He looked genuinely surprised. “Next year? I hadn’t even thought about it.”
“We could come back just by ourselves.”
“That would be cool.”
“Let’s think about it.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’d probably run into Naomi all the time, though, wouldn’t we?”
Sam’s face lost its brightness for a moment, but she recovered.
“Would that matter?” she said quickly. “Do you not like her?”
“She’s all right. But you’re different around her.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, kind of. You start kind of acting like her.”
She wanted to say, “So what?” because it was not, of course, the first time that this had been pointed out to her.
But instead she merely said, “She’s older and interesting. Maybe I do change a little. It’s not that surprising.”
“I never said it was. But imagine a whole summer here just by ourselves. It would be so much better.”
“Maybe we should go to Spetses instead, then.”
He laughed. “Maybe we should.”
He went on to ask her if anything had been unearthed about the Codringtons, but she shook her head and brushed the question off. She was under orders from Naomi to say nothing to anyone.
They walked hand in hand through the port to Xeri Elia, the place where famous people once strummed their guitars under the trellises, with its twisted whitewashed trees and its outdoor tray of iced fish. They sat under the plumbago and ordered aubergines imam and fasolia. She had learned to read Greek characters by now and she spelled out every item on the menu for him, who could already read them. Stuffed tomatoes: tomat-tes gem-istes.
“I love the way,” he said, “they use the word ‘partheno’ in the phrase ‘virgin olive oil.’?”
She read slowly: “Partheno elaiolado.”
“How beautiful is that? ‘Virgin olive oil’ just sounds silly.”
She said, “Let’s have a drink and toast to us.”
They made it Babatzim with anise.
“Slug it back,” he ordered.
It felt good on the throat.
“I don’t want to stay here forever,” she said when her head had cleared, “but then again, sometimes I want to stay here forever.”
“You don’t feel that everywhere.”
“You can say that again. It takes a special place to make you feel like that.”
“I feel it here from time to time. My parents don’t, I don’t think. They can’t wait to get back to the States now.”
“I think we should come back next year and not tell anyone.”
“Deal.”
They moved on to Manolis for dessert. It was just around the corner, and she loved the downstairs room with its dozens of pictures of ocean liners and schooners and old Greek frigates, if that was what they were called. They gorged on rice pudding and then sat at the two tables outside in the alley and drank ouzo. It was the most beautiful part of the summer. These lazy nights with Toby with no one to distract her, and the roiling tensions and dramas that Naomi’s presence seemed to create entirely absent. Even the “event,” as she called it to herself, had become abstract and unreal. Certainly, she was forcing herself to forget and erase it. But it was more than that. She was edging closer to the idea that—quite out of the blue—she had stumbled upon the boy she would eventually marry. This enormous event suddenly eclipsed the other one, and she felt superstitiously that one had led to the other. It was not fortuitous. And it was this idea that kept her sane. The idea, and the constant presence of the boy with the soft buzz cut.
She spent most nights at his house and her parents no longer seemed to mind. They had eventually asked about him and then invited him around for dinner. It had been a surprisingly relaxed affair on the terrace, and Toby had sagely groomed himself impeccably for the occasion, showing up in an oxford button-down and subtly stylish slip-ons. His family standing was thus discreetly advertised, though she was ashamed to admit that she noticed or even cared. He talked well through dinner, and he and her father got into some spirited and erudite exchanges in the finest WASP tradition. So much the better.
Mr. Haldane: “Of course, although Pinochet was a rat Chile’s economy also improved with the reformed pensions scheme. I won’t and can’t deny it. That’s the paradox.”
Toby: “So you credit the Chicago School with some successes?”
Mr. Haldane: “I’m ashamed to concede the point, but yes.”
And so on.
“How’s Princeton?” her father asked eventually. “Hated it there myself.”
“It’s fine for now,” came the suavely offhand reply. “I might go somewhere else for grad school, though. Maybe somewhere in Asia.”
“Oh?”
“I’m doing Japanese as a minor. It would be cool to spend a year or two over there.”
“A shame you can’t get your MA here on Hydra,” her mother said. “The beautiful places are always the most useless.”
Sam bit her tongue. Inadvertent profundity was always the worst kind, especially coming from her mother. Nevertheless, they drank a lot of coffee in a hot wind and it was glorious. Her father was intellectually revived and irritated, her mother gave her an approving eye that clearly referred to the young man, the bell from the little church up the road tolled, and they wondered who on earth went there at that time of the evening. The maid brought out a bottle of sweet liqueur of some kind and a companion bottle of Metaxas, and small thimble glasses were rapidly filled and emptied.
From time to time Sam’s thoughts wandered—out to sea, out into the winds where the other girl still existed. It was Toby who caught her eye moving outward and away from the faces around the table. He knew at once what it was, but he had enough discretion not to bring it up later. They played cards after the table had been cleared and, unsurprisingly, Toby turned out to be a good player, better than any of them. Her mother was extremely pleased. She asked him about his parents, their house in Hydra. Were they the usual bohemians (though she phrased it otherwise)?
“No, my father runs a drug company. We’re not really the creative type. Anyway, I think a lot of the artists have left now. It’s gotten too expensive. There must be another island they’ve moved to without telling anyone. When I find out where it is I’ll let you know. But I don’t think you’ll want to go there.”
“Oh, but I will,” Amy burst out.
Sam took him down the steps afterward and along the path toward Kamini. They sat on a wall and kissed and reviewed the odd evening. They both knew that he had performed well, but that it was of no importance to either of them. She was already imagining how their relationship would be on home soil, thousands of miles away, surrounded by their common language. It seemed to her that it would be better, finer. And in some way easier. Her certainty about it was still growing.
“Let’s go swimming tomorrow at Vlychos,” she said before he left. “Come and get me around ten. I want to sleep in.”
“I’ll come and have your mother’s pancakes, like she said.”