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“Why?”
Effie leaned forward on her elbows. “I know you'd think he'd be this little . . . Grandma's boy, but Lena, he is . . . he is . . .” When Effie got excited she didn't finish her sentences.
“He's what?”
“He's . . .”
Lena raised an eyebrow.
“Stupendous,” Effie declared.
Lena was naturally a little curious, but she wouldn't admit it. “Ef, I didn't come to Greece to find a boyfriend.”
“Can I have him?”
Lena smiled for real. “Effie, yes. Does it matter that you already have a boyfriend?”
“It did until I saw Kostos.”
“He's that great, huh?”
“You'll see.”
Lena stood. “So let's go.” It was handy to have Kostos built up so much. When she saw him he would certainly be disappointing.
Effie paused. “You told Grandma you were coming up to change.”
“Oh, yeah.” Lena rifled through her bag. It was cool now that the sun had set. She put on a brown turtleneck—her least sexy piece of clothing—and pulled her hair back in a severe ponytail. Still, the Pants were the Pants.
“You know, those pants do seem kind of magical,” Effie enthused. “They look great on you. Like, even better than usual.”
“Thanks,” Lena said. “Let's go.”
“Wheeee,” Effie said excitedly.
So Kostos wasn't disappointing. He was tall. He looked more like a man than a boy; he looked at least eighteen. He was good-looking enough to make Lena suspicious.
Granted, Lena was suspicious of many things. But she had earned her suspicions about boys. Lena knew boys: They never looked beyond your looks. They pretended to be your friend to get you to trust them, and as soon as you trusted them, they went in for the grope. They pretended to want to work on a history project or volunteer on your blood drive committee to get your attention. But as soon as they got it through their skulls that you didn't want to go out with them, they suddenly weren't interested in time lines or dire blood shortages. Worst of all, on occasion they even went out with one of your best friends to get close to you, and broke that same best friend's heart when the truth came out. Lena preferred plain guys to cute ones, but even the plain ones disappointed her.
She personally thought that the only reason most girls put up with most boys at all was because they needed reassurance that they were pretty. That was one thing, maybe the only thing, Lena knew about herself without reassurance.
Lena's friends called her Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. The beauty part was more or less on target, but the love part was a joke. Lena was not a romantic.
“Lena, this is Kostos,” Grandma said. Lena could tell Grandma was trying to be cool, but she was just about blowing a gasket with excitement.
“Kostos, this is my granddaughter Lena,” Grandma said with a flourish, as though she were presenting a game show contestant with his new red car.
Lena stuck her hand out stiffly and shook his, heading off any spontaneous Greek cheek-kissing.
He studied her face while he shook her hand. She could tell he was trying to hold her eyes for a moment, but she looked down.
“Kostos is going to university in London in the fall,” Grandma bragged, as though he were hers. “He tried out with the national football team,” she added. “We are all so proud of him.”
Now Kostos was the one looking down. “Valia brags more than my own grandmother,” he mumbled.
Lena noted that his English was accented but sure.
“But this summer, Kostos is helping his bapi,” Grandma announced, and literally brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Bapi Dounas had a problem with his . . .” Grandma patted her hand over her heart. “Kostos changed his summer plans to stay home and help.”
Now Kostos looked genuinely uncomfortable. Lena felt sudden sympathy for him. “Valia, Bapi is strong as ever. I always like to work at the forge.”
Lena knew he was lying, and she liked him for it. Then she had a better idea.
“Kostos, have you met my sister, Effie, yet?” Effie had been bobbing around nearby the whole time, so it wasn't hard to find her elbow and pull her over.
Kostos smiled. “You look like sisters,” he said, and Lena wanted to hug him for it. For some reason, people always paid more attention to their differences than their similarities. Maybe it took a Greek to see it. “Who's older?” he asked.
“I'm older, but Effie's nicer,” Lena said.
“Oh, please,” Grandma said, practically snorting.
“Just a year older,” Effie chimed in. “Fifteen months, actually.”
“I see,” Kostos answered.
“She's only fourteen,” Grandma felt the need to point out. “Lena will be sixteen at the end of the summer.”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?” Effie, the eager subject-changer, asked.
Kostos's face became subtly guarded. “No . . . just me.”
“Oh,” both girls said. Judging from Kostos's expression, Lena could tell there was more to the story than that, and she silently prayed Effie wouldn't ask any more about it. She didn't want to get into intimacies here.
“Kostos . . . uh . . . plays soccer,” Lena tossed in, just to be sure.
“Plays soccer?” Grandma practically shouted as though scandalized. “He is a champion! He's a hero in Oia!”
Kostos laughed, so Lena and Effie did too.
“You young people. You talk,” Grandma ordered, and she vanished.
Lena decided this could be a good opportunity to give Kostos and Effie a moment. “I'm going to get more food,” she said.
Later, she sat on the single chair outside the front door eating delicious stuffed grape leaves called dolmades, and olives. As many thousands of times as she'd eaten Greek food back in Maryland, it had never tasted precisely like this.
Kostos peered out the door. “There you are,” he said. “You like to sit alone?”
She nodded. She'd chosen this spot mostly for its one chair.
“I see.” He was very, very handsome. His hair was dark and wavy, and his eyes were yellow-green. There was a slight bump on the bridge of his nose.
That means you should go away, she urged him silently.
Kostos walked into the passageway that led past her grandparents' home and wound up the cliff. He pointed downhill. “That's my house,” he said, pointing to a similar structure about five doors down. It had a wrought-iron balcony on the second floor painted a vibrant green and holding back an avalanche of flowers.
“Oh. Long walk,” she said.
He smiled.
She was about to ask whether he lived with his grandparents, but then she realized that would be inviting a conversation.
He leaned against the whitewashed wall of the passageway. So much for the notion that Greek men were short.
“Would you like to take a walk with me?” he asked. “I want to show you Ammoudi, the little village at the bottom of the cliff.”
“No thanks,” she said. She didn't even make an excuse. She had learned long ago that boys took excuses as further reasons to ask you out.
He studied her face a moment, openly disappointed. “Maybe another time,” he said.
She wanted him to go back inside and ask Effie to see Ammoudi, but instead he walked slowly down the hill and into his house.
