Page 81 of Love on the Rocks
“Will you be okay, if I leave you here?” Nikos glanced at his watch. “I’ll try to stop back at lunch and if you need me, Vero knows where the medical unit is.”
“No, I’m fine. Go ahead,” I assured him, but truthfully, I was a bundle of nerves.
It was a fleeting feeling, however. Once Vero showed me around the rudimentary kitchen and we started preparing lunch, I forgot myself completely. I may have been the only professionally trained cook there, but the three women from the camp who ran the kitchen were all talented cooks. We got to know each other as we prepared Ferhana’s recipe for mujadara and a hearty chicken stew. It was such a joy to be cooking again with people and for other people that I found myself laughing and dancing along with them to Lebanese pop songs all morning.
In the afternoon, some children stopped by for English lessons, and I ran an impromptu cooking class that ended with heaps of lemon cakes and chocolate chip cookies stacked on plastic serving trays. I was so immersed in my activity that I didn’t notice Nikos had arrived until I felt his hand runningacross my lower back and his breath tickling my ear. “How’s it going?”
My pulse thrummed again, and I had to fight the urge to lean back into him. I felt like a giddy teenager.
“Great, we’re just finishing off the last batch of cookies and then Selma is going to paint my nails and do my makeup.” Some of the little girls had been intrigued by my red lips and I’d let them investigate the contents of the makeup bag in my purse.
“Wow, that’s brave! I have a call to make and then I’ll be back. Wouldn’t want to miss the show.” He winked at Selma and said something in Arabic, because of course he would speak Arabic.
He left for a half hour and when he came back he was smiling. The man we’d met that morning, Emmanuel, had tears in his eyes and the other volunteers had formed a circle around him, some crying.
“We just had some good news,” Nikos explained as he came to my side. He reached out to steal a cookie. “Ah, it’s hot.”
“Yeah, that will teach you to steal from me.” I waited patiently for him to finish his bite. “So, what’s the good news?”
“We just heard that Emmanuel was accepted to a fellowship program at Columbia. He’ll get a visa and funding for two years to finish his medical degree there. More if he’s lucky.”
“Oh my God, that’s amazing!” Tears of happiness swam behind my eyes for this man that I’d only just met.
“Yeah, we’ve been working on this for six months now. Getting the application ready, the interviews.” He looked like he didn’t quite believe the news yet. I’d never seen him look so happy.
When Emmanuel wandered over, I congratulated him, and he pulled me into a bear hug.
“I think this news deserves a special celebration, right?” I brought out the food we’d made with the kids and somesparkling water and fruit juice. Then we all sat on the floor while the little girls danced for us, at one point pulling Emmanuel and Nikos onto the floor and teaching them the choreography. Now, I wasn’t one of those women who got all hormonal at the sight of a man with kids, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel something tugging at me when I watched him with them.
He caught me staring, so I tried to pretend I hadn’t been affected by the scene. “You even have a fan club here too?”
“What can I say? It’s my winning personality.” He winked at me, and I threw a balled-up napkin at him, which was not a good example for the kids because it set off a napkin fight. Soon the room was in total chaos with kids screaming and running in wild circles.
Once the kids had left, we cleaned up and closed the center in time for everyone to be back at the camp for curfew. Nikos and I walked back with Emmanuel, who told me how he’d left Sudan and was hoping to get his parents out once he was settled.
His story and the others I’d heard touched me. And the work I’d done today had been meaningful in a way I’d never experienced. We walked along the edge of the camp—rows upon rows of white metal cubes behind chain-linked fences, the atmosphere so different from the community center. This was prison-like and depressing. We said goodbye to Emmanuel and then went to meet our ride back to the marina.
“How long have you been coming here?” I asked Nikos.
“About a year here, but before that, I helped out on Lesbos occasionally for two years.”
“And it’s never too much for you? I mean, you said you left New York because you felt like you weren’t making an impact, but don’t you feel that here too?” I gestured at the austere living space.
“Small victories, I suppose. It’s impossible for me to turn away from it, that’s the nature of my work. I’d be lying if I saidit wasn’t discouraging and sometimes so damn frustrating that I want to tear it all down, but if I look too much at the big picture, I get overwhelmed. I just focus on what I can do today.”
“Well, already a big victory I’d say.” We climbed into the back of the volunteer Jeep, dirt kicking up around us as we sped back toward the marina.
“No regrets coming today?” he asked, eyebrows drawing together as he grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine.
“No,” I said, reaching out with my other hand to smooth the furrow between his brows with my fingers. “I’m glad I came. Thank you for that.”
He brought my fingers to his mouth and kissed them. He was killing me with all these small, affectionate gestures. I wasn’t used to it.
“You might change your mind when you look in the mirror,” he teased. Oh God, I’d forgotten that I’d let the little girls do my makeup.
“Give me your phone!” I demanded and turned the camera toward me. “You let me walk around like this?!” My face was caked in powder, and I had two bright-red spots on my cheeks from the old tube of lipstick I’d let them use as blush. They’d gone crazy with the liquid liner, drawing thick wobbly wings from the corner of my eyes. To top it all off, they’d given me an enormous, and completely crooked red mouth and a black “beauty mark” the size of a dime.
“I look like the Joker!”
