“I just want a really big salad, I think. Nothing extravagant. Can you tell them to make me their best salad?”
He nodded. “Of course. No country makes better salads than Greece.”
He took her menu from her and leaned back into his chair and crossed his legs, enjoying his cigarette. He quickly got lost in his thoughts as he gazed at the storm clouds on the horizon. There was something so easygoing about him.
Joanna wished she could talk to him in his native tongue, hear how his mind would naturally express itself.
“Tell me something about my father,” she asked, trying to pull him back from wherever he was. “Tell me a funny story, or about why you liked him so much. Something to illustrate why you’d be so willing to arrange for his estranged daughter to come all the way from the US and spend the day with her. How did you know him? Villa Azure seems a little far from the town. Did he make his way there often?”
“You’re father was always involved in town affairs. He wasn’t a hermit,” Nick replied.
“But how did you come to know him? How did the two of you meet?”
He stretched and looked at Joanna. There was warmth in his deep brown eyes.
“My father manned and operated a fishing boat. Every week he’d go out to sea and come back with fresh, delicious fish to sell at the market. It was normal for him to be gone for a few days at a time. He never caught too much. Just enough to feed us and sell to the restaurants. One day he went out and got caught in a freak storm. We never saw him again. Your father supported my family until we were able to get our feet on the ground again, and it was your father who said I should go to school. I was going to become a fisherman like my father. I’ll never forget what he said to me. It was on a Sunday. On Sundays we would walk through the hills to go to church on the northern side of the island. It was a ritual that he got me into. There are numerous closer churches, but he liked the walk and invited me to go along with him. After church one day, it was about to rain as it is now, and we had stopped to catch our breath and observe the sea. He said to me, ‘Nick. It is noble for the son to take up the trade of the father, and there is no such thing as a petty job. If it puts food on the table, then it is a noble job. But I have known no father who would have his son walk in his footsteps simply to repeat his story. All fathers want their children to have their own story. You are not meant to be a fisherman, Nick.’”
“How did you take that?” Joanna asked, rapt. “Was it what you wanted to hear?”
He looked away into the distance. “Yes and no. I was still upset over the loss of my father, and was angry at the gods for having taken him away from me. I think that’s why your father would take me on walks. I had a tendency to sit inside and read all day. He knew the walks were good for my anger. On that same walk, he told me he would help me go to school, and said I could go anywhere I wanted. That he would pay for it. I can still remember how my mother wept with joy when I told her. Naturally I went to the University of Athens. I wanted the city life, but was too afraid to go too far. I studied international politics and philosophy. When I came back, full of book knowledge and anecdotes of eccentric professors, he listened to all of my stories and everything I had learned. When I was finished, he looked at me and asked, ‘Where do you want to go next?’ He had already changed my life and given me countless wonderful experiences. I was already set to get a good office job somewhere and climb the corporate ladder. ‘Where do you want go next?’ he asked again. I was flabbergasted. I said I might want to study law. He looked at me and said, ‘Nai, I think you should, but the best are in London. You’re going to need an umbrella. It’s a cold, gray place there.’ And he sent me to London just like that to study law.”
“Did he know you before all of that?” Joanna asked.
“He knew of me. He made a point to know me. He went out of his way to help me when my father died.”
The waitress came out then and Nick ordered for them, as well as some wine, and she came back with a full bottle and two glasses.
“The wonderful thing about my story, Miss Joanna,” Nick said once the waitress had gone back inside, “is that it’s not unique. Your father did the same for many other children on this island.”
“How many?” she asked, amazed.
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Considering how large his funeral was, I’d say it was a lot.”
He poured them some wine and put out his cigarette before continuing. “Now you know why Villa Azure is in the state it is. He spent all the profits on us as if we were his children. He knew his hotel needed work, but he cared more about people than he did of it.”
“So you’re saying he left me something that was an afterthought to him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I would say it like that.”
“What do you think are in the letters?” Joanna asked, her thought segueing to all of the other things she didn't know about her elusive father.
“Something interesting for sure. There is a history there that none of us know about. I think you’re going to find out what happened between Georges and your mother, Joanna. I think you’re going to find out why you didn’t grow up in Skiathos.”
Chapter Ten
Later, Nick dropped her off at the hotel and walked her in.
“Where do you live?” she asked. “Do you have far to go?”
“A houseboat. I’m just a few minutes away from here.”
“So some of your father is still in you then,” she said and smiled.
“Yes, but I leave it to others to do the catching. Goodnight, Miss Joanna.” He waved goodbye and left. Joanna had expected him to kiss her on the cheeks, but he didn’t. Had she done something?
Chris saw the exchange, though pretended she was watching TV on a small portable television.
She looked at Joanna’s perplexed face and shook her head.
