“Hey, Geoffrey, I actually go by Liv. And I have a boyfriend—”
“Mathilde is the peanut butter to my jelly,” he interrupted, blinking his giraffe eyelashes. “The cream to my coffee. The dragon heartstring to my walnut wand.”
His walnut what?
“Um,” I squeaked.
As if drawn by my horror, Ana miraculously appeared at my elbow, whisking me away. “ ‘Walnut wand’ is a Harry Potter reference,” she whispered. “Geoffrey is our assistant manager. He’s great with books, terrible at social interactions. Give him some time. He will grow on you.”
Ana wore a simple shapeless black dress that would have looked like a garbage bag on anyone else but came across as chic and effortless on her. A long pair of earrings that looked suspiciously like fishhooks dangled from her ears, and she was wearing a different shade of red lipstick today, darker but equally vibrant.
“If possible, you look even more beautiful this morning than you did last night,” she said, echoing my thoughts about her. She ruffled my bangs. “So chic! You were made for this messy look.”
She was probably being overly nice, but I felt my embarrassment dissipate anyway. “I wasn’t expecting the bookstore to be this crowded. Or even open.”
“We open early during cruise ship season. I should have warned you. Aside from the fall, how was your first night?”
“Great.” I shook my head, still in disbelief over how rested I felt. It was so novel. Suddenly I remembered the call sheet in my hand and held it out. “Is this real?”
She snatched the paper from me, then sighed heavily. “Oh, Theo. I see he has officially ruined the surprise.”
Excitement flickered in my chest. It would not be stopped. “That’s what the mystery project is? We’re making a movie?”
“A documentary.” She glanced up at the vintage yellow school clock tacked above the door. “I believe your dad is planning a special team breakfast where he will tell you everything. Theo is waiting on the roof, but don’t let him talk you into a rush. We’re on Santorini time, and that means enjoy.”
She winked one of her long-lashed eyes at me, a move she was clearly born for, and then sashayed back into the crowd. It was probably disloyal of me to think, but if my dad hadn’t at least tried to date her, he was a fool.
I liked the sound of a “team breakfast.” And despite the fact that I had no idea what she meant by “Santorini time,” I definitely didn’t want to keep a team of people waiting for me. How many crew members did it take to make a documentary? And did my dad really want me to help out? I hurried into the cave, where my suitcase sat in the tiny space looking like the overstuffed monstrosity that it really was. Had I seriously thought I’d need all this stuff? It was a Mediterranean island, not an arctic expedition. It was amazing what twenty-four hours could do for perspective.
I splashed water onto my face, applied my best five-minute makeup, brushed my teeth, and attempted to reassemble my bangs into something less feral-looking. Now, what to wear?
Volcano hunting was not the sort of thing my capsule wardrobe covered, but after churning everything around in my suitcase for a while, I finally went for my two favorite items. A pair of worn-in-just-right cutoff shorts and my favorite striped tee, both of which I wore as often as I thought I could get away with. At the last minute I added a simple pair of gold studs and my initial necklace, the one I’d made in a summer jewelry-making class. L. Now I felt like myself.
I briefly considered going without my backpack, but that was beyond my capabilities as a human, so up in the bunk room I carefully packed it with the bare necessities: a handful of pencils, my current sketchbook, my phone (still nothing from Dax), and my sunscreen. Finally, I closed the bunk room carefully behind me and burst out onto the street.
Oia was calm and relatively spacious in the morning, a scrubbed-down version of what I’d seen the night before. The streets contained only a few tourists and the sun glimmered across the white surfaces, making the marble walkway sparkle. The day was going to be hot, but for now we were tiptoeing around the edge of the sun, the breeze from the ocean keeping the air comfortable.
Looking out over the white angularity of the village, a wave of melancholy hit me. This is where my dad has been. All that time at home I’d never known how to picture where he was or what his life could be like without us, but now I knew. Of course he was from an eclectic village perched on the edge of the sea—why wouldn’t he have left our tiny apartment back home for this? But what about us? Hadn’t we been worth more than a village?
Before my feelings could hijack me, I readjusted my backpack and climbed the steps to the roof, forcing myself to even out my breath. There might be other crew members up there.
Up on the terrace, the remnants of my birthday party had been cleared and swept away, turning the rooftop back into an open-air bookstore that held exactly none of the stress I’d felt the night before. Sunlight bounced off the colorful book murals on the wall, and customers browsed the bookcases or sat reading in the nook. It took me a moment to spot Theo, and when I did, my stress levels soared. Theo clearly had no fear of heights, because he sat on the edge of the rooftop, his legs dangling over the side of the cliff, laptop on his lap, giant headphones encasing his ears, completely engrossed in whatever he was watching.
As a general rule, I try to avoid sending people sprawling to their untimely doom, so I approached cautiously, gently touching his shoulder and speaking in a quiet voice. “Theo, I got the call sheet.”
“Kalamata! Finally!” He swung his legs around, spinning to face me. He was dressed in an outfit almost identical to the one he’d worn yesterday—sneakers, a black T-shirt, and black jeans—but today his hair was contained by a baseball cap. His camera lay at his feet.
His camera. Of course he had his camera with him. And then I saw the word stenciled onto his shirt: CREW.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. “Are we really making a film?”
His face split into a smile. “So you do get excited about things, Kalamata.”
I bit my lip, forcefully suppressing my smile. I didn’t want to give Theo the satisfaction. “I’m late. Did we miss the call time?”
Theo shook his head. “We moved back our call time so you could get some sleep. Your dad thought you needed it. Especially after I told him you were snoring like a wildebeest.”
My face went red hot. “I do not snore.” But did I? I’d worked so hard to make sure no one ever saw me sleep that I actually had no idea if that was true or not. I’d have to check with my mom.
He rested his hand reassuringly on my shoulder. “Yes, Kalamata. You really, really do. Did you meet Geoffrey the Canadian?”
I liked the weight of his hand on my shoulder perhaps a little too much, so I quickly moved away, focusing my eyes on the water. “Yes. I actually sort of belly flopped out of the bunks. I took out a stack of books on my way down and heavily traumatized a few customers.” The ocean was a bright glimmering turquoise, and all the sunlight bouncing off it already hurt my eyes. I was going to need to add sunglasses to my backpack. All this light would be great on camera.
“Well done,” Theo said, surveying me with new respect. “Did Geoffrey talk about his pretend girlfriend?”