The fresco covered three walls that stood intact on the building, and a wash of color decorated the fourth one. Something about the room being decorated made it so much more real to me. Had that been a family room? A dining room? What kind of life had gone on in there?
Suddenly I was thinking about the last apartment my family had lived in all together. The one with the sink that always leaked and the doorways that had swelled out of their frames. One minute the Minoans had been living their daily lives, cooking and making pottery, throwing open their windows, and the next a volcano had exploded, sending their world into darkness. My family had also had no idea what was to come. Or at least, I hadn’t.
“They were real,” my dad said, suddenly beside me. Despite our rush into the site, he looked relaxed. “The Minoans, I mean. Isn’t it amazing to think of that?”
My throat was tight, so I nodded. We had been real too, even if it was harder to see that these days. Had he known what I was thinking?
“Let’s keep it moving, people,” Theo said, making a shooing motion from behind his camera. “We only have twenty-six minutes until public admission.”
* * *
Have you ever seen one of those game show contests where people run through grocery stores filling their carts with as much as possible? That’s what the next twenty-six minutes were like. Hye and my dad really hit it off, and before long they were deep in discussion, blazing through the ground level of the site while the rest of us did our best to keep up.
Theo oscillated between getting shots of the site and directing impromptu interviews from Hye, who, despite having been given very little notice of our visit, was being a wonderfully good sport. Henrik and I kept falling behind because I was getting sidetracked every few minutes by all of the site’s interesting details. The settlement looked rustic, but as my dad had said, it was actually very advanced, with earthquake-fortified homes and indoor plumbing.
By the time we’d made it to the center of the site, I was out of breath, and I had dust streaked across my black romper and down my legs. There was no way to avoid it.
Henrik fell into step beside me, gesturing to Theo, who had cornered one of Hye’s students, a petite undergrad with thick glasses and an armload of sediment. He gave a low whistle. “Is Theo always this… ?”
“Aggressive? Invasive?” The poor student looked positively terrified in front of the camera. Should I save her?
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I was going to say curious.”
“Oh. Yes. Always.”
“And those two,” Henrik said, pointing to my dad and Hye, who stood staring up at an open doorway. “I have to say, it’s nice to see Hye communicating with someone who speaks his language.”
“—indoor plumbing is what really impresses me. This kind of technology wasn’t seen again until the Romans,” I overheard my dad explaining. All traces of illness had been erased from his face. It seemed as if the enjoyment of seeing these ancient ruins was the antidote to whatever he was fighting. He looked like a live firework, i.e., normal.
“Fifteen hundred years later,” Hye added. “Incredible, isn’t it? What I’m really interested in is the city’s layout. Have you noticed the way… ?” They walked around the corner, their voices trailing off.
“God bless the seekers,” Henrik said. “He’s really great, isn’t he?”
“Hye? He really is.”
“I meant your father. I have to admit that he isn’t quite what I pictured. How are things going with him?”
“Well…” I checked in with my body, and was surprised to find ease rather than the usual stress. “I think okay? Having a project has been helpful.”
“Good.” He rubbed some dust from his chin, his mouth widening in a slow smile. “And what about with your boyfriend? You didn’t tell me he was coming on the trip.”
“What?” I looked up and realized he was pointing to Theo. My equilibrium went up in flames. “We’re not dating. Our parents own a business together, and Theo is the cameraman on this project, and…” My words were toppling all over each other, which was clearly making the situation worse.
Henrik laughed. “Relax. I know he isn’t your boyfriend. But maybe you should remedy that whole ‘not your boyfriend’ thing. Because not only is he cute, but he also looks at you like you’re the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him.” He peered into my face. “Oh my God, I’ve never seen anyone blush like you. Your entire face turns the color of a lobster.”
I clamped my hands over my face. “Please stop.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Henrik said. “This is all you.”
We ended up overshooting our thirty-minute goal by several hours, with my dad meeting and talking with almost every worker on the site, and even giving a brief speech about the similarities of Akrotiri and Atlantis to an enthusiastic group of bystanders before completing his own interviews. By the time we were finished, my dad had spent several hours on camera, and he was the kind of exhausted that not even concealer could manage to cover up. Filming really took it out of him.
“Back to Oia, boss?” Theo asked, looking at him worriedly. He had been very careful not to stand too close to me. I expected that, even after our morning conversation, but the strange part was that my dad seemed to be doing it too. It took me a while to catch on, because he kept talking to me like everything was normal, but a few hours in, I realized we were engaged in some sort of dance. When I took a step toward him, he stepped back. If I tried to touch up his makeup or help redirect him while he was filming, he never quite met me in the eye.
But why? I know our cruise wasn’t the best dinner experience in the world, but I hadn’t realized that the wall between us could grow even thicker. Was this trip going to make things worse?
* * *
After thanking Hye over and over again for the VIP experience, promising to keep in touch with Henrik, and getting a few final shots of the entrance to Akrotiri, we were finally done with the day. We found Yiannis napping in the front seat of his cab. Dad and Theo both dozed on the way back to Oia, and by the time we straggled back to the bookstore, we were 100 percent exhausted.
The bookstore didn’t care that we were tired. It was packed, like always. Even Bapou seemed to be attempting to help out, although that mostly involved speaking in Greek to the English-speaking customers while jabbing at books with his cane.
When Ana saw us, she flew over to my dad. “Nico, you have overdone it.” She switched to Greek, chastising him before turning to us. “You two also look terrible, but I need your help. This crowd is feisty today. One of the cruise ships has a problem with its electricity and everyone is grumpy, including our resident baker.” She gestured over her shoulder. “He keeps trying to force tour books on the customers.”
“Beautiful! Welcome to Santorini!” Bapou roared to a fleeing customer.
“I’ll take over customer relations,” Theo said. “Bapou! Kse-xna to!”
We worked, as Geoffrey would say, like hedgehogs until the customary shutdown at sunset, and then Theo, Ana, and I limped up to the roof to collapse and watch the sun settle over the horizon. My dad didn’t even make it that long. After two hours in the store, he’d gone back to the apartment without mentioning our evening plans to go to Kamari. I’d expected him to show up around now, but so far there was no sign of him.