Barnes’s funeral was a simple ceremony of scattering ashes at sea. A priest from Santorini performed the duty from the boat belonging to Feodor. Aside from Feodor, the only other attendees were Nicholas and Dora, Niki, and me.
The priest also read a piece Niki had written in honor of Blake Threader. Among other things, she wrote of his great bravery and how he had made the ultimate sacrifice so that she may live.
I was grateful to him for that. Threader had his faults, to be sure, but he also had a level of integrity rare among humans. Rigging that mine to the Zodiac in itself would have required extraordinary effort. To think that he’d probably done it after taking a fatal bullet … well, it drove home the fact that there was, as he had said, only one Captain Blake Threader on this planet. I had the good fortune of knowing him.
Nothing was said about Father Jon. I still wasn’t sure why he’d killed a man to save my life. I wanted to think it was because he had at least some shred of decency left. The sad truth, more likely, was that he thought he still might need help catching up to Giacopetti. He played out his little charade until he got his hands on the scroll.
A week after the funeral, Nicholas and I were busy rebuilding the gazebo. The smell of wood, the feel of a hammer in my hand, and the sensation of trickles of sweat creeping down my bare back were all pieces of the kind of therapy I needed. It gave me a way to sort through the loss of a couple of friends and to process some of the experiences of the last few weeks.
But the job was winding down, and the time was coming when I would have to make a decision. I needed to get back to Colorado and get started on the book. We didn’t have the scroll, but we did have one hell of an adventure. It wasn’t going to be the big book, but there was a good chance it could hit the top twenty, a feat that would certainly put a grin on the face of Claudia Epstein.
I was starting to get pissed at Marion. I knew she was getting my telephone messages, and I was sure my letter had reached her by now. Why hadn’t she called?
I didn’t know what to do. Niki was reeling from her losses, still in shock over Barnes’s bombshell. She was in no shape to talk.
Nicholas and I were close to finishing the gazebo. We’d underestimated our materials, so Nicholas had taken the boat to a lumberyard on Anafi to pick up the rest of the flooring. I worked alone, nailing down what flooring we had.
It was Thursday, and Feodor had arrived with the mail. He handed me the bundle.
“I still can’t get over Mr. Barnes,” he said. “It won’t be the same here without him.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re gonna miss the old coot.”
“And the New York Times”—he held up the week’s accumulation—“it has lost a very faithful customer. They should at least write of his death. The obituaries, you know. He was a good man—a little strange, but a good man.”
“Barnes broke all the molds,” I agreed. “No doubt about that. Hey Feodor, you got time to hang around for a beer?”
“Not today,” Feodor said, stepping back toward the cockpit. “Today is the birthday of my youngest granddaughter. I promised the wife that I would be home early. If you are here next Thursday, I will take you up on it.”
“I don’t have my crystal ball,” I said. “But if I’m still here, I promise I’ll be waiting with my fishing pole and a couple of six-packs.”
He stood staring at me for a few long seconds. “If I do not see you, good luck. I hope your book is a huge success.”
I thanked him and shoved his boat out into the surf.
“I almost forgot to tell you,” he said, starting the engine. “There is a letter for you. Dallas, Texas.”
Marion.
I lifted the letter from the stack, set the rest of the mail on the floor of the gazebo, and then settled into the sand just out of reach of the surf. My hands trembled as I opened the envelope and removed the single page. I hesitated before unfolding it, closed my eyes, and braced myself for what I was about to read.
Dear Stuart,
I want you to know that I did get your messages and your letter. I haven’t called because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. Now I am. We had something very good between us, and I have really enjoyed our time together. You are a special man, and I will always remember the time I spent with you in the mountains.
Stuart, I don’t know how to say this gently, but I have met someone, a new client that lives here in Dallas. I don’t want to hurt you by saying this, but my feelings for Roger are unlike anything I have ever experienced. I hope you understand. There is so much I could say to you, but I will leave it at this. Thank you for the times we had. I pray that you will find the kind of love that I have found with Roger.
Sincerely,
Marion
That was it? I didn’t even rate a full page?
For the longest time I sat still, as if something in the rhythmic swish of the sea might soothe the stinging mix of anger and regret that burned like an ulcer in the pit of my stomach. Who was Roger? Damn whoever he was.
“Stuart!” Niki’s voice was barely audible over the surf. I turned to see her calling to me from one of the landings of the stairs. “Would you like … ?” Her words drowned in the next wave.
“I can’t hear you,” I shouted back.
“Would … you … like … a … beer?”
“Yes. Bring the whole case.”
“What? What … did … you … say?”
“Yes, beer.” I downed a pantomimist’s version of a cold one. “I … would … like … a … beer.”
Moments later, she was coming across the beach with a bottle in her hand. Her white shorts and red sleeveless blouse added as much cheer to her appearance as she did to mine. She sat in the sand next to me and handed me the beer.
“You do not look so good,” she said, glancing at Marion’s letter. “Is something wrong?”
Yes and no, I thought. I wasn’t sure where to begin. “You first. How are you doing?”
“Good now. I laugh, and then I cry. Mostly I am better, but I never know. So much to think about.” She pushed her bare toes through the sand. “I miss Rufus badly.” Her eyes welled with tears.
I ran my hand down her back and squeezed her side lightly. I figured we both needed a little humoring, so I held up the beer bottle. “I hope you don’t think this is the drink you promised.”
“I would not think you would let me off that easy.” She wiped away a tear before it fell, sniffed, and then smiled. She took another sip and handed the bottle back to me.
“You’re right. I’m not letting you off that easy.”
“Lately, I do not think that I would be a fun date. But that does not mean that I am trying to renege on a promise.”
“A fun date? After what we’ve been through, a fun date with you would be sitting on a quiet beach, drinking a beer, not worrying about getting shot, incinerated, drowned, crushed, boiled alive, thrown in prison, or stabbed in the neck. Just you and me, sitting in the sand, with nothing to do but look out at the sea.”
“So, you are saying that I am fulfilling my promise to buy you a drink, just by bringing you a beer?”
“Nope. Besides, you’re drinking half of it.” God, she was beautiful. “What I’m saying is, I’m giving you all the time you need to pull everything back together. Then I expect you to pay up.”
“This is sweet of you.” She leaned over and gave me a light, lingering kiss on the cheek. “And what if I do not pull everything back together? Will this keep you from going back to your mountain?”
I looked at her for a few seconds, and then I slipped Marion’s letter into Niki’s hands. She read it, folded it carefully, and gave it back to me, her eyes flickering with uncertainty. “I am so sorry. This must be difficult for you.”
“Yeah, difficult because I should have been the one writing the letter.”
“You have already decided?”
“It’s one hell of an ego bruiser, but Marion is right. I’d probably be a lot happier for her if I could just punch this Roger guy in the face.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It’s a guy thing. We do a lot of things that don’t make any sense. Like hanging on to people we’re not really in love with. Doesn’t make any sense, but it’s never stopped me.”
“You were not in love with Marion?”
Something told me she already knew the answer to her question. Women just seem to know these things. “You asked me that once already, remember?”
“At the café in Rome. You did not answer.”
“Guess I was afraid to hear what I might say.”
“But you only admit it now, after she has left you.”
She had her facts straight all right, but she was making it sound as if I’d planned it, as if I was waiting for a safety net to appear before I bailed. She was wrong about that one. Wasn’t she?
“To you, yeah,” I said. “To myself, I reached that conclusion the night I told you I was leaving Sarnafi. Your book and that bottle of ouzo helped me see it.”
“My book?” she said with a curious frown. “How did my book help you see?”
“The romantic part you said I should read. You know, Anatolios and Panagiota. It got me to thinking. If Marion were ever to leave, would I jump off a cliff rather than live without her?”
“There are plenty of cliffs here.”
She wanted me to confirm that I’d given up on Marion. “I don’t think I’ll jump.”
“And the ouzo, how did it help?”
“That stuff makes you honest. I decided there would be life after Marion.” Since Kyropos, I’d wondered what she had been about to tell me just before our rescue. Now that some of the air was cleared, I thought it would be a good time to bring it up. I took another swallow of beer. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“When we were on Kyropos, you started to say something. You gonna tell me what it was?”
She looked at me for a few moments before turning her eyes back out to sea.
“I cannot. Not now.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because is not an answer. I said so myself, remember?”
“It is an answer this time.”
No, this wasn’t going to do. There was too much going on between us. We needed to get it out in the open. “Well, Niki, there’s something I think we have to—”
She pressed a pair of fingers to my lips, stood, and started for the house in a determined march. I called to her, but she waved me off, and all I could do was watch her go.
Experience had taught me that the best course of action in a situation like this was to take a large swallow of beer.
I downed the bottle, lay back in the sand, and took another dose of regret from Marion’s letter. Even in that moment of defeat, something of a weight suddenly lifted, and I drew one of the deepest, most satisfying breaths I’d taken in a long time. I waded a few yards into the surf and read the letter one last time before laying it flat on the warm surface of the water. The action of the waves began immediately to carry the letter out to sea. Something in me drifted with it: a burden shed, a weight lifted, some invisible threshold crossed. Then, a small breaker formed on the next wave, seized the letter like a white hand reaching from the depths, and snatched it from my sight.
I worked the rest of the day alone, doing everything I could before Nicholas arrived with the new materials. He showed up a little after five, and by five thirty we’d finished unloading the boat. Nicholas headed for the house, and I for the cottage and a shower.
I was surprised to see a pair of slacks, a shirt, and socks laid out on the bed. A new pair of shoes sat on the floor. There was a note lying on the slacks: Candlelight Dinner, six thirty sharp. Niki’s odd behavior suddenly began to make sense. She’d been waiting for a certain door to close before opening a new one.
I picked up the shirt—silk—a tastefully subdued combination of blues, browns, yellows, and reds that formed a handsome array of figures lifted from a Minoan fresco. The trousers, sandstone in color, were made of fine wool, delicately textured, velvet to the touch. The shoes were brown slip-ons made of hand-sewn, expensive Italian leather.
After a shower and shave, I got dressed and stood admiring myself in the mirror. Everything was a perfect fit. I felt classy, well dressed, on my way to share a fine seafood dinner with a very thoughtful lady. She did good.
The door to the main house was open, and I could hear Dora in the kitchen singing to herself. I knocked as I stepped in. “Anybody home?”
Dora emerged wearing an ankle-length flowered dress with a brightly colored apron. Her hair was all done up, her face adorned with makeup. When she saw me, her eyes lit up; her fingers flew over her mouth and then melted slowly down her chin.
“Signor Adams, you are … you are so handsome!”
“Well, you’re not looking too bad yourself, Dora,” I said, grinning. “Are you busy tonight?”
“Me?” Her darkened eyelashes fluttered; the blush of her pendulous jowls deepened with playful scorn. “You are being ridiculous. It just so happens that another, much younger and more beautiful lady is to have the honor of being swept from her feet by you.”
I stepped past Dora and inhaled deeply of savory aromas rising with shimmering waves from the hot oven. “Do you mind if I do a little sampling? This smells so good I can hardly stand it.” I started to lift the lid off one of the steaming pots.
“Oh no you don’t,” she scolded, pushing my hand and the lid back down. “You are not to be in here. The food, it will come soon enough.” Dora took me by the back of the arm and ushered me to the foot of the stairs that led to Niki’s room. “You have more important things to think about than your stomach. Now go.”
Climbing the stairs made me short of breath. My heart was pounding. I was as nervous as a red-cheeked schoolboy picking up his first date. I walked lightly down the hall and paused at Niki’s door. I knocked, but there was no sound, only the lilting strains of piano music playing through unseen speakers throughout the house. I started to knock again, this time a little harder. I stopped when I heard footsteps—high heels on a wooden floor. I swallowed as if I had a hunk of dry slate for a tongue.
The door opened and there she was, a stunning force of absolute beauty. Her hair was captured in elegant, loosely bound strands, pulled to the top of her head, accentuating the soft features of her face and the delicate grace of her slender neck. She wore a string of pearls and matching earrings and bracelet, their muted iridescence radiant against her sun-bronzed skin. Her dress was fluid silk, ankle-length, strapless, sapphire in color, low enough at the top to offer a generous hint of her voluptuous breasts. A slit ascended from the hem to just above her knee, permitting a tantalizing peek at a perfect set of legs. Her shoes were thinly strapped, open-toed heels, sensual on her feet.
“Well?” She held her arms out like a ballerina and did a slight curtsy. “What do you think?”
There was playful uncertainty in her voice, as if my gaping jaw gave her the impression that I was too dumbstruck to form an opinion.
“What do I think?” I searched for the right word. Fortunately, there was only one. “Beautiful. Niki, you are absolutely beautiful.”
She laughed, a short burst filled with pride. “And you! Just look at you!”
I liked what I saw in her eyes when she said it.
“I don’t know how you did it, Niki, but everything fits. You’re amazing.”
Her face shimmered when she took my hand. “Come, I have something to show you.”
It was the first time I’d seen her room—a spacious, stand-alone apartment, really. It had a high beamed ceiling, beige stucco walls, and wood floors with cheerful rugs scattered in all the right places. Potted fig trees and paintings—mostly island landscapes of mountain and sea, local scenes—dotted the spaces between bold pieces of mahogany furniture. There was a large mahogany bed covered with a flowered spread, positioned to capture the seascape through an open pair of wood-and-glass doors. A bank of large windows let in a flood of early-evening sunlight, filling the room with golden cheer.
Niki led me past the bed, through the glass doors, and out onto the patio. Beneath a cover of latticework entwined by flowering vines, there was a table set for two, a bottle of white wine chilling on ice, two empty glasses, and a vase filled with red roses. A rainbow of potted flowers adorned the patio’s concrete railing and filled the remaining nooks.
“You see?” she said, waving an arm across a hazy vista of sun hovering over ocean. “Perhaps it is not a taverna on Santorini as you suggested, but we do have our own sunset, our own sea, and …” She finished her sentence by tilting her head toward the wine.
“Guess a guy’s got to be flexible,” I said, stepping to the table and lifting the bottle from the ice. “Fact is, I wasn’t particularly stuck on the idea of a taverna on Santorini. Beach, sunset, and the company of a gorgeous woman who buys the drinks—that’s the basic vision I was getting.”
“Then I am happy that you are so flexible,” she said, handing me a corkscrew.
I filled our glasses and offered a toast. “To the journey.”
“To the journey,” she said, clinking her glass to mine.
We sipped the wine and relaxed in each other’s gaze.
“Do you want to know something?” I said, my mind drifting over our shared experience of the last several weeks. “You and I, we haven’t known each other all that long, but we’ve got one hell of a history.”
Her eyes turned reflective. “You are right, maybe more than you know.”
“You gonna explain that?”
She took another sip of wine. Her glass dangled loose in her fingers as she stepped to the patio railing. She spent a long time lost in the pastel distance.
“Do you remember when we first saw each other in the airport?”
“I do. You gave me the distinct impression that you hated my guts.”
She laughed. “I am sorry, but that was not my intention. I was afraid of you.”
“Afraid? Of me?”
“You asked me if we had ever met, and I said that I did not think so. But I was wondering the same thing.”
“I was familiar to you?”
“I cannot explain it. I mean, I can, but—”
There was a knock on the door.
“Mezedes,” Dora’s muffled voice came through. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, of course,” Niki called back. “The appetizers,” she said, going for the door. “You are hungry, no?”
J Douglas Bottorff 