Staying Out for the Summer

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘My parents had a very good marriage,’ Michalis finally answered. ‘I never once doubted how much they loved each other.’

  ‘That’s so nice.’

  ‘I think,’ Michalis began, ‘that marriage only works if both people keep trying every single day. Because life, it is difficult. We know that already, from our jobs, from what has happened to the world. But, even when my mother started to be sick, my father would do small things, romantic things, each and every day to make her smile.’

  ‘Like what?’ Lucie asked.

  Michalis smiled, remembering. ‘He made traditional Greek cookies that almost burned down the apartment. My father may be a butcher but he is not a baker.’

  ‘That is sweet.’

  ‘It might have been sweeter if he had used sugar instead of salt.’

  Michalis let the laugh leave his lips as he recalled the effort Dimitri had put into giving Lola the biscuits she craved. His father had sweated and toiled, getting flour all over himself as well as all over the kitchen, and he would not let Michalis assist. ‘My mother put the cookie in her mouth and said it was the best she had ever tasted.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I know,’ Michalis said as around him the audience began to clap and Meg descended from the stage in a waft of chiffon. ‘She knew how hard he had tried to please her, to make her happy. She told me not to eat the cookies, to get rid of them and say that she had eaten them all.’ He smiled. ‘To me, that is the mark of a marriage working.’

  ‘Did your father ever realise?’

  Michalis laughed again. ‘Of course. He tried one before I could throw them away. And, after he had worried about making my mother’s condition worse with the salt, he realised that it did not matter that he had made a mistake with the recipe. It only mattered that he had tried and my mother had loved it, and loved him for it.’

  He took in his own words and settled a little in his skin. People made mistakes. But most mistakes were not because people did not care. Sometimes it was a case of people caring a little too much… He wanted to believe that, he really did.

  *

  ‘Oh goodness!’ Meg exclaimed, throwing herself into her seat and fanning her face with her hand. ‘I don’t think my vocal cords have been exercised that much since the typing pool’s Christmas party of 1984.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a drink?’ Lucie said, pushing her glass towards her aunt. She did look very hot. It was another humid night and inside a busy bar where dancing was the order of the evening, the temperature was rising even more.

  ‘What is it?’ Meg asked, eyeing the liquid like it might have been spiked.

  ‘It’s a Mediterranean Manhattan!’ Gavin announced, bounding back into their circle all eyes and teeth and… was that a love bite on his neck?

  ‘What does it consist of?’ Meg asked, still not touching the glass and peering at the contents like it could contain a tiny yet very potent poisonous jellyfish that was going to leap out and sucker to her throat.

  ‘Mainly raki,’ Gavin said. ‘I made that one a double too.’

  ‘Gavin!’ Meg exclaimed, the joy of Kate Bush leaving her expression as well as her demeanour. ‘You shouldn’t do that!’

  ‘Do what?’ Gavin asked. He slapped a hand to his neck. ‘Oh gosh… has Barak made his mark?’

  ‘Barak?’ Lucie queried. ‘His name can’t be Barak.’

  ‘It is not like the president. It is a Greek name,’ Michalis informed. ‘It means “lightning”.’

  ‘Well! That completely explains why he has all the flashy moves,’ Gavin said, grinning.

  ‘I’m going to get rid of this and get us some water. It’s incredibly hot in here.’ Meg got to her feet, her gait a little unsteady.

  ‘Wait, what?’ Lucie said, jumping up. ‘What d’you mean you’re getting rid of it? It’s my drink!’ There it was again. Meg’s need to be in control of what Lucie did. And all those questions she wanted to ask about her mum were hammering on her mind. Meg was much older than her mum. Had she been like this with her? With strict parents and a strict sister, was that the reason Rita went looking for an outlet?

  ‘Oh, Lucie, it’s literally all alcohol. Double measures. You’ll thank me in the morning.’ Meg made to leave with the glass held tight in her hand.

  ‘No!’ Lucie said, reaching out and clasping fingers to the stem, pinkie wrapping around the straw. ‘Don’t do that! You said, in our kitchen, when you were practically wasted on ouzo, that we had to… get our dresses dirty and embrace everything!’

  ‘I know I did, darling, but everything in moderation, remember?’ Meg continued, smiling yet still very much trying to get the glass out of Lucie’s grasp.

  ‘Why? Why “everything in moderation”?’

  Lucie could feel herself losing control. She didn’t want to have a confrontation with her aunt. She had told Gavin not to say anything about the way she was feeling at the moment, that she needed space and wanted to get the timing right, yet here she was, in the middle of a rowdy bar, calling Meg out, almost daring her to spit some kind of truth to the background of a being-badly-tortured Alanis Morissette number. And right about now she simply wanted to shriek ‘I’m not my mother’.

  ‘It’s just a silly little drink,’ Meg said, her eyes going to Gavin and Michalis, the look insinuating that Lucie was making a fuss out of nothing.

  ‘Well,’ Lucie said. ‘If that’s all it is, then why can’t I drink it?’ She was almost goading her aunt now, she knew it. And as unsavoury as this whole moment felt, she couldn’t stop herself.

  She didn’t let Meg say anything else. Tearing the glass from her aunt’s hand, she dispensed with the straw and swallowed the contents like it was a drinking challenge. God, it was strong and it was making her throat wince a little, but she was not going to give in to showing any of that on her face.

  ‘Well, that was childish,’ Meg remarked, folding her arms across her chest.

  ‘Well,’ Lucie yelled. ‘Maybe if you stopped treating me like a child I’d stop having to act like one!’ She picked up Gavin’s glass and drank the contents of that too. ‘Yamas!’

  ‘OK,’ Michalis said, arriving at her side. ‘I think it is time we go.’

  That last drink hadn’t tasted very nice at all and Lucie’s stomach began to feel like the mixture inside it wasn’t happy to cohabit for much longer. ‘I think I need some fresh air.’

  She bolted for the outside.

  Forty-Eight

  Villa Psomi, Sortilas

  ‘I am such an idiot! Why did I do that?’ Lucie asked herself as much as Michalis as she marched circuits around the swimming pool glowing from the lights inside the water. ‘I shouldn’t have looked for the perfect moment. Because do they actually even exist?! No, I should have been brave and sat Meg down and asked her all the questions about my mum tonight. Instead, I drank all the spirits and made myself look stupid.’ Two espressos and a glass of water meant the temporary alcohol high had been alleviated, if not the crazy combination of liquids in her stomach.

  ‘You did not look stupid,’ Michalis told her.

  ‘You don’t have to be nice to me.’

  ‘You would like me to be not nice?’

  She stopped walking then, adjacent to the rattan sofa he was sitting on. ‘No, of course not. I just wanted tonight to be about making my own decisions and living this holiday to the full.’ She sighed. ‘Lafki was so beautiful. We should have stayed there. But I was wondering about Gavin and Meg – mainly Meg – and…’

  ‘Putting others first,’ Michalis said. ‘That is a very Greek quality you know.’

  ‘Philoxenia,’ Lucie said, her breathing slowing a little now she had come to a stop.

  ‘You know of this?’

  ‘Miltos told us about it when we went to see my wedding dress makers the very first night we were here.’

  ‘Come sit with me,’ Michalis encouraged, patting the space on the cushion next to him.

  ‘You shouldn’t want to sit with me,�
� Lucie said, plumping down next to him. ‘You should be running the other way and finding a new tourist to have fun with. Apparently I can’t have a good time like a normal person. Apparently I shout at relatives in public and scare taxi drivers.’

  ‘The taxi driver at Roda was not scared,’ Michalis reassured, putting his arm around her shoulders and drawing her close to him. ‘I have seen taxi drivers look much worse when they have encountered tourists behind the wheel of a car forgetting what side of the road they should be driving on.’

  ‘There’s still time to run,’ Lucie said. Although his body next to hers, sitting underneath another star-filled sky, the lights from Albania twinkling across the short stretch of sea separating the two countries, was doing all kinds of internal massage on her.

  ‘I think running could pull my stitches,’ he admitted. ‘And, Lucie, you should know, I do not want to find another tourist to have fun with.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he said so forcefully that it made her shiver.

  Perhaps now was her time to act. Make the first move and dare to take a chance. She got to her feet and wound her fingers around the thin straps of her sundress. ‘No running then,’ she whispered. ‘But how about swimming?’

  Michalis watched her ease the spaghetti straps down over her shoulders and couldn’t stop the instant reaction within him. It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced for so long he was almost second-guessing its existence here and now. Except he did know how he felt about her. It had been an instant hum of sexual attraction from the outset, but then it had quickly deepened and was deepening still. But was this too soon? Casual wasn’t his style but he hadn’t been able to commit to Thekli because of his job. Had anything changed? The fierceness of the pandemic was hopefully behind them but there were also many decisions he needed to make about his future. And Thekli was back in his life again, a spectre from the past reminding him that moving on wasn’t an option for everyone…

  ‘I should not get my stitches wet,’ he answered, hating himself.

  ‘Oh,’ Lucie said, the dress loose but still holding up over whatever lay beneath. ‘I… didn’t think.’

  And now he had made her feel worse than she already did over her fight with her aunt. He got to his feet and stood directly in front of her. ‘Lucie,’ he whispered, reaching out to touch her short hair. ‘I do not think you were talking about swimming. Am I right?’

  He heard her intake of breath as his fingers caressed her skin. What he would not give to trace a trail under that cotton dress, discovering her curves and dips…

  ‘If you were not talking about swimming,’ he began again. ‘If you were talking about… taking off our clothes and… sliding into the pool and… making love then…’

  ‘Stop,’ Lucie begged. ‘You can’t say all that and turn me down. Stitches or no stitches.’

  ‘Lucie,’ he breathed, his fingers running along her collarbone. ‘I am not turning you down.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘There is nothing I want more at this moment but…’

  But he was not worthy of her. He had made mistakes, whether they were intentional or not, no matter if he had tried his hardest. It was fact that he could hurt people, had hurt people. And he did not want to hurt her. But how could he ever move on if he never tried? Wasn’t that what second chances and forgiveness were all about? He shook his head, trying to straighten his thoughts. Was it safe to give in to this? Or should he still be looking over his shoulder?

  ‘But?’ Lucie asked, putting a hand on his shoulder and connecting their torsos.

  ‘But… if we come together like this, even if it is fun or… spontaneous… know that it will mean something to me.’ He swallowed.

  ‘It will mean something to me too,’ Lucie whispered. ‘I don’t think even I know how much yet.’

  He kissed her lips gently, perhaps a little teasingly, then held her away a little. ‘If we take off our clothes and we get into the water and be together then… you should know I will want to see you, for all of your time here.’

  ‘O-K.’

  ‘I will want to… kiss you in the village square and… hold you closer if the earth moves again and… listen to you tell me your thoughts.’

  His desire was flowing fast now, like the waterfall at nearby Nymfes, and he didn’t want to stop it. All he could see was Lucie’s perfect lips and the pure, soft, powerful peace in her eyes. It felt like she was this beacon of sanctuary calling him back from all his despair.

  ‘I feel the same,’ she answered. ‘It doesn’t have to be goodbye until easyJet closes the gate for boarding.’

  With that said, he ripped at the buttons of his shirt and threw it to the tiles, pulling her towards him. Instantly a shard of pain echoed through his wound as his body bumped her rib cage, but he wasn’t about to call a halt. Now Lucie’s dress fell to the floor and quickly afterwards, her underwear. With eager hands, she helped him out of his jeans until they were both standing next to the water, completely naked, breathing ragged.

  Despite the heat of the night air, Lucie was shaking. This man, this doctor, was perfectly formed in every which way. His physique really was a feast for the eyes and it was taking every bit of self-restraint to stop herself from indulging in a banquet right there and then.

  ‘You are so beautiful, Lucie,’ he told her, stepping forward and lowering his mouth to her neck.

  She closed her eyes and wriggled closer, wanting to feel every part of him. This was what living in the moment with no regrets was totally about.

  ‘Let us get in the water,’ Michalis whispered, his lips finding her mouth, his hands outlining the curve of her waist.

  ‘But… what about your stitches?’

  He raised his head and looked deep into her eyes then. ‘It was never really about the stitches,’ he told her. ‘I just… wanted us both to be certain.’

  She smiled then and stepped forward to the very edge of the pool. ‘Last one in—’

  Before she could finish her sentence, she was scooped up into Michalis’s arms, his muscular chest hard against her body as he strode them to the steps into the pool.

  ‘What will happen between us,’ Michalis told her, first foot landing in the water. ‘It will begin and end together. No first one. No last one. Always together.’

  Lucie liked the sound of that. And, as her bare bottom hit the water, she let out a squeal of pleasure and hoped there would be many more of those to come.

  Forty-Nine

  ‘Oh God, don’t stop! Don’t stop!’

  ‘That is good, yes?’

  ‘Oh, Michalis, yes, right there! Right there!’

  ‘Harder? Slower?’

  ‘Both! No… harder! Harder!’

  Michalis smiled, his fingers on Lucie’s shoulders, easing the muscles that were still far too tight for his liking. He dropped a kiss on the back of her head, inhaling the scent of her wet hair, just like he had done when they’d made love the first time. He dropped his hands and turned her around to face him, water splashing up with the motion.

  ‘That was so good,’ Lucie breathed, looping her arms around his neck and pressing her body against his again.

  ‘Only the massage?’ he asked with a raise of his eyebrow.

  ‘You know not only the massage,’ she answered, flicking at one of his pecs.

  He held her still, looking into her eyes the way he had when she had cried out his name. ‘You make me feel… how I used to feel,’ he told her. ‘You make me feel like me again.’

  He felt her take a deep breath, her chest rising and falling with his.

  ‘Well… you make me feel I can start to try and find out who I really am. And who I’m meant to be,’ she answered.

  ‘Then this is good,’ he stated. ‘For both of us.’

  ‘It is,’ Lucie agreed. ‘It really really is.’ She put her mouth to his and he closed his eyes, relishing the taste of strong coffee, strong cocktails and a little chlorine. It was the story of their
evening that had ended with the sweetest and most passionate connection.

  ‘Well! Cover me in glitter and feed me to the Pit Crew! Are you… naked?!’

  Michalis felt Lucie grab hold of him, burrowing herself into his body until she had all but disappeared. He put his arms around her, shielding her from the arrival of Gavin and another man at the side of the pool.

  ‘Yassas, Gavin,’ Michalis said, turning them both into deeper water to maintain some form of dignity.

  ‘Hello, Doctor!’ Gavin greeted, a crazy grin on his face. ‘Performing a deep internal examination were you?’

  ‘Gavin, go away!’ Lucie screeched. Then quieter, so only Michalis could hear – ‘Meg’s not with him, is she?’

  ‘No,’ Michalis said. ‘But there is someone else. Another man.’

  ‘The man from the bar? In the green T-shirt?’ Lucie queried. ‘Barak?’

  ‘Ochi,’ Michalis said. ‘Someone new.’

  Lucie gently unfurled herself a little, being careful not to show off bits Gavin hopefully had never seen before, despite his own carefree way about nudity. With her chin on Michalis’s shoulder and her eyes on the figures at the edge of the pool, the next word left her mouth like a projectile.

  ‘Simon!’

  She couldn’t believe the hospital canteen barista from back home was standing poolside here in Corfu. And why? Why was he here? It had to be some kind of coincidence, didn’t it?

  ‘Hi, Lucie,’ Simon answered, giving her a miniscule and slightly bashful wave.

  It was then Lucie re-remembered she was naked and drew herself into Michalis again. ‘What are you—’

  ‘Doing here? I know!’ Gavin interrupted. ‘It’s like the craziest thing ever, right? And I will never ever doubt drone footage again!’

  ‘So…’ Lucie said, deliberately leaving the word hanging in the air with the mosquitos.