Finding You

by Jo Watson

  Mmm, I kind of think you’ve already done that!

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Aaaahhhh!” I screeched. “Aaahhhh!” I screeched again. But in my defense I wasn’t the only one screeching. There were many people screeching. In fact, everywhere I gazed people looked like they were about to either cry or scream.

  “Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” Dimitri said from behind me.

  “Dimitri! I’m riding on the back of a donkey while it zigzags down the narrowest path I’ve ever seen. There is a sheer cliff face that plummets hundreds of feet into the sea, no one is leading this donkey, and this donkey keeps losing his footing.” At that the donkey slipped again and I came dangerously close to the edge of the cliff once more. My heart jumped into my mouth and stayed there. Why would anyone choose to ride a donkey anywhere, let alone down the deadliest path in the world?

  “Does this thing have a death wish?” For a second I looked down over the cliff. It was a sheer drop. You know how in movies when someone tumbles down a cliff face, there is always that one tiny little twig or bush sticking out that they grab onto before they plummet to their deaths? There was nothing of the sort here. It was all straight down.

  “Relax, people have been riding donkeys up and down this path for thousands of years.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.” Suddenly my donkey lurched toward another one and snapped at it. The other one snapped back and then started chasing mine. “He’s going too fast! He’s going too fast.” The ride had just gotten a million times more bumpy and horrific and awful. I held on to the reins so tightly that my shoulders tensed into a ball.

  “It’s only ten minutes,” he shouted as my donkey slipped and slid its way down the 596 steep stairs to the port.

  “I’m going to die, I’m going to die. I am going to die.”

  “Think of it as a roller coaster.”

  “I don’t ride roller coasters,” I yelled.

  The descent became even steeper, and the only reprieve I got was when my donkey stopped to eat some plants sticking out of the wall. We finally made it to the bottom and I disembarked as quickly as humanly possible. I felt such a rush of exhilaration at being alive. The adrenaline whooshed around in my veins and I wanted to scream and hug people. In fact I did, another woman nearby who looked like she was also feeling lucky to be alive.

  “I’m alive!” I screeched with a kind of joyful exuberance that I hadn’t felt, maybe ever.

  “And doesn’t it feel great to be alive?”

  My heart was still pumping. It did actually feel great.

  “And you get to say you rode a donkey on Santorini. It’s a rite of passage. It’s the ancient Greek way.”

  “So what’s down here? It better be good,” I said, glancing around the port that I’d actually already been to.

  “Nothing,” he said casually.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head.

  “So you made me ride that donkey, endanger my life, almost plummet to my death down a cliff for nothing?”

  “But will you ever forget it?”

  “No. Not for as long as I live. On my deathbed I’ll remember that bloody ride. That was the single most awful and memorable thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Exactly.” Dimitri walked off. “We’ll take the cable car back up and then go to the beach.”

  “There is a cable car? That goes up, and down?”

  “And it’s got a great view.” He smiled like he was having the best time of his life. Like a child at Christmas ripping open his presents and stuffing his face with candy.

  “Why are you enjoying this so much?” I ran after him.

  “Oh, Jane.” Dimitri turned and faced me. “The fun has just begun.”

  The view from the cable car was good, though. It was great, in fact. The port and the blue waters below stretched for miles and miles in all directions. The mountains rose up out of the water, climbing steeply to a summit dotted with the bright-white houses of Fira. But the view inside the cable car was far more interesting, and downright awkward. The snug little car was designed to fit exactly four people, with two seats on either side. Dimitri and I sat shoulder-to-shoulder, trying not to stare at the couple sitting across from us.

  I’ve never been a big fan of public displays of affection. And it was almost worse that these two were so nauseatingly sweet. He was whispering sweet little nothings in her ear. All “ti amo” and “bella, bella.” I assumed they were Italian.

  Their hands were tightly intertwined and they were sitting so close they may as well have been glued at the hip. It was as if they wanted to have as much physical contact with each other as possible. Even their feet were playfully touching, and the looks they were exchanging dripped with love and lust. And then it got a little bit more awkward as they started to kiss.

  I could feel the flush slowly crawl up my neck. I felt ridiculously uncomfortable, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off them. I must have voiced a mildly audible sigh, because the woman suddenly pulled away and gave a slightly embarrassed giggle.

  “Scusa. We just got married yesterday.” She held up her hand and showed off her ring.

  “Congratulations,” Dimitri quickly said. The couple beamed at him and then each other and then went back to the lip-locking.

  I squirmed in my seat, caught somewhere between embarrassment and, well, an overwhelming urge to be doing the same with Dimitri. I tried not to look in his direction, tried not to acknowledge his very presence. But my heartbeat became so loud that I was sure everyone in the tiny cable car could hear it. I crossed my legs as Dimitri sat back, his shoulder now pressing harder into mine than before. It felt very deliberate. There was no need for such sitting back in the chair. There was also no need for him to shift his leg just that tiny bit to the left, either, which meant that it came into contact with mine. Nay, none of these things were necessary, and what was very unnecessary was when he shifted nearer to me. I felt the flush creep up my neck and warm the tips of my ears as the lovers momentarily disconnected their lips.

  The cable car finally came to a stop and I leapt out of the thing, followed closely by Dimitri. The other two were in no rush to leave and stayed there, probably moving on to the next base.

  “Why the rush?” Dimitri came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned and must have had some weird look in my eye that cued him to my thoughts.

  “Sweet, wasn’t it?” he said with a small smile.

  “What was?”

  “They’re so in love they can’t keep their hands off each other.”

  “It wasn’t sweet, it was inappropriate. People should control themselves in public.”

  “But haven’t you ever felt that way? So in love you feel you might die if you’re not touching him all the time.”

  I gulped and shook my head. “No.”

  “You cannot go another day, minute, or second without hearing his voice, or being close to him?”

  I shook my head again. Speechless. Absolutely dumbfounded and at a loss as what to say next.

  Dimitri moved closer to me. “That’s a pity. Everyone should be in love like that at least once in their life.”

  No thoughts penetrated my conscious mind. There was nothing. A dark, empty room of nothingness. The world around me started to shrink and narrow until it was just Dimitri and me staring at each other while the tourists and the donkeys and everything else passed us by.

  “So?” The playfulness in his eyes was gone now, replaced by something that unsettled me. He scanned me intently, as if he was trying to read my innermost thoughts and feelings. I felt a stab of longing in my chest. A longing to reach out and touch him and…

  “Have sex with me again! Sex. Now…”

  His eyes suddenly widened and then a strange smile etched its way across his face. I was getting a strange feeling. Very strange. A terrible, bad, very bad feeling…

  “Oh. God. Did I just say that? Out loud?” I didn’t need a body language expert to tel
l me that the way he dropped his head in a slightly coy manner, then lifted it again and looked straight into my eyes while biting down ever so slightly on his bottom lip, meant that I had…

  “Shit! I didn’t mean to say that, I only meant to think it. Not to imply that I was thinking about it, by the way, just in case you thought that I was thinking that thought.”

  “But you were thinking about it.”

  “Technically, yes, but on another level… no.” I attempted a look that implied indifference, coolness, and aloofness. It failed. Totally. Especially when I tried to put my hand on my hip and cock my head to the side like a hip-hop diva. My neck cricked. Dismal failure. Why was I so bad at acting cool?

  “Oh Jane, you’re so lovely.”

  The word echoed like someone had just thrown a stone into an empty well. Lovely? What did that even mean? Lovely? A day could be lovely. That knitted scarf your grandmother gave you would be called lovely in that placating way.

  I climbed back into the car in a state of shocked silence. The air between us had somehow changed. The playful smiles we’d exchanged earlier were gone, replaced by something completely different, something I was unfamiliar with. It frightened me more than the physical feelings I was having for this man. Dimitri turned in his seat and looked at me and then opened his mouth. He quickly closed it again. What the hell was going on in that pretty little head of his? More important, what was going on in my heart right now and why was it ignoring everything my head was telling me?

  And then his mouth opened again. He paused. I looked at him with such anticipation. “I’m not sure what it is about you. But from the moment I saw you in the airport…” He stopped, and it looked like he was considering his next words very carefully. Then he shrugged. “You’re not like any woman I’ve ever met before. In a good way.”

  I had no idea what to say to that and I wondered if my father had said something similar to my mother. Had they also ridden donkeys together and watched a beautiful sunset? Had they also driven together in a car, struggling with conflicting feelings for each other and trying to fight them?

  Dimitri finally slowed the car and pulled onto a gravel road. “This is Kamari Village,” he said as he parked the car and climbed out. I looked around: There wasn’t really that much to see other than a hill, a deserted parking lot, and gravel beneath our feet.

  “So where are we going?” I asked.

  “Back to the very beginning,” he said with a loaded smile. I followed him as he started walking up a small footpath. It was steep, and the stones beneath my feet were loose.

  “I’m taking you to see the ruins of a village that was built in the ninth century BC,” he said. It was hard to comprehend anything being that old, or what life would have been like back then. When we finally reached the top of the long and windy path, I gasped. I was standing on the top of the world, and it felt like I could see all the way to the ends of the earth.

  “This is the highest point of the island,” Dimitri said. “And this is where we all came from. It’s the start of it all.” He had a sense of childlike wonder in his voice. “Did you know the Greeks invented theater, democracy, the Olympics, geometry, math, and philosophy? We even invented alarm clocks and plumbing, coin money, and those showers that only use two gallons of water a minute.”

  I stared in awe at everything around me. I felt like I was peeping behind a curtain and looking back in time. Looking at the entire history of a place and its people… my history. I inhaled. The air smelled sweet, as if there were blossoming trees somewhere. Something about this place was very soothing. It was broken but beautiful, and walking through the fragmented pillars and piles of rocks I could almost imagine the people going about their daily lives here. Children running through the streets playing ancient games, mothers making olive oil and cooking, men plowing fields and harvesting.

  “You should be proud of your Greek heritage, Jane. You shouldn’t run away from it.” He turned and looked at me meaningfully.

  I knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to wake that part of me that was Greek—to show me the beauty in a part of myself that I had never known, or liked. But his statement also felt offensive. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “You won’t even eat Greek food. It’s time to let out your inner Greek, Jane.”

  “I don’t have an inner Greek.”

  “Yes you do. I can see her, and she’s dying to come out.”

  I looked at him for a few moments, trying to figure out how someone even let their inner Greek out.

  “Come, let’s go to the beach!” He was already scuttling down the slippery path as if he’d walked it a million times. “Your inner Greek is going to love it.”

  I stood on the edge of the sand. I’d never seen black sand before, and it was beautiful. I bent down and grabbed a handful of it to admire more closely. It wasn’t exactly soft and it wasn’t exactly sand. It was a combination of pebbles, black shale, and something that looked like black glitter sparkling in the sun. I glanced up; the pebbles close to the shore, where the waves were lapping, were even darker than the ones I was holding. A single white pebble caught my eye, and I walked over and picked it up. I turned it over in my hand; it was a perfect circle, smooth and shiny and almost soft to the touch.

  “Makes sense that you would pick up the odd one out.” Dimitri was standing next to me now.

  “I guess,” I said faintly, knowing exactly what he meant. I lifted my eyes and met his. My stomach tensed into a knot. Only this time it wasn’t the same kind of trying too hard to relax feeling; it wasn’t a worrying about being late feeling. It was like I could feel the knot forming and loosening in my stomach as excitement and happiness clashed.

  “So the beach, hey?” I said, breaking the moment, although I don’t know why. Every part of me wanted the moment to continue, except for this one little part, the voice that had me asking, Is this real? Could a guy like this really be paying me this kind of attention? Sure, we’d had sex, but that was nothing like what was going on now. That had been primal and manic and hungry and probably would have just been some meaningless one-night stand for him if I’d left. But this—this was odd. Too odd. I needed some advice.

  “Would you excuse me for a second or two, there’s something I need to do.” I scuttled off and stood under the shade of a nearby tree. I turned my back to him and pulled out my phone.

  WHATSAPP GROUP: Jane goes to Greece

  Jane: Hi.

  Lilly: That was quick, are you back in SA already?

  Jane: No.

  Lilly: Where are you?

  Jane: Well that’s kind of a funny story.

  Annie: Does it have something to do with that guy?

  Jane: Sort of… he’s offered to help me find my biological father. He contacted a PI.

  Annie: Why would he do that?

  I looked back over my shoulder at Dimitri, who was standing on the edge of the beach watching me. He smiled and I reciprocated.

  Jane: I guess he’s a nice guy.

  Lilly: Is this the same guy you never wanted to see again?

  Jane: I know, it doesn’t make sense.

  Val: Hi! I’m here.

  Jane: Hey.

  Val: Who is he exactly?

  Jane: Well, that’s kind of the funny part…

  I stopped typing and stared at my phone imagining what their reactions would be if I told them. But if I couldn’t tell my best friends in the world, who could I tell?

  Jane: His name is Dimitri and he’s a tour guide.

  Annie: What!!!!

  Val: WTH…

  Jane: I know. I know how it sounds.

  Annie: Really? Do you?

  Jane: Yes, it’s like history repeating itself.

  Annie: Have you had sex with him again?

  Jane: No. God no!

  Annie: So, what, you guys just pretending it didn’t happen?

  Jane: Something like that.

  Val: Impossible to pretend you never had sex.

&n
bsp; Annie: And you better believe he’s probably wanting to have it again.

  Jane: No. This is a strictly professional thing. I’m hiring him as a tour guide. Plain and simple.

  Val: Once you sleep with someone it’s no longer simple, Jane. Not for the chick anyway.

  Lilly: Are you falling for him or something?

  Annie: Please don’t tell me you’re falling for his Greek charms?

  Jane: He’s not like that. Well, I think he’s not. I don’t know. I’m confused, OK?

  Annie: Jane, whatever you think you’re feeling for him, it’s probably not real. You’re looking for your dad who is also Dimitri, it must be very emotional and your feelings must be all over the place. You’ve probably mixed them all up and now think you’re feeling something you’re not.

  Lilly: Annie is probably right. It’s totally understandable that you feel a connection with a tour guide named Dimitri.

  Jane: I never said I was feeling things for him, guys!

  Annie: It’s what you didn’t say.

  Val: True. The Jane we know would have scolded us and shot us down for even suggesting she was falling for him.

  Lilly: Why don’t you just come home?

  Jane: And never meet my father?

  Val: Do you really think a PI can find him after all this time?

  Jane: I don’t know. But if there is a slight chance, shouldn’t I at least try?

  Stormy: YES ! it isyour dEStiny too find him./

  Annie: Stormy, you give the worst advice!

  Jane: You guys are all freaking me out. I’m going.

  Lilly: Wait. Should one of us come out there?

  Val:?

  I didn’t respond. Instead I put my phone on silent and slipped it back into my bag. I turned and looked back at the beach. Dimitri was still standing there waiting for me. He extended his hand, beckoning me toward him. And I went.

  The beach was full of lounge chairs and umbrellas. Dimitri walked up to one and put our bags down. I stood there under the umbrella and looked around.