The first thing I did when I woke up was check my phone. At the time I dragged around this fixation, which since the INCIDENT had become an obsession. Even worse, it always left me feeling disappointed because usually all I found were work emails where I was cc’d with an FYI. But that morning it wasn’t like that.
Following David’s advice, I had texted Filippo before I went to bed. It was a colorful photo where the shadows gave depth to the flowers and cobblestones. My own shadow was projected on the ground, elongated and solid, in one piece, without features or detail. Next to me, a few steps back, you could make out what I knew was David’s shadow, but in Filippo’s eyes, it could be anyone’s.
I texted:
Athens in July. Thank you for encouraging me to do this.
Yeah, I know I didn’t say much. I know I could have sent that message to Filippo, my mother, Sonia, or Candela. Even to David. Well, I would’ve written a longer one to David, to be honest. The reason I was so concise was…I couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t put me on blast. And, I mean, it turned out well.
In his message, Filippo said:
You don’t know how happy it makes me that you were finally brave enough to do this. I’m sure you’re having a tough time eating alone every night and that you still haven’t dared to ask a stranger to take a photo of you, but you’ll learn. And I’m sure this trip will help you mature. I miss your lips.
I took a shower, and even though we had planned to meet up at breakfast, I ran to David’s room as soon as I was ready. When he opened the door, disheveled, in shorts and a shirt in a color I don’t even think was in the Pantone catalog, the first thing that met him was my phone.
“Read it!” I screamed.
“Unlock it, you doofus. The screen turned off,” he said, rubbing his eye with his fist.
“Were you still sleeping?”
“We weren’t supposed to meet up for another forty-five minutes. Of course I was sleeping.”
“Look! Filippo texted back last night!”
David let me in, and I tossed him my now-unlocked phone so he could read the message. I was excited. Really excited. He missed my lips! Our kisses…ay, how I yearned to feel his.
I sat on the bed waiting to hear him gush about my tactics (which were actually his), but instead his brow wrinkled a little.
“You don’t think he sounds a little patronizing?” David asked.
“Patronizing?”
“Yes. Kinda like a know-it-all.”
“A know-it-all? I don’t understand you.”
“You know.” He stretched, and his shirt rode up a little, giving a glimpse of his belly button and a strip of hair that ended under the waistband of his pants…pants that made it obvious he didn’t bring underwear.
I looked away, a little uncomfortable. “What am I supposed to know?”
“What’s going on with you? You look like you saw a ghost.”
Yeah, the ghost of your penis.
“What were you saying?”
“That he sounds patronizing to me. Like he knows everything and you’re just a little dog who’s learning the tricks her master teaches her.”
I shot him a horrified look.
“How about you go to hell?” I responded when I could muster a word.
“Well, as soon as you get out of my room, I’ll try.” He smiled sarcastically. “Seriously, Margot, does he always talk to you like that?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. He says he’s sure you’re going to mature, like you’re a teenager who’s on a foreign exchange trip or…or…a turnip.”
I made a grumpy face.
“Thanks for the encouragement, eh?”
“Listen.” He scratched his chest and yawned. “It’s just I don’t know how excited I am to see you run back into the arms of a guy who thinks he’s your dad. By the way, you look great. What did you do?”
“Me?” I pointed right above my sternum. “Nothing. I didn’t even brush my hair.”
“Well, you look great. It must be love. Turns you into a wild thing.” He moved like he was dancing. “I’m going to take a shower. You coming?”
I raised an eyebrow, and he smiled slyly.
“If I did…” I joked.
“If you did, what?”
I pressed my lips together in a smile, unable to add anything. After my silence, he tugged his shirt over his head and sauntered toward the shower.
“I called it,” I heard him say.
“I’m only brave enough to get halfway through a threat.”
“Go get ready, go on. This disheveled version of you seems dangerous.”
“Hey! But what do I do about Filippo?” I moaned.
He turned halfway. The light in the bathroom cut off his silhouette, and I wanted him to turn all the way around so I could see him better. But honestly even like this he seemed like he had just been yanked out of the pages of a fucking ad for a perfume where suddenly a guttural voice would come out of nowhere speaking French.
“Do?” he took an interest.
“Of course. What do I do now? Do I respond to him? Do I send him a tit pic?”
“Better to stay quiet.” He smiled. “The ball is in his court. He needs to win you back too.”
David had a sandwich, an omelet, two coffees, three glasses of orange juice, and two sweet rolls for breakfast. He was always like this, and normally I found it entertaining to watch someone eat so much and so happily, but this time it seemed risky to me: in a couple of hours, we were catching a boat to Santorini, and it was a four-hour trip.
“Do you get seasick on ferries?”
“Me?” he responded, surprised as he bolted down his second very milky coffee. “How would I get sick? They’re like buildings gliding through the ocean.”
“Fine, well, I do get a little seasick,” I confessed.
“Then why didn’t you book a flight for this leg instead?”
“Because I’m sick of airplanes. You waste so much time in airports. I travel a lot for work, so Sonia knows that if I can get there any other way, I’d rather do that.”
“So considerate, your Sonia.” He smiled.
“I have two Dramamines left. If you want, we can each take one,” I offered.
“Save them both for you.”
I guess he remembered that “both for you” during the journey, especially when he started to change color. His regular shade morphed to a burning red on his cheeks about half an hour into the trip. He told me he was hot, but the truth is, it was colder than a witch’s teat because of the mall-style air-conditioning. We hadn’t even made it an hour when he went from crimson to yellow. Then to white in a matter of minutes.
Filippo never got seasick. I hadn’t even seen him get sick at all. Maybe a dry cough or a sneeze. I vaguely remember a “My head hurts,” but I never, ever saw him vomit. And much less as intensely as David ended up doing it with two hours still to go. I don’t even remember how I ended up with my legs spread, straddling his back, clutching the strands of hair on his forehead while he vomited like a real animal. I just know he ran away with what seemed to be his last breath of life and that I followed him without thinking into the men’s bathroom and no one stopped me.
When the deed (which wasn’t pretty to look at) was done, he couldn’t even get up. He stayed there on his knees until I figured out how to unwedge my body from the cubicle, clamber out, and then wrench him out.
He looked in the mirror. He pushed his hair off his forehead. He retched again. He vomited in the trash can. I splashed the nape of his neck with cold water. He vomited a little more into the trash can. I dragged him to the sink, forced him to bend over it, like I was going to peg him, and then I shoved his whole head under the faucet. At least, as much as I could because the bathrooms on the ferry weren’t exactly the Four Seasons.
He was resurrected and pressed both hands into the counter where he had just been underwater for a couple of minutes. His hair dripped down his neck and clothes, but he only seemed able to focus on his breathing. The way he gasped with his eyes closed…I have to admit that even though I had just seen him puke like a Guinness World Record holder, the image was kind of erotic.
When he managed to open his eyes and look at me, the only thing that came out was an “I’m sorry” so sincere that it almost hurt me.
“It doesn’t matter.” I smiled at him. “Shit happens.”
“Is there puke on my shirt? Puke is my kryptonite, Margot. Please tell me there’s no puke on me.”
I looked him up and down. Not a trace. Then I cracked up, and as much as he possibly could, he did too.
“I’m not gonna lie,” he panted. “I made an ass of myself, sad eyes.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
I bought a bottle of cold water, and he drank a few sips when he was back in his seat, with his head back and his feet up on the empty seats in front (on both of them, manspreading). At first, I didn’t dare get too close. I just held the bottle of water out to him every once in a while; I would have done that the rest of the journey if he hadn’t curled up in my lap. He let himself fall sideways, resting his cheek on my thigh, and put his arms around me so his hands were interlocked between my legs, under my skirt. I don’t think he even realized. I did. I was very conscious of rough hands touching very smooth and sensitive skin.
“David…”
I was going to tell him, in a tactful and friendly way, to get his hands out of there. I didn’t want anyone to discover me in that predicament. What if I bumped into someone I knew? What if some friend of Filippo’s had picked the same destination? Eating breakfast with him in the hotel had been risky enough, so having him there, clinging to me, seemed like too much.
But…I couldn’t because right when I was about to say it, he smiled and said, “Never stop.”
He fell asleep. Right there, huddled and clutching me like I was his only chance for salvation. When David slept, it took years off his shoulders, as if with each inhale and exhale, he traveled backward, dreaming of his childhood and returning to it. If it weren’t for that shadow of a beard blooming across his cheeks, you could forget that he was already a man.
I woke him up by sliding my fingers through the longest parts of his hair and stroking his earlobe. He became laser focused on collecting the luggage, and I felt like maybe I had been too affectionate.
The transfer to the hotel took about ten minutes. To be honest, I expected it to have sea views, but it was about a ten-minute drive from Fira, where I feared that the Ortega Group didn’t have any hotels. Or maybe Sonia had followed my request and just restricted herself to finding our best hotel that wasn’t a five-star luxury hotel. It was impossible to know them all by heart.
Why would we even think about buying this desert? I wondered when we got there. But the truth is, even though it wasn’t exactly near the ocean, the chain knew how to make this hotel a slice of paradise. I just didn’t know that yet.
The girl at reception seemed much sharper than the ones in Athens and handled both reservations at the same time. We had arrived in the same car from the port, and she could see from a mile away that we weren’t strangers, so she found it all very odd.
“I’m afraid there must have been an error when we confirmed your reservation,” she said to me in very formal English.
“What’s she saying?” David asked.
“I’m showing two separate reservations,” she apologized quickly, looking back and forth between us, as if David could understand her.
“You have to get your act together with English, you savage,” I said to him. Then I turned back to her with a smile. “It’s not a mistake. We have two reservations. One made through an agency”—the one the Ortega Group always used—“and the other directly through your website.”
She looked at me, furrowing her brow, confused. “But…”
“Um…we’re friends. Not a couple,” I clarified.
“Right. Well…” she insisted, “I’m not asking for explanations, by any means. It’s just that the room we have you in is a private villa with two bedrooms. Four in total…for two people.”
I made a face. Sonia must have chosen the best room, not worrying about it having two rooms. And then I just duplicated her reservations for David without looking at the details.
“Maybe there was some misunderstanding,” I finally said.
“That must be it. I see the reservation made in the gentleman’s name was made just a few days ago. You’ll be here…seven days?”
“Yes.”
“Well…let me see.” She looked at the computer and typed. “I can cancel it, but starting from tomorrow. You’ll be charged for tonight.”
“Ah. Well…great. That’s no problem.”
“Perfect. Sign here for me then, Ms. Ortiz.”
“Why do they call you Ortiz?” David asked me.
“Because my assistant must’ve made the reservation wrong. Ortiz is my second last name. Thank you,” I said, returning the signed bill to the receptionist.
“They’ll bring your luggage up in just a moment. My colleague will show you to your room.”
When I looked at David, he didn’t seem to buy my explanation.
“What?”
“What happened?” he asked, sliding our suitcases and putting them on the bell cart himself.
“I didn’t want anyone to know we were coming together, so I reserved your rooms for the whole trip, but I didn’t realize that the one Sonia chose for me is a villa with two bedrooms. She was just handling the cancellation for the room I booked for you.”
“What about the last name thing?”
“I already told you. Sometimes the agency mixes things up.”
He wanted to believe it. I could tell just by looking at him. He wanted to believe it and not question anything.
The room was beautiful. As soon as you went in, you were in the middle of a living room with a round table and four chairs, an armchair, and a sofa. To the right and left there were open doors that led to our bedrooms, and opposite, behind a curtain, there was an impressive terrace with a private pool, a solarium, and another table with chairs. David’s mouth hung open.
“What are you talking about?” David asked me suddenly, when I was thanking the boy with the suitcases with a tip. “This is for us? They made a mistake.”
“No. They didn’t make a mistake.” I smiled.
“Impossible,” I heard him murmur, peeking out onto the terrace.
“Well…what do you think? It’s not near the ocean, but…it’s nice, right? Do you like it?”
David widened his eyes until they were like plates.
“Do I like it? Margot, I thought we were going to campsites!”
“Oh, come on. Like you didn’t know me better than that.”
I didn’t even notice him coming over, but suddenly he was grabbing my waist, smiling, excited.
“Dear Margarita…you’re a snob.”
I offered to call room service and order something to eat. I figured he’d be hungry after all that vomiting. Starving. Hungry and probably not in the mood to go out and explore considering how hot it was. He thought it was a great idea, but he asked me to please let him take care of the stuff we charged to the room. I said yes to make him happy, but I knew it would all go to the expense account associated with my card.
“Do you mind if I leave you alone for a moment?” he asked me. “I want to call Ivan and my parents. I didn’t even tell my parents I was going on a trip, and I just remembered.”
“Of course. No rush. I’ll just be here unpacking my suitcase.”
The cicadas enveloped the whole hotel with their summery sound, and although there was nothing but yellowish fields as far as the eye could see, it had its charm. I opened the windows overlooking the pool and played music as I took the wrinkled clothes out of my suitcase and put them in the closet, neat and hung up. The bathroom was slightly gloomy because the window was pretty small, but it was beautiful: white marble, open space, a large shower, and a huge bathtub plated with small iridescent tesserae that changed color as the light sparkled across them.
As I unpacked my toiletry bags, a certain sense of loneliness hovered over me. I reflected on how even David, who looked like one of those happy stray dogs who didn’t want an owner, felt the need to call someone who wasn’t there. And I didn’t. I know it was part of the process I was going through, but in that moment, I didn’t try to rationalize it. David was constantly sending photos and friendly voice notes to his friends from the village, and I…I didn’t have anyone to do that with.
I hesitated a little, but I ended up calling Candela. The truth is I had ignored a bunch of her messages while we were in Athens.
“You’re alive?” she asked as soon as she picked up.
“No. I’m calling you through a Ouija board. I’m going to kill you.”
“That’s not funny. I was about to call Interpol. How’s the experiment going?”
“Really great,” I answered cheerfully. “Honestly, really great.”
“Did you fall in love yet?”
“What are you talking about, you nutjob? I’m in love with Filippo, who, by the way, sent me the sweetest message last night.”
“Ay, so you’re still sane? Not brainwashed from traveling with that dude?”
“Not at all.”
“Great news. You’re not doing anything dirty then?”
“Who, me and David? No way! Well, unless you count me holding his head up while he vomited on a ferry as dirty.”
“No. Probably for some sicko out there, yes, but thank God, not for me. Where are you guys now?”
“In Santorini. We’ll be here for a week. Then we’re going to spend six days in Mykonos.”
“So fucking jelly.”
“Don’t be. I thought the hotel was right by the ocean, but it’s in the middle of a desert. I guess land must be really sought after on the island. But it’s nice, you know? We have a private pool and—”
“Does he look hot in a bathing suit?” she cut me off.
“Really good,” I answered without stopping to think about it. “I mean…if he was my type.”
“What type is he?”
“You know. The kind that could be a skater, a Vans model, or a rapper.”
“David doesn’t look like a rapper. A rapper would have a toothpick.”
“You’re right.” I laughed. “He’s like a little boy, right?”
“Not really. He’s just skinny, but…does he have a six-pack?”
“He has a hint of a six-pack, yes.”
“What about the other package?”
“Candela, girl. I’m not looking at his package.” I feigned indignation. And I was feigning it because I actually had looked as much as I could get away with.
“Men’s bathing suits are very clingy when they get out of the water. You must’ve seen something.”
“How’s it going back there?” I changed the subject.
“Here? I don’t wanna make you feel bad but…all I wanna do is get back to the real world and do something useful for humanity. Your sister is wearing me out. She didn’t text you?”
“Not yet. But come on…I’m sure it won’t be long.”
“Oof. We’ve been wandering around Madrid with an English newspaper in hand. One of those huge ones. You can’t even imagine what my hands look like…they’re black!”
“A newspaper? What for?”
“Well, you know…she got it in her head that the detective is conspiring with Alberto and that’s why he only sends pictures of her husband eating fritters and churros, so now we’re following him…”
“Alberto?”
“No! The detective. We told you that already! She wants to catch him red-handed so she can get her money back. We’re following him and hiding behind a newspaper.”
I perched on the edge of my bathtub and covered my eyes.
“I probably tried to erase it from my memory so I could cope. I’m so fucking embarrassed to share genes with you guys,” I muttered.
“Told you so.”
“Margot?” David called out as soon as he came back into the villa. “Where are you?”
“I’m on the phone. Order anything you want from room service.”
“Language barrier,” he said succinctly.
“I’m going to order food,” I informed Candela. “Please keep me posted on that…I don’t even know what to call that mess.”
“It’s like the plot of a shitty movie. Basically. I’ll call you if we end up in a pyramid scheme or something.”
David nudged open the bathroom door just as I let the hand holding my phone fall to my lap. He had swapped his jean shorts and wrinkled shirt for a bathing suit that looked new. An acquisition I hadn’t mediated, but I would bet my right hand he had procured it after our morning of shopping. It was black, a little shorter than the one he had worn in the hotel pool in Athens, and…ugh, fine…it was pretty sexy. He was shirtless and barefoot. And as he leaned against the bathroom door like that…I realized that I did find those kinds of guys attractive.
“Let’s drink beer in the pool?” he proposed, handing me a cold bottle.
It was curious. According to my mother, I should have been going through a kind of penance to repent for my sins (you know, the INCIDENT), but I felt like I was in paradise.