“Oh, Anna,” Nikos said, wrapping her in a hug. “I know it’s difficult. But Christos will help with expenses. I know it’s not ideal, but you have people on your side.”
Anna pushed him away. “No, don’t you get it? I don’t.” She was surprised to find herself yelling. “I’m on my own here. It’s the entire freaking island against me. I don’t want to stay here for a month. I don’t want to stay here for a day. I just want my life to be normal again.”
Nikos stepped back, frowning. “I’m really sorry you feel that way,” he said. He was quiet for a moment before he continued. “Let me know when you want to start the work again. I’ll be here to help.”
“Really?” Anna asked.
“Of course,” he replied. “Wouldn’t want you having to stick around any longer than necessary.” He turned around and left, shutting the door hard behind him.
Anna felt a tear hit her chest, and she brought her hands to her eyes to wipe them. She slumped down on the bed, pushing her computer to the side so she could crawl under the covers.
Make that zero people who would give her the time of day. She could try to salvage things with Nikos, but did she even want to?
Of course I do, she thought, instantly cross with herself at her hash words to him. He had made her first few days on the island far more enjoyable than they would have been otherwise, and he had been so generous to help her. But there was no denying that she was attracted to him. And after what had happened with his cousin Elena earlier, it was probably a good thing not to be spending all her time with a cute townie. Summer flings were for summer vacations, and this was no vacation. She had work to do.
But for the moment, Anna couldn’t bring herself to do anything but lie in her bed and sob. This was going to be a long month.
7
“Bullshit!” Lizzy shouted over the phone. “I don’t buy that for a second.”
“I don’t care if you believe it,” the lawyer said. “It’s true.” Sofia Kafatos sat across from Anna at the table in the summer house. She was the first person on the island Anna had seen in a suit.
“You’re telling me that dump is over the twenty-thousand-euro tax threshold?”
Anna winced slightly at hearing her sister call the summer house a dump, but she couldn’t disagree, either.
“It probably is,” she said.
“Even without a separate entrance?” Anna asked.
“This is a nice plot of land,” Sofia said. “It would be easy enough for the next buyer to construct a drive to connect with the road. It may not be in great condition, but the property itself is likely worth at least eighty thousand euros. If you were in a more touristy area or on the other side of the hills, it would be worth twice as much, even in its current condition. Though it will need its own driveway and be independent of the main house’s utilities before it hits the market.”
Anna heard Lizzy sigh on the other end of the line, but with the poor connection it just sounded like static.
“Remember though,” Sofia said, “you don’t pay tax on the first twenty thousand, even if it’s over the threshold. Then it’s five per cent on the next forty, and ten per cent on the next hundred and sixty. So, if it were worth eighty thousand, which I’m not saying it is because I’m not qualified to value it, then you’d only pay four thousand euros in tax, and you have a year to pay it since you are foreign nationals. But if you suspect the value of the property will go up before you sell, you should pay now. Any other valuation may mean your tax bill goes up, too.”
Anna closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders back. All these numbers and deadlines were making her head spin. She had no idea what the right thing to do was, or if she was even being given an option at this point.
Lizzy cleared her throat. “Sofia?” she asked, and the lawyer leaned forward. “Is it still possible to turn down the inheritance?”
“What?” Anna shouted. “After everything I’ve gone through to get it for us?”
Sofia held up a hand. “Your father’s will was verified just over three months ago. So, you still technically have a couple of weeks before you have to claim anything.”
Anna shook her head. As if she could see it, Lizzy replied. “Banana, we will talk about this later. Sofia, I think we’re done for today. We’ll call you when we’ve made a decision.”
“Of course,” Sofia said, gathering her things. She looked at Anna. “You know where to find me.”
As Sofia left, Anna picked up the phone and took it off speaker. “What the hell was that about?” she asked. “I’ve flown all the way out here and spent over a thousand dollars on home-improvement goods, and you’re thinking you might not want it anymore?” Anna had considered taking Christos’s offer to help pay for things, but it hadn’t felt right, so she had practically drained her account, assuming it would be overflowing soon once the house sold. She wasn’t left with much.
“Two thousand euros is a lot of money, Banana. We don’t have that right now.”
“Oh, but you were fine with me spending half my savings on a plane ticket and home repairs? Yeah, right! That money is all I have right now, too.”
“At least you have a job that pays you!”
Anna sighed. She didn’t reply. She knew she should tell Lizzy about Marcus. About her job. About everything. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to.
It turned out she didn’t need to.
“You lost your job, didn’t you, Banana?”
Again, Anna didn’t reply.
“Does this have to do with Marcus?”
More silence.
“Fine, Anna, don’t answer me.” It was jarring to hear Lizzy call her anything other than Banana. “But know this. I wouldn’t be saying this if it weren’t desperately true. Martin and I just can’t afford two grand right now. We have a lot going on. If you want to pay for it and then claim it back from me after the sale, fine. If you want to give up the inheritance, fine. If you want me to sign the whole thing over to you and leave you alone, fine. I’ll do what you want. But we just don’t have the money.”
Anna began to cry. She had been doing a lot of that in the last week. “Lizzy, what am I supposed to do? Tell me what the right choice is.”
“I can’t do that,” she said. “It’s your money. It’s your decision.”
The two were quiet for a long time, Lizzy’s breathing the only indication she was still there. They had always been good at that – sitting in silence to let each other process. It was several minutes before Lizzy broke that silence.
“Banana, I have to go. Let me know what you decide.”
“Love y—” Anna started, but the line was dead.
Anna woke to a knock on the door. She had lain on her bed after hanging up with Lizzy, confused and emotionally exhausted. She must have fallen asleep.
Putting her feet on the floor, she shuffled over toward the door, but as she reached a couple of feet in front of the entrance, she felt a sharp, searing pain shoot through her toe and into her foot. She screamed and fell to the floor, clutching her leg close to her chest.
The door burst open, and Elena came in, long hair flying. “What the hell happened?” she asked, holding her hand under Anna’s foot, which was now dripping with blood.
“It must be a shard from when Nikos stepped on a bowl,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Nah, that’s Jewish weddings I think,” Elena said. “The Greeks are plates. And we don’t really do that anymore.”
“Huh?” Anna asked, unable to understand anything but the fact that her toe was now throbbing.
“Never mind,” Elena said, running to the kitchen and returning with a clean, damp cloth. “You’ll have to tell me the story later. For now, let’s get you healed up.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a makeup bag. After some rummaging, she found a pair of tweezers. She took the cloth and dabbed at Anna’s toe, which made her wince from the pain.
“Sorry,” Elena said. “I’ll be
as quick as I can.” Then she put the tweezers close to Anna’s toe, pinched them, and pulled. Anna screamed as a half-inch shard came out of her toe. Elena wrapped her foot in the cloth and squeezed. The pressure helped the pain subside a bit.
Elena held the tweezers up close to Anna’s face so she could see.
“I felt the whole thing,” Anna said. “I really don’t need to see it.”
“Oh, please,” Elena responded, “I’ve had eyebrow hairs tougher than this guy.” Then she smiled.
“Let’s get you to the table,” she added, offering Anna a hand. Anna accepted, and Elena pulled her up on her good foot and held onto her as she hopped the few feet to the table. Anna pulled out a chair and sat down.
“I’ll be back,” Elena said and, as quickly as she had appeared, was gone.
Anna’s phone was on the table, so she picked it up. It was nearly ten at night. She had napped for almost eight hours. That probably didn’t even qualify as a nap anymore, just a normal sleep.
She unlocked the phone so she could sneak in one more Instagram session on her remaining data, but she must have left it switched on because she had a notification saying she had used it all up. She connected to the WiFi instead.
For the first time, Anna wondered what was happening with the utilities. The property was legally separate from Christos and Eirini’s, but clearly they were still paying for utilities, as the lights and water still worked. She considered hoping they wouldn’t notice but quickly decided that probably wouldn’t work very well in the long run. She would have to start buttering them up for now so they wouldn’t leave her in the dark.
At that moment, Elena stormed back in through the door with a first aid kit tucked under one arm. She knelt down in front of Anna and unwrapped the cloth from her foot, examining the wound.
“I’m sure you didn’t come here to wrap up my yet-to-be-injured foot,” Anna said. “Did you need something, or were you just coming to say hi?”
“Nikos told me what happened yesterday,” Elena said as she dug through the kit. “What you said. I wanted to talk to you about it.”
Anna shrugged her shoulders. “I was upset, but I wasn’t wrong.”
Elena stopped tending to her foot and looked up at her. “But, see, that’s it. You are wrong. It’s not the entire island against you. Nikos has been bending over backward trying to make sure you know that you have a friend here.” She looked back down as she squirted antiseptic onto a pad and dabbed it on Anna’s toe.
Anna winced as the alcohol made contact with the wound, stinging her toe. She fought the urge to twitch her foot; she didn’t want to kick Elena in the face while she was trying to help her. She didn’t need to piss off another of her allies.
“I’m sorry I said that, but it sure feels like I’m alone in this. I have to make this massive decision all on my own. And Nikos would influence that decision.”
Elena raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah? You crushing on my cousin?”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Not like that necessarily. I just mean that he was so close with Giorgos, and he works for Christos. It doesn’t really seem like he would be that objective.” And, yes, I’m crushing on your cousin, and it makes it harder to be objective.
“Sure,” Elena said, pursing her lips as she wrapped a bandage around the now-covered wound and the rest of Anna’s foot. “There, all done. Let’s see how it feels to walk on it.”
She helped Anna stand up and then motioned for her to take a step forward. The wound was in her third toe, so it didn’t carry much weight. She could walk relatively normally.
“Thank you,” Anna said. “I’m not sure what I would have done if that had happened without you here.”
“To be fair, it probably wouldn’t have happened today if I hadn’t knocked on the door.”
Anna laughed. “Still, better than it happening with me on my own. I’m not great with blood, especially my own. You, on the other hand, were on it.”
“Yeah, well, my mother was a nurse,” Elena said. “She sort of drilled it into me to be prepared for stuff like this.”
Anna sat down on the bed and hugged a pillow to her chest. Elena sat down next to her, placing a hand on her knee.
“You know, why don’t I help you with this decision?” Elena said. “I’m definitely honest, and I didn’t know your dad that well. Plus, I inherited my mom’s place when she died, so I know a little about this stuff.”
Elena had a matter-of-fact look on her face that made Anna feel she could trust her to be objective. Maybe it would be nice to talk it through with someone.
“Well, the issue is that my sister can’t afford to help pay the tax on it. But we have to pay the tax before I do all the work, or the amount we have to pay will go up, and I won’t get the money back that I’ve already spent on getting here and buying new stuff.”
Elena nodded her head as Anna spoke. “Why are you fixing it up instead of just putting it on the market as is? I know you wouldn’t get as much for it, but you could still sell it, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “But if I’m going to be here until it sells, I don’t want to live like this. Plus, I looked it up, and if I fixed it up, I could more than double my investment.”
“And you don’t have the money to pay for it yourself?”
“Well,” Anna replied, “technically I do, but it would mean using the rest of my savings, which would mean I would have to use the money from the sale to be able to afford a plane ticket home. Which is fine, since I don’t have a job anymore, but my last pay check comes through this week, and I’d have to live on that until I left. And since it’s not even enough to get me home, I don’t know how realistic that is.”
Elena nodded some more, considering what Anna was saying.
“Or,” Anna continued, “I could leave on my flight in two days and refuse the inheritance, and the house would go to Christos and Eirini.”
“But you don’t want to do that?”
Anna paused a moment before responding, but she already knew the answer. “No, I don’t. I’ve flown all the way out here, I’ve invested a lot already in fixing it up, and I think it’s only fair that we get the money from the house after everything Giorgos put us through.”
“Okay,” Elena said, paying no notice to her comment about Giorgos. She seemed to be holding up her promise to be objective. “I think you should do it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Of course. It’s what you want, and it makes sense. And we can do it.”
“We?”
“Yes, of course we. Nikos and I will help you with the house. Between Christos and me, I promise you won’t go hungry. And then you get to take it one step at a time.”
Anna took a deep breath. Maybe she could do this. “I don’t know,” she said. “My head is still sort of spinning. And there’s still the matter of the whole island being against me, even if you two are helping. And that’s assuming Nikos will get over what I said.”
“Well, that’s just a little dramatic. We’re all adults, and people will learn to live with your decision. Life goes on. But why don’t you sleep on it? I’ll come over in the morning with some coffee. It’s my day off, so we can spend the morning crunching some numbers and figuring this thing out. I can even change your bandage.”
Anna nodded. Despite her sleep, she still felt pretty tired. These last few days must have really taken it out of her, she realised, what with the physical labor of getting everything for the renovations and the emotional labor of the decision she had to make. More rest would be good.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Elena said, squeezing Anna’s knee and getting up.
“Yes, see you then,” Anna replied with a wave as Elena walked out the door. She saw that Elena had left her first aid kit on the table, probably in case anything went wrong in the night. At least she’d be back in the morning.
A few minutes later, Anna hobbled over to the kitchen to grab a pre-bedtime snack, deciding to take the whole tray
of pastries with her so she wouldn’t have to get up again. As she sat on her bed eating a piece of bougatsa and opened her laptop, she wondered if it was possible to be in love with a dessert. She might end up deciding to stay in Santorini just for the food alone. She leaned carefully over the tray as she ate so she wouldn’t get drops of custard or flakes of filo on the new sheets.
Licking her fingers, she scrolled through some Manhattan job listings she had pulled up on. Annoyingly, it seemed that all she was qualified to do after spending a whole year as a gallery assistant was… be a gallery assistant. And she didn’t want to do that anymore.
Anna looked over at her camera, which she had unpacked and put on the bookshelf by the door. She would have to take it out at some point; the island was too beautiful for her not to take photos. But, for now, she just stared at it.
She hadn’t taken a single photo since she had started at the gallery. She had thought about it occasionally, wondering why she didn’t just go out one weekend and shoot. She always chalked it up to being around so much talent at the gallery that she felt intimidated. But now she realized that it had been because of Marcus. She hadn’t wanted him to ever feel like she was using him or her position to try to become a photographer, even if that’s what she would have wanted.
Now she wondered if she should have taken more advantage of her situation. She’d spent so much time caring about what he would think – working harder than anyone during the day, and being as passive and inoffensive as possible when she was with him at night – when she could see clearly now that he had never spared such a thought for her.
On a whim, Anna typed, “MarMac Emerging Talent contest” into the search bar. She clicked over to the website and read through the rules. The deadline was eleven days away, but she was only ten days away from not being an employee anymore. The terms said nothing about former employees or anyone with a relationship with Marcus. So Anna downloaded the form and filled it out, dating it the one day that it would be valid. She uploaded it to an email along with the images she had taken for her Forgotten Manhattan Landmarks series. And then she set the email to send on June 8, just eleven days away.
The Summer House in Santorini Page 6