How are you today?
In a departure, Regan was honest:Honestly, a little lonely.
I am also a little lonely. Are you at work?
Regan paused. At this point, packing and envisioning a new future was—in fact—her work. She typed,Yes.
You have a beautiful smile,wrote François.
Regan stared at the screen, rereading the words.Beautiful.No one ever called Regan beautiful. She was always “the good one,” the “younger sister of Lee Perkins,” praised for her subservience and kindheartedness, her cooking and mothering.
But to this stranger, Regan wasn’t Lee’s pudgy little sister or Matt’s disappointing wife. Shehad a beautiful smile. Regan scrutinized her profile picture, which had been taken at a wedding long ago. Not her wedding. She wore a pink silk top and matching lipstick.
Thank you,wrote Regan. She felt warm.
Regan remembered the first time a man had really seen her—it had been her high school art teacher, Mr. Ragdale. He had been leaning against his blackboard, wearing khaki pants with his shirt tucked in. Regan walked by, and when she turned around he was watching her and his face was soft as if she were special.
Regan had felt warm then, too.
11
Charlotte
Charlotte’s cat, Godiva, had passedaway, and she was just too old to get a new kitten. Once in a while, Charlotte saw an aged animal (like herself!) on the Savannah Humane Society adoption page, but honestly, what could be more depressing? Still, she missed having something to feed, cuddle, and let in and out of her kitchen sliding door.
With Lee on a flight to Greece, Charlotte meandered around her house, nibbling cheese and crackers and opening and closing the little drawers of her antique side tables. In one drawer, she found her first love letter from Paros, which he had placed on her room service breakfast tray on the morning theSplendido Marvelosodocked in Sicily, Italy. The paper was thin and crinkled; it read:
Homer wrote in the Odyssey that a many-headed monster (SCYLLA) guarded the entrance to the Strait of Messina and ate sailors who tried to approach…and that the whirlpool CHARYBDIS waited for vessels…Luckily, the Splendido Marveloso has already safely docked. I love the view of Sicily and the Calabrian coast and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Yours,
Paros
Charlotte stared at the letter. It was an odd note, truth be told. Did Paros write notes to all the single ladies aboard his ships? Perhaps he’d found someone new by now.
Perhaps he was dead.
Charlotte went to her garage to grab a fresh bottle of Barefoot Chardonnay from the wine refrigerator. She looked at her new golf cart, her old car. For a moment, she thought of Minnie, her best friend, who had died over a decade before.
Charlotte wrenched her mind away from Minnie—how devastating her sudden death had been! There was absolutelyno pointin thinking about sad and worrisome things. Sometimes, to keep herself cheerful—to avoid worrying about Lee and her sleeping pills, for example, to trust her daughter when Lee said she was “fine” even though Charlotte’s gut told her otherwise—Charlotte needed wine. She twisted her corkscrew feverishly, pulled the cork, filled her glass.
And furthermore.
It was a lonely thing, growing elderly. Becoming a “senior.” You thought you were old at seventy, but that had nothing on your eighties. A man at church—Bruce Lark—had started saying, “Half my friends are dead, and the other half are half-dead!” He said it every Sunday after mass when they drank coffee and ate Publix pastries. It had been funny the first time Charlotte heard it, but after that, not so much.
Anyhoo! Charlotte drank deeply, topped off her wine, went to her living room, and turned on her electric fireplace and her television. Turner Classic Movies was showingThe Wizard of Oz. That was exciting.
12
Lee
Regan had told Lee theycalled her new neighborhood, Plaka, “The Neighborhood of the Gods,” but Lee was skeptical. From the window of her taxi, Lee observed the crowded avenues surrounding the Acropolis. Horns blared and motorbikes scarcely missed knocking down throngs of tourists and street performers like one hapless fellow juggling flaming torches (why?). Actual antiquities were surrounded by modern buildings with bougainvillea-draped terraces, an appealing café here and there among the tables of crap for sale. (Though Lee noted that one guy was hawking some cute leather sandals.) Lee’s driver stopped at the end of a precariously narrow cobblestone street. “Can’t go farther,” he said, followed by the “yess-us” word that must mean “get out of my taxi.”
“Why not?” said Lee.
“Pedestrian only,” said the driver, pointing to a blue sign that read, incomprehensibly to Lee:Μ?νοΠεζο?.
The driver added, “Mono-pe-zee,” and lit a cigarette.
