Where the Stars Still Shine(67)

Waiting in the gift shop is torture, and when I fail to ask a customer if she wants to try on the T-shirt she holds indecisively against her chest, Theo shoos me out like a stray dock cat. “Go. Take your break.”

The lump in my throat makes eating impossible. Instead, I keep watch from my favorite bench until the tour boat returns to the dock. Kat disembarks first, running down the ramp to fetch the wheelchair. Once Evgenia is back on solid ground, Alex heads in my direction. His eyebrows are storm clouds. He stops just a few feet away from where I sit, but the space between us feels immeasurable.

“I know you did this.” His voice is quiet, but his finger spears the air in angry jabs. “You had no business, Callie. Of all people, you—I trusted you.”

He gave me his secret and I gave him mine in return, yet he’s the only one of us who kept it safe. There is no excuse that will fix this. “I’m sorry.”

The same mouth that kissed me and helped erase the pain Frank inflicted twists into a sneer and he shakes his head. “Save it. I’m done.”

“Alex, please—” My vision blurs as he walks away. Kat rushes past him, but he doesn’t acknowledge her, either.

“I tried.” She rummages through the pocket of her shorts and produces a balled-up tissue, dabbing my face. I watch as Alex lifts his mother into the passenger seat of his truck, and my whole body aches for him. “I swear, Callie. I told him it was all my idea, but he didn’t believe me.”

I brush her hand aside, the attention too much. I can’t breathe and Yiayoúla is bearing down fast, and I don’t want to talk to her at all. “I have to go.”

Threading my way through tourists and cars, I take off down Dodecanese, waiting for my feet to settle into the familiar rhythm of running away. Instead, I’m winded by the time I reach Hope Street and I have to slow to a walk to catch my breath. Tarpon Springs has changed me.

Once on Hope, I see something I’ve never noticed before. Tucked between two houses is a tiny white brick church. Beside the driveway, a sign written in both English and Greek says it’s the Saint Michael Shrine. Unprepared to go home and unwilling to go back to the docks, I make my way up the walk. Up the steps. Inside.

The walls are hung with gold-trimmed icons of saints I don’t recognize, and the scent of incense clings to the air. From a table beside the door I pick up a pamphlet, which explains that the shrine was built in thanksgiving by a woman whose son was healed of a mysterious illness after praying to Saint Michael Taxiarchis. Michael the Archangel. People have made pilgrimages over the years to pray for healing. For miracles. Keeping the pamphlet will cost me a dollar, so I put it back with the others and take a seat in a little wooden pew.

“I don’t know how to pray.” I feel stupid talking to a room of flickering red votive candles and stained-glass windows. “But everything’s a mess and I don’t know how to set it right. I need some kind of sign. Or a miracle. Whatever you’ve got, I’ll take it.”

I sit there, wondering if I’d recognize a sign if I saw one, but nothing changes. No one comes in. None of the statues move, or weep, or tell me what to do. My pocket vibrates with each new incoming text, but they’re not from Saint Michael and I don’t feel like talking to anyone else. I give the archangel one more minute to conjure up a miracle before I leave, stuffing my unspent lunch money in the donation box hanging on the wall beside the door.

The driveway is empty when I reach Ada Street, and there’s no one inside the house as I rummage through the hall closet, looking for a suitcase. I find a red one—larger and nicer than my old tweed bag—that belongs to Phoebe. It bothers me to steal it, but I do, filling it with the things I can’t bear to leave behind: the computer, my favorite books, the picture of me and Kat, Tucker’s drawing, the finger sponge. I can almost hear my mom laughing at me for not packing clothes. It feels just like before. Packing for another town. Another thrift store. Another me.

Except now I’m not sure I know how to leave this me behind.

I pull the wad of money from the bottom of my pillowcase and use a bungee cord from the storage shed to strap my guitar to the suitcase. It’s heavy and the little wheels aren’t as smooth as I’ve always imagined them to be, but I manage to wobble my way to the bookstore downtown.

“Hey!” Ariel greets me as I walk in the door. Then she takes in my puffy-from-crying eyes and the rolling monstrosity behind me. “What’s going on? Are you leaving?”

“I, um—yeah,” I say. “I was wondering—if you were going to go to the worst bar in town, where would you go?”

Her eyebrows hitch up. “Okay, not what I was expecting you to ask, but there’s this place on the river that’s—hang on, let me get my keys. I’ll drive you.”

She grabs her purse from behind the checkout counter and flips the open sign to closed. I’m kind of relieved she’s just willing to agree to this and not ask a lot of questions.

“You’re just going to leave the shop?” I ask, as Ariel locks the front door.

She shrugs. “It’s too far to walk, especially with that albatross of crap you’re dragging around, and besides, the store’s dead. And you might need backup.”

“Is it that bad?”

“I went there once on a dare.” Ariel unlocks the doors of an ancient Porsche that’s faded to near pink, with gray primer spots dotting the hood. “It’s kind of like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World. Only not fun. The people who hang out there are the undesirables. Drug dealers. Criminals. Shrimpers in town for the day while their boats are being off-loaded.”