Chapter 2
The next day a grainy orangey blur appears on screen, like the surface of Venus. Mom’s holding the phone to her ear even though it’s a video call. Honestly, the woman never learns. Still, I press on and tell them the latest in the Chronicles of Evie.
‘Fired!’ my sister Posy screeches. ‘Did you pretend to be invisible again? I’ve told you a billion times they assume that you’re shirking when you behave like that.’
Talk about exaggeration. ‘A billion times, Posy? Be real.’
So, I’ve found it hard to assimilate in new environments.
Mostly because I don’t like the whole talking around the watercooler thing.
I avoid people, which in a work setting can be misconstrued.
You’re not a team player, Evie. Why can’t I work in a team of one? It’s a lot more efficient for starters.
‘Mom, hold the phone in front of your face for crying out loud. If you can’t see us, we can’t see you!
’ Posy admonishes from behind her laptop.
We’ve clashed since childhood because Posy is bossy and opinionated, but I don’t take it personally; she’s just one of those larger-than-life types, whereas I’d much rather hide in the shadows.
I gather my wits. How best to explain this latest rejection? ‘Well, I wasn’t exactly fired, I was . . .’
‘Oh, there you are!’ Mom says, just like she does every video call, as if seeing us on screen is a marvel she will never quite get used to.
‘Hi, Mom,’ I give her a little wave. ‘As I was . . .’
‘There could be a silver lining to this dismissal,’ Posy rushes on, cutting my sentence short. ‘Evie can help with the Gran fiasco! We can have feet on the ground in Santorini and find out what’s really going on with that crazy woman!’
Santorini?
‘I told you, I wasn’t fired! I was made redundant. It’s different!’ Honestly, are they even listening? ‘And Gran is not crazy. She’s a . . . free spirit.’
They ignore me and continue talking over the top of each other as if I’m not even there.
Usually that suits me just fine, but not today when I need some good old-fashioned comforting.
They ramble on about the many times wayward Gran has got herself in a pickle and how this time she’s gone too far.
What have I missed? It’s true, I’ve been avoiding the family group chats, but only because there are books that need reading and it is, was, my job.
And my family is dramatic, to say the least – there’s always some conspiracy that needs solving and I find it a tad monotonous.
‘STOP!’ I yell, drawing wide eyes from them. I’m not a yeller. ‘What Gran fiasco are you talking about? I thought she was cruising the Greek isles?’
Mom heaves a sigh. ‘She was. Until she stepped off the ship in Santorini a month ago, fell in love with a local, married him and took over the running of his business, or some silly thing.’
‘Gran got married? Again!’ I count back in my mind.
Is this husband eight or nine? The last one, Henry, went missing off a boat under suspicious circumstances.
Before him was Zhang Chen, a wealthy investor and ice-climbing aficionado.
He met his untimely death taking a selfie and fell backwards into a crevasse because his belay wasn’t clipped in.
We were all relieved when Gran gave up ice climbing after that.
Terribly dangerous, especially at her advanced age.
‘Yep married. Husband number nine! And . . .’ Posy does jazz hands ‘. . . Gran also got arrested!’ Her eyes twinkle with the scandal of it all. ‘But not on the same day.’
I gasp. ‘What! Arrested for what?’ Did they find Henry at the bottom of the South China Sea?
Mom scrubs her face as if the memory pains her.
Gran sure is a wild one. ‘Early this morning she got arrested for disturbing the peace but got let off with a warning. Allegedly she had a disagreement with the landlord, and you know Gran. Why speak if she can yell to get her point across? Now they’ve put restraining orders on each other, so how they’ll manage to do business is beyond me . . .’
‘You have to rescue her from herself, Evie. She’s in a foreign country. God knows who she’s married or what’s really going on,’ Posy pleads. ‘I know you think Gran is this sassy, vivacious powerhouse but, in reality, she’s going a bit doolally. You need to make her see sense and bring her home.’
I scoff. ‘This is Gran we’re talking about! There’s no chance of me convincing her if she doesn’t want to come.’
Mom presses an eye up close to the screen, which is downright terrifying. ‘Use your wiles.’
‘What wiles?’ Posy says. ‘Evie isn’t exactly the persuading sort. She’ll probably be there a week before she works up the courage to announce her arrival.’
I roll my eyes. ‘So? Unlike you Posy, not all of us like to be the centre of attention.’
I belong to a family of overachieving extroverts.
Just once I’d have liked to succeed, the way they all do effortlessly.
Posy is on Broadway and has the ego to match.
My dad is a famous divorce lawyer who handles high-profile celebrity splits.
And Mom’s supposed to be semiretired, but we’ll be prying a yellow legal pad out of her cold dead hands before she gives up litigating. Her firm is her life.
‘Right, you don’t like being the centre of attention, so with that in mind, you’re going to have to be fierce with a capital F when you get to the island. Convince Gran to stop messing about,’ Posy says. ‘We don’t want her having another altercation with this landlord guy. A Greek jail is no joke.’
So much for being smothered in love and sympathy over the loss of my dream job.
I don’t have time to rescue Gran, who I know will most certainly not need any rescuing, unless it’s from her own family.
I need to find another job and fast. Zero-bed apartments in LA do not come cheap.
And book scout jobs are almost impossible to find.
Yet now I’m being forced on a mercy mission.
This is so typical of my family and our dynamic.
‘I can’t go to Santorini. I have a life here, you know.’ OK that’s a lie but I’m working on it (if that includes reading about fictional people with complex relationship woes). ‘Gran’s a formidable woman. I don’t get why you insist on intruding into her life like this.’
‘Please. I’ll pay for your flight. It’s the least I can do,’ Mom says. ‘Gran’s too old to be running around a sun-drenched bookshop, pandering to tourists. You know what her knees are like.’
Wait, what? ‘A bookshop?’
‘Keep up, Evie!’ Posy says, exasperation in her voice.
‘Gran’s new husband has a little bookshop perched on some cliff, which she’s apparently spent the last month renovating.
Picture her up on a ladder painting. She’s one step away from a fall that will break her hip – or worse, her head!
Although, I suppose it could knock some sense into that melon of hers . . .’
Well, well, well. Perhaps I could relinquish my frightfully expensive zero-bed apartment lease and stay with Gran for a bit.
There could be worse places to cool my heels than a sun-drenched clifftop bookshop on a Greek island while I figure out what to do about my job prospects.
‘Book me a ticket then, Mom. I’ll go and see what all the fuss is about. ’
Summer at the Santorini Bookshop is available now!