Friendship
Claudia crossed her ankles and folded her hands on her lap, contemplation etched into her face. "Well, Malik told me that his mother, Sanaa, told him that Andris first visited Akilina in nineteen-fifty-eight, the same year he was born. Max, Malik's father, was running Jewel Beach at the time. That's where Andris stayed."
"At The Davenport?"
"The Davenport wasn't built until eighty-three," Xio said.
"That's right," Claudia confirmed. "Your grandparents booked it in advance every year after that. Anyway, Andris asked a lot of questions about the history of the island. Max and Sanaa thought he was just a curious tourist, but at some point he told them he was born here, and asked if they knew anything about a Greek couple who lived on the island around nineteen-twenty-seven to nineteen-twenty-eight. They didn't, and when they asked why he couldn't get answers from his parents, he told them he hadn't known he was born here until after they had passed. Sanaa told him that her mother, Kaiah, might have answers, so she took them to meet her. And just like that—" She snapped her fingers. "Andris and Kaiah became friends. By the time I came along, they were two peas in a pod."
"Is she still alive?" he asked eagerly at the prospect of meeting and talking to her.
"Very much so, although she's..." Claudia pressed a finger to the corner of her mouth and turned an enquiring face to Xio. "How old is Kaiah, ninety?"
"Ninety-four," Xio answered, shifting nervously in the chair as if she didn't want to talk about her great-grandmother.
"Ninety-four and as sharp as a knife. Maybe Xio can take you to see her."
Xio cleared her throat and pinned her mother with a censuring look. "Mom, you know I can't just take him to see Botoá." Her fingers fidgeted around the edges of the envelope.
"I'm sure she'll bend the rules for Andris' grandson." Claudia flipped her wrist dismissively.
Xio shook her head, and rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed with what her mother had suggested. "Were my godparents also friends with Sherylyn?"
Raph admired her tact for changing the subject, or in this case, bringing it back on course. "Who is Sherylyn?" he asked.
"My father's first wife."
Bad blood? he wondered at the disdain in her voice.
Claudia gave her daughter a stern-faced look before saying to Raph, "I asked Malik the same thing, and he said they never took to her, or to Fitzroy, Xiomara's half-brother."
"I can understand that," Xio murmured with a jerk of her head.
Definitely bad blood. "My grandparents obviously liked you, Claudia." He gave her a warm, friendly smile, hoping to offset whatever silent battle was going on between her and her daughter. "I can see why you got along."
"Andris and Kerena were easy to like, too." Claudia said, returning the warm compliment.
"You are easy to like."
"You are too sweet, Raph, especially after my hysterical entrance."
"I'll admit I was a little scared." He grinned.
"I doubt that. You don't look like the scare-easy type," she threw back at him.
They all laughed.
Raph was eager to move the conversation along. "I wonder how Pappoús knew he was born on Akilina if his parents didn't tell him. And how did they end up here in the first place?"
"What makes anyone want to travel anywhere? Curiosity. Interest in learning about a new place. Chance, as in your case, Mom."
Raph cocked his head. "Chance?"
"Yes. I wanted a Caribbean vacation, but I didn't know which island to visit. I wrote some names on pieces of paper and put them in a cup. Akilina was the lucky winner. Or I should say, I was the lucky winner." Her eyes misted as she looked at her daughter. "I met the love of my life here. He gave me twenty-two wonderful years and three beautiful children. I can't imagine my life without any of you," she added, smiling affectionately at Xio. "I have to believe that it was destiny, not chance."
"That's quite a lovely story, Claudia."
"Raph, I could fill a book with all the lovely stories I've collected since coming to this island."
"That is a book I would most definitely read." Her visit to Akilina might have been destiny, but neither destiny nor chance had sent his pappoús here. He had been looking for something.
"Well, whatever it was in your grandparents' case—destiny, chance, curiosity—they loved Akilina. They always said they were happiest when they were here. Andris cried every time he left, as if he was leaving his home."
He was. The information caused Raph's throat to tighten up. Claudia had answered some of his questions, but several more mysterious ones had taken their place. As he came to understand the depth of secrets he had to uncover, his dream of digging in the sand with Xio began to make a lot more sense. It was about discovering his own family's buried secrets.
"Claudia, did my parents ever visit Akilina?"
"Your father did."
So he'd been keeping secrets, too. "So you met him?"
"No. Malik said he came down a few times when he was little and once when he was a teenager, long before I even knew Akilina existed. They were about the same age. Malik said Xander was miserable the whole time he was here." She chortled. "He hated the heat, the flies, the mosquitoes, the food... He just hated it."
Raph laughed. "I could imagine. My mom says he preferred city life."
"The tropics aren't for everyone."
"They certainly aren't. Did he come here after my dad and grandmother died?"
"Yes. He did. Only once and it was the last time we saw him."
"He came to say goodbye." Raph leaned back and draped his arm over the back of the sofa and stretched his legs out beneath the coffee table.
"It would appear so. He was here for about three weeks, I think." Claudia looked to Xio. "Xiomara, that was the same year Papa died." She turned back to Raph. "That's Malik's father, Max. Anyway," she continued, "Andris kept to himself a lot that year, and when we did see him, mostly to make sure he was eating, he didn't talk much." Her eyes brightened. "Although, he spent a lot of time with Xio. He took her to the beach and for a couple of drives around the island. Sometimes, he would just sit and talk to her in Greek, and she would listen as if she understood what he was saying."
Raph noticed the concentration growing on Xio's face as she bit into her bottom lip, as if she were trying to pull more memories from her mind and string them together.
"The day before he left," Claudia continued, "Andris asked if Xio could spend the night with him at The Davenport. Of course, I had no hesitation. I trusted him with my child."
"That was the night he wrote my name on this envelope," Xio said, rubbing her thumb over her name. "He was crying. I remember his tears falling on my hand."
"You brought him a lot of joy and comfort in those few weeks, Xio. It was such a terrible time. Malik and I were numb with shock. We didn't know what to say to him, so–– I'm sorry to say it now–– we were kind of glad he didn't want to talk. Sometimes we just sat for hours and said nothing." She let out a heavy sigh. "At least he's with them now."
"And Dad, too," Xio whispered, staring at Raph through blurry eyes.
A hush fell over the room as they paid silent respect to the dead.
Raph swallowed hard and held himself in check, but when Claudia sniffled, he rose and walked over to a small table against the wall next to Xio's desk. He picked up a box of tissues, and a small wicker waste basket and carried them back to the sofa. The moment he placed the box on the coffee table, Claudia and Xio grabbed tissues and dabbed their eyes.
"I'm a mess," Claudia said, dropping a used tissue into the waste basket and reaching for another.
A tear unexpectedly fell on Raph's shirt. Astonished that he had let his guard down in front of two women he just met a little over an hour ago, he walked over to the bar to give himself time to regain his composure. He filled three glasses with water from the pitcher, drank one down, and took the other two over to the grieving women.
"Thanks," Xio said, immediately placing the glass to her lips.
He offered the other glass to Claudia.
"Your mother raised a true gentleman," she said.
"She certainly tried to. I can't say we made it easy for her. I don't think I would wish triplets on my worst enemy. We were all so stubborn and wild."
"My hats off to her." She laughed while saluting mockingly. "I have one boy and he's a handful."
"Malik Junior." Raph returned to his seat, thankful that the mood had lightened.
"We used to call him Junior, but when he turned eight, he insisted we call him MJ," Xio said, leaning forward to set her glass on the table.
"No boy wants to be called Junior. My mother tried calling me Junior because one of my names is Xander after my father, but I nipped that in the bud."
The women laughed, and something about his ability to make Xio laugh made him feel good. He turned to Claudia. "By the way, do you have any idea why my grandparents would have used a different name while they were here? You knew them for all those years, but didn't know that their real name was Giannopoulos?"
Claudia shrugged, at a loss for words.
"Privacy, maybe," Xio offered. "Many of our guests use aliases, especially celebrities who want to be normal––hide away for a while. Sometimes it's that simple."
The Giannopoulos name was well-known because of the family's wine business, Giannport, and more recently because of G3, so he could understand the need for privacy. But normal? There was nothing normal about his grandfather's secrets, or his waiting until his last moments to spin a web of confusion before asking him to travel to an island he had never heard of, deliver a letter to a stranger, and scatter his ashes.
His gaze switched from daughter to mother. "As well as bringing this letter to Xio, Pappoús asked me to scatter his and Yaya's ashes at a place called Aetós. I don't know if it's a town, a village, or..." He spread his hands in irritation that he had to rely on others for the simplest pieces of information. "I was looking for it on your map." He pointed to the wall. "But I couldn't find it."
Xio shifted. "Like most Megiri villages, you wouldn't find Aetós on that map."
He cleared his throat. "I don't mean to seem ignorant, but what is a Megiri?"
Claudia snorted and pushed to her feet. She gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know exactly how you feel, Raph. When I came to Akilina, thirty-five years ago, the only thing I knew about the island was that it was beautiful and warm. Most people come here and leave without ever knowing."
"Knowing what?"
Claudia turned to her daughter. "I'm going to freshen up in the ladies' room while you give Raph a little history lesson."
After Claudia left, Raph turned his questioning eyes on Xio. "What do I need to know?"
She placed the envelope on the end of the coffee table. "To answer your first questions, the Megiri are an indigenous group, one of the first to come to the Caribbean from South America."
"Oh. I've never heard of them," he said, with a tilt of his head. "I've heard of the Caribs. I think I read about them in school, but we know from whose perspective those books were written," he quipped, leaning forward, and placing his arms on his knees.
A flash of innocuous humor crossed her face. "There were several tribes living on the islands. The Kalinago, Ciboney, Taíno, Macorix, to name a few," she said, toying with the lace at the neck of her dress. "And, of course, the Megiri. On our island, they mostly live in the territories east of the Caonabo River. That side of the island is called Ynoa––well, really the island itself is called Ynoa even though it's known as Akilina, especially in the west, but anyway, that side of Ynoa is protected."
"Protected from what?"
She brandished her hands in the air. "Foreigners. Outsiders. Anyone who isn't Megiri or Guaitiari."
"Is the Guaitiari another tribe?"
"No, not really. It's more of a culture. The Guaitiari are the descendants of former enslaved people who escaped to Ynoa from other islands. Since they came from so many different tribes in Africa, when they came here, their cultures blended into something entirely of its own. The Megiri called them Guaitiari. It means good friends in Megiri. It's a similar idea to the Creoles, or the Gullah and Geechee in the southern U.S. We are not black, and even though we came out of Africa, we're not Africans. We're Guaitiari."
Raph knew about the Creoles. He'd never heard of the Gullah or Geechee. But he wasn't about to put anymore of his ignorance on display, so he nodded as if he knew what the hell she was talking about and made a mental note to look them up later.
Her lips twisted thoughtfully as she turned her head and stared across the room at the portraits on the wall next to her desk.
"Your ancestors?" he asked.
She nodded as she zeroed in on the portrait of her father. "They were all former CEOs of Jewel Beach," she said, before turning her attention back to him. "If you really want to learn about our culture and history, you should check out our public library in Anacaona."
"I'll be sure to do that." Raph straightened his back and pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. It was cool in the room, but he was getting hot under the skin. He knew it had everything to do with the fact that he was alone with Xio, and even though their conversation was far removed from anything sexual, thoughts of making love to her flooded his mind. He stretched one arm across the back of the sofa and rested the other on the side and asked, "So where exactly in Ynoa is Aetós?"
"Aetós is in the Nacanké Mountains. It's a four-hour hike into the village on the shortest trail, but it can be dangerous if you're not familiar with the terrain, especially in the rainy season. Or, it's six to eight hours along the switchback trail, depending on what kind of shape you're in," she added, her gaze sliding appreciatively down his body.
"That's some climb," Raph murmured, forcing his heart to be still and his cock not to react to the warm promises in her gaze. "I guess I'll need a guide?"
She shifted nervously. "You will, but first you'll need a visitors permit to travel that far into Ynoa. Visitors are only allowed in Arijua, but you still need permission to go there. It's the first territory east of the river."
"Okay...and where would I get this visitors permit?"
"You can apply at the Bureau of Tourism in Anacaona at the Department of Megiri Affairs. But I have to warn you. About ninety percent of applicants who want to travel beyond Arijua are denied."
"That's a lot of denials," he said on a shaky laugh.
"Well, the Megiri value their privacy and protection."
"Was my grandfather allowed to go into Ynoa without a permit?" he asked as the thought crossed his mind.
"Of course, he was," Claudia said, walking back into the room.
Although her voice sounded bright, the puffiness around her eyes told Raph that she had been crying in the bathroom.
"Andris was born here so he could go anywhere on the island he pleased," she added.
"What about my grandmother. She wasn't born here, so is there some kind of spousal privilege to travel freely?"
Claudia sat in the chair next to Xio. "Spouses can travel freely into Ynoa after they've been married for twelve years. Before that time, they have to apply like everyone else, although those application are rarely denied. But I know what you're thinking, Raph. it doesn't work that way for descendants. There's no special progeny privilege. Since you weren't born here, you'll have to apply like everyone else."
There went his hope that his relationship to Andris would get him a free pass. He hoped he was one of the ten percent who was approved.
"Kerena was never denied, though," Claudia continued in an animated voice. "Mainly because Andris was friends with the dacica, who eventually granted her a special travel permit, so she didn't have to do the paperwork every year. She just had to present her ID at the Department of Megiri Affairs and they handed her the pass."
"Here's my ignorance at play again, but what is a dacica?" Raph asked.
"A dacica is a chief. She's the head chief of the entire island. Now, a male chief is called a dacique." She threw her daughter a sideways glance. "Didn't you explain all this to Raph?"
"There's only so much information you can cram into five minutes, Mom. The important thing is that Raph knows now what he needs to do to get to Aetós to scatter his grandparents' ashes."
"It's a pity Andris didn't tell you anything about Akilina or give you any answers until just before he passed, "Claudia said.
"He didn't give me any answers at all," Raph stated. Not even in that letter he got after his death. "And if he'd died just ten minutes earlier than he did, he would have taken all of his secrets to the grave. It would all still be a mystery, and we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Claudia became rigid, her eyes wide. "Oh my gosh, I'd forgotten about..."
"Forgotten about what?" both he and Xio asked at the same time.
"We invited Andris to dinner one night when he was last here. It was his first visit to Eagle's Nest on that trip and––k"
"I'm sorry Claudia, but what's Eagle's Nest?" Raph asked.
"Eagle's Nest is our home," Xio said with pride. "It's on Mt. Aymaco, about a twenty-five-minute drive from here."
"Right," Claudia continued. "We talked about Kerena and Xander, and even though he cried through most of it, I know it did him good to talk about them to someone who knew them in this place." She sighed and boxed her lips before continuing. "After dinner, he and Malik went to Malik's office for cigars as they usually did, but just a few minutes later, Andris ran out of there, almost knocking me over in the hallway, and just left, racing out of the house like he'd seen a ghost."
"What happened?" Raph asked, leaning into her as Xio was also doing.
She shook her head. "I don't know. Malik came out of the library a few minutes later. Neither of us had any idea what happened. Malik said he had left him at the door of his office while he went to get some old photos of the four of us, thinking it could lift his spirits...but he just left."
"That's very strange."
"I'd say. The next day, he went into Ynoa, spent a couple of days with Kaiah, and..." She paused and looked up at the ceiling, her face puckered in concentration, then she looked at him. "Malik said that just before Andris boarded the plane, he told him the weirdest thing."
"What?" Xio asked softly.
Raph was silent. He was hanging onto Claudia's every word.
"He said Andris told him that his family had a disturbing connection to Akilina that went back hundreds of years, and that he would tell him about it the next time he visited."
Raph sat back, and forced himself to breathe through the knots in his stomach. He could feel his Adam's apple vibrating as he swallowed. Was that disturbing connection the thing that his pappoús had said he was sorry for not telling him on his deathbed? Finally, he asked Claudia, "Do you have any idea what he could have found out?"
She shook her head. "No." She reached across the table and gave his knee a comforting tap. "Malik said Andris had looked scared when he'd told him. Over the years, we talked about it and speculated about what it could be." She sank back into the cushioned chair. "I just don't understand why he never told you or your brothers anything about it, either. I mean, you were the only family he had left. Was the thing so bad that he felt he had to take it to his grave?"
Raph was beginning to wonder the same thing. If what his grandfather had found had scared him, did he even want to know? Of course he did. "What about Kaiah? Does she know anything about it?" he asked,
"I asked her many times. She was just as confused as we were."
Raph rubbed his hands up and down his thighs as shock gave way to frustration. "Did you talk or write to him at all over the last twenty-seven years? He might have given clues in a phone call or a letter?"
"We called him. And we wrote. But he never responded. And he never came back to see us. I thought he would call me back after Malik died, but nothing. Maybe the memories were just too much for him," she added in her friend's defense. "People grieve in different ways, and we can't judge them for it."
Raph's chest tightened at the image of his grandfather rocking and groaning on the floor after hearing that his wife and only child had been killed in a car crash. "I'm sure it wasn't personal, Claudia. He was a changed man after Yaya and Baba died. He never talked about them with me and my brothers, either. He became a recluse, even toward us in the first few years following the accident."
"It's the kind of pain that stays with you until you draw your last breath." She toyed with the diamond and the platinum wedding band on her finger. Raph saw in her the same sorrow his mother still carried after all these years.
Torment twisted in his belly. He breathed in deeply, forcing the raw emotions back into the closet he'd locked them inside years ago. He didn't do well in these kinds of situations. He avoided them. He clawed at the collar of his shirt as he felt the walls closing in on him. He needed to get out. He...
"Well, he obviously didn't forget about us."
He let out his breath as Xio's voice broke through the morbid silence, yanking him back from tumbling into despair.
"He sent you down here to deliver this to me," she said. "Maybe it's an apology for his silence."
"Why don't you open it... It might have some of the answers Raph is looking for," Claudia said, reaching over as if to take the envelope from Xio.
Xio stood up and stepped away from her mother.
Raph pushed to his feet, eyeing the envelope clutched to her chest. "I'm with Claudia, Xio. We're all sitting here guessing at answers when you could be holding them in your hands."
"Maybe, but... I'm sorry, Raph, but I'd like to read it when I'm alone, first. I'm not ready to open it right now."
Xio's cellphone began ringing. "Excuse me," she said, hurrying over to her desk like a pack of wolves was chasing her.
Raph looked at his watch, then at Xio with her phone clipped to her ear. "I've taken up enough of both of your time," Raph said to Claudia. "I should probably leave and get settled into The Davenport."
Claudia looked at a clock hanging on the wall above Raph's head. "It's fine, Raph. The only thing she has right now is a lunch meeting with her mother, and I'm already here."
Xio was the CEO of Jewel Beach, but since it was a family business he shouldn't be surprised if her mother worked beside her. "You're involved with the hotel, too?" he asked.
"Oh God no," she said. "I'm a fashion designer. Have been all my life. Jewel Beach carries my children's line, Bluewaves. That's what our meeting was about."
"Oh, that's impressive."
"Thank you, but Bluewaves is more of a hobby. I have a line of women's clothing and boutiques here and in New York. I love what I do." She smiled with satisfaction.
"As you should."
"She mostly does evening and formal wear, but she designed these dresses we're wearing," Xio said, returning to the circle. "She's always in high demand."
"I can see why," he said, admiring Claudia's gold sleeveless dress. "Your work is beautiful, Claudia. I should stop by your store to get something for my mother."
"Thank you, Raph. Of course you can come by anytime." She paused, then asked. "What do you do?"
"My brothers and I started a real estate development company when we were still in college," he said. "It's called G3, for Giannopoulos three."
"Now, that's impressive. I'm sure it's very successful."
"We do our best." He felt his face flush. He always felt uncomfortable talking about his and his brothers' accomplishments. He preferred to let people draw their own conclusions about G3's success.
"That's wonderful. It must be a lot of hard work," Xio said.
"It is. We got our hard work ethics from our grandfather."
"Andris worked?" Claudia asked, flabbergasted.
Raph thought the question strange coming from someone who'd known him so intimately, he was the godfather of her child. "Yes, of course. He ran our family's wine business. We were the most productive in all of Europe for a hundred and fifty years, but even before that, Giannport was a successful shipbuilding company for more than six centuries."
An awkward silence hung between them and although Raph knew the answer, he asked anyway. "He never told you?" And it came out more like a statement than a question.
Claudia shook her head. "No. He said he was independently wealthy. We just assumed he belonged to one of those old elite European families with generational wealth."
Well, that was the case.
Claudia folded her arms and shook her head. "I guess we didn't really know Andris as well as we thought." She stared out a window where coconut trees swayed. "I would say, we didn't know him at all."
"That's not entirely true, Mom." Xio said, looking from him to her mother. "Just because you don't know what someone does for a living, it doesn't mean you don't know them. Akilah and MJ know what dad did, but they never got to know him as their father, their dad." Her eyes settled on her mother's face. "You knew Andris, Mom. You knew his character, which is the most important part of a person. You just didn't know his line of work. That's all. That shouldn't change the way you feel about him."
"That's true, Xio." She touched Xio on the shoulder. "Thank you for pointing that out."
Xio smiled as she turned to Raph. "I'm sure he had his reasons for not saying anything to you, too, Raph. Maybe he sent you down here to learn about what he couldn't tell you."
I know he did. He wrote it in black and white. But Raph still felt betrayed. He was closer to his grandfather than his brothers were, yet for twenty-seven years, Andris never trusted him enough to tell him about Akilina. After what he'd learned this morning, he felt as if he knew him less.
Claudia squinted up at him. "You look a lot like him, you know. Has anyone ever told you that."
"All the time." It's all he and Neo and Tele had been hearing since they were little boys."
"Yes, you do." Xio smiled sweetly at him.
"How long will you be staying on Akilina?" Claudia asked.
"Well, I planned for a week, but since getting into Ynoa and up and down the mountain into Aetós might be a hassle, I think I might have to extend my stay." His eyes unconsciously met Xio's. The thought of staying longer to get to know her better didn't bother him at all.
But, she's marrying a bastard, remember?
"That wouldn't be such a bad thing. The longer you stay, the more chances you'll have to get answers."
"That is very true." His eyes wandered back to Xio, and through long, black lashes fanning her high cheekbones, her eyes glazed with a hint of desire.
"Excuse me, Raph," she said, stepping back from him and turning to her mother. "Mom, you have to pick up Akilah from school."
Claudia's face went flat. "What did she do now?"
"Nothing. She isn't feeling well."
"Why didn't she call me instead of bothering you? She knows how busy you are." Her frown deepened.
"She's been trying, but your phone is off."
"Oh gosh! I turned it off after that bastard—"
"Mom, I have a hotel to run. I'm sure Raph has things to do, and you need to pick up Akilah." She pressed her lips in a firm line and tapped the face of her watch.
Well done, Raph thought, as she walked over to her desk, picked up a folder, and opened it. Sexy, sophisticated, and not afraid to take control. After all that was said and done this morning, he could finally admit that he wouldn't mind one bit if she became the distraction he was so desperately trying to avoid. That is, if she wasn't about to marry a two-timing bastard.
Claudia walked over to the conference table, pulled her phone from her purse, and turned it on. "Oh boy, so many missed calls." She dropped it back into her purse and turned to Raph. "It was nice talking with you, Raph. I hope we see each other again before you leave."
"I hope so, too. I'd love to hear more about my grandparents. Let me give you my number."
Claudia fished out her phone again and created a new contact, adding his number as he called it out.
"Call me, or text. Whichever, is fine."
"I will." She picked up her purse and looped the straps over her shoulder. "This might be the beginning of a great friendship between us," she said, glancing up at him with a look of expectation in her eyes.
"Or the continuation of one that began years ago," he replied.
"I like the sound of that." Claudia turned to her daughter. "Xio, I'll see you at home. We can have our meeting tonight. I'll set time aside for it."
"If I get home early enough," Xio replied, then caught Raph's eyes. "Um— Raph, Olivia had your luggage sent on to The Davenport. I hope that's alright."
"Of course it's alright. I'd rather it be there than sitting in her waiting room where I left it. I'll thank her on my way out."
Raph opened the door, and once Claudia stepped out into the corridor, he turned and gave Xio his most charming smile, and said in a voice laced with promise and warning, "We will pick up where we left off before your mother interrupted us, Ms. Davenport."
***
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