chapter 13
corfu
It’s so strange what I remember. When I was a child and visited Greece with my mother, we always flew to Athens and took a ferry to Corfu. I had never experienced an aerial view of the island. But now I had booked myself straight through to the airport right outside of Corfu Town. As we circled to land I looked through my window and marveled at the mountainside filled with little white stucco homes with red clay roofs. I recognized the white convent on the tiny islet of Vlacherna. And I recognized the sparkling blue water of the Ionian Sea. I remembered that someone had told me that Corfu had over three million olive trees. That’s a whole lot of olives. But I did not remember that Corfu was so green, even in winter.
The Aegean Airbus touched down gently and my own odyssey in the land of Homer was about to begin. It was around seven o’clock in the evening and the end of a thirteen-hour journey. I was bone tired and feeling pretty alone in the world. I felt like I didn’t belong in Charleston, at least not until things were right between Adam and me.
Kiki’s last e-mail said she would meet me in the baggage claim and bring me to her home in Dassia. I hoped I would recognize her. I had not been here since I was maybe seven or eight years old, and that was a very long time ago, never mind how many years.
I had cleared customs in Athens, so when we landed on Corfu it was very uncomplicated. The first thing that struck me was the delicious smell of strong coffee coming from a kiosk that sold cold water and a mountain of loukoumades, the Greek version of Krispy Kremes. I stopped to look at them. Then I realized that I resembled the woman selling them and also the majority of the people around me in the airport. It made me laugh and think to myself, Well, here I am in the land of my people. Like Moses in the Promised Land. Of course I looked like them. I was one of them. This was a good omen.
I made my way to the baggage claim area and to my astonishment, I recognized Kiki right away.
“Kiki!” I think I probably shouted her name a little too loudly, because people turned to have a look at me.
“Eliza! Welcome!”
She threw her arms wide open and hugged me hard. I was so excited to be there and to have found her. It was a marvel to me that in less time than it took the earth to take a spin on its axis, I was almost on the other side of the world, in a completely different culture.
“Oh, my! I can’t believe I’m really here!”
“Look at you! You’re beautiful! You look so young!”
“Thank you! You too! And I saw your face and knew it was you! I can’t believe I recognized you after all these years.”
“My God! How old are you?”
“Fifty-three, but don’t tell anybody,” I whispered.
“My God! I’m fifty-four, but I look like I could be your mother!”
“No! No, you don’t!”
“You’ll have to tell me everything you do to your skin! Are you hungry? No, of course you are! These airlines starve you to death these days, and who can eat the food anyhow? It’s disgusting.”
“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
“Listen, we eat late here. Let’s get your bags and we’ll go to a little taverna that’s owned by my friend. It’s delicious! And my husband is his partner.”
After a few minutes my bag came riding around on the carousel. I grabbed it and set it on the floor next to my feet to pull the handle out.
“That’s it? One little bag? Are you going home tomorrow?” Kiki asked, and I laughed.
“It’s deceiving,” I said. “I have clothes in here for a week.”
“Well then, let’s go!”
We left the terminal, found her car, threw my bag in the back, and hopped in. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and fastened my seat belt. I thought about Adam. I really should send him an e-mail, but had he sent me one? I checked my phone. No. I was too tired to dwell on thoughts of him. At that moment, I was thinking he should go get Eve out of his system once and for all and then we would see where we stood with each other.
Kiki reached over and patted the back of my hand.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “There’s nothing like seeing family. Nothing.”
“Me too. I agree.”
“I was so sorry to hear about your father’s passing. He was a good man and we kept in touch, at least with Christmas cards.”
“I know, JJ told me. Thank you, Kiki. I wish I had stayed in touch too,” I said.
“The past doesn’t matter, we’re here together now, right?” Kiki smiled.
“Yes, Kiki, we are.” I smiled right back.
This had been my dream—to come to Corfu. My heart was pounding with excitement.
She backed out of her parking space and off we went.
Soon we were sitting on small rush-bottomed chairs in an open-air dining room called Taverna Alexandros in Dassia. Alexandros, the owner, was not only Kiki’s husband’s partner but a very good friend of Kiki too.
“I tell everyone Kiki is my cousin, so you’re my cousin too! Give Alexandros a hug!”
He was a big fellow wearing a somewhat stained apron, like a Greek teddy bear with crazy hair and a bushy mustache. Despite my reservations, I hugged him because it would’ve been rude not to. Then the food started coming. Over grilled octopus, Kiki wanted to hear all about my boys.
“They’re twenty-one years old,” I said. “Both of them graduate from college in May.” I showed her their pictures on my phone and she was very complimentary. “Max is going to medical school in North Carolina and Luke is getting an advanced degree in mechanical engineering. He goes to Georgia Tech.”
“My God, where does the time go? My one boy, Stephen, works in technology, doing something I can’t understand. He’s twenty-five and married to a sweet girl who still has to give me a grandchild.”
“I don’t understand technology either. And if my boys have girlfriends, I haven’t heard one word about them!” I smiled at her. “And Aunt Anna?”
“She’s dying to see you!”
“I can’t wait to see her too. And your husband?”
“He runs the pharmacy in town. It keeps him out of trouble. He says he wants to retire soon and get a little sailboat to sail around the island. I will go crazy if he does that. What about your husband?”
“He’s in the doghouse at the present time.”
We looked at each other with that knowing look that only women with long marriages can share that tells the story without using words.
“Uh-huh. I understand. If you want to talk about it, you can. I’m a very good listener.”
“He’s a jerk, and for the moment that’s about all there is to say.”
Kiki smiled at me. “I’ve been married to Nicholas for more than half my life and I love him with all my heart. But he’s a jerk too. They all are. You know why? Because their mothers tell them they are the Second Coming.” She made the sign of the cross in the Greek Orthodox way and smiled.
I smiled too and nodded my head in agreement.
Next came a salad for us to share, with the reddest tomatoes and crunchiest cucumbers I’d ever eaten and a small cake of feta cheese on top.
“This looks like a picture!”
“We eat feta with everything!” she said and shook her head.
The salad was followed by sofrito, which is a meat dish cooked with vinegar and parsley. The wine continued to flow. By the time we got to the baklava, quince liqueur, and coffee I was stuffed within an inch of my life.
“He’s a good cook, yes?” Kiki said.
“Inspired,” I said, adding, “I’d love to get in the kitchen with him and see what’s up with traditional Greek cuisine. But if I eat one more bite I’m going to die, and what will you do with my body?”
“You like to cook?”
“It’s my passion,” I said.
“How do you like that?” Kiki laughed and said, “Let’s get you home and to bed.”
We thanked Alexandros profusely. He wouldn’t let us pay the bill, bu
t we left a generous tip for our waiter.
It was just a short drive to the bed-and-breakfast where I would stay. I got out of the car and thought to myself that it seemed familiar. But if this had been my grandmother’s house, I didn’t recognize it. The house I remembered from my childhood was more Spartan. This little house was completely charming. Even in the darkness I could see that it was painted a coral color and trimmed in white. We stepped into the courtyard, which had a table, eight chairs, a long bar for serving buffet meals, and an olive tree in the corner, old and gnarled. Bougainvillea vines crawled all over, and I knew that when it bloomed in the summer it would be gorgeous. Planters filled with herbs were everywhere.
“It’s empty this time of year, so you can have the whole house to yourself. I’ll come by in the morning. Give me your cell phone number.”
“It’s not on an international plan, but you can e-mail me.”
“Okay. Come in and let me show you around.”
I followed her inside. We entered a plainly decorated living room with a sofa and four unmatched chairs. There were exposed beams and two terrible paintings of little sailboats on the water that looked like they’d been done by children. In the corner was a rough-hewn fireplace with an oil lamp on the mantel. It was rustic, to be sure, but it had a charm all its own. I felt very comfortable there.
“The lamp is there in case you lose power. That happens here a lot,” Kiki said. “Come see the kitchen.”
“It’s the heart of the home,” I said.
“You say that too? My mother says that and I think she is right. Listen, I should warn you about something.”
“What? The kitchen is great!”
“Thanks. Every last person on this island who has the slightest relation to you wants to meet their American cousin. So don’t be surprised when they start showing up.”
“Wonderful! I would love to meet them all!”
“And there’s going to be a dinner for you tomorrow night, so you have to stay. Anyway, three bedrooms are upstairs but the big one is down here. After Yiayia died we renovated. It could use another renovation now.”
“So, this is Yiayia’s house! I thought it felt familiar!”
“Her picture is hanging on the bedroom wall. She’s the guardian of the house.”
“Oh! I can’t wait to see it. God, she was a wonderful woman.”
“Yes, she was. When your mother died, it put her in an early grave.”
“I’m still devastated over losing them and I probably always will be.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about our artwork in the living room,” she said.
“Those terrible little sailboat paintings?”
“Yes! You and I painted them when we were about five! You didn’t recognize our artistic genius?”
“Oh, my goodness. No!”
We hurried back to have a look, and sure enough, my tiny initials were there in the corner and Kiki’s were on hers.
“It’s a good thing I went to business school. I would’ve starved as an artist.”
“Me too,” she said.
Minutes later we said good night and I closed the front door behind her. I rolled my suitcase through the living room and the kitchen to the bedroom, where, sure enough, Yiayia’s picture was on one wall and a picture of Helen of Troy was on the other. Strong women. Greece wasn’t afraid of them and never had been. I stared closely at Yiayia’s picture. I hoped she would somehow send me the courage and fortitude I felt I needed to figure out what to do with Adam.
I was too tired and there was too much Greek wine coursing through my veins to unpack and find my pajamas. I just kicked off my shoes, laid myself down, and pulled up a quilt that was folded at the foot of the bed. The next thing I knew, light was flooding through the windows, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. I got up. I was so stiff in all my joints that I decided a hot shower was in order. I unpacked my toiletries and pulled back the shower curtain to turn on the faucet. There was no shower, but there was a rubber showerhead attached to a rubber tube that I could affix to the spigot of the lovely old tub in case I didn’t want to enjoy a good soak.
I started filling the tub with hot water and saw that there was a jar of bath salts right there, just waiting for me to toss a scoop in the hot water.
“This is just what I need,” I said to the empty room.
I brushed my hair up into a bun and brushed my teeth while the tub filled. I checked the water now and then and adjusted the temperature as it grew warmer. Finally, I took off my clothes and slipped in, and oh my goodness, that bath felt like heaven. It was the bath to end all baths.
While I marinated, I thought about Adam and Eve. First of all, I needed to back up. I still couldn’t believe I had actually packed my clothes, gotten on a plane, and left the country. I’ve always had nerve, but this was a huge leap over the boundaries of my comfort zone. I was just so shocked by what Adam and Eve had done that I had to get away. I couldn’t face him. Or her. What was I supposed to say to them? I’d said what I needed to say to Adam for the moment.
I still could not get over what Cookie had told me. It made every single aspect of Adam and Eve’s betrayal that much worse. All the years we’d been friends suddenly seemed like an orchestrated fake-out—a sham, a big lie. They had used Carl and me so that they could see each other every summer. Plain and simple.
Was that really true? Had they really done that? No. I knew I was blowing everything out of proportion. Adam loved Eve. That much was clear to anyone who cared to have a glance at them. He had probably always loved her, since they were teenagers. But he loved me too. I could not honestly say that there had ever been a moment when Adam made me feel like he had settled for less by marrying me. I scrubbed my feet with a vengeance.
And Eve? She was absolutely 100 percent in love with Adam. But she loved Carl too. She was proud of him, and he truly did love her. She really was the beauty queen in our foursome, but he sure did have a roving eye. And to be honest, Eve didn’t bring a lot to the table except her looks. God knows, that mother of hers was a liability. Between Cookie’s mouth and Carl’s eye, it’s no wonder she was so insecure. She didn’t have a career that could solidify her confidence. She was a really terrible cook. She overindulged her daughter and always had. Cookie didn’t do anything except find fault with her. And Carl was probably chasing the skirt he accused of chasing him. What a screwed-up world this is, I thought. I pulled the plug on the drain and began rinsing off with the hand shower.
But still, at the end of the day, Eve had been Adam’s young love, maybe his first, and as far as I knew he had been hers. First loves. Young loves? They were fragile and precious.
I’d known a guy I’d thought I loved all through high school. Vince was Italian, and we looked like we were brother and sister. We were inseparable. I spent so many Saturdays in the kitchen with his mother, chopping onions, peppers, carrots, and celery. She taught me how to make ravioli. I still use her recipe for marinara to this day. His father taught me how to parallel park and how to make a good cup of espresso. I was crazy about his whole family. Everyone thought we would eventually get married. But we went off to college in different cities and it just fizzled out. I thought about him now for the first time in years.
While I was drying off, it didn’t take me long to decide that if Vince had shown up at Wild Dunes with his wife and family I would’ve high-tailed it in the opposite direction. I wouldn’t have invited him for drinks that night and I never would’ve agreed to go to Wild Dunes again for the rest of my life. Who needs the aggravation? Who needs to test their heart? So why did Adam do it? Because he was stupid. And Eve? There was no such thing as too much adoration in her world. I’ve known that since the night I met her and she complained about still being too skinny. I’m not saying that with snark. I’m saying she got the minimum from Carl, less than that from her mother and her daughter. Well, she was so self-involved I was sure she gave her mother little to no regard. Adam took up the slack
for all of them. Once a year she got a two-week dose of Adam’s adoration. And maybe more often, for all I knew.
I tightened my bathrobe around me and went to the kitchen to make coffee. There were some groceries—butter, milk, and juice—in the small refrigerator. Just basics, but they would be fine until I went to a store. It was evidence of Kiki’s thoughtfulness. There was ground coffee in a canister in the cupboard along with a loaf of sliced bread. Finally, there were a few bananas and a couple of apples in a basket on the table. The coffeepot was the old-fashioned kind that percolated when you plugged it in. I hadn’t seen one of those in years. I set it up and decided to unpack while the coffeepot gurgled and perked.
I made the bed, got organized, dressed, and had a little breakfast, thinking to myself that I actually felt pretty good, considering the difference in the time zones. I checked my e-mail. There was nothing from Adam. And there was a note from each of my boys checking in. I wonder if they were suspicious. Nope. They were busy with their lives. I sent an e-mail to Kiki.
Good morning! I am up and dressed and wondering if you have any free time today? I think I’m going to take the bus to Corfu Town and be a tourist. Would you like to join me?
Minutes later she replied.
Good morning! I hope you were able to sleep. Jet lag is such a pain. And yes, I am going into Corfu Town to do some errands. Why don’t I pick you up and drop you off at somewhere like the Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George and then we can meet for lunch at the Liston?
I wrote right back.
That sounds great! I’m ready anytime you are. Thanks!
Soon we were on our way to the palace.
“I think you’ll really enjoy the Museum of Asiatic Art,” she said. “Have you been there?”
“Who knows? Maybe? If I was there I was too young to appreciate it.”
“Well, the collection has over ten thousand pieces of Asian art and artifacts. It was put together by a Greek ambassador one hundred and fifty years ago. It’s fascinating.”
When she dropped me off I said, “Only I would come to Greece to see Asian art! Ha!”
Same Beach, Next Year Page 16