My Best Friend, Maybe Read online

  “Who was who?” she says.

  “Who was he? The guy who broke your heart?”

  She looks up sharply, her eyes piercing and confused, trying to drill into my brain and read my mind.

  “It was last summer,” Sadie says slowly. She puts the salt down.

  “Who was he?” I ask. “Do I know him?”

  I must know him. Why else would she act so weird? It must be something strange like she had some big crush on Mark and he turned her down or she stole a boyfriend from one of her new bikini-friends. Something big and scandalous like that.

  She shakes her head. “No . . . you wouldn’t. It was a different school.”

  I nod.

  “But it was awful, Coley. It was completely awful. I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t swim. I missed . . . you. I missed you so much.”

  I swallow back a sob.

  “I’m not going to let it be that awful for you, okay?” she says. “If it’s meant to be, if you love each other, you’ll get back together. But either way, I’m going to make sure you have fun. I’ll be there for you.”

  I nod. It’s nice to feel the universe clicking back into its rightful order: I’m the one who needs Sadie; she’s the one in charge.

  She reaches over all the food to pat my hand and I pick up the kebab to take my first bite. The flavors explode across my palate, spices and juices and freshness running through my teeth and over my tongue and down my throat.

  “This is amazing,” I say.

  Sadie takes a bite and nods furiously in agreement.

  “Hey, Coley?” she says.

  I look up from my plate, stuffing another forkful into my mouth.

  “Hm?”

  “When was your first kiss?” Sadie asks. “I never got to hear about it.”

  I smile, remembering Greg, the boy who kissed me in the basement of the church during a youth group social a few months before Mark asked me out.

  And that’s how we spend the rest of the night, trading the secrets we should have shared a long time ago. First kisses and parent fights and brother issues and junior prom dates and college dreams. When she leaves, I fall into my bed, exhausted.

  I’ve barely closed my eyes before the Beatles’ “Octopus’s Garden” starts blaring electronically out of the pocket of my suitcase.

  Gosh darn it! I think, bolting upright in the bed.

  I was supposed to call to say we arrived safely. I know it’s Mom because of the new family-only phone plan. (Translation: Mark has no way to contact me.)

  I fumble in the bag, then bring the phone to my ear.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to call,” I say, attempting to disarm my mother before she can start shouting. “I’m fine, though, totally fine.”

  “I was so worried.” But the voice that comes through the phone isn’t alarmed or hectic or angry or female. It’s sad. It’s hushed. And it’s Dad.

  He keeps talking. “I’m sorry to wake you, little lady, but I just got home from work and I was starting to make the salads for the boys’ dinner when I saw that you still hadn’t called. Mom’s note says that you probably forgot, that you’re probably having so much fun you didn’t remember to check in—”

  Jeez. She can give me a guilt trip even internationally.

  “—but I needed to know that you’re okay. I kept seeing images of your airplane exploding on the Santorini runway or your car diving off the cliffs.”

  I chew my cheek, not knowing what to say. This might be our longest conversation since Sadie and I were friends.

  “What time is it there?” I ask finally.

  “Five fifteen,” he says. “It must be just after midnight in Greece. Are you used to the time difference?”

  I chuckle. “No, Dad. I haven’t even been here twelve hours.”

  He pauses. “Yeah, well . . . it feels like longer. I’ve been thinking about you.”

  I smile. I can’t believe this conversation is still going. Now that it costs over a dollar a minute to talk to me he wants to drag it out. But it’s nice to hear his whispering voice. I lie back on the pillow and imagine the house around my father as he starts dinner for my brothers.

  “Why isn’t Mom making dinner?” I ask. Dad isn’t usually home this early. And I can count on one hand the number of times he’s made us dinner.

  “Oh. She’s . . .” Dad pauses. “She’s eating over at Aunt Liza’s tonight. No big deal,” he says. Then, “So, how’s it going? Are you gonna run off like Andrea and marry a Greek?”

  I giggle again. “I don’t know yet, Dad. I haven’t met enough of them.”

  “What have you been doing?” he asks. “What’s it like?”

  I try to tell him about my cave-bedroom and the cliff pool and the Greek coffee. I’m not doing any of it justice.

  “That sounds great, little lady,” he says.

  “Will you tell Mom I’m okay?” I ask. “And that I’m sorry I forgot to call.”

  “Okay,” he says. I think he’s going to say good-bye but then he says, “Colette?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “Remember who you are, okay?”

  I roll my eyes. “Okay, Dad,” I say.

  “And remember you can call us. If you need something, if you’re sad or confused, you can always call us.” He pauses and I wonder if he’s hung up but then he says, “Or me. You can just call me, too.”

  “Okay, Dad,” I say. “Have a good supper.”

  He chuckles. “Sweet dreams, Colette. Sweet dreams.”

  Ω

  One morning, the third summer Sadie was with us in Ocean City, I woke up alone in the little double-bunk-bedded bedroom of the beach apartment we rented. That was weird. Every other beach-week morning for the past three summers I’d been woken up by Sadie wielding my bathing suit like a whip. I crawled out of my bottom bed and climbed a few rungs on the ladder up to her bunk. My brothers were deep-sleep-breathing behind me, but Sadie’s bed was empty except for the wadded-up pink sheets against the wall.

  That’s when I heard the singing. Sadie’s and my mother’s voices mingling together like a French braid and floating down the short hallway from the kitchen: “. . . the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost . . .”

  “Amazing Grace.” That was a church song. I didn’t think Sadie knew any church songs.

  I tiptoed into the hallway, the dark wood floor cold beneath my bare feet and the breeze from the open bathroom window making goose-bump patterns along my arms and legs. The smell of bacon and pancakes climbed to my nose and made my stomach growl but I was too curious to notice. Finally, I peered around the doorjamb into the shoebox-size kitchen with its seventies-era burnt-orange cabinets and yellow tiled floor.

  “Now you pour it,” Mom was saying. She and Sadie stood with their backs to the door, two blond heads bent over the skillet on the stove. Mom had her arms around Sadie, steadying her hands while she poured the batter.

  “Any pattern? Like a palm tree? I can make a palm-tree pancake?”

  “Sure!” Mom said.

  They moved together, two bodies in faded pink robes with belts tied tight at the waist . . . wait! Now that was weird. Was Sadie in my mom’s old robe?

  Their hands worked together as they flipped the pancake.

  “Perfect!” Mom exclaimed. Then she turned toward Sadie, and I could see a wide, proud smile slice her profile. Bigger even than the one I’d managed to pull out of her with my straight-A seventh-grade report card a few weeks before.

  That was enough. It was too strange to watch anymore.

  “Morning,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and padding into the kitchen so it would look like I didn’t see any of the weirdness.

  Mom turned away from Sadie’s smiling face.

  “Morning, honey,” she said. She took the two steps over to me and kissed me on the forehead before she and Sadie started pouring the next pancake.

  All I got was a kiss on the forehead.

  Ω

  I’m sure I’ve barely been asle
ep for a few hours before the sunlight streaming through the open windows in the front of my cave insists that I not only wake up but get up, out of the bed, and go outside to dance in it to see and hear and smell Santorini-in-the-morning. The view from my balcony takes my breath away once again. The cliffs spread on either side of my little cave, with more caves and staircases and hotels and swimming pools all painted white or gray or blue. The sky is pure aquamarine without a single cloud, only the blaring sun painting white-hot lines across it and reflecting golden on the sea thousands of feet below us. On the level just beneath my balcony, breakfast is being served. The clinking of utensils and the salty, sweet, bitter smells of bacon and pastries and coffee rise up to meet the sights before me. I remember what Sam said last night and I think he has to be right: it’s impossible to sleep long enough on an island this beautiful. All of this beauty makes me wonder why God decided we ever have to sleep in the first place.

  “Coley’s awake!”

  I hear the words shouted below me, words that bring back a million sleepovers and summer vacations and campouts. I look over my balcony to wave at Sadie, and then I’m embarrassed that I’m still in my pj’s with my hair unbrushed and my face unwashed because she’s sitting at a table with Sam and Charlie and Mary Anne. They all smile and wave back up at me.

  Sadie says, “Go put your suit on and then come down here for breakfast. We’re gonna hike down to the sea for a swim as soon as we’re done eating.”

  She doesn’t have to tell me twice.

  Ω

  Two hours later I’m sucking in the salt air and peering down the mountain of stairs at the sea. Even though we’ve already been hiking this staircase for an hour, the water seems impossibly far away. The stairs wind back and forth, scaling the entire monstrosity of the cliff under the city of Oia. Each stair is flat and three feet long and the succession of them seems to coil on forever. Stone edges rise up on either side of the staircase, making it impossible for us to see a few paces beyond where we stand. But the five of us keep stepping down them because we’ve been promised that if we descend far enough we’ll reach a little fish market, and beyond that a beach for swimming.

  “One hundred!” Sam announces. He’s been counting the stairs since we started. When I crane my head back toward the town it looks like we’ve barely gone anywhere and when I glance down to the sea it looks like we’ll never get there. But all that’s on today’s schedule is the wine tour. Charlie and Mary Anne are both twenty-four so they’ll probably have to rush back for that, but Sam and Sadie and I are underage so we’ll have all day to relax in the blue before we have to hike back.

  Sadie’s been marching by my side and sharing a funny eyebrow wiggle with me every time Charlie calls Mary Anne “babe.” We’ve been giggling at nothing, so her brothers think we’re telling secrets. We’ve reverted to being children, and that makes it easier to be best friends.

  “One hundred and twelve,” Sam mumbles. He’s turning the next corner ahead of us. Then he shouts, “Watch out!” and jumps to the side, almost whamming into the stone edges.

  When we get around the corner, we see that the steps are nearly black with manure and we can hear the donkey handlers shouting in the distance. Sam is walking on the edge of the stairs now, tiptoeing around the freshest piles of waste and dodging the sharpest rocks that jut out to meet his hip or shoulder. The pungent smell hits us like a wall and Mary Anne retches behind us.

  “One hundred and thirty-one,” Sam mumbles.

  Sadie shrugs at me and we follow behind him, first Sadie, then me, taking his exact path like an old game of Follow the Leader. Charlie and Mary Anne come behind us, silent, ignoring our giggles.

  When we round the next corner Sam stops and the rest of us almost slam into him. “It’s worse,” he says.

  “Shit, man,” Charlie says, surveying the site. The donkeys are all lined up on the right side of the path and the stairs beneath them are covered in layer after flattened layer of donkey doo-doo.

  “You got that right,” Sam says, looking up at his brother with a smile. “It’s shit, man.”

  Sadie, Sam, and I laugh.

  I glance up to the town and then down to the sea. After an hour’s hike we’re finally a little more than halfway there. Soon we will be jumping into the glittering water. Then all we’ll smell is salt and all we’ll feel is clean. Right now, there’s sweat pouring down the back of my neck. I don’t know why we stopped.

  But we stand there, a frozen line. The sun beats down on us, burning my hair and my face and baking the excrement before us, steaming it to make it smell as much as possible. The donkeys smell almost worse than the stuff beneath them. They are muzzled and they twitch their ears and tails to bat at flies and they stare at us with sad eyes. I have a sudden fear that the one closest to us will decide to kick backward and pound his hoof into Sam’s chest. We need to keep moving. If we can only get down there, we can stay all day in the cool water.

  “We’re giving up,” Charlie announces. “As soon as we get down, we’ll have to turn around and climb back up to make it in time for the wine tour. And now I think I’ll need another shower first.”

  “C’mon, man,” Sam says. “Don’t leave me alone with these two giggling fools.” Sadie and I giggle at that. “We’ll jump in and then you’ll be all clean.”

  “What about the way back up?” Charlie points out.

  Sam sighs and glances at his watch. Sadie tries to shove past him but he says, “We better not.” She looks up at him. “It’s one o’clock already and we have to be ready for the tour by two thirty.”

  “But we’re not going on the tour,” I say.

  Sadie looks at me curiously. “We’re not? We don’t have to? Did Mom say something to you?”

  I tilt my head at her. “No . . .”

  She stares at me. I can feel Sam and Charlie and Mary Anne staring, too.

  I say, “But we’re . . . seventeen . . .”

  They all laugh, and I know that even if I weren’t so flushed from the heat my cheeks would be bright red.

  “And you’ve been acting like you’re eleven!” Sam says with a teasing smile. He and Charlie start laughing good-naturedly, and begin to move back up the mountain, with Sadie following. For a second I stand still in the middle of the donkeys and the poop and the hot sun, being pulled by the ocean like one pole of a magnet and by my best friend like another. “You still gotta go,” Sam calls down to me. “It’s not about drinking. It’s a wine tour. Andrea wants us to see the actual land of the island, learn about the culture and history, blah blah blah. This island is like seventy percent wineries, so they can call any boring excursion a wine tour.”

  Sadie turns around. When I catch up to her she says, “I’d rather go swimming than drink wine, too. I’d rather go swimming than do anything.” She laughs.

  “Like old times,” I say.

  “We’ll get there tomorrow.” She tilts her head backward to indicate the sea. “I promise.”

  Another promise.

  When we’ve hiked back to the hotel and showered, we have just enough time to grab something to eat before we have to leave for the tour. Sadie, Sam, and I cram into a booth at a crepe place that feels like it’s in a basement because it’s dark and we had to go down stairs from the main road to get into it, but the windows at the other end of it show that it’s also thousands of feet above the sea. Santorini is a place of contradictions. You go on a wine tour to get history lessons. You’re on an island but you never get to swim. And you sit next to the person who has hurt you the most in the world but you smile.

  After we each order peanut-butter-banana crepes, Sam leans across the table toward us and starts speaking in a hushed whisper. “So last night, Uncle Drew decides to give a toast . . .”

  We nod.

  “In Greek. Apparently he’s been studying it so that he can communicate with Ivan’s family and all that. Of course, he didn’t bother to find out that they speak perfect English. Anyway, Ivan was standing next t
o us so he kept whispering the actual translation of what Uncle Drew was saying.”

  “Yeah?” Sadie says, wrapped up in the story already.

  “And it made no sense at all. His opening line was something like ‘We like them to welcome them that welcome the Americans to our home for this occasion of soberest celebrations.’ ”

  Now we’re both laughing. It’s so funny the way Sam is saying it, too, transcribing their uncle’s facial expression onto his own ebony face.

  “He’s too ridiculous!” Sadie exclaims.

  “You gotta love him, though,” Sam says, smiling wide and warm. “Remember at Disney World? When you were so excited to see Snow White, Sadie? And when Uncle Drew was the first to find her, he ran at her so fast the poor woman in the costume got scared and screamed for security?”

  “I remember that!” I say. The summer we were eleven. I was in this family then.

  We all laugh for what feels like a full minute and then the food is in front of us. But before I can take a bite, Sam reaches over and pats my left hand where it is lying on the table. “I’m glad you’re back, Coley,” he says.

  “Me, too,” Sadie says, bumping her shoulder into mine.

  “Me, too,” I say. And at this moment everything is so fun and joyful and wonderful I’m not sure I want to know what last night was about. Or even what the last three years were about. I don’t know how I ever considered not coming on this trip.

  The strangeness of the countryside rolling by our window almost makes up for the fact that I’m still not surrounded by salt water. Almost.

  We’re all squished into a van. Sadie is sitting so close to me on the front bench it feels like we’re kids again with no personal boundaries. Nikos, our sommelier (apparently that’s a dude who knows a lot about wine), is speaking and his English is completely understandable, but I’m too distracted by the different-ness of the island outside the van to pay much attention to what he’s saying about how they farm in Santorini and its crops and vineyards. We drive through another city, Fira, barely bigger than Oia, which can easily be walked twice over in the course of one afternoon, and out onto a mostly abandoned road. To the left there are hills, layers of red rock piled jagged on top of each other. To the right, the road drops off suddenly and in the distance is flatland spotted with the occasional house or two. It’s farmland, we learn. Mostly grapes. And beyond that is the sparkling sea.