Honestly, We Meant Well Read online

  “What school?”

  “The Saronic Yachting Academy. The place where I teach, and where you never showed up.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m a funny guy.” Dio looks at their bill and throws a few euros on the table. “You want to come?”

  * * *

  “Okay.” Will takes a deep breath. “O-kay.”

  He squints. Gripping both ends of the rope between his sunburnt fingers, he twists it and recites aloud: “You make a hole, then the rabbit comes out of it, and then goes around the tree, and then dives back through the hole, and…” He pulls the rope, but nothing happens. Or—nothing that’s supposed to happen happens; instead of a clean bowline knot, all he’s left with is a tangle of nylon.

  “Shit,” he says, and drops the rope to the floor of the boat, one of the Saronic Yachting Academy’s tiny sabots. The collar of his T-shirt is caked with salt and sweat. Beneath him, water sloshes against the hull. He says, again: “Shit.”

  He woke early that morning and, in lieu of a shower (they’re still broken), he dove into the Alectrona’s pool. Then, over breakfast in the dining room, he tried to engage Eleni in something resembling a conversation. This didn’t quite work—it never does. He always gets the feeling that she’s a little too busy, or a little too bored, and so, per usual, he ended up finishing his coffee in his bedroom, taking down the last sips as he spent half an hour looking for jobs. This didn’t quite work, either; after an hour of tweaking cover letters he got anxious, which invariably led to thoughts of Dio, and his hair, and that inch of skin above his waistband. He felt a surge of anticipation and nerves. A lightness in the knees that caused him to think that, maybe, Rajiv leaving him was a good thing—that, without that catastrophe, he might have forgotten how fun it was to have a crush.

  Now Dio hands Will the rudder. “Don’t get frustrated,” he says. “That doesn’t help.”

  He picks up the rope and Will watches as he begins to untangle it, his rough fingers prying at the knot. As he works he crouches down, resting his ass on his tan calves. His white shorts are stained with grease, and his neck strains as he fusses with Will’s mess.

  He says, “You’ve managed to create something pretty complicated here, Mr. Wright.”

  “I think the rabbit hates me.”

  “That’s a lie,” Dio says, finally managing to loosen the rope. “The rabbit loves everyone.”

  “I don’t know if I love the rabbit.”

  “But you must!” He coils the untangled rope and slides it beneath the bench where Will sits. Then he tousles Will’s hair. “The rabbit is what teaches us our knots.”

  Will says, “I think I hate the rabbit.”

  He’s wearing a life jacket, which digs into the base of his neck, and he reaches up to pull it away as he looks out over the harbor. A hundred yards in front of him a gull bobs along the peaks of tiny swells, every so often leaning over to dip its pointed beak beneath the surface.

  “Okay,” Dio says, adjusting his sunglasses. A small wave slaps the side of the boat, spritzing Will’s face with salt. “Okay, we’re going to tack. Remember what I told you?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s good enough.”

  Reaching down, Will picks up the mainsheet and begins to pull, tightening the sail as the boat gains speed. Quickly, the sabot heels over to the starboard side, the lips of its hull scraping the water’s surface.

  Dio crouches down and switches to the port side of the boat, where he huddles next to Will. He says, “Naí, good. Now steer us into and across the wind.”

  Will grasps the rudder’s handle and swivels it to the right, pivoting the bow. The boat rights itself and Will holds his breath. Then, suddenly, the wind catches the sail again: the mast creaks, and the boom swings inches above their heads. Now heeling to port, they scramble over to the starboard side.

  Dio laughs. “You’re a natural!”

  “A natural who can’t tie bowlines.”

  He nods. “We’ll work on that.”

  An hour later, Will angles the sabot’s bow toward the dock as best he can and watches as Dio leans out to catch hold of it. His hips pass over the lip of the hull and the boat rocks precariously to the right; closing his eyes, Will half expects to hear a heavy splash—the sound of his body plunging into the water—but instead is greeted by a dull thud: the sabot, softly meeting its berth.

  “Good,” Dio says, swinging a leg up and out of the boat. “Now hand me the docking line.”

  Will does, and Dio holds it as he scrambles onto the dock. It’s not easy work; the tide is low, revealing a crosshatch of barnacles and bird shit on the pier’s pilings, and to follow Dio and exit the sabot Will has to do a half pull-up, gripping the dock’s splintered wood before hauling his body out of it. Once he’s standing on solid ground, he runs his teeth over his lower lip and a fleck of skin comes loose: he needs to buy some ChapStick.

  “Here,” Dio says. “Give me the dock line, and I’ll tie us off.”

  Passing the rope beneath a rusted cleat, he makes a series of figure eights and pulls the loose end of the line, tightening the knot. Three feet below him, the sabot rocks gently, succumbing to the ebbs and flows of the tide.

  Dio stands up. He slings both their life vests over his left shoulder, then takes his sunglasses off, letting them dangle from a set of blue, neoprene Croakies.

  “I’ve got a proposition for you,” he says. “I’m being paid to sail a boat to Hydra this coming Friday. It’s this thing I do sometimes—sail rich people’s boats to other islands so they’re there when they arrive from wherever they’re arriving from. Which, in this case, is Munich, I think. Anyway. It’s a big boat. About fifteen meters. I can’t handle it on my own. I was wondering if you’d come along to help me.”

  “You’re kidding.” Will laughs.

  “Why would I be kidding?”

  “I’ve been sailing for, like, three hours.”

  “These are boats, not spaceships.”

  Will pulls his left heel out of his espadrille, scratches it against his right leg, and then slips it back into the shoe.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “What if I screw something up?”

  “Impossible. You’re a natural.”

  “I think the rabbit would disagree.”

  Dio cleans his sunglasses with the bottom hem of his shirt and slips them on again.

  “Fuck the rabbit,” he says. “You’re coming.”

  Eleni

  August 1

  Aegina

  Three hours before she’s scheduled to be in Athens to sign the Alectrona’s closing documents with Lugn, Eleni knocks on the door to Stavros’s house and waits. Then, after a minute has passed and he still hasn’t answered, she knocks again. She keeps knocking, her knuckles aching as she calls his name, until, finally, he’s there, creaking the door open with a rueful hesitation.

  Looking him over once, she says, “Oh, for God’s sake, Stavros.”

  He’s donned his best mourning garb: a pressed black suit, paired with a thin matching tie. On his head, he’s set a wool cap—also black—which he presently pulls down, adjusting the brim so it nearly shields his eyes. It is, all in all, not a terrible look: the slacks have a flattering cut, and the jacket fills out his shoulders—he appears solid and sturdy, instead of just short. How curious, Eleni thinks: the man can’t button his shirt when he comes to work, but cleans up nicely for imaginary funerals.

  “A little dramatic, don’t you think?” she says.

  “It’s a sad day.”

  “I’m going to Athens to sign a contract. That’s all that’s happening.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “And what, pray tell, is the other way?”

  He shrugs. “That we’re experiencing a death.”

  She ducks beneath his arm and into his house. “Your ability to turn a piece of property into a person is truly remarkable.”

  She moves from the foyer to a cramped din
ing room. There, on a card table, sits a black demitasse, an ashtray, and a newspaper. To the left of the table is a small bookshelf, which holds, among other things, four framed pictures of Stavros and his long-dead wife, along with a small television, switched to Skai TV. When was the last time she was here, she wonders? Fifteen years ago, at least. Maybe even more. It had been for a holiday. Easter. They had just returned from midnight mass and Stavros hovered near the stove, where he prepared the magiritsa. He didn’t know much about cooking—the best Eleni had known him to make was pasta with melted butter—and every so often she’d hear him yelp or curse. A knife grazing his finger, she thought, or boiling broth searing his skin. Christos, meanwhile, cleared a spot on the floor, a square in between the sofa and a coatrack, where he set down a few cushions and two of the eggs that he and Eleni had boiled and dyed red two nights earlier. Her father coaxed her to sit and, as she listened to Stavros chop dill and onions, he handed her one of the eggs. Then, with the one he had kept for himself, he gently tapped hers and said, “Christos anesti.”

  Eleni smiled. She loved playing tsougrisma; it was her favorite part of Easter. Looking down at the bloodred shell, she inspected it for cracks. When she couldn’t find one, she tapped his and said, “Alithos anesti.”

  It was, she thinks now, the first time she had played the game with him. In the past, it was her mother who entertained her, knocking her egg against Eleni’s as Christos busied himself roasting a lamb. But by that Easter her mother was gone—she had died a few months earlier, in February—and the burden of tradition fell on Christos. It was not a natural fit. He was never comfortable with the theatrical side of parenting. Still, at least early on—before Eleni grew to share his suspicion for sentimentality; before she learned that keeping him at arm’s length was easier than admitting she needed him—he did his best to try.

  Tightening his grip on his egg, he tapped hers again. “Christos anesti.”

  Again, nothing happened, so she took her turn. “Alithos anesti.”

  This time, there was the fragile sound of a shell cracking. Turning his egg over, Christos pointed to a thin, hairline fracture, along which he ran his finger.

  “You beat me,” he said. “Well done.”

  Eleni smiled. “Now I’ll have good luck for the rest of my life.”

  Her father had reached out and set his palm against her cheek.

  “Yes,” he had told her. “You will.”

  Now, she tries to rid herself of the memory—the unsettling mix of nostalgia and contrition it stirs in her; the feeling of waking from a dream she can’t seem to forget. She skirts past the card table and looks out onto the house’s terrace, a walled-in square of tile that contains a hose, an unemptied ashtray, and a terra-cotta pot.

  She says, “Growing dirt, are we?”

  From somewhere behind her, he answers: “I was getting ready to plant a fig tree. A small one. A fiddle leaf fig tree.”

  “In those clothes?”

  “No matter the tragedy, life must endure.”

  Her back still turned to him, she rolls her eyes.

  Then she says, “I like fiddle leaf figs. I’ll help.”

  “You’ll help? That’s a first. Where’s the hidden camera?”

  “Knock it off before I change my mind.”

  He taps her shoulder and hands her a trowel.

  “Here,” he says. “I’ll go get the tree.”

  She steps out onto the terrace and listens while Stavros bangs around inside. After a few minutes, he emerges carrying a bag of soil in one hand and the tree in the other. It’s as tall as she is but looks weak and breakable—a thin stalk topped with ten green, lyre-shaped leaves. The roots are contained in a burlap sack tied together with a piece of twine, and as Stavros teeters toward her, the whole trunk sways, threatening to topple over.

  “Careful,” Eleni says. “You’re going to kill it before it’s had a chance to live.”

  He ignores her and sets the tree down in the pot. Placing his right hand on the small of his back, he stretches.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’ll hold it. You untie the bag.”

  Eleni nods and does as she is told, reaching down and pulling gently on the twine. The sack unfurls, releasing bits of fertilizer. Pushing them aside, she works the fabric down farther until, finally, she’s holding the root cluster, a maze of knots and gnarls, encased in a cone of soil. Carefully, she removes the burlap and sets it down on the floor.

  Stavros says, “Grab that bag of soil. The one right there, next to my foot.”

  “Why can’t you be this sure of yourself when it comes to plumbing?”

  With both hands she lifts the bag and begins to pour its contents into the pot, distributing the soil on all sides of the roots. Once the bag is empty she crouches down again, this time digging her hands into the dirt, forming it, giving it a sense of integrity and shape.

  “You’re giving me that look again,” she says.

  “How do you know how I’m looking at you? Your head’s in a pot.”

  “I can feel it, Stavros. I can feel your looks.”

  For a moment he’s silent; all Eleni hears is the sound of the fig leaves, lightly brushing each other in the breeze.

  “I just think it’s interesting, is all,” he says, finally.

  “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”

  “I think”—he clears his throat—“I think you’re distracting yourself.”

  “From what?”

  “From going to Athens. From signing something you don’t want to sign and giving away something you’re not ready to lose.”

  “How convenient.” She straightens the tree’s trunk, edging it to the right. “I’m helping you—that’s all. You help me, and now I’m helping you.”

  Stavros ignores her. He says, “An hour ago you called me to say that you had to catch the ferry. You said that you didn’t have time for me to drive your dry cleaning up to the Alectrona, and that you’d just pick it up here on the way to town because you were—and I quote—in a huge rush. And yet, now here you are, up to your elbows in fertilizer, helping me plant a fig tree.”

  Eleni looks down and lets her hair fall in her face. She keeps her fingers in the soil, burying them up to the second knuckle. The dirt’s cool, and as she digs deeper, she can feel it working its way beneath her nails.

  She leaps to her feet.

  “You’re right,” she says. “This is a waste of time.”

  She looks for a cloth to wipe the filth from her hands, and when she can’t find one, she uses the lapel of Stavros’s jacket.

  She says, “I’ve got five minutes. Tell me where you put my clothes.”

  * * *

  She realizes immediately that there’s a problem: the haul of laundry he gives her is too thin, too light; she’s able to balance the three hangers on her little finger.

  “Stavros,” she says. “Where’s my suit?”

  “What do you mean?” He’s poured himself a glass of orange juice, and a shred of pulp clings to his mustache.

  “I mean where’s my suit? I dropped off a skirt, a blouse, and a blazer. All that’s here are three shirts.”

  “Oh.” He licks his lips. “I think those are mine.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” She takes a breath; she doesn’t want to snap at him again. “But where did you put the rest of it?”

  “That’s all there was. I gave them the ticket, and that’s what they handed me.”

  The color drains from her face, and Stavros sets down his glass.

  “There must have been a mix-up,” he says. “Here, I’ll call them.”

  Eleni presses the heels of her palms against her eyes and shakes her head.

  “I don’t have time for that,” she says. “My ferry leaves in half an hour.” Then: “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong with what you’re wearing? You’re just going to sign a piece of paper.”

  “Says the man planting trees in a funerary suit.” She uncovers her eyes and
blinks away the stars. “And look at me. I can’t wear jeans and a tank top to close a deal.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, Stavros! Because I’m an adult, not an animal! Because these people are Swedish!”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I just mean that they’re all probably going to be wearing, like, J. Lindberg suits, or something, while I look like this.”

  “I don’t know who J. Lindberg is.”

  “That’s not the point,” Eleni says. “The point is I can’t show up wearing this, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “What about one of my shirts?” He rips away the plastic from the hangers and thumbs through the options. “The blue one, I think. It’ll bring out your eyes.”

  “My eyes are green.”

  “Close enough.” He tosses her a threadbare oxford. “You can change in the bathroom.”

  She looks ridiculous. The shirt is too big in some places and too small in others; staring at herself in the mirror, she’s reminded of her older classmates at the university as they traipsed out for their first job interviews. Girls and boys pretending to be grown-ups, playing dress-up in their hand-me-down suits. Now, standing in the muted light of Stavros’s bathroom, she does her best to make the shirt work—rolling up the sleeves so they don’t dangle at her knuckles, grabbing a handful of fabric and tucking it into the back of her jeans. Turning to the left, she looks at her profile. It’s not bad, but it’s not perfect, either; the shirt looks like it fits until it hits the waistband of her jeans. There, it bunches and folds over itself; she looks like she’s pregnant with a stack of pancakes. Still, she figures it’s better than the alternative. Reaching up, she gathers her hair with both hands and ties it back into a loose bun, collecting and adjusting the stray tendrils that fall across her eyes. Then she slips her hand into the pocket of her jeans. She fishes around until her fingers brush against a thin gold chain. Pulling gently, she retrieves the necklace—the one that her father gave Sue Ellen, and Sue Ellen gave to her—and clasps it around her neck.