“These look incredible,” Elena said. “I can’t believe you were able to get these shots given how dark it was outside.”
Eirini motioned for the camera, and Elena handed it to her. She held it up, leaning back so she could see the photo displayed on the screen.
“Very nice,” she said, handing the camera back to Anna. “You should be very proud.”
“It’s amazing what a reflector and the right settings can do,” Anna said.
“It’s amazing what the right photographer can do,” Elena replied. She smiled at Anna across the table.
They were sat out on the patio enjoying the sunshine after yesterday’s scattered showers. Anna had finally experienced bad weather in Greece, and of course it had to happen on the same day as her photoshoot at the resort. Xenia had even given Elena the day off specially to help, despite it being the first day of the holiday weekend. Xenia suggested postponing until after the launch, but Anna insisted on trying, which turned out to be the right decision. The cloudy skies ended up adding a moodiness to the photos that went perfectly with the sleek new website design Xenia had showed her, and it meant she didn’t have to worry about bright direct light. The rain had held off just long enough to finish the exterior shots. The interiors would need a bit of editing magic to brighten them up, but it was nothing Anna couldn’t handle.
“Thanks for your help,” she said to Elena, who had spent the day holding the reflector and making adjustments as needed.
“No problem. You can send my fee along any time,” she replied, winking.
“Let me go see what’s taking your grandfather so long with the mezze,” Eirini said, standing and heading inside.
“I am absolutely starving,” Anna said, closing her eyes as she sat back and tilted her face toward the sun.
The island had been absolutely crawling all weekend for Agiou Pnevmatos, a national public holiday. In other words, as Anna now knew, the entire mainland of Greece emptied to the islands, even as far south as Santorini. So she and Elena had spent all weekend in the cafe, listening to Xenia shout last-minute orders at people as things came up that hadn’t been finished before the opening. Meanwhile, Nikos spent his time painting the summer house. Anna insisted that he didn’t need to, that he could wait until she was off work, but he had insisted.
They still hadn’t spoken any more about what had happened between them, but Anna was okay with that. He wasn’t acting weird toward her, so she didn’t want to rock the boat. After all, this is what she’d wanted, right? So what good would come from discussing it?
“How was your date last night?” Anna asked Elena.
“So good,” she said. “Vasilis is seriously so hot. Everything he does is sexy. Picks me up on his actual motorcycle? Sexy. Orders the vegetarian dish? Sexy. Always offers to go down on me? Sexy.”
“Gross!” Anna shouted, throwing a napkin at Elena. “I so didn’t need to know that.”
“Whatever,” Elena replied, throwing the napkin back at her. “You’re just salty because I cock-blocked you after the wedding.”
“I mean, I’m not happy that I haven’t gotten laid in over a month,” Anna said. “It’s the longest I’ve gone in a while.”
Elena sat up and hit Anna’s arm lightly. “Oh my god, did you have a boyfriend before you came here? That would explain so much!”
“Not exactly…” Anna started. Then, “Wait, what would that explain?”
Elena shrugged. “Why you’re so desperate to get back.”
“I’m not desperate to get back. I just know it’s the best thing for everyone.”
“Whatever. Agree to disagree. But back to the guy.”
“Right. The guy.” Anna hadn’t thought much about Marcus since she arrived. Not in that way, anyway. Not even when he had emailed her about the contest. He had turned out to be as forgettable to her as she seemed to be to him. “I was casually seeing this guy for just over a year back home.”
“How often did you sleep with him?”
Anna thought back to her time with Marcus, remembering the texts he would send giving her a day, time and place. Never any asking. No discussion. Just a when and where. And she always went. “A couple of times a week,” she said. “He had a busy schedule.”
“Um, excuse me, a year of seeing each other every few days isn’t exactly casual.”
“Yeah, well, it was a weird circumstance.”
“Define weird.”
Anna hesitated, but she couldn’t think of a reason not to tell Elena the truth. “He was my boss.”
“Oh, shit, girl! That’s so shady.”
“Not really,” she said. “It wasn’t like that. I never felt like he was hanging it over my head until the end, when I quit my job to come here. He didn’t like me bringing up our history to get what I wanted.”
“What did he do?”
“He fired me, actually.”
Elena shrugged. “It kind of sounds like it was ‘like that,’” she said, making air quotes with her hands.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t.”
“So he didn’t buy you expensive gifts that no one else would ever see, like lingerie or something? And he didn’t sneak you around, always having you over to his, never to yours? He didn’t call you ‘cute’ when you showed him things you were excited about? He didn’t sleep with other women and then try to make you feel crazy for not being okay with it?”
Good point, Anna thought, remembering the time she showed Marcus the picture she had taken of a lighthouse on Long Island. He had actually used the word “cute.”
“Okay, maybe it was a little bit like that.”
Elena threw her head back and laughed. “It’s alright, girl. We all need a little bit of that to learn from.”
“You sound like you know,” Anna replied, chuckling.
Just then, Nikos came through the gate, and Anna sat up a bit straighter. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to talk about Marcus in front of him. She may not have done anything wrong, but she also wasn’t particularly proud of their relationship.
Eirini and Christos followed soon after, each with a plate of mezze in each hand.
“It looks so good in there,” Eirini said, setting down plates in front of them. The three of them immediately dug in. “Nikos was just showing us around.”
“Thank you,” Anna said between bites. “He’s been working really hard on it this weekend.”
“It’s all Giorgos’s plans,” Nikos said with his mouth full, earning a nasty look from Eirini.
While she’d kept the inside of the summer house a traditional white, Anna had decided to follow Giorgos’s plan to paint the outside a vibrant yellow. She had also used the money from the girls in town to buy shutters and window boxes to turn it into a little cottage. Now all it needed was flowers trailing out of the boxes. Oh, and the dozens of other things on Anna’s list.
She and Elena had spent the morning helping Nikos finish the inside, which was now looking clean and bright. The terracotta tiles looked beautiful with the white walls and cabinets and big picture windows. Nikos and Kostas had even managed to hunt down enough of the materials for the backsplash Giorgos had sketched in his notes: gorgeous blue, white and terracotta patchwork tiles that tied the whole room together. The new countertops were a lovely piece of natural wood that had been imported from Athens; a costly purchase using most of Anna’s advance from Xenia, but worth it. Giorgos’s vision for the summer house was coming together, and the closer they got to accomplishing it, the better Anna felt. That afternoon they were bringing in the new cabinet fronts, and next week, when they brought the appliances from Nikos’s, the kitchen would be done.
“Well, I for one love seeing it come to life,” Eirini said. “It’s been long enough since that place saw any kind of hope.”
Since your mother came and ruined everything, everyone finished in their heads. At least, Anna imagined that they did. She certainly did. If reading her father’s letters had taught her anything, it was that her father was much better off before her mother came along.
“House looks good,” Christos added with a big grin, clearly proud of himself for stringing so many words together. Anna laughed and reached across the table to touch his hand. Her grandparents had been so supportive, even after realizing she was planning to sell the house. She had definitely lucked out where they were concerned.
Anna’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up off the table to check the notification.
“Anna!” Christos shouted, shaking his head. “No phone while eat.”
“Sorry,” Anna said, “it’s for work.”
“Elena says you’ve had some more work come through, Anna?” Eirini asked.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I have the work at the hotel this week, some shoots in the mornings, and then I’m shooting a wedding next weekend.”
As it turned out, one of the girls, the one who had tried to pay her more, the one with the southern accent, had over half a million followers on Instagram. She’d given Anna credit for the photos as she posted them, and suddenly requests had flooded into her inbox from people wanting her to take photos of them on their vacations. One message had been from a bride coming all the way from Chicago to get married on the island, saying her photographer had to cancel at the last minute, offering to pay Anna nearly two thousand euros to photograph her wedding.
“A wedding! How lovely.” Eirini said, clapping her hands together.
“Yeah, I’m excited but nervous,” Anna said. “It’s such an important day for them, especially the bride. I would hate to mess it up.”
“You won’t,” Nikos said. “I’ve seen your photos. No one has an eye like you do. It’s really something special.”
“Thank you,” Anna replied, smiling affectionately. Nikos returned her smile before turning back to his meal. It was a perfectly friendly exchange – intimate even, in its own way – but it rang hollow after the loaded glances and intense gazing of the last three and a half weeks.
“Do you know what this holiday is?” Eirini asked, smiling and looking around, hoping she’d stumped them.
“Agiou Pnevmatos,” Elena answered. “Monday of the Holy Spirit.”
“Yes, but do you know what it means?”
Nikos and Elena hung their heads, clearly embarrassed that they didn’t know what it was. Eirini and Christos weren’t particularly religious, but they at least knew their holidays.
“It’s the day the Holy Spirit was given to the followers of Christ,” she said, sounding like a teacher giving a lecture.
Anna nodded. “That’s interesting.”
“Why is it interesting, dear?”
Anna’s eyes went wide as she looked to Nikos and Elena for help. Very unhelpfully, they started giggling. “Um, I don’t really know.”
“Well, then, best to let me finish,” Eirini said, winking at her. “It’s interesting because it was on this day, fifty days after Easter, that the Trinity was complete. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Eirini looked at Anna, but she had learned her lesson. She kept her mouth shut. Eirini turned to Nikos and Elena.
“Now, I’ve watched you two be each other’s best friends since you were little. This is a small island, and you two have been through enough for everyone on it. But Anna here has completed your trinity. And while she isn’t staying forever, it’s been so nice to see all three of you so happy.”
Elena reached across the table and grabbed Anna’s hand. Anna squeezed, and Elena squeezed back. Nikos took Elena’s other hand, and after a moment of hesitation reached out for Anna’s hand as well.
“That’s beautiful,” Anna said. “Thank you for saying that.”
She looked across the table at her two friends. She had been with them for such a short time, but she already considered them some of the best friends she had ever had. And it hurt her to think what she would do without them.
After they had finished their meals and Elena left to go meet Vasilis, Anna and Nikos went back to the summer house.
“It really does look amazing in here,” Nikos said, looking around as he reached into the refrigerator for a beer. He handed one to Anna.
“Thanks,” she said. “Yeah, it really does. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but it turns out my dad knew best. Which makes sense since he built the place.”
Nikos laughed softly, and Anna cocked her head at him.
“It’s just that that’s the first time you’ve called him your dad,” he said, smiling. He sat down at the table. “It’s nice to hear.”
Anna joined him at the table and twisted open her beer, taking a big sip. “Well, the more I read his letters, the more I realize how much my mother lied. About him, about this place… all of it. So if I’m going to know the truth about him, I have to let go of all that. And my anger toward him, the hatred that was keeping me from acknowledging him as my father, was based on a lie.”
Nikos nodded. “That seems like a lot.”
“Yeah, but being here helps,” she replied. “Being with you and with his parents – it all helps. I feel like I know him more through you. Through all of this.” She paused for a moment. “Lizzy told me what he did for you, you know. Sending you to college. Forcing you to stay there. And what you did for him, coming back.”
“He was the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had,” Nikos said. “It was an easy decision.”
“But why did you stay here?” she asked. “Why didn’t you go somewhere else? Surely, you could get a job anywhere.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want to. I like it here.”
“But when you could go anywhere in the world?”
Nikos sighed and leaned forward, propping his elbows up on his knees. “London wasn’t great for me if I’m being honest. The school was, but not the place. Not the environment. I didn’t like who I became. When I came home, I felt like myself again. Like my priorities were realigned. Sometimes you have to leave home to know how much you miss it, ya know?”
Anna nodded while she was listening, but at his question she stopped and shook her head. “Honestly? No, I don’t. I’ve never felt that about a place. Not about Connecticut. Not about Manhattan.” Not about here, she didn’t say. Especially as she wasn’t sure it was true.
“Well, that’s a real shame,” Nikos said. “I hope you get to feel it someday.”
“Me too.”
Later that evening, after the new cabinets had been installed, Anna and Nikos wandered down to the resort. After weeks of seeing it practically empty, it was weird to see it filled with so many people. It was buzzing with excitement; Xenia had been pushing people for weeks so it would be open for the long weekend, and it seemed like the staff was just as high on the energy as the guests were. They made their way to the beachfront bar where Elena worked, scanning the crowd for her and Vasilis. Which was hard, since it was more people in one place than Anna had seen on the island yet, including a Sunday morning in Oia.
“Just look for the tangled mess of limbs,” Anna said, “hers thin, his bulging with muscle.”
Sure enough, they found them making out against the bar. Nikos cleared his throat as they approached.
“Oh, hi guys,” Elena said as she pulled away. “Have a good afternoon?”
Anna nodded. “I take it you did, too?”
“It was great,” Elena said. “I saw Vasilis’s aunt Kassandra, and she asked me to lunch tomorrow.”
“Wow,” Anna said, “someone’s moving quickly. Meeting the family already?”
“Well, you know,” Elena replied, pulling Vasilis closer to her, “I had already met her on my own, so it made sense. And when you find a good one, you hold on tight.”
As they began to kiss again, Anna threw up a hand to try to catch the bartender’s attention. “Alright, I think I’m going to need a few more drinks in me if I’m going to watch the two of you all night.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to need a sick bag,” Nikos said. Elena laughed as Anna ordered a round of drinks.
“Don’t listen to these bitter people, baby,” she said to Vasilis. Then, to Anna, “His English isn’t great, but he promised me he’d try around you so you don’t feel left out.”
“That’s sweet,” Anna said. “Thank you.”
Vasilis grabbed Elena around the waist and dipped her backward, kissing her like they were in an old Hollywood film. Then he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her head. “Because today went so good, I could start saying you my girlfriend.”
“Are you serious?” she asked, her grin so wide that Anna thought it might split her face in two. And then she started sputtering in Greek, kissing Vasilis every few seconds.
“I take it she said yes?” Anna whispered to Nikos.
“Yep, she sure did.”
The bartender set their drinks down, and Anna handed him a note. Nikos picked one up and downed it in about three seconds.
“You alright there?” Anna asked, sipping at hers.
“Great,” Nikos said, “just great.” Then he picked up another one of the drinks and started on it, too, before Anna grabbed it out of his hand.
“Alright, Amy Winehouse, I think that’s good,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
He flipped his hand in Elena and Vasilis’s general direction. “They catch feelings for someone after a week and get a relationship out of it. I do it and… well, let’s just say it doesn’t usually work like that.”
Anna nodded, unsure if she should pretend not to know what he was talking about. But she did understand how he felt. Elena was making bold moves and being rewarded for it. That day in Oia, they had both been standing on a precipice. Elena had decided to jump and figure it out on the way down. Anna, on the other hand, held herself back because she didn’t have a parachute. She may have literally jumped that day, but she had been holding herself back. She couldn’t shake the envy she felt for Elena. Not because of the muscly man in her arms, but because of the fact that she was in someone’s arms at all. Meanwhile Anna stood an appropriate distance away from Nikos, sipping her drink while she watched the party around her.
And even as she realized this, she told herself she was doing the right thing. Elena was being foolish. Vasilis lived all the way in Athens. Would she ask him to stay? Would she be heartbroken if he said no? What would happen when he went back? Not to mention what had happened between her parents. They were the perfect example of “jump now, think later,” and that had turned out horribly for everyone. Sure, she wouldn’t have existed, but maybe everyone else would have been better off if they had been a bit more cautious and honest with themselves. Maybe her dad would even still be alive.
You’re doing the right thing for everyone, she told herself. And most of her believed it.
“Let’s dance,” she said to Elena, pulling her out of her post-commitment stupor. She dragged her to the middle of the throng, where the people were pressed so close together that no one was really dancing with any one other person. They were all dancing together.
“Congratulations!” Anna shouted at Elena.
“Thanks!” she replied with a thumbs up. “Nikos doesn’t look happy.” She put on an over-exaggerated frown.
“My fault,” Anna said, shrugging her shoulders. They were talking in the way people only do when they can’t hear each other: in short phrases and charades.
Elena shook her head. “Not your fault. His fault.”
Anna shrugged again, more sincerely this time. She wasn’t so convinced of that. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Nothing she could do in good conscience, anyway. So, instead, she just danced with her friend and three hundred other people, celebrating being a complete trinity, at least for now.