Page 12 of Footprints in the Sand
“Is that right?” Meghan adjusted her hands on the steering wheel and continued to glance nervously over at Dimitra. She probably felt she’d just told Dimitra too much about her past.
This woman needs a therapist, Dimitra thought. She knew it because she felt she needed one, too.
Dimitra guessed that she and Meghan were about the same age, mid-fifties or so, but unlike Dimitra, Meghan looked businesslike and professional, as if she spent her days sitting at a computer to earn a living. Dimitra tried to guess what she did. Maybe something to do with a big Manhattan-based company that let its employees work from home? Perhaps something that required business meetings and business language that went far beyond Dimitra’s English comprehension? Dimitra had never known anything of that world. She’d been an artist since she was twenty-one years old.
When Meghan asked Dimitra what she planned to do while she was in Martha’s Vineyard, she asked it as though Dimitra was on vacation and would lounge around, going from beach to beach and eating seafood.
But Dimitra said, “I have several paintings to work on, and I want to get inspired for my new solo show this autumn. It’s in Athens, at a big exhibition hall I’ve always wanted to be featured in. It’s sort of a dream come true.” The fact that Kostos couldn’t attend, couldn’t be there for Dimitra’s big break, was one of the harsher realities as of late.
He would have been so proud of her, everyone said. But it didn’t matter what everyone said. Kostos wasn’t here. Kostos was gone.
Meghan’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You’re an artist! Eva didn’t say. Well, she didn’t say very much. She only just told me that she and Finn broke up, and she barely told me why. Something to do with money? I don’t know.” She waved her hand. “The two of them have been together for eight years! I can’t fathom what he could have possibly done to get on her bad side in such a way. I mean, he didn’t cheat on her. Not that I know of.”
Dimitra was surprised. When she’d learned that Eva was going through a “bad breakup,” she’d assumed that Eva’s boyfriend had cheated or left her abruptly or wronged her in some emotional way. A money-based breakup seemed far more adult and far more sinister, somehow.
Respect was tied to money and vice versa.
Dimitra wondered if she’d sense anything of the animosity between Eva and her ex in the house they’d shared, the house she was about to spend the next few months in.
“Eva said you don’t have a set leaving date?” Meghan said as she pulled up in front of the quaint gray-sided house near the water, cutting the engine and looking over at Dimitra. “But I told her that’s ridiculous. You’re a woman in your fifties. I’m sure you have people to take care of and things to get back to.”
Dimitra shook her head. “I’m a woman free to do whatever I please. I’m here for two months, maybe three.”
Meghan shook her head, then hesitated. She looked as though she wanted to ask another question. Instead, she said, “Let’s get you settled in, I guess.”
It didn’t take long for Meghan to give Dimitra the tour. It was a simple house, a rental that Meghan had thought her daughter and Finn would be out of by now. “I assumed they’d get married years ago,” she said, helping Dimitra haul her suitcase to the bedroom upstairs. “I assumed they’d buy a house somewhere onthe island and demand that I babysit a few nights a week. I’ve been wrong before.”
Dimitra thought of her sister back on Paros, annoyed that Nico didn’t yet have children and kept getting in and out of relationships.
“You said you have a son?” Dimitra asked.
“He’s worse than Eva,” Meghan said. “He’s as free as a bird, ready to go where the wind takes him.”
When they reached the bedroom, which was styled simply with black-and-white photographs of beautiful far-off places, Dimitra asked, “Isn’t it good that you raised children who are brave enough to go out into the world and find themselves?”
Meghan blinked with a mix of confusion and reticence.
“Listen,” she said, palming the back of her neck. “I know I seem like a nervous wreck. I’m just really anxious about my girl, off in Greece by herself.”
Dimitra’s heart melted the slightest bit. “My family is taking her in. I’ve told them she’s alone.”
Meghan nodded and looked at the ground. There was a moment of silence, followed by, “If you like, my sister-in-law is doing a reading at a local bookstore tomorrow night. She’s a romance novelist, a rather well-known one. The bookstore’s owned by one of my best friends, a guy named Daniel. It should be a good time. Wine and snacks and so on.”
Dimitra was surprised by the invitation. “I haven’t been to a reading in years.”
There weren’t many bookstores that she frequented on Paros, and she’d been so immersed in painting and drawing and designing that she’d hardly read many books.
“You should come. Everyone will be fascinated to meet the woman who took over Eva’s life,” Meghan said. “I’ll text you the details.”
Dimitra thanked her. “I’d really like to meet people in the community. Back in my village, I’ve known every person since I was born. I’m related to half of them, it seems like. Everyone’s my cousin or my cousin’s cousin and so on.”
Meghan laughed. “There are a lot of Colemans around here, but I don’t think it’s quite that dramatic. It’s too bad that Rachelle already had to head back to Rome. I know she would have loved to see you again.”
Dimitra walked Meghan to the front door, feeling awkward but eager to have a few minutes to herself. But when they paused on the stoop, making light small talk, Dimitra caught sight of the Vineyard Sound just beyond the sands and felt an urgent desire to go leap into it. She wanted to know how different it was from the Aegean Sea. She wanted to float and look at an entirely different sky.
Surprising herself, she asked Meghan, “Would you like to go swimming with me?”
Meghan smiled and said she had her swimsuit in the car. “We all keep a swimsuit on hand around here, just in case.”
