Sofia put the phone in her bag with a sigh.
Maddie had moved a few steps towards the curtain under the watchful eye of the store owner and pretended to examine the jewellery.
‘Anything?’
‘Not any actual words sadly.’
The ending of the call prompted Maddie to move swiftly back to her previous position, and seconds later Sofia stepped out in the sage green.
‘This one’s perfect, too! Don’t you agree?’
‘Lovely.’ Maddie shot her a stare. ‘But aren’t you going to tell us who the hell that was on the phone?’
Sofia ignored the question and went back to the sanctuary of the dressing room. She wasn’t going to try and explain her relationship with Adonis while she was in a shop, if it was even possible. Her friends would probably accuse her of being a cougar again, given the age gap between them.
She slung all three dresses over her arm and approached the counter. The store owner’s excitement was palpable from several feet away.
‘I’ll take the lot please, plus the scarf and the keyrings.’
‘Of course, madam.’
Madam was worse than lady in Sofia’s opinion, but she’d committed to buying them now.
She doled out the keyrings, and after they’d fixed them to their bags, they merged with the gaggle of people making their way through the streets, walking towards the sound of live music and the smell of frying meat and herbs in the air.
Moments later, another brightly lit shop façade attracted Sofia’s attention, but the others were ready. They put an arm through hers on either side and Maddie reached out and gently turned her friend’s head to the front.
‘Sof, we’re desperate for food. Eat first, shops later.’
‘OK, fine.’
Sofia’s lingering glance back at the shop had all the pathos of the heroine in a French tragedy watching her lover go off to war, and Maddie and Charlotte couldn’t look at each other as they knew they’d lose it.
The street led directly into the main square, now abuzz with noise. Tables with pastel-painted chairs in different colours to denote the separate establishments were arranged around the edges under trees providing plenty of shade. Fairy lights twinkled in their branches, and the centre of the square boasted a statue of an unknown man surrounded by stone benches. Children darted hither and thither, and babies dozed in pushchairs while their parents ate, drank and talked loudly.
Charlotte marched them towards a restaurant in the top left-hand corner.
‘Always go for the one which looks the most popular. And listen out for people speaking Greek, rather than tourist languages.’
‘But we’re tourists.’ Maddie’s puzzled look made Sofia smile.
‘Oh no, Char likes to think of herself as a traveller rather than a tourist, don’t you, dear?’
Charlotte held up her middle finger, and then quickly added two others to the gesture as a waiter approached them.
‘A table for three please.’
They were shown to one on the edge of the restaurant with a view right across the square.
Settled with a large vat of rosé wine, bread and an interesting bright green dip made from parsley which Charlotte informed them was calledmaidanosaláta, Sofia poured them all a large measure and handed out the menus.
‘And breathe…’
The three women took big swigs of the wine and sat back in their seats. Sofia reached over to clink their glasses.
‘Yamas!’
‘Yamas!’ Maddie responded with gusto and took another swig.
