Page 6 of The Summer Show
“Is it always this hot?”
Ana winced. “It’s only June. July is worse. That’s when the knives really come out.”
I made sad, melanin-deficient sounds.
* * *
Culture shock chopped the trip from the airport to the island of Nera into tiny chunks with hot, fuzzy spaces in between.
There was a cab ride that ended with Thanos threatening to tell the driver’s mother he was a crook for taking us the long way, causing us to miss the first ferry.
(The driver peeled away in a cloud of burning rubber, his terrified face barely visible in the side mirror.)
Cold, whipped coffees—frappes—at one of the wharf’s shaded coffee shops.
Boarding the cavernous blue and white second ferry. The back opened like a whale’s mouth for passengers to drive their cars, motorcycles, and scooters aboard.
During the whole experience, my soul detached, bobbing behind me, a half step away. They didn’t reconcile until we were halfway to the island paradise that Ana and Thanos called home.
By the time Nera rose out of the horizon like a mythical sea monster, we’d caught up on all the gossip.
“Who you think the phantom penis-er is?” Ana asked me.
“I don’t know. I don’t even have any suspicions. If anyone at Bush Lake is that … uh … talented, it’s not showing up in the classrooms. Marti had a meeting about it. To soften the blow she made it a taco party.”
“Everyone loves a taco party,” Thanos said.
“Wait—I’m having an idea,” Ana said. “Taco party at our place?”
He gave her a quick kiss. “I’m in.”
Once upon a time, Ana hated Thanos. Their feud was an offshoot of a bigger, longer family feud that lasted a hundred years. During one summer on Nera, everything changed. They blasted their whole family war apart and instilled (mostly) peace between the two families.
There was a tiny gold and glittering piece of me that hoped this island would work its magic on me, too. I was ready to fall in love forever. Not that I’d never been in love before. I had. But after a series of nice guys and “nice guys” and men who turned out to be three honeybadgers in Dockers and a button-down shirt, I was done with relationships that weren’t a good fit. The heart wanted what the heart wanted: the Mediterranean diet, a new season of GLOW, and true love.
Fingers crossed I was in the right place for one and three.
For a moment my mind flitted back to Mr. 24C and the way he fell asleep listening to me read. Where in Greece was he going? I guess I’d never know.
“So what do you think?” Ana gave me a little elbow nudge, and I snapped back to here and now. No point wasting my first real vacation on a yummy daydream. I’d never see him again, that was certain.
“Of …?”
“Nera!”
Before I bought my tickets, I spent hours scrolling through the photo history of countless other vacations that weren’t mine on social media. I knew the cliffs on the far end of the island, and the narrow road that snaked from the top to the beach below. I knew the monastery, the ancient amphitheater, winding streets where ends were occasionally dead. I knew these docks, these pale beaches, the Aegean Sea which was dark blue further out but transformed to clear emerald waters as the ferry punted us closer to the island. I knew that in a few minutes the main street with its mismatched, yet somehow harmonious tavernas would step into focus. What I wasn’t prepared for, what slammed me directly in the chest, was how alive this world felt. A picture paints a thousand words, but what is a thousand words except a sparsely written first chapter?
My romantic thoughts—and they were romantic because I was already madly in love with Nera—died a swift death when the ferry lurched to a stop.
There was a kerfuffle from the bridge, and then a stout man with decades of pent up anger that had chosen now to leak out, stomped out, waving his arms and spitting bullet-hard Greek words at something over the bow.
Thanos and Ana cracked up.
“What is he saying?”
Ana wiped her eyes. “Whoever he’s yelling at is a dog’s mother’s diseased private parts.”
“That’s disgusting, but I’m not sorry I asked.” I found my phone, opened a note. “How do you pronounce those again? I want to make sure I don’t forget.”