Page 11 of Footprints in the Sand (Coleman #13)
Chapter Eleven
A fter Estelle’s romance novel reading at the bookstore in Oak Bluffs, Dimitra had tears in her eyes that she couldn’t shake.
Estelle’s soulful and powerful voice had transported Dimitra back to her own beautiful love story—a love story set on the glinting waters of the Aegean, a love story of kissing in olive groves and driving too fast on island roads, a love story all her own, now that Kostos was gone.
It was a surprise when the audience began to get up, fetch glasses of wine, and go outside because Dimitra had been so captivated.
She’d nearly forgotten about Harry and his dog, Cash.
When she turned to find them beside her, Dimitra’s heart cracked open. Harry was looking at her with a mysterious smile that made her think he didn’t know what to make of me . She didn’t know what to make of herself, either.
It was strange to be looked at like that. Dimitra realized she’d been living in a sort of cloud of depression for too long.
“What did you think of the reading?” Harry asked, standing and sipping his wine.
“I thought it was…” Dimitra tried to find the perfect English word for it.
“Romantic?” Harry tried to help.
“Heartbreaking,” Dimitra said.
Harry furrowed his brow. “Explain.”
But Dimitra couldn’t. She shook her head and turned to watch as a line of audience members and Estelle’s readers formed so that she could sign their books. Margorie, the other writer, waited in the wings, preparing to do her reading immediately afterward.
When Dimitra didn’t respond, Harry said, “I have to get back to the boat to feed Cash and get ready for the night.” He sounded vaguely disappointed but also like he wanted to keep his spirits up. It was his first day back on the island, after all. His first “official day” of summer.
“Are you sleeping on the boat?” Dimitra asked.
“Yes. It’s the only home I’ve had for years,” Harry admitted. “I find it hard to sleep on land these days.”
Dimitra laughed. “Coming from Greece, I know plenty of people like you.”
“Is that so? Are we all alike?”
Dimitra didn’t want to tell him what she was really thinking. Men like him never settled down. They were chasing something that could never be found. She didn’t know if they knew what they were searching for. She didn’t want to get tied up in that mess.
Oriana and Meghan met them outside the bookstore.
“What did you think?” Oriana asked.
“She’s a brilliant writer,” Harry said. “I might pick up one of her books.”
Meghan beamed and winked at Dimitra, as though to say, he’s just showing off for you.
Harry explained again that he had to hit the road, but he pulled Dimitra to the side for a moment, saying, “I want to thank you again for all you did for Cash and me. I don’t know what kind of mess I’d be in if it weren’t for you.” He swallowed.
Dimitra had a flashing image of herself in her bra and underwear, leaping into the water like a woman on the brink of insanity. She put her hand on Cash’s head, and he smiled up at her. I may not love the man, but I love the dog , she thought, feeling a rush of tenderness for the creature.
“It was my pleasure,” Dimitra said. “I needed to cool off, anyway.”
Harry laughed. “I wondered if we could see each other again? I’ll be on the island for the next few months, or so, and…” He looked at his shoes.
It was remarkable to see a man of his age so nervous around a woman. Dimitra wondered what his backstory was—whether he’d ever been married before or if he was married now and just pretending not to be. Anything was possible in the big, wide world. Who was ever worthy of your trust?
“I’ll give you my number,” Dimitra said, surprising herself.
She typed her number into Harry’s phone and passed it back to him with a nervous smile. “Have a good night. Sleep well.” And then, in Greek, she said, “Kalinixta,” which meant good night.
Harry’s face transformed. He’d probably never heard Greek before. “That’s beautiful. What does it mean?”
“I’ll tell you next time,” Dimitra said, then turned away.
Oriana and Meghan were watching Dimitra like a hawk.
“He’s finally walking away,” Oriana said of Harry under her breath. “You put a spell on him!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Dimitra said, wringing her hands. “I didn’t come to America to get tied up with a vagabond.”
“Vagabonds have a way of swooping in, don’t they?” Oriana said with a funny laugh.
“He’s a handsome one, though,” Meghan said thoughtfully.
“I’m more into the dog,” Dimitra quipped.
Oriana suggested they grab some dinner and then head back to Dimitra/Eva’s place to see Dimitra’s paintings.
“I’m dying to show your work to a few of my clients up in Manhattan,” she explained as they moseyed toward a little Italian place Meghan and Oriana adored.
“I can tell you have a unique voice, a unique vision.”
Dimitra burst into laughter. “I’m sorry. How can you tell that? You hardly know me!”
“Oriana has a brilliant eye for detail,” Meghan said.
Dimitra thought, she’s just buttering me up . But she rather liked the experience.
At the Italian place, Dimitra ordered spaghetti Bolognese and a glass of red wine and fell into easy conversation with Oriana and Meghan.
They were dying to know more about their “mysterious Greek visitor,” so Dimitra told them what she could, that she’d lost Kostos in a fishing accident last year and had been struggling ever since.
“Meeting Rachelle was eye-opening, but she’s filled with so much joie de vivre.
She reminded me of myself before I met Kostos and settled down,” Dimitra said.
After that, Meghan and Oriana explained that they’d only known Rachelle a little more than two years.
Their father Chuck had left his first wife and family to live with their mother and them here in Martha’s Vineyard.
The scandal broke many years ago and served as proof, they thought, that their father had only truly loved their mother.
“But it was complicated,” Meghan said. “Our brothers Roland and Grant didn’t want to acknowledge us. It took forever for the story to come out for the rest of the Coleman families.”
“You have to meet everyone!” Oriana cried.
Dimitra laughed. “You might have a bigger family than I do.”
But when Dimitra told them that on the island of Paros alone, she had about forty cousins, Oriana and Meghan laughed. “We can’t keep up with that,” they said.
Oriana talked about her children and grandchild, her husband Reese, and the artists she’d worked with lately. After another sip of wine, she furrowed her brow and said, “Do you have children, Dimitra?”
Dimitra experienced a stab of sorrow, then cursed herself for it. Oriana was just being polite. Most married people had children, probably.
“We never did,” Dimitra said. “We tried, but it just wasn’t in the cards.”
Oriana’s cheeks went pale. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. I’ve made my peace with it,” Dimitra said. “My sister, Athena, is convinced I’m the loneliest person in the world, but it isn’t so. I have my art. It’s all I’ve ever really needed, even before Kostos came into my life.”
“How old were you when you fell in love?” Meghan asked.
“Mid-thirties,” Dimitra said. “I was painfully independent before that. I think people have forgotten that I can be that again. People want to know you’re safely in a couple, but being in a couple, in my experience, doesn’t mean you’re safe.
It means you face the world together, sure.
But anything can happen.” She swallowed and didn’t add what she wanted to—that she should have protected her heart from love, that maybe she never should have fallen for Kostos at all.
Her heart pounded with sudden memory of that horrific night, how she’d been waiting up, watching bad television, waiting for the front door to scream open.
She remembered the knock on the door, the police officers standing with their hands clasped nervously.
She’d known the police officers since they were all children, playing in the sands together, tanned to deep brown.
“We found his boat,” they’d explained. “But the waves were high today. It looks like he fell out of it.”
They never found his body. In the cemetery near Aliki was a gravestone with his name on it, but there was nothing buried beneath.
Dimitra didn’t bother going to the cemetery to grieve.
For her, Kostos’s spirit was in the water, in the sand, in the olive groves.
His heart still beat with her heart. In Paros, he was all around.
But he wasn’t in Martha’s Vineyard. That was clear.