by Mandy Baggot
‘Come on! Let’s go and eat something ending in “a”.’
Twelve
Taverna Georgiou
‘Oh, look, Tess,’ Sonya exclaimed. ‘Look at the gorgeous flowers, and the cute little wooden tables, and the little itty-bitty matching chairs, and the adorable little shells pushed into the walls!’ Sonya drew in an excited breath as they approached the restaurants along the beach. ‘I want to touch them. Don’t you just want to touch them? They’re like little—’
‘Greek dolls’ houses?’ Tess offered.
She looked up at the olive-wood-carved sign hanging from the entrance stating ‘Georgiou’. It was simple, very Greek. All it needed to perfect the rustic charm was some checked tablecloths and dancers in costume shouting, ‘Opa!’ There were candles glowing in the centre of the tables and Tess could see that wine was being served in rose-gold coloured flagons. She’d never had wine from a flagon before.
Sonya inhaled loudly through both nostrils. ‘I can smell everything.’ She turned back to Tess. ‘I want to try everything! All at once!’
Tess wobbled on her shoes as she hurried towards the small strip of concrete outside the restaurant just in front of three steps leading to the entrance. She needed one of the little itty-bitty chairs to rest up on and stop her toes from disintegrating.
‘Kalispera.’
‘Hello,’ Sonya greeted.
Tess looked up. It was the dark-haired man she had met earlier, looking even better than she remembered. He was wearing a black shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, exposing a rather fine length of just the right type of forearm – strong, firm, showing definition in motion. Dark, well-fitting trousers covered the rest of him. She suddenly remembered his name.
‘Sonya, this is Mandras,’ she introduced.
‘The one who needed bread and delayed my meze,’ Sonya said, shaking a finger in mock annoyance. ‘Yassou, Mandras, it’s lovely to meet you. I’m Sonya.’ She held out her hand.
He shook Sonya’s hand then looked to Tess with a smile. ‘It is nice to meet you, Sonya. And my name … it is Andras. No “M”, like the character in Captain Corelli.’
Tess’s shoes pinched a little more as she shuffled forward, following her friend’s lead.
‘Do you have a table for two? Gosh, you’re very busy,’ Sonya remarked, surveying the inside of the restaurant as she moved up the first step.
‘Most of these people are my family,’ Andras informed her. ‘There is a wedding here soon.’ He smiled. ‘Come, Victor will find you one of our best tables with a view of the sea.’ He held his arm out to direct them to a nearby waiter clutching a pair of menus.
Tess stepped forward and, as she did so, Andras moved to block her way, ducking his face close, his mouth near to her ear, so near her skin responded by breaking out in goosebumps. This was obviously some sort of Tinder-withdrawal cold turkey.
‘What is your name?’
She turned her head, just enough to increase her personal space, and meet his eyes with hers. She smiled, holding his gaze before replying, ‘I’ll tell you my name, if you tell me your Wi-Fi code.’
His wide, thick lips, ludicrously heavy on the Cupid’s bow, moved wider into a smile as his head nodded. ‘You still have not found out if you must save the UK from a plague of locusts or other disaster.’
Tess smiled. ‘The code.’
‘Georgiou123.’
She snorted. ‘I could probably have guessed that.’
‘No one said it was a secret,’ he replied. ‘Wi-Fi is free for all restaurant guests.’ He pointed to a large chalkboard on the traditional stone wall. ‘The code is on the board up there.’
‘Thank you,’ she answered, preparing to move past him.
He reached out, his hand touching the bare skin of her arm and drawing her back towards him. He was so close now their bodies were almost touching. She realised she was enjoying that a little too much. If only Sonya hadn’t imposed this stupid rule she could be getting busy with Mr Greek Adonis for a few nights of no strings fun. He was hot.
‘And your name?’ he asked. ‘Is that to remain a secret?’
His hand lingered on her arm, his fingers brushing down her skin until her fine blonde hairs had no choice but to react, sending shivers right the way through her. She was losing control to him again. This simply didn’t happen.
She leant forward, bringing her mouth close to his ear and whispered. ‘It’s Patricia.’ She drew back and winked. ‘But you can call me Trix.’
He smiled. ‘I like it,’ he said softly.
And then he drew her towards him, kissing her on the cheek. Except this was no faint air kiss you might reserve for a client you had been helping for the past couple of years or a distant relative you only saw at family funerals – this was full contact. Both lips meeting a cheek with absolute intention. And, as he finally drew back, extending his arm to point out Sonya and the waiter moving into a table overlooking the water, Tess was hot. Very hot. And slightly giddy. On the plus side, she could no longer feel the pain in her toes.
She moved her feet forward and pins and needles took hold, distracting her from the head-rush that was threatening to take over her whole body. This was pure lust. The last time she had experienced that so quickly was with Erik the scaffolder when, for her pleasure, he’d hung by one arm from a red-brick semi-detached.
Now Sonya was looking at her. She walked towards her friend, stealing one last glance over her shoulder at Andras. He was chatting to a group of people at a table with what looked like a whole octopus at its centre. Those trousers were cut to perfection over glutes she would definitely be dreaming about tonight. She faced Sonya again. Her friend’s hand was already navigating around the bottom of her neck seeking that pendant. She hurried forward to join her.
‘So, Mama, she is here,’ Andras stated, leaning over his mother’s shoulder and replenishing her glass of wine.
Isadora put down the lobster claw she was working on and sucked at her fingers. ‘Who is here?’
‘My girlfriend,’ Andras said. ‘Patricia.’
‘Where? Show me.’ Isadora was up and out of her chair quicker than a superyacht overtaking a Minoan ferry. He should have accounted for that. He was being too ambitious here.
He quickly took hold of his mother’s arm. ‘You can’t go over there.’
Isadora remained standing, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Why not?’ Her black eyes held his until he had to look away. Victor was presenting Sonya and Patricia with menus. He needed to think on his feet.
‘She has brought someone with her.’
‘Her mother?’ Isadora questioned.
He shook his head. ‘A client. A very important client from her business in the UK.’
‘Where?’ Isadora asked.
His mother then turned her attention to every single diner in the restaurant, scanning each one as if she could learn their inner workings and secrets just with one glance.
‘Table nine,’ Andras answered with a swallow.
He watched his mother focus in on Sonya and Patricia.
‘After dinner,’ he began. ‘When they have finished talking business I am sure—’
‘You will be meeting with Marietta,’ Isadora ended, plumping back down into her seat. ‘And you will send this Patricia to me.’
His throat dried up and he countered the anxiety by adjusting the flagon of wine on the table. ‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘She can’t wait to meet you.’
Isadora clapped her hands together. ‘Wake up, Timon!’ she shouted at Kira’s uncle whose eyes were closing. ‘We have much to get through.’
He needed to think of something and quickly. He only had two options now. Get Patricia out of the restaurant straight after her meal and beg her never to come back, or ask for her help. Spiros caught his eye and his brother held up the two lists like scrolls brought down from Mount Olympus. Right now he wasn’t sure whose shoes he would rather be in.
Thirteen
The vi
ew was spectacular: candy-pink bougainvillea trailing from the whitewood latticework that framed the window, the golden sand and stone beach, the bobbing boats tethered to the jetty and that forget-me-not-coloured sea barely moving, the tide a gentle back and forth, trickling over the shoreline.
Tess looked back to her phone, the pinwheel still going round and round searching for a connection to ‘Georgiou Taverna Free’. Why did technology seem to be so difficult here? It was fine on the coach. Did they just happen to be booked into the Internet blackspot of the island?
‘Oh! I’m going to have saganaki to start with,’ Sonya announced. ‘No, no wait … I’m going to have dolmades, that’s vine leaves and rice and herbs and—’
Tess pushed her phone to one side. ‘But neither of those end with the letter “a”,’ she teased.
‘Oh my! You’re right! So, I’d better have … taramasalata.’
Tess looked at the menu hoping there were no scallops. As much as she adored them, she still couldn’t face anything involving a shell just yet.
‘So, you didn’t mention the guy you had a spat with at the apartments was hotter than peri-peri sauce.’ Sonya leant over the table, hitching her red head to the right as Andras moved through the restaurant.
‘Sonya Culkin!’ Tess exclaimed.
‘Just looking, that’s all,’ Sonya stated, reaching for the water jug and pouring herself a glass. ‘I’m not silly enough to think that Joey doesn’t—’
‘Tch tch tch tch!’ Tess interrupted, finger to her lips.
‘Sorry, but there was actually this one woman dressed as Maid Marion at the Robin Hood Day last month he looked at for quite a long time.’ She sighed again. ‘And I’m not talking about her wimple here.’
Tess’s eyes went to Andras, balancing plates up those impressive forearms, moving his athletic limbs effortlessly between tables. How much wine was she going to have to get Sonya to drink before she reneged on the single thing?
‘OK, we should order some wine,’ Sonya said as if reading Tess’s mind. ‘Where did our little waiter go?’ She elongated her body upwards, eyes seeking. ‘He had nice eyes too, if I was looking.’
Tess looked back to her phone and pressed the screen. Still nothing was happening on the Wi-Fi front. She turned the Wi-Fi button to off. She was just going to have to phone the office tomorrow. Make up some excuse as to why she needed to speak to Russell. Then, when she knew Blackberry Boudoir was sorted, she could relax a little bit more.
‘Here he comes,’ Sonya announced, waving her hand in the air as Victor approached. She smiled as the waiter stopped and took out his notepad. ‘Could we order some white wine?’
Tess watched her friend’s cheeks flood with colour and her heavy mascaraed eyes begin a dance like two horny butterflies preparing to mate. Just how precarious was her relationship with Joey? Maybe there was more to this break business than met the eye.
‘White wine in one of those gorgeous flagons,’ Sonya continued.
‘Dragons?’ Victor questioned, looking confused.
Sonya laughed, her cheeks reddening further, a finger curled around a loose tendril of her auburn hair. ‘One of those jugs. The gold-coloured ones.’
Victor laughed and nodded. ‘Karáfa.’
‘Oh! Like carafe! Silly me!’
‘No,’ Victor answered. ‘Not silly.’ He smiled. ‘Very beautiful. Ómorfi.’
Before Sonya could start to melt from the attention, Tess interjected. ‘Do you have Dr Pepper?’ She swallowed. ‘To go with the wine?’
‘You are not well?’ Victor asked, looking slightly alarmed.
Sonya laughed. ‘It’s a drink.’
‘I do not think we have this here,’ Victor answered.
Tess sighed. This was Greece, not some tiny uninhabited island cut off from the rest of civilisation. She should be able to get a well-known brand of soft drink and an Internet connection.
‘I will ask the boss if he knows of this,’ Victor said.
‘Thank you.’
He left the table.
‘Do you really need Dr Pepper?’ Sonya asked.
‘I’d quite like one.’
‘But we’re having wine,’ Sonya said.
‘I know. I just could do with a sugar rush.’
‘Then have a Coke,’ Sonya said. ‘Coke is on the drinks menu.’
‘Why are you cross? Because I made Victor leave while you were flirting with him?’
‘I wasn’t!’
‘Eyelashes batting like a hovering hawk.’
‘We’re allowed to look,’ Sonya reminded her. ‘We said we were allowed to look.’
Tess made a grab for Sonya’s hands and held them tightly in hers. ‘Something isn’t right,’ she began. ‘I think this is way, way more than too many visits to Dunelm Mill, Son, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Sonya breathed out, shoulders shaking.
‘You’re keeping something back about Joey.’
‘Tch, tch, tch, tch,’ Sonya mimicked, averting her eyes and dropping them to the tablecloth.
‘You have to tell me everything,’ Tess stated. ‘Please, Sonya. I want to know what you’re worrying so much about.’
Sonya shook her head, emotion looking like it was about to brim over. ‘Joey promised me, when I asked him, that it had nothing to do with it but … I’ve been churning it all over since we got here and … I don’t think I believe him.’ A tear snaked out of her eye. ‘I mean, I know it was quite a while ago but …’ She sniffed. ‘He just came right on out with it and I didn’t know what to say. Well, I did know what to say – I practically recited the whole Collins English dictionary rather than talk about the subject he’d just dropped in there, completely unannounced.’
‘Came right on out with what?’ Tess asked, still holding Sonya’s hands.
‘There was no build up. No gentle questioning. It just happened, one day, when we were halfway through a spicy cheese-feast stuffed crust, you know, the new ones that burst with the little jalapenos and scotch bonnets—’
‘Sonya, what did he say?’ Tess demanded.
There was a sharp intake of breath and then: ‘He said … he said he’d changed his mind. He said how nice it might be to have a baby.’
Tess just stared at her friend, unblinking, almost waiting for the punchline.
‘Say something,’ Sonya whispered, squeezing Tess’s hands this time.
Tess swallowed. ‘Are you sure he said “baby”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not “Jay-Z”?’
‘No.’
‘Or “pup-py”?’
‘Why would he say Jay-Z or puppy?’
Tess shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m just thinking you misheard. That he didn’t say—’ She didn’t really want to say it again.
‘Baby,’ Sonya stated. ‘You can say “baby”.’
‘I don’t want to say it,’ Tess said.
‘I should have said it though, shouldn’t I?’ Sonya spoke. ‘I should have said it a long time ago, at the very beginning, but he said from the start that he didn’t want a family and so I thought I didn’t have to say it, and now he’s changed his mind and we’re on this break and I still haven’t said it.’ She sighed. ‘And I need to. Don’t I need to now? So he can make a proper decision about us … about me.’
‘Sonya …’
‘Because that’s got to be it, hasn’t it? Not Dunelm Mill. And if it is then we’re never getting back together.’
‘Sonya …’
‘Because a baby is the one thing I can never give anyone.’
Tess swallowed the lump in her throat and gave her friend’s hand another squeeze. ‘Oh, Sonya.’
‘I’m stupid,’ she sniffed. ‘I’ve been stupid to think I could carry on pretending—’
‘Not pretending,’ Tess stated. ‘Just not wearing a badge telling the world you can’t have children.’
‘But Joey isn’t a stranger on the Tube. Joey’s my boyfriend. My long-term boyfriend.’ She sighed. ‘I should
have known this was going to happen.’ She threw her arms up in the air. ‘I did know it was going to happen. I mean, that’s what people do, isn’t it? They fall in love, they get married, they have children …’
‘He told you he didn’t want children. And anyway, you know there are other options to having children rather than the traditional method.’
‘No one wants that!’
‘That’s not true,’ Tess said straightaway. ‘I mean, look at … look at Elton John.’
‘And you tell me how he and David Furnish were ever going to be able to go down the traditional route!’
She swallowed. She was making a complete mess out of this when she should be doing so much better. Sonya had confessed her inability to have children to draw out Tess’s jilted-at-the-altar past over those margaritas. A secret for a secret. Two sad stories that had bonded them even closer. And they’d both agreed. Once. They talked about their life-changing moments for that one time and then it was all put back in the box to never be cried over again. Except this summer seemed to be unlocking that box, spilling out the parts of their lives both women preferred to keep hidden away.
‘We can sort this out,’ Tess offered. ‘Honestly, we can have some wine and even though we said we wouldn’t, we can talk about it if that’s what it takes to make you feel better.’ She patted Sonya’s hand.
‘He updated his Facebook page today,’ Sonya informed her. ‘An old photo when he was with two Cavaliers and a wench I could tell was fertile just from her rosy cheeks.’
Tess’s jaw dropped. ‘When the fuck did you get signal?’
‘Excuse me.’
Tess turned her head. It was Andras, standing at their table. Just how long had he been there?
‘Please,’ he said, addressing Tess. ‘I am sorry, we do not have Dr Pepper here.’
‘Oh.’ It hardly seemed important now. ‘That’s OK.’
‘Perhaps I can get you something else?’ he offered.