Free Santorini Sunsets by Anita Hughes Page A

part.”
    â€œHe didn’t even know the lines,” Brigit murmured. “He would have been a much better frog.”
    â€œOnce your father lost a good client and wouldn’t answer my calls,” Sydney continued. “I tracked him down to the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis sampling every kind of Bloody Mary. I ordered steaks and a baked potato to soak up the vodka and took him home.”
    â€œThat’s not all the note said. He told me to keep the apartment,” she whispered. “He said it was a gift from his parents to us and it was the least I should have.”
    Sydney glanced at the dark wood floors and white wool rugs and pink marble fireplace. She saw the high-beamed ceilings and french windows opening onto the lawn. She thought of all the wonderful moments they’d celebrated in this room: Daisy’s acceptance into Swarthmore, Brigit’s entrance into the law review, her and Francis’s twenty-fifth anniversary with a black-tie dinner including the governor of New York.
    â€œMarriage is all about luck.” She leaned against the floral cushions. “You tried as hard as you could.”
    â€œMarriage isn’t anything to do with luck,” Brigit retorted. “It’s about commitment and love and hard work.”
    â€œOf course it’s about luck, do you think things would be different if Nathaniel’s book of short stories was a success and he was the toast of New York?” Sydney asked. “He’d be giving talks every night at the New York Public Library and the Strand bookstore. You’d attend literary soirees full of Pulitzer Prize winners and congratulate each other on being so clever.”
    â€œHe’s worried about the new novel,” Brigit explained. “He can’t write a sentence without erasing it.”
    â€œHe lost his nerve. If the short stories ended up on the New York Times Best Seller list, he’d finish this novel faster than a speed typist.” Sydney finished her drink. “Marriage is just like life, it needs luck to survive.”
    Sydney fiddled with her glass and thought of the day her marriage ran out of luck, on her forty-second birthday at Le Bernardin. She glanced at a family portrait above the marble fireplace and remembered when she’d met Francis, at the International Debutante Ball.
    It was the most exclusive debutante ball in New York and the Waldorf Astoria ballroom was filled with Astors and Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. Sydney stood in a corner, sipping champagne with crème de cassis. She wore an ivory Oscar de la Renta gown with a pink sash. Her blond hair was brushed to her shoulders and she wore a diamond necklace.
    â€œI can’t imagine why your date left you alone when the band is playing ‘Fly Me to the Moon.’” A young man had approached her. He wore a white tuxedo and had a pink rose in his buttonhole. “He’s practically asking someone to steal you away.”
    â€œI can dance with whomever I like,” Sydney replied, noticing he was very tall and had a dimple on his chin.
    â€œAt the International Debutante Ball?” He raised his eyebrow. “I read the rule book. Every girl has two dates, a military officer and a civilian, and other men have to ask their permission to dance.”
    â€œOne of my dates twisted his ankle and the other was allergic to oysters,” Sydney admitted. “I seem to have ended up alone.”
    â€œIn that case, may I?” Francis held out his arm. “I have two left feet when it comes to fast dancing but I’m quite good at a waltz.”
    After they danced to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole they made their way to the buffet. They filled their plates with stuffed mushrooms and glazed duck and sat on the bottom of the grand circular staircase.
    â€œI have one semester left at Harvard and then I’m going to join the family stockbroking firm. It’s on the fifty-fourth floor of the