Burning the Map (16 page)

I shake my head. “We're taking off today. We're going to Mykonos.”

“When was that decided?”

“This morning. Lindsey and Kat want to move on.”

“You're going then,” he says, a statement, not a question.

“Yeah, I'm going.”

Billy is silent and actually looks sad. “How long do we have?”

I glance at my watch again. “I need to leave in about an hour, and I have to pack first.”

“How about I help you?” he offers, giving me the Groucho Marx eyebrows again.

I laugh, imagining Billy sitting on my bed, holding my
backpack while I give him long kisses every time I place something in it. But then I imagine Lindsey walking in and going berserk.

“I don't think so,” I tell Billy.

“I guess you're done with me,” he says, standing from the table. “You've used me, and now you're casting me off.”

I laugh and stand with him.

“It was a treat,” he says, moving around the table to hug me.

I squeeze him back. “It was.”

He turns and walks away, and I stand there like an idiot, a wistful smile on my face. It's only when I'm back in the room with the door shut that I realize Billy hadn't asked for my address or my phone number.

I
t's hard to leave the Sunset. A week and a half in a climate and culture so different than my own seemed much longer. Even though things with Kat and Sin had been strained, I'd become attached to all the other people at the Sunset, the slow-moving lifestyle.

I take one long look around before getting into Spiros's pickup, hoping to spy Billy rounding the corner, possibly professing his love, begging me to stay. Instead, I see Gunther on the terrace, his arms around the Swedish girls, who are waving and blowing kisses. But no Billy.

Spiros gives us big bear hugs when he drops us off at the ferry and yells warnings about watching our purses and backpacks. The air is stilted between Sin and Kat and me. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but after almost ten years of friendship, a decade of spring breaks and happy hours and late-night crying sessions over boys whose names we can't remember now, there's no way that stilted is ever going to feel normal. We lumber awkwardly onto the boat, our packs strapped firmly to our backs, no one speaking. The ferry isn't
as crowded as the one we took to Ios, and we're lucky enough to land a table in the bar area of the ship. Formica covers the entire room, while music blasts from the speakers—the stereotypical Greek music you'd expect to hear at Epcot Center in Disney World. In order to compensate for the climbing heat outside, they've cranked the air-conditioning to Everest-like temperatures.

We order hot teas, put our backpacks on the floor, our feet up on our packs, and lean back in our chairs. As I sip my tea, I steal quick glances at each of them, trying to read their moods, their thoughts, but they give nothing away.

Lindsey finally breaks the uncomfortable quiet. “So, did you say goodbye to Billy Boy?”

I glance at her to see whether she's being serious or throwing verbal darts at my head. Her face is bland, and she seems to be waiting for an answer.

I respond with a simple, “Yeah.”

She nods, as if thinking this over, her face as serious as a doctor delivering bad news. “Will you talk to him again?” she asks.

“No,” I say, in an “of course not” tone of voice, secretly wishing my answer was a hearty “yes.”

“What about Francesco?” Lindsey asks, her expression a little amused now.

It's patently unfair that she can still read me so well after two weeks of barely speaking.

I shrug, wondering how to change the subject, and slurp away at my tea.

“Are you going to write love letters and drive up your phone bill?” She's leaning toward me now, looking sadistic.

I lean in, too. “Fuck off, Sin,” I say, in a lowered, measured tone. “I've already apologized for Billy, and I'm sick of your crap.”

I sit back in my chair, shaking my head, tired of the bickering and the chilly air. Why is she doing this? Because she
let her guard down once and let us see that she isn't happy? Who is?

Lindsey's mouth opens immediately as if to retort, but Kat slaps a hand on her thigh to stop her. “She's right,” Kat says in a firm tone. “Lay off, okay?”

Sin shuts her mouth and makes a face as if to say, “Fine. I don't care.”

I let my shoulders relax a little. Kat just stood up for me, and minimal though that may have been, it's like a warm blanket thrown over my shoulders. It gets me off the defensive enough to see that I need to be direct. With the deteriorating condition of my parents' relationship and my questions about John, this friendship might be the one thing I can salvage.

“We've got to get over this, you guys,” I say.

Sin is expressionless. There's a slight pause, but then Kat moves closer to the table.

The bar is completely full now, and the Disney music seems jauntier and louder than before. I pull my feet off my pack and scoot my chair in toward the table. I take a deep breath and, before I can talk myself out of it, I say, “I need you guys right now. I think we all need each other.”

“What do you mean?” Kat says.

I think about how I should phrase this. “On one hand, I've lost some weight, I've met a couple of great guys and I've been in this tropical paradise, but at the same time, things are weird with you two.” I point at them with my spoon. “I don't know what I feel about John, my parents are splitting up and I have to start work soon.” I start tapping the spoon on the side of my hand. “Nothing seems to make sense right now.”

“Well, what do you want us to do?” Lindsey asks, sounding sarcastic as usual. Ah, the comfort of good friends.

As if taking a drag of a cigarette, I suck in another deep breath, refusing to jump at her bait. “What I want is to have
fun and relax, and I want to spend time with both of you, some serious girl time.”

“We've already tried that,” Sin says, but her voice is neutral now, as if she's waiting for me to continue, to tell her how it could be different this time.

“We
said
we were going to try it, but it seemed like you two kept meeting a lot of guys, and then I met some guys, and there goes our time together.”

“Exactly what are you suggesting?” Sin asks. “A prohibition on all males?”

From the expression on her face, Kat is mortified at the thought.

I try not to laugh. “I'm not saying we can't meet people, whether they're male or female, but I'd like the three of us to stick together for a few days.”

No one says anything for a moment and the tinny Disney music becomes overpowering.

“All I'm saying is that we should make an effort to spend some real time together,” I say, raising my voice to be heard over the damned music.

Lindsey shrugs her shoulders.

“I can do that,” Kat says, appearing to have calmed herself.

I look back at Sin.

A few seconds go by, then a few more.

“Sin?” I say.

“We can give it a whirl,” she calls over the music.

 

Mykonos is the Greece that you see in movies. The cafés that sit in front of the bobbing boats of the port are much more charming than the more basic restaurants of the Ios docks. Here, huge flower boxes line the restaurants' perimeters, and there are crisp linens and real silver on the tables. White speckled streets the size of sidewalks weave away from the port, past the blue-painted doors of the white buildings,
past an abundance of jewelry stores. Blue-domed rooftops dot the sky, standing tall above the rounded white homes, which seem to sparkle in the sun.

This time, there're no hostel or hotel workers to greet us at the port. Mykonos is full, we're told by the people at the information booth.

“I'm so glad we waited in line for forty-five minutes to hear that,” Sin says.

Just then the ferry pulls away, and I feel a creeping panic. We're homeless! We're here without shelter or a plan!

“Fuck it,” Kat says, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “We'll find someplace.”

For two hours we pitch and stumble around the village with our packs, our faces shiny from the heat. We knock on countless doors and beg countless innkeepers to give us a room, a closet,
anything.
My panic rises again, and I'm seriously considering whether we should head back to the docks and wait for the next boat to anywhere when we come across a quaint inn called Hotel Carbonaki, which is situated at the outskirts of the village. The owners, an older couple, nod and tell us they have one room left. I nearly kiss them.

White stone steps lead up to our small but bright room, which overlooks a tiny pool surrounded by blue cloth beach chairs. After a dip, we shower and go in search of a place to eat. It's already nine o'clock, and the peaceful village we'd seen in the daylight has metamorphosed into an outdoor Studio 54.

“This is like South Beach on steroids,” Kat says as we pass four model-type women. They're gaunt in tropical micro dresses, smoking at a table outside a restaurant, no food in sight. We see at least a hundred more of their brethren, both male and female, strolling as if on a catwalk. Many of the men are obviously gay, shirtless with leather pants, walking arm in arm with other boys. There's also a number of long-haired Guiseppe-type Italians dressed in their finest. I steal a glance
at Kat and see that she's doing her best to control the Pavlovian drooling.

All the tavernas on the main drag are jammed, with at least an hour's wait for a table, so we keep walking until we find a small restaurant tucked away on a dead-end street. Square tables painted sea-green are set up in front of the storefront café. We spot the only empty one resting near a brick wall under a circle of streetlight.

“Welcome!” says an elderly woman with curly gray hair and a toothy grin. She gestures toward the open table. “Sit, sit! To drink?” she says.

“Vod-ka ton-ic,” Kat answers, overenunciating and speaking loudly, as if the volume will help the woman to understand.

A flicker of amusement lights the woman's eyes as she nods, apparently understanding perfectly. She looks at Lindsey and me.

“Some red wine?” I ask Sin in a tentative voice. Red wine used to be our shared drink of choice, enjoyed over many opposite-sex advisory meetings and dinners with the girls, but it's been a long time since we've split a bottle.

There's a pause, but then she nods.

 

“What you have for dinner?” the old woman asks after bringing Kat her drink and pouring our cabernet into short glasses, setting the bottle on the table.

“Men-u?” Kat asks, confused.

“No menu, no menu,” the woman says. “You come to kitchen.” She gestures for us to follow her, and walks away.

In the kitchen are a few women wearing aprons, their black hair tied back, tending to two large stovetops. They give us shy nods when we enter, quickly returning to their stirring, chopping and cutting. The room is hot and smells of something spicy, something with tomatoes in it.

Our waitress waves a wrinkled hand toward a large wooden island that commands the majority of space in the kitchen. “What you have for dinner?” she repeats.

On the island they've arranged earthen platters filled with food. There are tomatoes as big as my head stuffed with rice and sausage, grape leaves encircling meat and vegetables, various cuts of tender white fish and huge portions of moussaka.

I glance around as Kat and Sin ask about the preparation of different dishes, thinking that John would love this kitchen with its huge pots hanging overhead and the racks upon racks of spices. I remember how he cooked dinner for me on our third date. It was just spaghetti and meatballs, but he had set the table with cloth place mats and napkins. I could tell that he'd bought them that day, because they were still creased from being folded, and the price tags were on the back. I thought it was the sweetest thing in the world. When he brought me my plate, I saw that he'd carefully arranged the meatballs and the sauce, sprinkling freshly grated Parmesan on the top just so. He smiled when he placed it before me.

“What do you think?” he said, and I knew that he meant more than the spaghetti.

“It's perfect,” I told him.

The thought of this makes my heart sink. As much as this trip has made me wonder about John, about our relationship, I simply can't imagine what my life would be like without him.

“Casey,” Kat calls, pulling me away from my thoughts. “What are you having?”

I move toward the food, suppressing a powerful urge to request the entire inviting tray of moussaka. Instead, I select a piece of white fish with some rice on the side. Kat, of course, asks for two helpings of the moussaka.

Sin and I have just begun to make our way through the mellow red wine when our dinners are delivered.

The old woman hesitates by our table as we begin our meals. “Good?” she says. “You like?”

“Mmm,” we all say through mouthfuls of food. The fish has completely surpassed my expectations. It's so fresh, it tastes like it was caught thirty seconds ago.

“You enjoy Mykonos,” she says, still standing by our table, nodding at each of us. “Mykonos good for you girls.”

“Sure, thanks.” I'm not certain what she means or how else to respond.

She stays there for a moment longer, before she finally heads back to the kitchen.

“She reminds me of Belle,” Lindsey says when she's gone, and we all crack up.

Belle was our housemother at the sorority. Her real name was Marilyn, but she was so crazy that we called her Bellevue, Belle for short. Belle seemed to never sleep and was forever lurking around. On many a night we'd raid the kitchen about 4:00 a.m. after coming home from the bars. We'd stuff our faces with the mashed potatoes that always seemed to be left over in the fridge, yelling our conversation as only the drunk and the truly tone deaf can do, and suddenly Belle would appear out of the pantry. How long she'd been in there, we'd never know, since there was no other entrance.

“Hello, girls,” she'd say in her dramatic, smoky voice, throwing one of her colored feather boas over her shoulder. She always wore them after 8:00 p.m., when it was too late for someone from the Panhellenic Council to stop by.