Where the Stars Still Shine (5 page)

The last place we lived—God, it was only
days
ago I left there, but it already seems like some different lifetime—was a cornfield town with a handful of stoplights and a slaughterhouse at its edge. Every Saturday
night—and never on Friday because Fridays were for football—kids from all over the county would make their way downtown, cruising up and down Union in their farm pickups and hand-me-down sedans, before gathering in the parking lot of the Big Chief to make plans.

The night I wandered in, Mom was working. We were a payday away from being able to fill the refrigerator, and I had just about enough cash for a small order of chili-cheese tater tots. Danny was there with his summer-sky eyes and get-in-your-pants grin. He left his friends and slid into the bench beside me. He smelled like flannel shirt and boy deodorant, and I smacked his hand when he reached for one of my tater tots.

“Ow!” He pulled his hand away as if mortally wounded, but his eyes were laughing and so was his smile. He moved closer, until his thigh was pressed tight and warm against mine, and his breath tickled my ear. “I was only trying to get your goodies.”

“I know,” I said through a mouth of chili-cheese. “But you weren’t invited.”

“What do I need to do to get an invitation?”

As it turned out, the answer was a couple of warm beers in the Big Chief parking lot.

We drove out to a gravel access road between a couple of fields and had sex in the bed of his Ford F-150.
At the time it felt good because I was the one who wanted it. I gave him the goodies. But when it was over, I couldn’t help thinking about all the shit that had been hauled around in the back of that truck.

His jeans were still down around his knees, and I could see the stars looking down at me from over his shoulder when I asked him to take me home. He wasn’t bothered by my request, and at the curb in front of the apartment, he gave me his number.

“Or I’m usually at the Chief on Saturday nights,” he said. “But if you see me with my girlfriend, pretend you don’t know me, okay?”

“I
don’t
.”

He didn’t get it. He flashed me his I-just-got-in-your-pants grin and drove off. I didn’t call him, but the next night he showed up at the apartment when my mom was at work. And the weekend after that, I met up with him at the Big Chief and we hooked up in the back of his truck again.

I reach the sponge docks by way of Athens Street this time, and I’m met with the scent of fresh bread from one of the bakeries, luring me away from thoughts of Danny. Across the street from the bakery, a pair of old men with white bristly mustaches and black fisherman’s caps sit at a table on the sidewalk outside some sort of Greek social club, smoking cigarettes
and drinking coffee from foam cups. They’re a living postcard.

I enter a bakery, where the cases are filled with pastries with names I couldn’t possibly pronounce.
Baklava. Galaktoboureko. Kourabiedes
.

“One, please.” I point to the one vaguely resembling cheesecake with a label that says galaktoboureko and order two cups of coffee to go with it. Almost immediately I change my mind, feeling silly that I’m buying coffee and baked goods for a stranger. Who might not be down here. Who might not even drink coffee. And for no other reason than because he’s breathlessly good looking and we nearly hooked up last night?

“Can I make that one cup?” I ask, but the woman behind the counter has already poured two coffees and gives me a stern look that tells me I’m buying both whether I want them or not. The change she gives me from my ten-dollar bill is the last of my money.

I reach the docks and my eyes go straight to the boats, seeking out the one from last night, but it’s not there. Instead, there’s a big empty space. My vision blurs with tears as I sit down on a bench facing the water. Not because he’s not here—crying over a stranger would be even more stupid than buying him breakfast—but because in all my ridiculous excitement, I forgot why I’m even here. I forgot about Mom.

“Hey, you okay?” A girl about my age sits down on the bench beside me. Her dark hair—nearly the same shade as mine—falls over her shoulder in a thick braid. An invisible cloud of floral scent surrounds her.

“Yeah.” I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “It’s just—it’s really nothing. I’m fine. Do you want some coffee?”

“Ooh, yes, please!” She snatches up one of the cups and sips. “So, considering we’ve never met, I’m assuming you didn’t buy this coffee for me. What’s the story there?”

I’m not sure what to make of this girl. Clearly she has no qualms about taking coffee from strangers, or prying into their business. Or, more accurately, their lack of business.

“There’s no story.” I hand her the white paper bakery bag. “Have this.”

She peers in, then looks up at me. “You—are my new best friend.”

I take a drink of coffee and my eyes drift to the empty spot, as if the boat is going to magically appear. As she bites into the galaktoboureko, she shakes her head in a way that’s slightly violent. Her braid whips back and forth.

“No,” she says, her mouth full. “No, no, no, no, no.” She chews quickly and swallows. “Tell me you did not buy this for Alex Kosta.”

“I don’t—” My cheeks get warm and how can I tell her that I didn’t catch his name? “I’m not sure.”

“Insanely good looking? Works weekends on the sponge dive tour?” She points a piece of pastry in the direction of where the boat should be. “And if he were here now, he’d be right about there?”

“Yes?”

“You are so lucky I found you when I did,” she says. “Listen, I work with him, so I’ve seen the way he operates. Alex Kosta can be described in two words: man whore. Or maybe that’s one word. Hyphenated?” She shrugs. “Either way, just … no.”

I take another drink of coffee and swallow words with the bitter brew. The words that would admit it doesn’t matter to me. That I’m not that discriminating. Danny is proof. So is the guy before him. And the one before
him
. I don’t even remember the first guy’s name, only that afterward I felt exactly the same way I did every time Frank left my bedroom. I don’t know—maybe it’s a good thing I walked away from Alex Kosta last night.

“What’s your name?” she asks. “I’m Kat.”

“Callie.”

Her brown eyes widen and she clutches my forearm. “Oh my God! You’re Callie! You’re here!”

“Um—”

“This is so—you have no idea,” she says. “You’re a local legend. Every few years the newspaper runs a story about you and your mom. They speculate on where you might be, interview people who claim to have seen you, and show age-enhanced pictures of how you might look. You’re much prettier, by the way, but—this is so exciting! I knew Greg rushed off to pick you up, but I didn’t expect to meet you so soon! I bet you’re glad to be home with your dad, huh?”

“I don’t really remember him.”

“Wow.” Kat’s shoulders sag. “I guess because I’ve known him my whole life, it didn’t occur to me that you don’t. That is so sad.”

“He, um—seems nice,” I offer.

“Greg? Definitely.” She nods. “He’s super nice. When I was little, he built me a wooden dollhouse for my birthday, with working lights and tiny hardwood floors and—you probably don’t know this, but we’re related. Of course, if you’re Greek and you live in Tarpon Springs you’re related to pretty much everybody, but your dad and my mom are cousins.”

I crush the pastry bag in my fist and stand. “I need to go.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Kat’s eyebrows pull together.

“No.”

“I know how hard this must—”

“You couldn’t
possibly
know how hard this is.” The words are hard. Sharp. And other, uglier words fill my mouth with a terrible taste. I am irrationally jealous because I’ve never had a dollhouse. Or a real birthday party. Or cousins. I am jealous that she spent her whole life knowing my father. I’m jealous of a
dollhouse
. “You don’t have even the
slightest
of clues.”

I make the mistake of looking back. Tears trickle down her cheeks and I am a monster girl. And the voice that came out of me was banshee shrill. I sounded like my mother.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” I sit down. The paper bag crackles as I pull out a napkin and offer it to Kat. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” She wipes her eyes, making a mess of her makeup. “You’re right. I have no right to assume I know anything about your life.”

Inexplicably, I want to like her. And maybe I want her to like me, too. “I didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

She gives a sniffly laugh. “You do have a point right there.”

I make air circles in front of my left eye. “You’re kind of … smeared.”

Kat digs her arm into a cavernous purse and produces a compact mirror. “Yeesh, you’re right. I’d better go do some
repair work before the shop opens.” She gestures at a gift shop beside the river. It’s one of the larger shops, with a signboard out front offering sponge dive tours for fifteen dollars. “Do you, um—want to hang out sometime? Considering your narrowly averted Alex Kosta crisis, it’s clear you need someone to show you the ropes around here.”

I laugh. “Sure.”

“Theo is hiring at the gift shop,” she says. “I could put in a word, if you’re interested. I mean, he’s my uncle on the other side of the family, so you probably wouldn’t even need to fill out an application. What do you say?”

I’ve never had a job before, unless you consider Mom’s brief stint stocking newspaper boxes. We’d drive to the loading dock, fill up the trunk of the car—I think it was an old Ford Escort that time—with string-tied bundles of newspapers, and drive around town, swapping out yesterday’s edition with the current one. She had a hard time getting up before dawn, so most of the time I did the deliveries by myself, even though I didn’t have a driver’s license.

I don’t intend on staying in Tarpon Springs, but a job would be a better alternative to high school. Something to do. Something to occupy my brain until it’s time to leave. “I’ll think about it.”

“Phoebe can take you shopping for school clothes,” Greg says later, as we walk home from the cell-phone store. One of the things he’s shared about himself is that he’s an eco-friendly type who subscribes to the philosophy that if your destination is less than a mile away, you should walk. Something about reducing his carbon footprint, he said, but I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy trying to figure out how to tell him I have no intention of going to school. “Cell phones I can handle, but I am clueless when it comes to clothes.”

“I, um—I’m not going to school.”

I wasn’t anticipating the direct approach, and he looks at me as if I’ve sprouted a second head. I found his high school yearbook in the bookcase when I got home from the sponge docks. Greg played varsity football, captained the baseball team, and was the student-council treasurer. There’s also a plaque on the living-room wall that commemorates the year he was the Epiphany cross retriever. I have no idea what that means, but clearly Greg is the type of guy who loved high school. He’s a participator. I’m not surprised that my refusal doesn’t even make a blip on his radar screen. “I know it would be intimidating at fir—”

“I’m
not
intimidated.” I am annoyed that another person today presumes to know what I’m feeling. “I just don’t want to be a freak show.”

“You’re not a freak show.”

“Kat told me about the newspaper articles,” I say. “You don’t think everyone is going to want to come see the amazing kidnapped girl? ‘Can she talk? Can she read? Can she eat with utensils?’”

He smiles. “It won’t be that bad.”

“I don’t see the point,” I say. “I’m nearly eighteen and I’ve never had dreams of going to college.”

“But that’s the thing, Callie. You can dream about college now if you want.”

“Now?” I don’t care for the implication that being with Mom somehow limited my dreams—even though it did. Or that I now have his permission to start dreaming. “I could have dreamed about college at any time, but I didn’t.” My words have bite and his smile fades to a frown. His disappointment makes me uncomfortable and I hate feeling like I should say something to make him happy. “I mean, maybe someday I’ll change my mind, but right now …”

He doesn’t answer right away, but he works his lower lip between his teeth, so I can tell he’s going over all the angles the same way I do.

“I, um—Kat said Theo was looking for someone at the shop,” I say. “I could do that.”

“I don’t know, Callie,” Greg says. “I think high school is important, not only academically, but for
getting involved and being social. I’m not saying no, but I’ll need to think about it.”

“I’m not going.”

He sighs at the stalemate, and we don’t talk again the rest of the way home.

“Callie?” Kat’s voice drifts into the Airstream as I sit on the couch, staring at my suitcase. It’s been four days since I got here, but unpacking it would feel permanent. Settled. And that unsettles me. “We’re coming in.”

Before I can answer, the screen door swings open and my space is filled with Kat and unfamiliar boys. Two of them. One has a wide smile and black hair that curls up at the edge of his baseball cap. The other boy reminds me of a retriever—floppy and golden, with dark, happy eyes and a frame that’s a size too large for the trailer. He has to stoop to keep his head from touching the ceiling.