9) The Garlic Shield

I had run away from Matteo as if I’d seen the devil himself, yes. Instead of giving him an answer, I had focused on the ship's sirens and bolted. I had stopped counting microbes and fled... The yacht gently docked at one of those picture-perfect hidden paradises of the Aegean: the shores of Gümüşlük, Bodrum. The lights of the rustic yet high-end fish restaurants lined up along the water reflected off the sea, and the air was thick with the scent of fried calamari, anise, and sea salt.

Right before stepping onto the shore, a massive shopping bag—delivered to the yacht within seconds under Matteo’s orders—was tossed in front of me. Inside the bag was a long, white linen sundress; it was soft enough not to irritate my sensory skin issues. When I put the dress on and looked in the mirror, the situational assessment was crystal clear: a snow-white dress topped with a bright red face entering first-degree burn territory, capped off with oversized horn-rimmed glasses. I was quite literally a walking traffic light. Stop, I was telling the world, stop!

Walking right behind Matteo toward a beachside table accompanied by the rhythmic bouzouki music of taverna songs, he whispered behind me:

"The color coordination between your red face and that pigment-deficient hair of yours is breathtaking, ragazza (girl). Everyone on the beach is staring at us. They’ll probably assume a propane tank exploded on the yacht and did that to your face."

"Laws of light reflection and contrast, Matteo," I murmured, keeping my eyes locked on the plates on the table. "The color white reflects light, which makes the dilation of the capillaries in my skin much more prominent."

By the time we sat down, his crazy friend nicknamed Miço had already set a magnificent Aegean table for us. As the rakı glasses were being filled, Matteo pulled a state-of-the-art, encrypted satellite phone from his pocket and slid it in front of me.

"Take it," he said, his voice softening a fraction. "Call your uncle and let him know you're alive. People have probably already alerted the Crete police."

"My aunt," I corrected, picking up the phone. "The probability of her going to the police is roughly twenty percent. Right now, she’s likely enjoying the sudden spike in tranquility levels."

I was just about to put the phone in my pocket when the waiter dropped two large appetizer plates right in the center of the table: an exquisite haydari drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, and a roasted eggplant mash. Both featured a highly visible, thick layer of garlic yogurt. I was looking at a milk-fat and garlic combination so intense it felt as though a cow had just rolled around in a garlic patch.

Right then, my sun-scorched cheeks and forehead stopped sending pain signals to my brain. Because my Asperger’s logic had just retrieved a monumental biological remedy I’d heard from my grandmother during childhood: yogurt.

"Ohhh!"

Before Matteo could even register what was happening, I plunged both of my palms directly into the garlic-heavy haydari and eggplant mash. Scooping up handfuls of the yogurt appetizers, I began to slather them ruthlessly onto my crimson face, over my cheeks, and across my forehead over that white dress, without a shred of hesitation.

Matteo’s rakı glass froze mid-air. The people at the neighboring table, who had been dancing to the bouzouki music, stopped dead in their tracks to stare at us. Standing before them was a genius girl clad in a long, elegant white gown, but with a face entirely coated in green mint flakes and garlic-scented yogurt. Matteo had likely never experienced such a visual shock in his entire existence. He literally winced, covering his nose and recoiling backward.

"What... what the hell are you doing?" he hissed, his voice nearly cracking with a mixture of bewilderment and disgust. "What is that on your face?!"

"Yogurt is exceptional for sunburnt skin, Matteo!" I said, using a finger to clear the yogurt from my eyelids so I could look at him. "The lactic acid in yogurt restores the skin barrier and balances the pH level. This is a strictly medical intervention."

Matteo took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose; his charismatic, imposing crime lord persona had been utterly annihilated in a matter of seconds.

"We could have ordered the garlic-free version, genius girl!" he growled sharply, sliding the remaining appetizers away from me. "The entire beach smells like raw garlic and mint now! Your brain simply fails to function sometimes, it really does!"

I shot him a venomous look from behind my glasses, licked the leftover haydari coating my fingers with immense appetite, and tilted my nose into the air.

"It's your brain that fails to function, Matteo!" I snapped filterlessly.

 "Garlic is the most potent natural antibiotic in existence. Thanks to its allicin content, it provides antimicrobial protection. Just moments ago, I was subjected to intense physical contact with your soaking-wet body, and you haven't even fully reported your active sexual history to me! This garlic is currently a shield protecting me from your potential viruses! It prevents contamination! What if you sleep around with all sorts of women and pass a disease to me? Have you ever even requested health reports from your partners?"

Matteo slammed his glass onto the table so hard that the spilled rakı sloshed over the wood. But the fury in his eyes instantly dissolved into a deep, chest-shaking laugh that he couldn't hold back. Shaking his head from side to side, he leaned across the table toward me, whispering without a care for the heavy scent of garlic radiating from my face:

"A garlic-yoghurt shield... Truly a magnificent defense mechanism, my fake wife. I suppose it's designed to keep me from ever making you my real wife," he said, pursing his lips. "Don't worry, little girl. To me, you look like a snail. A garlicky one."