“No, because of safety,” Theo said. My father shot him a look.
“But, Dad… you’re a master-level diver, aren’t you?” That was one thing I knew for sure about my dad. He’d grown up diving—said it came with island life—and one of his many jobs had been at a diving center, where he’d taught certification classes. The fact that my absent dad could have been the one to teach me to scuba dive had been just one of many uncomfortable thoughts I’d had to contend with during my own certification class.
His smile reappeared, washing away the concern. “She worries. I’m not supposed to dive much anymore. Complications with asthma.”
Asthma? I stored this tidbit away. Yet another thing I didn’t know about him. “Since when do you have that?” I asked.
“Since I decided to smoke for twenty years,” he said with a shrug.
Theo leaned forward. “It isn’t that serious. His doctor said it was fine if he was careful and didn’t go past recreational limits. Mom’s overly protective.”
“And headstrong,” my dad added.
“Like Kalamata,” said Theo.
“Kalamata?” My dad glanced at me, and I felt my face go hot.
“Instead of Liv,” I blurted out. “Like the type of olive?”
“I told you it has nothing to do with that,” Theo corrected me. “You just look like a Kalamata.”
“Nobody looks like a Kalamata except for a small fruit that has been cured in brine,” I said.
Theo’s eyes lit up. “Olives are a fruit? What an interesting fact.”
A small smile pulled at my dad’s face, and I quickly looked away. “Did you really say we only have a week to film and edit? Is that even possible?”
“It’s a long shot,” my dad said. “But we’re trying anyway.”
He hadn’t changed at all. Not one single bit. All Hail the King of the Long Shot.
Theo leaned into me, his bare arm touching mine, before raising his coffee to my dad. “Kalamata? Ready to begin filming?”
“Ready.”
And by that I meant, Not at all. I could not, in fact, even picture a scenario in which I would be ready for this, but that didn’t exactly matter because here I was, in Greece, sucked into a project that had nothing to do with me.
Also, it would maybe be best if Theo would stop touching me. As team members, I found it highly unprofessional and more than a bit distracting.
* * *
Just over a week is a lot of time to, say, be stuck on a desert island with no potable water, or to sit on the couch watching Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas in the same ratty pair of sweats. But it is not a long time to film a multi-location documentary, even if it is only supposed to be about twenty-five minutes long. Even I knew that, and I knew virtually nothing about filming.
Of course, Theo was prepared. More than prepared. Once my dad had gone to try to convince Maria to let him pay for our coffee (according to Theo, they’d been having this argument for over a year now), he sprang into action.
“Welcome aboard,” Theo said, setting a shiny red binder on the table and sliding it over to me. OLIVE VARANAKIS was across the front of it in black marker, but he’d crossed out the Olive and written KALAMATA.
“This was before I realized you had an aversion to your given name,” he said.
I gave him my best withering look, then flipped it open to the first page.
SHOT LIST
NEA KAMENI/VOLCANO
OIA/FIRA
AERIAL SHOTS OF CALDERA + ISLAND SYSTEM
BEACHES—RED BEACH, WHITE BEACH, BLACK BEACH
VOLCANIC HOT SPRINGS
AKROTIRI—MINOAN CIVILIZATION
ASPRONISI/WHITE ISLAND
UNDERWATER SHOOT: TEMPLE OF POSEIDON LOCATION!!
I didn’t even have to know what all these places were to know how much work we had ahead of us. Also, the fact that that last one had made it onto the list made me want to curl into the fetal position and stay there until someone promised me it was all going to be okay. I settled instead for a heavy sigh, slumping down even further in my chair.
“You okay?” Theo asked, looking at me worriedly. “Because it would really be better for the film if you were okay.”
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I pointed to the handwritten paper. “Do you always write in all caps?”
“Always. It’s how you can tell I really mean something.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Nothing. Still nothing. Being in my dad’s world was like stepping into Oz: nothing made sense. I was desperate for a lifeline from home.
“Don’t tell me he still hasn’t texted,” Theo said. I was a little bit glad for the disbelief in his voice, but it also made me feel defensive.
My eyes shot up to his. “He’s on his graduation trip. He and his nine hundred best friends are packed into three cars road-tripping to California. He’s driving, so he hasn’t had a lot of time to call or text.”
“That explains it,” Theo said. Except I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it. I averted my eyes to the binder, running my hand over the reality of what I had agreed to.
“Theo, I have no idea what I’m doing, with the film,” I blurted out. “You know that, right?”
“Kalamata, no one knows what they’re doing. It’s called life.” A philosophical answer that Plato would have been proud of, and not even remotely helpful to me. I was on my own—point taken.
While Theo flipped through his binder, I googled “director of photography,” which I’m pretty sure disqualified me for the job immediately. According to the first article that popped up in the search engine, I would be in charge of framing, lighting, makeup, costume, and color correction. I started to google those things, but all the descriptions made my head spin, so I took deep cleansing breaths like my school’s yoga teacher had taught me and watched Theo scribble notes.
I was on my own. My dad’s words came to mind. Jump and a net will grow. Maybe he was onto something there. I did have one idea almost right away. After my dad had lost the coffee-paying war, I brought up what he was wearing, and he went back to his apartment to look for a shirt that fit the specifications I’d given him—solid color or simple pattern, not white, preferably from this decade—while Theo and I ran back to the store, this time at a more reasonable pace because in the thirty minutes we’d spent at Maria’s, Oia had filled with chaos. The streets were flooded with tourists, some of them dragging bulky suitcases and almost all of them looking pleasantly lost.
Most of the businesses had opened, which meant store owners shouting back and forth to each other across Main Street in voices that sounded angry but were accompanied by smiles. Even the dogs were up and trotting around friskily. The whole scene felt hot and festive—and like a headache in the making.
“Is it always this crowded?” I asked as we moved through a particularly stubborn pocket of slow movers. Theo was clearly used to the tourist situation. He shoved his way through without a second of hesitation.
“Oia is a sponge. All summer long, cruise ships come in, it swells to max capacity, then sunset hits and everyone runs back to their stateroom suites. Good for business, bad for everything else. Wait until you see the shop. It should be packed by now.”