Samantha Parks - The Summer House in Santorini

Anna nodded in understanding. She wasn’t about to try to cross this woman, though she would have to see about getting that path put in. Maybe a fence between the houses as well.

Eirini extended a set of keys to Anna, so she moved a few steps closer to her and took them. With that, Eirini turned around and walked back into the house, closing the door behind her.

Christos was sticking his head around the door from the courtyard, and he stepped into the garden after Eirini had gone. “Is Giorgos house,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “Eirini love Giorgos… very much. Is hard.” And then he turned and followed Eirini inside.

Anna watched her grandfather go inside, wishing he spoke better English so she could avoid Eirini. She turned around to inspect her new home, and as she saw it she felt giddy yet again. This would definitely make a great rental property. Maybe there was a rental agency they could work with, and they wouldn’t have to sell it. Then she and Lizzy could come whenever they wanted, and…

… and nothing. After her icy reception from Eirini, Anna knew that she would never be welcome here. She would have to part with the summer house. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy a few days in it. She’d just have to find somewhere to spend her time where she could fit in with the other tourists.

Anna unlocked the door and went inside. As she had expected, it was just one big room with a bathroom in the corner. It was immediately obvious, however, that it was in no state to rent out or sell as it stood. The small kitchen in the far-right corner was filled with rust-covered appliances, and one cabinet door was hanging by a hinge. The mattress on the bed looked like ones Anna had seen in back alleys in Manhattan. The wooden floor was almost completely covered in a thick layer of dust. And while the bathroom had a lovely freestanding tub in it, there was no flooring and no sink. This must have been what Nikos meant when he said she wouldn’t have it on the market in a week. The summer house was going to need a lot of work. She just had to determine if that work was her responsibility.

Anna pulled out her phone to ring Lizzy, and, after taking a moment to connect to the Greek network, a flood of messages came through. Unable to leave the notifications alone, Anna went through each one: a confirmation that the room she was subletting would be held for her; a text from the pizza delivery near her apartment in New York offering “15% off” for the next three days, and a notification that she had beat Lizzy in their latest round of Words With Friends.

Next, she reluctantly opened her work emails, with the intention of just checking there was nothing important waiting for her, but saw a message from Marcus’s assistant waiting in her inbox. The subject line was “Moving forward,” so she clicked into it.

Hi, Anna. Due to your recent tardiness, the second documented offense of its kind …

The first had been the morning after she found out her father had died. She had only been twenty minutes late. As for her second offense, she didn’t even realize she had been written up again. The email continued:

… we no longer feel you are a good fit for MarMac. We would like to give you your two-week notice, which will begin immediately. We are aware that you are away on personal matters, so while we will pay you for the two weeks, you should consider your employment with MarMac, Inc. to be complete. Please return the attached paperwork in order to be eligible for the next two weeks’ pay.

Anna couldn’t believe what she was reading. He was firing her before she could send in her notice. This was a new low for Marcus; not content with sweeping Anna under the rug because he was done with her, he had to have the last word, too. She set a reminder for the next morning to fill out the paperwork before tapping out her reply.

Really classy, Marcus. Thanks for the heads up.

His response came quickly:

Don’t be a child, Anna. At least I gave you severance pay. Just remember that you’ll never be a photographer if you can’t take your work seriously.

Anna groaned and slammed her phone down. He was so infuriating. At least this meant she would be able to stay a bit longer to get the house sold. As she looked around again, she began making a mental list of everything that the new owner would have to do: replace the mattress, tile the bathroom, buy a sink, repair the cabinets, replace the oven, clean the refrigerator, clean the floors, clean the windows… okay, clean everything. And replace a lot of things. Or maybe she was supposed to do all that before putting it on the market? If so, this was going to cost her a lot of time and a lot of money. But, then again, she had a little bit of both to spare.

She picked up her phone again, this time to call Lizzy.

“Hey, Banana!” Lizzy shouted. “You there yet? I was beginning to worry about you.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Anna said. “I fell asleep for a while. Sorry. But I’m at the summer house now.”

“How was your journey from the airport?” Lizzy asked, and Anna could tell that she was smiling mischievously on the other end of the line.

“Horrible,” she said. “Some guy named Nikos picked me up and we had to walk all the way to the resort where Christos works.”

“I told him to drive you!”

“You told him?” Anna asked. “How do you know Nikos?”

“I met him at Dad’s funeral,” Lizzy said. “I thought you might enjoy having him as your escort.”

“Very funny,” Anna said. “I’m not really in the market for a Greek booty call. A Greek summer house is about all I can handle at the moment.”

“Fine, fine, fine,” Lizzy relented with a sigh. “And what do you think of the summer house?”

“Well… it definitely has potential…”

“Potential? That’s how they describe absolute dumps on home-improvement reality shows!”

“Yeah, well, I think that would be pretty fitting, given that it looks like a crack den at the moment.” Anna walked around as she spoke, opening cabinets to get a sense of what was there. She tried not to balk at the state of some of the dishes, but she knew they would be getting thrown out rather than cleaned.

Lizzy sighed. “Oh, Anna, I’m sorry. I really thought it would be in better condition. Eirini and Christos must not have been in there since Dad died.”

Anna opened her mouth to respond, but as she did, she saw an air mattress and some bedding in a cabinet that looked decidedly cleaner than everything else she had seen.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she said, silently thanking Christos for the fact that she wouldn’t have to sleep on the mattress currently on the bed. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle. I just need to pay to fix it up first …”

“How much are we talking?”

Anna did some quick mental math. “Maybe a couple thousand? I need new furniture, a new oven, a sink for the bathroom, and some tiles for the bathroom floor.”

“Anna, that’s a lot of money for us,” Lizzy said. “Remember, we don’t get paid here. Plus, isn’t that a lot to do before you have to get back for work?”

“Well, actually,” Anna replied, “about that…”

“What happened? Did you get more time off at work?”

“Something like that,” Anna said. She didn’t want to tell Lizzy she had been fired; that would mean telling her about what had been happening with Marcus. “The point is that I can stay as long as I need to. I’ve got my savings and a pay check coming through soon. Then I can just recoup the money for the repairs from the sale before we split it.”

“That sounds perfect,” Lizzy said. “You’re the best.” Anna could hear noise in the background. “Hey, Banana, I’ve got to go, but thanks again for handling this. Just remember to have an open mind with Dad’s family. There’s two sides to every story.”