Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me (2 page)

“You're kidding,” Hilary said, looking at me in disbelief over the round, sticky table in the Starbucks on 26th and Sixth. The Bauers live on the Upper West Side, which is kind of a pain to get to from my neighborhood (the Lower East Side), so in these kinds of dire circumstances—when a phone call will simply
not
suffice—a convenient meeting place is essential.

Anyway, I'd just told Hilary the horrible, unbelievable, unavoidable news. We were supposed to be making winter break plans, but instead were talking about my impending and total disappearance. Hil shifted in her seat. “Zo, you can't
move.
It's the middle of the school year. And, I mean, what about—”

“What about the fact that I'm going to be stuck for half a year—at
least,
by the way, he said ‘at least'—in a country where I have no friends, don't like any of the food, and can't even read the street signs? What about
that
? Has the man even considered the ramifications of his unilateral decision? This is an affront to—”

“Okay, Captain Vocab. Calm down,” Hilary chided sweetly. I tend to go into what she lovingly calls my SAT Prep Mode when I get upset; I just can't help it. I've been reading the Sunday
Times
out loud with my dad (aka the enemy) since I was five. Everything distressing is better expressed in multisyllabic words, or at least my brain thinks so.

But I digress.

I took a hearty swig of my peppermint mocha latte and got whipped cream up my nose.
Perfect,
I thought as I attempted to regain my composure. “They probably don't even have Starbucks there.” I was about to burst into tears . . . over
Starbucks. In
a Starbucks. How tragicomic was this going to get?

“Well, everywhere has Starbucks,” Hilary said helpfully. She looked down at her hot cider like, if she focused on it hard enough, she wouldn't cry, either. Great. Hilary's the more sensitive of the two of us (I try to be objective at all times, like a good journalist), so if she broke, I would, too. And I wasn't even leaving for three more weeks.

“I just don't understand why he's doing this,” I fumed, trying to get away from sad and back to furious. “I mean, I get it: Greece, economy, political upheaval, crisis, whatever, huge story . . . but why do
I
have to go? Doesn't he realize I have stuff to do? Like, doesn't he get that being the only sophomore ever chosen to be features editor is kind of a
huge deal
? I'm trying to carry on the Lowell legacy, and this is his response? I've only gotten to work on two issues! And maybe, I dunno, I'll actually manage to have some kind of social life this year.”

“Hey! No offense to me, I'm sure,” Hilary interjected.

“Come on, you know what I mean.” I poked her arm apologetically. She gave me a wry smile in return.

“Yeah, yeah, of course I know what you mean: guys.” She sighed. “Me too.”

“I have
plans,
Hil, is the point,” I continued. “Intentions. A life. A small life, but a life all the same. Doesn't that count for anything?” I dropped my face into my hands in despair.

Okay . . . so maybe I should make something clear before I go on: I'm not actually this horrible. I mean, I knew that my dad writing his new magazine piece—which he thought could be the basis for an entire book—was a much bigger deal than my working on the school newspaper (and maybe, as a bonus, finally figuring out a way to make gorgeous editor-in-chief Ben Walker realize I was alive). But one measly hour after finding out I had to pick up and leave everything that mattered to me behind didn't seem like the time to act like a mature adult.

Usually I
do
act like a mature adult, though. Some people would probably say I've never really acted any other way, even when I was a little kid. I guess it's because of my dad and how it's always been just the two of us. For one thing, Dad is old—not, like, Methuselah old, but he's older than most of my friends' dads by a lot. Before I was born, he was a freelance journalist and traveled all over the world for stories, including during the Vietnam War. He's won two Pulitzer Prizes—one's hanging in the bathroom of our apartment. The other Pulitzer was
supposedly
lost in a poker game with a famous dictator, but I think it was just lost, period. My dad's a bit on the disorganized side, except when it comes to his writing. Then the mess is referred to as “organized chaos.” Our whole apartment is basically stacks of papers and discs and flash drives and other objects that are
not
to be touched by anyone except the person who put them there (and occasionally Tony, who doesn't care much about personal space).

It's precarious, but it's home.

Anyway, Dad was forty-six when I was born—which was after he met my mom, obviously—and he agreed to stay put in NYC for a while. I personally don't think he ever really intended to stay, and probably he wouldn't have . . . if my mom hadn't died right after giving birth to me.

So it's been just me and my dad for the last fifteen years. And for the most part it's been pretty cool, actually. Growing up with a dad who writes for newspapers and magazines is great. He'd take me on all kinds of trips when I was a baby and use my extreme cuteness to disarm tricky sources and interview subjects. I used to hang out at his office and play on the old typewriters. And of course I had a million crazy “aunts” and “uncles” all over the city—local informer types and other writer friends of my dad's.

Oh, and his nickname for me is Ace—as in “ace reporter.” Sensing a theme yet?

Now that I'm older, we're more like roommates in some ways than father and daughter: we take turns doing the grocery shopping and staking out a machine at the Laundromat down the street, share cooking and cleaning responsibilities, and fight over what makes it onto the DVR. We maintain our piles of important personal property with only a once-in-a-while argument over who stole whose copy of
Newsweek.
We treat each other like equals, really. My friends are totally jealous of me for having a dad who gets so involved with a project that he doesn't mind if I do whatever I feel like doing as long as I check in. (Not that I'm running around town doing anything particularly nefarious, but still.) He trusts me. And I
used
to trust him.

But now?

Forget it.

Because I knew that this wasn't just about researching his work. He could stash me somewhere for six months instead of interrupting my sophomore year of high school. I was supposed to be gathering up grades for AP classes and preparing for the SATs. How was I supposed to do that in Greece?!

No, this was a straight-up trick. Because I knew who else was in Greece: my mother's family, whom I'd never met and, to be honest, never wanted to meet.

I never knew my mom, obviously. She lived her whole life in Crete (which, according to various accredited sources, is the largest and most populous island in Greece. Also, Zeus was born in a cave there. So, my mom . . . and also Zeus) until the day she ran off with my dad. She died just twenty hours after I was born, and I just don't feel any connection to her. I mean, I love her, in that sort of vague way you'd love anyone who was related to you and gave you half your DNA. But that's kind of it.

Don't go thinking this is all sad or anything like that. It isn't. You can't miss what you've never had, and in my family there's a dad and a daughter and a dog.

And I like it that way.

Here's the thing, though: in the last couple of years, my dad had started tossing around random comments involving me meeting this slew of relatives. I would just laugh and change the subject, saying I was sure they're fine people, but I didn't
know
them. I have nothing in common with them. I don't speak Greek. I pointed out that they've never come over to meet us, or even sent a card. I was fine with things the way they were.

And honestly, I was.

There's another part to this story, as I guess there usually is when it comes to family stuff . . . but I don't like to think about it. Not if I don't have to.

Anyway, I put my journalism skills to good use and came up with a theory about why Dad had been pushing the Greece angle: he's afraid of something happening to him and me being left alone.

I know, super morbid—but I'm not an idiot. I mean, why else would he be doing this? And of course I've thought about the possibility of him . . . dying. I can't even imagine life without my dad, much less being an
orphan.
It's just . . . too much. And maybe that's an immature attitude, too, but I'm only fifteen, for God's sake. This is the time to
have
an immature attitude, isn't it? And besides, I don't think fear of something that hasn't happened is a reason to just pick up and move to another freaking country to hang out with people I happen to be related to.

So when he said we were moving to Greece—
moving!
Not even just taking a vacation!—I saw through the whole scheme right away.

Hilary knew all this stuff, of course. (Well, almost all of it—the part I don't like to think about is the only secret I've ever kept from her. More on that later.) But I just knew that, somehow, I'd think of a way out of this mess. And then it'd all just . . . go away. And I wouldn't have to talk about it at all. Right? Don't things sometimes happen that way?

So. Back to Starbucks and me not taking the news very well at all.

“Maybe he's just testing your level of loyalty to the
Reflector.
See how hard you'll fight to stay here, you know? Like, a co-journalistic ethics and devotion test or something . . .?” Hil trailed off. I raised my eyebrows skeptically, and she wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, I guess that sounded better in my head. Ugh, this is so unfair! What am I going to do without you?!”

Hilary Bauer and I started hanging out at the beginning of fourth grade, when we got partnered up for a book report project involving hand puppets. (Seriously, where do teachers come up with this stuff?) Hil was new in school, and we bonded immediately over her notebook, which had pictures from the
Narnia
movie on it. Before we met I'd been really shy and mostly kept to myself; I was used to things being quiet at home, with just one parent and no siblings. Plus, I go to a pretty swanky private school with mostly well-off Manhattan- and Brooklynites. My dad and I are considered . . . eccentric, to put it nicely. Poor, to put it bluntly. The parents of my kindergarten classmates weren't rushing to set me up with playdates once they found out we lived in a less-than-pristine two-bedroom rental apartment in a (gasp!) non-elevator building—at least, not until they figured out my dad is
that
David Lowell, the one who wrote the famous piece on 9/11. And by then I'd kind of learned to do my own thing, anyway. I never minded sitting by myself with a book, but meeting Hilary was just . . . serendipity.

(In case you're wondering how I could afford to go to a Manhattan private school, the answer is: after my mom died from blood toxemia, the hospital settled out of court with my dad. He was pretty messed up, obviously, and didn't want to touch the money. He had a lawyer put it in a trust for my schooling, and that's the only thing it's ever been used for. Again, pretty morbid . . . but like I said, it's the only life I've ever known. No pity parties, please, okay?)

Anyway, my friendship with Hilary has not only been awesome and silly and
necessary,
but it survived the middle-school-to-high-school transition, mutual crushes on at least four guys, her parents almost getting divorced last year, a terrible text message misunderstanding in eighth grade involving one of the above-mentioned mutual crushes (too long and boring to explain), and one of us growing boobs and the other not (I'm the “not,” unfortunately). And now we're going to be parted by a giant body of water?!

Hilary was drawing a sad face on the table with Splenda. “And what about Matty?” she continued. “He needs you as much as I do!”

Matt Klausner is the third member of our trio, who joined the ranks in seventh grade during a mind-blowingly boring school dance. He's super smart, gay, spectacularly irritable about almost everything, and I love him to pieces. What would I do in Greece without him to make me laugh when I got sad about not having kissed anyone since someone's visiting camp friend shoved his tongue down my throat at a party last spring? Who would let me copy their chemistry homework?!

My latte was gone and I felt worse than ever. Hilary blew away her Splenda portrait. She looked as glum as I felt.

“I don't know, Hil. I mean, at least you guys will still have each other. What will I do without
you
?”

“Maybe your dad will change his mind and decide to write about something else,” she suggested quietly.

I didn't bother replying. We both knew that'd never happen. When David Lowell decided to write something, he wrote it.