Chapter 40
The days bled into each other and Mia could no longer make sense of time.
She felt like a vinyl record that kept spinning over the same track.
She woke, went to the restaurant, numbly served watery coffee and burnt toast to her customers, and tried not to think of that week on the island with Angelos.
- One Week with the Greek
NIKOS
One month later
M y grandfather used to say, “Niko, all good things come from the sea .”
I set my pen aside and stared at the words I’d just written, running my fingers over the drying ink.
All good things come from the sea. Funny, I never really understood what he meant until she stepped off the ferry.
But now I knew that Callie was the best thing to come into my life.
What were the odds that we’d find ourselves thrown together on an obscure island in the middle of the Aegean? She’d found her way to my rocky shore and then I’d ruined her trust in me forever. It was such a fragile thing, trust. And I’d never completely won hers.
Now it seemed all I could do was stare out at the water, hoping that somehow the sea would bring her back.
I set my notebook aside on the crumbling stone of the temple wall. Every day, I came up here to write. I needed to see clearly, and from here I could see everything—some days, all the way to Rhodes.
Today, I’d been trying to write the translator’s note to The History of Lyra . I’d finished it in the month since Callie had left. I’d immersed myself in it to try to do what she’d asked of me—forget about her. But it was no use. I didn’t want to forget about her.
If she thought I was going to give up on us, she didn’t know me at all. I meant what I’d said: I’d always have her back.
The problem was, I didn’t know where she’d gone.
Every trace of her had been erased from the Greystone website and she’d closed her Instagram account.
Even her phone number had been disconnected.
The only link I had to her was Jake’s card.
I stared at it nightly, wondering if I should call, but I’d promised her I’d give her time. Was it still too soon?
It may only have been a month since she’d left, but so much had happened in that time.
Nathalie had finally signed the divorce papers.
Emmanuel had left the camp for a new life in New York City, and, miracle of miracles, The Greystone Group had abandoned their plans for the resort.
It turned out that my grandfather’s cup was of archaeological interest, and Diana Russo’s mentor, the famous archaeologist Reginald Harris, was coming to explore the island himself.
“Doc! Doc!” Dimitris’s voice echoed over the rocks and I let out a defeated sigh.
Apparently, some things never changed. Dimitris and his broken bones, for example. I turned, expecting to see him limping toward me, but instead he was running, brandishing a rolled-up magazine in his hand like an Olympic torch.
“I found her!” he panted, doubling over when he skidded to a halt in front of me. “The Keetsen Weets!”
“What?” I said in disbelief. He thrust the magazine at me—some English food magazine I’d never heard of.
“Where did you find this?” I asked, snatching it from his hands and flipping through the pages.
“On the ferry. Yiayia wanted to go shopping in Rhodes. Someone left it on the seat.” He snatched the magazine back from me, opening to a page with a photo of Callie in chef’s whites next to an older woman in an English garden.
She was beautiful—still sun-kissed and radiant, lips plush and red, golden hair pulled up in a loose bun.
I read the caption: “Carys Llewellyn names Callie McGinn as head chef of her latest London restaurant.”
“She has a restaurant now?” asked Dimitris.
Her very own restaurant. She’d done it. A huge grin spread across my face. “The grand opening is in three days!”
“You have to go!” Dimitris slapped me on the back. “I’ll go too! Maybe she still needs a translator.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“What? There could be Greeks on holiday.”
“In England? Hate to break it to you, but it’s normally the other way around.”
The idea of seeing her filled me with hope .
. . and then dread. As much as I scoffed at the notion of an island curse, I secretly believed it might be true.
In my case at least, my agoraphobia was a curse.
That trip to Athens was bad, wouldn’t London be worse?
Even the thought of taking a plane made me break into a cold sweat.
Dimitris tapped me on the head. “See, doc? It’s like you said: ‘All good things come from the sea.’”
He was right. I stood and took his grubby cheeks between my hands and gave him a big kiss on the head. “You’re a genius, Dimitri!”
* * *
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” asked Dimitris the next morning as I stepped onto the catamaran that would take me to Piraeus. “What if you get bored?”
“Trust me. I won’t get bored.” Once I reached Athens, I had over 3,000 kilometers, or thirty-three hours of driving, before I reached my destination. I’d have to haul ass if I was going to be there opening night.
“You’d better not convince her to come back here,” warned Teresa as she passed me the gift she’d made for Callie, some sort of anti-stress bath salts. “But you also better not break her heart. I hate to admit it, but she was happy with you before you went and screwed it up with your lies.”
“I won’t lie to her again,” I promised. “I just want to be there to support her.” This was too big to miss, but at the same time, I didn’t want to distract her.
That’s how I’d explained it to Olivia when I’d called her last night.
“Finally! I thought you’d never call!” Olivia had chastised me before helping me come up with a plan to get my agoraphobic ass to London in time for the grand opening.
The first leg of the trip was no problem. I hitched a ride on a medical boat to Athens. Once in Piraeus, the busy port in the heart of Athens, things got complicated. This was the site of my last panic attack, the one that made me swear off crowds and big cities for good.
Lucky for me, my cousin Orestis had parked his Volkswagen on the sidewalk, so all I had to do was duck in and close my eyes while he zigzagged through rush hour traffic.
I hadn’t seen Orestis in years, but he’d agreed to drive me through the Balkans—Macedonia and Serbia—all the way to Slovenia where I was meeting up with Callie’s parents who were on the Tyrolian leg of their European tour.
When Olivia first suggested hitching a ride with Callie’s parents, I balked. As far as I was aware, Callie had never mentioned me in her conversations with them. And if she had, I’m not sure I would have come across as the most upstanding suitor.
“Don’t worry,” Olivia had assured me. “They’re the best. They’ll love you.”
Sure enough, they were delighted to see me and literally welcomed me with open arms. Callie’s dad, Bruce, was tall, chatty, and exuberantly Midwestern.
A retired history teacher, he was delighted to learn about my translation project and kept up a steady stream of conversation about Greek history as we crossed the Italian border in their rented camper.
Judy, Callie’s mom, was petite and quiet, but very friendly.
Like her husband, she was beyond proud of all that her daughter had accomplished.
Neither of them found it odd that this random, lovestruck bastard was crossing half the European continent to be with her.
On the contrary, they were thrilled—especially Judy, who kept taking pictures of us as we drove.
“For the family newsletter,” she explained. “Bruce’s sister Thelma’s always taking up so much space with her grandchildren. This edition will be for Callie. Thelma’s going to be so jealous when she sees you.” She squeezed my bicep for emphasis.
At first, I worried that this leg of my journey would take too long.
Bruce liked to drive well below the speed limit and often got distracted by the stories he was telling.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long to convince him to let me drive.
He chuckled as I floored it and sped onto the highway.
“Well, Nick, I wasn’t entirely convinced you were Greek, but now I see that you drive like an Athenian cab driver. ”
Our next stop was Aviano Air Base where we picked up the famous bruiser, Levi.
Olivia had warned me that he might not be so thrilled to see me.
That couldn’t have been further from the truth, however.
Levi was one of the most easy-going guys I’d ever met and I’m pretty sure he could charm the spots off a leopard, as they say.
Judy, at any rate, was thoroughly enjoying herself in the backseat with him and tried to convince me to let Bruce drive again so she could sit between the two of us.
“For the newsletter,” she explained.
By the time we made it to Paris to collect Olivia and Jake, I was a bundle of nervous energy and hoped I was making the right decision. The last thing I wanted to do was to show up where I wasn’t wanted. I hadn’t been able to forget Callie, but maybe she wanted to forget about me.
All my doubts went flying out the window, however, when I saw Olivia practically hopping around in excitement as I pulled up outside their apartment.
“This is so exciting! I love surprises.” She hugged me tight. “Okay, Nikos, let’s go get your girl!”