One Summer in Santorini

Duncan stepped in and ordered enough food for all of us, plus seven beers. He was so charming in the way he spoke to her that I even saw the corner of her mouth twitch into the semblance of a smile. But what about the dolmades? I love dolmades, and I was in Greece. Could I not get some dolmades? PLEASE!

She came back out a few minutes later with our beers and Marie, the goddess that she was, tried to support my dolmadic efforts. ‘Excuse me, we’d really like an order of dolmades if you have them,’ she said in her most-enunciated North American accent.

The frown returned to the woman’s face, and she left without saying or doing anything to indicate that dolmades were on their way. But it turns out they were! A few minutes later again, she pretty much tossed a plate of them onto the table. Dolmades!

But I was wrong.

‘Doll-mah-dezzz,’ she said at me slowly. Then she turned on her heels and huffed away. Right then, I guess I’d been told.

The doll-mah-dezzz were delicious, by the way.

After we finished eating, Josh and I told the others we were heading to the supermarket. We asked if anyone wanted to come, but the others seemed happy to linger and have more beer. Duncan had everyone put twenty euros each into a pile on the table – our kitty for the shared food. By default, I was now in charge of said kitty for breakfasts, snacks and lunches on the boat. I was also under strict instructions to get beer, but that was just for Duncan. He slipped me an extra twenty.

‘Any other requests?’ I asked, getting a small notebook out of my bag.

‘Water,’ said Duncan. ‘Bottled water and lots of it.’ I wrote down ‘water – LOTS’. Then I wondered how we would carry lots of water back to the boat.

‘Tzatziki,’ said Marie. ‘Oh, and something to eat it on – bread, I guess? Oh, and tomatoes.’

‘Oh god yes,’ I replied. I underlined tomatoes three times.

‘Snacks,’ replied Hannah, unhelpfully.

‘What snacks?’

‘I don’t know. Whatever they have. Just snacks.’ Great. So far, being on kitty duty sucked.

‘I’ll help figure it out,’ said the cute guy next to me. I looked up at him – gosh, he was tall – and he was smiling down at me, damn him.

‘Right,’ I said, tidying up the pile of cash and putting it into my bag. ‘We will see you back at the boat.’

I cringed a little as Hannah called out after us, ‘Have fun, you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ Wonderful – she was still running with the whole ‘you look like a couple’ thing.

The grocery store was a couple of blocks away from the café, and Josh grabbed a trolley when we got inside. Walking the aisles side by side, we stocked up on breakfast foods – muesli, cereal, jam, bread, peanut butter, milk, yoghurt – they do just call it ‘yoghurt’, by the way, rather than ‘Greek yoghurt’. As we tried to guess what the others might enjoy, we discovered we liked a lot of the same things.

Snacks were a little trickier than breakfast, but we found crackers, cookies, nuts, chocolate, and fresh fruit. I hoped Hannah would approve – I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of my roomie. For lunches, we went with the stuff for Greek salad, pita, tzatziki, cured meats and extra tomatoes. So far, the shopping experience was exactly like shopping back home in Sydney, which I admit was a little disappointing. I had been looking forward to a more authentic experience – local markets, having the grocer select the best tomatoes for me – but this shop was obviously catering to the tourist crowd.

Then we got to the liquor aisle. ‘Oh my god. Look at how cheap it all is!’ I exclaimed, immediately realising how I must have sounded. But the prices were ridiculous – about half of what we would pay in Australia. And right in the middle of the middle shelf was a familiar, pretty blue bottle. As I reached for the Bombay Sapphire gin, so did Josh. I looked at him. ‘Hey! That’s my fave.’

‘That’s my favourite too,’ he replied.

‘No way.’

‘Way.’

‘That’s brilliant – we can share. And it’s only seventeen euros. That’s like …’ I tried to do the conversion to dollars and came up short ‘… cheap.’

‘For sure.’

Then I had a real brainwave. ‘We should get two.’

‘Will we drink two?’ he asked.

‘Even if we don’t, the others will. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re sailing with a bunch of drinkers – and that’s not even including Patricia.’

‘I have noticed that, yes.’

‘And thank god!’ He laughed at my effusiveness. ‘Can you imagine the alternative? Being on a boat with a bunch of teetotallers? I mean, kill me now!’

‘Torture.’ I think he may have been making fun of me, but I didn’t care.

‘Exactly.’

We got two. And beer for Duncan.

I looked down at our nearly full trolley. Did we have enough food? I hated the thought of running out while we were in the middle of the ocean. Yes, I do know the Aegean Sea is not an ocean, but I figured that running out of food on any body of water would be a bad thing.

‘Is this enough?’ I asked my kitty buddy.

He responded by laughing at me.

‘Uh, yes, probably for the rest of the trip and I am pretty sure there will be other grocery stores in our future if we run out of anything.’

‘How are we getting this back to the boat? We can’t carry all this.’

‘I figure we’ll just steal the cart.’ He smiled cheekily. I frowned at him, ‘Or, we could use the cart, and I can bring it back when we’ve unloaded it.’

‘That’ll work.’ We paid, we bagged, and we pushed the wonky-wheeled trolley three blocks to the boat where we were greeted with great enthusiasm by our boatmates, who then insisted they put the stuff away.

I was totally cool with handing over the reins; I’d hit a wall of exhaustion. So much so that, when the shopping was put away, and Duncan announced an expedition to explore more of the island, I declined. My plans included my bunk and a nana nap. I probably should have gone with them – who knew when I’d be back on Ios again – but I desperately needed to sleep.

I had only been asleep for about an hour when I woke to a loud voice in the cabin next door. ‘You know, you’re a smart guy. I like you.’ Patricia. She was back from her drinking spree, and I could only guess she was talking to Josh – and what was he doing back so soon?

Patricia continued her diatribe. ‘You’re not like the others on this boat. They have no idea what real life is all about; they have no soul. You take those two next door – Princess and Queenie. That blonde one, moping about ’cause she’s lost the supposed love of her life – well, guess what, sweetheart? Get over it. Find a new man – they’re everywhere! And the other one! The Queen of fucking Sheba. She thinks she’s all that. She thinks she knows. She doesn’t know! She’s misguided, see?’

Finally, I heard Josh’s voice, but he spoke so softly I could only make out a few words – ‘smart’, ‘sweet’, and ‘friends’.

Then she laughed one of those taunting I-know-better-than-you laughs. ‘That’s a joke. That girl’s not your friend. She’s collecting people like they’re trinkets for her charm bracelet. I’d watch that one if I was you.’

‘Yeah, we’re going to have to agree to disagree there, because I like her. And we are becoming friends.’ Well, I heard that! He was sticking up for me.

‘Listen, kiddo,’ she said, interrupting my thoughts about what great friends Josh and I were becoming. ‘You do your thing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Look, I’m going to head back out. I’ll catch you later.’

‘Later.’ And then I heard her leave the boat. I got up and opened the door of my cabin to make sure she was gone. Josh must have heard me, because he popped his head around the corner from his cabin.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I replied. I really had to concentrate on not staring at his torso, because he was only wearing a pair of shorts. And it was a nice torso.

‘Did you hear any of that?’

‘Most of it. Boy, she really hates me, huh?’

‘I wouldn’t take it personally. She kind of hates everyone.’

‘Except you.’

‘Yeah, except me for some reason.’

‘Hey, I thought you were going out with the others.’

‘I was going to, but then I realised how tired I was – especially as I didn’t really sleep last night. When they left, I took the cart back and then came back to sleep. As soon as I drifted off, Patricia came in and woke me up.’

‘Oh. Bummer.’

‘Yeah.’ I was still avoiding looking at his half-naked body, so of course, I ended up staring at his lips. He must have just licked them. They were shiny and looked very kissable.

‘Well, I’m going to try to get some more sleep,’ I said, as though the two of us lying on our respective beds with only a paper-thin wall between us was a perfectly platonic way to spend an afternoon.

I mean it was, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Instead I’d end up lying there thinking about Josh lying on his bunk half-naked and of course, I’d be wondering if he was thinking about me. The whole thing was far too sexually charged for my liking, and even though I was still ridiculously tired, I found myself saying, ‘Actually, scratch that. I’m going for a walk instead.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Josh coming with me wasn’t part of my revised plan. A walk was my version of a cold shower. Didn’t he know that?

‘Sure. Sounds good,’ I lied.

‘Just let me get a shirt on.’ Yes, for god’s sake please put on a shirt! In fact, please never forget your shirt around me again. Damn him, he was causing a real stir. As I picked up my sandals, I reminded myself in no uncertain terms that I was not on this trip to have a holiday romance, especially with someone too young for me who lived on the other side of the world.

I was relieved when we departed the confines of the boat and I could breathe nonsexually charged air. As we walked along the pier away from the boat, I took in huge gulps of it, hoping to clear my head of extremely impure thoughts. Just friends, just friends, just friends, I chanted in my head.

We walked past waterfront cafés and bars, and there were a few more boats docked than when we’d arrived. The sun, still warm on our faces, was hanging low in the sky. It was magic hour, the time in the late afternoon when everything was bathed in golden light.

The water in the bay was an incredible blue, deep and inky, with patches of aqua near the surface where the light caught hold. It was a beautiful place, even if there was hardly anyone there – or maybe it was because of that.

Without talking about where we were going, we made our way up to the church we’d seen from the boat as we sailed in. It was just as breathtaking as it had seemed from far off – and much bigger than I’d thought. There was a low wall on the seaward side. I climbed up and swung my legs over so we could sit and look at the water. Josh did the same, coming to rest a few inches from me, our fingers nearly touching. Just friends, Sarah.

Away from the boat and fully clothed, the conversation flowed easily with Josh. Sometimes you meet someone, and even though on the surface they seem really different from you, you soon realise that you see the world through a similar lens. I’m not really one to talk about kindred spirits or anything hokey like that, but I found it refreshing talking to someone without having to edit everything I was thinking. As much as I loved my friends back home, too often I’d say something, and they’d tilt their heads to the side a little and look confused.

For some time, I’d felt that maybe I was just really weird. Talking to Josh made me feel understood – normal even.

Our conversation eventually turned to siblings, and we discovered we were both the eldest of two. ‘There’s this unspoken expectation that you’ll be the one to lead the way, to always get it right,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘No matter what “it” is.’

‘At least in your family, it was unspoken. I was always being told to set a good example, to be responsible, to be good. So, I did – I was. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t exactly what you would call a happy child.’ I paused a moment, absorbing what I’d said. I was onto something, and I let the thought continue. ‘Even as a little girl, I was hyper-conscious of doing the right thing. I was so afraid to make a mistake.’ My heart twinged a little for that girl – for me. ‘Meanwhile my sister spent most of her childhood having a ball. She was so cute and charming, and so funny. People adored her. Even today she’s the freer spirit.’

‘So, do you think it’s in there somewhere?’

‘What?’

‘Your free spirit,’ he replied.

I looked at him for a moment and then back out at the water. ‘I hope so. I’m kind of exhausted by being good all the time. But you know, I put more pressure on myself to be perfect, to get it right, than anyone else does. I’m my own harshest critic. It’s tiring.’ I hadn’t ever expressed it in those terms before – not even to Cat. Especially not to Cat.

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this sort of stuff lately,’ Josh said, breaking through my thoughts.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘What I’ve realised – and only recently – is that I want my life to be bigger.’

It was such an elegant thought. So simple. Succinct, yet all-encompassing. He didn’t need to explain it beyond those few words, because I completely understood. Bigger than routine. Bigger than normal. Bigger than the constraints of expectation.

‘Well, this trip is a good start, I’d say.’ We shared a smile.

‘Yes.’

I remembered the moment on the bus when I’d wondered if we would become friends. It was hard to conceive how, in such a short time, we’d got to the point where he could share something like that with me. Or that I was comfortable enough to say what I’d said, something no one knew about me, not even my closest friends.

Josh and I were becoming friends.

When we got back to the marina, the others had returned to the boat – except Patricia, of course – and the all-women boat was docked beside us. Their skipper, Stuart – a guy who in any other circumstance would probably not be surrounded by women – looked like the cat who’d got the cream. I knew that look. I’d seen it on the faces of coach drivers I’d worked with in Europe during my tour managing days. That look said, ‘I’m going to shag every one of them if I can.’ Not that I blamed him – they were a very attractive group of women.

Duncan and Stuart had arranged for all of us to have dinner together that night – except Patricia (again). Duncan had chosen a restaurant he’d been to many times before, and when we arrived, he was greeted with lots of fanfare by an effusive Greek woman with very dark curly hair and warm brown eyes. She regarded the large group and waved her hands dramatically at the waiters, indicating for them to move tables together so we could sit at one long table – family style.

We stood out of the way as tables were lifted above heads, chairs moved two at a time, and place settings reset. When everything was in place, the woman smiled and told us to ‘Sit, sit, sit,’ as she bustled about giving us menus.

I sat with Josh to the left of me, Marie to my right with Gary next to her. Hannah was across from Marie, with Gerry next to her and Duncan on her right. On the other side of Josh was one of the women from the other boat, a petite, redheaded American named Kiersten.

Kiersten was the only one from her boat who wasn’t vying for the attention of her skipper during dinner. Instead, all her energies were directed at Josh, and it was quite entertaining watching it all unfold. She was behaving as though she’d been at sea for months with nary a male in sight, rather than on a boat for one whole night and one whole day. And she was ploughing through the white wine like it was water.

The flirtations began as giggles – everything Josh said was hilarious, even when he wasn’t saying it to her – and then she ratcheted it up a few notches by adding hair twisting and licking her lips a lot. All the while, she was getting drunker.

When she put her hand on Josh’s thigh, he jumped in his chair, then scooched it so close to mine, our elbows bumped while we ate. Marie, Hannah, Gerry and I watched this spectacle while swapping amused looks.

‘So, Hannah, how do you like the calamari?’ I asked, as though nothing weird was happening to my left.

‘Hmm. I can do the whole Greek salad thing, but I can’t say I’m particularly into the rest of Greek food so far.’ Her face scrunched up as she looked up and down the table at the array of dishes.

I shook my head at her. ‘You’re gonna be pretty hungry for the rest of the trip if we don’t find you something you like.’

Marie tried to help. ‘Goat?’ she asked, passing Hannah a plate piled high with roasted goat meat. Hannah’s face went from scrunched to contorted, and Marie put the goat back where it had come from. She looked at me with a smile. ‘I guess not.’

Just then Kiersten laughed loudly and Josh practically climbed onto my lap. ‘You alright there?’ I asked him quietly.

‘Not really,’ he said, pointedly. ‘Please help me,’ he added in an urgent whisper.

I made eye contact with him. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like, how much help do you want?’

‘A large amount of help.’

‘Like, “pretend to be your girlfriend” level of help?’

‘Yes. Please.’

I looked over at Marie, who was listening in. ‘Can you please hand me the goat?’

She passed it over, and I made a huge show of putting some on Josh’s plate. ‘Here you go, babe,’ I said loudly enough for almost everyone at the table to hear. ‘You wanted to try the goat, right?’

Josh caught on. ‘Sure, honey. Thanks.’ I took a piece of tomato from his plate with my fingers, and put it in my mouth, licking my fingers seductively.

We smiled at each other, and I added a cute little nose wrinkle to really seal the deal. Kiersten watched me agog. I winked at her and kept eating. She didn’t miss a beat, suddenly turning her attention to her left and laughing at Stuart’s last comment, something she couldn’t possibly have heard. She was a professional-level flirter, I had to give her that.

‘How’s that?’ I asked.

‘I think it did the trick. Thanks.’

‘Any time, compadre.’

Later that night, Hannah, Josh and I were sitting on the front deck of the boat, sipping some of Hannah’s Scotch – straight up, no ice – from plastic cups. After we told her about the liquor prices at the store, she’d rushed over to buy some.

‘I kept thinking, “What’s going to happen here? Do you want to have sex with me? Where would we even do that? We’re both living on boats – and sharing cabins!” I mean, seriously, what the hell was she thinking?’ Josh was obviously still reeling from Kiersten’s overt sexual pursuit.

‘Well, maybe she thought we all wanted dinner and a show,’ replied Hannah. She and I both laughed while Josh glared at us.

‘Oh, come on,’ I teased, ‘it was funny.’ When he didn’t respond, I added, ‘What? Too soon?’

‘Okay, I’m going to bed.’ He got up to leave.

‘Nooo. Sit. We’re only teasing you,’ I said, tugging on his hand.

‘It’s all good. I’m just tired. Thanks for helping me out, Sarah. And thanks for the Scotch, Hannah.’

We waved him off with, ‘You’re welcome,’ and ‘Goodnight.’

When he was below deck, Hannah topped up my drink and said quietly, ‘He likes you, you know?’

‘Josh? No. We’re friends – that’s all.’

‘He does. I’ve seen him watching you when you’re not looking.’ I shook my head. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Even if I was attracted to him – which since the bare torso incident, I realised I was – I didn’t want it to be reciprocated. Because it would mean that something could happen. And I didn’t want anything to happen. I’d sworn off men for a good reason, and I wasn’t going to get my heart tangled up in a stupid holiday romance, especially with someone who was becoming a friend.

No way. Hannah was wrong.

Chapter Five

Hannah was right.

After she mentioned it the night before, my senses went on high alert for any sign of attraction from Josh. We made it all the way through breakfast the following morning without so much of a whisper of it, and I nearly convinced myself Hannah had imagined it, but then he did something that changed my mind.

We were about to set sail for Naxos. Josh was seated in the dining nook fiddling with his camera, and I had just finished cleaning up after breakfast with Marie. As I walked past, he grabbed my hand and said, ‘Hey.’ Tingles shot up my arm. ‘Come ’ere.’ He pulled me gently towards him, and I obeyed. ‘Let me see.’ He turned me slightly and looked at my hip.

Part of my tattoo was peeking out from my waistband, and I realised he was asking to see the rest. Without a word, I pulled the waistband down a couple of centimetres, revealing the tiny spray of cherry blossoms.

‘I like it,’ he said, looking up at me with those steel grey eyes. I felt a twinge in my stomach and another one further below.

I righted my shorts and replied, ‘Thanks,’ as nonchalantly as I could. Then I went up on deck before he gave me any more twinges. Twinges were not good when you were trying to stay ‘just friends’ with someone.

Marie, who had seen the whole thing from the kitchen, joined me on deck shortly after. She raised her eyebrows at me – not like she was being judgemental, but more like, ‘what’s going on with you two?’ I shrugged my shoulders at her. I had no bloody idea.

‘You know,’ she said in a low voice, ‘Gary is a younger man.’ She emphasised ‘younger’.

‘Oh?’ She certainly didn’t look older than Gary. It also didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out where she was going with all of this.

‘Yes, and he pursued me for a long time before I gave in.’

‘Gave in?’

‘Uh huh. I resisted because I’m ten years older than him.’

‘Wow. You don’t look older than Gary.’ I figured I should pay the woman a compliment; whatever she was doing to look after herself was working. ‘So, can I ask how old you are?’

‘I’m forty-eight.’

‘Marie, you seriously don’t look forty-eight. I would have said you were only a little bit older than me.’

‘Thanks.’ She smiled. ‘I think it’s being with a younger man that keeps me young. They have a lot of energy.’ She raised her eyebrows at me again, and this time I laughed. ‘Look, this really isn’t any of my business. I’ll butt out,’ she added.

But I was quickly learning that when eight people live on a fifteen-metre boat, everything becomes everybody’s business and, besides, I didn’t want her to butt out. I wanted advice. ‘No, you don’t need to. I mean, I don’t know what to do here. I’m not looking for anything – casual or otherwise – and it’s not like we can spend any real time together if you know what I mean.’ I paused. ‘Though I do like him …’

‘And he’s so handsome,’ she interrupted.

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at her. ‘Really?’

‘A blind woman could see that Josh is a good-looking man.’

‘A good-looking younger man,’ I said, bringing us full circle.

‘Look, you don’t need to decide anything right now. Enjoy the flirtation. If something happens, let it.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. You can’t control everything, Sarah, especially feelings.’

I considered what she’d said. I did like to control things. Maybe that’s why the whole thing with Josh was messing with my head – and other parts of me. I didn’t want any kind of romantic entanglement with him – or with anyone – and I did not want anything happening in such close proximity to six other people.

*

The sail to Naxos was incredible. Unlike our trip to Ios, we could sail the whole distance without power, and for most of it the boat was at a forty-five-degree angle. I had to wedge myself into the galley to make a ploughman’s lunch of tzatziki, bread, tomatoes, olives and feta. Josh helped to ferry the dishes to everyone who was up on deck, which was everyone except Patricia. She was still sleeping. Shocker, I know.