“And instead… you’re doing office work and watching the leaves change colour each year.”
“Yeah. It’s not very glamorous. But then real life isn’t, I find. Time passes and you get more disillusioned with most of it. What about you, Charley?”
“Mm. Happy? No. Pretty content, all things considered, but not happy. Too much wreckage, too many hurts.”
I touched her shoulder and she sighed.
“It’s OK, though. I have a feeling things are getting better now,” she added.
“I hope so. You deserve happiness.”
“So do you.”
“Meh,” I shrugged. “I’m… okay for now.”
“I’ll get you sorted, don’t you fret,” she said.
“Uh huh. If I ever need an orgy organised I’ll be sure to look you up.”
“I’m hurt that you think that’s all I’m good for,” she laughed.
“So what else are you good for, then?” I teased her.
“Oh, wouldn’t you love to know.”
She leaned over and bumped her shoulder against mine.
I watched as the breeze teased her fringe, laughing softly at her as she brushed it out of her eyes with a frustrated sigh.
“I should trim it,” she muttered.
“No, it’s cute. Keep it,” I said softly. “It suits you – you’ve got eyes that were made for peeping through dishevelled hair.”
“Oh, you,” she sighed long-sufferingly, and I laughed again.
“I wonder how many people have sat here looking out there,” I said, after some time.
“Thousands, I guess. And that’s not even counting the people who built this place.”
“I wonder how many of them were happy.”
“Most, I’d hope,” she said softly. “Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?”
“I guess.”
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “It’s always been one of my favourite places. The islands, the sea.”
“I’m glad we found each other here again.”
I turned slightly, watched the complex parade of expressions that fluttered across her face. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What?” she said, squinting at me.
“Just watching you. You sounded… down.”
“I was, a bit, I guess. Momentarily. Just regretting all the… wasted time.”
“It’s only a month or two when you add it all up.”
“It’s the years that matter,” she said softly. “Time’s a precious gift, Ari. I wish I’d got more with you is all.”
“You’ll have plenty with me from now on, you know.”
“Never enough,” she said with a dramatic sigh.
Another wasp buzzed us before settling on what was left of our lunch.
“We should probably move,” I said.
She eyed the insect with distaste. “Agreed.”
She shooed the wasp away, and abandoned the last of the dolmades on the dry grass below us – a gift to the victors. She carefully folded the paper plate and tucked it into her bag.
“Come,” she said. “Let’s go see what that bay’s like for swimming in, then go lay in supplies for tonight.”
I took her offered hand, and she eased me up again. “You make me feel so short,” she complained.
“What’s six inches between friends,” I said, insufferably proud of the inspired double-entendre, and she cackled until she wheezed.
The bay was wonderful for swimming in, but what was even better was the strange, zen-like calm I felt as I nestled against her back on the scooter on the way back to the resort, my arms clasped around her as the world flashed by on either side of us.
It felt like a very small, intimate slice of paradise, and I didn’t want it ever to end.
.:.
Supply run to the little local market completed, we’d spent the remainder of the afternoon in the sea. She’d requisitioned a dinghy and I’d done the same with a windsurfer, and as we had so often in our childhood we chased one another back and forwards across the bay until the wind died with the coming evening. I helped her drag her dinghy back up to the storage area, and she helped me wrestle my board back as well. She followed me out into the sea for my traditional dip, and stood, smiling placidly beside me as I bobbed briefly up and down on the evening’s gentle analogue to waves.
“You’re such a water creature,” she said when I emerged.
“I know,” I agreed. “Should have been a mermaid, I suppose. Maybe I was, once.”
“It would be a good role for you, that’s for sure.”
“Shall we go drink and be merry?”
“That,” she said, “sounds like a fantastic idea.”
We waded back to the shore, and she took my hand loosely in hers as we wandered up the slow slope to my chalet.
Then she waited, arms crossed and tapping her foot, grinning while I fought with the lock on the sliding door.
“Fucking arsehole thing,” I swore as I finally managed to trip the lock. “Go shower,” I added. “If you want.”
“I’ll have a quickie.”
I rolled my eyes and she laughed as she brushed my back in passing.
“What do you want to drink?” I called after her.
“A glass of the Assyrtiko?” she said. She pulled her shirt up and off herself and I turned my back on her to dig out the wine glasses and pour her wine for her.
She brushed against me again as she reached for it. She’d shed everything but her abbreviated bikini bottoms; the magenta and white stripes of which curved elegantly down from lower-mid-belly to gather in a sunburst between her really quite lovely thighs…
I flushed and looked away; busied myself with my own wine glass.
“I feel crispy,” she complained. “Too much sun, not enough hydration.”
“It was a lovely day,” I agreed. I glanced back up at her, eyeing the faint pink lines that curved over her small, perfect breasts. “You do have some red on your shoulders. I’ll put some Aftersun on for you later if you like.”
“Yes, please. Otherwise I’ll be peeling by tomorrow.”
She leaned back against the counter top, scratched idly at the side of her left breast as she sipped her wine.
“I thought you were going to shower?” I said, amused by her laissez-faire approach to modesty.
“I’m getting there. Just… enjoying the moment,” she answered with a smile. “I like being on holiday. I like knowing there’s nothing chasing me – that I can spend this time here with you with no guilt or panic about other stuff I’m missing or letting fall behind.”
“I suppose that I know what you mean, though my life isn’t full of anything that requires much of my time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah… I’m mostly alone – I’ve got a tiny circle of local friends but nothing that consumes a lot of energy, and work tends to just be work. I’m in-between hobbies right now too, so… ”
“So what do you do? To keep yourself busy?”
“I read a lot. I walk a fair bit. I visit the library. Go to movies, the odd concert. It’s fine, it’s not too bad…”
“Hmm,” she said, unconvinced. “You sound… lonely, Ari.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “I suppose I might be. But it’s my ground state, whatever it is. You know me, Charley – I’ve always been happiest in my head.”
She smiled. “That’s true. I remember how intense you used to be about our sandcastles. I loved how important it was to you.”
“Defensive fortifications are important!”
“Granted, yes, but so was just spending time being silly.”
“We did do an awful lot of that.”
“Yeah,” she smiled. “Knowing I’d likely get to see you here kept me going a lot of the time,” she added with a strange change of inflection.
“What do you mean, Charley?”
She looked away.
“I guess I just wish we’d lived somewhere closer together, and that we’d managed to keep contact. Once we… lost touch, I constructed entire mental dioramas of nonsense as an addict’s desperate substitute, but none of it was ever enough for me.”
She sighed.
“My final years of school and my time at Uni were… different than how they perhaps could have been.”
“Why?” I said softly.
“It’s… hard to explain, really. It’s… I just… I just feel calmer when I’m near you is all. My highs aren’t so manic and my lows aren’t so… dark. I just feel like if we’d been regular parts of one another’s lives then a lot of stupid self-destructive shit I did to myself might never have happened because I’d have had you as my… tall voice of reason. Frankly, Ari, sometimes I’m surprised I’m still here. Some of the stuff I did was… well, it was stupid is what it was.”
She put her wineglass down with a clink, and with a sudden sharp pain in my chest I realised that she was on the verge of tears.
I put my own glass down and went to her and wrapped my arms around her.
“Oh, Charley…” I whispered.
She shuddered once, then sniffed hard.
“Sorry,” she said, after a brief silence.
“No, don’t. It’s fine. I’m here now.”
She sighed again as she wrapped her arms around me and pulled herself tightly in against me.
“Don’t you dare lose my number again,” she whispered, punctuating the command with another sniff.
And something moved me to gently kiss her forehead and tuck my face in against her. I barely registered the little noise she made over the cranberry ache in my own heart.
“I should go shower,” she breathed after a while. “Or at least put a shirt on.”
“Yeah. You’re all salty,” I mumbled against her.
“Pot, kettle…”
“I never claimed I wasn’t. Right. Go wash the day off you. I’ll get started on supper for us.”
“I missed you so much, Ari.”
“I know. And ditto. Come on, go get clean.”
“OK.”
She disentangled herself and stumbled off towards my bathroom. I took a slow, deliberate breath and shook my head several times to chase away the shadows.
I’d hurt both of us so badly. I hadn’t meant to, but I’d done it all the same.
I resolved to get her number tattooed on my arm if that was what it took to hang on to her this time.
Then I brushed some moisture away from my eyes, coughed once or twice to clear my throat, and delved into the fridge to distract myself by preparing our supper.