by Andrew Hart
“I’m sorry if my wife’s distress isn’t sufficiently fun for you,” snapped Simon.
“Oh, whatever,” said Brad. “Look, if you’re gonna play support group to the Wounded Warrior there for the rest of the afternoon, count me out. I’m on vacation.”
“Then maybe you should go do something else for a while, bud,” said Simon, putting a protective arm round Melissa.
For a second, I thought Brad would climb down, nod, say he was sorry, but there was something about Melissa that needled him.
“Fine,” he said. “You know, I keep casting my mind back, and I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t how anyone partied in 1999. I’ll meet you back here in two hours.”
“Four,” said Simon. “The girls want to go shopping.”
“Four?” said Brad, incredulous.
“Four,” said Kristen quietly but firmly.
Brad stared at her, his face reddening at the betrayal.
“Fine,” he said again. “Whatever. See y’all later.”
He stalked away, not looking back. His anger gave his speed the appearance of purpose, like he knew where he was going, and for a moment the rest of us just stood there watching him in awkward silence, like he’d taken the needle of our compass with him and we were suddenly lost.
“Don’t mind him,” said Kristen. “He’s just . . . Brad.”
She shrugged and smiled in a way that was both knowing and apologetic, so I reached out and touched her shoulder sympathetically.
“Now he’s spoiling everything,” Melissa whispered to Simon. “First that woman, now him.”
She sounded like a child whose Christmas had been canceled, but when I caught a look at her face, the teary pouting contained something else entirely. Her eyes were hard and fierce, her teeth set. I thought Mel had revealed a vulnerable side I hadn’t seen before. She had, after all, always seemed so together. But now I saw that she wasn’t just upset—she was angry, indignant that her plans had been disrupted. Shocked, and just a tiny bit scared by the intensity of her look, I stepped back.
“OK,” said Gretchen. She made a series of odd, wavy gestures over Melissa’s head, like she was washing her hair. Some weird, New Age ritual thing that might or might not have been a joke. “And we’re rinsing away the past,” she said, “all negativity and cruddy experiences, and now we’re clean and ready for . . . fun!”
She beamed, eyes wide and delighted, like she was leading a toddler to her birthday party. Melissa’s returning smile was small and wan but it didn’t last, and Gretchen’s exuberance stalled. So we walked through the tangled, cobbled streets of Rethymno quietly at first, Simon with his arm around Melissa, sometimes almost pulling her along. All the light had gone out of her face, and she looked both sad and sullen. Every time he asked her if she wanted to go into such and such shop or stop for a coffee or gelato, she would shrug and look away, as if the day was already ruined and she was just marking time before going home to bed.
But it got better. Simon, knowingly, wisely, didn’t force the issue, but he guided her around, and gradually the little streets of artisan shops dotted among the souvenir T-shirts and assorted kitsch began to work their magic on her. Gretchen helped too, I was mildly annoyed to note. Having failed with the frontal attack, she tried a more tangential approach, taking her free hand and chattering girlishly as if nothing had happened, ignoring Melissa’s sourness and very gradually drawing her into talking about the clothes and jewelry in the shop windows.
Rethymno was quaint, but its narrow carless medieval streets weren’t some kind of walkable museum. It was a real town with real people living recognizably regular, modern lives, and the contents of the store windows wouldn’t have been wildly out of place in Charlotte, even if the stone facades were several hundred years older than anything there. There were stores full of artfully arranged mannequins in trendy clothes—some of them well outside my budget and others selling appliances and cell phones. There were pharmacies, banks, law offices, and everything else you would expect in a place where people actually lived all year-round, though everything was on that smaller, slightly huddled, European scale. I was mildly surprised by it, and I started to find the day-to-day stuff more interesting than the stores of faux Greek statuary and painted ceramics aimed at the tourists.
“Ooh!” cried Gretchen, pointing. “Let’s check this out.”
It was a leather goods store, nothing like as shiny as most of what we had just passed, and the heaped purses, the bins of wallets, and the hanging bags on the walls all suggested a cottage industry. The place had that unmistakable leather scent, warm and fragrant and comforting as baking bread. I drank it in, picking up a satchel and inhaling its musky, outdoor earthiness. At the back was a workbench, where an old man sat with a set of slim carving tools, shears, stacked sheets of hide, and spools of leather thong, working quietly while the woman I assumed was his wife ministered smilingly to the customers.
“These from factory,” she announced, indicating the brand names stamped into the polished leather. “These made here.”
She must have said it a million times, but her eyes still flashed with pride.
“I love this,” said Kristen, picking up a tiny boxlike purse, whose rough leather was contrasted by fine chain. She wobbled a little as she considered it, leaning back as if trying to get her eyes to focus, and I wondered how much she’d had to drink at lunch.
“What about that!” said Gretchen, pointing to one of the hanging bags.
The shopkeeper broke off her conversation with another customer—a woman in stretch pants and heavy gold jewelry—bustled over wordlessly, and reached up with a hook on a pole to lift it down.
“You have these in red?” asked Melissa.
And she was back. Whatever sadness and bewilderment had been coiled around her since the episode at the taverna fell away and was forgotten. I caught Simon’s watchful eye and gave him an appreciative look.
Well handled.
He smiled back in acknowledgment, though there was, I thought, no joy in it. Melissa considered the bag critically, then nodded and set it down on the pile to look over another, a rich teak-colored thing with heavy leather lacing. The woman in the heavy gold jewelry was at her elbow, scrutinizing the purses with a predatory air. As soon as Melissa turned away from it, the woman reached for the red one, but Melissa turned on her, all weepiness swept away by a hard and instant ferocity.
“That’s mine,” she said.
The woman snatched her hand away as if it had been scalded.
“There’s a Venetian fort by the harbor,” said Marcus. “Sixteenth century. Who’s up for it?”
Bored of shopping, he was getting antsy, walking a bit faster than everyone else, standing and looking back at the rest of us like he was leading a dim and distracted school group. I couldn’t say I blamed him. Being in retail—albeit at the unglamorous backside of it—I’ve never been much for window shopping. It starts to feel like work.
“Me,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Kristen lazily. “That might be a novelty.”
She had been quiet, insular since Brad left, and I think Gretchen’s glee was starting to wear on her nerves.
“I think I’ll stay here,” said Melissa. “Drift. Buy some stuff. Get a latte or something.”
“I’ll stick with you,” said Simon to her.
“To protect me from the Greek randoms,” said Melissa.
“Absolutely,” said Simon.
“Thanks,” she said, tipping her face up to his and kissing him quickly.
“I’ll stay too,” said Gretchen, ever the third wheel.
Melissa hugged her, then turned back to Simon.
“You know,” she said, “you should go with them. You don’t want to go traipsing around a bunch of stores while I try things on.”
Simon hesitated.
“Well,” he said, “no, but . . .”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Gretchen and I can do a little girl talk.”
> “Yay!” said Gretchen, like she’d won a prize in some low-rent sideshow.
“You sure?” said Simon.
“Positive,” said Melissa. “Go do some history.”
“OK,” he replied, giving us a wry grin. “More history. Lucky me.”
Marcus looked very slightly pissed off, but he glanced away so they wouldn’t see.
“OK,” said Simon. “Back at the car at five. If we get done sooner, I’ll text you.”
In town we had a decent signal, and everyone had been glued to their phones for the first ten minutes of our visit. It felt like some cautionary meme about the decline of Western civilization—the six of us huddled over, blind to the ancient beauty of the town around us.
I reached over and gave Mel a parting squeeze, and she smiled gratefully.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Have fun.”
We bumped into a group of Americans outside the imposing entrance to the fort—college students, perhaps, or just graduated.
“Christ,” said Kristen. “It’s us, five years ago.”
It kind of was. You could spot the couples, the shining ones who ran the pride, the quiet ones who followed after . . .
“Oh my God!” exclaimed one of them, a girl in a top cut almost to her navel. She was staring at Kristen, and for a split second I thought we were going to be the target of another arbitrary attack. “You look exactly like Kar Gohen!”
That was her character’s name. I was amazed. I had almost forgotten that Kristen was a star and didn’t think anyone would recognize her behind those massive Sophia Loren sunglasses. She raised them, smiling, and said simply, “Hiya.”
The group broke into raptures, grinning like kids, all fighting to announce how awesome she was, telling her she had short hair—in case she might not have noticed—and listing their favorite End Times episodes. It was quite endearing, watching them geek out, and I confess that some of her glamour seemed to coalesce around the rest of us, like we must be amazingly cool to be hanging out with her. Several of them eyed us cagily, as if trying to figure out if we were castmates or actors from other shows. Their eyes lingered particularly on Simon, who might easily have been a movie star or the kind of basketball player who got invited to the same parties.
“I know you’re on vacation and all,” said one of them, “but if we could maybe get a picture with you . . . ?”
“Absolutely!” said Kristen, as if they were doing her the favor. “Brilliant.”
“Her English accent gets stronger when she’s talking to fans, have you noticed?” whispered Marcus to me.
I grinned at him, but his gaze was still on her and it was thoughtful.
“What?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Nothing,” he said, though I didn’t believe him. Kristen was smiling for cameras and signing hastily produced notebooks, showing no trace of the silent irritation that had clung to her since Brad had stormed off. “Tell you one thing,” Marcus added. “She’s a better actress than I thought she was.”
It hadn’t been long since I thought the same thing, and for a second I wondered how much of the real Kristen I had ever really seen. Not much, I suspected.
I confess I had rather hoped to have some time alone with Marcus, if only to solidify our newfound friendship, though I also still wanted to ask him about the cave of Zeus. There had definitely been an odd vibe when Kristen had mentioned our trip there, and I felt sure that there was something I was missing, probably something I had missed five years ago as well. Whether Marcus would know more than me or not, I couldn’t say, and it seemed odd that he had never mentioned it if he did, but then maybe the strangeness of whatever the cave meant involved him somehow. It had, after all, been the beginning of our unraveling, though maybe that had been an accident of timing. I couldn’t imagine what might have occurred at some random tourist outing that made him like me less than he had the day before, but with Kristen and Simon on hand, I wasn’t about to ask him about it now.
I had expected the fortress to be more compact, like the castles in The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, with rings of walls and towers with the occasional Disney spire and Hogwarts decor, but it was more like Fort Sumter: big and open, with lots of ramps and platforms for guns. There were no towers at all to speak of, though the perimeter wall was dotted with little turrets that bulged out over nothing but the long drop to the shore, where turquoise water deepened fast. There was a single domed mosque and, close by, some rusted cannons overgrown with weeds, where a solitary tortoise nestled. On the lower level was a long, dark tunnel with a barrel roof, iron gates, and heavy wooden doors leading into storage rooms, barracks, or cells. It gave us a nice break from the sun—the top side of the fort was almost entirely without shade—but I was glad when we left. It was starting to give me the willies.
The place was largely deserted. When Marcus and Simon wandered off to inspect the gift shop, I found Kristen on the main platform, gazing out over the coast.
“You OK?” I asked Kristen.
“Yeah,” she said. She smiled wanly, then shook her head. “Not really.”
“Brad will be fine,” I said. “Just one of those things.”
She nodded but looked unconvinced and a moment later said, “These things happen a lot lately.” She backtracked immediately, as if keen to make sure I didn’t get the wrong impression. “I mean, he’s fine,” she said. “Just stressed. Really stressed.”
“Work?” I said.
Again the silent nod, and this time the silence was longer and deeper. Out over the sea a pair of gulls rolled and dived, screaming at each other. Eventually she gave me a sideways look, took her shades off, and slipped them into her purse.
“Don’t say anything to the others, OK, not even Marcus,” she said. “But he lost his job.”
“What? When?”
“Two months ago.”
“God. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“He’ll find another, though, right?” I said. “All those deals he did. Companies must be lining up to get him.”
“Not an option,” said Kristen. She gave me a steady look, then gazed out to sea. “He lost his real estate license.”
I gaped at her, feeling suddenly out of my depth, not because I don’t know anything about business—though that is also true—but because I didn’t really know her. This was personal stuff, and we were little more than strangers. I didn’t know what to say, but she spoke anyway, something of her usual poise returning to her, as if a weight had already been lifted from her shoulders.
“I mean it about not telling the others,” she said.
“I promise,” I said, wondering how much my word would carry with her. What had Marcus told her? Or Simon? What had she deduced for herself about my occasional fibbing?
Occasional . . . ?
“The way Brad’s business works,” she said, “is that companies who are looking to expand send his agency locations where they want to go, and I don’t mean towns or regions. I mean coordinates. Latitude and longitude. Often they’ve already identified the site themselves.”
“Why don’t they just buy the property themselves?” I asked.
“Something about retailers not wanting to also be in real estate,” she said with a shrug. “It never made much sense to me either, but apparently it’s about showing their investors that they are staying within a particular area of business expertise and subcontracting for related services. Anyway. So a company like yours—Great Deal, right?”
“Right.”
“Great Deal says they want three stores in metro Atlanta in these locations and they’ll pay between one and three million per lot. Brad goes in, negotiates the deal with the property owner through a broker, ensures the land is suitable, then purchases it for Great Deal. But say he finds out that the seller will part with the land for only a few hundred thousand? He knows Great Deal will pay way more than that so . . .”
“He convinces the seller to ask for a higher price and
gets a cut of the extra?” I suggest.
“Worse,” she said, and now her previous despondency settled back into her body so that she sagged and, for a second, squeezed her eyes shut. “He buys the land himself. Sets up a shell company under someone else’s name, then tries to sell it on to Great Deal at the markup he knows they’ll pay. A million plus profit per site.”
“Oh,” I said. I knew how lame and stupid that sounded, but I couldn’t think of anything else. I knew nothing of such stuff, but even I could see that this was bad.
“Great Deal finds out, reports him, his agency fires him, and suspends his license for five years.”
“So . . . he’s out of work?” I wasn’t sure where the conversation had moved from the hypothetical to the factual.
“To say the least, yeah. It’s not Great Deal, of course, but otherwise the story is . . . yeah, he’s out of work and lucky not to be banned for life.”
“Oh, Kristen, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. I mean, it’s his own stupid fault but . . . yeah.”
“Will there be criminal charges?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. It’s a matter of professional ethics, but I don’t think he broke any laws. Not that that matters. He had to pay back what he had earned and now has no source of income.”
“Is that why he is so keen to get Simon to invest in his wine-shipping idea?”
Kristen sighed.
“A pipe dream,” she said. “He knows it won’t work, but he won’t give it up. And he won’t stop spending money, living like he’s pulling in millions a year. Right now we’re living off my income, which is crazy. No TV show lasts forever. I figure we have another two seasons, maybe three. Tops. I might never work again.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get snapped up by—”
“It’s not that simple. Especially for someone in a role like mine. Not many shows are looking for someone who reminds the audience of the alien they played on another show every time they appear on camera. But that’s not the point. He’s living off me, which I’m not thrilled about, and there’s a very good chance that I’ll be out of work before he can go back to work in commercial real estate. I’m sorry to tell you all this,” she said, smiling sadly, as if remembering whom she was talking to. “I’m just so sick of carrying it round in my head.”
