Page 13 of My Stepbrother's Wedding
“That’s Lake Achris. We’re almost there!”
I nodded appreciatively. At least Will had found somewhere pretty to get married, even if it was halfway to the moon. We descended the mountainside for the next thirty minutes, passing an old monastery, abandoned farmhouses, and a slew of tiny villages until we pulled into the largest town we’d seen since the airport.
White houses with red tile roofs flanked the narrow roads, along with ugly concrete apartment buildings that stood like giant gray dominoes, each with a tiny storefront on the first floor. Stop signs served as decorations for local vehicles that ignored them. Every third block had a roundabout, which felt like a miniature demolition derby. Children and old men on bicycles meandered through the streets with a laissez-faire attitude about road safety. It definitely wasn’t Chicago.
“Where are we supposed to meet Will?” I asked.
“At the Achris airport,” Elizabeth said.
As she spoke, the driver turned a corner and pulled into a large parking lot congested with taxis and other buses. At the far end of the lot, a blue terminal stood. A large sign on the building’s roof saidAvtobuska Stanica.The driverparked at the curb and opened the doors. Passengers streamed off and retrieved their luggage from the lower compartment.
“This ain’t the airport,” Dad grumbled.
“Should we wait and see if he takes us there?” I asked.
Dad shrugged, but the driver stood and motioned for us to get off.
“Will must know we’re here,” Elizabeth said. “He’ll be waiting.”
We staggered off and collected our luggage. I gazed about the bus station lot, hoping to see my moron stepbrother. Of course, he was nowhere to be seen, and a pack of aggressive cab drivers flocked to me like I was the only girl at a frat party.
“Can you take us to the airport?” I asked.
None of the cabbies spoke more than a few broken words of English. One did manage to say, “No airport today,” however. I fought off a driver trying to grab my luggage and shared a nervous glance with Dad.
We turned to Elizabeth, but she was talking to a group of locals led by a short, middle-aged woman wearing a blue sundress and oversized cross necklace. The woman exchanged a two-cheek kiss with my stepmother. Elizabeth glowed with a dumb smile and shook hands with the strangers, like a diplomat meeting a foreign emissary.
“You come stay at our house?” said the short woman, with a strong accent.
“Oh, we’d love to stay at your house,” Elizabeth responded, her face radiant, hands over her chest. “It’s so nice to meet you finally.”
“Good. You have bags?”
“Yes, they all made it, thank goodness. We had such a terrible ordeal when we arrived in Pelagonia. Someone tried to kidnap Wini, and they shoved us on this bus.”
The woman nodded, a confused look on her face.
Elizabeth hugged the strange lady, as if they were sisters. “Where is Will? When can we meet Irena?”
“Irena?” The woman’s brow curled down. “Who is this Irena?”
“Well, she’s the bride, of course.”
“I don’t know no Irena, but you look like good people. Come, stay our house. We give you good price.”
Elizabeth’s lips trembled, and her eyes watered. I deduced the strange woman was trying to rent out her summer property to tourists and had no idea who any of us were. From my stepmother’s deflated expression, she had also figured that out. I sighed. Where was Will? If he wasn’t here, whatwere we supposed to do? A sullen panic set in as I stared at Elizabeth’s devastated face.
“No, thanks,” Dad said to the woman. “We need to look for our family.” He wrapped his arms around Elizabeth and pulled her away. My stepmom buried her face in his shoulder and wept. I patted her on the back, trying to comfort her, fighting back my own tears. I’d never felt more lost or helpless, and it was only getting worse. I’d never wanted to see Will before, and now that I needed him, he was nowhere to be found.
***
Once Elizabeth recovered enough to keep moving, we asked one of the hawkish taxi drivers to take us to a hotel. We had to ride with suitcases on our laps because his tiny Passat barely had space for four adults. We must have looked like dollar signs, because he dropped us off at the ritziest hotel on the lakeside, The Grand Admiral.
White columns and imitation Greek statues stood on the pavilion of the white four-story resort, offset by gold trim and lush bushes. A café on the first floor bustled with youngpeople in trendy clothes. A man in a tuxedo strode outside and started carrying our luggage inside.
Dad handed the taxi driver a twenty-dollar bill and asked, “Will you take this?”
The driver’s eye lit up with wolfish delight. “Yes, very good.” He stuck the cash in his pocket and was gone in an instant.
