by kc dyer
Snatching up my phone, I try dialing him twice before I realize my plan likely doesn’t work outside of the US. I grab the receiver of the phone beside my bed and try again. This takes several attempts, as I need to get an outside line and find the country code for the US. Which is apparently 01. But even after all this, when the call finally goes through, it clicks immediately into Anthony’s voice mail.
At the sound of his voice on the recording, I burst into tears.
Not wanting to leave a sniveling message, I slam the phone down, accidentally catching the little plastic information card holder beside the phone with the receiver. It shatters, sending shards skittering across the floorboards.
Dropping my head into my hands, I force myself to get a grip. I’m so angry, heartbroken, and strung out by exhaustion that I know I’ll never be able to sleep.
I get up, splash my face with water in the tiny bathroom, and then commence a hunt for the minibar.
It turns out that Greek guesthouses do not have minibars.
And in retrospect? This sad fact is entirely to blame for everything that happens next.
At least—that’s what I tell myself.
* * *
—
If this hadn’t been a wild goose chase from the start, I likely would have just turned on the television and tried to late-night bore myself to sleep. I’ve done it before. But along with no minibar, this little room also doesn’t have a television. Glancing at the clock, I see it’s just past midnight.
I suddenly remember the lights and music coming from the building next door to the guesthouse. Then I recall just how loudly Anthony was yelling at me in that moment. And then? I get angry all over again.
A drink will help. I can get a drink in the little nightclub. Maybe just a glass of wine to help me sleep.
I sling my purse over my shoulder, grab my room key, and step into the corridor.
* * *
—
Standing in the street, I discover the place next door turns out to be more of a pub than a bar. Through the door, I hear the strains of quiet music being piped over the speakers. This is perfect. I can drink my wine, head back to my room, go to sleep, and deal with my dad in the morning. Then I can call and sort things out with Anthony.
I reach out to open the door when I feel a hand on my arm.
Jerking my arm away, I whirl around to find Sikka grinning at me. Her hair, the lower half of which is platinum blond, is now pulled up with a jeweled clip, and she has exchanged her yellow bikini top for what I can only describe as a silver flapper dress. It looks to be entirely made of Christmas tinsel.
“Good girl,” she says. “Going out will cheer you up, and you will forget your problems.” She looks around. “But this place is a dump. I take you better place—lots of Greek boys. Greek boys, they good at helping you forget.”
I can’t suppress a sigh. “I don’t want a Greek boy. I want Anthony.”
“Okay, fine—tomorrow. But tonight? You come with me. Just one block, there is perfect place. You dance. You drink. You forget.”
I point down to my travel-stained dress. “Look—I can’t go out to some nice place in this. I just want to get a glass of wine and go to bed.”
Sikka links her arm through mine. “You come with me. Two minutes. I get you sorted.”
She leads me around the corner and through a side door back into the guesthouse.
“You know I’m Sikka, yes?” she says, resting her bright yellow manicure on her own chest. “And you? You are Gianna?”
At my surprised look, she grins. “I check registration card. I like to drive Konstantin a little mad sometimes. Is good fun.”
“Just Gia,” I reply absently, looking around the room.
There are two industrial-size machines, washer and dryer, but the rest of the room is strewn in everything from heavy overcoats to piles of high-heeled shoes.
“I do laundry here,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows at me. “You would not believe what people leave behind.”
In less than two minutes, I’m out of my own clothes and wearing a little black strapless number that’s about a half size too tight. I throw my teal cardigan over it.
Sikka shakes her head. “You don’t need. Too warm for dancing. Greek boys like bare shoulders.”
I put it on anyway. My cleavage is spilling over the top of the dress.
She points to my left hand. “Take that off,” she orders. “He no spoil your fun tonight.”
I stare at her, suddenly overcome with the memory of Anthony’s voice. We’ll sort out the details when you get home.
“Should I give it back?” I ask her, suddenly.
She looks scandalized. “Never! He dump you—you keep ring! But wear on your chain now, for be safe.”
Other than the ring, the only piece of jewelry I happened to be wearing when I jumped on the plane was a necklace my dad gave me when I was thirteen. It’s a little silver Coptic cross on a matching chain that belonged to his mother, I think. My dad grew up Catholic, of course, but nonpracticing, and my own mother’s family belonged to one of the Dutch reformed churches. Organized religion has never appealed to me, although—optimist that I am—I like to think that there is something to aspire to after we’re done here on earth. Nevertheless, this necklace, with its perfectly square little cross, has always been one of my favorites.
I slide the ring onto my necklace, where it nestles into my slightly-more-voluminous-than-usual cleavage. And then I try—and fail—to not touch the indentation on the bare third finger of my left hand.
Sikka takes my mind off the ring by handing me a pair of shoes with at least five-inch heels.
“Are you crazy?” I stare down at the shoes. “I can’t walk in those.”
She shrugs. “You can. They have big platform, see? So only three-inch heel. Like magic!”
Her own dress is so short I catch a glimpse of her butt cheek when she squats to buckle my shoe.
“I don’t know . . .” I begin, but she rolls her eyes at me and plunges her own feet into a pair of thigh-high leather boots.
“Is only for dance.” She takes me by the hand, which is a good thing since I can’t walk in these crazy shoes without support, and we totter back out onto the street.
Luckily, the nightclub is indeed only a block away. And compared to the pub next door—well, there’s really no comparing them. This place is bigger, noisier, and totally jammed with unmasked, mostly inebriated, writhing bodies.
An extremely sweaty man dances over to us as we walk in the door. He’s wearing a pink dress shirt, unbuttoned almost to the waist, and stands about two inches shorter than Sikka in her high-heeled boots. He does a little shimmy in front of her, and she laughs uproariously and throws herself into his arms, latching her lips onto his.
“Gia, this is my Ivo,” she says as they break apart. “Ivo, Gia’s heart is broke. We need drinks, okay?”
Ivo gives me a broad, gap-toothed smile and shimmies off into the crowd.
“Only one drink,” I shout at Sikka, who is already pulling me onto the dance floor.
“Sure, sure.”
The music shifts, and it’s Daft Punk, and suddenly? I’m dancing. I mean, only a monster doesn’t dance to Daft Punk.
When Ivo brings me a pink drink, I down it in two swallows and immediately start to feel better. After all, between the jet lag and the crying I’m probably a little dehydrated, so this lemonadey concoction is likely just what I need. Ivo grabs Sikka by the hips, and since she’s still holding my hands, the three of us dance together, which seems to make him extremely happy. Then Sikka straddles her legs around one of his knees and starts grinding on him, which is my cue to back away. In under a second, they are swallowed by the crowd.
I find myself standing beside the bar with one of Sikka’s ridiculous, not-quite-stolen shoes in my hand, which ha
s come off in all the dancing. And as it turns out, I am just fuzzy enough to not be able to sort out the buckle.
Defeated, I drop the shoe on the floor, balance on the other one, and order a drink for the road. Sikka was right. I do feel better.
I also feel someone slide in beside me at the bar.
“I think you’ve possibly lost your shoe,” he says and holds it up.
This is no Greek boy.
He’s got a British accent for one. Tall with dark eyes and darker hair, a little curly. Persian origin, maybe, or possibly South Asian. In any case, he has soft, olive skin, which is also tanned—in fact, I can see where his nose is peeling, just a little.
“Yours?” he repeats. He’s got a half-finished glass of beer in his other hand.
“Sort of.” I take the shoe back from him. “I mean, it’s—ah—mostly borrowed, to tell you the truth. I was just having a little trouble getting it back on.”
The bartender slides my drink over at this moment. It’s a refill of whatever Ivo brought me before, consisting, I now realize, of pink lemonade mixed with something akin to jet fuel. I knock it back in one.
My tall, hot, shoe-returning friend raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Thirsty?”
Um. Yes. Very, very thirsty.
But of course, I don’t say this. Instead, I lift one shoulder casually. “Just a bit dehydrated actually. Jet lag.”
“Ah. That explains the shoe.” He smiles and is about to turn away when I grab his arm.
I hear myself say, “Can I buy you a drink?” and then—worse—I actually do.
Things might get just a little—ah—crazy after that.
chapter six
MONDAY, WEE HOURS
Tzatziki and Pita Triangles
Gia Kostas, once aspiring-journalist, now washed-up hack
Bar food in Athens has its own unique flair and is never quite what you expect. Everything from pork skewers to Greek salad is available in nightclubs, and the fuel is needed because the Greeks know how to dance. This favorite begins with . . .
Here’s the thing.
I’ve been to nightclubs. They’re not really my scene, but I grew up in New York. Of course I’ve been. I’ve had wild nights out. I mean, I’m a twenty-five-year-old human. Devi and I barely survived eleventh grade, which is why neither of us can touch tequila to this day.
But to tell you the truth, I mostly got it out of my system way back then. After we were legal, a lot of the fun dropped away. Of course, I go out to bars now and then, but . . . you know. I was the one dressed as a Ghostbuster at that Halloween party, after all.
And then, of course, there was the virus. I mean, it was a world-changing event, and I’m not sure we’re in the clear, even now. During the worst of it, my name might as well have been Caution, not Kostas, since I was such a careful hand-washer. I followed the science, listened to the recommendations, and still have at least a dozen face masks tucked into my underwear drawer.
I guess if I had to put my finger on the actual trigger that kicked off events tonight—it was being dumped. Over the phone. I mean, before this happened, my biggest argument with Anthony was when I left a towel on the floor in the bathroom.
For the record, I did hang it up. I’m pretty sure I did, anyway.
All this to say what just happened is . . . out of character.
* * *
—
The first thing I do after pushing Sikka out of my room—she insisted on seeing me home safely—is to check the phone. It’s three in the morning here in Athens, which means it’s only just after eight at night in New York. My head is spinning from exhaustion and jet lag and guilt and exhilaration, and it’s all too much.
Too much to cope with alone.
I haven’t been to church since my confirmation when I was eleven, but—dammit. I lead such a disgustingly boring life. The need to confess my sins—my delicious, delicious sins—and to bare my soul to Anthony is almost too much to handle.
Almost.
Instead, I dial Devi and tell her everything.
“You did WHAT?” she squawks when I blurt the whole thing out. “Who are you, and what have you done with my friend Gianna?”
“I know—I know it sounds crazy.”
“Crazy? You’ve never done anything like this in your whole life.”
“I know I haven’t. Devi, I don’t know what happened. It was all so fast. I only meant to have a glass of wine to help me sleep, and then . . .”
“What time is it there now?”
I peer at the clock. “Like—three fifteen.”
“Gianna Marie Kostas, I have less than ten minutes before I go on shift. And I hope I don’t have to remind you I haven’t had sex in four months since I broke up with Jordan. I need details and I need them now.”
“I—I really can’t explain it. I’d been dancing, and one of my shoes fell off, and he helped me put it back on, and . . .”
“Holy crap. You’re a fuckin’ Cinderella.” And then she loses it, repeating “literally fucking” in between guffaws.
“Dev. Get a grip.”
“That’s what she said . . .” she shrieks, and this sends her off again, giggling like a teenager. “Okay—sorry, Gia, sorry. I’m just a little overtired. Keep going.”
“You’re overtired? I think I last slept on Friday night, and it’s now Monday morning.”
“Geez, no wonder you’re getting jiggy with strange guys. You must be exhausted . . .”
“I am,” I say, just as she adds, “and also drunk.”
“I only had two drinks, or maybe three. But then, he offered to help me with my shoe, and . . .”
I suddenly remember the brush of his fingers against my ankle, and the zing that shoots through me—even now—is enough to make my knees buckle.
“Did he kiss you?”
I flash back to the moment, me literally throwing myself into his arms, him backed against the door in the corner.
“I—uh—yeah, I guess you could say that,” I admit. “It’s possible I sorta kissed him.”
“And then what happened? I’ve got two minutes, Gia, and I swear . . .”
“I’m telling you as fast as I can, Dev. I don’t know how it happened. We were kissing, and then this door opened behind him, and we kind of fell inside, and one thing led to another . . .”
“Hosanna on a bagel,” Devi’s voice explodes through the phone. “Don’t give me this ‘one thing led to another’ garbage. Are you telling me you had sex with this man in the toilets?”
“Not—not technically in the toilet. I think maybe it was a janitorial closet? There was a sink. I—I don’t really remember.”
I remember it vividly.
The closet door had been an accident, for sure, but we’d been making out so hard against it that when it fell open, there was no other option. It was even darker in there than on the dance floor, and it definitely smelled of bleach and old mop. I slammed the door behind us, but there was a tiny gleam of light coming through the crack around the door. Just for an instant, the mirror over the sink reflected the heat in his eyes. So yeah. It was me who hopped up on the sink and pulled him closer. All me.
Devi’s voice crashes through these memories. “Okay, okay. But please, please tell me you had fun, at least.”
I have a sudden vision of just exactly what happened the moment he slid his fingers under my thighs and I felt the warmth of his skin against mine, and I have to swallow, hard, before I can speak. Even so, my voice comes out with a croak.
“Yes, okay, it was a little fun.”
It was the best sex I have ever had in my life.
“So—you’re going to see him again?”
“Devi,” I hiss into the phone. “What is it about ‘one night’ that you don’t understand?”
I stop immediately, appalled at how I hav
e just—even accidentally—echoed Anthony. But Devi doesn’t notice.
“Nothing,” she says, still sounding delighted. “I couldn’t be happier for you.” Her voice drops into a warning tone. “As long as there was a condom involved.”
I sigh heavily. “There was. I carry a couple around in my purse for Anthony.”
She chuckles. “You naughty minx.”
I don’t mention we’ve never had occasion to use them.
“Look,” I say firmly. “After I talk to my dad in the morning, I’m going to hop a flight home as soon as possible. I need to try to patch things up with Anthony. This thing tonight was a one-off. A mistake.”
I can hear her sigh through the phone. “Anthony is the mistake, Gia. He puts his own needs over everyone around him. It’s good you had this fight. You need to take time to think of . . . shit.”
A distorted voice echoes through the phone, drowning out her words. “Dev? What is it?”
“Gotta go. They’re paging me. Text you later!”
And she’s gone.
I peel off Sikka’s dress, unhook my bra, and realize, to my horror, that I am missing my underwear.
Shame floods through me. I am that girl. That girl who bangs some stranger in a toilet. Okay, so it wasn’t a toilet, but it may as well have been. A janitorial closet is not exactly a step up.
I drop into bed, wrap my shame around me like a cloak, and fall into the deepest, most contented sleep I’ve had in months.
chapter seven
MONDAY MORNING
Orange Mango Juice
Gia Kostas, ex-journalist wannabe, now parental drug runner
This lively day starter is an excellent counterpart to the rich, dark Greek coffee that is offered with breakfast everywhere. Particularly refreshing after a late evening’s revels or perhaps a few drinks too many the night before . . .
His voice is contrite and very, very confusing. “Oh, babe, were you asleep?”