The Summer House in Santorini

by Samantha Parks

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Anna said, holding up the paper. “He clearly had dreams and plans at one point.”

  Nikos looked at Anna with a furrowed brow, like there was something he didn’t want to say.

  “What?” she asked. “Out with it!”

  “Well, it seems like whatever happened with your mom, losing his daughters and all… it must have had a pretty major effect on him.”

  Anna felt herself welling up with emotion at the realization, and clearly Nikos could see it, too.

  “No, no, I don’t mean that you guys did anything wrong. I just mean that any kind of life event…”

  The tears were coming anyway, and there was nothing Anna or Nikos could do to stop them. As they started to flow down Anna’s face, Nikos stopped stammering and wrapped her in a hug instead.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t want to say anything.”

  “I know,” she replied, the sound muffled in his shirt. She pulled back. “But you’re right. Of course, you are. You think I haven’t wondered over the last few months if that’s why his health deteriorated? But what could I have done? I was six when he left, and I only had my mother to tell me what had happened.”

  Nikos put his forehead against hers. “Oh, Anna, nobody blames you for anything that happened to your father. Of course people wish things had panned out differently. That you’d been allowed to visit him. That you hadn’t been lied to. But no one thinks it’s your fault.”

  Anna began to sob, collapsing into Nikos’s embrace. He hugged her shoulders and ran a hand over her hair, shushing her softly. They stayed that way for a while as Anna thought about the letters her father had written. If her mother had lied to her about her father’s infidelity, that means she had wasted the rest of her father’s life being unjustly angry with him. He had been sitting here halfway around the world in a dingy cottage – something he used to care so much about but toward the end could barely manage to keep clean – knowing that his daughter hated him and knowing that he had done nothing to earn that hate. Despite knowing she was too young to have done any differently, Anna was furious with herself. She had missed out on so much, and there was no way to get it back.

  No wonder everyone was hesitant to welcome her. At least Lizzy had come to the funeral. Anna had waited months before swanning over and collecting the house he had left her so she could earn enough money to support herself while she “followed her dreams.” What an incredibly privileged and entitled thing for her to expect to be able to do, especially since, from what she understood, most people on the island had never left Greece.

  “For the first time, I understand why everyone has been so hostile toward me,” she said between sobs. “I would be hostile too if one of my friends had been through all of that only to have his house sold out from under his parents’ feet after he died.”

  Nikos pulled her closer and gently kissed the top of her head. “You have Elena and me, and we don’t think that. We know you just want to do the right thing for yourself and your sister. We wouldn’t be helping you if we didn’t believe that.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said, pushing back so she could look at Nikos. “I know I told you before I was in this alone, but I don’t think that anymore. I didn’t even think that then. I couldn’t do this without you.”

  Nikos smiled slightly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Anna fell back into his arms as they lay back on the bed. All that effort keeping herself at a distance throughout the evening, and here she was now wrapped up in bed with him. But romance was the furthest thing from her mind. With her mind spinning and her emotions reeling, all she cared about was that for the first time she was lying next to a man that made her feel understood.

  11

  As Anna locked the door of the summer house, she mentally double-checked that she had everything she would need for the day. It had been so long since she had done any real shooting. She had brought three lenses, two extra batteries, an extra memory card, and a small tripod. She also had a spare dress and a towel with her. The camera equipment was for her shoot with Elena, but Nikos had instructed her to bring a change of clothes as well. Given that he had also told her to wear a swimsuit, she assumed they were getting in the water somewhere, and it was about time. She had been living on an island for weeks and had yet to go in the sea. She had tried to force herself to choose the more conservative one-piece she still had from the summer she spent lifeguarding, but she couldn’t resist grabbing her white crocheted bikini instead, throwing it on under a flowy white blouse and denim cut-offs.

  She heard the sound of a motorbike pulling up outside, and when she turned around, saw Nikos walking through the gate with a helmet on.

  “Um, am I supposed to ride on that thing with you?” she asked.

  Nikos grinned. “Come on, it’s the perfect day for it!”

  Anna laughed and shook her head. “No wonder you drive the truck everywhere you can.”

  “Come on,” Nikos said with a wave. “Elena is meeting us in town.”

  Anna walked through the gate to see a mint green Vespa parked in the drive. Nikos offered her a helmet, so she took it, put it on, made sure her backpack was secure, and hopped on the back.

  This obviously wasn’t the first time she had been this close to Nikos, but it was the first time she had been this close without tears streaming down her face, and it was a much different experience. As she wrapped her arms around his waist, she felt how firm his abs were, and the memory of him wearing nothing but a towel flashed through her mind. She tried her best to push it aside, but she also scooted a bit closer to him, pressing herself against his back and inhaling the scent of him. His shirt smelled like fabric softener, but beneath that was the musk of a sweaty – though not smelly – man. She startled when he pushed off and drove the Vespa forward, and her clinging on instantly became less about feeling him up and more about actually staying on the motorbike.

  The wind whipped through Anna’s hair as they climbed the hills, heading away from the resort. The helmet kept her hair from blowing in her face too much, but still she spent an inordinate amount of time pulling strands from her mouth. Houses and vineyards lined the roads as they twisted and turned. Occasionally Anna would think she caught a glimpse of blue sea through the hills and buildings, but then it would disappear as quickly as it had appeared. Finally they came to what looked like a major road at the top of the hill and turned right. And just like that, the entire caldera was laid out in front of her.

  She gasped, craning her neck to see around Nikos and take in every inch of the view. They were in almost the exact middle of the crescent, with the northern tip reaching into the sea in front of them. A channel to the left separated a much smaller island from Santorini proper. Another island, so small it was barely visible, sat further off to the left. Anna craned her neck around and could see that beyond that the other end of the crescent curved around to complete the circle. Boats of all sizes, from big cruise liners to tiny catamarans, were sailing through the channel and around yet another island in the center of the caldera.

  Anna could hear that Nikos was trying to say something, but she couldn’t hear him over the wind and the engine, so she just admired the view, saying “wow” every now and then in case he was looking for acknowledgment. They were only able to see the caldera for a minute before the road went downhill again, weaving through small clusters of buildings and over the hilly terrain. After a few minutes they came into what Anna recognized as the town of Thera, where she and Nikos had come for supplies, though they had come at it from a different way.

  After they passed through the town, they came to a part of the journey where they could only see the sea on the other side. And while there weren’t any other islands or any boats to be seen, it was still beautiful. Here the land ran more steeply down to the sea than it did down near the summer house or the resort. There were no buildings along the road, just hills sloping sharply up to the left and down to the right, the Vespa
winding around them at what felt like a million miles an hour. It was absolutely exhilarating. This wasn’t the postcard version of Santorini, but it was a very real and important part of it, and Anna loved it.

  After what must have been about forty-five minutes, Nikos pulled over into a parking lot. “This is where we get off,” he said. “We’re walking from here.” Anna handed over her helmet and followed Nikos through the streets.

  As they crossed over an intersection, all of a sudden the town of Oia was laid out in front of them. Beautiful white and yellow buildings with arches and blue domes and infinity pools were clustered together on the hillside so closely that no earth was left to be seen. This was the Santorini Anna had always pictured.

  And it was fucking crowded.

  Within thirty seconds, Anna was asked to move twice for pictures. It was only nine in the morning! Where had all of these people come from?

  “A bit busy, isn’t it?” Anna asked, and Nikos laughed.

  “I told you,” he said. “Bloody influencer wannabes. They come in for the season and take over the town and then disappear, leaving us to deal with the aftermath.”

  Anna looked up at Nikos, who was making faces at the crowd milling around them.

  “Okay, Mr Grinch,” she said. “I was more thinking that it’s going to be tough to get photos of your cousin, who I believe actually wants to be one of these ‘bloody influencers.’”

  Nikos gave a sarcastic smile before raising his eyebrows and then his hand. He started waving. Anna turned around and saw Elena pushing through the crowds pulling a suitcase behind her.

  “Hi, guys,” Elena said, kissing them both on the cheek. She looked at Anna. “I didn’t know where we would find the best light, so I brought a few different outfits to make sure each photo is cohesive.”

  Anna eyed the suitcase. “How many is a few?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Elena said, pursing her lips. “I have six dresses— no, make that seven, a few swimsuits, a pair of flowy trousers…”

  “I guess it’s a good thing we have all day then, isn’t it?”

  Nikos laughed. “You two have fun. I’m going to work for a bit, but I’ll come back when you two are done. Just text me.”

  “You don’t want any photos taken?” Anna asked, pulling her camera out of her bag and winking at him.

  “Hah-hah, very funny,” he replied as he walked away.

  The girls waved at him as he left.

  “Alright then,” Anna said, “I guess we’d better get started.”

  Four hours later, they were sat at a cafe eating gyros, Elena taking delicate, photogenic bites of hers while Anna snapped away. Being Elena’s personal paparazzi was a bit exhausting, but she knew Elena would be returning the favor over the next few days with the tiling project. They had actually gotten a lot of good photos despite the crowds, though a lot of them involved jumping up on people’s walls or asking the crowd to hold back. Anna suspected Nikos would not have approved, but that was fine. They were Elena’s photos, and she looked stunning in every single one.

  At one point, when they were finishing up on a particularly pristine wall with a gorgeous view beyond, a group of girls – seven in total, all in crop tops and white sneakers – stopped and asked if Anna would take their pictures, so she reached out her hand to take their phones.

  “No, we mean with your camera,” one of the girls said with a strong southern accent. “You could email ’em to me, maybe?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” Anna looked at Elena, who shrugged.

  “We’re happy to pay,” the girl added, reaching into her bag. “We’re all leavin’ tomorrow anyway, and we have a bunch of euros left. Is a hundred enough?”

  Anna agreed, took the bills from the girl’s hand, and directed her on the wall. She got a few good snaps in different poses and showed them to the girl to make sure she liked them. When they were done, she motioned for the next girl. But instead of stepping up to the wall, she held out 100 euros of her own. Anna looked at Elena, who was grinning like a madwoman. She took the money from the second girl, who then posed on the wall, too. Again, Anna made sure the photos she took were unique enough to justify the payment. Then they followed the group to another spot where some of the girls wanted their photos taken. After she’d taken photos each of them – and they’d each paid her their 100 euros – Anna took out her phone and entered each of their email addresses so she could send them the final shots.

  One of the girls tried to give her another 50 euros, but she shook her head. “Don’t be silly. If you want, you can give me a photo credit, but even that isn’t necessary since you guys paid for these.” The girl insisted though, so Anna gave her the handle for the Instagram she hadn’t logged into in weeks.

  “Unedited JPEGs please,” one girl said. “I need to be able to apply my presets.” The others all nodded their agreement, but Anna didn’t much care what format they wanted – she had walked away with 700 euros more than she’d arrived with that morning.

  And now, sitting in the cafe with Elena, she flicked through the photos, amazed that she could earn so much money from something she loved doing. Could she make a living taking pictures of influencers? Probably not. But it was nice to feel valued. It was more than she could say about working with Marcus, anyway.

  “Okay, let’s just eat normally now,” Elena said before taking a giant bite of her wrap, but Anna couldn’t resist the urge to snap another photo. Elena heard the shutter and squealed. “Oh my god, you have to delete that!” she said, her eyes wide.

  Anna laughed. “Whatever you say.” She set the camera down on the table and began to eat.

  “So what’s the deal with Nikos and ‘influencers’?” she asked after a few bites, raising two fingers from her gyro to make the air quotes.

  “Ugh, don’t even get me started,” Elena said. “He’s impossible. You get dumped by a few American girls on holiday and all of a sudden all influencers are bad. Despite the fact that the tourism industry has almost always been our primary source of income and we make almost all of our money during the summer—”

  “I’m sorry, did you say he’s been dumped by a few American girls?”

  Elena paused for a moment. “Yes, I did. Why? Is that of interest to you?” She wiggled her eyebrows at Anna and made kissy noises.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Anna asked. “I’m just curi—”

  “I know it’s not what you meant, but is it true?”

  “Well, yes, it’s true that it’s of interest to me. I am interested to know.”

  Elena smiled at Anna wordlessly.

  “Oh, shut up and just answer me,” Anna said, even though Elena hadn’t actually said anything. If it were Nikos sitting across from her, he undoubtedly would have commented by now on how red she was.

  Elena nodded and put her food down. “Over the years, Nikos has tried to date a few girls who have come here on vacation. He always catches feelings, but none of them are quite into the storybook idea of living on a tiny fishing island in a foreign country forever, so they leave, and he gets sad. He’s sort of learned to just stay away, which manifests as him being annoyed with all of them before they can break his heart.”

  Anna nodded along as Elena talked.

  “Any thoughts?”

  “Not really,” Anna said. “It’s just interesting. He seemed so against all tourists. But if he wants to date someone who’s not Greek, why did he stay here? Lizzy told me he has a degree from LSE. Surely he could get a job anywhere in the world and actually have a future with one of these women?”

  “Because he’s a masochist,” Elena said. “He’s the one that decides to stay here and to hook up with girls that are here for like a week. He always knows that going into it. He’s just a glutton for punishment.”

  As Elena continued to complain about Nikos’s behavior, Anna thought about how he had acted toward her. He complained about the other tourists, but would he do that to their faces? Or would he flirt with them the way he had w
ith Anna?

  “I just don’t see why he has to— ti manari einai autos Anna. Oh. My. God!”

  Anna shook herself out of her thoughts and tried to follow Elena’s gaze across the street. “What? What are you looking at? You know I don’t speak Greek.”

  “There,” Elena said, reaching across the table to grab Anna’s face and point it toward a Greek guy eating an ice cream cone across the street.

  “That guy? What about him?”

  Elena looked like Anna had just insulted her mother. “He’s beautiful. Isn’t he beautiful?”

  He was very muscular, that much was certain. Beautiful wasn’t the word Anna would have used, but she could see how someone might find him attractive in a Jersey Shore sort of way, with his greased-back hair and wife-beater top two sizes too small. Thankfully, Elena didn’t wait for Anna to answer. Actually, she didn’t wait at all. For anything. She just stood up and walked right over to him, flipping her hair over her shoulder and touching his arm. Anna watched mesmerized as they talked, eyeing each other up like two juicy steaks. It was as pornographic as an inaudible conversation could be without any actual sexual contact.

  Less than two minutes later, Elena took him by the hand and pulled him over to Anna, grabbing her purse from her chair.

  “Anna, this is Vasilis. He’s going to take some pictures with us.”

  Vasilis nodded. “He is?” Anna asked.

  “Of course,” Elena said, putting a hand on his chest. “We’re just going to go next door and get him a better shirt. Do you want to meet us there in a few?”

  “Sure,” Anna said, smiling. Before she could ask how long she should give them, Elena pulled him away, and they were gone.

  Anna picked up her camera, excited at the idea of a few minutes of solo exploring. Oia was a beautiful town, but Elena was more interested in capturing the sweeping vistas and iconic angles than the details. Anna walked up and down the street snapping photo after photo. She captured two men negotiating the price of the day’s catch in front of a restaurant, a girl sitting in a window reading, and a cat lapping at a bowl of milk someone had left out for it.