Same Beach, Next Year

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Looks like home, doesn’t it?” Adam said.

  “It is home,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Kiki said. “It is! And now it’s your home too, Adam! And Tasha!”

  The first stop was for Carl and Eve. Eve’s eyes grew wide and I could see that the little white house with the navy shutters had already worked its spell on her. Bright pink blossoms of bougainvillea tumbled out of the window boxes and covered the courtyard trellis. Nicholas and Carl pulled their luggage from the back of the van and Carl, Eve, Adam, and I went inside with Kiki and Nicholas. We walked through the rooms, Kiki showing them how things worked. Eve gasped when Carl pulled the bedroom windows open.

  “Oh! My! Goodness! Would y’all look at this view?”

  “I thought this place was unreal in the winter, but in August it’s really unreal!” Carl said.

  In Manglish, that meant it was really beautiful.

  “I could live here,” Eve said. “Oh, Kiki! Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome!” Kiki said. “Now, get some rest and we’ll see you all later!”

  We took the short drive to Yiayia’s house, and as at the house where Carl and Eve were, our window boxes and courtyard had flowers and herbs galore. The lemon tree was loaded with fruit and the olive tree with olives. I was so happy to be there.

  Judy said, “Well, this is the most adorable little house I’ve ever seen!”

  “It sure is!” Ted said, with noticeable relief in his voice.

  We went inside with all our bags.

  “JJ? Do you remember this house?” I said.

  “I do! I actually do! I can almost feel Yiayia here.”

  “I’ll bet! Come see,” I said, and took him to the main-floor bedroom.

  We stood before her picture, which hung on the wall right where it had been last February.

  “She was a great lady,” he said.

  There was a sentimental tone to his voice I didn’t often hear. I knew it was something special to JJ to be there, and it meant something to me, something important, because we were all there together. Old memories, new beginnings.

  “Yes, she was. Wait until you see Aunt Anna. Yiayia is in her eyes.”

  “Well, that’s creepy,” he said.

  “No, it isn’t. It’s wonderful!”

  Kiki took Ted and Judy upstairs with their bags. JJ and Tasha followed them. I looked in the refrigerator to see many small bottles of fruit juice, soda, and water. And there were eggs, cold cuts, fruit, butter, and the basic necessities. I was sure Carl and Eve’s kitchen was stocked as well. Kiki’s never-ending thoughtfulness was in evidence once more.

  Adam was in the bedroom unpacking his bag.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “I think this place is wonderful and I think you’re wonderful.”

  “No, come on. Really. Tell me.”

  “Eliza, I’ve never seen you so happy as you were when your foot touched the tarmac in Athens. You seemed a lot younger and just, I don’t know, really happy? I think Corfu’s going to have a similar effect on everyone. I really do.”

  “I hope so. Adam, I really love it here.”

  “I know you do. So I will too.”

  I gave Kiki my cell phone number, and we said good-bye to her and to Nicholas and settled in for a little bit of quiet time and a much-needed snooze. We were all feeling like zombies.

  When Kiki called at eight to rouse us, I was already up and dressed for dinner, too excited to sleep much. I went from bedroom to bedroom and gave everyone’s shoulders a little shake.

  “Time to go to dinner,” I said, and they all groaned, even Judy.

  “I was sleeping so hard,” Adam said.

  “That’s what happens. We have to get on Greek time.”

  Soon we were all in the van and on our way with Kiki, Nicholas, and Aunt Anna, who was so overcome to see JJ that she cried like a little girl for a full five minutes, stammering her words and hiccupping. JJ put his arms around her and patted her back. He was so touched. He gave her his handkerchief. Yes, my brother used linen handkerchiefs. I know. Very old school. Everyone was moved by her emotional outburst.

  “You see,” Kiki said, “this visit means the whole world to her. She thought you wouldn’t come back and she thought she’d never see JJ again. For a Greek woman, to find more family is the greatest gift she can receive.”

  Touché, Kiki, I thought. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I hoped Adam took her words to heart.

  Alexandros Taverna was in full swing when we got there, and of course Alexandros hurried out from the kitchen to greet us.

  “Kalinta! Kalinta! My cousin is home!” he said, grabbing me into one of his bear hugs and then kissing both of my cheeks. “How are you, Eliza? Where is your husband? Did he stay at home, I hope?”

  We all laughed at Alexandros’s joke. Of course, he knew Adam was right there, waiting to shake his hand.

  “I understand we have a very special reason to celebrate, yes?” he said to Adam.

  “I’m alive,” Adam said, “and very happy to be here.”

  “That’s good!”

  “Yassou! Yassou!” Alexandros said to everyone, and the feast began.

  For the next six days, we ate, we drank, and we played tourist. Of course, Nicholas arranged for a boat to take us to see other islands and guides to various churches, ruins, and museums. Needless to say, every one of us touched the foot of Saint Spyrídon. I wondered if my plea to him had influenced the peaceful resolution of our marital strife. I thanked him and threw in a prayer for my sons to find happiness.

  The last night found us back at Alexandros Taverna, discussing a visit to our neck of the woods.

  “I know America,” Alexandros said. “I went to New York and saw the Statue of Liberty and I went to many Greek restaurants in Astoria. And I have been to Disneyland in California and I have seen where Clark Gable lived. What else do I need to know?”

  “Oh, come on, Alex,” Kiki said. “He is teasing all of you.”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about an idea I have for a restaurant. Should I e-mail you?” I said.

  “Yes, please!” Alexandros said.

  Suddenly, the restaurant got very quiet. I turned to see what was going on. There stood Cookie, in a diaphanous white linen caftan, laden with turquoise jewelry everywhere it could be hung, and with her was a large man, at least thirty years her junior, holding a wheel of cheese. He was wearing a navy double-breasted jacket and white pants with wooden clogs. Hans was in the house.

  Adam, Ted, Carl, JJ, and Nicholas stood up.

  “Oh my dear God,” Ted said, and he shook his head, as though he’d seen something that didn’t register.

  “Hey, y’all,” Cookie said. “Hey, Ted. Y’all say hello to Hans!”

  I had to admit, Cookie looked radiant. But this man she was with was very age inappropriate. Very. And, hello? May, December?

  “I sent her a text yesterday,” Eve said. “I never thought she’d come.”

  Alexandros stepped forward to greet them as though it was a perfectly normal situation.

  “Yassou! I’ll get two more chairs.”

  “Thank you,” Cookie said and sat down in Carl’s chair.

  Tasha reached for the bottle of wine and refilled her glass.

  “Anyone else?” she said.

  Ted said, “Sure. Thanks.”

  Hans just stood there grinning like a three-hundred-pound, six-foot-long merman out of water. He had long ringlets of blond hair and beautiful blue eyes.

  “Mother! What are you thinking? Don’t you know he’s using you for your money?”

  Cookie looked from my face to Judy’s and back to Eve’s and said, “Maybe I’m using him. Did you ever think about that?”

  There was a look of horror on Judy’s face, and Ted was just aghast. Tasha began to laugh like a hyena. JJ tried to calm her down with death ray looks, but she couldn’t stop.

  “She gets like this,” JJ said, clearly exasperate
d.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We love her. She’s family.”

  The cheese was a gift for Kiki.

  “We brought this for your hostess,” Cookie said to Eve. “Hans made it. And we knew you’d show up empty-handed.”

  Cookie had not changed all that much.

  Don’t ask me how we got through that awkward dinner, but we did. After all, the concept of hospitality was coined by the Greeks, and all my years in the South had taught me a thing or two about how to handle a sticky situation. In fact, everyone used their best southern manners and soon, when it appeared to be time for the bill, Cookie and Hans—who spoke not one word of English or Greek—went off into the night.

  “Well, this was certainly a memorable evening,” I said.

  “Thank you, Cookie,” Adam said and chuckled.

  “It certainly was,” Kiki said. “Anyway, Nicholas and I have talked. We think we should take turns visiting one another each year. Next summer we will come to you with Mother for one week if that is a good plan?”

  “Oh! It’s just perfect!” I said.

  “Yes,” Adam said. “We’ll just get another condo at Wild Dunes!”

  I was so sad to leave Corfu and most especially to leave Kiki, Nicholas, and my sweet aunt, Theia Anna. They had gone the distance to give us all the most memorable visit and vacation any of us had ever had.

  “This vacation has been so great because we actually lived like locals,” Judy said. “Eliza was right.”

  “Eliza is always right,” Adam said.

  “May I have that in writing?” I said with a laugh.

  After cruising the incredible blue water of the Ionian Sea together, we would never be the same again. As we said good-bye in Athens to JJ and Tasha, Adam and I made them promise to stay in touch.

  “We’re going to do a better job, JJ,” Adam said.

  “That sounds good,” JJ said. “We will as well.”

  We watched them walk away, heading to their gate.

  “Tasha wasn’t so terrible,” I said.

  “No. She really wasn’t. She got a little tanked last night and went off the hyena scale but hey, she’s family!”

  “I love you, Adam Stanley.”

  “I love you, Eliza Stanley.” Adam gave me a kiss on my forehead. “Let’s go home.”

  epilogue

  2016

  It was right after Christmas and we were eating leftovers. I had finally given Eliza the gray pearl earrings she’d been dying for. They were pretty dressy for leftover roast beef sandwiches but she wouldn’t take them off.

  “They look really good on you,” I said.

  She touched them and said, “I can’t believe you bought them! Adam! You’re a madman!”

  “What should I do? Leave our money to the kids?”

  Luke piped in, “I don’t know. That sounds okay to me.”

  “Right,” I said. “You won’t need it.”

  “I talked to Max,” he said. “He’s coming down for New Year’s Eve. He thinks we should all spend it at the house on the Isle of Palms. He wants to have a black tie New Year’s Eve Dinner.”

  “Why black tie?” I said. Black tie was a pain in the neck.

  “You know him,” Luke said. “He’s always been the dramatic one.”

  “Oh, Lord. That’s more shopping and more work,” Eliza said. The holidays always wore her out.

  “Nope,” Luke said. “He’s got it all handled.”

  I looked at Eliza. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “I seem to remember he mentioned something about it last month, but maybe not,” I said.

  “All he told me was that he had a big surprise for all of us. The Landers are invited. I know that much,” Luke said. “Do we have any more cranberry sauce?”

  “Sure,” Eliza said. “Well, what do you think, Adam? Want to go back to the beach for New Year’s? We can always roast some oysters.”

  “I’ll get a couple of bushels from Crosby’s,” Luke said. “They’ve got a ton from the May River.”

  “Up to you,” I said. “I don’t have any other plans. And I’m always happy to see Carl and Eve. Especially Carl.”

  She put the cranberry sauce in front of Luke and sat down again. I thought, a couple of bushels? One bushel was a lot for a dozen hungry people. Two would feed a lot of people. But I didn’t say anything. I knew then that Eliza and I were being set up. I smiled because I thought it was great that Max wanted to surprise us and because he didn’t want Eliza to do any work. He was going to make it easy on his poor old tired momma.

  I had noticed lately that Max and Luke were treating us like old people, always asking if our doctors were happy with us. So Eliza and I were a hair shy of sixty. Was that so old? Or maybe they thought that if they took some weight off our shoulders we’d last longer. Or! Maybe he was planning a surprise birthday party for us? That was possible. I hadn’t had a birthday party in ages! Neither had Eliza. Yes! That was it. So, I decided to be coy and just go along for the ride.

  “Well, I think it might be nice to be on the island for New Year’s Eve. It will probably be damp and cold but we’ll be able to see a lot of fireworks. That’s always fun,” I said.

  “Good,” Luke said. “I’ll tell him to meet us there.”

  He shot Max a text message. “I told him the parentals were in.”

  The parentals, indeed.

  “What time?”

  He texted Max again.

  “Max said to be there at eight o’clock sharp.”

  “Okay. He’s got something up his sleeve,” I said.

  “Obviously,” Eliza said.

  On New Year’s Eve we packed a bag for two nights, got dressed to the nines and drove out to the Isle of Palms. When we got to our house, as I suspected there would be, there were cars all over the place. The catering trucks from Cru were there blocking our garage, and a valet parking service was there, taking cars.

  I said, “What the hell is this? Should I tell these guys to move their trucks so I can get into our parking space?”

  “No,” Eliza said. “Let’s not be the difficult ones. Whatever is going on, Max went to a whole lot of trouble to make this happen.”

  I pulled up to the front of our house and got out. A courteous young man opened Eliza’s door and helped her out. I opened the back of the car to remove our luggage and nodded to Eliza that we should go inside.

  “This is some night. Here I am in a tuxedo and you’re in a gown and we’re going to a party in our house and we don’t know why.”

  “I feel like the Magic 8 Ball—all will be revealed.” She giggled and up the stairs we went, guests in our own house.

  “Well, you look beautiful,” I said. She really did.

  “I told you I needed these earrings!” She smiled.

  When we walked into the foyer, all our living room furniture had been removed and ballroom chairs were arranged in rows. Max hurried toward us.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  “Are you selling something, Max?” I said. I was thinking Amway products?

  “No! I’m getting married!”

  “What?” I looked further into the room and saw Luke, Kiki, Nicholas, Aunt Anna, Cookie, Carl, Eve, Ted, Judy, JJ, Tasha, and a dozen others.

  “To whom?” I said very seriously.

  “Daphne, of course. You probably know we’ve been together for almost eight years and she said it was time. I said, okay.”

  You could’ve knocked us over with a flick of a finger.

  “We knew no such thing. Why didn’t we know, if you don’t mind me asking?” I said.

  “Oh! You didn’t then. Wow. Well, initially we thought you’d object because of the trouble you had with her mother and grandmother. Then she got pregnant . . .”

  “What?” I said.

  “Yeah, we’re having a baby in May. So we thought it was a good idea to tie the knot.”

  “Holy shit,” I said. “It wasn’t enough that Carl gave me a piece of his liver. Now his daughter
is going to give us a grandchild. I’ll be damned.”

  “We love Daphne,” Eliza said. “Oh! Max! This is the most wonderful surprise of my life! Now, let’s not keep your bride waiting at the altar.”

  So we had a little wedding that night, performed by a universal minister, one that seemed impromptu to me. But Eliza said, and I’m sure she was right, that it wouldn’t have gone more seamlessly if they’d taken a year to plan it. There was a photographer, beautiful music, and delicious food. And Daphne, beautiful Daphne was going to be our daughter-in-law. I was absolutely thrilled. So was Eliza. During the ceremony, I looked to see if Luke had brought someone and when the maid of honor appeared, I had my answer. Kelly Engelbert. She was making eyes at Luke. Suddenly the whole world made better sense.

  After the ceremony, we all greeted each other with huge hugs and expressions of wonderment and surprise.

  “I wanted to tell you so badly!” Kiki said to Eliza and me. “But they swore me to silence.”

  “It’s fine! Oh, my goodness! I’m so happy you’re here! I have to go kiss my daughter-in-law. I’ll be right back!”

  But before I got to Daphne, Cookie stopped me.

  “Hi there, Cookie! How is the Netherlands?”

  “I broke up with Hans.”

  “Oh, dear. What happened?”

  “Somehow he got ahold of that language-learning program Rosetta Stone? He tricked me. Then he said I wasn’t nice and he took his clogs and left.”

  “Younger woman?”

  “No, older than me with more money,” she said in disgust. “She speaks German. It will take him a while to learn another language and then he’ll find out she’s a bitch too. Where’s your father?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. The room was very crowded and there were a lot of young people there I didn’t know.

  “Is he still with that Judy woman?”

  “I assume so,” I said.

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” Cookie said and smirked.

  Give it a rest, Cookie, I thought, realizing I was now related to her by marriage. Oh, God.

  I finally made it to Daphne’s side and I took her hand in mine and kissed her on the cheek.

  “I am happy, so happy,” I said and one big traitorous tear slid down my cheek.