Burning the Map (9 page)

“No,” she says, and I can tell by the set of her mouth that she won't go further down this road. “Not right now.”

Still I try one more time. “You're sure?”

“Discussion over,” she says.

Waving to the German kid, who's waiting for her like a forlorn kitten, she swivels around and walks away from me.

“I
os!” calls a heavily accented voice over a static-filled intercom. “Next port—Ios! All out for Ios!” A jumble of incomprehensible Greek follows.

With this, more than half of the ship's travelers sling bags over their shoulders, roll up their sleeping bags, and gather their friends. With the combination of sun, humidity and the ship's engine exhaust, the heat is oppressive. My arms are heavy and lethargic as I stow away my towel and sweatshirt.

Lindsey and I join the crowd shuffling to the exit, like cows being herded out to pasture. Behind us, Kat says goodbye to the German boy, who she'd flirted with the rest of the morning, avoiding my looks, making it clear that she wouldn't discuss the Hatter business anymore.

“Did you get some rest?” I ask Lindsey. She'd spent the entire journey lying on her towel, either sleeping or reading her book.

“Yeah,” she says, smoothing her disheveled hair with her hand. “I needed it.”

She doesn't attempt more conversation, so we fall silent. I
want to be annoyed with her, but I'm stuck on the image of the Mad Hatter in all his glory, pouncing on poor Kat. It's got to be eating at her. I mean, men of all ages and walks of life have always hit on Kat. That, I'm sure, she's used to. But her stepfather? How can she even think of wearing those earrings? And how could she not tell her mom? It's not that Patty and Kat are particularly tight. They've always been more like occasional girlfriends than mother and daughter, but certainly Patty should know the man she's living with. I want to get Sin's take on it, but whether she'll ever talk to me again is a whole other issue.

As we step off the ferry and onto the cement dock, I squint into the sunlight. Brown-skinned families rush forward to meet passengers. A gorgeous blonde in a sarong and pink bikini pushes through the crowd, throwing herself into the arms of a tall man, wrapping her legs around his waist.

At the end of the dock, people are lunching and lounging under umbrellas in a handful of unassuming cafés. Above them, the island is dirt-brown and mountainous, a sprinkling of pristine white buildings and a few broccoli-like clumps of green trees thrown in for good measure. One road winds up the island's craggy terrain, making S curves until it disappears without a hint of what's over the edge.

“Hey, girls!” we hear. “Over here!”

A few hundred feet away, the Irish boys are waving furiously, looking much more rested than we.

As we make our way over to them, we're accosted by hostel and hotel owners. They grab our arms and shove placards in front of our faces, showing shellacked photos of their establishments.

“Stay here, ladies!”

“Best place on the island.”

“Free breakfast every day!”

Kat stops to view a brochure being held by a tiny, deeply tanned woman of about forty. The woman sends a gloating
look at the other hotel people, who hesitate only a second before rushing off to tackle other hopefuls exiting the ship.

“Look how beautiful,” the little woman purrs to Kat, wielding tantalizing pictures of sand and surf. “We only one kilometer from beach.” She begins to run down the prices for the different rooms she has available, waxing poetic about how
clean,
how
beautiful
her place is compared to the other hotels in town, which she calls “slums.”

“You understand?” she says. “We best on island.”

Kat points to a picture of a lovely room with French doors and a woman sitting on a balcony, a dreamy look on her face. I'm sure this photo bears little resemblance to the actual rooms they're selling, and I'm about to say so, when we hear the Irish guys calling us.

“No, no,” Billy says, jogging to meet us. “We told you—we've got a place for you girls.”

“Okay,” Lindsey chirps and, without a moment's hesitation, lets him lead her away. I notice how good-looking Billy is, his lean legs stretching out of khaki shorts. Maybe Lindsey will lighten up if they get together. A little action might put her in a good mood for a change. Better than Prozac, Kat always says.

“I'm sorry,” Kat says to the woman, who looks dejected. “I guess we already have somewhere to stay.”

“Thanks,” I mumble to the lady, wondering if I should tip her or something.

Kat moves toward the Irish guys, and the woman sends me a nasty look before she sprints toward some new prospects, leaving me standing alone. What are we getting ourselves into? I wonder. Do these guys expect us to make like couples? Three of them, three of us. How convenient. They seem innocuous enough, but our trip has taken such a sharp turn at their direction, something that makes me very nervous. Billy is the only one who I find attractive, but I can tell Lindsey likes him. Johnny and Noel are both cute enough in their
own way. Johnny with his shocking red hair and impish grin. Noel looks like a stocky rugby player, all muscles and brief limbs. Certainly none of them measures up to Francesco's smoldering grace. And what do I care, anyway? I had my little fling in Rome, my little indiscretion. Now I'm done with foreign boys. The rest of my trip is devoted solely to relaxation. I vow to be chaste until I get back to John.

I trudge over to the group, feeling my back grow wet with sweat where the pack rests against it. Kat and Sin are talking and laughing with the Irish boys as if they've all known each other for years. No one takes notice of my arrival, and I have a flicker of that picked-last-in-gym-class feeling.

“Spiros should be here any minute,” Noel says. “We called weeks ago and told him when we'd arrive.”

“Exactly who is Spiros?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant and join in the conversation, but the question comes off snippy. The heat is getting to me.

“Oh, he's great!” says Johnny Red, as I've decided to call him. “You'll love him. He runs the Sunset—the place we're staying at.”

I look at the girls. Kat is glancing around at the cafés, no doubt doing reconnaissance, searching for her next victim. Lindsey lets Billy slide her backpack off her shoulders. She smoothes her hair again, flashing him a smile that must feel alien to her mouth. I'm obviously not going to get any help from them in finding out about this Sunset place. Before I can press for details, a robust bearded man in shorts, thong sandals and a purple T-shirt pads up to us.

“Spiros!” the Irish boys cry out, clapping him on the back like a soldier returned from war.

We're introduced to Spiros, who doesn't say much other than, “Welcome to the island, friends.”

Noel asks if he can spare a room for us, and Spiros beams a large smile, nodding magnanimously.

“Sixteen thousand drachmas,” Spiros says. “We give you
breakfast and dinner. Beers you pay for.” He chuckles, pointing to the Irish guys, who all guffaw and start the backslapping again. “Four hundred drachmas for the beers.”

I do the math in my head to figure that the room is the equivalent of $40.00 American, and each beer will run us an inexpensive $1.00. My concern about the Irish guys and this new place called the Sunset is replaced by a reminder of the thirty thousand dollars in student loans I have to pay off. It doesn't take me long to decide that cheap is better.

“Sounds good,” I say to Spiros.

He holds out his large, tanned mitt of a hand, and I shake it.

 

Spiros leads us to a shabby looking pickup truck and tosses all of our luggage in the back, motioning for us to climb in. The pickup speeds up the road I'd seen from the port. I clutch the metal frame of the truck's sides, willing myself not to be catapulted out as Spiros screeches around hairpin turns, raising a veil of dust around us. He reduces his speed as we reach the top of the hill and what is, apparently, the main village of the island. Little trinket stores, pubs and souvlaki stands dot the small space. They're separated only by tiny, twisting sidewalks cutting up another hillside to our left, leading past white, flat-roofed houses and ending at a domed church on what looks to be the island's highest peak. Spiros continues on the road, skirting the village, and then begins a steady drop past scrubby brush, the occasional rounded cement house, and a few campsites littered with worn tents. I see the water again as we make a steep decline to the other side of the island, a sparkling expanse of luminescent blue.

“Sin,” Kat says when the truck slows around a particularly harrowing turn. “Doesn't this remind you of Monterey a bit?”

Lindsey nods, holding on to a stack of bags for support. “It looks like that hill by that bar with the great margaritas.”

“Exactly!” Kat says.

“When were you guys in Monterey?” I ask, trying to keep the gym-class disappointment out of my voice.

Their smiles subside.

“A few months ago,” Kat says. “Steve took us for my birthday.”

“Oh,” I say. Steve is Dr. Steven Monahan, Kat's orthopedic surgeon father, a superfit, supersuccessful guy who likes to think he's still twenty-one. In my opinion, this doesn't make for a good dad, what with the heavy drinking and the late nights at the bars, but it can be a hell of a lot of fun when it's a friend's dad. I can't help but think of all the events I used to be invited to with Steve and Khaki, his outgoing, outrageous third wife, who's much closer to our age than his.

“It was the weekend you had to go to that wedding in Cleveland,” Kat says with a shrug.

“Oh, right,” I say, struck by opposing images in my head. On one hand, Sin and Kat sip huge margaritas at a chic outdoor bar, warm coastal winds blowing through their hair. At the other end of the spectrum, John and I sit at a round folding table in a VFW hall while the deejay leads the crowd through a frantic version of the chicken dance. It was the first weekend in forever that we'd been able to get away together. Sure it was Cleveland, not Monterey, but I'd envisioned long walks, three-hour lunches with numerous bottles of wine, and John sweeping me around a candlelit dance floor. It hadn't quite worked out that way. We had long walks, but only to and from the VFW hall, since John had booked late and the main hotel was already full. And we'd had an extended lunch that Saturday, yet it was due to the piles of work John had brought with him. So I'd forgotten the wine, pulled out my civil procedure notes for the bar exam and studied. There were no heartfelt talks, only the sound of pages being turned, the occasional cough.

Of course, the whole weekend wasn't a total loss. John
sensed I was unhappy, and when we got home, he made me a meal of grilled chicken with angel-hair pasta and poured me a glass of chardonnay. We made love that night, and I got lost in it, forgetting myself and my life for as long as possible, which was all I wanted to do that weekend, anyway.

A pothole in the road rattles the pickup truck, wrenching me away from my thoughts.

Kat catches my eye and mouths the word, “Sorry.”

I wave a hand, shake my head and say, “Don't worry about it,” and I mean it. Kat probably had enough on her mind at the time. She'd just been pounced on by the Hatter.

The road turns dusty again, and after a few more turns, the truck lurches to a stop in front of a large cement building, very blocky in appearance. It's painted white, like all the others on the island, but it has a wooden door that's fire-engine red. Spiros gets out and yells something in Greek. Immediately, the red door opens and six children, ranging in age from about four to thirteen, race outside. They remind me of the Von Trapp family, although not as well dressed. The kids smile at us shyly, open the back of the pickup and pull our bags out. I want to stop them, thinking that there's no way some child can carry my massive pack. But they've obviously done this before, the smaller ones sharing a load, each taking one end, the older ones dragging two bags at a time.

“We're here!” Johnny Red says, launching himself over the side of the truck in one fluid motion. “I wonder how CeCe is.”

CeCe, it turns out, is Spiros's wife. They both run the Sunset along with their kids.

Spiros gives us the grand tour, which takes about two minutes. The white building we'd parked near is the main unit of the place. In back, it houses a kitchen and a bar that's covered with a red-and-white-striped awning. In front of the bar, a stone terrace topped with tables widens to the very edge of a cliff, overlooking a stunning white sand beach that
runs along the sea. It's one-thirty in the afternoon, the sun is high and relentless, and from what I can tell the beach is filled to capacity with people, many of whom appear to be naked or topless.

“What do you think, girls?” Noel says, bouncing around in front of us. “Didn't we tell ya?”

“It's great,” I say, already in love with the terrace view, relieved that the place looks immaculately clean.

Spiros shows us to our room, which, rather than being attached to the main building, is its own freestanding hut. It contains a few beds, a bureau and a bathroom, and like the other areas of the Sunset, it's spotless. Stark white sheets are stretched tight across the beds. Cheerful white-and-blue curtains dance in front of the open windows.

Kat and Lindsey are already tearing off their clothes and rifling in their packs for their bathing suits.