Page 36 of Saltwater Secrets
Their first date was to a sushi place in the Lower East Side. Aria wore one of her mother’s old dresses that she’d taken from Nantucket, a deep red that suited both of their skin tones. Again, Logan wore Philip Wagner’s shirt, which made Aria laugh harder than she wanted to. “I still need that old Philip Wagner luck,” he said. It seemed that Logan was always up for a bit of humor, always ready to tease her and bring up inside jokes. It made her feel as though they were already in a secret club of their own design.
It made the past year with Thaddeus—a year of fights and turning away in bed—feel like a bad dream. Why had she put up with that for so long? Why had she been so sure that Thaddeus was the one, that she’d had to find the one at twenty-one years old?
Now, she was twenty-three and slightly wiser. She told herself not to get too swept up with Logan, not to let herself fall in love too fast. But goodness, she felt happy. Maybe this bubbly feeling was what Dorothy Wagner had wanted her to understand about summertime at twenty-three. Perhaps this was why she’d sent her to the city in the first place.
When Hilary called with news about the photographs she’d found in the library at the Wagner Estate, Aria was in the living room of Logan’s tiny apartment in the Lower East Side, drinking kombucha with him after a difficult day designing at the brownstone. Logan was writing emails to his producers. It was only the first few days of their so-called “romance,” but already, it felt so easy to have him around.
Aria recounted what her mother had told her about the photographs of this stranger, how her grandfather had sort of known him back in the old days, how he’d been the business partner of Philip Wagner before a difficult professional breakup. Logan’s eyes lit up. “Let’s find him,” he said, opening a new window on his laptop.
It took them about thirty seconds to discover the man’s name. It was William France, a Pennsylvania-born businessman and investment broker who’d started his first company with Philip Wagner in 1963 before being forced out of the same company in 1978. Together, Aria and Logan studied online photographs, matching his smile with the ones in the pictures Hilary sent Aria. In most of the online shots, he was younger than he was in the envelope’s print-outs, which felt like proof that his fame had died after Philip Wagner had pushed him out.
“He was married in the mid-sixties,” Logan read the screen, squinting. “Around the same time as Philip and Dorothy, right?”
Aria nodded, remembering having read somewhere that Dorothy and Philip had married in 1964—a year after Philip and William had founded their company. What a whirlwind of a time it must have been. They must have felt on top of the world.
“William had three kids in the late sixties and early seventies,” Logan continued. “But he and his wife divorced in the mid-seventies, not long before Philip forced William to leave the company they’d founded.” He clicked his fingers against his coffee table, considering this. “It wasn’t so common to divorce back then, was it?”
Aria shook her head, remembering her great-grandpa Chuck and his dramatic affair, one that had split the Coleman family in two. She also remembered that Dorothy Wagner had brought up her great-grandfather during that first phone call. She remembered thinking that this woman didn’t judge Chuck Coleman for what he did and being surprised by it.
“So,” Logan said, wearing a funny smile, “the question remains. What is an envelope of photographs of William France doing in his ex-best friend’s widow’s library?”
Aria’s eyes widened. They were both thinking the same thing: Dorothy and William had been having an affair. And, according to her mother and grandmother, it seemed likely the affair had begun in the late seventies, around the time the business had split up.
Aria groaned. “I’m beginning to think Renée might dislike her mother for a reason.”
Logan swept her hair to the side of her face, tucking a strand behind her ear. “This is all fun and interesting and all that. But hear me out. Do you and your mother have to get so involved in all this? I mean, you’ve been hired to do the interior design of two properties. I get that. But can you draw a boundary? Thesemega-rich people are another breed. I worry you’ll make the wrong people angry.”
Aria blinked at him. She first thought, where was the fun in throwing all this away? But her next was more reasonable.
“I see what you mean,” she said. “But Mom and I really fell for Dorothy during our week together. She sent me to Manhattan because…” Was she really going to tell Logan how brokenhearted she’d been so recently? “Well, she wanted to help me out. And it feels almost fortuitous. I can’t help but feel that Renée came into our lives at a time when she really needed us. If there’s a way to help Renée through this, a way to help her heal and forgive her mother, I want to find it.”
“But what if you make her feel worse about her mother?” Logan asked, his face scrunched up.
“I don’t know.” Aria bit her lip. “I want to believe we’ll back away when things get too strange. We’ll leave well enough alone. But I also know how my mother and I are. We love good stories. We’re already invested.”
Logan laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “I had no idea what I was getting into when I went to the bagel shop that day. Now look at me! Embroiled in some billionaire family mess. What if I get kidnapped before my movie comes out?”
Aria laughed and swatted him. Suddenly, they were kissing again, their arms around one another as the city swarmed out the window.
But abruptly, Logan stopped and pulled away. Aria’s heart shattered. Had she done something wrong? Was he having second thoughts? His eyes were enormous and full of mystery.I don’t really know him, she reminded herself.I have to take a step back.
But Logan said, “I know that name. William France. I know it.”
“You know it? Have you heard of his company or something?” Aria asked.
Logan shook his head and got off the sofa. Aria felt chilly without him there. She watched as he paced the living room. One of his big toes was slightly bruised, and she wondered how he’d hurt himself. Once, Thaddeus had hit his big toe on a rock and gotten so angry that he’d yelled at her. Ugh! When would these memories stop?
Logan snapped his fingers and ran into the bedroom. When he returned, he was holding Philip Wagner’s shirt again. Aria was on her feet.
“Look!” he cried, gesturing.
Inside the shirt was a little tag that someone had sewn into the stitching. It had been embroidered with script, and it read: William France.
Aria’s jaw dropped.
All this time, it hadn’t been Philip Wagner’s lucky shirt. It had belonged to William France. It turned everything they’d been saying on its head. But when had William France spent enough time at the brownstone to store his shirts there? And why hadn’t he come back to get it?
After that, Aria and Logan burst into action. They put on their shoes and gathered their things and went back to the brownstone, hustling to grab a taxi. Once they arrived, Aria paid the driver and led Logan upstairs to the closet with the men’s clothing in it. It happened to be in the same room that Renée had taken for herself, which meant that it was now strewn with her clothes and makeup, a mess bigger than anything Aria could tackle right now. (And a mess Aria would have to figure out, if she was going to continue the redesign of the brownstone. That was future Aria’s problem.)
