Warm up, then.” He sits on the side of the pool, folds his hands.
Light trickles over his skin, and I look away, cast off my wrap, and braid my hair, knowing that he’s looking at all my parts. The suit is a one-piece designed to contain my chest and modestly cover my butt, but it’s not exactly a garment that leaves much to the imagination. Securing my braid, I slide into the water. “Oooh,” I sigh. “Ozone.” I dive under the surface of the silky pool and kick my way half the length before I come up for air, swim hard to the end, and turn back to the start.
He’s still sitting on the side. His legs are covered with black hair. “Impressive.”