I did everything I could to make Distant Island feel like my second skin. I wanted Ashton to be proud of me, I wanted—no, needed—his mother, Georgia-May, to love me as her own daughter, especially since my parents were no longer in my life. I began visiting her at her care home, Heritage Park Assisted Living, and I believed she now recognized me as her daughter-in-law and was really starting to warm up. Next were Ashton’s friends in the community and his work colleagues. I left him to his own devices with his old fishing buddies and friends from childhood. What interested me more was the social scene at the country club and bonding with the other women.
A social climber, trying to hook my foot onto the middle rungs of the ladder and haul myself up to the top? You might assume that, if you didn’t know me better. Let’s just say I cared about being accepted by good society people. I cared about fitting in.
Our first dinner party I gave was a huge success. I spent weeks studying various different cookbooks, unsure of what to give them. The trick was to make it seem casual and second nature as if I were born into the laidback, unhurried, easy drawl of their world but was also effortlessly chic. I pretended that the dinner was no big deal. The guests were just Lindy and her husband Richard, and another younger couple, June and Michael. Michael was an intern at the hospital where Ashton worked in Charleston. A protégé, who had an uncanny resemblance to one of my favorite actors, Sidney Poitier. Neurosurgery is tough to master, obviously, and there aren’t so many neurosurgeons in the States, not even throughout the world. You have to be meticulous. Have hands like Leonardo da Vinci and a brain like Einstein. Something I’d tell Ashton if he was stressed after a long day, if he needed to be bolstered.
“Leo and Al, remember?” I’d say. He’d always laugh.
For the entrée, I cooked a Basque pipérade of stewed green peppers, local clams and white fish, followed by a wine-braised chicken sprinkled with pearl onions and button mushrooms, and for dessert a cinnamon apple bostock splashed with French Calvados with frangipane cream and toasted almonds, sweet and crunchy. I’d baked bread, too, dripping with butter and garnished with herbs from the garden. I served it all with a crisp, cold Pinot Grigio, but had a good red on standby for those that might not like white. And a sweet French Sauternes for dessert. I was out to impress.
“So tell me how you two met?” Michael asked, dabbing his mouth with one of the linen napkins we had been given as a wedding gift. I had brought out all the best china and glasses and silverware too. I wanted his friends to approve of me.
“At the Citrus Club,” Ashton and I said in unison and then laughed at how in sync we were.
June’s eyes lit up. “The Citrus Club in Charleston?” We nodded. “And who spoke to whom first?”
I looked at Ashton, and he told them, “Me. Of course. I don’t think Vivien would have even noticed me otherwise. What do you say, honey?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I answered shyly, remembering how my heart had missed a beat when he entered the room.
“Vivien was waiting for a friend, who luckily never showed. She was sitting there, legs crossed, that gorgeous dark mane of hers hanging over one eye, sipping a cocktail so daintily—and I… well, I fell in love at first sight. And if anyone tells you love at first sight isn’t possible… well, I tell you it certainly is.”
“Nonsense,” I protested. “You didn’t fall in love with me at first sight.”
“Oh no?” Ashton said. “I think I can be the judge of that.”
“Get a room, you two,” Lindy joked.
Michael took some bread and passed it along. “Sounds romantic.”
Ashton smiled at me. “Oh, it was romantic, all right. I had to court her. But Vivien was hard to pin down. So busy with work. So elusive! Of course, I asked her on a date immediately—after we’d been chatting a couple hours. But she said she was busy, remember, honey? Took a while before I could get her to go for dinner with me. And after that first date, well, it took me forever to get her to have dinner with me again. And the third time. She was one cool customer. I had to work very hard to win her love.”
“But it was worth it, right?” Lindy said. She swallowed a mouthful of chicken and licked her lips. “How do you do it, Vivien? I know you’re busier than a moth in a mitten with your job. I mean, this food is out of this world. Weren’t you working all day at Community Promise? How do you find the time?”
“Well, I don’t have kids,” I said, looking optimistically at Ashton.
“Oh, my word,” Richard, Lindy’s husband, agreed. “This really is exquisite. Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“Paris,” Ashton replied. “Vivien is an astonishing cook. Even when she makes biscuits and gravy. I’ve really lucked out.” He turned to look at me, his brown eyes glinting with pride.
I gave him a small smile. “The biscuits and gravy I really want the recipe for is your mom’s, Ashton, honey. I hear Georgia-May has a secret biscuit recipe?” I had been hounding Ashton to let his mother come over and spend the day here, cooking, or doing something fun. The poor woman hadn’t been let out of Heritage Park since the wedding. Ashton being an only child, we were the only family she had.
But Ashton swiftly steered me away. “I’m sorry, Michael, your glass is quite empty.” He sprang up from his seat and gave everyone a refill. Ashton had such gentlemanly manners. As he was going around the table, in one hand a bottle of red and the other white, he said, “Vivien’s far too humble. She did a cordon bleu cooking course in Paris, you know.”
“How wonderful to do something like that in Paris,” Lindy gushed.
I smiled, just a tad embarrassed. All eyes were on me. “Yes. I lived in Paris for a couple of years with my parents when I was nineteen, but I had to leave, sadly.”
Richard, with his mouth full, said, “Why on earth did you leave Paris? Isn’t that every person’s dream to live there?”
“What took your parents to Paris in the first place?” June cut in.
“My dad’s job,” I said. “He worked in the fashion business, the rag trade. And my mom taught English as a foreign language to French students.”
June raised a brow. “How glamorous,” she drawled. “You must find it very backwater here in boring old South Carolina.”
I caught Ashton’s eye. “Not in the least. Distant Island’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived, ever seen. And if I feel like a bit of shopping, or the theater or whatever, I go to Charleston. Or Savannah. And there’s always New York, just a plane ride away. But seriously? My life here is so fulfilling, with Ashton and a large house to keep up and Community Promise, big cities don’t really hold a place in my heart any longer.”
“And why did you leave Paris?” Michael asked.
I hesitated then said, “My parents died.” I spoke to the table, feeling too much in the spotlight. “In a car crash. I was staying with a friend at the time and Mom and Dad took a weekend trip to Normandy. My dad was fascinated with anything to do with the Second World War. It was on the autoroute, you know, the freeway?—except it isn’t free in France, you have to pay a toll. People drive crazy fast in Europe, and my parents were wiped out in a horrific pileup. It wasn’t their fault. A drunk driver in a truck, out of control.”