Chapter 3
Maggie
The small woman shouted at Alex, then turned her vitriol to me. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying but read the situation immediately.
“Okay,” I said and threw the towel in the sink.
I headed for the door all the while dodging what I assumed were insults at me.
Alex finally barked something at her, and she stopped.
“Well, this was fun,” I deadpanned and ran down the stairs.
“Maggie—” I heard Alex call, but I was not looking back.
Angry girlfriend’s or wives were not something I’d ever experienced. I needed to get as far away from the situation as possible.
Thank goodness my little house wasn’t too far, and I’d left the door unlocked. But the second I flung the door open I heard my name called again. Only it wasn’t Alex.
I froze and turned to see Tommy and Richie rushing into my house after me.
“Hey,” Tommy laughed.
What were they doing here? Oh right, my birthday party.
Play cool, Maggie.
Never let them see you break down, never let them have the upper hand.
That was the lesson my society conscious grandmother taught me back in Louisiana and what Ivan insisted when a mission went wrong.
Tommy eyed me suspiciously.
“Hi!” I sang as nonchalant as I could.
“Come on, give us a hug,” Richie held his arms out and I stepped into them. He held me tight and God, I needed it. He didn’t let go, swaying with me.
They knew me all too well, I wasn’t planning on telling them what had happened with Alex, but they were going to know something was up. I needed to gather my spiraling thoughts before I told them I’d kissed a man who’d never fixed a cassette tape with a pencil.
I liked him too much. His handsome face and sculpted body. His well of useless knowledge and avid reading, the way he took control and, God, the way he kissed. Tsu, tsu, tsu.
“If you want me to apologize, I won’t.”
Richie finally let me go and launched into one of his long-winded stories about travel foibles and miscues while Tommy studied me suspiciously.
I assumed he could smell a male essence.
He was a professional “Nose” for the perfume industry three lifetimes ago and started Mirit’sya cosmetics with me after graduating from Oxford.
Then we got pregnant, then we got married, then he realized he loved someone else.
But that was all in the past. We had a wonderful son who we co-parented with Richie, and they were my family.
Richie opened a bottle of wine and Tommy followed me to the bedroom. When we were out of his husband’s earshot, who was still rambling about the yacht charter people, Tommy placed his hands on his hips and waited.
“You had sex,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.
I didn’t speak.
“You’re fighting a smile, and your cheeks are blushed, Darling.” He said pointing at my face.
“No, but it was a mind-blowing kiss,” I confessed.
I gazed at myself in the mirror, and I was positively glowing. I looked the best I had in years except my hair was all frizzy and unruled. I placed my hands on my hot cheeks.
“Oooo, that good, eh?” He rushed to the edge of the bed, sat and crossed his leg like a teen girl wanting the tea. “Tell me.”
“He’s young,” I declared with a hint of sadness that I’d never allow another tryst with Alex. It was too complicated. He was too complicated. I’d be looking over my shoulder for jilted lovers and his family finding out—-and I’d have to keep sharp all the time with his razor-sharp wit. No thanks.
My menopause brain refused to be available for drama anymore. I didn’t want complicated. I didn’t want to have to work at a relationship. I’d done that—twice!
With Tommy I worked to try and keep his attention sexually and with Ivan I had to fight to keep his attention at all.
I didn’t want to have to always worry if Alex would get bored of an aging, grumpy, chemistry professor and leave me like all the other men in my life.
And I know Ivan dying wasn’t his fault for leaving me alone.
But I still couldn’t help feeling that way.
Richie came in with three taverna glasses and a bottle of white wine and glanced back and forth between us like a cat watching a tennis match.
“What did I miss?”
ABBA blared from James’s portable speaker on the shared patio of our two little houses after we’d watched the candlelight Orthodox Easter procession from the top of our hill to the church. The family didn’t go to the midnight service.
We’d been dancing and drinking again, like a group of Pagan’s and no one cared, not one bit. Gianna told me her mother always said; “faith doesn’t come from inside a church”, and Irene nodded confirming her own words.
James, Eleni, Tommy and Richie danced to an old Greek song holding hands raised in the air as Alex led the line with a napkin in one hand and Tommy holding the other.
I sat with Irene (the matriarch) and her daughters, Gianna and Nancy, all of us fanning ourselves with brightly colored paper fans. The Old Lady Crew.
I watched Alex dance and tried to appear like I didn’t want to wrap my legs around him so tight he’d have to call for mercy.
My desires were all over the place making me uneasy.
I wanted him and I should have taken what I wanted, but there was too much emotion from his words that I wouldn’t have been able to live with just a one-night stand.
This place was making me a little crazy.
“Eleni told me you had breast cancer,” The older woman tore me from my sinful thoughts about her son.
“Oh, yes,” I deflated. We had been discussing her bout with Parkinson’s Disease, Gianna’s frozen shoulder, Nancy’s recent weight gain and all of our Menopause issues. Because that’s what old people do, talked about their ailments. “Double mastectomy about twenty years ago.”
A collective gasp came from my new empathetic friends.
“It’s okay. I’m in full remission,” I assured them, but I took a big gulp of water instead of telling them my recent inconclusive bullshit. I knew it was back; I could feel it this time. The fatigue was the first sign along with the pain in my joints.
“Yamas!” Irene called and held up her water, we clinked glasses. “To the strength of women.”
“You know none of the people who live here get cancer,” Nancy said after we all drank. “And Mama’s Parkinson’s was already too far gone when she came back for any reversal.”
“But,” Irene held a shaky finger up. “It has not advanced since I’ve been back.”
My head swiveled to each of the women and back again.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“The Virgin Mary,” Eleni said out of breath as she sat next to her mother and took her glass of water.
Gianna turned her fan on her daughter making her smile and her hair blew away from her sweat soaked face.
Their respect and love for each other made me long for family connections to other women.
I had wonderful men in my life but no women.
“Oh, nonsense,” Nancy grumbled. “We have rich minerals in the soil and the water. Our diet and outside lifestyle make the locals live well past most places in the world. We have the most Octogenarians in the world. Have you heard of ‘The Blue Zone’s’? That’s us!”
“Is that true?” I asked Gianna.
“Yes, but there’s more, there is also the legend here on Tinos.
” Gianni nodded. “When the icon of The Virgin, the one in the church—” She pointed to the south.
“—was found in 1823 it had been perfectly preserved since the Byzantine era with a coating of what the excavators called a mixture of water and glass. And whoever came in contact with it were instantly healed of any infirmity.”
“Malakeies leei,” Nancy interrupted. “It’s all in the soil from the katsíka shit and ossa.” She grumbled.
Ossa meant bones; I’d learned that in school. I had no idea what ‘katsíka’ was.
“Thousands of years the marrow in the bones of the goats and sheep gelatinized. Obviously, some brilliant person thought to coat the icon in the stuff to protect it.” Nancy barked.
“Oh, come on,” Eleni argued. “It’s not just the science. It is the lore people wish to believe. They built the church to hold the miracle icon and people chose to believe it can heal the sick.” Eleni concluded the story.
“There has to be a scientific answer for what the icon was protected by.” Nancy said.
“But, of course back then—they were simple people, farmers. They didn’t know to research it.
” she waved her hand in the air dismissively.
“Now it’s encased and guarded day and night.
The true faithful still crawl up the hill to the church on their hands and knees. ” She rolled her eyes.
“There’s even a statue depicting the plight,” Eleni added.
“It’s a fabulous story, right?” Gianna tried to lighten her sister’s distain for the faith.
“Yes,” I gushed. This place wasn’t just another party island in the Aegean Sea like Ios or Mykonos, this place had a wonderful and mysterious history.
I caught Alex scowling at me from the other end of the table and my heart lurched. He was sitting with James, Richie and Tommy who looked to be in the middle of a hilarious story judging by the men’s laughter. But the more I gazed at him the sadder he looked. I felt it down to my bones.
We wouldn’t get another chance and I had my nosy ex-husband and his husband as my roommates tonight, then I was leaving.