Chapter 28
Santorini was everything Nick had been promised. The light was so sharp, the colors so bold and bright. White, turquoise, ochre. The air was crisp and salty, the water was clear, the food put Sydney and Paris and Berlin to shame. The days reminded him of winter in Sydney: a chill in the air, but a warm, low sun that stuck around well into the evening. And because it was low season, he and the small Vogue crew had all the most picturesque and tourist-friendly locations to themselves. On this shoot, his models were a South Korean dancer named Hana and a former principal from the Birmingham Royal Ballet named Stella. They were both gorgeous and easy to work with—experienced at modeling and easy to coach. The night before their first shoot, they’d all gone out to a little beachside restaurant and stayed for hours, drinking Greek wine and sharing stories about their dance careers until the waiters started stacking chairs on tables.
After five days of shooting all over the island—on a black sand beach, on a yacht moored next to a volcanic island, in a hillside monastery—they were almost done. Hana and Stella had each been photographed in a closet’s worth of couture, and Hana had asked the shoot director at least three times if she could keep the marigold-yellow gown she’d worn on the yacht. Beth, the production director, had answered every time with a firm no—“Not unless you have a spare $3,000”—which was about what each of the women had been paid for the week. Stella had shaken her head ruefully and told Hana to take the money.
From Santorini, he’d head to London, then to Portugal, then to Croatia, and then to India. He’d never be in one place for more than ten days, but he found the prospect of constant motion thrilling. Last time he’d stayed put for a few weeks, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. Better to keep moving, even if it meant going where the wind took him.
Beside him, Beth checked her laptop, where she could see the images he was taking in close to real time.
“Do you think you have everything you need?” he asked, as he took a few more shots of Stella, who was posing against the ancient stone wall of the monastery, pulling up her swirling shell-pink gown just enough for the camera to see her relevéd feet. It was the last outfit of the day and the last day of the shoot.
“I think so,” Beth muttered, not looking away from the screen. “You?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he agreed. It had been a long week, and the back of his neck was prickling with the beginnings of a sunburn.
“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 with Vogue was 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, and exhausting at 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.