Chapter Twelve
“I need a serious pep talk.”
I was dabbing OPI’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s nail lacquer onto my toenails in a last-minute toenail touch-up when my phone rang. I hobbled out of the bathroom, wads of toilet paper stuck between my toes, to answer the call because I was afraid it might be Xavier ringing to say he wanted to cancel. I didn’t remember until after I heard my sister’s breathless voice on the other end of the line that I hadn’t given him my personal number.
“Good afternoon, Tara. I am fine, thank you for asking. Cannes is even lovelier than Aunt Patricia’s postcards. How are you?”
“I’m sorry, Daphne,” Tara says. “I want to hear all about Cannes, but first, I need your help with Emma Lee.”
My father used to call me Daphne after the Greek mythological water nymph, because of my love of the sea. He said Daphne was so beautiful she brought Apollo to his knees. I think he was being ironic with the last part.
“What has Emma Lee done this time?”
“It’s not what she has done, but what she says she is going to do. She met some old British woman at B. Crav’s turn-up last night, who told her she would make a ‘veddy splendid marriage broker’ and now she is talking about moving to England and becoming a matchmaker.”
Beauregard Cravath III—B. Crav to his friends—is a member of Charleston’s ancient elite. The Cravaths are an influential political family with roots going back as far as the seventeenth century. In fact, B. Crav’s ancestor was a relative of one of the Lords Proprietors, overseers appointed by King Charles to tame and colonize Charleston. B. Crav is an enthusiastic polo player. His Whitney Turn Up is the social event of the polo season, drawing bluebloods from all over the world. He’s also a philandering playboy who has tried to wed and/or bed Tara and Emma Lee.
“I am confused,” I say, chuckling. “Are you worried she will make good on her promise to move to England, or are you afraid it’s just more of Emma Lee’s magical, fairy-dust, wishful thinking, and she will spend the rest of her life watching reality television on your couch?”
“It’s not funny!”
“Of course it isn’t.” I stop laughing. “Emma Lee—a girl whose only serious relationship has been with the man who highlights her hair—thinks she is going to click her ruby slippers and magically travel to a fabled land where she is a wizard of matchmaking. To embark on such a fantastic journey, she would first need to leave your couch. I don’t see her giving up the comforts of home for Oz, do you?”
Tara whistles. “I always knew you were more practical than emotional, but when did you become so jaded and biting?”
“I am not jaded. Am I?”
“That sounded a little jaded.”
I look down at my shiny, freshly lacquered toes and sigh. Living in the land of prenups and paternity suits has definitely made me skeptical that I will ever be one half of a soul-mates-forever love, but I didn’t think I had become jaded about others finding love, or about people having the courage to pursue their passions. Of course, I can’t tell Tara this because she expects me to be the brilliant big sister, the one with a nifty bag full of answers and hope.
“I am sorry, Tara.”
“Are you okay?” she asks, a new, slightly frantic note of worry in her voice. “You don’t sound like yourself.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I say, upping the perk in my tone. “I am just tired. Nothing a few days lounging on the beach won’t cure.”
“Phew! I don’t know what I would do if you started foundering.” She lets out a half laugh, half cry. “After all, you’re Steady-On Manderley.”
Steady-On Manderley, who is terrified at the prospect of spending an afternoon on the beach with a handsome man, surrounded by long-legged blondes in Balmain bikinis who will take one look at her and find her sadly wanting. Steady-On Manderley, who secretly yearns to be as rash and outrageous as her little sister Emma Lee. Steady-On Manderley is foundering, foundering beneath the weight of her unfulfilled dreams.
“Emma Lee will be fine, Tara. She is a charming risk-taker who takes wild, daring leaps and always ends up on her pretty little feet.”
“Of course Emma Lee is a risk taker, because she has always had us running after her with a net. I would be a risk taker, too, if I knew someone would be there to catch me if I fell.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“What?”
“Are you envious of Emma Lee?”
“No!” Tara sighs. “Maybe. Yes, a little. I envy her courage to boldly chase after whatever shiny thing captures her interest. She sees something she wants and she just goes after it.”
“Tara, darlin’, if there is a shiny thing you want to chase after, a bold leap you wish to make, do it knowing I will be there to catch you, too. I always have been there and I always will be.”
She sniffles and I realize she is crying. “Steady-On Manderley. What would we do without you?”
“Snatch each other bald?”
She does another half laugh, half cry at my reference to a childhood hair-pulling fight she had with Emma Lee, resulting in both of them losing clumps of hair.
“If Emma Lee’s heart is telling her feet to head to England to be a matchmaker, or India to be a Bollywood star, let her go. All you can do is let her go and be ready to cheer her on with loud applause when she succeeds, or welcome her home with open arms when she fails.”
“Even if we think she is making a big mistake?”
“It’s her mistake to make, Tara. Ultimately, we are the only ones who can decide which way we will go in life, and we are the only ones who can say whether our choice to take one path over the other was a mistake or our destiny.”