Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me

by Meredith Zeitlin

  “So they never visited you in New York? Your mom’s . . .” Lilena starts again, trying to end the awkward moment.

  I smile at her, deciding to tell the truth, and I give her a quick rundown of the deal with my family.

  “So yeah,” I finish, “I’m not so much excited as I am . . .”

  “Completely terrified?” Lilena offers, raising an eyebrow. We both started laughing. For some reason the whole thing seems funny all of a sudden; I mean, seriously, who actually travels across the world to meet a bunch of strangers in real life? Why would anyone do that?!

  The witchy café owner creeps over to our table and fires off a string of angry-sounding words: “Greekgreekgreekgreekgreek!” We pull ourselves together, but I’m left with a feeling I haven’t had yet about the whole situation. Yes, it’s going to be scary (and will get scarier as spring break approaches), but there’s another way to look at it, too: as an adventure. A crazy one, to be sure. Maybe this was what Hil and Matty—and my dad—have been trying to tell me all along.

  “Okay, but seriously,” Lilena continues, “terrified makes sense. But curious, too, right? Like, did the older relatives even know you were alive before two years ago? Or that your mother had died? Or did they just find this all out?”

  I’ve never asked these obvious questions—have avoided asking them, in fact. Definitely poor journalism. And yet. Would the answers change anything?

  I don’t know, but there is one person who would: Yiota.

  “You want to get something to eat? Maybe some baklava?” I ask Lilena. “My treat.”

  “Aw, thanks,” she says, “but we eat dinner really early at my house, so . . .”

  “Next time,” I reply, smiling. Because I know there will be a next time, and that makes me feel even less scared still. I made a friend.

  And it wasn’t even that hard.

  17

  By the end of that second week, I’ve nailed down how to get to my classes, ascertained that there is no way to fake it on Level-One Greek pop quizzes, shamefully stalked Giorgos all over school (just watching him walk through the halls is an incredible treat), and discovered that everyone calls the teachers “sir” and “miss” here, like we’re in a British boarding school or something. (It’s weird.)

  I’ve also started being able to distinguish Greek from other languages, which sounds pretty simple but actually isn’t. At an international school like GIS, kids speak every language under the sun: Arabic, Portuguese, Greek (obviously), Czech, you name it. But you only really hear people conversing in their native tongues in the cafeteria. Part of the reason things aren’t so cliquey is because people sometimes sit together so they can chat in their first language, not because they’re necessarily close friends. And when you don’t speak any of those languages . . . they all glom together in a big buzz.

  Lunch Table Behind The Scenes: Insider Scoop

  Newly matriculated GIS sophomore Zona Lowell has impressed our readership by quickly identifying the finer points of some of the relationships on view at her recently joined lunch table.

  “Ashley and Betony are almost obsessively best best friends and do everything as a unit,” she shares with us. “They sit together in every class, eat together, study together, talk over each other, share pens and clothes, and are basically attached at the hip.” Still, the girls have welcomed Ms. Lowell into their group, and they’ve spent many afternoons and evenings exploring the city’s attractions together.

  Then there’s Nikos Hadjimarkos, who is essentially the group’s official Guy in the Friend Zone: the safe, beloved, go-to guy around whom it’s okay to be gross or silly, and who’s always there to give advice and offer flirting practice. “I get the sense that Nikos is hopelessly in love with Betony but will never tell her because Ashley wouldn’t like it,” Zona reveals. “I guess time will tell.”

  So far, Zona hasn’t been able to gather much intel on Giorgos Hadjimarkos, Nikos’s dashingly handsome twin brother. She hopes to have hands-on information as soon as possible.

  Filed, 10:34 a.m., Athens.

  As the days and then weeks and finally two months go by, I’ve found a place to fit in pretty comfortably, which is great—but I soon start to notice something: I have never actually seen Lilena eat. Not once.

  I didn’t notice at first how thin she is, because it’s still chilly in Athens and everyone is wearing sweaters and pants. But when we hug good-bye after hanging out, I can feel all the bones in her back through her jacket. I’ve started paying more attention to her at lunch . . . and now I can’t stop paying attention. She never puts food near her mouth without playing with it first, and she always has an excuse about why she doesn’t want to eat. No one’s ever mentioned her being ill. So I wonder what’s really going on.

  “Aren’t you eating?” I ask Lilena at lunch on a Thursday. Nikos is sitting with Gorgeous Giorgos, so it’s just us girls at our end of the table. I shovel a huge mouthful of food into my face, as if trying to lead by example. I don’t ask her why she’s not eating every day—I try to be subtle and space it out.

  Lilena stands up, not looking directly at me. “Oh, I ate before, during my free,” she says, gathering up her lunch bag. “I have to hit my locker, you guys. Text me later!” And she’s gone.

  Ashley and Betony look at each other and roll their eyes. Ashley laughs.

  “That isn’t funny, you guys,” I point out, annoyed. “I think Lilena really has a problem, don’t you? Shouldn’t we—”

  “Ugh. Americans always think everyone has an eating disorder,” Betony scoffs. “She’s just, you know . . . she doesn’t like to eat. Whatever. She’s fine.”

  “Wait til she shows you her thinspo collection,” adds Ashley. Betony groans.

  “Um . . . what?” I’m lost. I have no idea what that is.

  “It’s, like, pictures to help you stay thin. Thinspiration, get it? Thinspo for short? They’re all, like, really underweight models and girls who don’t ever eat and have blogs about it or whatever. You know, to compare herself to,” Betony explains.

  “She’s never mentioned that to me at all! That’s, I mean, I . . .” I’m appalled. I guess I’d been letting myself think that Lilena just didn’t notice she wasn’t eating. The idea that she has a collection of pictures of super skinny women is horrifying to me. I’ve never heard of such a thing.

  “Yeah, well, you only just met,” Betony continues. “When she got here last year, right, she showed us the pictures after a few months, like, to see if we were into it. So she can have a partner in not eating or whatever, you know?”

  “It’s pretty sick,” Ashley adds. “I mean, she’s so skinny anyway.”

  “Yes, she’s that skinny because she’s starving herself,” I say, standing up. I’m really upset—why are these two so blasé about this? I’d be devastated if Hilary or Matty started doing something like this. “You guys are her friends. Why don’t you tell her parents or a guidance counselor or . . . ?” I trail off because I’m starting to sound like a Lifetime movie, or worse. But come on—this isn’t okay.

  “Yeah, I’ll call her mother.” Ashley laughs. “Do you know who her mother is? She’s the American consul to Greece.”

  “So?”

  “So, she’s a very important and smart woman. If she thought there was something wrong, I’m sure she’d handle it. Don’t go getting all Oprah, okay? Lilena’ll be fine. She’s always done this weird eating stuff and nothing’s happened. She probably just wants attention, you know, because her parents move her around every couple of years.” Betony turns to Ashley. “Remember when she first came, she used to hide people’s snacks til Anais got pissed and called her out on it? That was nuts.”

  I’ve had enough. How can they be so . . . unsympathetic?

  “I have to go,” I say, picking up my tray.

  “Zona, don’t be mad,” Ashley calls. “Zona!”
/>   But I don’t turn around.

  I wish I could call Yiota and ask her for advice. But I’ve hardly seen or spoken to her since school started because she’s been super busy with her courses and part-time job at one of the stores downtown. And this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I can ask about in a text message.

  As I walk to my locker, I try to clear my head and think about something else. Since I started at GIS, I haven’t had time to do much writing. Hilary seems to have gotten the hang of things at the Reflector and hasn’t needed my help.

  How have two months gone by without my having looked into the GIS newspaper at all?

  I’m going to go find out about it right now. Why not?

  I dig the boring informative pamphlets I got my first day out of my locker and flip through them. Nothing about a school paper. There’s a lit mag, but I’m not much for poems. There’s a photography and art journal. Yearbook. Faculty-written school magazine. But no newspaper. How can this be? They offer AP Psychology and Russian Civ classes and have a thousand ways to earn advanced college credit, but no newspaper?!

  I head to the library to ask. When I get there, I’m immediately hit by that yummy book smell. Isn’t it amazing how all libraries smell the same?

  At the front desk I ask Ms. Aivatos, the librarian. She smiles, types for a few seconds, and then turns her computer monitor around.

  Horror, Disbelief Rocks Teen’s World In Paper Scandal

  It was revealed today that the so-called “school newspaper” at the Greek International School is, in fact, merely a website. “The Sheaf,” a pitifully ironic moniker, is barely a newsfeed, and certainly not a paper.

  “It’s not a paper if it’s not paper,” said Zona Lowell, the lifelong journalism enthusiast who discovered the travesty earlier today. “All these articles are written by the same three kids, which is incredibly limiting—though not surprising, considering how difficult it was to even find out we have a school paper. It’s only updated once a quarter! And it’s in color!”

  Ms. Lowell declined the offer of a brown paper bag to assuage the panic attack she was on the verge of having. “Just wait until my dad hears about this,” she warned.

  At this time, it is unknown whether or not her dad has, in fact, heard about it.

  Filed, 1:37 p.m., Athens.

  Ms. Aivatos can clearly sense my distress. She whispers to me, “If you want to talk to someone about it, try that boy there.” She points out a guy sitting at one of the research tables by himself. He has a laptop open, typing furiously. “That’s Alex Loushas. He works on the paper.”

  It’s a website, not a paper, I think. I thank Ms. Aivatos and go over to the table.

  “Mind if I sit?” I ask. It’s easy to be outgoing when your mind is focused on the collapse of society’s necessary tools.

  He looks up, and I immediately notice three things about him:

  1) He’s wearing very cool metallic green half-rim glasses.

  2) He doesn’t look like anyone I’ve met before—I can’t tell what his ethnicity is at all. His skin is darker than mine, but not really brown. His hair is jet-black with gorgeous curls, and on the long side. Very Harry Styles. His dark eyes are slightly slanted and bore right through me.

  3) He doesn’t seem very friendly.

  Number three is troubling, and I feel the urge to run away, but I don’t. Dad wouldn’t, Anne Newport Royall wouldn’t, and neither will I.

  “I’m Zona, a new sophomore here,” I say bravely. “I wanted to ask you about the paper.”

  His demeanor immediately shifts, to my great relief. “Oh, cool,” he says. “I thought you were going to tell me you needed this table for some meeting or something. I’m Alex.” He holds out a hand, and I shake it before sitting down across from him. “So, what’s up? You want to write for the Sheaf?”

  “Well, sort of . . .” I begin. “I was features editor for my school paper back home, and I was pretty surprised that there’s no paper here. I mean, Ms. Aivatos showed me the website, but . . . well, a website, while ambitious and modern, isn’t tactile: you can’t put it in front of people’s faces, you don’t get ink on your fingers to remind yourself you’ve read something, you know? And from what I’ve seen, the issues aren’t themed, the articles seem pretty generic—I mean, they aren’t focused on the students or the concerns of the school. What’s your agenda? Where are the pull quotes from the student body? Where are the special interest stories? I don’t—”

  “Wait, hang on. First of all, I’m not in charge of the paper, okay? I just write for it. And secondly, I agree with you about the content part. It sucks. But, you know, it’s a lot cheaper to do the website. Plus, many would argue that physical papers have become obsolete.”

  I feel like my eyes might fall out of my head. Am I going to have to take on the “newspapers are obsolete” argument, right here in the school library?! I don’t know if I have the strength today.

  “Listen, Alex, I’m sure you—” And just when I’m about to get going, the bell rings.

  “Dammit,” Alex mutters, pressing a few keys on his laptop. “Not even close to finished.”

  He looks back up at me, and I realize that his eyes aren’t brown, but a very dark gray. “Well, Zona, we’ll have to finish this another time—I gotta get to Physics. See ya.”

  I mentally note that if he’s in Physics already, he’s either very smart or a junior. Or both. By the time I decide to ask him in a surge of boldness, he’s all packed up—and just like that, he’s gone.

  After school I go home and look around my room; usually I have notebooks everywhere for taking notes and jotting down ideas. Here, I have pretty much nothing. I’m annoyed with myself for not writing more, for not being focused. I don’t know what’s stopping me; my brain still thinks in headlines and articles, but I don’t do anything about it. Schoolwork, Athens, life, worrying about spring break (going to Crete and meeting the others) . . . it’s getting in the way of what used to make me me.

  And I still don’t have a newspaper to work on.

  18

  “Do Americans still care about newspapers? I thought they were, like, dead, yeah?” Betony says.

  It’s the next day in study hall, and I’ve just described my impromptu meeting with Alex Loushas in the library. (The argument about Lilena seems to have been forgotten—at least, the girls haven’t mentioned it, and I’m not going to, either.)

  “What? Newspapers aren’t dead!” I exclaim, outraged. This is the second time I’ve had to defend the legacy of the printed word in two days. What is wrong with people?!

  “Why don’t you make a website instead? Like a newsfeed,” Lilena suggests. “Isn’t that what GIS has? Not that I’ve ever read it. I like the lit magazine, though.”

  “Because . . . because it’s not just about instant gratification, you guys. It’s about crafting a story, finding the right lead, the hook, research . . . it’s about quality.”

  “But it’s so boring.” Ashley sighs. “I’m bored just talking about it right now. See? Here’s me, falling asleeeee-zzzzzz . . .” Her head falls onto the table. Hilarious.

  “You’re totally missing the point,” I say, trying to stay calm. “We’re all so used to getting texts and posting pictures that we don’t even look around to see how what’s happening now connects to anything else. Think about plotting a story from start to—”

  Betony imitates Ashley’s head-dropping-onto-desk move. Lilena giggles, playing with bits of a granola bar that she is, of course, not eating. I give up.

  “Fine, forget it. Go back to the live feeds of your lives. Don’t reflect on history. Carry on.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Ashley cheers. “So, what’s for tonight? Anyone have a great idea?”

  “What’s tonight?” I ask.

  Lilena smiles broadly. “Just Friday. And t
hank God for that—this week has been a nightmare. I can’t believe how much homework we got in History alone.”

  “Let’s go dancing in Gazi—we haven’t gone there in ages and Zona’s never been,” Betony suggests. “I got these amazing new shoes at Christmas that I haven’t even worn yet.”

  “What’s Gazi?” I ask.

  Nightlife Awesomeness Revealed, Anticipated

  Though she’s certainly done her fair share of exploring in her adopted city, newcomer Zona Lowell was thus far unexposed to the exciting possibilities of Athenian nightlife. Today, that all changed.

  “Gazi is a really trendy neighborhood with clubs and bars,” explained classmate Lilena Vobras. “When it’s warm they set up couches and tables outside the cafés, so it’s like the whole area is a huge fancy living room. And then the dance clubs are open all night, and they each have a DJ and usually live performers, too. It’s awesome.”

  Ms. Lowell, accustomed to the strict policies of NYC establishments, expressed her concern that she would need a fake ID to participate in the festivities. But Ashley Papadimitriou, classmate and apparent nightclub expert, assured Ms. Lowell that her fears were unfounded. “Just say you’re 18 if anyone asks—which they won’t,” she instructed.

  “It’s kind of weird, the freedom teenagers have here—to stay out all night, buy alcohol . . . I don’t know. I can’t really get used to it,” Ms. Lowell concluded. “It’s one of the biggest cultural differences I’ve noticed so far, the way younger people are trusted more, I guess, to behave responsibly.”

  Ms. Lowell is looking forward to hitting the town and getting crazy.

  Filed, 1:02 p.m., Athens.