Burning the Map Page 11

  I forget my self-consciousness for a moment when I see the beach. Pure heaven. Hundreds of yards of fine white sand that stretches from the base of the Sunset’s jagged steps to where the blue water laps and rolls.

  I spot Noel, Johnny Red and Billy spread out on a blanket, their bare chests glistening. Johnny is covered in freckles, but the other two are pretty brown for Irish boys. Must have spent some time in the tanning beds back home.

  “Morning,” I say when I reach them.

  They wave and ask whether I’m feeling okay, Billy kidding me about getting too “pissed” for my own good.

  Finally I manage to reassure them that I’m fine and get them off the subject of my bender. “Have you seen Kat and Lindsey?” I say.

  Billy smiles a slow smile. “They’re getting something to drink. Have a seat.” Damn that boy is cute.

  I drop my shorts quickly and glance at them. No one flinches at the sight of my flesh, and I take this as a good sign. I walk to the water, moving around the sunbathers, holding my body as firm as possible with the hope that nothing is jiggling out of control.

  The water is cool despite the heat of the day, sending tingles through me. It’s so clear that even when I wade to chest level, I can still see the “Not in Kansas Anymore Red” polish I’ve painted on my toes for the first time in over a year. I wiggle them as I look down, and just seeing my scarlet toes through the watery blue makes me feel glamorous.

  Our days in Ios stretch into a pattern of sorts. An idyllic pattern, if it weren’t for the weird tension that still hovers between Lindsey and me. Aside from her concern about my fall, she’s been aloof with me, and Kat, while perfectly nice, seems to be joined at Sin’s hip.

  It’s not that I don’t spend time with them. Most days we sleep until at least eleven o’clock, then make our way to the terrace, where CeCe and the kids serve made-to-order eggs and toast. I always ask for egg whites only, as I’ve been trying, with some success, to knock off a bit more of my girth. After the food fills our bellies and clears some of the cobwebs from our heads, we stake out a spot at the beach, usually next to the Irish boys. Inevitably, Lindsey hurries to place her towel near Billy.

  “Hello, boys,” she’ll say (as she had that first day I was on the beach with her) and as she speaks, she’ll reach behind, unceremoniously unclasping her top, her breasts bouncing loose.

  Kat does the same, asking Noel something benign like, “What time did you guys get in last night?”

  The first time I saw this, I’d glanced at the faces of the Irish guys. Their eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but none of them appeared particularly flustered. Either they had fabulous poker faces, or they were simply used to topless women. I chalked it up to a European thing, since well over fifty percent of the beach’s female population is sans tops. There’s even a core contingent of naked people, both men and women, who have nearly every inch of exposed skin tanned to perfection.

  One guy we meet, a Frenchman named Richard, wears nothing at all except a thick coat of white zinc oxide on his nose and penis.

  “So that was Richard, huh?” Kat says as he walks away, his white pecker bobbing against his leg. “I guess we can officially call him Dick.”

  We all laugh, the Irish guys hooting. Still, it amazes me that without batting an eye or clapping a hand over their browning breasts, Sin and Kat will engage in the most casual conversations as if they weren’t half-nude. Sin, especially, shocks me. I’d expect her to go bungee jumping over Niagara Falls before I’d expect toplessness.

  “Come on!” Kat cajoled me that first day on the beach. “Just take it off, Casey. It’s no big deal.”

  “I have a fair complexion. I don’t want to get third-degree burns,” I said, using my light hair and peachy skin as an excuse. Actually, I can tan pretty well if I go about it slowly. I was just hoping that the lack of time I’d spent with Kat and Sin lately would play into my hands and neither would remember this. I’m disappointed when that wish actually comes true.

  In reality, I’m simply mortified at the thought of going topless. Not for any moral reasons, just physical ones. Flashing my overly white orbs wouldn’t have thrown me for a loop a few years ago, but now, the thought of being available for public viewing by the hundreds of people on the beach makes me cringe. Francesco had made me remember how my body used to feel, but it seems I’ve forgotten again.

  One day, I corner Kat while Sin is in the sea with the Irish guys, splashing water and generally trying to look as if she’s frolicking, when the fact is she doesn’t do frolic well.

  “Hey,” I say, plopping myself down on a towel next to Kat.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she says back in a lazy voice. She’s on her stomach, her head on her arm, her hair splayed over most of her face like a hood. She opens one eye and gives me an equally lazy smile.

  “How’s it going?” I ask, feeling odd to be exchanging pleasantries with one of my best friends as if she were someone I’d run into at the dry cleaners.

  “Too much ouzo last night, but I’m good. You?”

  “Great.” Well there you have it. Another illuminating heart-to-heart between friends.

  When she closes the one eye, I move in with my real question. “You think Sin will ever give me a break?”

  Kat sighs. “You know how she is. She doesn’t shift gears very well.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Just give her some time,” she says. “It’ll get better.”

  “You think?” I hear a plaintive note in my voice.

  “Sure,” Kat says. It’s not exactly the flag-waving reassurance I was hoping for, but it’s better than nothing.

  Another silence follows, so I decide to ask her something else that’s been on my mind. “How are you feeling about the Hatter thing?” She’s been wearing the diamond earrings almost every night.

  Both of her eyes shoot open now, and Kat raises herself onto her elbows. As she does so, she bares her breasts, and I can hear a groan of longing from one of the British teenagers behind us.

  “Case, I told you. I don’t want to talk about that,” she says.

  “I know, but don’t you think you should? I mean, it’s just going to sit in your brain, corrupting your thoughts. You have to get it out.” I’m thinking of the way I haven’t talked about my parents for so long, how the issue is camping out in my own mind.

  “No, I don’t. I really feel fine. I got a pair of great earrings out of the whole thing, and now I just want to forget about it.”

  I mull this over for a second. I could certainly understand the need to forget. Wasn’t that what I was doing on this vacation?

  “You’re sure?” I ask, thinking that while I might need to pretend certain things in my life didn’t exist right now, Kat seems like she needs to remember this one thing.

  “I’m sure,” she says, her voice bordering on exasperation.

  I give up, slumping back on the towel and throwing an arm over my head.

  Most days, I drift away in the afternoons to a spot I found under a large overhanging rock. There, in the shade, I escape the crowd and the heat and write aimlessly in my journal.

  One day, I find myself making lists of John’s attributes versus Francesco’s, in sort of a battle between them. Under John’s name I write, “Sweet. Stable. Smart. Loves me. Great parents. Good cook. Good kisser.” Below Francesco’s I scribble, “Kind. Wavy hair. White teeth. Wants me. Sexy. Exciting. Hot. Amazing kisser.” The lists don’t help. I alternately crave Francesco’s hands on my hips, his mouth on my breasts, and then squeeze my eyes shut, trying to drown out John’s sweet smile, which keeps lingering, unaware I’ve betrayed him.

  As I sit staring at my journal, Sin actually comes to me.

  “Hi,” she says, ducking under the rock and sinking down next to me, wrapping her tiny arms around her knees. With her deep tan and no makeup on, wearing only her bikini bottoms, she looks like a small Peruvian child.

  “Hey there,” I say.

  “Whatcha doing?”
She leans over, peering at the scribblings in my journal.

  I fight the desire to slam it shut, an odd inclination, since I used to tell Sin nearly everything. “Just writing about the trip.”

  “Franco?”

  “Francesco,” I say, knowing she massacred his name on purpose.

  “And John,” she says, glancing down at my page again.

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s winning?”

  I laugh, an odd, coarse laugh that seems to scratch my throat on the way out. “It’s not a contest.”

  “No, of course not.” She puts her chin on her knees. “You can’t have Francesco, can you? You don’t live in Rome. Which means it’s John by default.”

  I debate whether I should smack her with the journal or maybe just pull a handful of Peruvian hair out of her head. “Is that what you came over here to say?”

  She laughs then. “Sorry,” she says. “That was shitty.”

  “Yes.” I close the journal, setting it on my thighs.

  “So,” she says, turning her head and resting it on her knees, her eyes on me.

  “So,” I say, all topics for easy banter escaping me. “Are you having fun?” The question rings lame, like the opening question on a blind date.

  “Of course,” she says. “How can you not have fun? We’ve got the sunshine, the beach. What more do you need?”

  Good question, I think. A fucking great question. But the answer keeps eluding me.

  “All is good with John then?” she says. “I mean, excluding Franco, Francesco, whatever?”

  “Uh…well…” Here’s my opportunity, the time I can dump out how much I miss the way John and I used to be even though we’re together all the time, how I don’t feel as connected to him as I once had. But that’s the problem. I really don’t feel connected to anybody lately, certainly not Sin, and the thought of bad-mouthing John to her seems a grave betrayal.

  “Yes?” Sin blinks in a way that makes it seem like she’s batting her eyes. “You were saying?”

  “Everything’s fine with John.”

  “Hmm.” She stops the blinking and looks at me with eyes that seem sharp now, that seem to dig. “I don’t think you know what makes you happy anymore.”

  She stands up, stretching her arms, then letting them fall to her sides. “See you later?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  When she’s gone, I open my journal and write the heading, “Things that Make Me Happy.” I underline it and poise my pen beneath it, readying myself to write the millions of things that give me pleasure, but I can’t think of any. Think, think, think, I command myself, determined not to let Sin be right. Finally I jot, “Ben & Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream. Repainting my walls. Buying a comfortable pair of shoes that still look hot. A brick of good Brie. Great music. Flourless chocolate cake.” I put my pen aside, relatively pleased with myself. The list had come quite easily once I started. But I read it over, and it hits me. Fifty percent of my happy list is food.

  12

  Around six o’clock each day, the majority of the Sunset’s patrons, full of sand and sunburn, climb the rock steps back to the huts. Nearly everyone spends the next few hours napping, preparing themselves for another night’s festivities. Dinner isn’t served until ten o’clock, but I’ve developed a habit of rising early for the night, leaving Kat and Sin tucked in their beds, each day making them look darker against the white backdrop of their sheets. After a quick shower, I head out to the deserted terrace, catching a glimpse of Spiros, CeCe and their family through the open door of their hut. The kids laugh and talk over each other in Greek, Spiros and CeCe passing food and smacking the hands that try to take a plate out of turn. It often strikes me that they don’t have lots of money, nor do they live an elaborate lifestyle, but Spiros and CeCe seem like two of the most content people I’ve ever met.

  While they’re feeding their family, the bar operates on an honor system. I’ll pluck down a few drachmas on the counter and help myself to an Amstel from the industrial fridge. Despite my fall that first day, I’m still attached to my table, the one closest to the edge of the cliff, and I’ll sit there, careful not to rock back on the hind legs of the chair. I never saw the soap opera blonde again, thank God, and I’ve started to wonder if maybe I conjured him up in my drunken imagination.

  Sitting at my table, sipping my beer, I watch the most incredible sunsets—vibrant hues of oranges, pinks and yellows mixing and mingling in the sky, until the golden circle of sun slips lower beneath the water that grows navy blue with the oncoming darkness. I can’t believe that everyone else can sleep through this, but I’m not quite willing to share it, either.

  Most nights, I simply sit and soak it up. Other times, I pull Francesco’s card from my purse and stare at it. The card has become worn by now, the corners crumpled and soft. I imagine calling him, hearing him say, “Bella,” in that honeyed voice, hearing him tell me he misses me. But then I feel ashamed and I stash the card away again, wondering what it says about John and me that I keep thinking about some boy in Rome who can’t even buy himself a proper scooter. I love John, I know I do, but sometimes I find myself wanting to be unattached and single. Wanting to find more Francescos and soap opera blondes. Yet at the same time, John is like family, and I can’t imagine my life without him.

  Toward the end of the sunset, my sunset as I’ve come to think of it, people start trickling out of their huts to get dinner. We usually sit with Johnny Red, Noel and Billy, and I’ve gotten used to the way they alternately compliment and rib me. Billy is especially sweet.

  “You’re burning a bit,” he said one night, leaning toward me and running a finger over my shoulder. “Best to put something on that.”

  There are others at the Sunset that we’ve become friends with, too, and who usually join us for dinner. There’s Gunther, a short Norwegian whose favorite English word is wicked. He applies it to everything—the beach, the drinks, the food, the bars, the women. And then there’s the two Swedish girls, Lina and Jenu, both of whom appear stereotypically Swedish with blond hair, blue eyes and translucent ivory skin. They seem to gaze at me intently when I speak. Whether this is from their efforts to decipher my English or an actual interest in me, I can’t say.

  The rest of the guests at the Sunset are a mix of Europeans, Canadians, Aussies and a few Americans thrown in for good measure. A dizzying din of languages and accents rises during the dinner hour. Whenever we meet someone new, someone who doesn’t speak English or can’t understand my Italian, it’s a challenge to converse, but we try, using gestures and stilted words. Kat is the best at it.

  “I…am,” I heard her saying one night in a loud, slow voice. She was standing by a table of German men, pointing toward herself, “from…Chicago.” When the men responded with enamored but confused looks, she said, “You know the cliché—Chicago, bang bang,” and pantomimed shooting a gun, Al Capone style.

  “Ah!” the group cried, understanding. “Chicago, bang bang!”

  The men love Kat, as they always do, and she seems bent on finding a new one each night. I wonder if I should buy her a box of condoms, but I don’t want to piss her off by assuming she’s sleeping with all of them, and I don’t want to encourage her if she is. She’s always been outgoing and certainly never shy about sex, yet Kat now appears to have a compulsive edge to her scamming. She still won’t talk about the Hatter incident, and I still think it’s messing her up. I watch her every night as she moves about the terrace, friendly to a fault, constantly talking or flirting.

  Meanwhile, I find myself sticking to our usual table at the edge with Lina and Jenu, the Irish boys and Gunther. Each night, I watch them devouring plates of moussaka, Greek lasagna or souvlaki oozing with cucumber sauce. My mouth waters, and I imagine diving headfirst into the cheesy moussaka, but I hold myself to Greek salads, liking the feel of my body as some of the bar exam weight comes off.

  After dinner, Spiros gathers the troops around midnight to give those who are ready to party a
ride into town, where things are just beginning to hop. One night as I headed for the truck, I glanced around for Kat and Sin and found them talking by themselves at the bar, their heads inclined. Kat laughed, throwing her head back, putting her hand on Lindsey’s forearm, and I missed them then, even though we were in the same room.

  That night on the way to town, I slumped in the back of the pickup, gripping my head, attempting to save my hair from being wind-whipped into a beehive. When Spiros finally ground to a halt, I raised my face over the rim of the pickup, shocked at the sight. The sleepy village I’d seen on our way in from the ferry had been transformed with the dark sky, the air full of battling music from different bars, the main street glutted with strolling people and crawling cars. Lights were strung along telephone poles and across the tops of houses, making it seem as if the stars were hanging low, blocking out the real ones above.

  That night, like every one since then, we followed our nightlife routine, which was set by the Irish guys, who apparently fancy themselves as our ambassadors to Ios. This routine dictates that we start at one of the small pubs in the village that line the winding stone sidewalks. The bars have dubious names such as Bar 69 and Orange Love, and they serve colorfully named drinks like the Nipple Lick, which is some Kahlua concoction, and Blue Balls, a purplish-neon drink with God-knows-what in it. Around two in the morning, most people make their way to one of the late nightspots, both of which sound Gaelic rather than Greek in persuasion. The Dubliner is a big sprawling club with indoor and outdoor dance floors. The favorite among the Sunset crew, though, is Sweet Irish Dreams. It’s small compared to the Dubliner, but that doesn’t stop them from letting in everyone who can pay the cover price. The place becomes so crammed with humanity that everyone stands or dances on any available surface—the tables, the benches, the chairs, even the bars.