All That Glitters Read online

  When they were out to dinner on Saturday night, Coco’s parents were excited about their trip to France the next day. Hearing them and talking about it made her miss it more than she had thought she would. But she didn’t want to make a bad impression at work by asking for a vacation right after she started the job, so she had decided to pass on it this year. She had wonderful memories of their many trips together during school vacations and in the summers.

  “Are you all packed, Mom?” she asked her mother when they got home from dinner. Bethanie laughed guiltily with a glance at her husband.

  “More or less,” she said and Tom laughed.

  “You know your mom. She’ll be slipping more things into her suitcase and another one will suddenly appear as we walk out the door.” He always pretended to grouse about how much luggage she took, but in truth, he didn’t care. She liked to wear pretty clothes, and he enjoyed indulging her. Once in Paris and the South of France, she’d buy more, he knew. It was a trait Coco had inherited from her. Tom traveled light, but all he needed for the trip were white jeans, some linen jackets, a blazer, and a suit or two. It was so much easier for a man to pack less, as his wife always pointed out to him. She often had a whole suitcase of purses and shoes, to match every outfit. But at the hotel where they stayed in Cap d’Antibes, people dressed well. It was an older crowd, an expensive hotel, and they went there every summer for a week or two. Coco loved it there too.

  It was a relaxing weekend, and Bethanie made them a big brunch on Sunday. After that, Tom drove Coco back to the jitney to return to the city. They had to finish packing, and were leaving on a nine P.M. flight to Paris, where they would spend several days seeing friends, going to art exhibits, and visiting their favorite museums and restaurants. And then they would head to the South of France, followed by a few days in Venice, and ending the trip in London, as they always did. They were planning to be away for just under three weeks, a luxury of time Coco couldn’t afford this summer, for a worthy cause. It was her first serious summer job.

  She was in a good mood all the way back to the city after seeing them. She’d had a nice time with her parents, and she went to a movie with two of her girlfriends from Columbia that night. She knew that Sam had a date with the daughter of friends of his parents and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “How was it?” she asked when he called her after the movie.

  “Painful. She was nice looking, but a huge bore. My parents’ only criterion is that the girls are Jewish. I don’t think she said ten words all evening. I was home by ten o’clock.” He made a date with Coco for later that week, to go to dinner and a movie they were both dying to see. They never ran out of things to talk about. When they hung up, she knew her parents’ flight to Paris was already in the air. They had called from the airport to say goodbye again. After talking to Sam, Coco turned on the TV in their den for a while, and then went to bed early so she’d be fresh for work the next day.

  The next week at Time flew by and kept her busy, so she didn’t have a chance to miss them. Her parents called her from Paris, and told her what they were doing, what restaurants and galleries they’d been to, since they were major collectors and passionate about art. By the end of the week, they were in the South of France, happily at their favorite hotel.

  That weekend she and Sam went out to Southampton, and spent the whole time relaxing and swimming, and sleeping by the pool. They slept chastely in separate rooms, as they always had, since there had never been even a hint of romance between them. He had met a new girl that week, at the deli near his office where he’d had lunch. She was Irish Catholic, but he said he didn’t care, as long as his mother didn’t find out. Coco told him about several guys she’d spotted at work, whom she hadn’t met yet but looked promising. Sam always said that he was closer to Coco than to his own sisters, and he could tell her anything, as she could with him. There were no secrets between them.

  They had lain in the sun all weekend and relaxed. Sam had borrowed his father’s car for the weekend, since his father didn’t drive on Friday night or Saturdays anyway. He turned the radio on, on the drive home. The news was on, and Coco was about to hunt for a music station they both liked, when a bulletin came on, announcing a major terrorist attack in France, on the Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes. She looked at Sam with fear in her eyes.

  “Don’t be crazy, Coco. Don’t jump to conclusions,” he told her calmly. He knew how her mind worked, and that she would panic at what they’d just heard, thinking of her parents. “They were probably at their hotel.” It was late evening in France, and Coco knew they were most likely at dinner somewhere, at one of their favorite restaurants, but she worried anyway. She took out her cellphone and called both of them. Each call went directly to voicemail. She was silent for most of the ride home after that, flipping through the stations for further news. What they’d heard so far was that several bombs had been detonated. The terrorists had been shot and killed. Several hundred people had been injured and well over a hundred were dead, after an initial count. It was one of the worst attacks so far. When they got to her building on Fifth Avenue, Sam parked on the street and went upstairs with her to watch the news on TV. It was heartbreaking to see; people carrying dead children, and other children screaming in fear and running after the blast, looking for their parents, husbands kneeling over their wives, parents over children, lovers dying in each other’s arms, riot police everywhere.

  She watched the scene intently in terrified silence, holding Sam’s hand, but there was no sign of her parents in the carnage they saw on TV. Her face was tense and Sam didn’t speak as Coco continued to call their cellphones, with no answer. When she called the hotel, they said that the Martins were out and not in their rooms. When she checked with the hotel restaurant, they had not dined at the hotel that night.

  “Shit, Sam, where are they?” she said nervously.

  “They’re probably walking around somewhere,” he said, but he could see the terror in her eyes, and didn’t know how to reassure her.

  Sam and Coco spent the night on the couch in front of the TV, watching the same footage again and again. He called his parents and said he was staying at a friend’s.

  The call finally came at six A.M., which was noon in France. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before she answered, praying it was them. But an unfamiliar male voice with a French accent asked for her by name. He pronounced it like a French name. “Nicole Martin.” Her name was on her parents’ documents and travel papers as next of kin, so if something happened to them, she would be called.

  “Yes, this is she,” she said, holding her breath as Sam stared at her, willing it to be good news. It had to be. They couldn’t have been victims of a terrorist attack in France. It just wasn’t possible and didn’t make sense.

  The man identified himself as a captain of the gendarmerie in Cannes. He explained that there had been a terrorist attack.

  “Yes, I know,” she said, wanting to scream. “Are my parents all right?” It suddenly occurred to her that they could be injured and in a hospital there. All night she had been terrified that they were dead. There was a brief pause before he responded, sounding grave.

  “I regret very much to inform you, madame, they were among the victims of last night’s attack. They were on the Croisette when the first bomb detonated.”

  “Are they injured? How bad is it?” she asked in a whisper, as Sam squeezed her hand and she closed her eyes while everything swirled around her and she waited to hear what the captain would say.

  “They did not survive,” he said somberly. Her eyes flew open and she looked at Sam in disbelief.

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes, madame. Both Monsieur and Madame Martin were killed. There will be formalities. If you will contact the American embassy in Paris, they will assist you. We are very, very sorry for this terrible act. It is a great tragedy. So many victi
ms. Our sincere sympathy,” he said. “The people of France cry with you.” She nodded and couldn’t speak for a moment, as he gave her a number to call, to make arrangements for the victims. The captain sounded choked himself. He had been working all through the night, and now had the grim task of notifying relatives and loved ones. Many of the victims couldn’t be identified. There were human fragments all over the Croisette.

  She ended the call and stared at Sam, unable to believe what the captain had told her. From the look on her face, Sam didn’t dare ask her what had happened. He could see it. He put his arms around her, and she shuddered against his chest, with deep wracking sobs. This couldn’t have happened, but it had. She tried to catch her breath to tell him.

  “Both of them,” she said with gulping sobs. He had already guessed that when she asked the captain, and then had no further questions. “What do I do now? How do I live without them?” Sam didn’t know what to do for her, other than hold her.

  “Do you have to go and get them?” he asked gently, and she looked totally lost. Her green eyes were emerald pools of pain.

  “I don’t know. He said the embassy would help me.” Sam wondered if his father would lend him the money to go with her if she had to go to France. He couldn’t let her face it alone. They walked into the kitchen, and he handed her a glass of water, which seemed like such a useless gesture, but he didn’t know what else to do. He felt helpless and heartbroken for her. Her parents were such great people. She took a sip and set it down. She couldn’t focus on anything except what she had just heard. Both her parents had been killed. It was what she had been so desperately afraid of all night.

  She sent an email to her boss at Time, explaining what had happened and that she could not come in and would contact them when she knew more.

  She and Sam spent the next two hours sitting at the kitchen table, talking, and then Sam called the embassy in Paris for her, and they gave him a number to call in Cannes. It was an emergency number that had been set up for the families of the victims, for information, and directions about where the bodies were being taken. Not all of them had been removed yet. He handed Coco the phone when he got through. The woman who answered consulted a list and told Coco that her parents were at a military base, and the American embassy in Paris would be able to give her the correct forms for their release, in order to transport them to the United States. It sounded like there was going to be considerable red tape, but they were well organized. They had had too much practice with events like this in recent years.

  Coco called the American embassy in Paris again after that. They extended their condolences immediately, and said they would email the forms she would have to fill out and have notarized to give her clearance to transport her parents back to the States. They warned her that it could take several days or even a week. They said they would call the victims’ survivor number and see if they could expedite it. She felt lost again as she listened. It was a maze of words and formalities that meant nothing now without her parents. She couldn’t imagine anything that would matter to her again, or her life without them.

  Sam called the hotel for her, and spoke to the manager to explain what had happened, and asked them to safeguard the Martins’ belongings until someone could claim them.

  “Of course. Please extend our deepest sympathy to Miss Martin and the family,” the manager said. But there was no family now. Only Coco.

  Sam then called his father from the den, and explained the situation in hushed tones. He said he might want to borrow the money for a ticket to France. They had never fully approved of their friendship, although they’d gotten used to it in twelve years, but this was a special case that transcended all else and his father said he’d give him whatever he needed to help Coco. He felt terrible for her when Sam told him the news. Sam thanked him and hung up, and went back to Coco in the kitchen. They sat quietly together then, as though waiting for something to happen, but it already had. The rest was all irrelevant details. She would have to arrange a funeral for her parents, but she didn’t want to do that until they sent their bodies back from France, and she didn’t know what would happen, or even how to bring them back.

  At ten o’clock, her father’s somewhat flamboyant, very social partner, Edward Easton, called her. She knew from her father that Ed was her trustee in the event of his death, which always seemed unlikely. Ed explained in a serious voice that he was also the executor of her father’s estate. She wasn’t sure what that would be like, but it didn’t matter. Ed told her how desperately shocked and sorry he was, and what a loss it was for him as well.

  As quiet and discreet as her father was, Ed was the exact opposite, always center stage and very much in evidence. He was handsome, successful, social, one of the stars of Wall Street, as her father was, but the two men were completely different, and were business partners and friends. Ed was married to an important heiress, who was a billionaire in her own right, and together they made a big splash wherever they went. He was constantly on Page Six, the gossip column of the New York Post, and sometimes spotted with other women. Tom hadn’t liked the flashy way Ed lived, but he had great respect for him in business, and always said he was an honest man. He trusted him implicitly. They had made a fortune together and Tom had wanted him to handle his estate for Coco and Bethanie. He knew Ed would be responsible doing so. It had never occurred to him that his wife would die with him, at the same time. He’d always assumed she would outlive him.

  “I can’t tell you how devastated I am,” Ed said to Coco on the phone, and he sounded it. It was a shock for everyone who knew them. Tom and Bethanie were forty-six years old, much too young to die. “I’ll do whatever needs to be done to get them home,” he reassured her. “I have a call in to the American ambassador. We both belong to the Racquet Club and I’ve met him a few times. I’m sure he’ll do everything he can to help us.” Tom Martin had been a very important man in the world of high finance and was greatly respected by all.

  Eleven Americans had been killed in the attack, and several others injured. It was high season, July, when the South of France was full of tourists from every country. The victims had mostly been French, but many weren’t. According to CNN, the casualties included a Saudi prince and both his wives, twenty members of the Qatari royal family, several Scandinavians, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, numerous Germans and British subjects, and a tour group of Japanese schoolchildren. Dozens of French citizens were dead and hundreds injured. The death toll had risen to a hundred and sixty-four, and two hundred and eighty-seven people injured.

  There had been bulletins on the news all morning, and a mournful speech by the French president. An extremist group had taken credit for the attack. None of the terrorists had survived, as they’d intended. Those who had survived uninjured among people on the Croisette at the time had been sequestered for psychiatric attention for several hours, and had just been released to go home. It was too late for any of it to help Tom and Bethanie. Reporters had said that there were body fragments scattered everywhere, which special teams were removing.

  “I’ll go over if I need to,” Ed volunteered to Coco, “but we probably won’t have to. The embassy will expedite it, I’m sure. Can I do anything for you right now?” he asked Coco, and she shook her head, barely able to speak, as Sam sat beside her. They both kept crying, and so did Ed.

  “I’m okay. I have a friend here.” She squeezed Sam’s hand.

  “I’ll let you know what I hear. I’ll come up to see you later,” he promised. She didn’t want him to, but she didn’t want to be rude, and he was a link to her father. She’d be seeing a lot of him if he was the executor and trustee of her father’s estate. She knew him well, but he was always a little overwhelming. She still looked dazed when she hung up. Sam took her to her bedroom and got her to lie down, and she asked him to lie next to her. He got onto her bed in her pink silk bedroom and held her. She lay with her eyes closed, but h
e knew she wasn’t sleeping. She just lay there, in his arms, breathing and trying not to think of what had happened. She wondered if they had had time to be scared, or suffer, or if it was all over in an instant. The bombs had been powerful, and those closest to the explosions had literally vanished.

  Ed Easton called back two hours later. He had spoken to the ambassador, and they were going to take care of everything. He and Coco didn’t have to go over, although normally the French formalities were complicated, with considerable red tape to negotiate. Ed said the hotel was going to send her parents’ belongings, including the contents of the room safe, all of which would arrive by courier. They would have everything by the next morning. The ambassador was hoping they could have the Martins’ bodies in New York by the end of the week. The French government was in a state of chaos over the attack, but the emergency services were well organized in the midst of it. They had promised to send the other Americans’ remains home quickly too. France was in deep mourning, and American networks had named all the American victims once the families had been notified, including her parents.

  Sam tried to get Coco to eat something but she wouldn’t.

  At four o’clock the doorman buzzed, and said that a Mr. Easton wished to come up, and she let him. Their housekeeper, Theresa, had come to work to help her, looking devastated. Flowers had begun to arrive that afternoon. Coco hadn’t called the funeral home yet. She just couldn’t, and they didn’t know when her parents’ bodies would be arriving. The first flowers that came were from her boss at Time magazine, and she was touched.

  Sam left when Ed Easton got there. He said he’d be back as soon as he showered and changed at home, and dropped off his bag from the weekend and his father’s car. He left Coco sitting in the living room with Ed, looking shell-shocked. Ed was wearing a well-cut dark suit, a white shirt, and a black tie, and looked grim too. He’d had a flood of calls from people they did business with who just couldn’t believe it.