The Sisters Read online

Having stood at the desk for the past 15 years, he knew the comings and goings of his guests before they did. He had watched Leon woo Birdie this past week and knew he was a man on the make. He didn’t judge him – what the hell, you had to get ahead any way you could.

  Leon nodded, ignoring the look on the concierge’s face he went upstairs to Birdie’s suite. Standing outside the door, Leon took a deep breath. He had risked a lot this week on Birdie but he hoped his instincts were right. He knocked on the door.

  Birdie opened it almost immediately. She was dressed in a simple black silk shift dress, no stockings and simple flat shoes. Her long hair was out and she was not wearing an ounce of makeup. She looked tall, almost as tall as Leon, he thought, as she stood in front of him.

  ‘I thought we could dine in tonight, my treat. You have been showering me with divine French food all week,’ she said, blushing.

  If Leon was capable of love, then the relief he felt when she announced her plan was close to it. He swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately.

  Birdie melted into his strong arms. Lifting her up, he carried her to the bed and laid her down. ‘Birdie, you’re so beautiful,’ he said as he looked down upon her.

  Birdie smiled at him angelically. ‘Make love to me.’

  She met his passion again and, as they tore off each other’s clothes, Leon’s erection was ready for her. She looked down; her eyes widened at the sight of his large penis. Then she pulled him down and gasped as he entered her. Leon didn’t notice her reaction, only feeling the warm tightness around his cock. Plunging in and out, he didn’t look for her reaction, instead pleasuring himself and rubbing his face against her small breasts.

  Leon used her body swiftly and efficiently, throwing back his head and almost howling with delight as he came.

  He rolled off her and lay panting, his chest hairs wet from sweat. Leon tried to catch his breath. ‘That was wonderful, mi pájaro.’

  Birdie smiled. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means my bird,’ he said as he kissed the tip of her nose.

  Birdie smiled.

  They were married in Georgia seven weeks later.

  2

  Violetta had woken with a start. She looked at the small Victorian carriage clock beside her bed. One o’clock, it read. Nine hours sleep. Not too bad, she thought, and she stretched under the French linen.

  Last night had been a blast. Dinner at Le Bernadin, dancing at the new club that wasn’t open to anyone without a trust fund or a Wikipage, and then home with a B list reality star, who she remembered leaving after a few hours of acrobatic sex. Not that Violetta was concerned that he had left without a forwarding number or note.

  She reached for the glass of water by her bed, wanting to rid her mouth of the taste of cocaine and cigarettes. As she put the glass down she looked at her phone. Four missed calls from her mother’s house and two from Adam, the producer of her new reality series, Socialites in the City. Her mother Birdie had no doubt read about it in Page Six and was now ringing to express her displeasure. Violetta ignored the messages from her and instead called Adam.

  ‘Hey there.’

  ‘Hey, Vi.’

  She winced, she hated being called Vi but she didn’t say anything. Adam was the biggest reality producer in Hollywood and there was no way she was going to piss him off. He had only considered that she was included after one of her fellow socialites had become engaged and Adam had fired her from the show.

  ‘Marriage is boring,’ Adam had declared loudly at Le Bernadin where she had met him for her last minute interview. ‘Nobody wants to watch a fucking TV show about married people.’

  Violetta had agreed, certainly if her parents’ marriage was anything to go by.

  Violetta was so desperate to be part of Socialites in the City that she had signed on the line, waiving her right to have the contract checked by a lawyer. With no career or well-chosen fiancé on the horizon, Violetta was at a loss as to what would give her the exposure she craved and the approval of her father. She had tried acting lessons but wasn’t talented, according to her teacher, and not beautiful enough, according to the agents she had seen. She had tried attending college but had lost interest in the fashion design course she had done. She could barely hold a tune, so a career in singing was out – even with auto tune, she sounded like a toddler in the demo she recorded a few years ago.

  Instead, she decided to focus on her celebrity. The papers loved her, and why wouldn’t they? She was at every party, in her usual fabulous style, couture with a dash of high street chic. She had a torrid affair with a titled Euro playboy until she found out he was broke and after her trust fund, while also sleeping with one of her friends. There wasn’t much Violetta was good at, besides putting together an outfit that would land her in the pages of Vogue as the current ‘IT’ girl, smiling blissfully for the photographers.

  Now she would show her father she could be something. She was going to be a star. She could see it all before her – perfumes, clothing lines, maybe even a movie. She would have it all and then some more and she would show Leon de Santoval she was worthy of his name.

  Leon and Violetta hadn’t spoken in two years, after she approached him about joining Pajaro in the design team. She hadn’t asked to be a designer, and she was prepared to work from the ground up, but Leon had mocked her, dismissed her and told her to go shopping as that was all she was good for, not designing.

  But Violetta was good at design, and she understood fashion. Just because she didn’t enjoy college and the theory of design, it didn’t mean she wasn’t interested, or intuitive. She had a natural flair for style that her sisters didn’t have, but Leon just told her that she looked like a slut when she went out. He’d told her she looked like a slut when she was fifteen, still a virgin. She heard the same again and again whenever she wore anything shorter than mid calf. Violetta became a slut, just to piss Leon off.

  This TV series was destined to become the worst thing Violetta had ever done, as far as Leon was concerned, but she didn’t care. It was Birdie who held the purse strings as far as her daughters were concerned and there was no way she would cut Violetta off.

  She opened her laptop while she spoke to Adam, checking her ranking on the Daily Socialite website. Number 32. Not great, she thought, scrolling up the list and seeing the names of nine school friends above her on the list.

  ‘So Adam, what can I do for you?’ she purred. She was determined to get to the top of the rank by the end of the show and hopefully Adam would give her more screen time if she could convince him.

  ‘I need you to send over your schedule as soon as possible to Dawn, the producer. She’s doing the call sheets,’ barked Adam down the line.

  Violetta banged her head with her hands. I forgot, she thought. Thinking swiftly, she said smoothly. ‘Yes, I have had a few last minute invitations I’m juggling, so I just wanted to wait to confirm.’

  ‘Great, great,’ said Adam.

  She could hear traffic in the background. ‘Where are you?’ she asked, thinking of her ranking on the website.

  ‘Second Avenue.’

  ‘Right near me,’ said Violetta. ‘Come by and say hi if you like.’

  When Violetta’s phone rang again, she let it ring out. There was no way she was moving while she was on top of her new executive producer after two racks of cocaine had been shared.

  ‘Shit Vi, you’re the best,’ he said as he came.

  Violetta smiled to quickly cover her grimace. ‘Thanks, Ads, you’re the best too.’

  ‘Adam. I prefer Adam.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Violetta as she lay in bed, lighting a cigarette.

  Adam wasn’t the worst sex but she didn’t come. Maybe she was tired, she thought. Or maybe it was the vision of her mother that kept entering her mind while she tried to be present with Adam.

  Violetta had, what her sister called, ‘appalling taste in men’. She didn’t disagree, but it was hard to take seriously when her sister’s taste
was no better, with her badly disguised affair with that gross politician. Besides, the men she saw weren’t really the ones a girl ended up being married to. There would be no New York Times marriage announcement for her with the men she let into her bed.

  Violetta rolled over and butted the cigarette out into the sand of the Zen garden her Feng Shui advisor said would add peace to her room and saw her phone flashing with a message from her mother again. Damn it, Birdie, when will you stay out of my life?

  *

  Carlotta felt sick. She hadn’t eaten all morning and had been up since four-thirty tending to her horse. The evening before with John Berconi hadn’t helped. Too much champagne and rich food at his rented house nearby.

  She had only gone because of his promises to sponsor the Connecticut Equestrian Festival. Well, that and the fact that he was so handsome. Carlotta knew he was married but it had been a while between lovers and in the past six months she had been chasing him to get his company to sponsor the Horse Show she wanted to stage in Connecticut over the summer.

  John Berconi was the head of Berconi Luxe, a corporation that bought and sold luxury fashion brands. He knew and hated her father, Leon, who headed up Pajaro, a brand that had still managed to stay private and keep away barracudas like John. Knowing that Leon hated John only made him more attractive to Carlotta and last night she had sealed the deal with John in every way. He agreed to sponsor the festival if she slept with him. So she took one for the team, she thought, as she sucked his cock. But after months of flirting and casual glances and John appearing with his spotty teenaged daughter at the stables, the sex wasn’t quite as outstanding as she had hoped for.

  Carlotta had high expectations about sex. She preferred to be taken in hand, as she called it, and liked her lovers to take control. She spent her time managing highly strung horses, so it made sense to her that she needed someone who knew their way around a woman’s body, and how to allow her to be her best self in bed.

  But John was lazy when it came to sex, as many rich men are. Carlotta had heard that large breasted women were lazy in bed, expecting their tits to do all the work. Now she knew the male equivalent was men who expected their cash, shares and property to take care of a woman’s orgasm.

  Feeling her stomach rumble again, she wondered if she should venture up to her parents’ property and get Thea to cook her something. She checked her phone, three messages from Thea, her mother’s housekeeper. Probably Birdie getting Thea to run the menu past her for the lunch she was giving for the Equestrian Team. Carlotta suddenly remembered her father was down from New York; she had seen his Bentley when she was out riding. The last thing she wanted was a confrontation with her overbearing father about the cost of her horses and equipment.

  Her mother encouraged her riding but her father thought his daughter should be doing something better with her life. Not that he offered her any ideas, just criticism and comments about his acquaintances and their daughters, who all seemed to have jobs in the money market or the arts, not on top of a horse.

  Carlotta’s dream was to make the US Equestrian Team and ride in the Olympics but she wasn’t quite good enough, which Leon never failed to mention to her. For the past two years she had devoted herself to organising equestrian events and horse festivals along the east coast. At twenty-five years old, she had no skills to get a job anyway. She had avoided college, much to Birdie’s disappointment, and had headed to the family villa in Andalucía to learn dressage and bed the stable boy, until Leon arrived unannounced with his mistress and found Carlotta and Juan in the master bedroom, Carlotta on all fours, being whipped lightly him.

  Carlotta smiled, recalling the look on Leon’s face when he burst in. He never mentioned it to Birdie and she never mentioned Leon’s mistress to her mother. She loved her too much to hurt her any more than her philandering husband already had.

  The groom walked out with Carlotta’s pride and joy, her horse Amante. A thoroughbred, he was capricious like Carlotta but stunning.

  Carlotta took the reins from the man without a word of greeting or thanks. Carlotta didn’t like people, only horses. The groom expected no thanks. He was used to Carlotta’s rudeness, as were all the staff at the de Santoval stables.

  Carlotta saved her affection for Amante. She rubbed her forehead on Amante’s muzzle. ‘Hello darling,’ she cooed, and the groom walked away rolling his eyes.

  She felt her phone vibrate again in her pocket but she ignored it. Taking an apple from the horses’ feed supply, she mounted Amante and adjusted the reins. As the large horse walked out into the sunlight from the dark stables with Carlotta astride, Carlotta bit into the apple and Birdie’s face popped into her head. I’ll call her later, she thought, and gently nudged Amante into a canter.

  *

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Calthorpe.’

  Grace accepted tea in a Coalport cup and saucer from the older woman. As Grace held the delicate cup, she thought about how much Birdie would love this tea set.

  ‘Please, call me Dominique,’ said the elegant older woman.

  Grace heard her phone ring in her bag. Shit, she thought, I forgot to turn it off. She reached into her Chanel tote and saw it was Thea calling. I’ll call her back, she thought, she probably wants to know if I’m coming down for the weekend. She switched her phone to silent.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Grace said to Dominique.

  ‘That’s fine, dear. I expect you are very busy.’

  ‘No, no, I have time,’ Grace replied.

  She looked around the room. It was filled to the brim with antiques, paintings, and objects de art. Grace had worked for three months to get Dominique Calthorpe, the wife of a recently deceased media scion, to grant her an interview. Grace’s firm, Cranfields, wanted to manage the sale of her estate. Dominique was moving to France to be with her daughter and everything, she informed Grace, was to be sold.

  Grace knew that the other auction houses had already been to see her. Cranfields was the smallest house but Grace’s reputation as having the best taste in the industry, as well as innovative ways to market the estates, had allowed her to get half an hour with Dominique. Also Birdie’s phone call to Dominique had no doubt helped. The network was always there to fall back on, Birdie had reminded Grace when she complained that Dominique wouldn’t return her calls.

  Graciela de Santoval was the most like her mother. Elegant, refined, the most beautiful of the triplets, she harboured a taste for the best things in life. Never in a gauche way, of course, but more bespoke. She read the restaurant reviews before she made any booking, she knew the best new artists and the most valuable old ones. She never wanted any surprises, and carefully curated her life to avoid any sense of the ugly. She always wanted to be surrounded by beauty, as a shield from the ugly world that existed.

  This control of her decisions gave her a sense of security. Grace, as she preferred to be known as, had never done a spontaneous thing in her life. She dated the most eligible men, had only had three lovers and made love with the light out. Her orange Hermes day planner was filled with small ticks written with a small gold pencil, and her well organised iPhone was snug in its matching leather, her monogram in gold on the back.

  ‘Come and see the art, my dear,’ Dominique said.

  Grace followed her into the large foyer. On almost every part of the wall up the stairs hung paintings, all different frames and styles. Modern sat next to old masters and Grace felt herself take a sharp breath inwards.

  Dominique looked up at the works. ‘I like to look at the art. When we first moved in here, I took all the paintings and a hammer and nails and hung them myself.’

  ‘A mosaic hang,’ Grace said, as she looked up the stairwell.

  ‘Yes!’ said Dominique, seemingly pleased that Grace understood her style. ‘Not popular here but in Paris, where the apartments are small but the taste is grand, one must do what one can with the limited space. It was not like we didn’t have the room here but I wanted to make the house seem smaller. It is very
large.’

  Dominique gestured towards the stairs. ‘Go and look, I think you will find some little masterpieces among them. There are even a few of Henry’s that I hung after he retired and took up painting.’

  Grace was silent as she walked the stairs. There were Sargents and a divine Mary Cassatt that Grace would have liked for herself. A few Rockwells, several Turners, two Jessie WiIlcox Smiths, a Walter Gay and many more. Grace was overwhelmed. Interspersed were canvases of Henry’s art, modest and impressionistic in style, of the harbour and the gardens at the Calthorpe estate. They were sweet, if a little amateur, but they had an innocence about them that Grace admired. Grace had studied art at Wellesley, majoring in Modern Art and American Art. She was excited by the collection that Dominique had put before her and felt herself trying not to show too much enthusiasm in front of Dominique’s calm demeanour.

  ‘I like your husband’s work very much,’ Grace said truthfully.

  ‘He was good,’ said Dominique. ‘You wouldn’t sell that though, would you?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Not unless you wanted us to,’ said Grace gently.

  ‘No, but the other auction houses said they wouldn’t get anything for his work. I found that rather insulting.’ Grace covered her smile as they walked back to the overstuffed sitting room. She moved her bag and saw her mother had rung again. Probably checking to see how it had gone with Dominique. Grace stifled an urge to text Birdie to leave her alone and instead focused on Dominique.

  ‘If you wanted us to sell your husband’s work then we would. I see no reason why they wouldn’t fetch a reasonable price, given the artist and his technique. It is impressionist in style and that sits well with the conservative market,’ Grace said honestly.

  Dominique beamed at her. ‘Well, I wouldn’t sell them ever, they mean more to me than anything else here. My daughter has what she wants from the collection, the rest mean nothing to me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Grace. ‘Needless to say, Cranfields is not the biggest auction house that has come to see you but we are the most attentive and we will certainly treat everything with the respect it deserves, particularly Henry’s paintings, if you do ever decide to put them up for sale.’