Blue Voyage Page 8

  “Oh my God!” I squealed. “You’re pregnant! I can’t believe it!”

  She put her finger to her lips. “Top-secret for now, okay, Zan?”

  “What? You have to tell my mom! She said you couldn’t get pregnant. She said—”

  “I know. Berk and I didn’t think we could. We’d had trouble; I had five miscarriages. It’s made me superstitious, so I didn’t want to say anything to anyone until I was past the first trimester. But I’m about there. I’m just waiting for the right time, the right moment, to tell your mom. Preferably not when we’re arguing. So can I ask you to keep it secret for just a little bit longer?”

  “Of course,” I agreed. Suddenly I felt something like real happiness for the first time in ages. I liked knowing something Mom didn’t know yet. And I felt honored that Aunt Jackie had told me first.

  “So what can I do for you? Are you comfortable?” I got up and fluffed her pillows. “Do you want your window open? Something to drink?” I spun around helplessly, looking for something to serve or clean or fix.

  She laughed. “No need to fuss over me. But if you want to help pick up those papers that fell off the bed during the chop, that’d be great.”

  “No problem.” I kneeled down on the floor to gather the spreadsheets, trying to look at them without being obvious. Could they be part of Aunt Jackie’s research on crime in Cappadocia? “What are these for, anyway?” I finally asked, unable to figure out the numbers.

  “Financial reports.” She made a face. “That’s the part of running a hotel that Berk and I were never very good at. But when we inherited the hotel, it was already in bad shape. I have to somehow make these numbers look better soon, or I’m going to lose the hotel.”

  “Really? How could you lose the hotel?”

  “Berk’s brother, Serhan, and his sister, Ayla, legally have claims on it. Even though they’ve had no involvement in running the place.”

  “That doesn’t sound fair.”

  “No. But it’s the way Turkish inheritance law works. The surviving spouse gets a percentage of the estate, and the rest gets divided up among siblings. When Berk’s parents died years ago, Serhan and Ayla weren’t interested in the Mavi Konak. But now the neighborhood’s a hot real estate market. If I can’t get us back in the black, they’re going to start the process of selling the place.”

  I handed her the stack of papers. “And you don’t want to sell?”

  “No.” Aunt Jackie pressed her lips together, thought a moment, then continued. “Which is strange, considering hotel management wasn’t a first-choice career for either Berk or me. But when Berk lost his job, and when he couldn’t get steady employment in his field, it was a logical move for us, and I had the better English skills we needed for marketing. Now more than ever I want to finish what we started together and see it succeed. But I guess I’m a bit distracted these days.”

  I frowned. “They should be nicer to you. I mean, you just lost your husband. How could your own in-laws sell the hotel out from under you?”

  “They have the right to do so. And I guess they see me as this American interloper. We were never close. Serhan and Ayla are both busy professionals, married, with two children each. I never really bonded with them. And Berk was so different from them, especially after spending so many years in the US. There was a vast family divide we just couldn’t seem to cross.”

  I nodded. I knew a lot about family divides, having grown up in the widening chasm between my own parents.

  Aunt Jackie sighed and shoved the spreadsheets into a file folder. “They didn’t express any interest in the hotel—or us—until after Berk was gone. Now they’re coming around all the time. The more they can learn about what kind of shape the building is in, financially, the more ammunition they’ll have to get it shut down. But you don’t want to hear about my financial woes. Let’s talk about you instead.”

  “Me? There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Nothing?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t like talking about myself. But Aunt Jackie, like Sage, had shared something personal. So I told her a little about some of my ex-friends, and even an almost-boyfriend I’d had before the whole scandal, and how I’d lost everyone pretty much overnight. “They only liked me because I had access to celebrities and parties and stuff,” I admitted. “Once all that went away, and once my dad became this public embarrassment, they were out of there. I guess they weren’t my real friends.”

  “No”—Aunt Jackie reached over to pat my shoulder—“they weren’t. And you know something? They did you a favor, painful as it was. You don’t need people like that in your life. You’ll find new friends,” she added. “Close friends. Give it time.”

  “I’m not sure I want close friends anymore. When people know too much about you, stuff gets out. This is the second time I’ve been burned.”

  “What happened the first time?”

  “Camp Feinman. Sixth grade. I told my bunkmate I had vitiligo.”

  Aunt Jackie nodded. “That must have been scary, to confide in someone new.”

  “It was. Because then she told everyone else, and then everybody started acting like I had a contagious skin disease, and teasing me about it, and basically avoiding me.”

  “Oh, Zan.”

  “My dad thinks I loved that camp, and he still thinks I should go back and be a counselor.”

  “I get it,” said Aunt Jackie. “Now you have trouble telling which people are real friend material and which aren’t. You can’t trust people.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t have the answers. I’m no oracle. But I can pass on a little wisdom from your uncle Berk. You probably don’t know this, but one of the more interesting parts of his job was that he sometimes did side work with the TNP, the Turkish National Police.”

  “As an archaeologist?”

  “Yes. The police department calls in authenticators when they find art objects or antiquities. They need people to appraise things and say whether they’re real or have value. Berk was so good at this. He always had a gut reaction first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He could hold an art object and feel a connection to its maker. Even though he was an intellectual, a scholar, he trusted his instincts. That emotional sense never betrayed him. About objects, anyway. I just wish he’d had the same sense for people.” She looked down and twisted the sleeves of her tunic. “Because that’s what it came down to in the end. His instinct was off. And he was deceived.”

  “By whoever mugged him and pushed him off the cliff?”

  “Exactly. I think he trusted someone enough to get pulled into the wrong conversation.”

  I sat up straighter. An idea hit me. “Aunt Jackie, what if it wasn’t a random crime? What if someone set out to kill him? What if they followed him there—or even made him go there? Did any of his colleagues not like him?”

  “I’ve had that thought,” she said. “Believe me, I’ve gone to all kinds of dark places in my mind. But he got along with everyone he worked with. He was diplomatic, and would walk miles out of his way to avoid a controversy. It’s probably why he was one of the first to go when the museum had its budget cuts. He might have been seen as too passive. Too agreeable. Berk just never made waves.”

  I leaned forward, resting my chin in my hands, thinking. “What kind of job was he interviewing for in Cappadocia?”

  “A tour guide job. It was beneath him. He’d have been hired to lead tours of the rock caves during high season. But he agreed to go out and interview for it anyway, to see if it might lead to something else. He didn’t like to close doors to opportunities. He didn’t think we could afford to.”

  Now I felt bad that I hadn’t known my uncle well. It made me mad that someone had probably offed him. Why did so many bad things happen to our family? It didn’t seem fair.

 
And now that I knew Aunt Jackie’s secret, it seemed really wrong that she should be on her own to figure out why her husband had died so tragically. Not even her own sister was on her side. I knew what it felt like to be left alone. Maybe I could spare someone else from feeling that pain.

  “I want to help you,” I said.

  “With what?”

  “I know Mom doesn’t believe your theory, but I do. And I want to do something. I want to help you prove that Uncle Berk’s fall wasn’t an accident. I’m a good researcher,” I insisted, when she started to object. “I can help you find articles online. Or organize them for you.”

  “Thank you, Zan. I appreciate the offer. But I can’t involve you in this. Your mother would be furious.”

  “We don’t have to tell her.”

  “No, one secret’s enough. I’ll keep plugging away, and when the time’s right, when I have enough evidence of violent muggings, then I’ll go to my lawyer. But your moral support means a lot to me. Truly.” She shifted off of the bed and stood up. “Anyway, I’m worried I’m dragging you down in all this. You’re supposed to be having the time of your life on a cruise. Come to the upper deck with me and hang out. I’m suddenly starving. Let’s ask Orhan to fix us something delicious to eat.”

  I followed Aunt Jackie to the upper deck. Orhan was fishing for dinner but immediately jumped up to get us some snacks from the galley kitchen. As he did, I fixed my gaze on a stand of pine trees near the water’s edge at the cove. Branches rustled and a bird flapped out, soaring over my head and displaying its colorful feathers and tufts—white, blue, brown, and red. I nudged Aunt Jackie and pointed. We watched it together, mouths open in awe, before it swooped, turned, and flew away.

  The Smyrna kingfisher, from Nils and Ingrid’s bird book. I was pretty sure—no, I knew, in my gut—I’d just glimpsed something real and rare.

  8

  I had trouble getting to sleep that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sage’s purchases earlier in the day. Three or four more small yachts had discovered our secluded cove that evening, and I’d seen two more baklava vendors going up to all the boats and holding up silver trays after dinner. One had come up to our boat, offering pastries for dessert, which Orhan politely declined. It wasn’t the same vendor Sage had bought from, though—this guy was much older, and his motorboat didn’t have the same blue tarp in the back. Part of what kept me awake was wondering if all the baklava sellers really had other things for sale or if Sage had just gotten lucky.

  When I eventually dozed off and lapsed into half-dreams, I pictured ancient Lycian women carving tombs into cliffs. I dreamed of winged spirits taking dead bodies away, cradling corpses in their arms, including a baby’s corpse. I peeled back a white blanket to see the face of my unborn baby cousin. I woke up, heart pounding, dry-mouthed.

  Mom was snoring away. I tossed and turned, then sat up straight when I heard the click of a door opening down the hall. Footsteps followed, climbing the stairs, thudding quietly on the upper deck. Could that be Sage? Maybe she’d want to hang out. I could use a distraction. Or a friend.

  I got out of bed and yanked my Burlington Boulders hoodie on over my tank top and pulled lightweight sweats on over my shorts. Then I slipped out of the room.

  On deck, the table under the awning was cleared, the floor washed, all traces of our dinner gone. Then I heard clinking sounds in the kitchen. I went to the doorway and saw Sage, wearing a bathing suit and a cover-up tunic, leaning against the small countertop and drinking a glass of milk.

  I shrank back into the shadows. The sight of the water faucet suddenly reminded me that I’d washed my face before bed. I’d have to run back downstairs and try to put on makeup in the dark.

  Too late. Sage saw me. “Ah! A fellow night owl? Quick, where’s Nils’s bird-watching guide? We should check you off the list!”

  “I can’t sleep,” I admitted, covering my left cheek with my hand and hoping my bangs would cover my forehead. “Guess I’m still jet-lagged. What’s your excuse?”

  “Insomnia,” said Sage. “Chronic. I almost never sleep at night.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I’m pretty used to it by now. It started after my brother died. My doctor gave me pills last year, but I don’t like to take them. That’s okay. Night on a boat is beautiful. Night on the Lycian Way? Magical.” She set her glass down in the sink. “Did you see all those stars out there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Come outside. I’ll show you. Hey, what’s wrong with your face?”

  I swallowed hard. “My face?”

  “Yeah. Why are you holding it?”

  “Toothache. I just, um, came up for water, so I could take an ibuprofen.”

  “I have something way better. Lion’s milk.” She got me an empty glass from the cabinet.

  “They have lions in turkey?”

  “No. But this drink I’m going to make for you is called aslan sütü. It means ‘lion’s milk.” She reached for a bottle from a small bar above the sink. Yeni Raki, the label read. She filled a glass with water, then poured clear liquid from the bottle into it. When she handed me the glass, the liquid turned cloudy white. When I sniffed it, it smelled like licorice. I held the glass, still keeping my left cheek covered up with my hand.

  “Raki,” she informed me. “It’s kind of like ouzo. Or sambuca. It’s the national drink of Turkey. I like it best with chilled water. Cheers.” She raised her glass and clinked it with mine.

  I sipped slowly, letting the liquid burn my tongue and throat.

  Sage watched me, an amused smile playing at her lips. “Like it?”

  I didn’t. But I nodded and managed a smile instead of making a face. Even if I didn’t like the drink, it felt so normal to hang with someone and drink in the dark, almost like being home with my ex-friends. Like when my friends and I would raid our parents’ liquor cabinets at sleepovers. I felt like this bottle of raki had unleashed genies: memories of happier times, flitting all around me.

  Shadowed by memory-djinns, glass in hand, I followed Sage outside, to the cushions at the back of the boat. I was grateful for the cover of darkness, but still wary of the moonlight. I positioned myself so she’d only see my right side. But Sage was looking at the sky, not at me.

  “Look at the stars,” she said. I did, and the sight took my breath away. The sky was full of them, way more than you could ever see in our driveway in Cabot, Massachusetts. We looked for constellations, and made up crazy names for the ones we didn’t know, naming them after the other passengers on the boat.

  “There’s the Bird-watcher, known for its binoculars shape,” said Sage, tracing a pattern with her finger while the waves gently lapped against our boat.

  “And there are the Lobsters,” I said, tracing two lobster claws in the dark and pretend-sipping my raki to show Sage I liked it.

  “The Lobsters? That’s a great name. Who are they?” Sage asked. “Wait. Let me guess. The grumpy, sunburned Aussies?”

  “Yeah. Milton and Maeve.”

  “Okay, guess this, starting from that bright star.” Sage traced a rounded shape in the air.

  “No idea.”

  “The Urn. Otherwise known as your aunt.”

  “Why do you think of her as an urn?”

  “Because she’s just like that urn she brought with her.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t get it.

  “I’ll explain. But first: refills.”

  I quickly tipped my glass and poured my drink over the side of the boat so she wouldn’t know I’d been fake-sipping. Sage darted off to the kitchen with our empty glasses. I debated running downstairs for the makeup, but there wasn’t time. She was already coming out of the kitchen, bottle of raki in hand.

  “You’d think she’d be empty,” Sage said, sitting back down and pouring the drink, “because she’s this grieving widow, right? But s
he’s really so full of life.”

  I clinked my glass with Sage’s again, and this time I drank a full swallow. Then another. My throat burned and my eyes watered, and finally I couldn’t hold back my cough.

  “Raki’s a little strong,” said Sage. “Maybe too strong for you?”

  “I’m fine.” I lifted my chin. “It’s just, what you said startled me. That’s why I coughed. My aunt is full of life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I’d said too much. But I couldn’t go back. “She’s pregnant. But she’s not ready to announce it yet. My mom doesn’t even know. You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

  “I won’t. I promise.” Sage grinned. “That’s awesome news! I bet your aunt and uncle conceived right before he went to Cappadocia. And you’re going to have a little baby cousin in a few months. Cheers to that.” Sage raised her glass and we drank to the good news. This time I went back to pretend-drinking.

  “I’m jealous,” Sage added, when she’d drained her glass. “You’ll probably be spending a lot more time in Turkey.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Your mom will want to help her sister and dote on her niece.”

  “Nah. They’re not that close.”

  “A baby is a game-changer.”

  “Maybe my aunt and her baby will just move back to Massachusetts,” I said. “There’s nothing keeping her in Turkey now that my uncle’s gone.”

  Sage shook her head fiercely, making her curly ponytail shake. “Nope. She’ll want the baby to know its home country and your uncle’s family. She can’t rip the baby away from all that family history and your uncle Berk’s roots.”

  “She might want a change of scene. Uncle Berk was depressed the past couple of years.”

  “Really? How come?” She shifted on the bolster, leaning forward.

  “He lost his job at the archaeological museum after government budget cuts. He took it really hard.”

  As I spoke, I remembered a Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents’ house two years ago, right after Uncle Berk was laid off. Aunt Jackie and Uncle Berk were in town visiting. Uncle Berk didn’t say much. He didn’t normally drink much, either, but that night he knocked back three glasses of wine, one after the other. Aunt Jackie kept massaging his shoulders. They had brought me a shadow puppet theatre from Turkey for my present that year. It could unfold and set up on a table, and it came with a set of shadow puppets—flat, jointed figures that could dance on the end of a stick, illuminated by a light held behind a cloth screen. Even though I felt too old for it, I put on a puppet show for the family, just to break the tension. My parents and grandparents had played along, pretending to be entertained, but Berk, I could see through the cloth, wasn’t even watching.