Two weeks later, Manhattan
Anna paced the floor of the kitchen at the gallery, her second glass of champagne in her hands. The room had filled with prestigious guests, from critics to collectors to other photographers, and any minute now Marcus would introduce her and unveil her collection to them. They would either love it or hate it; there was rarely any in-between with this crowd. And Anna needed them to love it. She needed them to think her work was important. All of her heartache, all of Nikos’s heartache, would be for nothing if they didn’t love it.
Anna had hoped to hear from Nikos after the letter she had written him, but she hadn’t. Not one peep from him or Elena. Or Christos or Eirini. Only Xenia had messaged, asking if she would still be going to London. She knew she didn’t deserve a second chance, but she had hoped she would get one anyway. Like her mother, she had run away back to America when something better came along. Unlike her father, though, Nikos was smart enough to let her go. She had told herself she should be happy about that, but selfishly she wished she could have her cake and eat it, too.
“Anna, they need you outside,” an assistant said, poking her head through the door. “There’s someone trying to get in that’s not on the list.”
“It’s just my mother,” she said. “I didn’t think she’d be here, so I didn’t put her name down.”
The assistant shrugged. “You’ll have to go tell them that,” she said. “I have to do something for Marcus.”
Anna rolled her eyes and snuck out the back door. She didn’t want to walk through the room full of those deciding her fate until she had to. She walked around the corner of the building, looking for her mother’s blonde hair amongst those congregated near the door, but she couldn’t see it anywhere. Just as she was about to go back inside, a man turned around, and Anna saw a familiar face looking back at her.
She nearly dropped her phone on the pavement.
“Nikos!” she shouted, rushing toward him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Nikos smiled and held out his arms, catching Anna in a hug as she lunged at him. She stood on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his hair.
“I couldn’t stay away,” he said. “I wanted to be here to support you.”
Anna leaned back to look at him. He was wearing the suit he had worn to the wedding back on Santorini. “You look so handsome,” she said.
“Yeah, well, I was wearing this suit the night I first kissed you. It was one of the best nights of my life. I thought I’d bring it out again for luck.”
“You don’t need luck, Nikos.” Anna felt tears form in her eyes. She brushed them away, not wanting to ruin her makeup before the event, but she couldn’t quite catch them all. “And, as I recall, you were wearing a lot less when we actually kissed.”
“Yeah, well, Elena told me that showing up in my pants to a black tie event probably wouldn’t go down very well.”
Anna smiled. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“Don’t worry,” Nikos said with a wink. “I’ve got them on, too.”
They both laughed.
“You could have called, you know,” Anna said, wrapping her arms around his neck, craning her neck up toward him.
“Nah, too predictable,” he said, pulling her close, whispering in her ear. “You deserve a grand romantic gesture.”
“If you recall, things didn’t go so well for the last Greek man who followed a Linton woman back to America.”
Nikos frowned and shook his head. “You were right. We’re not your parents.”
“No, we most certainly are not,” Anna replied, but before she could press her lips to his, she heard a throat clear. She looked over to see Marcus at the door, glaring at her.
“You can have your romantic moment in a bit,” he said. “But for now, it’s time to introduce you to the world. You ready?”
Anna looked at Nikos, took his hand in hers and nodded to Marcus. “I am now.”
“Great. Then get your ass in here.”
They followed Marcus inside, and Anna joined him on the temporary stage. Nikos stayed just off to the side where Anna could see him. Then Marcus introduced Anna, and the room erupted in applause as she stepped up to the microphone.
“This is such a huge honor,” she said. “Thank you so much to everyone who came.” She looked down at the notes she had prepared, then over at Nikos, who smiled at her. She took a deep breath and continued.
“In my opinion, the reason photography is such a powerful medium is because it imbues the subject with importance. Take any ordinary object or any person off the street and photograph them, and you’ve created an automatic value that wasn’t there before. I take very seriously the responsibility to photograph things in a way that tells the whole truth. I entered this contest with a series about forgotten Manhattan landmarks, because the story of New York City so often features the same things over and over.
“But that series is not the one that you will be seeing today.”
Anna glanced at Nikos, who was still smiling, but his brow was slightly furrowed.
“This summer, I have fallen in love with the Greek island of Santorini. My father grew up there, and I had the privilege of experiencing the island not as a tourist but as a local. And as many photographs as there are of the sunsets and the beaches and the turquoise waters of the Aegean, and as worthy of photographing as those things are, those aren’t the things I fell in love with.
“The island captured my heart, and it did so not through panoramas and party beaches but through the kindness and openness of the people. The homes are built around hospitality. The residents go out of their way to make people feel welcome and accepted. And the most vibrant thing on Santorini isn’t the sunset but the souls who inhabit it.
“This isn’t the most commercial collection, but I hope that it will invoke a feeling of home and comfort for you. Because when I think of Santorini, I think of home. Thank you.”
The room applauded as Anna’s photos were revealed all at once. Suddenly, the room was swimming in a sea of color, the blues and yellows and pinks filling the space with force.
Anna pulled Nikos up onto the stage so he could see all the photos. There was one of Eirini stretching filo pastry, one of Elena and Vasilis snuggled up on a public bus, and one of Christos and the guys playing cards on their break at the resort. There was one of a winemaker, one of a shopkeeper, and one of a stable full of donkeys in Oia ready to carry tourists through the winding streets. But Anna’s favorite was the one of Nikos from their lunch in Oia, him looking out toward the water with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face.
“Anna, these are incredible,” he said. “But did you mean what you said? About Santorini being home?”
“Of course I did,” she said. “I already bought a plane ticket back. I leave at the end of next week.”
“But what about the rest of the show?”
“That was one of my conditions for Marcus. I would come back and show if he would let me change the collection to new photos and only stick around for the first week. After that, I don’t need to be here. The gallery will do everything it can to make money, and if that’s from my work, then great. If not, at least I’ll be home.”
Nikos grinned and picked Anna up, twirling her around before setting her back down. “I love you, Anna.”
“I love you too, Nikos. Thank you for coming here.”
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
Then Nikos grabbed Anna’s face with both hands and kissed her. And as they kissed, surrounded by images of Santorini and the incredible people who made it feel like home, for the first time, Anna wasn’t worried about the future. She had everything that she needed all around her. She had everything she wanted right there in her arms.