Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me (10 page)

“We read about bullying in the States and it's just so odd,” the British girl adds. “Did you have that at your school?”

“Wow, uh . . . that's a pretty intense lunch topic, um . . .”

“Betony,” Ashley says helpfully.

“Bethany?”

“Be
tony,
” she corrects me. “Just like Bethany, but no
h.
It's a flower. No one ever gets it right, so don't feel bad.”

“Betony,”
I say slowly, making sure I have it. So far it's the first tricky name that I've successfully said out loud, so I feel kind of proud of myself. (Even if it's probably a British name and not a Greek one. Still counts.) “Anyway, bullying is . . . well, it happens, yeah. Someone actually committed suicide at a school near the one I go to. People can be . . . well, they can be really mean to each other. Our school paper did a whole series of articles last year about it, actually, talking about the history of bullying, new awareness, how social media affects kids . . .”

“It just seems like things are pretty out of control in the States with that kind of thing,” Ashley interjects.

“Well, you can't always believe everything you read. Journalists should be unbiased, obviously, but you can only use the information you have.” I sense that I'm losing them. “I mean, Athens isn't what I expected at
all
based on what I'd read before I came here.”

“Really? What did you expect?” Nikos asks.

“Honestly? I was kind of expecting war-torn Syria.” I eat the last orange wedge. “Like, just empty, ravaged buildings and displaced people wandering the streets . . . columns of smoke darkening the sky . . .”

“You have a very . . . colorful way of speaking, Zona,” Nikos says. I blush and duck my head. I can't tell if he's making fun of me or complimenting me.

“Oh my God, so not like that at all, right?” Ashley's eyes light up. “Athens is amazing. Best city in the world.”

Lilena grins at her teasingly. “You've lived here your entire life! How would you know?”

“Because I can tell.” Ashley scowls. “And I've been other places. Including New York,” she adds, looking at me.

“Wait, you've lived here your whole life?” I interject. “Are you—”

“Greek?” Ashley takes a sip of water. “I know, I don't look it and my name is Ashley, right? But yeah, Greek-American mom and Greek dad. My last name is Papadimitriou. And for the record, I liked New York. So no offense. I just think Athens is better.” She beams. “You'll have to come out with us sometime. I've heard you can't do
anything
cool in the States when you're our age, but here you can do everything.”

“
That
at least is true,” Lilena says, nodding.

“Are we supposed to be having fun? Because all I've done lately is work,” Nikos says glumly.

“We just don't invite you, that's all.” Betony giggles.

Nikos makes a face, like he's extremely offended. “Well, fine, then! I'll go hang out with Giorgos!” He calls out across the cafeteria to a guy at another table. “Giorgos, these girls are being terrible to me. Come save me.”

Ashley and Betony are laughing. Lilena turns to me. “Giorgos is Nikos's brother—they're twins. Fraternal, obviously,” she explains when she sees me looking.

Giorgos turns around, waving for his brother to join him.

Lilena nudges my leg with her leg. “Stop staring, Zona. I know, he's gorgeous, right? But
weird.
You'll see.” Her phone buzzes, and she checks the screen. “Oh, gotta go! I'm meeting someone to work on a project during our free period. See you later?” She scoops up her mangled, uneaten sandwich and empty water bottle and dashes off before I can even thank her again for being so nice to me.

I sweep the remnants of my lunch into a napkin and stand up, looking around for Artemis. I feel about 60 percent sure I could figure out where our next class is, but there's no need to push myself. It's only the first day, after all.

“So, do you want to?” Betony chirps in her sweet little voice.

“Do I want to . . . ?”

“Come out with us sometime. Check out Athens,” Ashley clarifies. “Here, give me your cell number and I'll text you so you have mine.”

“I—oh, that'd be terrific,” I say, flustered and pleased. “I mean, great. Yes.”
Stop talking now, Zona.
Ashley holds out her phone so I can punch the numbers into it. This seems so weird, giving some girl my phone number, like we're going to go on a date or something. (Also, I don't remember my phone number and have to look it up. So lame.) But I'm excited at the same time—can I possibly have found a group of people to hang out with on my first day? Hil and Matty will be so proud!

I hand Ashley's phone back. “Well, I have to run to class, so . . . I'll see you guys later? Thanks, um . . . thanks for letting me eat with you.”

Betony and Ashley shrug and say “No big deal” at the exact same time, which makes them burst into laughter again. I smile, still a bit hesitant to step too far into
THESE ARE MY NEW FRIENDS!
territory.

But my phone buzzes in my pocket with a text from Ashley as I walk to class, and for the second time since we arrived here, I'm starting to feel like this might be okay.

Ashley is true to her word and invites me to join them in the city that first weekend; I still feel nervous, even though they're so friendly, but I force myself to go. And it's fun. Not as easy as hanging out with Hilary and Matt, of course, but I didn't expect it to be.

So when Lilena offers to show me her favorite spot in Kallithea the following Tuesday after school—like Yiota, she's found a tiny coffee shop hidden down a narrow side street—I agree right away, despite the crushing amount of homework I have. It was exciting to discover that Lilena lives in the same neighborhood as Dad and I do. It makes me feel another notch less lonely.

We sit down on rickety iron chairs in the winter sunshine, happy to put our heavy backpacks down.

“I'm pretty sure she just cast a spell on us,” I whisper to Lilena as the old lady lurches back inside to what I presume is her secret witch's lair.

“She does that every time!” she hisses back. “I can't ever tell what she's saying, and Ashley never wants to come here because Betony hates coffee and the wicked witch won't give her tea.”

“Can't Ashley come without Betony? Just to translate?”

Lilena giggles. “Yeah, right.” Her phone buzzes, and she glances at the screen. “Did you get your quiz back in Chemistry today? Nikos wants to know.”

“No, not yet, thank God. Ugh, I can't believe you've survived a whole year at GIS already.” I groan, leaning back in my chair. “I don't think I'll make it to the end of one if they keep piling on the work like this. And I thought my school in New York was bad!”

“I know—it's crazy, right?” Lilena agrees, taking a sip of her coffee.

“Do you miss Chicago?” I ask, adding sugar to mine.

“Um, yeah, I guess. But I only lived there for a year, so it wasn't really . . . I don't really keep in touch with anyone from there. I like Athens better. It's warmer, that's for sure!” she adds.

“I didn't realize you moved around so much. You and Nikos . . .”

“Yeah, it's because of my mom's job. We've lived in, like, ten places since I started school, so I'm used to it by now,” she says quickly. “How about you? Are you missing New York, or more excited to be in Greece? I mean, it's kind of crazy that you have this whole family you've never met before!”

“Well, I do miss New York. A lot,” I explain. “It's kind of complicated . . . So, what exactly does your mom do? That must be pretty cool, getting to experience so many different cultures and—”

“Yeah, I guess,” Lilena cuts in. She has a look on her face I can't quite read, but it isn't a happy one. She changes the subject back to me again. “
Your
mom must be happy to be back home. It's your mom's side, right?”

“Yes, but, um . . . my mom died. It's just me and my dad, so . . . But yeah—it's her family.”

Lilena looks stricken. “Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't—”

“It's okay. Of course you didn't know. Don't worry about it.”

“I'm really sorry.”

“Thanks.” It's always such a weird and awful moment telling someone my mom is dead. They always say “I'm sorry,” and I think,
Why are you sorry? It isn't your fault.
And then I always say “Thanks,” which makes no sense either, but I don't know what else to say. Sometimes I wish the person would just say, “Wow, that totally sucks,” so I could say, “It sure does” or “Well, I didn't know her.” At least that would be honest.

“So they never visited you in New York? Your mom's . . .” Lilena starts again, trying to end the awkward moment.

I smile at her, deciding to tell the truth, and I give her a quick rundown of the deal with my family.

“So yeah,” I finish, “I'm not so much excited as I am . . .”

“Completely terrified?” Lilena offers, raising an eyebrow. We both started laughing. For some reason the whole thing seems funny all of a sudden; I mean, seriously, who actually travels across the world to meet a bunch of strangers in
real life
? Why would anyone do that?!

The witchy café owner creeps over to our table and fires off a string of angry-sounding words:
“Greekgreekgreekgreekgreek!”
We pull ourselves together, but I'm left with a feeling I haven't had yet about the whole situation. Yes, it's going to be scary (and will get scarier as spring break approaches), but there's another way to look at it, too: as an adventure. A crazy one, to be sure. Maybe this was what Hil and Matty—and my dad—have been trying to tell me all along.

“Okay, but seriously,” Lilena continues, “terrified makes sense. But curious, too, right? Like, did the older relatives even know you were alive before two years ago? Or that your mother had died? Or did they just find this all out?”

I've never asked these obvious questions—have avoided asking them, in fact. Definitely poor journalism. And yet. Would the answers change anything?

I don't know, but there is one person who would: Yiota.

“You want to get something to eat? Maybe some baklava?” I ask Lilena. “My treat.”

“Aw, thanks,” she says, “but we eat dinner really early at my house, so . . .”

“Next time,” I reply, smiling. Because I know there will be a next time, and that makes me feel even less scared still. I made a friend.

And it wasn't even that hard.

By the end of that second week, I've nailed down how to get to my classes, ascertained that there is no way to fake it on Level-One Greek pop quizzes, shamefully stalked Giorgos all over school (just watching him walk through the halls is an incredible treat), and discovered that everyone calls the teachers “sir” and “miss” here, like we're in a British boarding school or something. (It's weird.)

I've also started being able to distinguish Greek from other languages, which sounds pretty simple but actually isn't. At an international school like GIS, kids speak every language under the sun: Arabic, Portuguese, Greek (obviously), Czech, you name it. But you only really hear people conversing in their native tongues in the cafeteria. Part of the reason things aren't so cliquey is because people sometimes sit together so they can chat in their first language, not because they're necessarily close friends. And when you don't speak
any
of those languages . . . they all glom together in a big buzz.

As the days and then weeks and finally two months go by, I've found a place to fit in pretty comfortably, which is great—but I soon start to notice something: I have never actually seen Lilena eat. Not once.

I didn't notice at first how thin she is, because it's still chilly in Athens and everyone is wearing sweaters and pants. But when we hug good-bye after hanging out, I can feel all the bones in her back through her jacket. I've started paying more attention to her at lunch . . . and now I can't
stop
paying attention. She never puts food near her mouth without playing with it first, and she always has an excuse about why she doesn't want to eat. No one's ever mentioned her being ill. So I wonder what's really going on.

“Aren't you eating?” I ask Lilena at lunch on a Thursday. Nikos is sitting with Gorgeous Giorgos, so it's just us girls at our end of the table. I shovel a huge mouthful of food into my face, as if trying to lead by example. I don't ask her why she's not eating every day—I try to be subtle and space it out.

Lilena stands up, not looking directly at me. “Oh, I ate before, during my free,” she says, gathering up her lunch bag. “I have to hit my locker, you guys. Text me later!” And she's gone.

Ashley and Betony look at each other and roll their eyes. Ashley laughs.

“That isn't funny, you guys,” I point out, annoyed. “I think Lilena really has a problem, don't you? Shouldn't we—”

“Ugh. Americans always think everyone has an eating disorder,” Betony scoffs. “She's just, you know . . . she doesn't like to eat. Whatever. She's fine.”

“Wait til she shows you her thinspo collection,” adds Ashley. Betony groans.

“Um . . . what?” I'm lost. I have no idea what that is.

“It's, like, pictures to help you stay thin. Thinspiration, get it? Thinspo for short? They're all, like, really underweight models and girls who don't ever eat and have blogs about it or whatever. You know, to compare herself to,” Betony explains.

“She's never mentioned that to me at all! That's, I mean, I . . .” I'm appalled. I guess I'd been letting myself think that Lilena just didn't
notice
she wasn't eating. The idea that she has a collection of pictures of super skinny women is horrifying to me. I've never heard of such a thing.

“Yeah, well, you only just met,” Betony continues. “When she got here last year, right, she showed us the pictures after a few months, like, to see if we were into it. So she can have a partner in not eating or whatever, you know?”

“It's pretty sick,” Ashley adds. “I mean, she's so skinny anyway.”

“Yes, she's that skinny because she's
starving herself,
” I say, standing up. I'm really upset—why are these two so blasé about this? I'd be devastated if Hilary or Matty started doing something like this. “You guys are her friends. Why don't you tell her parents or a guidance counselor or . . . ?” I trail off because I'm starting to sound like a Lifetime movie, or worse. But come on—this isn't okay.

“Yeah, I'll call her mother.” Ashley laughs. “Do you know who her mother is? She's the American consul to Greece.”

“So?”

“So, she's a very important and smart woman. If she thought there was something wrong, I'm sure she'd handle it. Don't go getting all Oprah, okay? Lilena'll be fine. She's always done this weird eating stuff and nothing's happened. She probably just wants attention, you know, because her parents move her around every couple of years.” Betony turns to Ashley. “Remember when she first came, she used to hide people's snacks til Anais got pissed and called her out on it? That was nuts.”

I've had enough. How can they be so . . . unsympathetic?

“I have to go,” I say, picking up my tray.

“Zona, don't be mad,” Ashley calls. “Zona!”

But I don't turn around.

I wish I could call Yiota and ask her for advice. But I've hardly seen or spoken to her since school started because she's been super busy with her courses and part-time job at one of the stores downtown. And this doesn't seem like the kind of thing I can ask about in a text message.

As I walk to my locker, I try to clear my head and think about something else. Since I started at GIS, I haven't had time to do much writing. Hilary seems to have gotten the hang of things at the
Reflector
and hasn't needed my help.

How have two months gone by without my having looked into the GIS newspaper at all?

I'm going to go find out about it right now. Why not?

I dig the boring informative pamphlets I got my first day out of my locker and flip through them. Nothing about a school paper. There's a lit mag, but I'm not much for poems. There's a photography and art journal. Yearbook. Faculty-written school magazine. But no newspaper. How can this be? They offer AP Psychology and Russian Civ classes and have a thousand ways to earn advanced college credit, but no newspaper?!

I head to the library to ask. When I get there, I'm immediately hit by that yummy book smell. Isn't it amazing how all libraries smell the same?

At the front desk I ask Ms. Aivatos, the librarian. She smiles, types for a few seconds, and then turns her computer monitor around.

Ms. Aivatos can clearly sense my distress. She whispers to me, “If you want to talk to someone about it, try that boy there.” She points out a guy sitting at one of the research tables by himself. He has a laptop open, typing furiously. “That's Alex Loushas. He works on the paper.”

It's a website, not a paper,
I think. I thank Ms. Aivatos and go over to the table.

“Mind if I sit?” I ask. It's easy to be outgoing when your mind is focused on the collapse of society's necessary tools.

He looks up, and I immediately notice three things about him:

1) He's wearing very cool metallic green half-rim glasses.

2) He doesn't look like anyone I've met before—I can't tell what his ethnicity is at all. His skin is darker than mine, but not really brown. His hair is jet-black with gorgeous curls, and on the long side. Very Harry Styles. His dark eyes are slightly slanted and bore right through me.

3) He doesn't seem very friendly.

Number three is troubling, and I feel the urge to run away, but I don't. Dad wouldn't, Anne Newport Royall wouldn't, and neither will I.

“I'm Zona, a new sophomore here,” I say bravely. “I wanted to ask you about the paper.”

His demeanor immediately shifts, to my great relief. “Oh, cool,” he says. “I thought you were going to tell me you needed this table for some meeting or something. I'm Alex.” He holds out a hand, and I shake it before sitting down across from him. “So, what's up? You want to write for the
Sheaf
?”

“Well, sort of . . .” I begin. “I was features editor for my school paper back home, and I was pretty surprised that there's no paper here. I mean, Ms. Aivatos showed me the website, but . . . well, a website, while ambitious and modern, isn't tactile: you can't put it in front of people's faces, you don't get ink on your fingers to remind yourself you've read something, you know? And from what I've seen, the issues aren't themed, the articles seem pretty generic—I mean, they aren't focused on the students or the concerns of the school. What's your agenda? Where are the pull quotes from the student body? Where are the special interest stories? I don't—”

“Wait, hang on. First of all, I'm not in charge of the paper, okay? I just write for it. And secondly, I agree with you about the content part. It sucks. But, you know, it's a lot cheaper to do the website. Plus, many would argue that physical papers have become obsolete.”

I feel like my eyes might fall out of my head. Am I going to have to take on the “newspapers are obsolete” argument, right here in the school library?! I don't know if I have the strength today.

“Listen, Alex, I'm sure you—” And just when I'm about to get going, the bell rings.

“Dammit,” Alex mutters, pressing a few keys on his laptop. “Not even close to finished.”

He looks back up at me, and I realize that his eyes aren't brown, but a very dark gray. “Well, Zona, we'll have to finish this another time—I gotta get to Physics. See ya.”

I mentally note that if he's in Physics already, he's either very smart or a junior. Or both. By the time I decide to ask him in a surge of boldness, he's all packed up—and just like that, he's gone.

After school I go home and look around my room; usually I have notebooks everywhere for taking notes and jotting down ideas. Here, I have pretty much nothing. I'm annoyed with myself for not writing more, for not being focused. I don't know what's stopping me; my brain still thinks in headlines and articles, but I don't
do
anything about it. Schoolwork, Athens, life, worrying about spring break (going to Crete and meeting
the others
) . . . it's getting in the way of what used to make me
me.

And I still don't have a newspaper to work on.