Burning the Map

by Laura Caldwell

  “Sure, sure! Just enjoy yourself, and we’ll be ready and rarin’ to go when you get back.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  As I hang up the phone I try to console myself. It won’t be that bad. Sure, you’ll work hard, but you’ll be making money finally, and you’ll probably end up enjoying it.

  It doesn’t help. I can’t shake the sense of impending doom.

  To make matters worse, I have to call my father now. Dad is a vice president at Chicago One Bank. His private line rings and rings until a bored-sounding receptionist informs me that he must be out of the office. Do I want to leave a message on his voice mail?

  “No,” I say. “Please page him.” Unlike my call to John, I don’t have a pat message that I’m prepared to deliver. I’m not quite sure what I want to say.

  The receptionist exhales audibly, as if this is causing her extreme trauma. “Hold on,” she says, placing me on hold for a good three minutes, which I figure will probably cost me about twenty bucks.

  Finally she picks up again. “I told you he was out of the office. You want his voice mail or what?”

  “Yes.” You little bitch.

  “Hi!” my dad’s cheerful voice calls into the phone, making me homesick. “You’ve reached Richard Evers. I’m out of the office or on the other line, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. If you need immediate assistance, please press zero and ask for my executive assistant, Ellen Hamlin.”

  “Uh…hi, Dad,” I say, struggling to put my thoughts together in a recognizable form. “It’s Casey. I’m calling you from Mykonos, Greece. I hope you can hear me all right. Um…everything’s good here. Having a really good time, but I talked to Mom and she said things aren’t so good with you two. I was calling to see what’s going on and how you were doing. Dad, I…”

  My eyes start to mist, and I miss him. I miss both my parents, and the concept of them together as a couple.

  “I’m sorry….” I say, my voice somewhat muffled. “It’s just that I don’t understand. I’d really like to talk to you. But listen, don’t worry about me. I’ll try you back again. Hope you’re all right. I love you.” I hang up the phone.

  As I trudge up the stairs, something nags at me about my dad’s voice-mail message. Something about the end of the message. He’d said, “My executive assistant, Ellen Hamlin.” For the last four years, my father had referred to his thirtysomething secretary as Ms. Hamlin, never Ellen. And what was an executive assistant? As far as I knew, all Ellen did was sit at a desk outside his office, typing his mail. Had she received some kind of promotion? I recall my mother’s comments over the last few years about how my dad, who’d always been a staunch nine-to-fiver, was sometimes working late. Now that I think about it, hadn’t he mentioned “Ms. Hamlin” a number of times in the last year or so? “Ms. Hamlin and I have been working on a big trust account.” “Ms. Hamlin just returned from San Francisco and really enjoyed it.” I hadn’t noticed at the time, but weren’t all the references a little much?

  I stop on the landing of the stairs. It’s muggy and airless in this little corner, but I’m frozen by a particularly horrific thought. Could it be that my father—my nice, suburban, cotton-Dockers dad—is schtupping his secretary? Maybe it’s part of a full-blown midlife crisis. Next he’ll buy a red convertible, start dying his hair and trade in his blue pinstripes for Armani suits with art deco cuff links. He might even marry this woman, this Ellen Hamlin who is so young she could have been a few years ahead of me at school. I sink onto the nearest step, and I sit there until this thought and the lack of oxygen start to suffocate me.

  22

  That night, we’re eating Greek salads and warm crusty bread at a café in one of the bigger hotels when our waiter brings over a bottle of champagne.

  “Compliments of the table in the corner,” he says, pointing over my head, dipping at the waist in a formal sort of a bow.

  I swivel around and see a table of dark-haired, olive-skinned men sitting below a leafy tree that’s so green they look like stage actors in front of a backdrop. They appear to be in their thirties, most of them wearing expensive-looking watches, flashing us their white teeth as they smile and raise their glasses to us in a toast.

  Kat and Sin and I lift our wineglasses back at them while the waiter sets out flutes for the champagne.

  “Do we need to go over there and thank them?” I say. “Is that the proper protocol or something?” I can’t remember the last time I was sent a drink, and back then it was most likely a plastic cup of keg beer.

  “Fuck protocol,” Sin says in a funny little voice. “They just want to screw us, anyway.” She lets out a peal of laughter and sloshes more merlot in our glasses while the waiter pours the champagne.

  Lindsey, I realize, is decidedly tipsy. The merlot seems to have brought back her old bristling attitude toward men. The one that’s more humorous, more guys-suck-but-I’m-sure I’ll-find-one-I-like-someday kind of attitude.

  Kat isn’t jumping out of her chair to rush toward the table, either. “Very nice of them,” she says, sipping her bubbly, “but I don’t think a personal appearance is required.”

  Lindsey grabs her wineglass in one hand, a champagne flute in the other, and raises them both above her head. “A toast!” she says.

  Kat and I lift both our glasses, too, waiting for her to continue, but Sin just sits there, her glasses listing side to side above her sleek, dark hair. I’m sure she’s about to douse herself any minute.

  “Go, Sin. What are we toasting to?” I say.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” She smiles widely, as if she’s got a secret. “I’m calling Pete when I get home.” She puts the glasses back on the table, some of the wine splashing onto the tablecloth.

  “You are?” Kat leans in and clinks Sin’s glasses.

  “Yes.” She says the word with a punch, then repeats it. “Yes.”

  “Well, then I’m going to take a big-girl step, too,” Kat says.

  “Uh-oh,” I say. “Do we want to hear this? Does it involve petroleum jelly?”

  “No.” She makes a tutting sound and smacks me on the arm. “It involves my mom.” Her chin drops a little. “I’m going to tell her about the Hatter.”

  Sin and I pat her on the back, murmuring “Good for you” and “You’re right to do this.”

  “I mean, she’s got to know, doesn’t she?” Kat says.

  Sin and I nod.

  “If he hit on me, he could be having an affair.”

  I nod again, seeing the perfect segue, and I spit it out. “I think my dad’s having an affair.”

  “What?” Kat says. “No! He wouldn’t!”

  Both Kat and Sin are big fans of my father. Everyone is, really. He’s one of those happy-go-lucky guys who will cut the neighbor’s lawn just because he happens to have the mower out.

  I fill them in on my mom’s comments about his working late, about his message and Ms. Hamlin’s apparent promotion.

  “You’re jumping to conclusions on the basis of a voice-mail greeting?” Sin says, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, losing her balance in the process and nearly falling out of the chair. I move her wine away from her.

  “She’s right. You’ve got to chill,” Kat says.

  “What else could it be?” I say. “They’ve been married for twenty-eight years. There has got to be more going on for them to just throw in the towel like that.”

  “You’re going to kill yourself with all this speculation.” Lindsey rips off a hunk of bread, waving at the waiter with it. “More wine?” she says.

  Later, it’s the Scandinavian Bar again with the Kennedy boys, Jenny and the English crew. It’s a night that rushes in on itself, a blur of bar stools and beer bottles and too-loud music until it’s three o’clock in the morning, when Sin, acting like the Pied Piper of Mykonos, leads the staggering group back to our hotel and down the narrow stone corridor. Once outside, she points to the pool, her head raised proudly, as if she’d dug and filled it herself. Nearly
everyone piles into the water, some fully dressed, others, like Sin, in their underwear. I stand on the edge, laughing at Jenny’s story about some guy who’d tried to pick her up that night by sending her a plate of gyros.

  Sin and Kat climb out of the pool at one point, both of them dripping in bra and panties, and move forward in an exaggerated tiptoe, as if they’re sneaking up on me.

  “No,” I say, holding out my hands, backing up. “Not again! I’ve been thrown in one pool already today.”

  “Oh yes!” says Sin.

  They grab me, Kat’s hand firm around my arm, her eyes crazy and laughing, Sin’s tiny hands pushing me, her mouth opening in a triumphant scream. And as I lift my feet, letting them pull me toward the surreal blue of the pool, I remember what it’s like to have best friends.

  The next morning, when we make our way downstairs, Sin clutching her head as if she needs to hold it on her shoulders, we’re chastised by Mr. and Mrs. Gianopolous, the hotel owners, for bringing guests home so late—not to mention into the pool.

  “No more swim at night,” Mrs. Gianopolous says, wringing her hands on the gray cotton skirt of her dress. “No more naked.”

  We smile and apologize, not wanting to get kicked out and have to wander the village again. When she walks back to the kitchen, Mr. Gianopolous, a man of about seventy with approximately six black hairs shooting out of the top of his head, gives us a mischievous smile.

  “Naked okay,” he says, raising a finger to his lips. “You be more quiet next time.”

  That day at the beach, we rent Jet Skis. Sin and I stick to the shoreline in case she has to throw up all the wine she drank last night, while Kat heads straight out to the open water to “catch some air.” Afterward, we have lunch at one of the thatched-umbrella tables, then lounge on the beach for a few hours.

  I borrow the British version of Cosmo from Jenny and get embarrassingly engrossed in an article entitled “Be Your Own Private Dick: How To Tell if He’s Straying.” Unfortunately, the article only offers suggestions like studying tire marks and odometer readings to see if your man has gone geographically astray; nothing to tell me whether my dad is shacked up with the young Ms. Hamlin.

  I close the magazine and turn over on my back, feeling a little less self-conscious than yesterday about the warmth of the sun on my headlight breasts, thinking that even if my father were having an affair, what would it mean? That he’d wanted something different in his life, something new? I get a spark of anger on my mother’s behalf before it’s replaced with a slow, creeping disgrace. Isn’t that why I’d rolled around with Francesco in the Colosseum and smooched with Billy on the deck—because I’d wanted something new? That I could be so cavalier with John’s devotion scares me. What if I’m a serial cheater? I try to make myself regret Francesco and Billy. Shame, I think to myself. Shame on you! But I can’t muster up the requisite remorse. Being the object of lust and affection had given my limping ego a sorely needed kick in the ass, one I wasn’t getting from John, one I should have been able to give myself.

  At five o’clock, everyone peels themselves off their towels and shakes away the sand that’s collected on everything, getting ready to board the fishing boat from hell to Super Paradise again, but I take a pass. I want to walk around the village and buy presents for my family. Unlike the time in Ios when I tried to separate myself from the group by going to town, I don’t feel alienated and sullen now. Rather, the feeling is wonderfully close to the way it used to be with Kat and Sin when we didn’t have to be joined at the hip, wearing the same clothes or sporting the same haircut in order to be good friends. We could do our own thing, at our own pace, and still not lose that feeling that we’d talked only seconds ago.

  We decide to meet back at the hotel in a few hours. Ten minutes later, I catch a bus to the village. I wander the stone streets, peering in jewelry cases lined with green velvet and making small talk—very small, given the language barrier—with store owners. At one shop, I purchase a rust-and-black-patterned cloth to wear as a sarong over my bathing suit, the way I’ve seen the supermodels do. But when I try it on by winding it around my waist and over my shorts, it looks more like a diaper than sleek European beachwear.

  Seeing my confusion, the young woman manning the store rushes over. “No, no!” she says, shaking her head, smiling a bemused smile. She commands me to take off the shorts, then instructs me slowly, as one would a child, on three different ways to tie the sarong, her brown arms wrapping around me, swaddling me with the sarong in a way that’s foreign yet soothing.

  “Efcharisto,” I say, thanking her, modeling the version I like best in the mirror. The sarong hangs to my ankles and is tied low on one hip. I feel very chic as I study it from various angles.

  “Here, here!” the woman says, holding a rough straw bag to my side. It’s entirely too much money for me to drop on a beach bag—nearly forty dollars—but the rust color matches my sarong perfectly. I can’t resist.

  I leave the store wearing my sarong, the rest of my junk shoved into my new bag, feeling like I belong on this island. I stroll the streets for what must be an hour, although I’ve lost track of time. I buy brightly painted wooden mugs for my father and a chunky silver necklace for my mom.

  I stop and sit at a wooden table in front of an aqua-painted taverna and order a glass of white wine. After it arrives, I watch the crowd whiz by—gay men in short shorts laughing and shoving each other playfully; miniskirted women with Chanel handbags slinking by in gargantuan sunglasses; even a few backpackers stumbling around, apparently looking for a hostel. Normally, I’d be embarrassed to sit at a restaurant alone, making sure to have a book or a magazine close by, a pseudo friend. Today, though, I’m comfortable by myself, more comfortable than I’ve been in a long, long time. I’ve come out of my shell over the last few weeks, and I’m determined to burn the map that shows me how to get back.

  I treat myself to one more glass of the tart wine and buy a bottle to bring back to Lindsey and Kat. The sun begins to set as I head toward the hotel, giving the village a pink-orange glow. The tiny Mykonos streets are mazelike, twisting and turning, leading past whitewashed houses and jewelry stores that all look the same after a while. I let myself meander, enjoying the cooler night air that’s starting to wind through town.

  Finally I locate the street I need, and I’m reaching into my new bag for the key to our room when I hear, “Casey!” The voice sounds strangely familiar. I glance up to see where it came from.

  The bottle of wine slips from my hand, shattering on the cobblestones, soaking the hem of my sarong, yet I stand frozen.

  At last I find my voice. “John?”

  23

  I remember vividly the night that John first told me he loved me. It came at a time when I never expected it. We’d been out to dinner, a long dinner like we used to have. We split a bottle of champagne and lingered over glasses of dessert wine and a plate of flourless chocolate cake. Four months had gone by since we started dating, and everything had a shiny, rosy tinge to it. I could just think of John and get a rush of happiness. We decided to walk home, hoping to shed some of the thousands of calories we’d ingested, and we walked along Clark Street, swinging our hands, feeling warm despite the bitter cold.

  We saw him at the same time, a man stumbling toward us, mumbling under his breath. He wore layers and layers of clothes, as if he was ready to be outside all night. Both John and I got quiet as the man moved closer. John gripped my hand tight. The man passed by us without incident, though, and John loosened his grip. I was about to say something, something about dinner or the cake or something inane, when I felt a great shove against my back.

  “What?” I yelled, starting to turn around, and then I felt a pull on the purse strap I held in my other hand. It took me a moment to realize that the man had come back. He and I yanked at opposite ends of my purse like two kids in a tug-of-war, me screaming obscenities. John just stood there for a second, as if his body hadn’t caught up to what his mind was seeing, b
ut then he charged. I mean literally charged into the guy like a bull, his head down, his arms back, and the man flew away from me, landing on the pavement with a thud.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “We have to get the police.”

  Police was apparently the magic word, because the man scrambled to his feet and took off in a sprint.

  John grabbed me, hugging me so tight to his chest that I couldn’t get any air in my lungs.

  “I love you,” he said, each word a definitive statement. “I love you so much.”

  “Me, too,” I said, although my words were garbled by his coat.

  That was the first time I realized that John didn’t wait for the typical moment to say something profound or make a meaningful gesture. For all the strictness and daily consistency he applied to his life, he had a way of surprising me. It was something I liked about him, something that I’d missed lately. But he’d gotten me again this time.

  John struggles to stand from his seat on his tan leather suitcase. It was one of the first things that impressed me about him—he had a full set of matching leather luggage, something I found incredibly adult, and therefore alluring, since I had been chasing adulthood down a long, endless street. He looks completely out of place now in this laid-back Grecian village full of sun. He’s pasty-white in his navy-blue pants—the good ones he saves for casual Fridays when he’s going out after work—and his white, button-down shirt. Little spots of red dot his cheeks, which I know from experience could either mean that he’s very worked up about something or just very hot.

  “Hi, babe,” John says, his voice full of an uncertainty that I’m not used to. I realize that the spots might mean a third thing—that he’s nervous. “Surprised?”

  “Yes! My God.” I rush toward him, then stop a few feet away, unable to find any other words, unclear what my body is supposed to do now.