“Hello,” I hear above me.
The sun is blinding, but instantly I know who it is—and my heart races. Damn it. How did he find me? I should be feeling stalked but through the glare, I see his warm smile and … well … he is simply very handsome. And seems genuine.
“Hi.”
“Do you mind if I set down?”
“No, that’s fine. How are you?” I ask as I set my book down and sit up a bit taller, so my tummy roll hopefully flattens out a bit.
“I am good. How are you?”
“I’m doing well, too.” I respond.
“I did not see you last night at The Acropolis Bar.” Then he adds, “I was hoping to see you there.”
“No, I didn’t go out. Actually, when I saw you and your friends that night, it was the first time I had been out to a bar here in Kamena Vourla.”
“Really?” he sounds disbelieving.
“I actually came to Greece just to relax. And see a few sites. I just haven’t gotten out of town yet because it’s been so nice.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A month plus eight days.”
“More than a month!” another disbelieving tone. Then he continues with, “That’s nice. That’s very … very nice.”
“What do you mean by ‘very, very’?”
“I guess I am just tremendously tired and think it would be nice to stay in … one place for some time.”
“Why are you tremendously tired?” (I try not to sound like I am teasing him, but I can’t remember the last time I heard the words tremendously and tired put together.)
“Some friends and me traveled from Peru, where I live, of course, to Italia and spent twelve days in Napoli, Roma, Venezia, Firenze, and Milano.” I love the way he uses the Italian names for these cities rather than bastardizing them with some English version. “Then we took the sheep to Kerkyra. We stay there for two days, magnificent, from there a bus to Athina. We saw Acropolis, of course, then we go to Mykonos, Ios, and Santotini, then back to Athina. My friend is a culture teacher … um … I think it’s called social-something class. Anyway, he wants to see Delphi, so we go to Delphi, too, last week.” When I hear Delphi, where I am planning to go, my interest is piqued, but I also start noticing more grammar issues when he speaks more quickly. “And now we are here for four days since this town is on the way back from Delphi—” Just four days? my heart begins asking—“to finally relax, then Skiathos, an island we heard is a big party, then back here for one night, and finally back to Athina and fly home again.”
“My goodness, I can imagine how tired you are. I am tremendously tired just hearing it all! And all those Italian cities in just two weeks. Did you really get to see anything?”
“My friend, the teacher, had it all planned, and we just follow. But, yes, it was long, and I didn’t like seeing Italia that way. I prefer to stay one week in Firenze and one week in Milano. Those are my favorite.”
“Really? You liked Milan that much? I have never been to Italy, unfortunately, but I always imagined Rome and Venice would be my favorites.”
“They are very nice, too, but in Roma my friend got his wallet pickpocket. That’s how you say, right? And my other friend had his camera grabbed off him, so it left us with … how do you say? Alcohol taste in our mouth.”
I laughed. I didn’t mean to. “You mean a ‘bad taste in your mouth’? What about Venice? I have always dreamed of going to Venice. I can just visualize the buildings that melt into the water. The photos I have seen are just simply breathtaking, just seems so romantic there … ” I say while my mind travels with the countless images I have seen of that city.
“Yes, it is very beautiful, but there was too many people in July. So, so many people everywhere! I don’t like too many people. It was not fun. I walk in the streets and there are people everywhere! We wait more than two hours in line just to enter the Palazzo Ducale. And then inside, more people. Oh my gosh!”
I find his expressions so sincere and adorable. “So, what did you like so much about Milano?” I decide now to add the “o.”
“It was nice and clean, and,” he smiles widely, “I love to shop. I spend hours in the Armani shop, the Hugo Boss shop. Of course, I don’t buy anything … well one small thing,” that he doesn’t elaborate on, “but I imagine one day to come back with money and my wife and buy both of us something amazing.”
Wife. Did he just mention a wife?
“So, you’re married.” I say as a matter of fact.
He laughs, “No! What I mean is when I marry, I will bring my wife.”
I decide not to pursue the wife conversation and ask: “What else did you like about Milano?”
“There was this small street that looked like a ‘V,’ and at the end, were a few cafés. And a restaurant and they had a pizza that was yum-yum-so-good.” As he says this, he licks his lips in a childlike way.
“What kind of pizza?”
“It called margarita.”
“Isn’t that without meat? Are you a vegetarian?”
This comment gets a loud roar of laughter from him.
“Me?” he says as he points to his chest, “NO WAY! I love meat. But the waiter said I should try, and I do not know it was no meat. But then it was just was SO good. After, I ate this pizza, NINE times while I was at Italia!” He is such an animated fellow that I find myself smiling inside.
There is a temporary pause in the conversation; then he asks me, “So what is your job, Thair?”
“I’m a teacher. Well, a community college professor.”
His eyebrows lift.
I wonder if he’s impressed or curious about the community part. I am not sure people around the world understand the concept of community college.
“I work at a school, too. At the American International School of Lima.”
A teacher too? My heart flutters. Maybe he’s a literature teacher and loves books as much as I do; maybe a language teacher and can help me work on my Spanish? Maybe a math teacher? Whatever subject, someone who will understand the wrath of grading student papers! I loved having that in common with Jessica, a lover but also a colleague who understood how challenging it is to be a teacher and that June, July, and August are necessary parts of the job. Most people think teachers are spoiled to have that much vacation, but what they don’t realize is that those three months aren’t a perk; they are essential. When a teacher is working, there is never a day off—weekends are for planning or grading. It’s nine months of pure work. Ravi never understood this. He always demanded my time.
But why was I thinking all this? Who cares if this Gabriel guy is a teacher? He will soon leave Kamena Vourla, and I will never see him again.
“So what do you teach?” I decide to ask anyway.
He chuckles. “Oh, I am not a teacher. No way! I work in the office in the school. In the accounting area.”
Perfect. Saved. Someone who certainly doesn’t understand grading, someone who probably doesn’t like to read. Someone certainly not for me.
“What about your friend? You said he was a teacher.”
“Yeah, the two guys I travel with are teachers. Both American. I know them by playing soccer on Fridays at the school. Cool guys. Party guys.”
Great. More partiers.
“So what about you? You like to party?” I say this with some sarcasm. I am so done with partying, especially after the other night.
He looks down sheepishly then says, “Actually, I really like to eat.”
Eat?
“What I mean is I like to go and try restaurants, but my buddies like to spend their money on booze at night and museums at the day. To be honest, I really don’t like museums. I prefer to see a few important things fast, then enjoy a nice restaurant. In Firenze, I took a bus alone to Toscana and had the most good lunch at a wine house.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Yeah, it was … okay-nice.”
“Why just ‘okay’?” I ask, wanting an explanation for his qu
alifier.
“Well,” he chuckles again, “I guess I am too romantic. I was thinking it would be nice to share it with my wife.”
Damn, that wife word again.
“Can I ask you a question: why do you keep referring to a wife? Couldn’t you share it with, say, someone special?”
“Like a friend? No way!” he laughs.
“Not necessarily a friend, I mean … a romantic partner, but why does she have to be ‘a wife’?”
He looks straight at me, swivels his legs to the side of the lounge chair, takes off his gold-rimmed Aviator glasses and says, somewhat seriously, but still with a smirk on his face. “I am not an easy guy. So when I meet a nice girl who I am sure, I will marry her, so she does not leave me.”
My gosh, did he just say that? Should I laugh? Run?
I choose to laugh. “You’re funny.” I say.
“Thank you.” He smiles, then his face drops, “But I am serious. I can be like the story, you know, Grumpy.’
“What makes you ‘grumpy’?”
“Lots of things. Loud kids in restaurants when parents don’t make them polite. When someone says they call, and then don’t. When I pay a lot for a movie and it is stupid. When I wake up and see my sister drink the juice that my mama made for me. You know, things like that.”
“Wow! That sure is an interesting, comprehensive list. I guess it’s good that you know what makes you grumpy.” I say this so seriously that he feels the need to defend himself.
“But I am not always like that. I am more times happy. And even more happy when I am with someone I like.” And then without reservation adds, “And I like you.”
I find myself blushing and sweating, so I say, “I need to take a dip. Will you be here when I get back, or should we say good-bye now?”
“Good-bye? Why? Let’s swim! I love the water.” He jumps up, pulls off his T-Shirt (one without a mountain on it) and runs to the shore. “Come!”
I stand up a bit self-consciously, thinking about my soft thighs and dimpled derrière. I try to reprogram the negative body messages, but it’s already too late. So, I stand up straight, choosing confidence over self-punishment; okay, Mr. Gabriel, here I come. I take off my sunglasses, put them back in their case, and strut into the water. Gabriel is already in the water splashing about. He’s doing handstands and then starts swimming towards my direction, but before he reaches me, he takes a big breath and swims under me and blows bubbles. I find myself laughing.
When he resurfaces he says, “It’s amazing, isn’t it?
“Yes, it is.”
“Can I tell you what I love about this place?”
“What?” I ask.
“I love the mountains are behind, like this place is closed to the world, the way you are in the water and feel like the mountains are right there.” As he says this, he reaches his hand out, “Like you put your hand out and touch them.” Then he sinks under the water, hand still straight up in the air.
When he resurfaces with a big smile, we begin to tread water, “So what brings you to Italy and Greece, specifically, I mean, from all the countries in the world?”
“It is always my dream to come to Greece; Italia was the choice of my friends. Most regular Peruvians can’t afford Europe. The airline ticket only is about $2,000! But when my American friends say I can share the rooms with them, and they don’t mind to pay a bit more, I save for this trip for more than a year. And it’s been good.” Suddenly serious, he adds, “But not perfect.”
I decide not to question him.
We make our way to the water’s edge, with the sea still up to our knees, continue to talk of other things. For some reason, I am no longer self-conscious in my too small, too old, sun-bleached bikini; instead, I am beyond comfortable in Gabriel’s company.
Then I hear myself ask: “Why has your holiday not been perfect?” I imagine the sob story of a lost love, of an ex-girlfriend who he had imagined seeing these places with.
“Please, no laugh, I mean … don’t laugh, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So, I tell you that I save for this trip a long time, right? Well I save because it’s my thirtieth birthday.”
“Oh, happy birthday,” I add genuinely.
“No,” he smiles, “my birthday already pass, but gracias. It was when we were in Venezia. So I do reservations for a nice restaurant on the water for me and my two friends to bring in my birthday.”
“Bring in your birthday? I’m sorry what does that mean?”
“Yes, in Peru we celebrate the night before until 12:00 a.m. then say feliz cumpleaños and salud the birthday person. So me and my friends go at 9:00 p.m. to have dinner. So pretty the place. With purple table clothes and candles. And the food. Yum-yum,” he does his licking-lips thing again. I can’t help but giggle. “So they eat fast, don’t look at the view, only the girls that go by, and by 10:00 p.m. they have anxiety to leave. I buy one other round of drinks because I know this will keep them, so we drink until 11:00 p.m. but then they say, ‘Man, come on! Let’s go to the club!’ I offer other round, but they want to leave. I have no choice, so I pay the bill. I offer since they will never eat in a restaurant like that. I use my credit card and we leave at 11:15 p.m. At 12 a.m. when it rings my thirtieth birthday, I am at a bar with three too tall Hungarian woman with too much red lipstick, and I don’t understand what they say. My one friend is drunk trying to … you know … to get with one tall girl, and the other friend, I don’t know. He is somewhere. So then, I think, where is my wife?”
The wife again. I am not sure what to think of his story. Is he one of those trapped between a boy’s and a man’s life? He seems like he wants to settle down. That’s obvious, or is it really? Is he just one of those men or women who needs someone to feel complete? Gosh. I am so glad that I am not looking for a husband … or a wife … anymore.
“See, you don’t say nothing? What you thinking, Thair?”
“Hmmm. A lot of things. I guess I was just thinking that I was in a similar place, like you are now, when I was in my early thirties.”
“How old are you now?” blunt, to the point. I wonder about the etiquette of asking a woman her age in his country. But I respond, kind of enjoying the directness.
“I’m thirty-six.”
“Really?” That look of unbelievability. Am I to think he finds me younger?
“I thought you were about thirty-four or thirty-five.”
Is that a compliment? Slashing one or two years off a woman’s age? My only thought is that I appreciate his honesty.
“So Thair, you have, what you say earlier, a special someone?”
“No, no, special someone.”
“Good!” He exclaims. “Then, you will go to dinner with me tonight. Yes.” He says this more as a statement than a question.
I find myself looking away, my eyes dropping to my toes, watching them wiggle under the water. I know I want to go. Everything in my heart tells me I would like to spend some more time with Gabriel, but shoot. It’s that damn brain. My logos. He’s only thirty years old. Here only one more day. Peruvian for god sake!
“Thair, why do you stop?” he says this with a high degree of sensitivity. There is a large part of me that is hesitant. He sounds too smooth. Almost like he’s played this role before. Am I being a sucker for his good looks and love of food and shopping?
“Gabriel … I just don’t know. I really don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Thair, why not a good idea? Tell me everything, what you thinking?” Part of me thinks he’s missing his helping verbs, and part of me thinks: don’t go! Another part wants me to hear him say: it’s just dinner, relax, it’s just dinner. But instead he says, “You think it is not a good idea because you like me too much, after dinner we fall in love, and then you are sad, right?”
“Ha!” I say out loud. Cocky bastard! But could he be right? Am I afraid of a summer romance? A quick, deep affair that will inevitably come to an end?
“Ha!” he repeats,
and smiles with those big, wide teeth. A good smile always defeats me. He continues: “Think, if we have a great dinner and fall in love, that will be excellent. If we have a bad dinner and don’t fall in love, that will be good too since you live in America and me, in Peru.”
“But the first one won’t be good,” I repeat, “and for the same reasons as the second scenario.”
“Oh, Thair,” he says, as his hairy chest heaves, “Please. Make me happy. I like you and you like me, right? Now let’s eat some good food. You like to eat too, right?”
Me? I love to eat.
“I saw this restaurant called El Camino at the end of town. It has delicious Italian food. It is on the beach. I saw the food when Bob, Jake, and me were having a beer next door before going out last night.”
Italian food in Greece? True, I have been living off of a diet of village salads and souvlakia, and pasta sounds like a nice change.
“Okay, Gabriel, but only if we go Dutch.”
“Go Dutch? You have a Holland restaurant you want to try?”
I laugh again, so cute. “I mean, we’ll pay for our own.”
“Oh, Dutch is a saying?”
“Yes, it means we’ll each pay for our own dinner.”
“Oh, yes. I mean, no. Yes, I now understand expression. But you pay for your own? Why?”
“Why?” I find myself saying out loud what is in my head without editing my comments for diplomacy. “I want to be sensitive to your budget, and … let’s just say, I like to take care of myself.”
“You can take care every day when I am not here. Tonight, I pay, then next time … you pay! And we go to an even BETTER restaurant!” He laughs loudly.
I feign a smile. Hmmm? First time young hunk pays; next time old broad takes care of the more expensive bill? I don’t like the sound of that either. Gosh, I’m so complicated.
Nonetheless, I hear myself say, “Fine,” as if there will be a next time.
We walk out of the water and sit down again; he asks me if I mind if he lights a cigarette. I do mind, but I just nod my head and say: “Okay.” We chat for about another hour; then it’s time for lunch and I am ready to go. I’ve already spent too many hours with this guy, especially if I will be seeing him again tonight.
The Greek Persuasion Page 24