$9 a Day

When we finally tracked down Karen at some hippie hostel on Mykonos, Alex found out she was in love with somebody named Zach who was sharing a tent with some girl named Shelby. Karen needed a distraction from stalking Zach and Shelby so she moved into the apartment that Alex and I had rented for 1,440 drachmae. $9 a day. For a while I felt like the girl in "Summer Lovers" - not Darryl Hannah but the other one - except nobody was having sex with each other.

That was kind of a drag.

But when you are 24 and, like you, everyone you know is in love with somebody who’s in love with somebody else, and you’re in Greece and the sun is shining on the cosmic Mediterranean Sea, it’s hard to be too mopey about it.

The classic Greek, white stucco studio apartment we’d rented was high on a hill with an ocean view, hardwood floors and windows that reminded me of portholes on a ship. We had a double bed and a twin, and every night we rotated who slept with whom, each of us eager to be alone in the single with nothing but our lovely angst. We had a two-burner stove and a sink, a private bath with hot running water and ocean breezes night and day.

The apartment was owned by a family who lived in the big house on the same land. They had teenagers with names like Athena and Demeter and nobody ever seemed to be around, so every few days we slid more rent money under their big door and they never bothered us. They never cleaned or gave us fresh towels, but they left us alone and that was preferable to sterile linens.

Alex was a really good cook and taught me that Italians never use onions and garlic together in the same dish. (I’ve never had this confirmed by another source but I still believe it to be true.) He made a Puttanesca that brought tomcats moaning to our open windows. I liked how a little bead of perspiration formed on Alex’s upper lip when he cooked and the way he wiped his hands on his blue jeans instead of messing up a towel. Karen was blonder than I was and had big boobs and had been sunbathing topless for a year already, so I hated going to the beach with her.

I rented a scooter and went for long drives alone on it. I sunbathed on sands that were the same shade of white as my own little breasts. I hung out in Greek cafes drinking dark, sweet coffee and writing letters to Steve, urging him to leave dreary old England to share the $9 apartment with me in Mykonos (Mykonos!) where we could drink Ouzo and write two great American novels side by side while gazing at the white rounded rooftops set against the blue, blue sea. I choked down Greek salads and spanakopita and ached inside as I wrote these letters. Having nowhere to send them, I threw them away.

Alex, Karen and I rarely spent our days together, but we spent every night in one of the bars in the heart of Mykonos where Zach could be observed dancing with Shelby and Karen could be observed getting drunk and Alex and I would clink glasses and smoke harsh Turkish cigarettes while reminding each other how glad we were that we weren’t in love with anyone. Sometimes, when it was our night in the double, I’d forget what Steve looked like as I listened to Alex breathing long after he’d fallen asleep. I never tried to spoon him, but I sure thought about it.

Despite all the unrequited mooning, we all got along, and when Alex and I got evicted from the apartment for having an illegal subtenant (at least, that’s how we interpreted Demeter’s angry, half-Greek half-English diatribe), we convinced Karen it was time to give up on Zach and hop the next ferry for Santorini. There, the sand was black and the cliffs were red and we rented a pensione from Aphrodite, a grandmotherly woman with tight white curls and limited English. Her son, a strapping lad named Hercules, did all the translating, and when he got Alex alone he inquired about me …

… and still I was waiting for something to happen to my life.