“Check out who’s here,” said Leo, and Joey followed his finger point to Nikos, the gorgeous, infamous-on-the-island son of the owner of the taverna neighboring their apartments, who was mid-flirtation with a pretty brunette.

“Oh God.” Joey laughed. Tourists tended to flock to Nikos’s black hair and dark skin and dimples that didn’t discriminate by age. Joey had watched his dimples flash for fifteen-year-old acne-riddled girls and just as deeply for all the grandmas clad in black. Nikos had a whole shpiel for presenting the taverna’s olive oil, proclaiming it the best olive oil in Greece, the best in the whole world. But the olive oil was actually from the Aegean.

Joey knew this because she’d had a little thing with Nikos before she and Leo had gotten together, and Nikos had confided the secret.

“Think he’s doing his olive oil demonstration?” Leo winked.

“Who knows.” Joey laughed. “Who cares.”

Joey knew Leo wasn’t actually jealous, and she both loved and sort of resented that. She loved his confidence, how he moved so assuredly in his body, inhabiting it like something he would have chosen even had he been consulted before his birth. Joey didn’t feel that way about her body, so connected to it, and surely not so in love with it. It was fine, but she found herself noticing her trouble spots more, especially when the magazines told her how to conceal them. But maybe that was just a girl thing. Either way, Leo’s confidence extended to their relationship. He knew that Joey was his. And while he gave her no reason at all to doubt that he was hers, she didn’t feel the same nonchalance toward the French girl with big boobs whom Leo had dated a couple of times before he and Joey had gotten together. Leo had explained it to Joey: He’d wanted to kiss Joey long before the prior summer, but he’d waited so long to do it because he was terrified of ruining the special bond they had. Nonetheless, whenever Joey saw the French girl, at the Pirate Bar or wherever—Corfu was small—she felt a twinge of jealousy.

Leo dove out to sea from the most treacherous point. He always chose the spot slippery from moss and rising above punishing rock. As he disappeared below the waterline, Joey’s eyes met Nikos’s. He waved cheerily, and she waved back.

Joey pulled out her sketchbook. She swept charcoal across paper as Leo’s arms knifed the water. She didn’t know what she was drawing.

She started with a pair of evil eyes.

*  *  *