Lies That Bind Us

I could see it all, feel the last warmth of the afternoon sun on my skin, the still greater warmth of being with them, of being one of them. The memory still made me smile.

It was going to be so very good to see them all again. That week when we had stumbled onto each other, clueless foreigners all, pointing our way through whatever the hotel bar had to offer because none of us spoke the language, had been, now that I thought about it, one of the highlights of my life. Perhaps the highlight. Till then, at least. Now I had other great things to look forward to, the vacation included.

Over dinner that night—takeout from Barrington’s, which was fabulously expensive and deserved better than the mismatched china I served it on—Chad had taken a break from his pan-seared grouper to ask if I minded going alone and if I felt awkward about seeing Marcus again. I actually laughed.

“I honestly hadn’t thought about it,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “I mean, you know I still see him from time to time. We’re still friends. But I don’t miss him. Not in that way.”

“Sounds very healthy,” he said, returning to his fish. “Good.”

“Chad Hoskins,” I said teasingly, “are you jealous?” Then I kissed him so invitingly that he spilled his wine. “Goose,” I said, laughing. “Now you’re all wet. Whatever shall we do?”

I didn’t fly much. The new job might change that, I supposed, and I rather liked the idea of jetting around with the sober business-suited bound for Tulsa, Newark, or Chicago on a Monday morning, gabbling instructions to my assistant in a no-nonsense way over my cell phone, asking for receipts with my steak dinner since I was “expensing” everything. Maybe that got dull eventually, but for now flying was still a little exotic, however much the airlines packed us in and gouged us for every inch of legroom and every bag of stale pretzels. The Aegean plane was nicer than the American Airlines one I’d crossed the Atlantic in: clean and sleek and new, with room to stretch out and everyone looking fresh faced and excited for the hop across the sparkling water.

I remembered the last time I had been to Greece, marveling at the blueness of the water that I had seen in books and brochures but assumed was a trick of filters or Photoshop, and my heart gave a little flutter of anticipation. I thought of Melissa and the others, and I realized I didn’t know when everyone else would be arriving. I half thought Marcus might have been on the Charlotte plane and was a little disappointed when he wasn’t. Just for company, of course. I had kept an eye open in the gate area at Douglas and made a couple of strolls down each aisle of the plane after they’d served dinner and dimmed the cabin lights, but there was no sign of him. One of the haughty, brittle flight attendants had pointedly asked me if everything was OK, like I might be planning some elaborate terrorist heist on my way to the bathroom, so I told her I’d lost an earring.

She hadn’t believed me.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” she’d said brightly, daring me to push the issue further. She said out like there was a W in it. Canada, perhaps, or Wisconsin. I went back to my seat and stared fixedly at the little electronic map on the seatback screen, the tiny plane inching its way across the ocean and down. I think I may have slept for an hour or two at the most.

It was a long flight to Crete, with layovers in Rome and Athens. I saw the Colosseum from the air, which was exciting, and I had a plate of pasta at the airport in Rome, which wasn’t. The connecting flight to Greece was delayed, and I had to run through the airport in Athens, dragging my carry-on like a wild-eyed bag lady, to make the Aegean Airlines flight to Heraklion. But the Crete flight was over almost as soon as we were in the air, and I found that the exhilaration at the prospect of seeing the others and rekindling our friendship from five years ago was turning into something hot and oppressive.

Calm down, I told myself. You’re as good as any of them. Executive team leader . . .

I grinned privately to myself, but only for a second, and partly at the absurdity of my own pretense. Because no—my little promotion would hardly impress my ridiculously successful and beautiful friends, however much I told myself that I was somehow keeping pace with the jet set. But then that’s how you get by sometimes, isn’t it? By deploying those little half-truths that keep the world rosy enough to live in.

I came through baggage claim and out into the body of Heraklion Airport with a low-grade anxiety that everyone would have gone, that I’d be forgotten and would have no way to reach the house except on my own dime, which would probably cost more than I could afford. Then what? I ask Simon for reimbursement, show him my cab receipt, like I was filling out expense forms for work?

God, I thought. That would be humiliating.

And finding the place would be no picnic. Melissa had refused to tell me anything about where we were staying except to say that it wasn’t a hotel. I had an address but had not bothered to look at a map to gauge how long a journey it would be. Having already traveled for a dozen hours on practically no sleep, I hoped it wasn’t far, but Melissa’s dangled promise of an “exclusive luxury villa away from the resort set” didn’t bode well. My nervous exhaustion spiked again, and I felt my pulse quicken.

Get it together, Jan, I told myself before taking three long, steadying breaths—one of Chad’s tricks designed to soothe my ragged nerves.

Thinking of Chad calmed me as much as the breathing exercise. This would all have been easier if he were with me. I had told him so, and he had smiled that gentle, thoughtful smile of his and said, “You can tell me all about it when you get back. Take lots of pictures.”

I would. I did the breathing thing again and felt better.

The arrivals area—lounge, which I thought implied chairs, was the wrong word—was a wall of watchful faces: men in close-fitting dark suits and no ties held signs—some were dry-erase boards, some computer printed, most just blocked out in Sharpie—all blaring names of passengers. I scanned them hurriedly: Blunt, Kastides, Ferguson, Alexandros, Merrimack, and more.

No Fletcher.

I stopped in my tracks, craning to see some of the signs casually held up from the back row, and a woman with a pair of pink roll-on cases jostled me out of the way, shooting me an irritated look.

“Sorry,” I said, but she was already walking away, welcomed by a lean, angular man in his fifties, who gave her a perfunctory nod and took one of the cases. As they moved away a space opened in the throng, and there, like Apollo himself, was Simon, handsome and tanned, flashing me that toothpaste-commercial smile of his, blue eyes glinting.

“Jan,” he said, striding over. “So glad you could make it!”

I half extended my hand, but he closed in for the hug and pecked me once on the cheek. I burbled into his neck, flustered, scanning the space behind him for signs of the others.

“Just me?” I asked, trying to sound like it didn’t matter one way or the other.

“Marcus and Gretchen are already here. And Melissa, of course. Kristen and Brad get in later. I figure we’ll get you settled; then maybe we’ll head down to the beach at the Minos for the afternoon. For old times’ sake. It’s a bit of a trek, but I’ll be able to collect Kristen and Brad around five before we go home for the evening.”

The Minos was the hotel where we all met five years ago. Well, not quite “all.” One name stood out and made me stare at him like a startled bird.

Who the hell was Gretchen?

And not just Gretchen. Marcus and Gretchen. As if they were together. My stomach squirmed and knotted, but I said nothing.

“This everything?” asked Simon, eying my luggage approvingly.

“Yes. It’s only a week, after all.”

“Travel light, travel fast,” said Simon. He was wearing short sleeves, and his arms were bunched and veined with the fruits of his hours in the gym. Slim jeans—designer, I suspected, but not showy or broadcasting the brand—and brown leather loafers without socks. You’d never mistake someone so fair for a local, but he looked in his element, absolutely comfortable. But then, he always did. As I said, I had no idea what he did beyond the fact that it involved moving around millions of dollars of other people’s money—and earning millions for himself in the process—but I imagined he looked just as at ease and in control on trading floors, in board rooms, on golf courses, and in high-end cocktail bars, dressed in each case appropriately, fashionably, and with that apparent carelessness that made it all look so effortless. Marcus used to have a word for that last part, an old Italian term I couldn’t remember. It meant something like the ability to pass off as natural and spontaneous what was actually studied and deliberate. I’d have to ask him when I saw him.

If you can tear him away from Gretchen.