White Vespa by Kevin Oderman Page B

her shaking hands. When she looked up again she just looked tired, and she stared hard at her face in the mirror and said low but fervently, “What am I here for?”
    Â 
    Out in the bar nothing had changed, but she left her stool empty, lifted her hand by way of good-bye, and slipped out the door.
    A couple of clouds, bright in the moonlight, sailed over Sými town, and she walked down, under their prows, down the great steps, wanting nothing now but her bed and dreamless sleep.

Thirty
    26 June
    Â 
    The ferry from Tílos put in at Níssyros on the return to Sými. Jim said the main town, Mandhráki, was worth seeing, built around a shared garden, the alleys serpentine and houses impassive as poker players.
    â€œBut you can’t see it from the harbor?” Myles asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, what you can see from here looks dismal enough.”
    â€œYes,” Jim said.
    The ferry pulled away from the pier and ran close-in to shore as far as Páli, a safe harbor, mostly for yachts, they thought, as standing by the rail all they could see was a thicket of shining masts over the breakwater.
    The shore itself had been scarred by a road and worse, a plague of dumping.
    â€œWorth a visit?”
    â€œIt is, Myles. Not this bit, but the rest of the island.”
    â€œAll the parts you can’t see?” Myles smiled.
    â€œThat’s right! Maybe they should put up a sign, All Charms Hidden .” Jim held up an imaginary sign. “But there’s a very impressive crater at the heart of the island and two wonderful hill towns strung out along the lip of the caldera.”
    The ferry ran alongside an outsize hotel development, seemingly abandoned before it had even been finished. Myles teased Jim, enjoying it. “Mmm. Also charming.”
    â€œFor the best, really. That place would have ruined the island,” Jim said defensively.
    â€œHow hard would that have been, what with the job so well begun?” Myles snickered. “Just kidding. I believe you; I’ll come back, take my camera for a walk all over the island.”
    â€œWalking your camera?”
    â€œThat’s right. So much less bother than a dog,” Myles said. “Never wants
to go the other way or stop to piss on a bush.”
    Â 
    They dozed. Myles woke first and from the rail he could see Sými in the distance. The sea was glossy smooth. The ferry split the water and left a great white wake where it had been. Myles neatly peeled two apples with the long blade of his traveling knife and then nudged Jim awake. He sliced up the small smoked gouda he’d found in a market on Tílos and opened a packet of dense digestive biscuits. He bought two bottles of mineral water at the bar. They ate off a sheet of newspaper, reflectively, watching the gulls working the wake for a snack of their own.
    â€œWere you ever married, Myles?”
    â€œYes. Once. It was years ago. How about you?”
    â€œWell, no. I’m gay. I thought you knew,” Jim said carefully.
    â€œAh, no. Hadn’t thought about it.”
    â€œYou don’t mind?”
    â€œOf course not. Committed relationship?” Myles asked.
    â€œSeveral!” Jim smiled brightly.
    â€œNot now?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHaven’t given up?”
    â€œNo.” Jim let the moment elongate. “What happened?”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œWhen you were married.”
    â€œWe ended farther apart than we started,” Myles said.
    Jim said nothing.
    Myles shuddered. “There was a child. A boy. Max. We lost him,” he said, and when he spoke again his voice was shaky. “He was only fifteen. Just disappeared.”
    â€œDisappeared?” Jim asked. “As in kidnapped?”
    â€œI don’t know. Ran away, more likely. He didn’t seem such an unhappy kid, but distant, very distant, right from the beginning.”
    â€œMyles, I’m sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay. It was a