Love in a Strange Place

Our last trip came from a book we’d once seen around Christmas in New Jersey. A white church in Mykonos on the Greek Islands sat on its cover, overlooking the turquise water of the Aegean. We’d sat on the floor of Barnes & Noble, bundled in our winter coats, turning every page.

Our hotel owner picked us up at the airport in an off-white van that smelled like fish. He seemed to enjoy testing out his English on us. His name was Antonios.

“You’ve been before to Greece?”

“No, first time. It’s gorgeous.” The tiny main roads turned into even tinier white cobblestoned streets surrounded by clusters of eerily perfect block houses. I spotted a Starbucks.

“Oh you see? Yes, only a couple of months now. Not so popular. Not good coffee, I think.”

For the first time in our six-month long trip, R’s face was truly frozen in disbelief. We’d arrived at sunset, and as we crested the island’s central hill we had a clear view of the town circling the central port. R’s eyes were shining, reflecting the white of the city, and I wondered how hard I was willing to try to make his eyes light up like that.

Antonios’ Guesthouse was a group of dusty rooms, all with views of the sea. As usual, we dropped our bags without unpacking and headed down the hill. There were cats everywhere, in every sunlit alley and on every flower-filled balcony. The gypsies poked their heads out from child-sized blue doors.

“I want to live here. I want to have a house here, and spend every summer here.” R kept trying to bottle the feeling, the beauty of it. I recognized the sentiment, the struggle to articulate something, and the frustration in knowing it would never leave the tip of your tongue.

We were there for three cloudless days, and ran every morning to catch one of the gigantic, hot buses headed toward the island’s various beaches. Paradise and Paraga were close to the center of town and easy to access, but we’d heard about one called “Elia” from Antonios and the locals who’d served us dinner. The buses to Elia were on the other side of the port. We arrived sweaty and surrounded by tan Americans all seeking the same undiscovered beach.

A heavy older woman in a straw hat sat across from us on the bus, a large camera hanging from her leathery neck. It looked like she was traveling alone.

“Wow, you guys are tan! How long you been here?”

R took the bait.

“Just two days. We’re leaving tomorrow actually.”

“Oh I see. Honeymooners?”

“No,” R laughed and looked away from me, out the window of the bus. “We’ve been studying abroad in London.”

“Great city. I was there with my husband a ways back. You two were probably still in diapers. The only city that’s prettier in the rain than in the sun, don’t you think?” She chuckled and laced her hands over her stomach. I had to ask.

“Where’s your husband now?”

She didn’t seem surprised. “Oh, you know. The usual. We left each other. I don’t mind. Traveling’s more fun without someone else’s head blocking every sunset, right?” I watched her stomach ripple as she laughed.

Elia was better than the others, but didn’t quite live up to our expectations.

The bright reds and oranges of the seats on Virgin Atlantic flight #11 to New York seemed out of place on the chilly London morning as we left. Once again, we’d requested seats next to each other and and once again we’d been seated across an aisle. I made sure the row was free of attendants before leaning over towards R, the plane racing down the runway. I wondered if any kiss could really compete with the neon lights of Amsterdam or the Aegean Sea at dawn.

We waited for our luggage inside the dismal waiting room of Newark airport. I wondered if a love this simple had a chance. The grey walls and sad faces of the workers put an end to my wondering. No love is ordinary; we could compete here. And that was a start.

I threw out my guidebook on my way out of the airport, and the pictures I took never made it out of their drugstore envelopes. R bugged me about that all summer.