The cameras, he bought for himself. He said that if they were good enough for Andy Warhol, then they were good enough for Nico Varanakis. I remember him taking dozens of photographs of my mother, but these were the only two I found. In the photographs, she’s wearing a sundress and a wide-brim hat, and she’s smiling a deliriously happy smile that I’ve never seen in real life. When he left, I think he took that smile with him.
I THOUGHT THERE WAS NO way I’d sleep. Even when I’m not six inches away from a decidedly intriguing boy who was decidedly not my boyfriend, I’m a terrible sleeper. Along with the whole night-drowning thing, I talk and laugh and even cry in my sleep, and once I woke up on our front lawn in the middle of a cold snap wearing nothing but pajama shorts and an embarrassing T-shirt my mom and James got me on their anniversary trip to Paris that says I’M LE TIRED.
But in the weird bookstore tree house with Theo’s French rap blaring? I didn’t merely sleep. I reposed. I slumbered. From the moment I closed my eyes to the moment I opened them, I don’t think I moved a single inch. I was snug, my blankets tucked around me in a warm cocoon, and the music had been turned down to a low thrum. Theo’s bed was already empty, his sheets pulled up and tucked in neatly, his pillow fluffed to perfection. Despite his messy appearance, he apparently kept his environment very neat.
Dax! my brain yelled as my eyes roamed Theo’s things, and instantly my chest tightened with anxiety. Had he texted me yet?
I rolled over and grabbed my phone from where I’d stashed it on my shelves. Messages from my mom. Lots of messages from my mom. While I’d been reenacting a scene out of Sleeping Beauty, she’d been pummeling me with texts for almost an hour now.
Liv, call me.
Liv, call me this instant.
Are you alive?
I am turning Julius loose on your Urban Decay eye shadow palette.
3… 2…
I sighed heavily and hit dial, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. When was the last time I’d felt this rested? My body was so happy it was humming. Also, the light filtering in through the window was a warm, sunny yellow, and when I inhaled, I caught a whiff of salt water. Maybe I could get used to island life.
“Liv?” My mom answered on the second ring. She sounded slightly out of breath, and there was a familiar steady thwack- thwack-thwack in the background.
“Mom, are you on your treadmill? What time is it there?”
“Almost ten p.m. The Stench called an early meeting and I had to miss my morning run.”
The Stench was my mom’s private nickname for her law firm’s managing partner. Along with a sordid history of taking credit for work he hadn’t done, he wore heavy colognes, took long, sweaty runs during his lunch break, and liked to let his damp running clothes accumulate in a bag situated near his office door. He’d also once—and this was possibly his greatest offense—microwaved a plate of halibut and Brussels sprouts in the room next to her office. Normal Mom hated The Stench, but Pregnant Mom had an active bounty on his head.
I leaned back against the wall, preparing for one of her stories. “What did he do now?”
“I won’t get into it, but it involved tuna fish.” She made a gagging noise that didn’t sound entirely under her control.
I stifled a laugh, and I heard her adjust the speed on the treadmill, probably an increase. My mom never missed her daily run. Ever. Not on weekends or vacations, or even when she was sick. Not even during her pregnancies when everything made her throw up and she had to wear a heavy-duty torture-device-looking belt thing that made sure her belly stayed supported. As annoying as her strict habit sometimes was, there was also something comforting in knowing exactly where she was. I could picture her in her running shorts, her blond hair in a tight ponytail, her pale skin glowing with sweat. People never assumed we were mother and daughter, likely because we looked so different from each other, and also because you would have to pay me close to a million dollars and hire a pack of vengeful hippos to chase me to get me to participate in one of the half-marathons she was always signing up for. But I digress.
“Liv, why didn’t you call to check in last night? I was so worried.”
I hesitated, studying the way the sunlight coming through the window played over my legs. Part of me wanted to keep being angry at her for sending me here, but the fact was—the fact had always been—she was the one who had stuck with me. It counted for a lot.
I took a deep breath. “Dad had this little party set up for me, and then when I got to my bed, I was so jet-lagged that I fell asleep.” I looked over at my shelf. My oil pastels sat looking at me, and maybe it was my imagination, but I got a whiff of their waxy scent.
Her voice softened. “He threw you a party?”
“For my birthday. He gave me a custom oil pastel set from an art shop in France. And he timed my arrival with the sunset here. It was…” I tried to make it sound like it was no big deal, but thinking about it made my eyes feel like they were going to well up again, and the last thing I wanted to do was make her cry too. Best to stick with the facts. “He’d gone to a lot of work.”
Despite my efforts, she definitely heard my emotion, because there was a long pause, followed by a series of beeps as she hit stop on her treadmill. “He was always good at birthdays,” she said, and now it sounded like maybe she was battling her own emotions. For a couple of seconds, I felt that old familiar ache stretch between us. We’d held that feeling between us for a long time, and no matter how badly it ached, I’d always had her to back me up on it. Not having her here to experience this with me felt wrong.
“Did he tell you about the project yet?” she asked.
“No.” I didn’t even try to pry it out of her. No matter how many times I’d asked in the week leading up to my trip, she hadn’t said a word. All she’d said was I think you’ll enjoy it. My mom was a vault like that.
“How’s the bookstore?”
I slapped my arm down onto the bed. She knew about the bookstore, too? “Mom, how long have you and Dad been talking?”
“Six months,” she said.
“Six months?” I knew it shouldn’t feel like a betrayal, but it did. We’d shared the loss of my dad together. Why hadn’t she brought me in on this?
“Do I even know you?” I tried to make it sound jokey, but it came out serious sounding, and when she spoke again, she matched my tone.
“Liv, I’m sorry to have kept this from you. But I thought it would be best if we approached things with your dad slowly. I wanted to know how he was doing before I allowed him to initiate contact.”
Initiate contact? This wasn’t an alien encounter. And was that what the postcards were about? A plan to make my dad’s reappearance look completely out of the blue? My head immediately went fuzzy with anger, but she quickly jumped in, distracting me from it.
“How amazing is Oia? I looked at photos online all day.”
She knew how to pronounce it correctly, which I guess made sense. “It’s gorgeous,” I admitted. “Lots of dogs and people. And all the buildings are painted white.”
“It keeps the houses from getting too hot in the summer. How’s the bunk room?”
I gripped the phone tightly. “You know about that, too?”