Girls of Summer(2)
Much later Lisa would learn that those simple four last words would cause a giant misunderstanding. Erich assumed that living on Nantucket meant Lisa was wealthy. And wealth was what Erich was all about.
“Nice,” Erich said.
“Very nice,” Lisa responded. She felt bewitched, unable to think in words, overwhelmed with physical sensations. This man!
If Erich had enchanted Lisa, she had enchanted him right back. She knew she had a pretty face and a good figure, not to mention that glossy dark hair falling over her shoulder, but that couldn’t explain why in that moment, in that crowded room in a rambling Victorian house at the northern reaches of the country, suave, cosmopolitan Erich Hawley chose her. Maybe it was her air of openness and naiveté, and she was na?ve. Maybe it was sheer chemistry. Or maybe, and this was what she thought much later, it was fate, destiny, life’s secret plan to get Juliet and Theo onto the earth.
Erich leaned close to her, his lips brushing her ear. “I can hardly hear you in this mob scene. Let me take you out to dinner.”
“Thank you, but no. You just had dinner with your parents,” Lisa reminded him, and she saw the quick flash in his eyes that she would later learn was a sign that she’d said something that interested him. That she hadn’t jumped at the first opportunity to be with him. That she might possibly be a challenge.
“I didn’t have dessert,” Erich said, smiling wolfishly.
She went to dinner with him.
As she got to know him, she was even more charmed. Erich’s parents were elegant multilingual Europeans with homes in Switzerland and Argentina. (Many of Erich’s clothes were bespoke, tailored in London, although Lisa knew that shouldn’t matter. But she did love his clothes.) Mr. Hawley worked for an important international Swiss bank with many initials. Erich was going to work there, too. This particular bank was an institution that helped fund improvement projects in less wealthy countries. In Lisa’s mind, Erich became a kind of modern-day combination of King Arthur and Robin Hood. Very quickly she not only admired him, she adored him.
Erich had his own apartment, and for the rest of the year, Lisa more or less lived with him. She felt privileged to fix his dinner, clean his kitchen, do his laundry. Somehow she managed to keep her grades up, too, although she scarcely cared. For the first time in her life, she was happy to be Cinderella, and not until much later did she realize that Erich not only liked her in that role, but he had slowly, brilliantly, surreptitiously imposed that role upon her.
In April, Erich took her to New York to meet his parents, who had come up from their Washington, D.C., home on business. Lisa found them so terribly smooth and cultured that she became tongue-tied, probably because all three of the Hawleys would lapse into German or French when speaking with one another, and Lisa could hardly remember English in the glow of their brilliance.
But Erich’s parents liked Lisa, and in May, just before graduation, Lisa brought Erich home to meet her parents. Erich thought that Lisa’s family was the very model of old money, with their book-filled historic Greek Revival house and ancient Range Rover.
That weekend on the island made Lisa’s adoration waver slightly. Erich was moving to D.C. when he graduated, and every so often, he’d casually suggested that Lisa might like to live there with him. In Vermont, Lisa knew she wanted to go with Erich. On Nantucket, she wasn’t so certain. It was as if she were one person on the island, and another person with Erich. She wasn’t sure where she wanted to end up with her life, and she didn’t know if Erich was the spot or a path in the opposite direction.
She intended to talk this over with her mother and with a couple of her best island friends. She wasn’t clear about how she really felt. Did she love Erich or simply love the fact that he, cosmopolitan, elegant Erich, loved her? But Erich, who was a genius at marketing and presentation, surprised her the night before they left the island. He took her and her parents to Le Languedoc, one of the toniest restaurants on the island. They enjoyed a feast of oysters, lobster, and fresh baby greens. They were happily studying the dessert menu when the waiter arrived at their table carrying a standing ice bucket.
Lisa and her parents stared at the bottle of Dom Perignon in surprise.
Erich turned to the waiter. “Would you please bring the young lady’s dessert now.”
There was a moment of silence. The waiter reappeared, setting before Lisa a delicate white porcelain plate holding a small black velvet box.
“Erich?” Lisa asked.
“Open it,” Erich told her, smiling.
Of course she guessed what it was. And she knew very well that she could make only one answer to the question the box held. She just didn’t know if that was the right answer for her. She was in love with Erich—any woman would be. But she wasn’t certain she could fit into his world, and she knew he would never consider living on Nantucket.
She opened the black velvet box. Inside was an emerald-cut diamond, at least two carats in size, set in a platinum band. She looked up at Erich.
“Lisa, will you marry me?” he asked.
Her breath caught in her throat and in that flash of silence she was aware that everyone in the dining room was watching them.
Trembling, she answered, “Yes, Erich. Yes, I will marry you.”
Erich lifted the box off the plate, removed the ring from the velvet slot, took Lisa’s hand, and gently slid the ring onto her finger. Leaning forward, he kissed her softly, chastely.