“Let’s call it, then,” Beth said, and he nodded.
“All right, everyone,” Beth called to Stella and the assembled production and styling assistants, “that’s a wrap on Santorini. Thanks for your work this week. Go relax and rest up, but not so much that you miss the shuttle tomorrow. We will leave for the airport with or without you.”
That night, he did what he’d done most evenings: showered, changed into warmer clothes, and had a quick meal before the sun dropped too far in the sky, then grabbed his Nikon and headed out to stroll the narrow lanes that curved and wound around the stark white houses hanging on the hillsides. The constant glimpses of water reminded him of the Sydney headlands, and the cobblestones made him think of the Marais. After an hour or so of wandering, he sat down at a small café and ordered a glass of wine. He didn’t know what, if anything, he’d do with these photos, but after so many months of producing work he didn’t like, it felt like a precious relief to take photos without doubting. Without wondering if he’d ever be a real photographer.
He was a real photographer now. A real big deal photographer, just like he’d pretended to be in Sydney. Just last week, another magazine had asked him to call them when his contract withVoguewas up, and a representative for a young recent Oscar winner had reached out to him, emailed him an NDA, and then inquired if he was available to shoot the actress’s pregnancy reveal photos.
A waiter arrived with a glass of red wine. “Efcharistó,” Nick thanked him in his best Greek, which wasn’t very good.
“You’re welcome,” the young man replied, and Nick chuckled.
The sun had slipped below the water, and the light was fading. He took a few sips of wine, then turned his camera back on and began scrolling through the night’s work. The colors here were otherworldly, almost too rich and concentrated to seem real. Santorini, the original #nofilter. As he had a hundred times this week, he thought of the old proprietor of that little camera shop in Sydney and wondered where in Greece he’d emigrated from. Had he lived here before he crossed the world and started calling Australia home?
Under the darkening sky, he scrolled back through a week’s worth of evening strolls, past shopfronts full of mouthwatering desserts and white buildings washed in golden-hour light. He scrolled all the way back to the very first photo he’d taken here. And then, even though he knew he shouldn’t, he kept going, and there she was.
Carly jumping on the steps of the Opera House. Carly ankle-deep in the water at Bronte Baths. Carly hovering over the Megalong Valley, feet grubby and pointed and high above the earth. Every morning, he woke with an ache in his chest, like his heart had cracked open and some essential part of him was leaking slowly, painfully, out of his body. He hadn’t heard from her, and he hadn’t had the courage to ask Marcus how she was doing. All he knew was that she’d run out of the wedding after they’d fought, after he’d told her he had feelings for her, and then she’d run out of the country. Was she okay? Was she going to find another job? He had no idea, and he knew her well enough to know that if she wasn’t okay, she certainly wasn’t going to ask him for help again.
He kept scrolling all the way back to the beginning, to their first shoot together on North Head. He clicked and clicked, his self control unraveling, until he found what he wanted—one of the very first photos of his that she’d liked, one they hadn’t agreed to post. One that was just for them. It was as absurd and unusable as he’d remembered: her body sharp and powerful, her head a blurry fireball as the wind blew her curls across her face. Chaos and control. That was Carly, but he knew now there was more to her than that. She was proud and loyal and determined to the point of stubborn. She was fiercely protective of the people she cared about. She was funny and sharp and principled, andexhaustingat times, and he had watched through his lens as she’d taken a risk and tried to make a new life for herself.
Nick thought about that disastrous dinner at his parents’ place, when Carly had nearly flipped the table defending the person she’d thought he was, then stormed away like only she could. He wished he’d taken a picture of her at that dinner, or at his front door, where that long poem about Australia had hung on the wall his whole childhood.An opal-hearted country, a willful, lavish land. All you who have not loved her, you will not understand.
That was Carly. Opal hearted. Willful, lavish. For a few short weeks, he’d seen her, held her. Let her be fierce with him and protective of him.
He stared at the photo for another long moment, then closed his eyes and tried to conjure the sound of her laugh when she’d seen it. Her throaty, musical giggle had filled the car and stolen his breath. He could almost remember it. And almost remembering would have to be enough, because he’d never hear Carly Montgomery laugh again.
Chapter 29
Four months later
Carly had always imagined that her final performance with NYB would be a grim, dour night, that she’d spend the day feeling weepy and nostalgic as she prepared to walk the plank, out of the only job she’d ever wanted, and plunge into the depths of the great unknown.
But it didn’t feel like that at all. Okay, she was still weepy and nostalgic, but she didn’t feel grim or afraid at all. She put the final touches on her hair and let another dancer spray it to within an inch of its life, feeling nothing but gratitude for the sisterhood that thrived inside a crowded, nervous dressing room. She lined her false lashes with glue and felt relief that, after tonight, she’d never have to wear lashes again unless she absolutely wanted to, which she couldn’t imagine ever doing. And she danced through her final company preshow warm-up class feeling nostalgic for the days when she could dance with far less pain and fatigue. Her body was telling her that it was time to stop now, and she was going to listen to it.
Because she wasn’t a principal dancer, her retirement performance wasn’t a big public affair. When principals retired, their final shows were hyped up and ticket prices skyrocketed, and when they took their final bows, current and former dancers joined them on stage to applaud their years of service as confetti fell from the ceiling and the audience tossed bouquets onto the stage.
It wasn’t like that for Carly. Catherine gave a short speech after warm-up, and all Carly’s soon-to-be-former colleagues applauded her as she sniffled and tried not to mess up her eye makeup. Then it was upstairs and into the wings, onto the stage for one final performance with her dozens of fellow corps de ballet dancers. Carly took her final bow, not alone at the front of the stage, but in a long line of fellow dancers, shoulder to shoulder with the women she’d worked alongside for the last decade.
When the curtain came down for the last time, the rest of them heaved sighs of relief: the spring season was finally over. Carly watched them filter off the stage and into the wings, all sweaty and tired and eager to begin their two-week break from daily classes and rehearsals. She stayed behind, taking in the stage and the heavy gold curtain one last time. She would be back, but next time she stepped onto this stage, she wouldn’t be a dancer anymore. She glanced up into the rafters, where rows of lights hung below the walkway, thinking about the dozens of ballets she’d danced on this stage, and her chest filled with a sense of fulfillment. She had grown up here, had developed into a person she was becoming proud to be here. And when she returned from her own two-week break, she would keep going.
She’d spent three afternoons a week in Catherine’s office this season, listening and taking notes as Catherine explained her decision-making process for hiring a new choreographer, or walked her through her preparations for the next board meeting. Heather had offered to make Carly a spreadsheet where she could keep track of what she’d learned and what she had questions about, and she had gladly accepted her friend’s help. She wasn’t stuck or flailing. She was moving forward, and she wasn’t afraid.
Back in the dressing room, in between sweaty hugs from the other women, she hung her tutu on the hanger with her name on it and peeled off her lashes for the last time. Makeup free and back in her street clothes, she said goodbye to the last straggling dancers, then started loading the contents of her dressing table and her cubby into a box that she’d addressed to herself earlier in the day. The company would ship it to her later. She pulled a photo of her and Heather, taken during their first season in the company, off the mirror and smiled down at it. A lifetime ago.
She’d just put the photo in the box when someone knocked on the door.
“Yeah, come in,” she said vaguely. Then she glanced up at the mirror in front of her and stared.
Nick Jacobs was standing in the doorway behind her, watching her, a bouquet of pink roses in one hand.
“I thought you were in India,” she said, before she could stop herself. She’d unfollowed him on Instagram, but against her better judgment, she still checked his account a few times a week. He’d been posting images from all over the world, most recently from a magnificent garden in Jaipur, where he’d found prowling peacocks and pink flowers so vivid she could almost smell them through the screen. Hashtag on assignment. HashtagVogue.
“I’m not in India,” he stated the very obvious, not taking his eyes off the mirror, off her shocked face. His eyes were bluer than she remembered, his lashes even longer and darker. But the way he looked at her was just as intense, just as all-seeing as she remembered, and it made the hairs stand up on her forearms.
She turned to face him, suddenly furious at him. All these months of silence, and he showed up now? At her retirement performance?
“I’m sorry I didn’t call or text first. I got a last-minute flight here, and then I bought a ticket off a scalper outside. Highway robbery,” he said, with a tentative smile. She kept her face as stony as she could. He hadVoguemoney now, so he could afford a criminally marked-up ticket to the ballet.
“Okay,” she said stiffly. What the fuck was he doing here? What did he want from her? And why was she so horrifyingly relieved to see him after all this time?
