Chapter 77 Charlotte
Charlotte
Charlotte took a taxi to the port of Piraeus. Paros had told her during his thrilling phone call that she would find The Flying Star easily, as it was the only tall sailing ship docked alongside megaliners. “A sailing ship! How romantic,” Charlotte purred.
“It was the job I was offered,” said Paros. “And Charlotte? Please adjust your expectations. A tall sailing ship is not for everyone.”
Charlotte did love her luxuries—her golf cart, a walk-in closet filled with clothes.
And was this really the time for her to go chasing love?
Yes, Regan had been located and brought back to her girls, but she was obviously struggling.
Charlotte pushed the thought away. She herself was not getting any younger!
As the disco song said, this was her last chance for romance.
Charlotte could see Donna Summer in her mind’s eye, wearing a sequined pantsuit and imploring Charlotte to dance the last dance tonight. Charlotte nodded, her mind made up.
Her taxi descended from the heights of Athens toward Piraeus; the city revealing itself in layers—Byzantine churches nestled between apartment blocks, outdoor tavernas where old men played backgammon under grape arbors, balconies dripping with geraniums in recycled olive oil tins.
The Mediterranean stretched before them, dotted with ferries heading to islands that promised escape, transformation, or both.
Charlotte remembered her first journey to the port, before she had known what it felt like to explode in passion.
Now she knew. And somehow, she had let Paros go, along with his tender kisses and erotic maneuvers.
Charlotte had become a doddering, albeit soigné, old woman.
She forgot much of what happened to her or was said to her—famous lemon chicken?
Remaining cheerful at age eighty-one was, she knew, a matter of calculated ignorance and strategic denial.
But what was the alternative? Who the heck wanted to ponder the sadness of waking alone, the fear of falling over and breaking your paper chopstick bones?
Quelle horreur, but no one wanted to think about these indignities, least of all Charlotte.
Anyhoo, her cab stopped, bad brakes squealing, and Charlotte opened her compact to check her lipstick, mascara, and silver eye shadow.
She’d used the nose hair trimmer her best friend, Minnie, now dead for a decade, had given her as a joke one year during her golf group’s Secret Santa cocktail party.
Minnie’s joke gift had turned out to be useful when wiry hairs started growing past Charlotte’s nostrils.
She wore white Capri pants, a navy-and-white-striped sweater, and gold, anchor-shaped earrings. (OK, gold-plated, but from the Ralph Lauren outlet store on Hilton Head Island.) This was the best she was going to look. It was time.
“Ευχαριστ?, γεια,” said the driver.
“And the same to you!” said Charlotte.
But instead of bounding from the malodorous car, Charlotte remained still.
The driver stared at her in his rearview mirror and raised his swarthy eyebrows.
His pupils were the color of chocolate, his expression kind and a bit pitying.
He probably thought she was a lonely heiress going on vacation by herself, not a single gal having a rendezvous with her Greek beau, the former love of her life, her partner in a torrid Mediterranean tryst on the high seas.
“Ευχαριστ?, γεια,” he repeated.
“Yes, I heard you,” said Charlotte.
“You need…assistance?” said the driver.
Feeling guilty, Charlotte pulled out her phone and called Lee, back at Regan’s apartment. “Lee, darling? I’m about to board Paros’s ship for—well, I don’t know how long. But should I stay? Do they need me? Do you need me, Lee Lee?”
Lee’s voice sounded tired but determined. “We’re fine.”
“I love you, Lee Lee. Call me if anything changes. I mean it.”
After hanging up, Charlotte stared at her reflection in the taxi window.
For decades, she’d been the family matriarch in name only.
Lee had actually raised Regan and Cord after Winston died.
Now her granddaughters needed stability, and she was running off with a man.
But Charlotte didn’t have long left! She wanted to be happy!
“Adios,” said Charlotte, and of course she knew that “adios” wasn’t Greek, but the Spanish farewell felt appropriately dramatic. “Adios, amigo!” she said, throwing open the taxi door. “Au revoir!” she added, for good measure.
She stepped into mayhem, joining a river of cruisers dragging giant wheeled suitcases toward megaliners, as she had once done herself. One man wore a T-shirt that said Feed Me Beer and Watch Me Dance.
Charlotte shuddered.
She felt very alone. And yet, oh, the human heart, mused Charlotte: Despite the trials of life, the human heart yearned for love! Her human heart, anyway.
Across the parking lot, lit by bright sunlight, she saw her paramour.
Paros, too, had aged, but he wore a trim white uniform with epaulets and dashing sunglasses.
He looked important, gruff, and Marlon Brando–esque.
Charlotte was proud that he had worked his way up, and was now manning the gift shop inside The Flying Star.
In between colossal, gaudy (but fun, oh so fun) cruise ships, Paros’s sailboat was breathtaking—its hull gleaming white, its many sails rippling in the wind.
Her hull—Paros had told Charlotte that you were supposed to call your ship “she.”
She had gleaming mahogany rails, bright brass accents, a small gangway staffed by men in uniform. Staring at such a ship made Charlotte feel as if she were living in another time, boarding a vessel to sail across an ocean and start an unknown life.
Ah, if only she were beginning again.
Was it possible—could it be—that she was?