by Jo Watson
“Excuse me.” I stopped walking. “There is a logical reason for that, by the way. The one is battery operated and the other is not. So I have a backup in case I can’t find a plug.”
Dimitri stopped walking and turned to face me. “In case of a hair-straightening emergency?”
“Exactly.”
“A life-or-death situation that requires you straighten your hair, or someone else’s, immediately?” He smiled at me and raised a questioning brow.
“Uh… sure. Why not?” Actually, when he put it like that, it did sound ridiculous to be lugging two hair straighteners around in my handbag. Not to mention all the brushes and creams and gels and lipsticks and, and, and…
“Are you a hairstylist?” he asked.
“A what?” I burst out laughing. I could barely handle my own hair, let alone others’. “No.”
“So what kind of hair emergency could you ever have?” He folded his arms in a slightly challenging manner.
“Well”—I folded mine, too—“in case my hair gets messy. Or in case…” I ran a hand over my head. My hair was perfect today; I’d managed to scrape it back this morning so all the curls were flat and my ponytail was silky and straight. “It’s humid here, so it might get frizzy or extra curly or… I don’t know. I just need them. Okay?” I was feeling somewhat irritated by this line of questioning. “Besides, why do you care if I have ten hair straighteners in my bag?”
Dimitri shrugged nonchalantly. “I was just wondering, that’s all.” He started walking again and I sighed. What was with all these questions? It wasn’t like we knew each other well enough for this. I didn’t want to get into a whole discussion with him about the ins and outs of my life and handbag and hair and Greek food or whatever else he was so persistent in trying to get out of me. This was how trouble started. I’m sure my biological mom had started with an innocent conversation, and look where that led. Knocked up. I stopped walking.
“Look, it’s fine, I’m just going to go,” I said quickly. “I have things to do today and I can’t really afford this detour. But thanks, and all.” I started to turn, and a hand reached out and stopped me.
“Come on, Jane. This will only take a second.” He took me by the shoulder and started to lead me down the streets, and I, for some stupid reason that was really beyond me, let him. We continued to walk for a little way, down some small winding roads and up a little hill, until we reached a large parking lot. I recognized his car immediately. He opened the trunk and pulled out two T-shirts wrapped in plastic and opened them both. DIMITRI’S TOURS.
“Not glamorous,” he said, handing me a red one and taking a green one for himself.
He smiled again. It had a languid, dreamy quality to it and for a second or two, before I mentally slapped myself silly, I glanced at his smiling lips. But then my eyes found themselves looking at something else entirely as he peeled his shirt off, tossed it aside, and stood there half naked. My eyes continued to drift down his body as if drawn there by some invisible force. The world immediately stopped spinning on its axis and that inconvenient voice came back.
You sooo want to run your tongue over his chest, don’t you? You bad, bad girl.
My eyes snapped up immediately and tried to focus on his face.
“You can change in the car,” Dimitri said, and opened the back door for me. The sudden terrifying image of me being half naked in the backseat of his car gripped me. No doubt he could see this on my face.
“I won’t look. Promise,” he said with a knowing smile. It was the kind of smile that said, “Anyway, I’ve already almost seen it all.”
I climbed into the car with my massive handbag, half tipping it as I went, and then began trying to peel my wet shirt off and slip the other one on while trying to stay out of window view. It was a tank top, not something I would usually wear. Ever. I was far too self-conscious about my arms to consider wearing something like that. But it was the lesser of two evils at this point. I stepped out of the car. Dimitri gave me the once-over and stopped at my shoulder.
“The strap, it’s…” He indicated the strap on my top, and I moved my fingers over it. My bra was twisted around it, and so was a strand of my sticky hair.
“Oh. Thanks.” I tried to untwist it and couldn’t.
“You mind?” he asked tentatively before reaching out toward the mess. As he did, his hand grazed my shoulder, and then at some stage, once the strand of hair had been loosened, he tucked it behind my ear.
The heavens and earth opened, the winds picked up, and the sea began to swell… no they didn’t. But when his fingertips touched my ear ever so slightly, it did feel like the single most erotic moment of my life. I gazed up at him in total silence, trying not to look at him in a way that implied I was freaking the fuck out.
“Perfect,” he said.
“Yes you are,” I screamed back at him in my mind.
His face broke into a broad smile and for a moment I wondered if I had actually said that out loud and not in my head at all. We stood there for a few minutes. He stopped smiling at me and started staring strangely instead. It soon became so uncomfortable that I felt compelled to break the eye contact. His face immediately turned apologetic. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just… your eyes.”
I inwardly rolled those unnerving eyes of mine. This again. “Uhm… well. Okay. I better be off. Lots of ground to cover still…” I made a stupid hand gesture as if I was scanning my surroundings. “Lots to do, you know… no rest for the wicked and all that.” I tried to sound casual again. Epic fail.
“What have you been doing today?” he asked. Something behind him moved. I looked over his shoulder to see that all the women had appeared; they’d obviously decided not to wait for him, and they were attacking me with their accusing eyes and pouting in blatant disapproval.
“Oh. Nothing really, I’ve been looking for… well, you know, Dimitri.”
“Any luck?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t any nearer to finding my father than I had been a few days ago when I was thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.
“Take a break and join us. We’re going to the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist.”
I looked over his shoulder again. The cobras had all risen out of the grass now and were ready to spit their venom at me. I gave a small, polite smile. “No thanks. I’ve still got a lot to do.” I started to walk off but felt a gentle hand on my shoulder again.
“It’s one hour, Jane.” His hand left my shoulder, and even though it had only been on it for the briefest moment, all my senses went into overdrive. I had to get away from him before I started to physically drool on him.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he said with a perfectly sweet, innocent-looking smile, but all I could think about was…
“Have sex with me. Cathedral sex. Sex. Now.”
“No thanks!” It came out almost like a panicked cry for help and I tried to give him a smile that wouldn’t betray my feelings any further. I wiggled out of his grasp with a shoulder shrug and gave the ladies a tiny wave. “Bye. Have fun.” I started scuttling away.
“But, Jane, you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced the beauty and peace of standing inside it,” he called after me.
“It’s fine,” I shouted over my shoulder, “I think I can live without that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
From that moment onward, my day went from bad to worse. In fact, the last good thing that happened to me that day was Dimitri giving me a new shirt. Because after that, it devolved into one of the worst days I’d had in a long time. With each passing moment, I came to understand just how futile the search for my father was. I came to realize that although I consider myself an intelligent human being, I had embarked on the stupidest crusade ever.
I hadn’t thought this through. At all. I usually thought everything through. I always had goals and a plan. And a backup plan in case that plan went wrong. But this time I’d had no plan at all—not a real one anyway. I
’d let emotions cloud my judgment from the moment I’d seen that stupid flashing sign in the travel agency. I wanted to kick myself.
I also started to wonder if perhaps my father wasn’t a tour guide on Santorini at all. Santorini had been a total guess on my part. Perhaps he was on another island? Perhaps he was no longer a tour guide? The final nail in the coffin of my plan and my hopes of finding my father was hammered in after I had taken the six hundred steep steps all the way down to the port.
The port was lined with a wide variety of boats, from smaller fishing craft to yachts that looked like they were owned by a rapper; there were even two huge cruise liners docked there. Other than seafaring vessels, it was also lined with what can only be described as washing lines of dead octopuses drying in the sun. I discovered that when I walked into one. I screamed as my face was covered in slimy, slippery tentacles. Did you know that a very recently killed octopus is still capable of using its suckers? It’s a muscular reflex. I discovered this the hard way when the thing attached itself to my face and head.
The scene I’d caused seemed to amuse the local fisherman. They’d all seemed even more amused when I asked about Dimitri, and one of them had said, “Everyone named Dimitri, raise your hand.” Four hands had gone up, and one man asked if his dog counted. Dimitri the dog! I was forced to climb back up the six hundred steps in the blazing sun without my sunglasses—I couldn’t find them—while still lugging around my bag, which now felt like it actually contained boulders. My shoulder was aching, my legs were shaking, I had a throbbing headache, and my back was killing me. My phone beeped in my bag and I hoisted the thing off my shoulder. It hit the ground with a thud that probably produced seismic waves as I pulled my phone out.
WHATSAPP GROUP: Jane goes to Greece
Annie: So? How’s it going?
Jane: Not well!
Annie: I’m sorry. You okay though?
Jane: I’m not sure. Nothing feels right. I don’t feel right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Annie: There’s nothing wrong with you.
Jane: Yes there is. Why am I like this then?
Lilly: Hey! Nothing wrong with you.
Jane: Then why do I carry two fricking hair straighteners in my fucking handbag?
Annie: LOL because you like neat hair.
Jane: Exactly. That’s what I told him!
Lilly: Him? Told who?
Annie: Who is him????
A little bolt of panic flashed through me. I felt too ashamed to admit to having anything to do with a tour guide named Dimitri; I knew how bad that would sound. And how stupid and naive and ridiculous it would make me seem.
Jane: No one. Bye. Gotta go. XX
I slid my phone back into my bag and lifted it onto my shoulder again. An acute sense of misery descended on me, and I continued to walk through the streets in a kind of daze. Past the shops and happy tourists, past the quaint taverns and bars, until something caught my eye. I glanced up: SANTORINI INFORMATION CENTER. There was a huge map plastered across the window. I approached it with a feeling of dark foreboding. I stopped in front of it, and that’s when my body stopped functioning and wouldn’t allow me to move. What the…?
Greece had more islands than I’d thought. The mainland looked like it had once exploded and sent shards of itself floating across the sea… Ionian Islands, Saronic, Cyclades, Sporades… I rushed inside the shop and ran up to the first person I saw. She was busy with someone but I didn’t care.
“How many islands are there?” I yelled at the top of my lungs. The whole shop turned and looked at me. I repeated myself when I didn’t get an answer straightaway.
“Six thousand.” The woman looked at me as if she wasn’t sure if she should press the secret panic button under the desk.
“What?” I shrieked. I was frightening them now. I could see the terror in their eyes.
“But only two hundred and twenty-seven are inhabited,” she quickly added with a smile, as if that were some grand consolation prize. “Are you interested in some activities on one of the islands?” She held up a pamphlet, and I stared at it in utter horror.
“Sorry, I clearly misheard you. You didn’t say two hundred and twenty-seven, did you?”
“Two hundred and twenty-seven,” she repeated slowly with a gentle nod, as if she was trying not to make any sudden movements, like I was a feral animal that had been backed into a corner. Everything went a bit blurry and whirly after that. I felt faint and strange. My head started to throb, and a buzzing noise was building in my ears. I stumbled out of the shop feeling like my head was about to explode. I caught a glimpse of a pharmacy across the road and managed to wobble into it.
For a brief and glorious moment I felt much better. There was a sense of familiarity about the place. Neat, ordered, sterile, categorized, and clear. I breathed in; the slight scent of disinfectant filled my nose. It was terribly soothing. I liked it here, until…
I looked up and caught sight of it in the men’s cosmetics section. A poster of Dimitri hung on the wall above a fancy-looking fragrance display.
Ambition for Men. What’s your next move?
This time he was wearing a full black suit and standing on one of those oversized chessboards. He looked like he was provocatively contemplating his next move while a woman draped in a transparent swathe of fabric suggestively straddled the castle.
I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it! It was completely cheesy and just all too much. Even when I wasn’t bumping into him literally, I was still “bumping” into him in paper form. He was haunting me. Why was he everywhere I went?
My laughter began small and then it seemed to gain momentum like a snowball rolling down a hill. It grew bigger and louder and crazier as I backed away from the display. I bumped into something behind me, and it wobbled. I turned to grab it and the thing fell into my arms. I wrestled with it a bit until I managed to turn it around. And that’s when I found Dimitri’s suited crotch in my face. You’ve got to be kidding me! I was clutching a life-sized cardboard cutout of a sexy suited Dimitri Spiros. Was this really necessary? Did he need to exist in cardboard form as well?
His crotch was touching my nose and his head was somewhere down there. I quickly flipped the thing over so it didn’t look like I was engaging in some strange sexual act in the shop.
“Why are you everywhere I go?” I moaned into his cardboard chest.
“Madame.” A voice caught me off guard. I turned to see the pharmacist staring at me angrily.
“Please just get out,” he said in a thick Greek accent. “I can’t believe how many of you ladies come in here and steal this thing.”
“Sorry, what?” I asked, still clutching Dimitri.
“I’m tired of phoning the company to ask for more,” he said, trying to herd me out the door. “In fact, since you’ve already damaged it”—he pointed at the arm I’d accidentally bent—“why don’t you just take it. Take it and go do whatever you girls are all doing with it.”
“But I don’t want it—” I tried to object but in one swift move the man pushed me out the door and closed it in my face. Great! Now I was standing in the street holding a life-sized cardboard cutout of Dimitri.
“How can this day get any worse,” I cried out loudly. A few people turned and stared, and a couple of passing women winked at me. God, I felt like a dirty pervert. I could imagine what everyone thought: that I was going to take this thing home and show it a good time.
I put “Dimitri” under my arm and tried to walk as casually as possible. But the streets overflowed with tourists and I kept thrusting his head into someone’s crotch, and then nearly decapitated a small child. I need to get rid of it! I shot up a deserted alleyway, found a trash can, and began shoving him into it. Easier said than done. The thick cardboard was hard to bend, and at one stage I found myself pushing him down with my foot.
“Get in,” I said as I ripped off an arm. Oh wow, that felt kind of good. I pulled off his other arm and then ripped one of his legs into
a thousand tiny pieces. I’d just ripped off his head when a door behind me opened. A man wearing a chef’s hat with the word ZORBA’S across it started screaming at me. I didn’t blame him; I must have looked like a wild woman. I ran from the alley and back into the street. It was only then that I realized I was still clutching Dimitri’s head. “Fuck it!” I shoved it into my bag without thinking.
I hated this day, and the weight of it seemed to push down on me. The image of Atlas the Greek god holding the entire world upon his shoulders penetrated my bruised and hazy brain. I chastised myself for my utter stupidity: This was the last time I was ever going to let my emotions take over and govern a decision. I wished that I was a character in a book right then so that I could flip to the end—which I often do, as I hate not knowing—and find out what happens to me.
Does Jane find her father and do they live happily ever after?
Does she not find him but, in a poignant twist, find herself instead? *Barf*
Does Jane have a complete meltdown and start eating carbs with reckless abandon until someone has to send for the firemen to bash a hole through the wall and drag her out of the hotel room she’s been living in for the last ten years?
The sun was setting and I was thirsty. Without much thought I walked into a tavern and deposited myself at the bar. It was a whitewashed wooden thing—surprise, surprise. What was with all this whitewashing anyway? These people would probably whitewash night if they could. I glanced up at old fishing nets hanging from the ceiling. A very large taxidermied fish took center stage on the back of the wall, and beneath it was a name.
DIMITRI CHRISTOPOLULOS. 27 MARCH 1987.
Great! I’m sure this Dimitri was very proud to have pulled his worthy opponent from the sea. Good for him. Good for Dimitri. My brain had taken on a very cynical view of life today.
“What will it be?” the man behind the bar asked.