23
The soft, dreamlike scent of lavender oil drifts up from the round mortar. I lean closer as Luis Forscham, our enamel expert, mixes another drop of oil into the enamel powder. He carefully turns the pestle, a scraping hum sounding over the hum of the air conditioning.
We’re at Luis’s work station, on the third floor of Production, opposite the Abry Headquarters. His wide work table is lit with the natural light that spills from the tall windows and bounces off the clean white walls. He’s a careful, slow-moving man in his early seventies, with a long white mustache and stooped shoulders. He perches on his tall wooden stool and hunches over his work, taking slow, infinitesimal movements.
I’m so excited that I press my lips together to keep from urging, “Hurry, hurry, I want to see it!”
Some people think age has made Luis slow-moving, but I’ve known him since my dad introduced us twenty-five years ago, and he was slow-moving then too. Every motion he makes is deliberate and his hands are unbelievably steady. It’s key for the precise work he does, sometimes with a paint brush that is one single hair.
Luis makes another twist of the pestle, grinding the fine, sand-like powder with expert patience.
His work area is quiet except for the scrape of his movements and the ticking of the clock on the wall. Behind me Daniel shifts, waiting for my judgment.
I rushed into his office this morning, waving my notebook at him, talking so fast he couldn’t understand a word I said. After he thrust a cup of coffee my way I sat down and showed him my sketch.
When I fell asleep in McCormick’s arms, I woke up back in my own bed. I felt rested, at peace, with a warm sense of contentment I haven’t felt in years. And in my mind I saw a watch. A beautiful watch.
“Is that it?” Daniel whispers, tilting his head to see over Luis’s shoulder. Just like me, he knows that you whisper when Luis is at work.
I smile.
I’m captured by the sea-green and iridescent blue powders coalescing in the lavender oil, flowing like the sea rolling over the beach. The color pulls at me. It’s as if I’m back on the island, in McCormick’s arms, looking out over the water.
“That’s it,” I whisper, excitement pinching my chest. “That’s the exact color I envisioned.”
“Hmm,” Luis says, taking a pencil and scratching notations on his notepad.
When he sets his pencil down he slowly turns on his stool, holding the mortar for me to see. As he shifts it the colors swirl and dance in the sunlight, just like the waves of the sea.
“You can replicate this? You can create a dial with these colors and make it look like the sea falling over a white sand beach?”
Luis looks at me as if I just insulted his ancestors and all his unborn great-grandchildren. His white mustache quivers, and slowly he sets the mortar on his table. “You doubt me?”
“No,” Daniel says.
I smile. “Thank you, Luis.”
He nods and then, without saying goodbye, he turns back to his station to tinker and take more notes.
Daniel and I let ourselves out and head down the long hall toward the elevators. It’s early evening and I’m late in getting home. Everyone except Luis has already left for the day. It’s quiet and our footsteps echo as we walk down the hallway.
Daniel glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “I haven’t seen you this excited about a prototype in years.”
He’s tired today. Or maybe he’s tired every day and I haven’t noticed because I’ve been tired too. And busy. I suppose when you keep yourself busy you fail to notice the small things. Like how your brother has purple smudges under his eyes and his hair is messy, as if he’s been running his hand through it in frustration.
His shoulders are tight and there’s a firmness around his mouth that wasn’t there a few years ago. Maybe I’m only noticing it now because of how relaxed I feel. How invigorated.
I hope our agreement to open up will help him find someone. He deserves good things. He deserves to be happy.
At the elevator, Daniel presses the button then loosens his tie. He’s in a suit as usual. He grins over at me.
“It’s going to be a gorgeous watch, Fi.”
I nod, thinking about the swirl of the enamel. “Thank you for getting carried away with me. I know you could have told me to slow down or asked for market forecasts, been the voice of reason, or?—”
“It looks like the first watch Dad had made.” He lifts a shoulder. “The pearl bracelet, the yellow gold. It’s similar. I like it. It’s almost an homage. You know me. I’m a sucker for pointless displays of sentimentality.”
I let out a huff of air and smile at him. He’s right. It’s a bit like the watch Dad gave me for my sixteenth birthday. But it’s also unique. There are three rows of opalescent pearls interspersed with bright green emeralds for the bracelet. The round case is reminiscent of the island. A ring of yellow gold, with the textures of waves rippling over sand brushed into the metal. The gold case surrounds the sea-green and wave-blue dial. Hand-set diamonds set the time, with yellow gold marking the seconds and the hour. The components will be our best, the timekeeping precise, and we’ll sell it as a limited edition.
The elevator dings and the metal doors sweep open.
I step on and Daniel follows, the door shutting after us. As the elevator descends I’m buoyant, happier than I can remember being in a long time.
“What are you going to call it?” Daniel asks, nodding at my notebook and my sketch of the watch.
“McCormick,” I say, smiling.
“Odd name for a watch.”
“Isn’t it?”
Daniel lets out a laugh as the doors slide open.
Outside the lobby the sun hangs in the sky, descending toward the blue-green mountains. A field of yellow flax, just beyond the parking lot, ripples in the wind.
It’s a beautiful day. A perfect day to relax.
“Come have dinner with us tonight,” I say, turning to Daniel.
He sends a hand through his hair and lets out a sigh. “Can’t. I’ve got a date tonight.”
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows as we make our way to the glass doors. I lift a hand to the guard stationed at the tall, semicircle desk. “Good night, Frederic.”
“Madame. Monsieur.” Frederic nods as we cross the lobby and push free of the production facility.
The early-evening air hits us, scented with freshly cut grass and the hot pavement of the parking lot. I pause on the sidewalk and Daniel stops with me.
I’m in a long-sleeve navy dress and a blazer. There’s a white silk scarf around my neck. Even so, with the sun setting, the air is shading toward cool.
“Is it hard to believe I have a date?” Daniel asks, putting his hands in his pockets and giving me a wry look.
“No. You have plenty of dates. I was only thinking, are you trying to open up? Like we said we would?”
His eyes crinkle at the edges. “Not tonight.”
I laugh and shove at him. “Then what’s the point?”
He glances at the Chronomachen, our bestseller, on his wrist. “The point is, my date was just in a Hollywood Blockbuster, and we’re going to the theater, where we’ll be photographed. And, of course, I’ll be conspicuously checking my watch every time a camera flashes. She’ll get a publicity boost and so will we.”
He drops his hand then and his jacket sleeve falls over his wrist. I frown at him, worried at the tightness around his mouth.
“You know, you don’t have to do that anymore.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “I didn’t have to do it in the first place. I did it because I wanted to save us.”
I clench my hand. We both did a lot of things in the first years to make sure our heritage wouldn’t die with us. But I never thought my brother would suffer because of it. I think he has, though, even if he won’t admit it.
“I’m sorry I ever asked you to do it.”
It was me who told him to pose for the paparazzi every chance he got. Weeks after Dad died, I saw a newspaper article featuring Daniel and his friends on a yacht. The picture was from before Dad’s funeral. It was a piece decrying the sorry state of spoiled youth. The column took up an entire page, and Daniel was standing on the yacht in a pair of shorts and a collared shirt, his watch glinting in the sun. He was credited, “Daniel Abry, of Abry Watch Co.” I thrust the paper at him and said, “This. This is how we save Abry.”
From there on out he made himself the center of attention—premieres, galas, races. Every photograph-worthy event, Daniel was there. The cameras love him, and he loves giving the cameras a view of our watches.
But then Italy happened, and Daniel hasn’t been the same since.
“Don’t be sorry, Fi,” he says, taking in my expression. “I may be your little brother, but I’m an adult. I made my choice.”
“At what cost?”
He smiles then and tugs me close under his arm. “Come on. I like sailing. I like diving in submarines and sending rockets up to space. I like dating beautiful women. It’s no hardship.”
I shrug out from under his arm and round on him. “Don’t you charm me, Daniel Abry. I want you to be happy too. Someone asked me recently, are you even alive if you’re not living?—”
“Hey. I’m alive. I’m living.”
“But you won’t always be,” I say, thinking about McCormick, Amy, and the rest of the people in my dreams. Someday Daniel and I will be just a dream too. We’ll leave behind the people we loved and they’ll only have the memories of us.
“But that’s a long time away,” he says, his voice light.
I wrap my arms around my middle and stare out over the parking lot toward the sloping hills and the mountains shrouded in dusk. The bright yellow field of flax has dimmed to a shadowed bronze.
“Fi?”
I nod. “You’re right. I guess I’m just worried about you.”
“Worry about yourself. I predict that in six months’ time you’re going to be marooned on a tropical island with no phone and no internet. I’ll have won our bet, and you’ll be stuck reading a paperback on the beach. Your worst nightmare.”
I smile at him, wondering how after only a few days my worst nightmare has become my fondest dream. “Right. Well. I’d better get home then. Mila asked for pasta, and Annemarie has prawns and white sauce on the stove.”
“Mmm . . .” Daniel’s eyes lose focus as he contemplates Annemarie’s famous pasta. “Maybe I will cancel my date.”
I shove him with a laugh. “Go on. You never know, maybe she’s the one.”
He salutes me then and steps into the parking lot, heading toward the BMW at the north entrance. Before he’s out of earshot, he tosses over his shoulder, “Stop laughing, Fi! You’ll be on that tropical island in no time! And then who’ll be laughing?”
I grin after him.
Who indeed?