Page 18 of Footprints in the Sand (Coleman #13)

Chapter Sixteen

T he painting Eva made that late night on the Fourth of July was one of the worst things ever put to a canvas.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when Eva finished, and she laughed at herself, cleaning the paintbrushes and wiping the table down.

“I tried, Aphrodite,” she said aloud, anticipating the moment when Aphrodite would see her attempt and laugh and laugh.

Aphrodite had a brilliant laugh, one that made Eva’s heart open, even if she was using that laugh to make fun of something Eva had done.

It was sort of a miracle to have a friend like Aphrodite here so far from home.

Now, Eva went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water and get a snack.

So overwhelmed from kissing Nico (something she’d decided was probably a bad idea, although maybe she’d known the entire time), she’d forgotten to eat dinner, and now she was famished, scrounging around her fridge for something, anything.

She ended up taking crackers, cheese, and wine to her rooftop to listen to the sounds of the wind over the water and houses.

Somewhere not too far away, someone was playing traditional Greek music.

As she sat up there, Eva thought about the not-so-distant past, when Dimitra and Kostos had come up here to cuddle and eat and drink and laugh.

She wondered why Nico had been so adamant about Kostos and their family secrets. She pondered what darkness lurked just beyond that harsh tone.

Then again, she was a Coleman. She knew plenty about family secrets. More than that, she knew that family secrets needed to be uncovered in order for healing to begin.

This isn’t my family. This isn’t my culture.

I can’t get involved, she told herself.

A little while later, Eva brought her dishes to the kitchen and walked down the hall toward the bedroom Dimitra and Kostos had once shared.

Not in all her weeks here had Eva crossed that threshold, knowing it was private and part of a very different past. But curiosity had gotten the best of her.

She opened the door and found herself in a perfectly ordinary bedroom, with a double bed and bedside tables and art on the walls.

Most of it wasn’t Dimitra’s art, she didn’t think.

She wondered if there had been a conversation about that.

There were also framed photographs of Dimitra and Kostos on their wedding day, on vacation, riding camels, and kissing in London.

Eva’s eyes filled with tears. Careful not to touch anything, she bent down to get a better look at handsome Kostos, his big black eyes and curly black hair.

He was looking at Dimitra the way Nico had looked at Eva earlier that day—like she was the answer to all of life’s questions. (Nico was a very good actor, Eva knew.)

The fact that Kostos had been lost at sea was the most tragic thing Eva could imagine. She hoped that back in Martha’s Vineyard, Dimitra was getting some much-needed peace. Maybe she could even have a little summer fling, if she could find it in her heart to try.

Jean-Paul invited Eva to a marble-carving workshop on the neighboring island of Naxos a week or so later.

He explained what it was over the phone.

“It’s all the marble artisans on the Cycladic Islands, coming together to teach, make, show and sell their wares, and discuss the future—and past—of marble carving. I think you’d really like it.”

Eva smiled into the phone. “I think it would be great for social media. A great way to connect you with more people in the community.”

“That too,” Jean-Paul said. “But you’re the expert on all of that. I have to trust you.”

Eva told Jean-Paul she’d be ready to leave at seven thirty the following morning.

The plan was to stay a couple of nights on Naxos so they could visit all the exhibitions, get Jean-Paul through a few teaching workshops, and sell all of his marble sculptures before returning to Paros.

A part of Eva’s job, Jean-Paul said, was to help ensure the safety of Jean-Paul’s marble goods during their travel from Paros to Naxos.

“We have to wrap everything in cloth and towels and so on,” Jean-Paul said.

“I’ve never gone, because I’ve never trusted anyone else to help before. ”

Eva was touched. She hadn’t imagined that Jean-Paul already trusted her that much. She said she’d do whatever she could to make sure everything arrived in one piece. She could feel Jean-Paul wince on the other end, as though just the idea of them cracking to pieces made him dizzy.

The following morning, Jean-Paul picked her up in his little beat-up red car and took her back to the marble workshop, where they drank coffee, ate cream-filled phyllo pastries, and loaded up his trailer with marble goods.

True to her promise, Eva was incredibly sensitive, moving the sculptures, plates, jewelry, and so on gently.

Jean-Paul was stressed but quiet. When he was satisfied with what they’d done, he double-checked the attachment of the trailer to his truck, and Eva got in the passenger side. They were on their way.

Eva was surprised at how quiet and contemplative Jean-Paul could be. To her, he seemed like the polar opposite of Nico, who really couldn’t shut up and was very pleased about all of his opinions. Jean-Paul only spoke when he had something good to say.

“Doesn’t it feel strange,” he said after they’d boarded the ferry and safely parked. “What we’re doing today involves this ancient way of making art, an ancient way of communicating with the world. But we’re still at it. We’re still going.”

Eva thought about it, about the thousands of years behind marble carving and the hopefully thousand years after this. “It’s beautiful,” she said finally.

Jean-Paul smiled softly and got out of the truck.

The ferry from Paros to Naxos took about an hour.

Throughout, Eva and Jean-Paul sat on the deck in the open air, drinking coffee and talking.

Eva was amazed at how philosophical Jean-Paul could get.

It was like he was always fully aware of his heart and his mind.

No wonder he wasn’t good at social media.

You had to be good at lying, sort of, to be good at social media. Eva wondered what that said about her.

Briefly, they talked about how Eva was handling Dimitra’s social media now.

“I’m so proud of the work she’s done,” Jean-Paul said quietly.

“Her husband was never proud of her art. He always wanted her to be commercial, to paint silly pictures of lighthouses or white houses or sheep. Traditional Greek things to sell to tourists. But she was always true to herself. And now, look what happened. It’s all coming up for her. ”

Eva smiled nervously, surprised that Kostos had come up like this again. She thought of the photographs of the two of them, photos that showed two people very much in love.

She didn’t tell Kostos what she thought: that she was sort of jealous of the love reflected back in the images of Dimitra and Kostos. It was hard for her to fathom it.

“I don’t know Dimitra so well,” Jean-Paul said finally, without prompting, as though he could read Eva’s mind. “But I respected her from afar. And I worried about her. I had a sense of what her husband was up to. Well, I knew a few things. I’m sure I didn’t know everything.”

An alarm rang between Eva’s ears. “What was he up to?”

Jean-Paul shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s gone.”

There was an announcement saying that everyone needed to get to their cars and prepare for the ferry to disembark.

Eva followed Jean-Paul, feeling confused.

It was clear that Kostos had either done something to enrage Jean-Paul, or else he’d really been a bad guy.

She couldn’t imagine Dimitra being married to someone like that.

Then again, what was the definition of a “bad guy”? Finn had always made her coffee in the morning. He’d always remembered her birthday. He’d always talked about feminism in a way that made her think he really believed in it.

At the same time: he’d used her money without asking and lost it. How feminist was that? Did that make Finn a bad guy? Could she deal with the idea of having dated a “bad guy” for eight years of her life?

As they were waiting in line to exit the ferry, Aphrodite texted to ask if Eva wanted to go to the beach. Eva wrote that she was off the island for a couple of days. Exploring Naxos, she said, which wasn’t the whole truth. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell the full story.

Her confusion felt like a storm behind her eyes.

The marble convention was held deep in the belly of the main port city of Naxos, up a giant hill and in through a warehouse, where, already, numerous marble carvers and artisans were setting up their wares to be sold to tourists and locals and collectors.

Jean-Paul parked the truck outside the warehouse and wheeled the trailer over to their designated spot, where they unloaded and unwrapped the marble statues, finding each to be in one piece.

Jean-Paul breathed a noticeable sigh of relief.

Eva had a strange instinct to go up on her tiptoes and kiss him.

Keep it professional, she reminded herself.

For the next half hour, Eva marked the marble sculptures with their prices and greeted incoming tourists who were a little early for the market but no less interested.

Jean-Paul had to check in, greet other artists, and set up his class, which was scheduled to begin for all ten pre-sign-ups in a few hours.

Eva was happy to hang back and chat. Most of the tourists were American, and they were amazed that Eva was as well.

“What are you doing here?” a woman, somewhat like Meghan, asked. “Do you live here?”

Eva laughed. “I wish! I’m here just for the summer.”

“Wow. Has it been a dream?”

“Yes and no,” Eva said. “I went through a bad breakup and ran away. You could say I’m healing? Or running away? I haven’t decided yet.” She tried to joke.

“Ah! Running away from your problems,” the woman said. “I remember doing that. Before I had kids. That’s when you can’t avoid your problems.” She winked.

Eva laughed again and began talking about Jean-Paul’s work with a sense of pride in her voice. As she spoke, Jean-Paul approached, and the woman looked at Jean-Paul with big eyes and said, after a long pause, “I think he’s a reason to stay, doll.”

The tourist bought three pieces for a whopping four hundred euros. It was the first sale of the day.

“What did she mean by that?” Jean-Paul asked about the woman after she left, carrying her marble sculptures gently in a big linen bag.

But Eva pretended not to understand what he meant. “She loves your work,” she said instead. “Everyone does.”

Jean-Paul beamed at her with confusion. “How long have you been working? You must be starving.”

Eva realized she was slightly woozy and a little disconcerted from all the moving around and talking. “I’m okay,” she tried to lie.

But Jean-Paul could see right through her. “Why don’t you head down the street? There’s a little outdoor market with really good food, right there in the square by the big church. You can’t miss it. Grab something to eat, sit in the shade, and have a drink. I’ll handle the table for an hour.”

Eva was slightly nervous about leaving Jean-Paul with the table by himself. He wasn’t exactly sensational at personal branding and sales. But the urgent kindness behind his eyes told her he wanted to take care of her.

She smiled at him and touched his shoulder, surprising herself. “I’ll see you soon.”

With that, she swept out of the warehouse and onto the glowing steps just beyond. The sun was hotter than she’d ever felt it, like an oven turned all the way up, but she felt euphoric and high with energy, slipping into the shadows en route to the market by the church.

When she got there, she perused the market stalls, assessing the chicken and lamb, the kebabs and vegetables, the hummus and tzatziki.

She filled her plate and paid a whopping six euros for the entire thing—a steal, she thought—and then bought a glass of wine for less than three euros.

Sitting at a table near the church, she ate slowly, decadently, and watched the tourists and Greek locals mill through the stalls, haggling for honey and gifts.

In her mind, she pretended that Jean-Paul was her husband, that they were here, as they always were, selling his art and making a living, together.

He needed her, because of her social media expertise and her calming presence, and she needed him—why?

Well, maybe that was a more difficult question to answer.

After all, Eva had come to Greece to convince herself she didn’t need anyone. Least of all Finn.

That’s when she spotted someone in the crowd she recognized but couldn’t fully place.

It was a man, hunched over, slightly, with broad shoulders and a long nose and thick, curly black hair.

He milled through the edge of the crowd, then paused at a stall to whisper into the ears of a few of the men selling things.

A few of the men looked cross at him and shook their heads, but a few others passed him something from under the table, something Eva couldn’t see.

There was something sinister about the entire operation.

But how did she know that guy? Her head began to pound, and she drank the rest of her wine and traced his path through the rest of the crowd until he disappeared through a small wooden door on the opposite side of the square.

She trashed her plate and found herself following him, sneaking along the edge of the crowd and bursting into the passageway that served as the ancient street between buildings.

The buildings had been built in such a way as to block out the intense sunlight and, maybe in ancient times, provide defense against pirates.

Jean-Paul had suggested that there had been plenty of pirates in the Aegean, hundreds of years ago.

Eva wondered if pirates still existed. She suspected that evil lurked in every corner of the world.

How did she know this man?

Eva followed him for about five minutes, noting how strange and sinister he was, how he ducked in and out of little shops, his black eyes furtive.

Fear bubbled in her stomach. She wanted to follow him long enough to place him.

Was he someone she’d met on Paros? Someone she’d seen on the ferry?

Someone she’d met in Jean-Paul’s workshop?

Right before she abandoned the mission, she managed to snap a half-blurry photograph of the guy, coming out of a little bodega just down the road from the warehouse. Maybe memory of who he was would come to her soon. Maybe she’d put the pieces together.

Or maybe she was just a superstitious and frightened little American, too far from home.