5. Olivia
ONE DAY BEFORE THE OPENING CEREMONY
“Olivia, you need to read Directing the Montage of Your Life!” Aditi insisted.
“Aditi, I love you. But I’m not reading something called Directing the Montage of Your Life.” Olivia was deeply skeptical of her best friend’s “life-changing” self-help books. Mostly because they had corny titles like The World’s Your Oyster (Bar) and… Directing the Montage of Your Life.
“Right, so since you never take any of my very good recommendations, the idea is that everything’s exciting if you look at it that way.”
“How do I romanticize this?” Olivia positioned her phone camera toward the vending machine next to the bus stop where she was about to catch a bus to the Village.
“It’s a Greek vending machine! Have you ever seen that brand of chocolate before?”
“No. I’ll take a photo for my scrapbook,” Olivia said dryly. “Okay, how about this phone box?”
“It’s an ancient artifact of a time before the Uber app.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Olivia said, amused by her best friend’s unflinching commitment to magical thinking.
“I’m a storyteller.” Aditi grinned from Olivia’s phone screen. She moved through life with a sense of ease and wide-eyed wonder. She saw magic in everything, and while Olivia didn’t, her best friend never stopped making her want to. That’s probably why they’d stayed friends for so long. They were similar in all the ways that mattered but different in all the ways that made life fun. And Aditi was always trying to get Olivia to have more fun.
“I’ve been thinking about Summer Olivia,” she began.
“Not this again.” Olivia shook her head as she took a swig from her water bottle. The Athens heat was starting to get to her.
“Hear me out. What if that summer wasn’t a fluke?”
“It wasn’t a fluke, it was a mistake,” Olivia insisted, remembering how she’d allowed herself to fall so in love with Tiago that she’d considered deferring her final year to go traveling with him. But then she’d gone to his apartment one night to surprise him. There, she’d been greeted at the door by his gorgeous, incredibly angry, long-term girlfriend. Tiago had been hiding them from each other all summer, and Olivia had been too caught up in her feelings to see the signs.
So, impulsive, carefree Summer Olivia wasn’t going to be making an appearance in Athens. But she did promise to immortalize that morning with a first-day photograph.
She walked over to a statue of the five Olympic rings and propped her phone on a fence to try to take a photo. After her third attempt, a guy came over to help her.
Olivia’s eyes widened. She’d known that she’d eventually see an athlete in real life; it was the Olympic Village after all. But she hadn’t expected to meet one so soon after arriving. He was wearing a white-and-red tracksuit and had the kind of tall, strong build that made it obvious he was there to compete. But Olivia would have recognized him in the middle of a crowded supermarket. Because he wasn’t just any athlete, he was Haruki Endō, the star of the Japanese swimming team. He’d won a gold medal at the last Olympic Games, just done a big fashion campaign with Louis Vuitton, and was on track to win even more medals that summer. Olivia was completely starstruck.
“I can take a photo for you if you want,” he said, walking over to her with a smile.
“Thank you. My best friend would kill me if I didn’t take a good picture,” said Olivia.
“You’ve got to get the first-day photo. You never know what it’ll mean to you in five years,” he said.
Olivia smiled at the camera and tried not to think about the fact that she was speaking to a multi-medal-winning Olympian.
“Is this all right?” he asked, coming closer so she could see the photo. Her braids were in a ponytail with two perfectly curled sections gently framing her face. She was wearing brand-new heels and the sleek green suit her parents had bought her especially for today. Olivia was glowing.
“It’s perfect, thank you,” she said, nodding like a bobblehead. She was doing such a bad job of playing it cool that as she reached out to shake his hand the iridescent notebook that was hanging precariously out of her bag fell out. Haruki bent down to pick it up.
“You’re welcome,” he said, putting his hand out to shake hers. “I’m Haruki.”
“I’m Olivia,” she said.
“I am feeling very Olympic today?” he said, reading the words inscribed on the notebook. Olivia felt a tinge of embarrassment; it seemed corny out of context.
“It’s a quote from—”
“Cool Runnings?” said Haruki in recognition.
“Yeah,” Olivia said, pleasantly surprised. “It’s my favorite movie,” she admitted.
“You’ve got to love an underdog story,” said Haruki, giving her the kind of smile that had created a fervent fandom of teenage girls.
“Well, I’ve got to go to training now… but I’ll see you around!” He walked away with a nod and one final smile.
Maybe she would see him around? The summer that lay ahead of her seemed so rich with potential that it almost felt too good to be true. The sun was shining, and the Village was more stunning than she’d imagined it would be. There were busy officials with security lanyards and headpieces walking across the park with purpose, and energetic volunteers giving directions while holding up brightly colored signs. The energy was like the first morning of a festival, and for the first time in a long time, Olivia felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.