Lena went to Church with her grandmother. She went to Church with her family, and so she understood what was going on in the ceremony even in Greek. Her grandmother translated the Homily for her, but otherwise it was completely uneventful.
The old women had gathered around Lena as they entered, pinching her cheeks and touching her hair, telling her how pretty she was. Lena had felt invaded by the attention.
The ceremony lasted about an hour, and hen everyone started to get up. Lena stiffly stretched, and that was when she saw him.
He was smiling at someone. It wasn't forced, but it wasn't genuine either. It wasn't the smile of dizzy excitement that she remembered.
She saw the golden bundle in his arms. The boy was sleeping.
Lena wanted to weep. She wanted to run. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to hold the baby.
Her grandmother saw what she was looking at and pinched Lena's arm. "We will talk later," she whispered to her.
Other people had noticed too. But Kostos hadn't. He wasn't looking at her at all. Shouldn't he have noticed her presence? Felt her somehow?
She looked away. She had to. Something that she had put up on a shelf in her mind was falling down, crashing to the ground. She could feel the shocks running through her system.
She touched the ring on her finger, the sweet little memento that had led her here. Bridget was so happy and successful, and Carmen was working as an intern at Fleming and Worthing, and Tibby was actually making movies and Lena was Lena.
She went back with her grandmother to the house. She grabbed her sketch pad and her paints. She needed that calm so badly-needed something so very badly-she almost wanted to run to the Grove. That place that had become hers, for so brief a moment.
She wished Bridget was here. Bridget was decisive. She could swish her hair and boys would come calling to her and she would relish in the attention. When boys paid attention to Lena she got scared. Paul was so very wonderful. They didn't even have to talk. Silence is golden. She understood all of this.
Out of sight of the houses she trotted up the path. The heat was slamming down on her. She dashed for the shade of the olive trees.
She almost started to cry.
Because then he showed up. He was there. In the Grove.
And then something even more horrible happened. She didn't say anything. True, she could feel her mouth opening and her breath coming in and out of her chest but no words came.
A strangled cry, almost a sob, wrenched itself out of her throat. Lena was horrified-it had come out awfully different than the "hey" she had intended.
He looked at her. She looked at him. She took in his darker skin, more lined. He was a little fatter too. But his hands were as strong as ever, and he had those eyes she had so missed and his full mouth. She could see the hair on his chest from the collar of his shirt. He wore the same clothes as before, but they looked more worn in and less deliberate.
Kostos was taking in Lena. It was his fantasy come true. His grandmother had kicked him out of the shop that morning, telling him to take a day off. Mariana was working at the restaurant, and little Alex was being cared for by his grandmother, so he had decided to go swimming. And there she was. She was wearing a white dress, one that was classic and understated and getting dirty from where she was sitting under the tree. He saw the sketchbook. Her hair was longer and lighter, but he didn't care. Her eyes were as piercing green as always, and she was giving him a smile that he wanted to keep on her lips forever.
"Lena?" he asked. He had to be sure. It couldn't all be a fantasy, could it?
"You're real," she whispered. "I saw you at Church. I've been here three days already. I have missed you for so long!" She stopped, almost like she was catching herself.
She looked down. He walked over to her, knelt beside her, and touched her face. "You're so real."
She stood then. Maybe her plea to Bridget had finally registered in the cosmos, but that same prayer to Bridget she had whispered was coming back to her.
She took off her dress. And her bra. And her underwear. And she stepped into the pool.
It was cool and sweet under the water. She cooled her burning cheeks and tried not to think about what she had done, or whether it would backfire on her. Oh please let it not backfire, she hoped.
He took off his shirt and pants but left his boxers on. And then he dove in with a mighty splash.
"Kostos!" she cried, shaking the water out of her eyes. "You got water in my eyes!" she pouted in front of him. For some reason, this seemed to break the ice. He smiled a real smile this time. It felt so wonderfully familiar. She remembered wanting to swim with him in her backyard, but being a bit distracted at the time.
He grinned. "Desperately sorry, Lena. Can I repay you somehow?" There was a glint in his eye. She grinned back.
"I'm done with college now," she informed him, proudly.
"You're an official artist, then?" he replied. She smiled and nodded. "Still blacksmithing?"
"Of course. And I'm working with a friend of mine in the fishing business. You can get quite a haul around these parts. Financially everything is pretty much working out. I worry about my grandfather, though."
"Is he still working?" she was shocked; he had seemed so frail the last time she was here.
"He has a hard time saying no. So of course my grandmother worries too much, and I worry, and he is just determined to go and get his anvil and hammer and bang away at something for a couple of hours. And then he comes in and feels productive. I think it's good for him."
It was like no time had passed. They fell into the old speech patterns they had always had. But in the old days he would have been touching her, and they would never have skirted around the things they dare not mention. He obviously would not bring up Mariana, and by unspoken agreement she would not mention other boys. At least, she assumed that was the way it was going to work.
"You're going to miss him when he's gone," she said. But she wasn't saying that at all. She was saying that she missed him when he left. Missed him so much that the ache had never stopped, and all of Paul's silences hadn't managed to fill it. She was saying she had to know if he could fix the brokenness in her or not.
"Maybe you would paint him for me. I know my grandmother would be terribly happy if you did, Lena. She always liked you. The first time I met you she was nudging me in the ribs, telling me to go ask you out. You can see how well that turned out." Once again he grinned. "Race you from one end to the other," he challenged her.
It was a small pool, which was all for the better considering what a weak swimmer Lena was. And so they kept reforming the rules until she could win. They never touched, but they swam and they laughed and they talked.
It was getting cool, they realized. Lena started to shiver, and Kostos suggested they get dressed. She told him to close his eyes while she got out of the pool and he did. She looked away when he climbed out.
Her clothes were hot, and the remaining sunlight dried her quickly. He said he would talk to his grandmother about the portrait, and she said she would let her grandmother know about it.
And she walked away feeling both desperately elated and desperately sad.