The Summer House in Santorini

by Samantha Parks

  “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.

  18

  Anna set the plates on the table as Nikos stirred the soup, swaying back and forth to the beat of the song that was playing over the speaker he had brought with him. “You have to be nice to him,” she said. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “When was I not nice?”

  “Um, I don’t know, maybe when you implied that he was a gold digger because Elena owned the house?”

  Nikos laughed. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.”

  Elena had been bringing Vasilis around more and more the past couple of weeks, trying to integrate him into the group. They had learned that he may not speak English, but he was a very highly sought-after naval consultant, which was why he was able to spend so much time away. He had also been very helpful moving in the new kitchen appliances and mixing the cement for the drive (which they all regretted laying themselves because of how long it took). But still, Nikos hadn’t exactly warmed to him. He was playing the protective big brother – or cousin, as it were – very convincingly, and Elena wasn’t happy about it.

  “I know you think they’re moving too fast, but she’s happy, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Of course, that’s not all that matters,” he said. “I’d rather her be seventy per cent happy forever than one hundred per cent happy for the next two weeks until he has to go back to Athens.”

  “You can’t see the future,” Anna said, pushing Nikos to the side to get the new napkins from the drawer and tugging at the price tag. “You don’t know that she won’t be happy in a long- distance relationship. You don’t even know if it will stay long distance.”

  Nikos rolled his eyes. “I guess you’re right.” He looked at the napkins and took them from Anna to try the tag. “Did you just get these?”

  “Yeah, I picked them up at a shop in Kamari while I was looking at motorbikes.”

  Nikos whipped his head up. “You were looking at motorbikes?”

  “Yeah,” Anna said, taking the liberated napkins from his hands. “Walking to and from work is just taking so much time. With all the photography jobs I’m doing, and a few things still to do around the house, I don’t have as much time to spend lumbering up and down the hills as I did when I first got here.”

  “Isn’t that a bit of a waste if you’re leaving once the house is done? Buyers aren’t exactly going to be worried about the napkins,” he said, looking down at what he was cooking.

  “Yeah, well, I’m the one living here right now, and I like the napkins. Plus, I don’t know how long the house will take to sell. And if I have all of these photography jobs lined up, I might as well stick around until it’s sold. It’ll certainly be cheaper than paying someone to show it if I’ve gone.”

  “Oh, okay,” Nikos said, sounding rejected.

  Anna realized then what he had really been asking. He had a point. Since Anna had received the email from Marcus, she had kept buying things for the house as if she was staying forever. But the reality was that she had an opportunity for the first time in her life to have the career she had hoped for. She lifted her hand to put it on his arm but then decided against it.

  “Nikos, I haven’t changed my mind about going. I’m sorry. I would say if I had.”

  “Oh, that’s not what I meant,” he said unconvincingly. “But remind me why that is?”

  “Because this isn’t my life,” she said. “I want to be a photographer.”

  “But you are a photographer. You’re doing that now. You can only afford a motorbike and flowers and a new sofa because of all the work you’ve booked.”

  “Yeah, but I mean a real photographer, not taking photos for wannabe influencers and hotel websites.” The kind who has their work shown in MarMac.

  As soon as the words had come out of her mouth, she wished she could put them back. She didn’t know where the snobbery had come from, but there it was, laid out in front of Nikos in all its glory. He turned around slowly, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms.

  “So that’s what we are to you? A pretend life? Something to bide the time until your real life starts?”

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “See, I think that’s exactly what you meant.” His voice was raised now. “You may not have wanted to come here at first, but you’re just like all those other girls who come to Santorini for a suntan and a summer fling, consequences be damned. You’re just getting a house out if it.”

  “That’s bullshit!” she shouted. “All I do is think about the consequences. What it would mean to take my father’s house. What his letters mean. How they affect me and what I’ve grown up believing. What would happen if I stayed or if I went.” What it would mean to accept Marcus’s offer. What it would mean to turn it down. What would happen if I stayed forever. What would happen if I gave into my feelings for you.

  “That’s your problem, Anna. It’s all about you. But I’m my own person with my own feelings and desires. You need to own up to the fact that it’s not concern for me. It’s concern for you. For what it would mean for you to give in to your life here. You’re scared that you might actually love it. That you might love me. And since life here doesn’t count as real life in your mind, that scares the shit out of you.”

  He lowered his voice as he continued. “But let me tell you something, Anna. My life here is as real as it gets. You may not understand why I didn’t move to a big city and get a fancy job making lots of money, but I do. I work hard every day. I have friends and family I care about. And I love my life here. I was a shell of myself when I was in London. Here, I’m exactly who I want to be. And I think if you were being honest with yourself you would see that you are, too. You’re ha
ppy here. And just because people come here on vacation doesn’t make that happiness any less real.”

  As Nikos spoke, Anna felt tears forming in her eyes. She tried to fight them back, but as he stopped talking, she felt them start to fall down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry to upset you,” he said. “But I’m not sorry for what I said. I really believe it.”

  Anna stood there with tears trickling down her cheeks for a few seconds, half of her wanting Nikos to come comfort her and half of her wanting to run all the way down the mountain and into the sea. But before her fight-or-flight response could fully kick in, there was a knock at the door.

  “Let them in, please,” Anna said, heading for the bathroom. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.” Then she locked herself in the bathroom, sat down in the tub and sobbed.

  “This soup is so good,” Elena said. “I’m so sick of bar food for dinner. Thanks for having us over.”

  “No problem,” Anna said, “though I can’t take credit. Nikos made it.”

  When Elena and Vasilis had arrived, Anna had heard Nikos tell them that she was getting ready in the bathroom. She was grateful for the time he had bought her and used all of it trying to calm herself down.

  “Nikos is wrong,” she had said in the mirror. “This isn’t real life. Not yours, anyway.” Probably out of necessity, she had actually believed it for a moment, but as she sat at the table with the people she now realized were her two best friends in the world, she questioned if maybe he was right after all. She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience, not quite able to join in the conversation.

  Vasilis started to say something to Nikos in Greek, but Elena cleared her throat, nodding at Anna.

  “Oh, sorry, Anna,” he said. Then, to Elena, “I don’t know how to say it. You say about Maria?”

  “Of course, dear,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Vasilis’s cousin Maria is coming to live here next week. She works for a winemaker on the mainland who just bought a few vineyards here, and they want her to come manage them.”