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It wasn’t even the fact that Marcus was sleeping with someone else. Anna had known as soon as she started seeing him that their relationship wasn’t a monogamous thing. It had been borderline cliché, the way they had hooked up at an opening just over a year before. She had been working at the gallery for months, but it was the first time she had spoken to Marcus, the gallery’s owner and world-famous photographer. Well, as world-famous as a photographer could be, anyway. To Anna, who had studied photography in college and been working for years trying to get a job at a gallery, he may as well have been Chris Hemsworth. She nearly died when he walked up to her at the event, and within a couple of hours they were in a hotel room.
No, the awful thing for Anna had been watching her future crumble with every thrust. Anna was just a gallery assistant, and one with ambitions to become a photographer at that. Girls like her were a dime a dozen for Marcus. And despite the fact that she had worked for years to get a job at MarMac, if she wasn’t useful to him anymore, she would simply be cast aside for the next girl waiting in the wings. At least, that’s what she feared. After a few minutes, Anna crawled up onto her bed, settling on top of a pile of clean laundry, tears still streaming down her cheeks, images of that woman’s boobs pressed against Marcus’s window burned into her mind, and cried herself to sleep.
3 (#ua54c0591-9e0e-5c23-bdfd-6746636682af)
Anna awoke what felt like seconds later to find her elbow buzzing. As she opened her eyes, she was confused to find that the sun was streaming brightly through the window, and she quickly snapped them shut again. The buzzing stopped for a few seconds and then started up again. Anna used the hand that wasn’t pinned underneath her body to feel around on the bed for her phone. She dug through the pile of clothes and pulled it out, swiping to answer her sister’s call.
“It’s so early,” she said with a croak. “What do you want?”
“Nice to talk to you, too, dear sister,” Lizzy said, barely audible over the noise of other people talking and what sounded like cutlery scraping against crockery. Anna could imagine the mess hall of the farm as it had been the one time she’d visited: crowded and sparse, but full of suspiciously happy people. “And it’s nearly nine, Banana. Not exactly the wee hours of the morning.”
Anna jumped a bit at the realization of what time it was, but them images of what she had seen last night came back to her, and she instantly lost all motivation to go into work.
“Hey, that’s still early for some people. What do you want?”
“Touchy, touchy.” The noise behind Lizzy died down as she presumably stepped outside. “You okay, sis? You sound like you’ve been up all night crying.”
Anna knew there was no point hiding anything from her sister, but she didn’t want to get into it with her. She had somehow managed to keep it from Lizzy that she had been seeing her boss for the last eighteen months. “Not all night,” she said, “but I don’t really want to talk about it. What’s up?”
“Well, it’s probably better that you’re not at work now,” Lizzy replied. “I have some news.”
Anna sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, her breathing shallow. Those were the four most terrifying words in her sister’s vocabulary. “What happened?”
“Well,” she said, “some lawyers called from Greece.”
“Greece?” Anna asked. “You mean Santorini?”
“Well, actually, the law firm is based in Athens. But yes, it was about Dad.”
Anna took a deep breath in. Talking about her dad was not what she needed this morning. “And?”
“And it turns out we have a bit of an inheritance on our hands.”
“What kind of inheritance?” Okay, this was actually possibly good news. Anna’s mind immediately went to all the things she could do with inheritance money. But as quickly as the visions of buying a loft apartment and a shopping spree on Fifth Avenue and a first class ticket to a far-off destination came into her mind, they were replaced with a feeling of resentment for her father.
“A house,” Lizzy said. “In Santorini.”
“I think it’s on Santorini,” Anna said reflexively. “Santorini is an island.”
“That doesn’t even remotely matter,” Lizzy said. “The point is that you and I now share a house in Greece.”
“How much is it worth?” Anna asked, apparently too quickly.
“How is that your first question, Anna?” Lizzy asked, her voice raising. “Not about Dad, or why he left it to us? Not even ‘when can we go there on vacation?’”
“Sorry,” Anna said with a laugh. “But you know I’m not the number-one fan of Greek exports, so I doubt I’ll be headed there on vacation any time soon.”
Anna swore she could hear a wicked grin in Lizzy’s voice as she responded. “That’s just it, baby sis. Looks like you’ll be going there sooner than expected.”
“What? Why?”
“One of us has to go accept the inheritance in person.”
“To Athens?”
“No, actually to Santorini. There’s a Greek law that says you have to accept real estate in front of a notary public in the region where the property is.”
“So one of us has to go to Santorini. Why does it have to be me? Why can’t you go?”
Lizzy sighed. “I really wish I could, Anna. You know how much I’ve wanted to go back since Dad’s funeral. But it’s asparagus season, so I can’t.”
Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Asparagus season?” she said, almost shouting. “Are you kidding me? You want me, the one who didn’t even go to Greece for her own father’s funeral, to go now because you have to harvest some asparagus?”
“Anna, that’s not fair,” Lizzy said. “You know I’m responsible for the well-being of this farm.”
“It’s a cooperative farm! You don’t even get paid!” Anna was definitely shouting now. “Surely, it’s not the end of the world if you take a few days off to do something this important.”
Lizzy was quiet for a moment, then responded softly. “I’m really sorry, Anna. I know how much you hated Dad and everything to do with him. But for us to get the house, you have to go accept it.
“As for the farm, I hope that one day you understand what it’s like to be a part of a community – a family – that has each other’s backs. But, until then, don’t pretend to know what sort of obligation I should or should not feel to the people here.”
She was quiet for a long time, but eventually Lizzy sighed, and Anna knew then that she wasn’t too angry.
“I’m sorry, Liz. I didn’t mean to get mad. I just don’t want to go. I know you’d like to have a vacation home in Greece, but that’s just not important to me. Plus, I have work. And it’ll take me months to accrue more vacation time.”
“I’m sure if you ask your boss and explain the situation he’d let you have the time. He likes you, doesn’t he? What’s his name? Martin?”
“Marcus,” Anna said, wincing as she said his name. “I don’t know, Liz.”
“I’ll tell you what…” Lizzy said. “If you go there for a week and still hate it, we can sell the house. How does that sound?”
Anna cringed at the idea of having to spend a week in her father’s house, interacting with his family, sleeping in his bed. It felt weird after hating him for so long. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it, okay?”
“That’s all I ask,” Lizzy said over the sound of a bell in the background. “Now I have to go. That’s last call for breakfast. But let me know soon. There’s a bit of a deadline on us accepting, and the grandparents are not making it easy for us. I don’t think they expected anyone other than Dad to ever have it.”
“Okay. Good to know, thanks. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Bye, Banana.”
Anna held the phone up for several seconds after the call disconnected, so unsure of what to do that she felt paralyzed. But regardless of her family drama and what happened with Marcus, she did still have to go to work, so she got up and got dressed. She took noticeably less care with her appearance than usual, which was saying something. She pulled on the first clothes she could find and caught the subway to work.
The entire commute, she bounced back and forth between wondering if she should go to Greece and wondering if she should confront Marcus. On the one hand, she didn’t want anything to do with her cheating father’s legacy and, regardless of their relationship, Anna felt hurt by what she saw at Marcus’s the night before. On the other hand, surely her dad owed her at least this, and Marcus hadn’t really done anything wrong since they weren’t technically exclusive. The two issues swirled around in her head as she emerged in SoHo and walked up the steps to the MarMac gallery.
As she walked in, she was almost immediately greeted by one of the other assistants, who threw a thumb drive at her that she barely caught.
“These are the early entries for the Emerging Talent contest. Marcus wants us to screen them as they come in so there aren’t hundreds of entries for him to go through all at once. And make them anonymous; he wants to be able to tell his sister that the reason her kid didn’t win is because he’s a shit photographer, not because he’s trying to mess with her.”
Anna nodded and turned the thumb drive over in her hand as she walked up the stairs to the office. A couple of years ago, she would have jumped at the chance to enter something like this. Even though there were dozens of contests young photographers could enter, Marcus’s was special in that it usually resulted in the winner actually gaining momentum in the art world. She even had a collection she had shot just before starting at the gallery that she knew Marcus would like; a series of photos of forgotten Manhattan landmarks. But she was a gallery assistant now, not a photographer. And she worked for Marcus. She couldn’t enter.
She sat down at an open desk and looked out over the gallery below. A buyer was there already, someone she recognized from previous events. Rumor had it that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds were her clients. As the gallery manager shook her hand and put a sold sticker next to the painting, Anna wished, not for the first time, that her photos could be seen by so many influential people. Almost everyone who showed at MarMac went on to do well. But instead she was sat behind the desk trying to anonymize Marcus’s nephew’s contest entry.
Anna took out her laptop, connecting to the server and opening up her email like she did every morning. An email came in from Marcus almost immediately.
U ok?
She looked up toward his office, where she could see him peeking through the window.
Not really, she typed out, but she couldn’t press Send. It didn’t feel right to confront him.
Instead, she stood up to go to the bathroom, avoiding looking toward Marcus’s office on her way. As she passed through the door that separated the gallery from the office, she turned her un-made-up face away from the couple of people coming through the front door, walking as quickly as she could across the marble floor.
Once she made it to the Ladies’ room, Anna leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on her face. What would she say to Marcus? She was notoriously bad at lying; Lizzy used to clean her out of her Halloween candy when they played poker as kids. Her blushing usually gave her away. Could she manage to get through a work day with Marcus without bringing up what she had seen the night before?
But she didn’t have time to figure that out, because the door to the bathroom creaked open, and Marcus poked his head through, stepping in once he saw that Anna was alone.
Standing in front of him, it was easy for Anna to understand how she had fallen under Marcus’s spell. He had a universal appeal, looking rugged yet refined at the same time. On the rare occasions he had taken Anna somewhere public, women and men alike would stare at him and shoot daggers at her.
But now, Anna was the one shooting daggers, hard as she tried not to give too much away.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Marcus said, the slight southern draw that Anna was pretty sure was an affectation coming out strong.
“What are you talking about?”
Marcus smiled and looked at his feet. “I’m talking about you coming into work nearly two hours late looking like you got hit by a bus. I know you’re sleeping with the boss, but you wouldn’t want to appear to be taking advantage.”
Anna felt her stomach churn. Normally, she would have laughed it off, but she had too much on her mind to make the effort. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I’ve never asked you for a thing, especially not since our little arrangement began. Excuse me for having a bad day.”
Marcus’s smile dropped, and he stepped toward Anna, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “Hey, hey, what’s going on? I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m fine,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more, but she felt the truth of last night bubbling inside her, so she shut it tight.
“You know you can tell me anything, right, Anna?” he asked, condescension dripping from his words, as if she were a little girl trying to hide that she had eaten the last cookie.
“Is that what you said to the girl you fucked last night?” She felt the words tumble out of her mouth, trying and failing to catch them and shove them back in. So much for not confronting him. Marcus gave very little away, but she could tell from the twitch in his eye that she had surprised him.
“You were at the theater?”
“No, I was at your apartment. Or, I was on my way there when I saw you through the window.” Though nice to know you were flaunting her around at the theatre, too.
Marcus was quiet for a moment, then his eyes widened as he realized what she must have seen. Then, just as quickly, he was back on his game. “Anna, I’m sorry that you saw that, but surely you didn’t think you were the only person I was dating?” He was digging in his heels; asserting his dominance. He must have thought so little of her.
She realized in that moment just how disposable she was to him. And as long as she was disposable, she was never going to get anywhere working for him. If she had felt discarded last night, she felt absolutely disintegrated now. She needed to figure something else out.
“Marcus, I need to take some time off,” she said.
“Great,” he said. “Submit your vacation request to HR for approval.”
“No,” she said, “I have to go now. I have nearly three weeks of paid vacation accrued. I’ll be taking it now. When there are two weeks left, I’ll send in my notice.”
He frowned at her. “So much for not taking advantage of the situation.”
She glared at him. “I’m not taking advantage. My dad died a few months ago, and he left me a property in Greece. I have to go there to claim it. I only have a small window before it goes to someone else, so I have to go now.”
“You have to go on vacation urgently enough that you’re willing to quit this job?” He laughed. “Are you kidding?”
“Nope. Not kidding,” she said, shaking her head. “And it’s not a vacation. I’ve just explained the situation.”
He nodded slowly. “I hope you know that you’ve just ruined your future,” he said, but Anna saw a flicker of hurt cross his face, and she felt a tiny spark of pride that she had taken back control – she’d hurt him before he could hurt her again.
Without saying another word, he slipped through the door and was gone, leaving Anna standing there alone, her hands still dripping with water.
She kept staring at the door for a good minute after he left. How had her frustration with Marcus turned into a decision to go to Greece? But she had said it, and she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t grovel for her job back. She wasn’t about to let Marcus think she was taking advantage of their arrangement. Not after this.
She dried her hands, pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Lizzy:
You win. I’ll leave in a couple of days
It looked like Anna was going to Santorini, whether she liked it or not.
4 (#ua54c0591-9e0e-5c23-bdfd-6746636682af)
Santorini
The front of the house was positively quaint, Anna thought. It was nestled between two hills in a sort of mini valley. Three white stone arches covered in vines framed a door in the center and two windows, one on each side. A stone wall extended from each side of the front, with a gate several meters to the left and another beyond that. Anna walked through the center archway, looking around as she went. The front of the house was covered in climbing vines, crowded at the bottom by weeds. The wooden front door was beautiful and weathered; it looked like it had been there for hundreds of years, but it was still strong and sturdy.
Eirini called for Anna to follow her through the first gate, bringing her into a square courtyard, about fifteen feet on each side with a table in the middle. The walls were covered in the same climbing vines as the front of the house, nearly obscuring the white paint underneath.
As she followed Eirini through the next gate to the back garden, Anna found herself looking at the most beautiful little cottage she could imagine. It was made of the same whitewashed stone, but it was covered in gorgeous pink flowers. It was small -- Anna imagined it couldn’t have been more than one or two rooms -- but it was the kind of place that Anna would have booked immediately if she’d found it online.
“Is that…?” Anna pointed at the cottage and looked at Eirini, not wanting to make another mistake but hoping dearly that this was the summer house.
“This is your father’s cottage,” she said, “so, yes, I guess it is legally yours now. For some reason.”
Anna ignored the last part and walked up to the cottage, peeking through the window next to the door. It was dirty, but she could see a bed, and another door further on. She turned around to look at the garden, but she couldn’t see where the entrance was. “How do you get back here?”
Eirini sighed. “You can go through the courtyard, or you can use the far gate. But that’s difficult to get to. You will need to put in a path, eventually. The courtyard is the only part of our property you have access to.”
Anna nodded in understanding. She wasn’t about to try to cross this woman, though she would have to see about getting that path put in. Maybe a fence between the houses as well.
Eirini extended a set of keys to Anna, so she moved a few steps closer to her and took them. With that, Eirini turned around and walked back into the house, closing the door behind her.
Christos was sticking his head around the door from the courtyard, and he stepped into the garden after Eirini had gone. “Is Giorgos house,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “Eirini love Giorgos… very much. Is hard.” And then he turned and followed Eirini inside.
Anna watched her grandfather go inside, wishing he spoke better English so she could avoid Eirini. She turned around to inspect her new home, and as she saw it she felt giddy yet again. This would definitely make a great rental property. Maybe there was a rental agency they could work with, and they wouldn’t have to sell it. Then she and Lizzy could come whenever they wanted, and…
… and nothing. After her icy reception from Eirini, Anna knew that she would never be welcome here. She would have to part with the summer house. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy a few days in it. She’d just have to find somewhere to spend her time where she could fit in with the other tourists.
Anna unlocked the door and went inside. As she had expected, it was just one big room with a bathroom in the corner. It was immediately obvious, however, that it was in no state to rent out or sell as it stood. The small kitchen in the far-right corner was filled with rust-covered appliances, and one cabinet door was hanging by a hinge. The mattress on the bed looked like ones Anna had seen in back alleys in Manhattan. The wooden floor was almost completely covered in a thick layer of dust. And while the bathroom had a lovely freestanding tub in it, there was no flooring and no sink. This must have been what Nikos meant when he said she wouldn’t have it on the market in a week. The summer house was going to need a lot of work. She just had to determine if that work was her responsibility.
