While the rest of the items my dad had left behind had been scattered around the house, in drawers and on countertops, the map had been placed. I’d found it folded and tucked carefully beneath my pillow.
I hadn’t found the map. I’d been gifted the map. And that was a big difference, wasn’t it? A tiny window opened up in my chest. Not all the way, but enough to let some sunlight in.
* * *
Even with all the soothing enchantment French rap had to offer, I spent the night tossing and turning, and I woke feeling groggy, my bare legs tangled up in my sheets. I didn’t even bother to look over at Theo’s bed anymore. I knew exactly how I’d find it—sheets pulled up, pillows fluffed, last night’s clothes folded at the foot of it. I looked to the wall for my call sheet, but there wasn’t one.
I took a moment to rub my eyes, then carefully swung open the bunk’s door. Down below, a despondent-looking Geoffrey stood holding a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. He really did look like a droopy puddle with arms. When he saw me, he gave a weak nod. “Ah, Liv…”
“Problems with Mathilde?”
“How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess. Where are all the customers?”
He bobbed his head sadly. “Store’s closed today. Ana and your dad had to go to Athens.”
“Wait, what?” I sputtered, panic flowing through me. I jumped the last few rungs, my ankles tingling as I hit the floor. “But we only have a few more days left to film. We can’t take today off.”
“More business, more problems,” he said despondently.
I ran straight up to the roof, pajamas and all, to find Theo sitting with his laptop balanced on his knees.
“Theo, what’s going on?” I skidded to a stop in my bare feet. “Geoffrey said our parents went to Athens.”
He pulled his headphones off. His face was set in a grim look of resolve. “Early this morning. It was a surprise to me, too.”
“But…” I spun out toward the water, trying to tame the feelings in my chest. Disappointment? Frustration? Hurt?
No, it was spicier than that. Anger. We’d finally come up with the angle that the film needed, and now we might not have time to actually follow through on it. “What are we going to do? We’re going to miss the deadline.”
Theo rested his head back against his chair. “I’ve been sitting up here trying to figure that out. Should we ask for an extension? Film the rest without him? I don’t know what to do. My mom said it was an emergency. They could get in serious trouble if they don’t figure out the business license issue.”
Wind ruffled up from the sea, sending my hair flying, and I shoved my bangs back angrily. “When will they be back?”
His shoulders rounded. “If they take the fastest ferries, then they could be home by seven tonight.”
“Seven?” I fell into the chair next to him. How was this happening? We couldn’t afford to lose a whole day. Not when we had an unapologetic deadline hurtling our way. Now what? Also, I couldn’t ignore the other thought tugging at me.
“Does something seem strange about this?”
Theo flicked his eyes to mine. “About what?”
“Does my dad go to Athens this often normally? And do you usually have this many business problems? It seems like a license is something you’d have figured out by now.”
He leaned in toward me. “All I know is that it’s been a mess trying to keep a business going here. When they first started, everyone told them it would be easy to set up shop, but it’s been problem after problem.”
I attempted to gather my hair into a ponytail. “It seems so sudden. Why didn’t your mom say anything about this last night? We saw her right before midnight.”
He twisted his lips to one side, thinking. “She must not have known then. Either way, we don’t have a lot of options. I think we’d better spend the day working on editing. Sound okay?”
Why was Theo so calm about this? It did not sound okay. Questions roared in my ears: Why would my dad go to the trouble of inviting me to Greece if he was going to avoid me? Had our conversation on the cruise really been that bad? Because that’s when things had started changing—when he’d started dodging me.
Was he really going to bail on me for the rest of the trip? It’s not like I had unlimited time here. I didn’t even have a lot of time here.
And there was also the fact that time was not on our side to finish this documentary.
One of my mom’s favorite sayings came to me. Control what you can control. Theo was right. My dad being gone was out of our control. We had to complete the film as best we could.
My mind flew back to the schedule in my filming binder. “We need to stick with the schedule. Let’s do whatever you had planned for today, and then we’ll go to the lighthouse and film without him.”
My voice came out assured and commanding, and Theo blinked at me. “Film without your dad?”
I gave an exaggerated shoulder shrug. “Well, we can’t go with him, so… yes.”
Theo hesitated but then gave me the look I was always giving my mom. A Fine, I guess there’s no stopping you sort of look. “Today is Red Beach. It isn’t very far from the lighthouse.” He glanced pointedly at my pajamas. “Meet you back here in twenty?”
“Ten.” I headed straight for the cave and my CREW T-shirt.
* * *
The morning was particularly hot, and after an hour of riding massively overcrowded buses with sweaty, jostling people—all of whom seemed to have forgotten to apply deodorant—I was beginning to regret my decision to carry on with filming. Wouldn’t a day lounging down on Ammoudi Bay with my sketch pad have been better?
Dax texted. How’s it going?
If I were telling the truth, I would have written something like, I’m hot, grumpy, and my dad keeps bailing on me, but instead I scrolled through my photos, then sent one I’d taken of the caldera a few days earlier. Another day in paradise! Immediately after I press send, the bus hit its brakes, causing a woman to put her elbow directly into my left eye. Theo looked at me sympathetically.
Once our bus screeched to our stop, Theo and I shouldered the equipment between the two of us, which was no easy feat, then made our way through a cluster of stands selling cold drinks and pool toys, the owners of which looked positively despondent. If the locals were this demolished by the heat, how was I supposed to manage it?
After the parking lot was a hike that required climbing over tumbled chunks of rock, my sandals slipping in the hot, soft dirt as sweat trickled down my back.
“Tell me again what’s so special about Red Beach?” I groaned after sliding off a rock and nearly losing my balance.
Theo offered me a hand. “Well, it’s red. And it’s a beach.”
“Thanks for that,” I muttered, repositioning my overstuffed backpack on my shoulders.
“You’ve never seen anything like it,” Theo said.
“How do you know?”
He shrugged in his confident way. “Kalamata, I know everything.”
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, but I was glad to have the old Theo back.
Finally, finally, we rounded the corner, and then I saw the beach from afar… and, well, I hated to admit it, but Theo, as usual, was right. I’d never seen anything like it.