Bapou cocked his head, and Ana shot my father a nervous look. The camera was steady.
“Olive, is it all right?” my father asked quietly.
The correct answer was that it was far from all right. It was perfect—the gift, the party, every detail had been magical. But another truth was bubbling to the surface, crowding out every other thought, stifling my voice. He can’t do this.
He couldn’t fix the last nine years with one grand gesture, no matter how perfect it was. He couldn’t erase all those empty years without him. He didn’t get to do this.
But when I opened my mouth, I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I burst into tears.
* * *
Some girls cry and it’s a pretty, delicate act, capable of inspiring grand gestures or at least a pack of tissues.
I cry and people panic.
At first they all thought I was weeping tears of joy over what was, clearly, a transformative moment, because they all exchanged a knowing glance. A silent high five. But as soon as it became apparent that there was an actual river of snot happening, they switched into disaster mode. My dad rushed over to me, examining me like he was trying to figure out if I’d twisted my ankle or had been stung by a large Santorinian bug. Bapou began repeating his English phrases even louder. “Welcome to Santorini! Beautiful!”
Theo got excited and swooped in closer to keep filming, and Ana nearly tackled him to get him out of my face. “Theo, stamáta to!”
“Mom, this is great footage! This is real—” Ana said something sharp in Greek and dragged him away by the scruff of his neck.
“Olive, do you not like this set? Because I saw on your social media that you’ve been working on self-portraits. I thought you could use this color.”
He’d seen my social media account? My brain started buzzing, too loudly for me to hear the rest of what he’d said. I’d started it last year on a whim so I’d have a place to put all of the work I was doing, but my following hadn’t even reached triple digits yet. It had never occurred to me that my dad could be one of them.
I wiped my eyes, stepping back from the table, the gift, the whole party. I took a deep breath, and finally, finally some words came out. “Dad, I go by Liv now.”
They were the wrong words. Of course they were. No one had told me what to do if I was ever in this situation.
Hurt, confusion—something—flashed across my dad’s face, but he replaced it quickly. Smoothed it over with acceptance. Understanding. He nodded. “Liv. That’s beautiful. Very sophisticated.” His smile was back, but he was looking away, giving me some emotional space, which obviously I needed. But still. Ouch.
“Hmm.” The noise came from behind the camera, which had reasserted itself. Embarrassment swilled through me, powerful enough to navigate me through my emotion. Okay, Liv. Time to pull this together. Ana had started bustling around, snatching up the wrapping paper and string, like the world’s most awkward scene wasn’t playing out in front of her, and Bapou was carefully repositioning the cake, spinning it so the candles were perfectly centered.
I cleared my throat, stepping back from my dad. “Sorry about that, everyone. Thank you very much for this nice surprise. But I haven’t slept since I left Seattle, and I’m feeling really jet-lagged.”
“Don’t apologize for your feelings,” Ana said, her voice ferocious. “Never apologize for those.”
Theo lowered the camera, and when I saw his expression, I wanted to throw something at him. His eyebrows were up, a smirk of a smile aimed at me. I’m sorry, but was he enjoying this?
My dad carefully replaced his backpack, gesturing for me to do the same. “Of course. Let’s get you settled in.” He turned for the stairs, and I hurried after him. Despite my anger, a part of me refused to let him out of my sight.
While I’d been having my mini breakdown on the terrace, the sunset-viewing party had thinned, the crowds disappearing down the rabbit holes of the village. Even the dogs were on the move, and one particularly fluffy one sidled up to my dad, resting his dandelion head on my dad’s knee before continuing his amble down the street.
I prepared to make the trek to my dad’s house or apartment or wherever it was he lived, but instead, once Theo was dispatched in search of my suitcase, Ana and my father led me down into the bookstore. My legs were shaky on the steep steps, but I was anxious to see what was inside.
It didn’t disappoint. “O-oh…,” I stammered as Ana flicked the lights on. If the bookstore was charming on the outside, it was downright bewitching on the inside. My dad beamed at me.
“Like it?”
He couldn’t really have been asking, because there was no way anyone had ever seen the Lost Bookstore of Atlantis and not liked it. The space was dollhouse tiny, with a small, semicircle-shaped room making up the bulk of it. An arched doorway led to a second space that was more closet than room, and both had high, domed ceilings covered in brightly colored murals. Ingeniously built bookshelves hugged the curved walls, and hundreds, maybe thousands of books were nestled tightly together—a mixture of shiny new paperbacks and worn leather hardbacks. Small cards stuck out at intervals to indicate what each section was. MYSTERY. HISTORICAL FICTION, and one large card that read ROMANCE!!!
And the smell. I inhaled, feeling my muscles loosen. I’d never consciously realized that old books had a smell, but of course they did. It was old leather with hints of vanilla and must, and a dash of something else. Magic? Pixie dust? I walked to the center of the main room, turning slowly so I could see every inch of it. The late-evening light filtered in through two high windows, dust motes swirling like ballerinas, and I suddenly had an overpowering desire to spend my life savings on new books and then fall down on a soft surface somewhere and read the kinds of things my literature teacher was always trying to talk us into. Charles Dickens? Emily Brontë? Bring it on.
“Well?” my father asked. He looked much more confident in this space. He filled it up. Staring at him among all his books made me feel like I was going to crumple up and cry again, so I quickly turned my gaze upward to the domed ceiling, where a constellation of stars had been painted. “How long has this been here?”
“The space, probably a hundred years. The shop, one.” He smiled at me. “Although Ana has dreamed of opening a bookstore in Oia since she was a little girl.”
Ana gave an aggravated sigh, but her eyes sparkled. “Is it a dream or a nightmare? Running a bookstore on a small island has not been easy. Even finding a building felt impossible. You should have seen this place before your father began his work. It was nothing but a hollowed-out cave. I’ve needed him every step of the way. His genius is literally on the walls.”
“It would have been nothing without your vision,” my father said, deftly sidestepping the compliment.
“I love how it smells,” I said, spinning again.
“Book air is the best air,” Ana said, reaching for a pile of mail on a small desk and sifting through the letters. “If I could, I’d bottle it up and dab it on my wrists every morning.”
“You could sell it and make a fortune.” My dad’s dark eyes met mine. “It’s only the old books. When the paper in old books breaks down, the compound smells like almonds and vanilla flowers. The new ones smell of paper and glue.”