Burning the Map (11 page)

When she closes the one eye, I move in with my real question. “You think Sin will ever give me a break?”

Kat sighs. “You know how she is. She doesn't shift gears very well.”

“No kidding.”

“Just give her some time,” she says. “It'll get better.”

“You think?” I hear a plaintive note in my voice.

“Sure,” Kat says. It's not exactly the flag-waving reassurance I was hoping for, but it's better than nothing.

Another silence follows, so I decide to ask her something else that's been on my mind. “How are you feeling about the Hatter thing?” She's been wearing the diamond earrings almost every night.

Both of her eyes shoot open now, and Kat raises herself onto her elbows. As she does so, she bares her breasts, and I
can hear a groan of longing from one of the British teenagers behind us.

“Case, I told you. I don't want to talk about that,” she says.

“I know, but don't you think you should? I mean, it's just going to sit in your brain, corrupting your thoughts. You have to get it out.” I'm thinking of the way I haven't talked about my parents for so long, how the issue is camping out in my own mind.

“No, I don't. I really feel fine. I got a pair of great earrings out of the whole thing, and now I just want to forget about it.”

I mull this over for a second. I could certainly understand the need to forget. Wasn't that what I was doing on this vacation?

“You're sure?” I ask, thinking that while I might need to pretend certain things in my life didn't exist right now, Kat seems like she needs to remember this one thing.

“I'm sure,” she says, her voice bordering on exasperation.

I give up, slumping back on the towel and throwing an arm over my head.

 

Most days, I drift away in the afternoons to a spot I found under a large overhanging rock. There, in the shade, I escape the crowd and the heat and write aimlessly in my journal.

One day, I find myself making lists of John's attributes versus Francesco's, in sort of a battle between them. Under John's name I write, “Sweet. Stable. Smart. Loves me. Great parents. Good cook. Good kisser.” Below Francesco's I scribble, “Kind. Wavy hair. White teeth. Wants me. Sexy. Exciting. Hot. Amazing kisser.” The lists don't help. I alternately crave Francesco's hands on my hips, his mouth on my breasts, and then squeeze my eyes shut, trying to drown out John's sweet smile, which keeps lingering, unaware I've betrayed him.

As I sit staring at my journal, Sin actually comes to me.

“Hi,” she says, ducking under the rock and sinking down
next to me, wrapping her tiny arms around her knees. With her deep tan and no makeup on, wearing only her bikini bottoms, she looks like a small Peruvian child.

“Hey there,” I say.

“Whatcha doing?” She leans over, peering at the scribblings in my journal.

I fight the desire to slam it shut, an odd inclination, since I used to tell Sin nearly everything. “Just writing about the trip.”

“Franco?”

“Francesco,” I say, knowing she massacred his name on purpose.

“And John,” she says, glancing down at my page again.

“Yep.”

“Who's winning?”

I laugh, an odd, coarse laugh that seems to scratch my throat on the way out. “It's not a contest.”

“No, of course not.” She puts her chin on her knees. “You can't have Francesco, can you? You don't live in Rome. Which means it's John by default.”

I debate whether I should smack her with the journal or maybe just pull a handful of Peruvian hair out of her head. “Is that what you came over here to say?”

She laughs then. “Sorry,” she says. “That was shitty.”

“Yes.” I close the journal, setting it on my thighs.

“So,” she says, turning her head and resting it on her knees, her eyes on me.

“So,” I say, all topics for easy banter escaping me. “Are you having fun?” The question rings lame, like the opening question on a blind date.

“Of course,” she says. “How can you not have fun? We've got the sunshine, the beach. What more do you need?”

Good question, I think. A fucking great question. But the answer keeps eluding me.

“All is good with John then?” she says. “I mean, excluding Franco, Francesco, whatever?”

“Uh…well…” Here's my opportunity, the time I can dump out how much I miss the way John and I used to be even though we're together all the time, how I don't feel as connected to him as I once had. But that's the problem. I really don't feel connected to
anybody
lately, certainly not Sin, and the thought of bad-mouthing John to her seems a grave betrayal.

“Yes?” Sin blinks in a way that makes it seem like she's batting her eyes. “You were saying?”

“Everything's fine with John.”

“Hmm.” She stops the blinking and looks at me with eyes that seem sharp now, that seem to dig. “I don't think you know what makes you happy anymore.”

She stands up, stretching her arms, then letting them fall to her sides. “See you later?”

“Sure,” I say.

When she's gone, I open my journal and write the heading, “Things that Make Me Happy.” I underline it and poise my pen beneath it, readying myself to write the millions of things that give me pleasure, but I can't think of any.
Think, think, think,
I command myself, determined not to let Sin be right. Finally I jot, “Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream. Repainting my walls. Buying a comfortable pair of shoes that still look hot. A brick of good Brie. Great music. Flourless chocolate cake.” I put my pen aside, relatively pleased with myself. The list had come quite easily once I started. But I read it over, and it hits me. Fifty percent of my happy list is food.

A
round six o'clock each day, the majority of the Sunset's patrons, full of sand and sunburn, climb the rock steps back to the huts. Nearly everyone spends the next few hours napping, preparing themselves for another night's festivities. Dinner isn't served until ten o'clock, but I've developed a habit of rising early for the night, leaving Kat and Sin tucked in their beds, each day making them look darker against the white backdrop of their sheets. After a quick shower, I head out to the deserted terrace, catching a glimpse of Spiros, CeCe and their family through the open door of their hut. The kids laugh and talk over each other in Greek, Spiros and CeCe passing food and smacking the hands that try to take a plate out of turn. It often strikes me that they don't have lots of money, nor do they live an elaborate lifestyle, but Spiros and CeCe seem like two of the most content people I've ever met.

While they're feeding their family, the bar operates on an honor system. I'll pluck down a few drachmas on the counter and help myself to an Amstel from the industrial fridge. De
spite my fall that first day, I'm still attached to my table, the one closest to the edge of the cliff, and I'll sit there, careful not to rock back on the hind legs of the chair. I never saw the soap opera blonde again, thank God, and I've started to wonder if maybe I conjured him up in my drunken imagination.

Sitting at my table, sipping my beer, I watch the most incredible sunsets—vibrant hues of oranges, pinks and yellows mixing and mingling in the sky, until the golden circle of sun slips lower beneath the water that grows navy blue with the oncoming darkness. I can't believe that everyone else can sleep through this, but I'm not quite willing to share it, either.

Most nights, I simply sit and soak it up. Other times, I pull Francesco's card from my purse and stare at it. The card has become worn by now, the corners crumpled and soft. I imagine calling him, hearing him say,
“Bella,”
in that honeyed voice, hearing him tell me he misses me. But then I feel ashamed and I stash the card away again, wondering what it says about John and me that I keep thinking about some boy in Rome who can't even buy himself a proper scooter. I love John, I know I do, but sometimes I find myself wanting to be unattached and single. Wanting to find more Francescos and soap opera blondes. Yet at the same time, John is like family, and I can't imagine my life without him.

Toward the end of the sunset,
my
sunset as I've come to think of it, people start trickling out of their huts to get dinner. We usually sit with Johnny Red, Noel and Billy, and I've gotten used to the way they alternately compliment and rib me. Billy is especially sweet.

“You're burning a bit,” he said one night, leaning toward me and running a finger over my shoulder. “Best to put something on that.”

There are others at the Sunset that we've become friends with, too, and who usually join us for dinner. There's Gun
ther, a short Norwegian whose favorite English word is
wicked.
He applies it to everything—the beach, the drinks, the food, the bars, the women. And then there's the two Swedish girls, Lina and Jenu, both of whom appear stereotypically Swedish with blond hair, blue eyes and translucent ivory skin. They seem to gaze at me intently when I speak. Whether this is from their efforts to decipher my English or an actual interest in me, I can't say.

The rest of the guests at the Sunset are a mix of Europeans, Canadians, Aussies and a few Americans thrown in for good measure. A dizzying din of languages and accents rises during the dinner hour. Whenever we meet someone new, someone who doesn't speak English or can't understand my Italian, it's a challenge to converse, but we try, using gestures and stilted words. Kat is the best at it.

“I…am,” I heard her saying one night in a loud, slow voice. She was standing by a table of German men, pointing toward herself, “from…Chicago.” When the men responded with enamored but confused looks, she said, “You know the cliché—Chicago, bang bang,” and pantomimed shooting a gun, Al Capone style.

“Ah!” the group cried, understanding. “Chicago, bang bang!”

The men love Kat, as they always do, and she seems bent on finding a new one each night. I wonder if I should buy her a box of condoms, but I don't want to piss her off by assuming she's sleeping with all of them, and I don't want to encourage her if she is. She's always been outgoing and certainly never shy about sex, yet Kat now appears to have a compulsive edge to her scamming. She still won't talk about the Hatter incident, and I still think it's messing her up. I watch her every night as she moves about the terrace, friendly to a fault, constantly talking or flirting.

Meanwhile, I find myself sticking to our usual table at the edge with Lina and Jenu, the Irish boys and Gunther. Each
night, I watch them devouring plates of moussaka, Greek lasagna or souvlaki oozing with cucumber sauce. My mouth waters, and I imagine diving headfirst into the cheesy moussaka, but I hold myself to Greek salads, liking the feel of my body as some of the bar exam weight comes off.

After dinner, Spiros gathers the troops around midnight to give those who are ready to party a ride into town, where things are just beginning to hop. One night as I headed for the truck, I glanced around for Kat and Sin and found them talking by themselves at the bar, their heads inclined. Kat laughed, throwing her head back, putting her hand on Lindsey's forearm, and I missed them then, even though we were in the same room.

 

That night on the way to town, I slumped in the back of the pickup, gripping my head, attempting to save my hair from being wind-whipped into a beehive. When Spiros finally ground to a halt, I raised my face over the rim of the pickup, shocked at the sight. The sleepy village I'd seen on our way in from the ferry had been transformed with the dark sky, the air full of battling music from different bars, the main street glutted with strolling people and crawling cars. Lights were strung along telephone poles and across the tops of houses, making it seem as if the stars were hanging low, blocking out the real ones above.

That night, like every one since then, we followed our nightlife routine, which was set by the Irish guys, who apparently fancy themselves as our ambassadors to Ios. This routine dictates that we start at one of the small pubs in the village that line the winding stone sidewalks. The bars have dubious names such as Bar 69 and Orange Love, and they serve colorfully named drinks like the Nipple Lick, which is some Kahlua concoction, and Blue Balls, a purplish-neon drink with God-knows-what in it. Around two in the morning, most people make their way to one of the late nightspots,
both of which sound Gaelic rather than Greek in persuasion. The Dubliner is a big sprawling club with indoor and outdoor dance floors. The favorite among the Sunset crew, though, is Sweet Irish Dreams. It's small compared to the Dubliner, but that doesn't stop them from letting in everyone who can pay the cover price. The place becomes so crammed with humanity that everyone stands or dances on any available surface—the tables, the benches, the chairs, even the bars.

On most nights when we arrive at Sweet Irish Dreams, the Irish boys will muscle out a spot for us. Lindsey scoots to Billy's side in the hopes that tonight will be the night. Kat prowls the place like a lion. I am one of the gawkers.

A few years ago, I wouldn't have blinked twice before climbing on one of the tables and shaking my thing. Now, though, I'm afraid that if I shake it too hard, I'll send people and glassware flying. Still, I know that I've lost some weight, and I'm not sure whether it's that or the charge I got from my night with Francesco, but somehow I must have plugged in the mental Vacancy sign on my forehead because I'm getting hit on by cute guys at an average of a few times an hour. I know this shouldn't flatter me. Sweet Irish Dreams is a breeding ground for one-night stands, a fact no one tries very hard to cover up. But I am pleased, my anemic self-esteem becoming healthier with all the attention it's being fed.

I play a game with myself, trying to guess the nationalities of these guys by the style of the come-on, and I'm getting good at it. The German guys stand and stare for at least an hour and only walk over when their friends push them away like eleven-year-old boys on a playground. In sharp contrast, the Italians don't have to think about it at all. Once they spot you and decide they want you, they just drop the lids of their eyes, lick their lips and sidle up to you without a word or a glance back at their group. The English blokes
usually try the team approach with two or three guys at once, apparently trying to give everyone an equal shot.

It's the shy guys from the smaller countries that I like best, though, maybe because I can fool myself into thinking that they see something more in me than a reason to buy a condom. Lars is one of those guys. A tall, lanky Norwegian with curly, almost white hair, he strolls over to me one night as I come out of the bathroom. At least I think he's going for a stroll, although he moves like a guy whose body has just sprouted two feet and whose limbs feel foreign to him.

“Hello,” he says, ducking his head down so he can reach my ear.

“Hi,” I say. I consider just walking past him, like I might with one of the Italians, but his face is earnest and open.

“I am Lars.” He nods when he's done with the sentence, as if pleased that he said it properly.

“Casey,” I say, nodding back.

He smiles a little, his gray eyes moving over my face, from my lips to my eyes to my hair and back again, which is completely unlike the Italians, who generally go straight to my cleavage. “May I buy you a drink?” He smiles a little more widely, and I'm sure he and his buddies practiced this line on the plane.

I hold up my full beer and shake it a little to show him I don't need one. His smile fades. I can see him wondering what to say now that his good line has failed him.

“I have a boyfriend,” I say, but he clearly doesn't understand. “Boyfriend,” I say again, louder, but it's futile. I shrug and point to Noel and Johnny Red, who oblige by gesturing for me to hurry back.

Lars nods, giving me an endearing, sheepish little shrug, before he lopes away.

“What about us?” Noel says when I made my way back to our spot.

“What about you?” I say, slipping onto a vacant bar stool
between him and Johnny Red. Noel has tanned dark brown by now, the sun etching fine lines around his eyes. Johnny, meanwhile, just seems to multiply his freckles with each foray into the daylight, so that he's become spotted to the point where the freckles are almost joined together.

“Well, you don't seem to fancy any of these blokes—” Noel says.

“Not that you should,” Johnny Red cuts in.

“No, no,” Noel says. “Bunch of pansies, but maybe you should consider one of us.”

Noel and Johnny begin modeling their muscles for me, curling their biceps and striking weight-lifter poses, grunting along with each one. I laugh and clap my hands, leaning back and looking from one to the other like I'm trying to decide between the two. We're yucking it up like that when Sin walks over.

“What are you guys doing?” she says, shaking her head at the spectacle Noel and Johnny Red are making.

“She's trying to pick which one of us she wants to shag tonight,” Johnny Red says, striking another muscle-head pose, and he and Noel and I all crack up again.

I notice that it feels a little peculiar, though, a little embarrassing almost, to be laughing like this with the Irish boys instead of Sin.

 

One night, I meet an Australian girl named Nicky. We'd already bumped into each other at the bar and in the bathroom, so when she accidentally steps on my foot ten minutes later, we laugh and introduce ourselves.

“We're supposed to be friends, eh?” she says in her heavy, Aussie accent that I find endearing. She has spiky gold hair and a ripped, lean body.

“Looks like it,” I say.

We talk for twenty minutes, giving abbreviated versions of our life stories. It isn't hard to shorten mine. There's little
more to say than, “I went to college, I went to law school, and here I am.” Nicky, though, has to condense years of travels and adventures. She's been away from Sydney for three years, during which time she's been to India, Morocco, South Africa, Europe, the U.S., and a handful of countries I've barely heard of.

“How can you stay away from home for so long?” I ask her.

She waves a hand. “Oh, it's no big deal, is it? That's what all me friends do. We run around the world for years and years, and then we go home and settle down.”

“Wow,” I say, fascinated by the concept. “It's like you're escaping everything. You just get to run away.”

“Ah, no, darlin'. It's not like that, actually. This is all about finding, not escaping.”

I scrunch up my face, unable to follow her.

“See, this trip,” she says, “this living in hellholes half the time, never getting a hot shower, always being poor, it's not heaven on earth or anything, is it? It's one big learning curve. It's learning about other people, other countries, and most of all, about me.” She keeps talking, describing the cesspool she lived in while in New Delhi and the job she took in Amsterdam that entailed selling space cakes in the Red Light District. She'd done all that, she tells me, to find out what she's made of, what she can take, what she wants to do with the rest of her life.