At least I had clothes now, since I assumed I’d be allowed to keep them. I’d bought a sexy matching bra and panty set that I couldn’t wait to wear. That was silly, though, because the only person I wanted to wear it for was Axel and he’d made himself scarce after we got to Hiskale. I’d told him I was trying to keep from getting attached to him, which was true, but it was too late for that. I had no experience with sexual intimacy and hadn’t been counting on the yearning I’d have for him. How much I’d want him to touch me again.
That probably wasn’t going to happen, so I was trying to get used to the idea. King Erik had told my parents that he would have a plan, both for us and for the rest of the residents of Vinake, by the time we got back. So while I’d been pretty relaxed in general, by the last day, I was restless and worried. Not because we wouldn’t be able to go back to Vinake, but because I was afraid we would. If the king offered to rebuild the café and support us in the interim, it would just be another version of hell for me. One where we weren’t cold or hungry during the winter, but no less bored or frustrated.
“Solange, good morning.” Mama came out of the bedroom on our final morning in Greece. She was tan and had spent some time in the spa herself. She looked a decade younger and seemed even more relaxed than I was.
“Morning, Mama.” I smiled and kissed her cheek.
There was a fancy machine that made espresso and cappuccino in our kitchenette, so I made one for each of us. We carried them out to the balcony that overlooked the ocean and sat for a while.
“Have you had a good time, love?”
“It’s been nice,” I admitted, staring out at the sea. “It’s going to make being back in Vinake that much harder.”
“You have the soul of a wanderer,” Mama said softly. “As did I once.”
“What happened? Did your soul freeze to death after enough winters?”
She laughed. “I fell in love with your father and then we had you. There was no time for wandering. We had to work, take care of our children, and eventually our parents.”
“And all four of them died before they were sixty,” I said softly. “Mama, I don’t want that for you, but don’t you see it’s inevitable? The lives we lead aren’t just miserable, they’re bad for us. The average age of death in Vinake is fifty-seven, almost twenty years before the rest of the civilized world. What does that say about us?”
“I don’t know.” Mama sipped her coffee. “But what else would we do, Solange? We don’t have the means to live a life of leisure.”
“I don’t want a life of leisure,” I protested. “I just want a reward for all the hard work. A holiday once in a while. A mattress without lumps. A day off once a week to hang out with friends, see a movie, do something, anything, but work.”
Mama squeezed my hand. “I know. I’m sorry, my love. I wish our lives had been different. We did the best we could.”
“I don’t blame you, but now we have a chance to start over. If you tell the king you want to start over in Hiskale, instead of Vinake, he would make it happen. You could open a new café in the city, somewhere we could make money, hire a staff to help us so we can take a day off…” My voice trailed off because I already knew that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to be in our hometown, with her friends and family and everything that was familiar, while I wanted to run as far from there as possible.
Mostly I wanted to explore Axel, but the way he’d avoided me after we got to Hiskale told me what I needed to know about him. At least with regard to me. He had to be a good man to work on the king’s personal security force, but that didn’t mean what we’d share had meant anything to him. He hadn’t known he would be my first lover so I’d probably disappointed him or something, though I knew he’d had fun. You didn’t need a lot of experience to see the pleasure on a man’s face while making love to a woman. Too bad it hadn’t been good enough for him to want to see me again.
“If you want to stay in Hiskale,” Mama said after a moment, “you should stay. Perhaps the king could find you a position in the kitchen.”
“I don’t want to work in a kitchen,” I said quietly.
“Solange, you must stop these visions of grandeur. You have to accept that we’re just working-class people who will never have more than what we have now. The king will help us, and maybe things will be better, but I don’t know what you want. Do you know?”
“How would I know?” I asked her. “I’ve never been beyond Vinake. This is my first time owning a real suitcase—how the hell would I know what I want in the future?”
“A husband? Children?”
“Maybe? But mostly I want to do something that means something. I want to go to university, study computers, get an education. Maybe have a career, not just a job waiting tables or cooking.”
“Go to university?” Papa joined us on the patio and laughed. “At your age, you need a husband and a few babies. Then you’ll forget such nonsense.”
God, I loved my parents, but they had such a narrow view of the world. Especially for women. If Kostya had been the one saying he wanted to go to university, our father probably would have moved heaven and earth to make it happen.
“Samuel, you must learn not to hurt her feelings,” Mama was saying as I got up and walked back inside the villa. I grabbed my purse, a new one I’d bought just yesterday, and left the villa. I walked down to the main building of the resort and waited for the shuttle bus that would take me into Athens. I’d fallen in love with it here and the last thing I wanted was to leave paradise and head back to hell.
I rode the shuttle downtown and wandered around Syntagma Square. I bought a few postcards, a T-shirt that said “Athens” in blue glitter, and a navy blue hoodie that said “Greece” on it. I’d already picked up a baseball cap and hoodie for Kostya, and Mama had bought him a pair of leather dress shoes. I thought that was funny since Kostya never wore dress shoes, but who was I to tell her how to spend her share of the money she’d been given?
I wandered down to the shopping district and lost myself in the stores. Clothes and shoes, leather goods and jewelry, you could find anything here. Most of it was a good price too. I’d picked up a couple of pairs of jeans and one nice pair of boots, things I would need in winter, but now that I was surrounded by so many beautiful things, I was tempted to splurge, buy myself more than practical souvenirs that could double as my winter wardrobe.
Impulsively, I walked into a small shoe boutique and decided to throw caution to the wind. I tried on almost every shoe in the store that they had in my size. Sandals, boots, stilettos, in every color imaginable. My favorite was a turquoise, high wedge heel with a peep-toe front and rhinestone-laced ankle straps. They were so pretty and would match one of the sundresses I’d bought the day we’d arrived. White and low-cut in the front, trimmed in gold, with gold rope straps, it was shin-length and looked fantastic on me now that I had a tan. Too bad I would never wear it—or the turquoise wedges I went ahead and bought—once I left Greece.
Packages in hand, I bought a small pair of gold hoop earrings, a necklace with a beautiful amber stone that hung on a leather strap, and a silver anklet that shimmered as I walked. I felt like a princess, but knew it wouldn’t last, so I closed my eyes and let myself pretend. That was all I could do.