by Jo Watson
I turned and looked at Dimitri, who was now laughing. “God, that felt good.” I ran back to my handbag and pulled out my oversized makeup bag. I unzipped it, and the lipsticks bulged out. I picked one up, held it in my hands, and read the bottom.
“Midnight Angel.” I looked at him and then out to sea and tossed the lipstick as hard as I could.
I took the next one out. “Dissolved in Dreams. Who names these bloody things, by the way?” I tossed this one into the water, too, and it felt great.
“Cheeky Girl.” *Toss*
“Rampant Red Raspberry.” *Toss*
“Love Me Nude, D Is for Danger, Pink Me Up, Meltdown… at least the last one makes some sense.” I laughed as I tossed them all into the sea.
I went back to my bag. “And do I really need all this sunscreen?” It was a rhetorical question, because before he could answer, I was tossing. “And why do I carry a brush and a comb around with me all the time, too?” I tossed again, and again, and again. Until I had tossed almost everything out of my bag and into the sea. I was laughing like I hadn’t laughed in ages, and with each throw I felt lighter and happier.
I turned and looked at Dimitri, and then without thinking about it I ran up and hugged him. I threw myself at him so hard that he almost toppled over, but instead he managed to lift me off my feet and swing me around. I let go of him and tears started streaming down my face, this time tears of happiness.
“I can’t tell you how good that felt,” I said.
“I’m glad.” He reached out and wiped some of the tears from my face. “Only thing, we don’t want the turtles to choke.”
“What?” I gasped. “You’re kidding?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Oh crap, I don’t want to be a murderer of sea creatures.” I turned and ran back to the sea and straight into the shallow waters. Dimitri came running up behind me.
“Luckily it’s shallow and pretty see-through,” he said, bending down and pulling a lipstick from the seabed. He burst out laughing. “That was quite something, though.”
For the next few minutes the two of us ran around in the water splashing each other and collecting my stuff from the sea. We laughed the entire time, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last had so much fun. We finally emerged after managing to retrieve about 90 percent of the stuff; the rest was unfortunately lost. We both walked back onto the beach with bulging arms.
“There’s a trash can over there,” Dimitri said.
I looked, and sure enough there it was. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” I asked.
Dimitri smiled. “It was just too much fun to watch.”
We arrived back at Dimitri’s house about an hour later and both scrambled to get ready for dinner. I’d only brought one decent dress; it was smart and expensive. I’d imagined wearing it when my father and I went out to dinner at a restaurant where we’d sit up all night talking. Or I’d wear it when he introduced me to his family. I started to slip the dress on over my head and then heard a knock on the door.
“Are you ready?”
“Almost,” I called.
I grabbed a towel and dried my hair. It was curly and bushy and for the first time in almost forever, I didn’t really care. I’d seen so many women with hair like mine here that I didn’t feel such a need to tame it into submission. I stood back and looked at myself, barely recognizing my reflection. Everything about me looked different, and it wasn’t just the dress and the hair. It was something else. Something intangible.
My phone beeped and I pulled it out of my now much, much lighter bag.
WHATSAPP GROUP: Jane goes to Greece
Annie: Are you there? Sorry if I was a bit harsh with you earlier. I actually have no idea what you are going through at the moment. None of us do. I shouldn’t have tried to tell you what you were feeling.
My fingers hovered over the screen and I was about to type a response, but didn’t.
Annie: Jane?
Lilly: Me too Sorry.
Annie: You there????
Lilly: Chat later then. XX keep us posted. Please.
Annie: X we love ya
I locked my screen and slipped it into my bag again. I didn’t have time to chat with them about this right now, but it was good to know—and not surprising—that they supported me in whatever the hell you’d call this journey I was on. I stepped out of the room, and Dimitri rose from the couch. Then his mouth dropped open and he stared at me. “Wow. You look incredible.” He walked toward me and I was sure my cheeks were an embarrassing Rampant Red Raspberry shade.
“Thanks.” I felt so coy, like a schoolgirl being asked to prom by the hottest guy in her class. (Not that that had ever happened to me.)
He looked hot, as always; shorts, a loose-fitting top, and… hang on, he looked almost exactly like he’d looked today, and yesterday. He looked completely casual. Suddenly I felt like a total moron for dressing up.
“I didn’t realize that this was such a casual thing,” I quickly said. “I’ll go and change into something more appropriate.” I turned and started walking back through the door, but he grabbed me by the wrist to stop me.
“Don’t you dare change,” he said, his eyes looking directly at my lips in a way that made them feel like they were tingling.
“But you look so casual and I feel way overdressed.”
“I’ll sort that out.” Dimitri suddenly disappeared into his room and closed the door behind him.
I sat on the small sofa, picked up a newspaper, and started flipping through it. It was all in Greek and the pictures weren’t very interesting. I heard the door open and looked up…
I looked straight into GQ magazine’s Hottest Men photo shoot.
Holy fuck! That was about the most sensible thing my brain could manage. There he was, casually leaning against the doorframe. Dark, broody eyes and a slightly clenched jaw accentuated his chiseled face. But that wasn’t what took my breath away.
It was the fact that he was dressed in a full black tuxedo. His hair was swept back, and aftershave wafted into the room. He was dripping far more sex appeal than bare-chested, spear-wielding Dimitri had. It was the first time I had seen him in noncardboard form with so many clothes on, and he’d never looked more gorgeous. He had deliberately posed like a model and I could see he was struggling to keep a soft playful smile from tugging at his lips.
A small breathy sound escaped my lips as I tried to regain control over my senses. “Are you doing that on purpose?”
“What?” he asked as if butter couldn’t melt in his mouth.
“You’re doing some deliberate modelly thing.” I pointed a finger at him.
Dimitri laughed. “I am,” he admitted. “What did you think?”
He struck another kind of pose with an even more clenched jaw.
“It’s very ‘Blue Steel.’” I smiled back at him, amused. I’d never imagined that someone like him might actually see the funny side in it. You sort of imagine male models as the kind of people that take themselves seriously, but he didn’t. He was poking fun at himself—and that made him even sexier and more desirable.
“Okay. Watch this,” he said with a chuckle in his voice and a kind of twinkle in his eye. “This is a very important look. As a model you have to master it… Right.” He straightened himself and looked like he was doing something that resembled warming up, the way an athlete would.
I burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation as he gave his neck a stretch and winked at me.
“Okay, are you watching carefully? This is the flirting face.”
I nodded in a state of perpetual giggles.
“I’m going to look down at my watch,” he said as he started fiddling with the imaginary wristwatch on his arm. “Now see what happens when I hear a sexy female voice and realize my date for the evening has arrived.”
My giggling escalated into full-blown laughter as I listened to Dimitri describe the imaginary scene.
“I glance up at her
from my watch, slowly, with only my eyes, and…”
He looked straight up at me and my giggling stopped immediately. “Holy crap!” The words escaped my mouth as my whole body reacted to the look and stiffened. His eyes bored right through me in a way that would make it impossible for any woman, anywhere in the world, to resist him.
“Do you want to buy the watch, Jane?” he asked in a husky seductive voice that was a mixture of danger and sex and dripped with unspoken promises of orgasms aplenty.
“Yes,” I said faintly.
He smiled and looked back up in a more normal manner now. “Good. My job here is done.”
He walked to the sofa and then extended his hand for me to take. “Shall we?”
I looked at his hand and, as if on autopilot, stood up and placed my hand in his. I could see he was totally aware of the effect he was having on me. He was fully aware that he had reduced me to a puddle of simpering hormones.
“You look… you look…” I heard myself stutter, although I wasn’t even aware that my mouth had ever opened.
“Not as good as you look,” he said before leaning in and kissing me on the cheek. This time it was different. He let his lips linger and when he pulled away, he let them trail gently down my check, coming ever so close to the corner of my mouth. I wanted to turn and kiss him so badly. So I did.
I could see it took him by surprise at first. But he soon tangled his hands in my hair and pulled me closer. I lifted my hands and placed them on his face; it was soft and rough all at the same time. I pulled my lips away but didn’t move my face; instead I leaned my forehead against his, and he held me in place there. When I opened my eyes, I was so close to his face that his features were blurry. He touched his nose against mine, and I could feel and taste his breath against my lips. It was in that moment that I decided to forget all the supposed mistakes that my mother had made with a man named Dimitri once upon a time. I would not let her and the choices she had made govern my life any longer. I’d already spent twenty-five years living under her influence, and she wasn’t even there. It was time to cast it off. Time to break free from this invisible pull she had on me. I’d make my own decisions and make my own mistakes, and if this was one, which it probably was, then so be it.
I finally pulled away and we walked to the car in total silence, a silence that drifted into the car with us, too. Dimitri looked totally relaxed, but the more we drove the more nervous I started to feel about meeting his family. Suddenly it was very important that they liked me. Halfway through the drive, he reached across and took my hand in his.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said, giving my hand a firm, reassuring squeeze. He continued to hold my hand and soon he was running his thumb over the top of it. I ran my fingertips up and down his fingers. Our fingers played and intertwined and engaged in a kind of perfect dance. I traced the outlines of his hand softly with the tip of my finger. This was doing a very good job of making me forget to be nervous about meeting his family—but it was causing an entirely different kind of nervous feeling.
We finally pulled up outside a house that looked like a typical Fira home, built into the hill, whitewashed and multileveled. But there was something very different about this house. The noise coming from it was overwhelming, music and what sounded like a million voices.
“Dimitri, Dimitri!” Shouts rang out and I glanced up. About ten faces were staring down at us from the balcony.
Oh God!
Dimitri led me to the front door. “You’ll be fine. They’re going to love you!”
The inside of the house was even more overwhelming. Every single corner and seat and space you could fit a human being into was full. Children ran around the house, almost knocking things over as they went. One almost knocked me off my feet the second I walked in.
“Kalimera! Kalimera! Kalimera! Kalimera!”
More shouts rang out, and everyone turned to look at us. Dimitri put his arm around my shoulders and said something to everyone in Greek, which seemed to set something in motion. Suddenly everyone descended on me and I was pulled into a frenzy of greetings and cheek kissing until I felt dizzy, like a spinning top being whirled around.
“I’m Dimitri’s sister, I’m Dimitri’s cousin, cousin, sister, brother-in-law, cousin, second cousin three times removed, sister, uncle, aunt…”
“What did you say to them?” I managed to ask Dimitri as I was being passed around from person to person.
“I just told them you were my date, Jane.”
“Date?” My heart jumped into my throat and I was just about to ask him what he meant when I felt a pinch on my bum and jumped. An old man, looking well over eighty, was glancing up at me.
“Come. Uncle Nico!” One of Dimitri’s sisters threw me an apologetic amused look and rushed the old man away. I stood in shock for a moment. I felt overwhelmed by the size of his family and the noise and the attention I was getting. Everyone in the room seemed to immediately accept me and want to know me. It was as if I was part of their family. It made me want to cry all over again. I didn’t know these people at all, and yet they had made me feel more welcome in their home than I ever remembered feeling in my own family’s home.
I turned around when I heard a noise and came face-to-face with an older woman. She looked at me for a second and then launched into a sudden and very scary mixture of shouting and spitting on me. What the hell was going on? I backed up straight into Dimitri.
“Don’t worry, she’s just warding off evil spirits and trying to protect you.”
“Really?”
“Come, I want you to meet my favorite sister, don’t tell any of the others I said that!” Dimitri led me out the room and onto the terrace, then rushed me down a small flight of stairs and onto another small terrace. I was so relieved to be away from the noise of it all. “Where’s your favorite sister?” I asked, looking around.
“Don’t be crazy, I don’t have a favorite. I have six. Just thought you needed a break from the noise.”
Truthfully I did. “This is not like my family dinners. That’s for sure.”
“What are your family dinners like?”
“Smaller. Quieter.”
“There’s no such thing as a small, quiet dinner in Greece.” He sat on one of the loungers and I followed suit. “Greeks like to celebrate everything. ‘Count each day as a separate life,’ as one of our philosophers once said.”
“Really?”
“We eat, drink, make love, and enjoy every day as if it were our last.” He said that last part in a strange tone, as if trying to convey something I wasn’t aware of yet. “What would you do if you knew this was your last day on earth?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. Who even knows that kind of stuff?”
“I do.” He stood up and walked over to my lounger.
“And what would that be?” I asked, looking up at him.
“This…” Dimitri pushed me back until I was lying flat and then climbed on top of me and started kissing me. “This and so much more…” he whispered against my lips before biting the bottom one gently between his teeth. Unlike my kiss earlier, this one was not soft and gentle. This kiss seemed to open the floodgates of need and want.
But it was short-lived. When I heard claps and whoops rise in the air, I pulled away and looked up. At least three smiling people stared down at us. I covered my face with my hands, wanting to die of embarrassment, but Dimitri seemed to take it in his stride. He climbed off me, straightened his clothes, and smiled up at everyone. Some loud Greek and laughter was exchanged, and then one of his sisters rushed down and started to whisk me away forcefully. I had no choice in this.
“To kitchen.” Her English was broken, not nearly as good as Dimitri’s. “The women go to the kitchen!” she said enthusiastically. My inner feminist wanted to stop her and explain that bras had been burned so that women did not need to be in the kitchen, but Dimitri shouted after me.
“Just go with it, Jane! You’re Greek!”
His sister he
ld me by the hand and ushered me through the house and the crowds, but stopped halfway. “It’s so nice to meet you.” She was still holding my hand in hers and then she gave it a little squeeze.
“You too.”
“So you and Dimitri?” she said with a wink and a smile in her voice.
I blushed, unable to hide it.
“He’s never brought anyone to meet us before.” She smiled at me with a knowing kind of look.
“Really?” For some reason this shocked me.
“Yes, he’s hardly here. He’s always running off and on this island and that one. And he never is meeting any nice girls. We all want him to get married, but he never seems to find anyone. He’ll make very good husband. He’s the best brother, and Yaya want to see him get married before she dies. And she’s very old, you know.”
All this talk of marriage was making me seriously uncomfortable. I finally found myself sitting in the busy kitchen. It was buzzing with activity—practically bursting at the seams. I stood feeling completely unsure of myself and watched all the women cook in what looked like an organized frenzy. I didn’t cook, which seemed to garner many surprised looks from the older crowd; in fact, they seemed downright horrified. But my lack of experience didn’t stop them from ushering me off toward a large board of ingredients and shouting instructions at me.
“Just put in blender and turn on. Make smooth… delicious!” Those were my instructions. I stood and looked at the ingredients. They looked suspiciously like stuff that would make hummus. I cringed internally. Oh, the irony. Hating Greek food and being expected to make it. How hard could it be, though? Put in blender. Turn on. Voilà. I found myself staring at the ingredients for ages. They terrified me. It was irrational.
“Hurry! Food ready!” Shouting broke out around me and suddenly bowls and plates and utensils were being rushed out of the kitchen. “Hurry.”