“Liv, this is Hugo. He has been working on the same sunset painting for almost five months. Hugo, this is my daughter. She is an artist too.”
“Sort of,” I said, but I was already itching to get a glimpse of the painting.
Hugo gestured for me to look, and I hurried around to see. It was a large canvas, and so far Hugo had done his underpainting and blocked in midtones, darks, and lights. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but the balance felt right. Besides, looking at it gave me that humming feeling I always got when one of my art pieces was going to turn out well. The humming feeling hadn’t been wrong once, and now whenever it is absent, I immediately abandon the project rather than make myself suffer through it. My art teacher was always going on and on about how predeciding whether or not a piece was going to work out would keep me from evolving, but I disagree. Why waste time on something that would ultimately let you down?
“Well?” Hugo said.
I refocused. “Are you painting the view?” I asked, leaning over to look down the cliffs. A large rock sat within swimming distance from the coast, and from here I could see the blue dome of a miniature chapel nestled on its smoother upper layer.
Hugo squinted at the painting. “I am trying. But I find myself more and more unhappy with it.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry. It’s in the ugly phase, but it will all come together.”
My dad made a small noise in his throat, and Hugo’s eyebrows shot up in amusement. “You are calling my work ugly?”
“No.” I shifted my weight to one foot. The stone underneath me was so hot that I could feel it through my sandals. “All paintings have an ugly phase. Once you get your form and color in there, it will be all right. I can already see that you have something here.”
Hugo stared at me, and for a moment I worried that I’d overstepped my bounds, but then he smiled so wide that I could see every single one of his teeth. “Nico, you told me your American daughter was talented and beautiful, but you did not tell me she had excellent advice!”
“I have undersold her,” my dad said. He was literally beaming with pride, which I didn’t want to be happy about, but honestly, I kind of was.
“Thank you, Olive,” Hugo said.
“Liv,” my dad corrected quickly, and Hugo scrunched his face up into a question. “She goes by Liv,” my dad said again.
Suddenly I realized something. Everyone on this island knew my name. How much had my dad been talking about me? And more importantly, why?
“Liv,” Hugo corrected. He slapped my dad’s back heartily. “This guy. Your father. He is something, isn’t he?”
My dad was most definitely something, but I didn’t say that. I had no idea how to answer that, and to be honest, I felt a little shaky about the fact that not only had my dad clearly told everyone about me, but that his life had so clearly gone on without us. He’d come back here and become a local celebrity. Had he even missed us?
The sun was stark and hot against the relentlessly blue sky, but a dark cloud passed over my mood. Of course his life had gone on; I just wished it didn’t hurt to know that for a fact. “It’s nice to meet you,” I finally said.
“And you as well. Now, I must return to my ugly phase.” He winked at me, then turned back to his easel, while I beelined for where Theo stood with the bags. Theo’s role on this trip was becoming more and more clear. Buffer for my feelings about my dad.
“Ready for the StairMaster nine thousand?” Theo asked me, pointing. It was a staircase. A big one. And suddenly all the gear we were carrying felt twice as heavy.
“Is there an elevator?”
“Ha,” Theo said cheerfully. “You could take a donkey, but I’m morally opposed. A lot of them aren’t treated well, and they aren’t meant to carry tourists and their gear up and down hills all day. We need to get down to the beach.”
“Come!” My dad darted for the steps. He was like a Russell terrier—relentlessly full of energy—and Theo was exactly the same. At least it kept my mind off the fact that we were headed for—drumroll—the ocean.
The ocean and I… We’re not terribly friendly. First, my nightmares. And second, according to the Discovery Channel programs Julius loved to watch, there were lots of scary things lurking under the watery depths. Squid with ten-inch eyeballs. Sharks with twenty-five rows of teeth. Fish with translucent skin and no faces.
So, yeah, an island was not the best idea for someone who liked to dream about drowning every chance she got. But I could handle a boat. Right?
Right, Liv.
The staircase went on for absolutely ever, twisting and turning as it spiraled its way to the beach. The steps were steep and uneven and in terrible shape, with weeds sprouting through the spaces that had crumbled. The handrails didn’t look particularly reliable either, which was tricky, because the wind had figured out how to rush straight up those steps and blast me in the face at random intervals. Within minutes, every muscle in my legs had managed to take on the consistency of marmalade, and my shirt had gone from being stuck to my back to completely drenched. I was the last one to reach the bottom, which, with my slippery sandals and wobbling legs, was not graceful.
Theo was waiting at the bottom, all cued up to film my descent. “Don’t fall,” he said. “That would suck, and also, how embarrassing would that be on camera?”
I made the worst face I could at him, regained my footing, and took a moment to look around. “This is the beach?” I asked.
Our “beach” was beautiful, but about as conventional as my father. Instead of a stretch of sand leading to water, there was a tumble of black volcanic rocks plus a few docks with water sloshing over the top of them. The water near the shore was ringed in a light emerald color, and it faded into a deep cobalt the farther it got from land. Small tide pools had formed between the rocks, and if I were feeling braver, I’d probably want to explore them.
“Beautiful, yes?” my father said, exhaling.
I turned back to look at my suddenly still father. He was the calmest I’d ever seen him. How had he managed to live without the ocean? Was that one of the reasons he’d left? He couldn’t handle city life anymore? Did parents leave their children for large bodies of water?
Liv, stop it, I reminded myself. This isn’t about figuring him out. This was about surviving my time here and then getting out. Do your time, keep things surface, and everything will be fine.
“Beautiful,” I pronounced. I even smiled back. See? Not complicated at all.
* * *
I followed Theo and my dad past several seaside restaurants, one with a string of coral octopi strung laundrylike on a line, until we reached a dock with three small boats tied to it. No one had to point out which one we would be boarding for me to know. It was the one that looked like it had been MacGyvered together out of hopes and dreams and a whole lot of duct tape. I looked at it skeptically, ignoring the panic rising in my throat. Was duct tape an appropriate material to use on a boat?
“Is this thing… ?” I turned to see Theo filming me again. “Theo!” I snapped.
“I have to film your first interaction with the SS Atlantis.”
“Clever,” I deadpanned.