My Best Friend, Maybe Read online

  Now my heart fell to the bottom of the pool.

  “Why?” I whispered. I knew I had to be quiet. Sadie was crazy to have this conversation in water, where our voices could reflect and what ever secret she was talking about could be carried miles away.

  “And will you promise . . .” Sadie swallowed. Her dark-blue eyes looked extra wet and redder than chlorine could make them. “If I need you, if I tell you I need you, will you promise to be there?” she asked.

  I reached out toward her but the small waves created by people in the pool who were having a normal fun day pushed my hands away before I could make contact. “Of course,” I said.

  “Even if . . . we aren’t friends anymore?”

  “Why are you saying that?” I said, too loudly.

  Sadie didn’t notice. She shook her head. “I have to tell you something. But please promise. First, please promise.”

  “What do you have to tell me?” I asked. It came out choppy. “What secrets do I need to keep?”

  “Promise me first, please. Promise me this and I’ll promise . . . unlimited peanut-butter milk shakes whenever it happens.”

  Whenever what happens? I was in great shape from swim team, but we’d been treading water for a while and my arms and legs were getting tired. So I said it. “I promise,” I said. “I do.”

  Sadie’s eyes were full of so many things I didn’t understand. We were right there in the same water but I felt like we were on different planets.

  “I’m not going to the beach with you this summer,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “I can’t tell you, Coley,” Sadie said.

  I was crying now. My heart was broken on the bottom of the pool. The earth beneath the water was shifting to become a place I couldn’t recognize.

  “Why?” I said again. “What did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything,” Sadie said, choking back her own sob.

  “Then why?” I said again.

  She took a stroke away from me. “Please don’t ask. Please stop asking. Please just . . . keep my secrets.” She took a few more strokes.

  She said over her shoulder, “I’ll call you when you get back.”

  But she didn’t.

  Ω

  At the Santorini airport, once we’ve gathered our bags and used the bathroom, we all pile into a van that was sent specially to pick us up. I know it was because the driver was standing outside with a sign that read THE PEPPER FAMILY.

  Sadie and Edie sit in the front; Sam climbs in next to me in the middle; Charlie and Mary Anne snuggle together in the back. It’s weird that this suddenly feels like a family of adults. The last time I was with the Pepper family we were all kids. Now Sam is twenty and Charlie is twenty-four. Will my family still be doing beach weeks when Adam and Peter and I are all grown up?

  We’re driving to the city of Oia, pronounced “Ee-ah,” at the northern tip of the island. Our driver is talking on and on about how great it is and I strain to hear. I’m both impressed with how much English he knows and embarrassed that it’s so difficult to understand him through his thick accent and over the hum of the uneven road. He says something about wine and the red beach and the volcano. My head starts to bob back and forth with exhaustion. The clock on the dashboard says 13:45 so it’s after one o’clock here. The sun is shining brightly into the minivan but it feels like midnight and I realize that I basically didn’t sleep for a whole night. The last time I did that was at a seventh-grade sleepover . . . with Sadie. I’m so tired it’s hard to make myself look around, but I do—at the pin-straight rows of tiny bushes clustered up against the land, the rocky cliffs on each side of the winding road, the four-wheelers and motorbikes that come barreling at us from both directions. It’s a collage out the window: cactus next to palm trees, rocks and dust and soil. Part desert, part farmland, part resort. Who knew God made places like this?

  “Okay, family meeting!” Edie announces when the driver stops talking.

  He makes a sudden sharp turn that rattles me awake. And that’s when I see it: the sea. It appears so suddenly over the cliff to our left that it takes me by surprise. It’s a deep blue, almost sapphire, marred only by occasional whitecaps and sailboats. It’s nothing like the murky green of the Jersey shore. Even from thousands of feet above, I can almost see to the bottom.

  I get to swim in it. In that water. In all my reading of web-sites and guidebooks I didn’t stop to think about how the very water would be different.

  We make another sudden turn, and the sea, the part of it I just saw anyway, is behind us. But I know that because we’re on a tiny island, it’s also in front of us and to our sides as well, hugging us. I can’t see it now, though, because we’re surrounded by white buildings that look like they’re made of clay. I hear Sadie say, “Seriously, Mom?” and I realize I missed whatever this family meeting was about. If I was even supposed to know. If I’m even part of this family anymore.

  “Seriously,” Edie says. “Your decisions are so perplexing to me, I have to keep a tight eye on you. You’ll stay with me, and Colette will have her own room.” Edie glares at me out of the corner of her eye, and I bite my lip, wishing I could disappear. She looks almost hateful. I was stupidly expecting her to be the same hugging, laughing big woman I remembered from childhood. But of course she’s mad at me. She’s the kind of mom who would be more concerned with protecting Sadie than finding out the truth. So, if I get my own room, some privacy, a sanctuary, I’ll take it.

  Sam waggles an eyebrow at me, just one. I don’t know how he does that but it makes me smile. When he smiles back, it transforms his whole face the way flicking a light switch can turn a room from sad to exciting in an instant.

  The sea pops back into view behind Sam’s smile. I do my best to keep listening to Edie while I stare at it, wondering what it will be like to dip my toe in, to dive in, to freestyle and butterfly and backstroke in.

  “Now, everyone. There’s a dinner tonight that Ivan’s family is hosting at a restaurant near our hotel. We all need to be there and we all need to have energy. Be ready to go by eight thirty, and in the meantime, if you need a nap, take it. Aunt Kat sent along these itineraries for everyone. So make sure you know where to be at the right time, okay?”

  Edie passes out half sheets of paper and I take a second to read it over before my eyes go back to the sea again.

  Day 1

  Arrival

  Free time

  8:30 p.m. Dinner

  Day 2

  Free morning

  2:30 p.m. Wine tour (thanks to Andrea’s aunt Martina and uncle Jorge)

  6:00 p.m. Free time

  Dinner on your own

  Day 3

  Free morning

  1:30 p.m. Catamaran ride (thanks to Andrea’s aunt Edie)

  Dinner on your own

  Day 4

  1:00 p.m. Wedding

  6:30 p.m. Dinner and dancing

  Day 5

  Free day

  Day 6

  10:00 a.m. Depart for Crete

  “What’s a catamaran?” Sam pipes up. He waggles that eyebrow around his ebony forehead again. He’s looking right at me, and I feel my cheeks warm up. I hope he doesn’t think I’ve been staring at him this whole time. I hope he knows I’ve been looking at the sea.

  “It’s a boat or something. Anyway, they say it’s not to be missed. Andrea and Ivan and Aunt Kat and Uncle Drew will be busy getting ready for the wedding, which is the next day, but I had to host something so I booked this catamaran-tour thing for us and for Ivan’s family and the other guests.”

  “Mom?” Sadie says in a tiny voice.

  “You’ll be okay,” Edie answers. She pats her daughter’s hand.

  The glittering sea disappears behind buildings again but this time I’m not disappointed. They’re whitewashed and blue-roofed and they seem to grow out of the sea themselves. The road gets narrow and the pavement turns to dirt and sand, and suddenly the driver pops out of the v
an before it even stops moving. The road has dead-ended in a white-dirt parking lot full of people walking in every direction.

  At our driver’s instruction, we leave our bags to be picked up by the hotel staff and follow him through a narrow walkway lined with souvenir shops and pharmacies. Every sign is printed in both Greek and English. There are signs with arrows pointing to restaurants and tourist information and travel agencies and car rentals. We have to snake single file past huge tour groups that are led by people carrying giant posters. I hear chatting and shouting and cheering in a million languages before we even walk the skinny hundred-foot path.

  And then: bang. We step out onto a wide walkway made entirely of slabs of white marble and the sea spreads before us, glittering in every shade of blue. Between the sea and the walkway is the caldera, with a maze of staircases and hotel rooms and swimming pools all carved carefully into a massive cliff. Sadie and I run across the walkway and lean over, trying to see as many of the roofs and stairs and doorways as we can. There’s no beach here, just an entire neighborhood perched precariously above a thousand-foot drop into the shining blue sea. My breath catches.

  “Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Sam says, coming up behind us.

  “Are we staying here?” Sadie screeches.

  I sense him nodding. “I was here last summer, visiting Andrea and Ivan,” he explains. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Like nothing you can imagine.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I breathe. I turn to smile at him and his face lights up again—his lips spread into a huge toothy grin, his dark eyes widen like he can’t see enough, his dimples sink deep into his cheeks. Even his forehead seems to smile.

  Has he always smiled this way? Did I just not bother noticing all those years ago?

  Ω

  Then I’m in my room. Really, my cave. It’s a hole sunk into the side of the cliff. After walking up and down and up and down a series of stairs carved into the caldera, you climb three final ones and suddenly there’s a gate. You cross a little balcony and open the door and voilà: you’re in a cave. My cave.

  It’s a dome-shaped room, with two little windows and the door at the front; it looks the way I would picture the inside of Winnie the Pooh’s tree. The walls and floor and ceiling are painted white and gray and they’re part of the rock of the cliff. There’s a TV in the front corner and a wooden cushioned bench on the wall across from it. There’s a big bed in the back corner, with a small throw rug in front of it, then a door that goes through to the darker-gray cave-bathroom. I open the two windows that look out onto my little balcony and when the sun and the salt of the sea spill in, I decide I’m not closing them for the entire five days we’re here.

  I don’t know how long I spend walking around in a circle. Through the cave-room and into the cave-bathroom and out onto the cliff-balcony and back into the cave-room. People actually lived like this, I think. People do live like this. It’s so different from my house, from my perfectly square room that floats two stories above the earth and has windows on all the walls and cushy beige carpeting. It’s impossible that I was in that room less than twenty-four hours ago. That I’m only a plane ride away from that room. I have to be farther. A planet away. A lifetime away.

  I know Edie said to take a nap but I can’t. As soon as I walk out onto the balcony, I watch the sea spread out around me, hugging the island and presenting the volcano, which feels like it’s right outside my front door. Then I remember I live in a cave and I go in to walk the cold floor some more.

  If I can’t nap, I should do something productive. Something boring that might make me sleepy. I open my suitcase to unpack a little and there, right on top of my pile of neatly folded clothes, is my black racing suit. I try to picture myself wearing it on that catamaran thing, or racing through the sea in this unflattering piece of black fabric.

  I should have a bikini.

  I can’t believe I just thought that.

  I can’t have a bikini.

  It’s not just that it’s not a bikini, I think as I peel off my jeans and T-shirt. It’s not just that it’s modest. I snap the straps over my shoulders and yank the fabric down to cover my butt. This is the kind of suit I’ve been wearing since I was a little girl. This is not made for lounging; it’s made for racing.

  I close my eyes and use my hands to lead me into the bathroom. I yank the fabric with my fingertips to make sure it’s all in place. Then I open my eyes.

  Ugh.

  I shake my brown hair out of its ponytail. I raise my hands over my head, then put them on my hips. I turn to look at myself from each side. I perch on the side of the counter and watch the ripples appear in my stomach. I put my hair up. I take it down again. I go out of the bathroom and watch myself come in again.

  No matter what I do, my midsection looks like a gift box wrapped in shiny black paper. The X on my back, the elastic just below my collarbone, the fabric that comes over my hips: I don’t look like an adult in this suit.

  I spin around a final time, and that’s what I’m doing when there’s a knock on the door.

  Shoot! She’s here. My cheeks burn. How long have I been standing in this bathroom checking myself out? How did I get so vain?

  “Hold on!” I call. I tie my hair up in a messy bun on top of my head and quickly wrap my body in a towel.

  Sadie doesn’t answer.

  “Coming, Sadie!” I yell through the door once I cross the room.

  “It’s Sam,” his voice answers, low and smooth.

  My heart stops.

  “I was just, um, changing.” My face is on fire now. I hope that he doesn’t start picturing me half-dressed.

  “Cool,” he calls, his voice much quieter than mine. I wonder if he’s speaking more softly or if it’s the door muffling his voice. “Just came to see if you wanted to go down to the pool. Everyone else is napping.”

  “Sure,” I say. Why did I say that?

  “Great,” he calls back. “I’ll be right here when you’re ready.”

  “Okay,” I say. Then I stand there. I’ll be the only person at the pool in this kind of suit, but I don’t have another option. The rest of my suits are brightly colored and even less mature-looking. So it’s not like I have to do anything to get ready.

  I count to one hundred, step into a pair of athletic shorts, and walk out the door to go to the pool with Sam.

  His bare shoulder blades glisten with sweat as I follow him up and down stone mini-staircases. The sun beats on us and I feel perspiration bead on my own nose and forehead.

  We aren’t saying anything. I’m telling myself that this is a good thing. That at least Sam is not mad at me, even if Edie is. That Sadie’s brother being another friendly face on this trip will make it easier. I just wish that friendly face weren’t so cute.

  He turns. “Here it is,” he says.

  The pool is at an edge in the cliff and the water flows off the side of it as if the pool is connected to the sea. It’s the kind of pool for sitting around, for ordering a lemonade and sipping it and getting a tan. It’s not the kind of pool for playing cards, let alone swimming. And right now I am the only person in this kind of bathing suit because we’re the only two people here.

  “C’mon,” Sam says. He drops his towel, runs across the concrete, and cannonballs into the water.

  And for a split second I have a thought I never, ever have: I don’t want to take off my shorts. I’m embarrassed to be exposed in my bathing suit, as modest as it is.

  But then Sam says, “I’ll race you across,” and at once I’m in the water, kicking his butt to the other side of the pool. It feels normal. It feels great. We play tag, the regular kind, in the deep end. We debate who has the more perfect handstand in the shallow end. We race from wall to wall, and I win, again. We don’t talk about Sadie.

  After a little while, Sam says he’s tired, so we climb out and spread across two of the lounge chairs on the deck. And I’m nervous. It’s easy to act normal when I’m in the water. Now that we�
�re on land, I’m not sure what we’ll talk about.

  A waiter in white pants and a white-collared shirt with the hotel’s insignia stitched on it approaches Sam from the opposite side. “Is there anything I can get for you, Mr. Pepper? Ms. Jacobs?”

  I blink, wondering how he knows our names. This is not the kind of vacation my family would take, no matter how old we all are.

  “We’ll each have a Greek coffee,” Sam says. “Thanks.”

  When the waiter walks away he turns to me. “Trust me. They are delicious. And they’ll keep you going no matter how many naps you miss. You’ll need that kick tonight.”

  The Greek coffee is frozen and it tastes more like coffee ice cream than regular coffee. We sip.

  “When I was here last summer, we stayed in different hotels every night,” Sam says. “Part of Andrea’s travel agency deals.”

  “Are they all like this?” I ask, grateful to have a subject other than why we haven’t seen each other since Sam was my age.

  He laughs. “Well, they aren’t all this nice,” he says. “But, you know, . . . creative? Like how you don’t know where you’ll end up no matter what set of stairs you take?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  “Yeah. They’re all like that. Isn’t it incredible?”

  I nod, and my nerves disappear while Sam tells me more. I imagine him traveling with Andrea, and something about the picture feels slippery. I guess I’ve never thought about the fact that she’s Sam’s cousin, too. That Sam fits into the entire family, not just Sadie-Edie-Charlie-Sam. I don’t know why that seems strange.

  I ask him question after question about snorkeling and medieval castles and Santorini cities and Greek food and anything I can think of to keep him talking and to banish Sadie from my brain. For now. While I can.

  As our skin dries, beads of water form on his stomach and my arms, until the sun bakes them away. I watch a drop of water travel from the side of his jaw and plummet onto his dark defined chest, and for a second I wonder what it would be like if Sam hugged me really tight. But I shake my head to clear that thought.

  I can’t have thoughts like that.