She had crossed the front yard, and the two of them went inside, Joy slipping her Popsicle stick into Skye’s kitchen bin.
“I was thinking of digging some beds out there,” Skye said, motioning toward the back door. “But it’s so hot.”
Joy cast an eye around the small room.
“No offense,” she said, “but shouldn’t you focus on the indoors first?”
“I have paint charts,” Skye said lamely. “And I built the flat-pack wardrobe and bed without any help.”
“You need a sofa,” Joy said, folding her arms. “I don’t mind perching on that built-in seating bench, or whatever it is that Andreas calls it, but it’s not the most comfortable thing, is it?”
“I bought two cushions,” Skye said, leading Joy back into the main living area. She had picked them up in Chora the previous day, having gone there to buy some deworming pills for Tigri. The cat, she had discovered through conversations with several Ano Meria residents, had long been a stray. Nobody seemed to know how or exactly when he had arrived in the village. Skye liked that about the cat; it made him more of a kindred spirit.
Joy reached for a cushion. Both were patterned with a blue-and-white evil eye, framed by panels of coral and gold, the details picked out in soft velvet tufts.
“Love these,” she appraised, starting to rummage through her straw bag, “and it’s funny that you chose these colors because…”
Skye’s mouth fell open as Joy handed her a framed seaweed print, the blotted-ink design daubed in dusky pink.
“Is this for me?”
“I did a whole series and thought you might like one,” Joy said.
“I should pay you—” Skye began, only to be summarily cut off.
“Don’t be daft. It’s a gift. It’ll look lovely up on the wall over there. You can use it and these cushions to come up with a color palette for the house.”
“You don’t think I should leave it all white, then?” Skye said. “Andreas says it’s more traditional to—”
“Andreas isn’t the one living here,” Joy said. “Your house, your decision what color to paint it. If you’re worried about going all out, just do a feature wall or paint yourself an archway behind the bed. Have fun with it, experiment a bit. It’s only bloody paint afterall; you can always go back to boring white if you change your mind.”
“The last place I lived in, everything was white,” Skye told her. “White walls, white carpets, white tiles in the bathroom.”
“Where were you living, a bloody hospital?” Joy crowed.
Sky laughed in spite of herself.
“Try prison,” she said drily. Then, when Joy’s smile immediately fell into a frown, she quickly added, “Will you help me look through some paint charts, then?”
With Joy by her side, decision-making turned out to be surprisingly productive. By midday, Skye had chosen her interior palette. Joy had explained the color wheel, how to find complementary hues, and cheered the idea of an off-peach bedroom filled with plants, simple artwork, and pared-back linens.
“I don’t know about you,” Joy said as Skye moved from wall to wall with the seaweed print, “but I’m hungrier than a saltwater croc. How about we treat ourselves at the taverna?”
“Could do,” Skye said, giving up and propping the picture on the stairs, “or I could make us something. I’ve been meaning to attempt matsata.”
“Is that the flat pasta stuff?”
“A Folegandros specialty,” Skye confirmed. “Andreas says if I want to be a real Greek, I should eat like one.”
There she went again, mentioning him.
“Not to knock you off your perch,” Joy replied, “but I’m too hungry to wait for you to make pasta from scratch.”
“I’ll do it for dinner, then. We can go to the shop now and buy lunch at the same time?”
Joy snatched up her bag.
“Consider my leg pulled,” she said.
