Page 25 of Accidental Getaway

The mosaic artist is an eccentric older woman in her sixties and she runs classes out of the front room of her home. Niko and I met for coffee at the hotel restaurant before walking to the workshop together, holding hands and admiring the beautiful cobblestoned streets.

We are one of three couples at the workshop, making it a pretty intimate setting.

“Mosaic art has been a part of Greek history since the fifth century BCE,” our teacher says. “It started out as very simple terracotta patterns in red and white before evolving into the intricate and colorful mosaics from ancient Greece that depicted gods and deities, among other things.”

Niko leans in to whisper in my ear. “I wish we had time to visit Delos to see the ancient mosaic artifacts there. They are incredible.”

The teacher gives him a side-eyed glance for talking and he sits back up. I hold back a laugh at Niko being scolded like a school boy.

“The earliest Greeks used naturally shaped and colored pebbles. Eventually, they used glass, stone, and ceramics in a fashion similar to today. For our mosaics, we’ll use cuts of porcelain and glass.”

She gestures to bins on the table between us filled with all sorts of scrap tiles, dishes, and glassware in every color of the rainbow. We each have a canvas, a little pot of adhesive, and a pair of tile cutters.

“Once you decide on an inspiration for your design, you can begin gathering and arranging the pieces onto your canvas. I recommend that you don’t glue down any pieces until you have a pretty good start on your design.”

The students begin to discuss their ideas and gather tiles. I immediately know what I’m going to create, but I ask Niko what he’s thinking.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I think I need to play with the pieces and see what forms on its own. What about you?”

I have already started reaching for yellow pieces of glass and pottery. “I’m going to create a sunburst.”

My answer comes easy—from my belief about there being something so meaningful about the sun. Light after darkness. Warmth after cold. Bringing new life and energy, day after day. Plus, I’ve always loved the way it feels on my skin. So maybe it’s as simple as that.

“I can’t wait to see it.” Niko leans over and kisses my temple, sending a warmth cascading through me.

When I woke up this morning, I had an anxious fear that yesterday had been a dream, and that somehow the other shoe was going to drop, and none of it would be real.

But when Niko greeted me this morning, his smile was as bright as ever.

It’s a strange feeling to struggle to trust someone who has never once done anything to make me doubt him.

He’s been nothing but respectful, honest, and forthcoming.

But that fear is still there, poking for me to question everything.

It’s not that I don’t trust Niko; it’s that I don’t trust myself. Not enough to deserve such happiness .

“Now, when you use the tile cutters, please wear your eye protection. The way these materials break is always unpredictable, and you never know what might go flying,” the instructor says to the group.

“You may be trying to cut a large piece and find it shatters. Or you are trying to cut a triangle, only for it to break off in a curve. The beauty of mosaics is the unpredictability. I encourage you to use the surprise cuts. Make beauty out of chaos. It will make for a much more interesting mosaic than if every cut was precise.”

My life feels a bit like that a mosaic right now—a bunch of jumbled pieces, cuts that didn’t go as planned, pieces that were shattered. I’m not sure if I’ve got them quite where they need to be to form a mosaic. But I’m working on it. One piece at a time.

“What are you thinking about?” Niko asks, as he passes me a blue piece of sea glass I can use for the background of my sunburst.

“Oh, you know, pondering the meaning of life,” I joke.

“Ah, no wonder you look so deep in thought. I was thinking about how much I miss American pizza.”

I give him a concerned look. “Seriously? That’s what’s on your mind right now?”

“No, I just wanted to see that adorable look of surprise on your face.”

I scrunch up my nose at him and knock him with my shoulder. “You’re ridiculous.”

I pick up the tile cutters and a piece of yellow sea glass.

I take my time trying to figure out where to place the blade.

I settle on a corner of the glass and give the handles a squeeze.

I’m worried about shattering it or sending a piece flying somewhere, so I don’t go hard. Of course, nothing happens.

“I’m scared! I don’t want to mess it up.”

“Didn’t you hear her? There’s no way to mess it up. The unexpected pieces are all part of the process,” Niko encourages. “Here.”

He places his hands over mine and helps me set the tile cutter. Once it’s ready, Niko squeezes my hand. I hear a sharp click. A small piece of the glass falls to the table. It’s hexagonal, with two sides longer than the others. It’s perfect. I place it at the center of my canvas.

“Thank you,” I tell Niko. Now that I’m comfortable, I do the next one on my own.

After a few minutes, I sneak a look at Niko’s canvas. I can’t tell what his design is yet. He has arranged a bunch of random colors and textures in an arc in the upper left-hand corner of his canvas. He’s going slow and picking out each piece methodically.

“What are you making?” I finally ask.

“You’ll see,” is all he responds.

Around the room, each of the couples works a bit differently. One decided to work on a large canvas together, each selecting pieces and creating pink flowers in a green vase. It’s intricate and delicate at the same time, and I love watching them debate on where to place each newly cut piece.

The other couple is working on separate pieces. They have barely spoken to each other since arriving and instead are focused intently on their work.

“Do you do this sort of thing a lot?” Niko asks.

“Not really,” I respond, trying to figure out how to explain my relationship with art.

“I think creating is such a beautiful practice. My mom knits and sews. She’s always working on something, and I think it’s really good for her.

Over the years I’ve tried different things like watercolor, candle making and cross stitch.

I always love it. But then work and life get in the way and I never make time.

When I was in Chicago, I worked, like, fifteen-hour days and barely had time to eat, let alone craft. ”

Niko reaches for the bin of blue tiles and begins sorting them into shades of light and dark blue. “I didn’t know you spent time in Chicago. When was that?”

Crap. I can’t believe I just dropped that so casually into conversation. I usually try to avoid the topic at all costs. “I went to school in Chicago and then worked there for a while before coming to Aspen Sky.”

“I’m not surprised you didn’t last long.”

My face flushes. What? How did he know … is it that obvious?

“Sorry, that came out wrong,” he continues. “I just meant that I’m surprised you lasted in corporate life for that long working such crazy hours. Despite getting an MBA, I have never wanted a single taste of that lifestyle.”

Oh, he was surprised I wanted to be in Chicago for that long? At least, I think that’s what he means. Now that I have the center of my sunburst filled out, I open my pot of adhesive and go to glue them down.

“Did you ever want to do something other than hospitality?”

Niko laughs. “I didn’t even really set out to do this. The opportunity just sort of happened. My dad knew someone who knew someone. It’s been a pretty good experience.”

“Was there something else you wanted to do?”

Niko takes a deep breath. He’s moved on to filling out the rest of his canvas with blue tiles. I watch his fingers work, steady and calm. Just like he is.

“Have you ever heard of social entrepreneurship? It’s somewhat of a countermovement to the capitalist notion of revenue at all costs, which often puts people and communities at odds with business goals.

With social entrepreneurship, the approach is that we can engineer solutions to social problems, like environmental change, homelessness, or whatever it may be while also making a profit.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

He considers a white tile before placing it.

“My grad program had a social entrepreneurship tract, and I fell in love with the idea. Before I came to Mykonos, I worked at a grocery delivery company that delivered produce at cost in areas of Los Angeles considered to be food deserts. That’s when fresh food is either hard to find or prohibitively expensive.

The company makes a profit off clients in higher income areas willing to pay a bit more in fees in order to support the mission of the company. ”

“Wow, that’s really cool.”

“It was great. I’m here now, though. And doing what I can with the hotel. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.”

I can’t tell if he has a look of regret on his face before he turns away from me to grab a bin of deep blue tiles.

I’m almost done with the sunburst in the middle of my canvas, so I start cutting purple and blue tiles for the background. I’m moving the colors around in waves, so it looks like an ombré swirl of color.

“By the way, I wanted to thank you again for hiding those ducks yesterday. It means a lot to me that you’d be willing to jump right in and join the effort to make someone else feel special.”

“Of course! I didn’t do much, but I’m more than happy to help.”

A little while later, we are both putting the finishing touches on our mosaics. My sunburst is full of yellow, white, and gold pieces set on a backdrop of purples, blues, and silvers. My heart swells just looking at it. Like I’ll always have a piece of the sunshine from this trip.

When Niko finally lets me get a good look at his canvas, I can see the arc he worked so meticulously on is a parasail. He also created a thin black line down from the parasail to a small cluster of white tiles—the boat. He created our first “date” from a few days ago. It’s beautiful.

“Niko, that’s amazing,” I tell him. “Is that us?”

“Yeah, I thought I would do something to commemorate our first adventure,” he says, placing a gentle hand on my back.

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.

That first night we met and I laughed at your baseball joke, I realized I hadn’t laughed in days.

I have been working so hard on the hotel and so deep in my own head worrying about my dad that I haven’t been enjoying life. So thank you.”

I take a long breath. It’s funny how differently two people can experience situations. That first night I was so nervous and felt undeserving of being here. I left my interaction with Niko thinking I made a fool of myself.

I still get a pit in my stomach any time I think about the board meeting next week but hearing how that night felt so different for him gives me hope that maybe I’m not as much of a mess as I thought I was.

A wave of warmth washes over me. I sit up to kiss Niko. But before I do, the teacher taps a putty knife to her water glass to get our attention.

“Now that all of you have created your mosaics, it’s time to grout them. On a table in the back, you’ll find everything you need to mix the grout and then you’ll want to use one of these tools to spread it over your mosaic.”

Niko stands. “I’ll grab our supplies.”

When he returns to the table, we mix our grout together in a bowl and get to work. I can’t stop thinking about what Niko said about social entrepreneurship and how customers respond to the opportunity to do good. It’s so in line with my ideas for marketing the hotel.

“You know, I have some ideas for the hotel I wanted to run by you,” I tell him.

“I’ve talked to Amber, and she wasn’t sure based on what you’ve said during our meetings, but I’d really like to take an approach similar to what you were talking about with the company in Los Angeles.

” I explain to him my ideas for highlighting all of the things that make the Omorfiá Hotel different.

“I just think it’s worth exploring on Monday.

We could use your expertise from grad school. I think it could really impress them.”

Niko pauses, furrowing his brow. “I’ll think about it,” he finally says, wiping his mosaic with a damp towel to remove excess grout on top of the pieces. “I’m not sure this board is one for such progressive ideas.”

I sigh. “Oh, okay. Yeah, I understand.”

Once we’re done with the artwork, we leave our creations at the studio where the instructor will apply sealant after the grout and adhesive dry. We’ll have to come pick them up in a few days.

As we walk back to the hotel, Niko puts his arms around me. “I hope it didn’t sound like I don’t believe in your ideas. They are great. I just already know the board is tolerant, at best, of the changes I’ve made, and I’m not sure that hinging our proposal on them is a risk we should take.”

“Of course, I totally get it. You need to do what’s best for the hotel. No worries.”

I can’t help feeling deflated. Between Amber and Niko, I think I’ll be stuck giving a proposal I don’t believe in wholeheartedly. I wish one of them would consider my suggestions more seriously.