Savas's Wildcat

by Anne McAllister

  “Guilt trip in other words.”

  His mother gave a long-suffering sigh. “If you choose to think of it that way,” she said archly.

  “I love you.”

  “Yes, I know. And you hate crowds.” She said the words in a sing-song tone that made it clear she’d heard them before—and wasn’t buying. “They’re not crowds. They’re your family.”

  The crowd you couldn’t get rid of, Yiannis thought.

  “—and they only want—”

  “—what’s best for me,” Yiannis finished the time-worn aphorism for her. He could have done the sing-song bit, too. It was like a refrain.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed. “But they also want my house during spring break. They want to bring their friends and hang out at the beach all summer. They want me to be the godfather to their children—”

  “You should be honored.”

  “I’m thrilled,” he lied through his teeth.

  Harry stuck his fingers in Yiannis’s mouth, then crowed loudly when Yiannis nibbled on them.

  “That’s a baby!” Malena announced. “Whose?”

  “Not mine,” Yiannis said, knowing the jig was up. “Not anyone who’s going to make you a grandmother. I’ve got to go, Ma. Someone’s ringing in on my call waiting.” It wasn’t a lie, actually. There was a call coming in.

  “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “I’m trying to do business.”

  “With a baby?”

  “Gotta go, Ma. I’ll talk to you soon.” He hung up before she could have the last word.

  But even as he answered the call from a furniture maker in Colorado, he knew he hadn’t heard the end of this with his mother. Malena Savas wanted all of her children married and providing her with grandchildren. Now that George and Sophy were back together and expecting a baby any day, he was the last hold-out.

  And all his insistence that she should be happy with what she had and stop pressing for what she didn’t have fell on deaf ears.

  “It isn’t for me, Yiannis, darling,” she had insisted at Christmas when he’d foolishly gone home and even more foolishly allowed her to corner him in the kitchen the morning he was leaving to have one of her famous heart-to-heart discussions where she told him how he should live his life. “It is for you. It will make you happy! You will be the man you were always meant to be.”

  “Yeah? Like being married to Dad has made you the happiest woman in the world?”

  Every one of the Savas children knew that being married to Socrates Savas was no picnic, just as having him for a father was no walk in the park. He was a hard-working, hard-driving, hard-nosed man.

  “Your father is … a challenge,” Malena had had the grace to admit. “But he makes life exciting. I wouldn’t have the life I have had without him.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Yiannis had remarked drily.

  At which point she had slapped his hand and said firmly, “I love your father, Yiannis, and though he is not always easy, he is always the man I love. I would not change my life for anything on earth.”

  “That’s not because of Dad. It’s because of those grandchildren you’re finally seeing.”

  She’d laughed. “Yes, there is that.” But then she’d sobered. “Grandchildren are a blessing, Yiannis. I wish them for you—”

  “No, thanks. I don’t want them.”

  “But you will.”

  He’d shaken his head. “I don’t intend to.”

  “We all know where good intentions lead.”

  “You think not being married is hell?” He’d laughed at that.

  “I think you haven’t found the right woman yet,” his mother told him simply.

  Perversely, Yiannis remembered now, a fleeting vision of a red-headed woman with freckles and bottle green eyes had flickered through his mind. Because, Yiannis told himself later, Cat was the one woman who had ever dared mention the M word to him.

  “The right woman doesn’t exist,” he’d told his mother firmly then.

  And now, after he finished his conversation with the furniture maker, he sat down on the floor, looked Harry in the eye and said, “No, thanks. I’m single. I’m happy and I’m staying that way.”

  Harry beamed and waved his hands and climbed into Yiannis’s arms.

  Just because his mother thought the world was better off with everyone marching through it two by two didn’t mean that she was right.

  He wasn’t going to get married to make his mother happy. Or anyone else. He liked his life just the way it was. He didn’t want his freedom compromised. Some people, like Tallie, called him selfish. Maybe he was. But as long as he could remember, families had made demands.

  They took your baseball cards, borrowed your surf board, ate your chocolate Easter egg, spilled red wine on the sport coat you were nice enough to lend them. Mostly they made demands on your time.

  Hell, they were still doing it.

  A family reunion on Mother’s Day, for crying out loud.

  “Don’t get married,” he told Harry sternly. “No matter what they tell you.”

  Harry poked him in the eye.

  Cat didn’t know much about relativity.

  A liberal arts sort of girl, she’d taken high school physics and nothing much scientific since.

  But it didn’t need an advanced degree to convince her that time was relative. And she was never more certain of it than while she alternately sat and paced around the surgical waiting room.

  Waiting was the operative word.

  And there was a pun for you, she thought with annoyance. How on earth long could it take?

  “I will come and speak to you after,” Dr Singh had told her, giving her an encouraging smile outside the operating room. But she could tell from his eyes he was already mentally somewhere else.

  She hoped the somewhere else was the operating room because three hours later he was still apparently replacing her grandmother’s hip.

  Other people had been called in to talk to the doctor about their patient. A number had come and sat and waited and were now long gone again. All of them seemed to be there in groups. To have support.

  Not Cat. Cat paced alone up and down the corridor and cracked her knuckles. She bit her fingernails and said her prayers.

  When finally her mobile phone rang—they would call when the doctor could see her, she’d been told—she snatched it up. “Yes?”

  “Hi.” It was Adam.

  Cat felt the air seem to seep right out of her. “Hi.” The single word came out wobbly-sounding.

  “Tired?” Adam said. “I told you not to drive down last night.”

  “I had to,” Cat told him, just as she had yesterday before she’d left. “Gran’s in surgery now. She should be out soon.”

  “Great. So are you coming back tonight then?”

  “What? No!”

  “Well, when are you coming back?” he asked, as if it were a perfectly reasonable question.

  “I don’t know.” Cat flexed her shoulders which felt suddenly stiff. “I just got here. I don’t know how she is. Or how long she’ll be in the hospital.”

  “Well, you can’t do anything for her if she’s there,” Adam said. “And you can’t take days and days off. People are counting on you.”

  “I’m a substitute librarian,” Cat said. “And my grandmother is counting on me as well.”

  “Of course,” Adam said placatingly. “I was just saying.”

  “Thank you for saying,” Cat said, annoyed.

  “I miss you.”

  “Oh.” Her annoyance abated a bit. She smiled. “I miss you, too.”

  “And what about your dress?”

  “What dress?”

  “The dress you have to get for the Wanamakers’ ball.” The CEO of Adam’s bank held a ball once a year. It was an exclusive affair, and you had to be Someone to get invited. Last year was the first year Adam had been invited. Last year she hadn’t gone with him—they hadn’t been engaged th
en. They had only met a month or so before. But, eyes shining, he had told her all about it.

  When they got engaged in January, one of the first things he had said to her was, “This year you can go to Wanamakers’ with me.”

  Now he said, “You’re not going to let me down, are you, Cat?”

  “Of course not! I would never!” But she hadn’t given it a thought when she’d made her decision to come.

  “It’s only a week from Saturday night and you still don’t have a dress.” He sounded distinctly worried.

  Most men would assume that the woman they had chosen to ask to such an event would be capable of picking out a suitable dress. Not Adam.

  “You have to look elegant,” he’d told her when he’d showed her the invitation. And there had been a note of doubt in his voice when they’d talked about the dress. His gaze had skated slowly up and down the gypsy skirt and gauzy blouse she’d worn to work at the library, and his expression had seemed to suggest that he wondered if that was even possible.

  “Absolutely,” Cat had vowed. “It’ll be an excuse to buy a new dress,” she had added with more enthusiasm than she felt.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  And no amount of discussion had convinced him otherwise. So far, though, they hadn’t gone. Not that he hadn’t suggested it.

  But every time she hadn’t been able to go. Just as well, she’d assured herself. She didn’t want Adam breathing down her neck while she went dress shopping. She didn’t like shopping for dresses at the best of times.

  Ever since eighth grade when she’d overheard Michael Garner say she looked like a knock-kneed crane, Cat had had issues with her body. She didn’t like looking at her crane-ish self in mirrors, let alone in triple mirrors where she appeared in infinitely disastrous multiplication.

  She’d get a dress, but by herself. And it would be one she felt good in. She’d make a stab at “elegance,” but she considered it a bonus.

  Suddenly there was an up-side to dear Gran’s broken hip.

  “There are dresses down here,” she told Adam now. “I’ll look.”

  There was a long pause. Then Adam said, “I suppose you’ll have to. You can’t let this go until you get back. But remember: elegant.” And he added, “And not black.”

  “Why not?” When she heard the word “elegant” Cat thought only of black.

  It was hard enough not to stand out when you were nearly six feet tall, had hair that might not be the color of a fire engine, but certainly called one to mind. Anything other than black had never crossed her mind.

  “Because it’s not a funeral,” Adam said. “It’s a joyous occasion.”

  Cat thought it was a duty function. “I’ll look at colors,” she promised. She didn’t say she would buy one.

  “I’ll call you tonight to see what you’ve found.”

  “I may not go this afternoon, Adam.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Gran is in surgery!”

  “Oh, right. Of course. Well, keep me posted. I have a meeting now. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

  “You, too,” Cat said, but Adam had already hung up.

  She got a cup of coffee from the urn by the desk and stirred it absently as she paced the floor. Her stomach was in tighter knots now, as much from the thought of dress shopping as from worrying about Gran. The strong bitter taste of the coffee made her wince.

  “She still in surgery?”

  Cat nearly dropped the mug. She spun around. Yiannis, with Harry on his hip, was standing right behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I thought you’d call when she got out of surgery. You didn’t, so we came to see how she was doing. How are you doing?” he asked, as if that were more important.

  “I’m all right,” she said, aware that she didn’t sound it. “I didn’t call because they haven’t called me. I don’t know what’s going on. And I thought you couldn’t bring babies to the hospital.”

  “He can’t go to her room. He can stay here. So we’re here.” The look he gave her defied her to argue. “Are you that upset?”

  Cat swallowed. “I’m all right. It just seems as if it’s taking forever.”

  “Yeah, it did when my dad had his heart surgery.”

  She hadn’t heard about that. But he didn’t elaborate. He just asked, “When did she go in? How long did they say it would take?”

  So Cat found herself telling him. It felt good to be able to talk to someone who cared about Gran, even if it was Yiannis. They walked down the hall and back into the waiting room. While she talked, Yiannis poured himself a cup of coffee and, without even asking, took hers out of her hand and refilled it. She hadn’t even realized she’d drained it.

  He handed her a full cup.

  “Thank you.” She wrapped her hands around the mug and breathed deeply, feeling steadier. She managed a smile.

  “Good,” Yiannis said abruptly.

  Cat blinked at him. “Good?”

  “First time you’ve smiled all day.” He regarded her solemnly over the top of his coffee mug. She remembered other times when he’d looked at her that way, his gaze warm, caring.

  “Ms. MacLean?”

  Jolted, Cat turned to see Dr Singh just coming in the waiting room, his eyes finding her. So much for phone call warnings. “I’m Catriona MacLean,” she said. “Is my grandmother all right?”

  The doctor nodded and tipped his head toward one of the small conference rooms just off the main waiting room. “She will be.”

  Cat tried to read his expression, but he had one of those inscrutable faces. Why didn’t they teach doctors to smile?

  “If you and your husband will come this way,” he said politely. “I will explain things to you.”

  Husband?

  She expected an instant denial from Yiannis, but he just said, “Do you want to go in alone? Harry and I can wait out here.”

  “No.” She’d felt alone all morning. It might be the height of folly to allow even for a moment the misconception that Yiannis was her husband, but as long as they both knew it wasn’t true, what difference would it make to the doctor?

  Dr Singh led them into a small conference room where he waited until she sat down before he sat, too. Yiannis didn’t sit. He stood behind her, jiggling Harry, keeping the baby entertained as the doctor spread out several sheets of paper on the desk between them.

  “Your grandmother is doing very well,” he said. “She is in recovery now, and we’ll keep her there for a while. We need to be cautious because of her age. But when she is ready to go back to her room, you can go back with her. Not the baby,” he said apologetically.

  “We understand,” Cat said quickly.

  Dr Singh smiled perfunctorily, then pushed one of the illustrations toward her. “With the sort of break she had, we did a replacement. It will be more stable in the long run. You see?” But she noted that he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to Yiannis.

  Cat bristled.

  “Are those illustrations?” Yiannis asked. His hand came past her shoulder as he gestured at the pieces of paper the doctor had laid on the table.

  “Yes. I will show you what we did.” He talked—at length—but for all that she tried to focus, Cat wasn’t absorbing it.

  She didn’t speak medical jargon. But even more importantly, she couldn’t seem to focus on the pages when she was so aware of the man literally breathing down her neck. She tried to follow the doctor’s pen as he drew a line and a circle and explained what each symbolized. But even then, she was far more attuned to the movement of Yiannis’s feet as he shifted behind her, to the timbre of his voice as he asked questions, to his request for amplification when something wasn’t clear. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the faded denim of his jeans, could watch the muscles shift beneath the fabric as he moved.

  “—any other questions?” The doctor’s voice cut across her thought. “Ms MacLean.”

  “What? Oh!” Cat was
suddenly aware of Dr Singh looking at her expectantly.

  “When can she come home?” Yiannis asked.

  “She’ll be out-patient in three or four days. We’ll see how she does. But she won’t be going home for a while. She’ll need some time for rehab in-patient first. And then she’ll have to do out-patient therapy. It’s a several weeks’ process.”

  Exactly what Cat was afraid of.

  “She won’t like that,” Yiannis predicted.

  The doctor smiled. “Probably not. But it’s necessary if she’s going to get back on her feet again.”

  “She will,” Yiannis said. “She lives in a second floor apartment.”

  The doctor winced. “Not right away, she doesn’t. You’ll have to find somewhere else.” He gathered up the papers, slipped them into a folder and handed them to Cat, then stood up. “But it will give her a greater incentive. I’ll be talking to her about it tomorrow when she’s able to focus on what I’m telling her. If either of you can be here, it would be a good idea.”

  “Of course,” Yiannis said.

  Numbly Cat nodded her head and stood, too.

  Dr Singh shook Yiannis’s hand, then Cat’s. “Don’t worry,” he said to both of them. “She’ll do fine. She’s got a lot of drive. And she has a family who cares about her. That’s important. The receptionist will let you know when they’ve taken her to her room and you can see her there. Minus your little boy.” He gave Harry a wink and tousled his hair, then strode back out the door, leaving Cat standing there with Yiannis and Harry and the sense that her life was spinning out of control.

  “She can’t go home,” Cat said. Of course she should have realized it. The minute her grandmother had said the hip was broken, at some point she’d known. But she’d been so busy worrying about the long run—what she would do if Gran wasn’t able to live alone anymore—that she hadn’t considered the short term.

  “Not right away,” Yiannis agreed.