Page 87 of The Summer Show
“Will your whole family disown me?”
She laughed. “Hardly. They love you. Well, maybe not Thea Irini One, because the only things she loves are social prestige, overcooked lamb, and the acquisition of fresh gossip. But everyone else thinks you’re wonderful. If you and Nick get together, they’ll be overjoyed that he’s with someone they don’t hate.”
“Do they usually hate his girlfriends?”
“Taylor is the only one he brought here, besides girls he dated on the island, the ones that lasted for the summer or part of the summer. None of them have ever been good enough, even to my mother. But you? If anything I think they’d think Nick isn’t good enough for you.”
I slumped down over my coffee. “I don’t even know if he’s interested. We’ve been doing the show together, which means if he does like me, it’s probably some warped form of Stockholm Syndrome, or some kind of shared trauma. I’m sure there’s a real, clinical explanation for it, and I’m going to look it up just as soon as you leave for work.”
“Don’t you dare!” She slapped her hand over my phone. “Just go for it. Nick’s a simple guy, he’s not complicated. He doesn’t overthink things the way you and I do. Probably because he was born without a brain.” She grinned. “Ask him on a date, or just tell him how you feel.”
“Worst idea ever,” I said. But I was only half joking. Being too shy to talk to boys was a middle school or high school thing. Maybe even a college thing. As a bonafide adult, I could walk up to Nick and be honest about my feelings.
Right?
This was loin girding time.
Unfortunately I couldn’t gird my loins in my Llama Llama Red Shortie Pajamas and fluffy slippers, so a shower and wardrobe change were in order. While Ana was at work, I was supposed to meet her mom at the family home and we were going to play tourists in the main village.
I hid most of my head with a floppy hat and big sunglasses. Shrouded like the young and mysterious Italian widow of a wealthy-but-dead man, I swung by the Stamou residence to collect Lina Merrick, who still went by her married name because it looked better on her business cards. The Stamou women were sitting around a basket of green beans snapping the ends and ripping the strings.
“Tell me something,” Yiayia said, “are you and my boy still on the show?”
I zipped my lips. “Mmmph.”
Proyiayia cracked up. She slapped her knee like I was part clown and she had never read IT.
“Not even a little hint?”
“What if I tell you all the gossip after the show airs—all the hot gossip that no one else knows?”
Yiayia snapped her beans primly. “Gossiping is bad.”
“She says that like gossip doesn’t give her life,” Lina said with a mischievous grin.
“Stories, I like.” She waved a bean at her daughter. “Gossip, no.”
“Gossip, yes,” Lina said.
“Out of all my children, Lina is the worst,” Yiayia told me.
Later, with freddos in hand, we walked along the streets of Nera, inspecting the trinkets crafted for tourists.
My phone rang.
“Come to the hotel,” Dora Makri said in her thick, accented English. “We have a big surprise for you. I arranged it myself.” There were muffled voices. Then: “They want me to tell you they arranged it, but it was my idea.”
“I have to go,” I told Lina.
“You are still on the show, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
“Come on, I’ll walk with you. I need the exercise after Mama’s cooking. She’s trying to fatten me up so she can complain that I’m too fat.”
* * *
Nick was pacing by the bridge at Hotel Ble. As soon as he spotted his mom and me, he stalked over to us.