by Sandy Barker
‘So,’ said Gerry, turning her full attention to me. Uh oh. ‘I have waited all day to ask this, and now here we are away from the boat – and the men.’ Double uh oh. ‘What is happening with you and your two suitors?’ Seriously, where did she learn that word?
I sighed. I bought some more time by taking another sip of my drink. The eyes looked on, unblinking. ‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Three pairs of eyes rolled at the same time. ‘I don’t!’ I insisted.
Marie put her hand on mine. ‘Maybe it will help to talk it through.’ She was probably right. I mean, I had talked it through a little with each of them, but that was before I’d had the evening with the silver fox.
But where to start?
‘Okay.’ I took a deep breath and blew it out. ‘So, I came on this trip – not expecting, not wanting to meet anyone. And right off the bat, I meet Josh. And he’s far too young for me, and he lives so far away, but he is smart, and he makes me laugh, and I get the sense he really sees me, you know?’ It was a rhetorical question, and I continued without interruption. ‘I mean, today he showed me this photo he took of me, and I didn’t know he was taking it at the time – which I promise isn’t as creepy as it sounds – and it’s a really beautiful shot. It captured something about me I haven’t seen in myself for a long time. And it got me thinking that maybe this is a guy who could know the real me – maybe even love the real me.
‘But, I know he isn’t that guy, because this whole time, he keeps telling me how he doesn’t want a girlfriend, and I don’t mean now. I mean ever. He is planning a life of bachelorhood, and when he and I were just friends, that was fine – he could tell me that stuff, but now there’s something else there. He says one thing and does another. I can tell he likes me – but I know there’s no future. And even if there is, he lives on the other side of the world, so how can there be a future?’ Again, a rhetorical question.
‘And then, as if that wasn’t enough confusion, there’s the silver fox, who I never in a million years thought I would see again after our very brief encounter on Santorini.’ The eyes looked on, unwavering. ‘James is wicked smart, and accomplished, charming, and he really wants to get to know me, and it doesn’t matter if he lives on the other side of the world, because he’s ridiculously rich, and he can come to Sydney whenever he wants – or fly me to London – or wherever he wants to, for that matter.
‘And did I mention I had no intention of meeting anyone on this trip?’
I sat back in my seat and took a proper swig from my cocktail. I dared a glance at my new friends to gauge their reactions. They were all silent as if they were trying to come up with the right thing to say.
Hannah spoke up. ‘Well, that sucks.’
And she was bang on. Which made me laugh. Loud, long and hard, and then the others joined in. When the laughter died down, I felt calm, and for some reason, reassured that everything would work out well.
‘You know,’ I began, ‘part of me – an ever-increasing part of me – wants to tell them both to bugger off.’ That elicited some more laughter until Gerry said something that pinpointed why I hadn’t.
‘But then you would be left wondering for the rest of your life – about both of them.’
‘Ah, yes.’ I nodded. ‘Therein lies the rub.’
‘You know what I think?’ said Marie. I looked at her, my eyes encouraging her to go on. ‘I think Josh will figure out soon that what he really wants is you. And when he does, it will all work out.’
Maybe she was right.
Chapter Twelve
Four women drunk on cocktails cannot sneak onto a boat quietly. Fortunately, the menfolk were waiting up for us. I wondered if they were as drunk as we were.
‘Hello, ladies,’ slurred Duncan. Well, Duncan definitely was.
‘Did you have fun?’ asked Gary, as he stood and wrapped his arms around his wife. It looked like Gary was a little more in control of his faculties than Duncan.
‘We had soooo much fun!’ Marie giggled from the confines of her husband’s tall frame. I’d never heard such a girly giggle from her.
‘Let’s get you to bed, beautiful. Lots of water first, I think,’ Gary said, taking her hand and leading her below deck.
She tossed a joyful ‘Goodnight’ over her shoulder.
Gerry had snuggled up with Duncan under a chunky rug and seemed to have lost consciousness in a matter of moments. ‘What about you two?’ Duncan asked Hannah and me. ‘You have a good night too?’
‘We had a great night,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t had a girls’ night out for a long time, and it was exactly what I needed.’ Hannah went on to describe the bar where we’d spent the evening, and I watched Josh. He looked glum. I may have decided to keep my distance, but it didn’t mean I had to be rude.
‘How about you guys?’ I asked him.
He smiled feebly. ‘Sure, yes. It was fun. We grabbed a bite at one of the gyros places and then came back here – hung out. Duncan made some cocktails.’
‘Sounds fun.’ He nodded and then stared at me. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘Well, goodnight.’ Without waiting for a reply – from Josh, or the others – I went below deck. I grabbed a bottle of water from the galley and closed the cabin door behind me. Well, that was awkward. Maybe I would need to keep my distance from Josh by actually keeping my distance.
*
The next morning, I woke to discover I had escaped another hangover. I was grateful I’d had the foresight to down a vitamin B capsule, some aspirin, and the whole bottle of water before I’d drifted off to sleep. I lay still and listened for any signs of life from the others. Nothing but the gentle, rhythmic lap of water slapping the hull. I wondered what time it was, but I knew it didn’t matter. I was awake and ravenously hungry, so it was time to get up.
Still in my pyjamas, I slipped out of the cabin and popped my head out of the hatch. The air was already warm, and the sun was bright in the sky. No signs of life on deck either – a solo breakfast al fresco, it would be. Ducking back below, I quietly made myself a bowl of muesli with yoghurt and a mug of tea.
By that stage of the trip, I had perfected scaling the short ladder to the deck with both hands full, and I emerged topside without spilling a single drop of my tea. I carefully made my way down the side of the boat and sat myself down cross-legged on the bow. The sun immediately warmed my back, and I took in our surroundings as I sipped from my mug.
There I was, sitting in my pyjamas on the bow of a boat and not three metres away were people dressed for work and waiting at a bus stop. They were so close, I could hear the music from someone’s headphones. It was surreal. ‘Good morning, Greece,’ I said quietly to myself, enjoying a little giggle.
And of course, the person I immediately thought of – the one person who I thought would find the whole situation as amusing as I did – was also the person I had sworn to steer clear of.
‘This seat taken?’ He had snuck up on me, and I jumped a little. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’ He hadn’t; what had startled me was that he’d appeared the very moment I’d thought about him. I craned my neck to look at him. He was also in his PJs – well, a T-shirt and sweat pants – and held a bowl, which I knew would contain muesli and yoghurt, like mine. ‘You didn’t scare me – just startled me a little, that’s all.’
‘Oh, did you want to be left alone?’ It was an excellent question, and the longer I pondered it, the more uncomfortable he seemed to get. ‘I can eat downstairs,’ he said as he turned away.
My plan to steer clear of him wasn’t getting off to a good start, but still, I couldn’t be rude to him. He didn’t deserve it. I could do polite – distant, but polite. It was just breakfast.
‘No, no, stay, please. Sorry – I’m a little out of it this morning.’ He looked relieved and sat down.
‘How cool is it that we’re here in our pyjamas eating breakfast, and right over there is a whole town heading to work?’ he asked, voicing the very thought I’d wanted to share with hi
m – damn him. Polite, but distant, Sarah.
I nodded non-committedly, and added, ‘Mm-hmm.’
He laughed to himself. ‘Kind of surreal, actually. I can’t believe this is my life right now.’
I remained silent. It was harder than I thought it would be. I wanted to gush, ‘I know, right? How fucking cool is it to be us right now?’ I took a bite of muesli and chewed pensively – if that’s a way you can chew.
‘Sarah?’ The tone in Josh’s voice had changed, and without thinking, I made eye contact. His eyes looked into mine. He was no longer joking or playing. I swallowed my bite of breakfast.
‘Yes?’ It came out nearly as a whisper.
He looked away and his brow creased. What? What did the sexy American boy want to say? And – damn it, damn it, damn it – why did I care so much?
Finally, he spoke.
‘Is it me, or are things weird between us?’
I couldn’t believe it; he had said it out loud. He had given the big thing between us a name – it was ‘weird’. The breath rushed from my body in a big, fat sigh of relief and suddenly I was half-laughing, half-talking.
‘Yes! They are!’
He smiled at me. ‘I am pretty sure it’s my fault. I haven’t been straight with you – mostly because I haven’t been straight with myself.’
I found myself hanging on his every word – every mature, self-aware word.
‘I told you one thing, and then I pursued you – and I behaved as though I had some propriety over you – which I don’t.’ I shook my head in agreement, because he didn’t – or, did he?
‘The thing is, you caught me off-guard. I came on this trip almost on a whim. I booked it at the last minute, and the very most I hoped for was seeing a part of the world I’d never seen before. Stupidly, it never occurred to me that there would be people on this trip – people who would come to mean something to me – people who would affect me.’ And then he said something no one had ever said to me before.
‘You affect me, Sarah. No matter what happens after this trip – if I never see you again – or if I see you every day for the rest of my life, I will never be the same person I was before meeting you, because meeting you has changed me. Forever.
‘And I am super pissed at myself if I have fucked that up. I didn’t mean to, but I am stupid in some ways – relationships being one of them – and I just want to be with you. I don’t even know what that means exactly, but if we could rewind to a couple of days ago and be those people again – and laugh and have a fantastic time and talk about everything – then that’s what I want.’
He had worked himself up into a bit of a lather. He took a deep breath, blew it out noisily and took a big bite of his breakfast. While he chewed, I focused on my own breathing – my own breakfast forgotten, sitting on the deck getting warm.
Everything Josh had said – all of it – articulated precisely what I felt. Well, not the part about it being a whim to come on the trip – I had been planning it for months – but everything else. I had gone on the trip thinking it was about me – what I would see – what I would do. I had no idea there would be people I would come to love in a matter of days. People who would bring out the best in me, parts I had hidden behind defiant independence and a giant ‘fuck off’ to any guy who came near me.
I realised, while sitting on the bow of a boat in my pyjamas as Greek Island commuters boarded a bus to work a couple of metres away, that I loved Josh. And I don’t mean that I was in love with him – although I may have been – I really couldn’t have said for sure at that precise moment. But I did know I loved him – as a dear and treasured friend, as a person who I would know my whole life. And like he had said, ‘no matter what happens’.
I couldn’t predict the future any more than he could. All I could do was live the moment I was in. The alternative was inauthentic – it was pretending. And I was done pretending. I was done making nice and keeping my distance. I was done being a giant wuss, too scared to get out of my own way.
I snapped out of my reverie. Josh was watching me. He had this kind of amused-but-not-smug look on his face.
I laughed out loud. And he joined in.
‘You’re a total dork, you know that?’ I asked, rhetorically.
Still, he answered me. ‘I do know that, yes.’
I nudged him with my elbow as I picked up my bowl and took a bite of my muesli. He nudged me back, and I smiled. Then we finished our breakfast without another word or any awkwardness. I had my friend back.
After breakfast, Josh and I retreated to our respective cabins to dress for a day out. I had just picked up my flip-flops when Hannah stirred in her bunk.
‘You going out?’ she asked, rubbing her eyes and squinting at me. We’d reversed our roles from the previous morning. I couldn’t resist wiggling my eyebrow at her this time.
‘How’s the head?’ I asked, knowing from the look of her it was grim. She groaned dramatically and threw her arm across her eyes.
‘We’re heading into town – me and Josh,’ I added the last bit as an afterthought, probably unnecessarily. Hannah seemed to expect that when I said ‘we’ I meant ‘me and Josh’. It was clear she didn’t care, though, which meant her hangover must have been massive.
‘How do you look like that,’ she said pointing to my face, ‘and I feel like this? You had as much to drink as I did.’
‘I learned my lesson. I drank a whole bottle of water and downed a couple of aspirin and some vitamin B before I fell asleep last night.’
‘I think I hate you.’
‘Well, I adore you, so get some more sleep, and I hope you feel better soon.’
She cracked an eyelid and looked at me suspiciously. ‘You’re mighty chipper this morning.’
I smiled in reply. ‘Not having a hangover will do that.’ I picked up my leather bag and checked through the contents.
‘Wait,’ she said as she forced herself to sit upright. ‘Did you say you’re spending the day with Josh?’
‘Wow, yes. I did. Like half-an-hour ago.’
She cocked her head to the side. ‘So, what? You guys are all made up now? What’s going on?’
‘Nothing is going on. He’s my friend – we sorted things out this morning.’ Her squinty eyes got even squintier.
‘What happened to keeping your distance so you don’t get hurt?’
‘I already told you—’
She cut me off with a wave of her hand and plopped her head back onto her pillow.
‘You two … do whatever you want. I mean, you will anyway,’ she said, which was a little bit nasty. I left the cabin without saying goodbye.
Josh was waiting for me on dry land when I got topside. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Ready,’ I replied, a big smile on my face. He reached out a hand and helped me over the railing of the boat and onto the dock. I tossed my flip-flops onto the hot pavement and stepped into them.
‘Let’s go.’
‘So, do you have any thoughts about where to go?’ I asked, as we walked away from the boat. I felt a little dumb for failing to consider such an important detail until then. When Josh had asked me to spend the day with him exploring, I had eagerly agreed. Duncan had no firm plans for the group, and I hoped a mini-adventure with Josh would seal our reconciliation.
‘Actually, yes. Duncan said there’s a town square about halfway up the hill. I thought we’d head there, then see where it leads us. That sound okay?’ It sounded great.
‘Sure. Lead the way.’
‘Oh, and I could take you to the top of the town if you like – up into those hills.’ He pointed up, and I followed the line of his arm. It looked far. ‘I went up there around sunset last night – right after you went out with the girls. It’s a bit of a hike, but the views are amazing. I took some awesome photos too. Here.’ He stopped walking and took his camera out of his pocket. I leaned closer and looked down at the small screen, as he cupped his hand around it, shading it from the sun.
Josh was
right – the view from the lookout was incredible. He flicked through several pictures and then came to one where he was sitting on what looked like the edge of a cliff. He was looking out at the view, with the camera positioned behind him. ‘Hang on. Let me look at that one more closely.’
He handed the camera to me, so I could see the photo better. ‘But you’re in this one. Did someone take it for you?’
‘Timer,’ he said. ‘I put the camera on a rock, lined up the frame, set the timer, and then sat down.’
‘On the edge of a cliff?’ It looked dangerous.
‘Yeah, it’s not really a cliff.’ He was smiling at me.
‘What does that mean? Was it dangerous or not?’ I must have had a horrified expression on my face, because he was quick to reassure me.
‘Absolutely, not dangerous. I promise you, my feet were not dangling over a steep drop to certain death. I am adventurous, yes, but I wouldn’t risk my life for a good shot.’ He looked down at the camera and smiled. ‘And it is a really good shot, don’t you think?’
I did think that, yes. He was silhouetted against a darkening sky painted with streaks of orange, red and pink. It was a beautiful shot. ‘It’s incredible. I know I’ve said it before, but you’re a good photographer. Good eye, good composition.’
He looked half-embarrassed, half-proud. ‘Thanks.’
‘But if you think I’m going to sit on some cliff so you can take a picture of me like that, you’re delusional.’ He laughed. ‘It’s not funny. I’m terrified of heights.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything – it’s just that it wasn’t a cliff. More of a slope. So, did you get vertigo from looking at the photo?’ he asked, teasing me.
‘No, I did not, you cheeky bugger.’ I shook my head at him and walked ahead. ‘Come on.’
‘“Cheeky bugger”? I’m going to assume it’s your new term of endearment for me.’
‘You can assume whatever you like.’
‘You’re cute,’ he said, catching up to me.
‘Yes, I know.’ We were setting a dangerously flirtatious tone for the day, but it was fun.
