The cafe was usually quiet on Mondays, so Anna was able to close up a bit earlier than expected. Nikos had offered her a ride home, so she decided to sit down on a pool chair and lay in the sun until he finished his shift.
As she powered up her phone, she saw an email notification pop up. Her email was usually pretty quiet, so she opened it quickly to see what it was.
What she saw nearly made her drop her phone into her open mouth.
TO: Anna Linton <anna94linton@gmail.com>
FROM: Marcus MacMillan <marcus@marmacgalleries.com>
DATE: 24 June 2019, 15:03
SUBJECT: Well played
Hi Anna,
Imagine my surprise when the winner I picked last night for the Emerging Talent Contest ended up being you. My assistant was absolutely shitting herself when I came in this morning, afraid to tell me. I had to think about what to do, but ultimately you earned this. You’re the winner. There’ll be a more formal email later offering you the placement, but I just wanted to say, WELL PLAYED. I definitely didn’t see that coming.
See you soon,
Marcus
Anna could hardly believe the words she was reading. With everything she had going on, she had pretty much forgotten about the contest. Now she had won it!
Her first thought surprised her: that she would have to leave Santorini in order to accept. Of course she would. But she had been planning to do that anyway, right? Maybe it was the sudden end date to her time here that had her feeling panicked. But it didn’t matter. If anything, it made things easier.
Her next thought was about Marcus. What would it mean to accept this from him? She had been proud of herself for standing up to him before she left. She knew she had done the right thing by quitting. Sure, the winner was chosen anonymously, as always, but was this just running back to him and the life she’d left behind? Or was it the opposite, where she had left on her own terms and was somehow being rewarded for it, by him and by the universe?
Either way, she knew what she had to do. It was everything she had wanted for so long. All of those days spent in the gallery gazing at the names of the photographers whose work was on display, every time she had submitted her work somewhere only to be told it wasn’t what they were looking for… it was all worth it for this moment. She had won. And she’d be a fool to say no.
Without another thought, she scrolled through to the next email, the formal offer Marcus had mentioned, and responded with just two words:
I’m in.