Page 72 of Holding Out for a Gyro
Around noon, Elizabeth showed up on her way to the university, looking exhausted. I got her a mocha latte and took my break. We grabbed a table in the corner.
“You look like hell.” She was one to talk. She wore makeup that couldn’t cover up the dark skin under her eyes, like she’d slept in her mascara. Or hadn’t slept at all.
“Like looking in a mirror, huh?” I hadn’t even bothered with makeup. What was the point?
“What’s going on with Bas?” She held her coffee up to take a sip but leaned past the mug. “Have you called him?”
I gave her an incredulous look. “Why would he want to talk to me?”
I’d beaten myself up all weekend for allowing my parents’ horrible decisions to impact my relationship with Bas. And after such a nice day when he’d put his heart into that meal. No surprise, I hadn’t heard from him once.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, then Elizabeth said, “So,vacation? We’ve racked up a lot of points. Where are we going this year?”
Funny. As much as I loved to travel, I hadn’t even thought about our annual trip all weekend. Maybe because we never went anywhere exciting anymore. Islands, beaches, cruises.
I wanted to go somewhere new. “Can we make it to Bali?”
She set her phone down and pulled up our map. “Not yet. Too far.”
“Not Bermuda.” We’d been so bored there in our isolated resort.
She winced. “Agreed.”
I dragged the map around to better see our options. “What about Iceland?”
Her nose curled, like she smelled something burned. “Jamaica was fun.”
“Yeah.” Jamaicawasfun. But we’d already been there. I wanted to put pins in the world map. I wanted to get as far away from myself as possible. “How far away can we go?”
“Greece?”
And Bas. As far from Bas as possible. “No way.”
“You’ve always wanted to go there.” She raised her eyebrows, like she was coaxing me with a van full of candy. “I bet we could do a tour of the islands by boat.”
“No.” My stomach curdled, and I was a beat away from standing up and going back to work.
She smiled. “Okay. We can figure it out.”
Relieved, I settled back against my chair. “Just somewhere we’ve never gone before, okay? I don’t care where. Except not Greece.”
“Wyoming it is.” She cocked an eyebrow, my cue to crack wise.
“Whatever,” I huffed.
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so cavalier if we could swing a trip to France.”
“I thought you wanted to go to a beach.”
“There are beaches in France.” She ran a search and said, “It might be a stretch, but what about Saint-Tropez?”
Hmm. For Elizabeth, that was an inspired vacation destination. She just wanted a beach. I wanted to explore the world. “In January? Won’t it be cold?”
“It would be temperate,” she said. “And probably cheaper in the off-season.”
I shrugged. “Okay. Whatever.”
“Jesus, Chelsea.” She leaned forward, over her coffee cup, and touched my hand.
