I shrug in loose agreement.
“Let’s try this: What did you enjoy at your mall date?”
I ponder. Maybe a tad too long.
“Ellie…”
“Okay okay. I liked talking with Dmitri about how our families spend the holidays and his favorite toys when he was little. He secretly has a massive Transformers collection.”
“Aw.”
“But I swear when he was gushing to me about Optimus Prime, he was checking out this girl who walked past us. Like a complete up-and-down once-over. And he kept talking to me about Transformers like he didn’t just picture this girl naked.”
“Are you sure that’s what he was doing?”
“It was blatant and yet oblivious. He actually leaned over to kiss me a minute later. All I could think was that he was imagining kissing that other girl.”
“Doubtful. Boys have terrible memories. I’m sure he was thinking of you and only you.”
“Are you? Are you really sure?” I ask suspiciously.
“No.” Janina stops squatting. “I wish I were. Dmitri can be a dipshit sometimes, but not all the time, right?”
“No, I mean, we did go to the mall to find his brother a Christmas present. So that was kind of sweet.”
“What did he end up getting him?”
“A pop-up book of fancy chess sets.”
“Thoughtful,” Janina assesses.
“Yeah. And he bought me a Jamba Juice, which was tasty?”
“Why do you always sound like you’re asking a question when you talk about Dmitri these days?”
“That is the question,” I reply. I’m not sure if I know the answer yet.
Dmitri
“Please,” I say, “not the asparagus.”
“What?” my mother answers. It’s more of a complaint than a question. Everything my mother says is more of a complaint than a question. She’s standing on the small stone ledge in front of the fireplace, using a pushpin to hang a bouquet of asparagus from a metal wire. “It keep kallikantzaroi away. You want them in you house?” She turns and winks at me, like of course I want to keep the bad spirits away, how could I not want to keep the bad spirits away?
“Ma, I’m not sure there are any kallikantzaroi in America; I think they’re only in Greece.”
“No, no,” she says, putting a second and third pushpin into the wood of the mantel. “They smart. They find you, ’specially if you bad boy.”
I sigh at the battle already lost. Hey, it was worth a try.
I suppose the tapestry of cultures from all over the world is part of what makes America great. Right now the fireplace asparagus—a tradition akin to Italian people eating fish on Christmas Eve, or Americans hanging mistletoe to steal a kiss—feels like a billboard screaming that my family is different. I’m already nervous enough about Ellie coming over Christmas Day and the asparagus isn’t helping. The civilization that gave us Aristotle and Pythagoras also gave us asparagus—a coincidentally weird hybrid of the words Aristotle and Pythagoras—as a guard against clawed, hooved elves. Really? Some days I wish I were Irish.
I wanted to take Ellie out for a movie and Chinese food—she told me this was called a “Jewish Christmas,” which I thought was funny and sounded like a nice way to spend a day—but my father wouldn’t hear of me not being home.
“You invite Jew girl—”
“Ah!” my mother interrupted.
“Sorry. You invite Jewish girl here.”
“Can we please start calling her Eliana?” I ask.
“Okay, okay. You invite Eliana here. She should meet you family.” My mother’s invitation sounded final enough that I didn’t argue.
Ellie’s already met my parents and Yia Yia enough times to get a sense of who we are, but Christmas Day ratchets it up to a whole new level: Uncle Gus and Aunt Vi will be here with my cousins George and Aspasia—not first cousins, but some number cousins some number of times removed—whose identity is almost completely defined by our ancestral culture, which means George is going to try to flirt with and hit on Eliana, and Aspasia is going to spend the day in the kitchen with the older women. Aunt Stella, my mother’s younger sister, also known by me and Nicky as the Cheek Pincher, is coming with her new (and third) husband, Spiro. The Pappas family, friends from church, are coming with some of their distant relatives in tow. (Really, they’re the only bright spot. Alex and Meg Pappas are as American as me and Nicky, so we usually try to sneak off and hang out and watch movies.) And, of course, Aunt Maxine, Yia Yia’s older sister, will be here. Maxine is older than dirt and has this weird disease that makes one of her eyeballs bulge out of her head. Nicky refers to her as Mad-Eye Maxine. She wears big old-lady sunglasses to cover it, which somehow makes it worse; you can still see the wonky eye through the tinted lenses, and indoors, at night, it’s downright creepy.
It’s not only the cast of My Big Fat Greek Wedding that has me feeling anxious. We go the whole nine yards—the lamb on the spit in the backyard, the singing of traditional Greek carols, the decorating of boats (a big tradition in Thessaloniki, the city from which my family hails)—and I’m just positive this is going to make Ellie question our whole relationship. (And shouldn’t that expression be the whole ten yards? A first down is ten yards, not nine, I think. I don’t get it.)
Anyway, the only saving grace is that I’ve got a secret weapon to protect against all the Greekishness Ellie is going to be clobbered with: I am one thousand percent sure I have completely nailed it with my Christmas present for her. Well, Christmas presents.
First, Janina helped me pick out this very classy necklace. It’s a single polished pearl, Ellie’s birthstone, on a silver chain. I think it’s pretty and Janina assures me Ellie is going to love it. My initial plan was to get a “D&E” tattoo someplace my parents wouldn’t be able to see and to surprise Ellie in private, but Janina suggested this wasn’t the best idea. I think her exact words were “What are you, stupid?” When you’re in love, you do stupid things, I guess. I knew she was right as soon as she said it.
Second, I made a book of gift certificates for Dmitri Back Rubs. There are ten of them. I saw it in a movie once and thought it was fun. Ellie loves when I rub her neck, so I think this will be a hit, too.
But the best present, the one that will show Ellie how much I really do treasure her, is that I paid Joe Loskywitz fifty dollars to switch lockers with me. Starting January 3, our first day back from Christmas break, I’ll be Ellie’s locker neighbor. Now she and I can see each other in between every single period. She is going to flip.
My mother finishes with the asparagus and starts on the thistle. I give up and go to the kitchen.
Yia Yia is sitting at the table. Her two hands, which are wrapped around a mug of thick black coffee, are shaking a little. She looks drawn-out, thinner, like maybe she’s fading away. But then she sees me and lights up, and she’s Yia Yia again.
“Dimmi-moo! Come. Sit.” I do. “I hear you talking to you mother.”
“I know, Yia Yia, it’s just…” Yia Yia puts a hand up and I stop.
“Dimmi, this who you are. Who we are. We hold on to this to remember where we from, nαι?” I nod. “You honor you ancestor by remembering. You honor me. This girl, she love you, then she love all of you.” I gloss over the fact that I still haven’t grown the stones to tell Ellie I love her. When I texted her after my chess game with Nicky, she never wrote back; I guess she’d already gone to sleep. By the time the sun had come up the next morning, I’d lost my nerve. I know that I want to tell her, but what happens if she doesn’t say it back?
Since I’m too chicken to tell Ellie, I do the next best thing.
“I love you, Yia Yia.” I stand up and kiss my grandmother on the forehead.
“Of course you do, Dimmi,” she says, patting my wrist. “There is lot to love.” And then she breaks out laughing and I can’t help but join her.
Eliana
I am knitting. Mrs. Weasley made it look so easy when she whipped her wand in
to the air and two knitting needles clacked together to make the beloved Weasley letter sweaters. I can barely finish a pot holder. Or is this a scarf? I need to get good fast because my whole plan for a Christmas gift for Dmitri relies upon my knitting prowess.
Knitting is supposed to be something that relaxes people, or so I’ve read. But all this anticipation of meeting Dimmi’s entire Ancestry.com family tree for a holiday I don’t even celebrate is uberstressful. The beginning of winter break should be a time of rejoicing for any normal teenager. I guess that makes me—surprise!—abnormal. There is so much together time during vacation, and when you live in a house with four kids and two parents in Minneapolis in the dead of winter, together time is essentially a scene from The Shining. I half expect my dad to break through the basement door at any minute with an axe, shouting, “Here’s Johnny!” It’s bad enough he’s brandishing his shiny new résumé.
“I’m ready to rumble!” He rolls his Rs and draws out “rumble,” as though his next job will be as an announcer at a local monster truck rally. I can’t decide if that would be cooler than being the ex-owner of a defunct video store. Anything that gets him out of the house would be cooler than our current situation.
Isaac, Samara, and I sit on the living room couch watching The Dark Crystal, an old movie that is masterful in its ability to terrify my younger siblings with puppets. Instead of parking himself in the perfectly available squishy lounge chair, my dad squeezes himself in between me and Samara, draping his arms over our shoulders. I try my best not to flinch. Dad is annoying, self-absorbed, and clueless, but he is Dad. In his hands he holds his résumé, and I pray he doesn’t ask me to read it. Aside from being highly boring, reading someone’s résumé feels akin to reading their online dating profile. I don’t want to know what things you think are awesome about yourself. My aunt once had me help her upload pictures to a dating site, and it was disturbing. I did not need to see her in a vinyl miniskirt.
“This is the future of your dad, kids. The new me. The new life…” Dad is mumbling many sayings of “new,” as though he will convince himself that he will find a job and all will be well with the world.
I don’t know why I’m being so hard on him. I think everyone is getting on my nerves today. Janina Facetimed me this morning, and I assumed it was so we could get together and she could help me with my present for Dimmi. Nope.
“I can’t hang out today. I have to break up with Jeremy before my family leaves for Hawaii tomorrow.”
“So you’re abandoning me for a boy?’ I accused.
“I’m abandoning you for the absence of a boy, so then I’ll have all the time in the world for you. To deal with your boy troubles,” Janina argued.
“But you’re still abandoning me for the entirety of winter break to go to Hawaii while I am forced to alternately lock myself in my room-hole and meet all six hundred fifty-seven members of Dmitri’s extended family while they judge every Jewish inch of my body.”
“How did you manage to say all of that without a single breath?”
“I practice diaphragm breathing when I’m not freaking out about things. So, actually, never.”
“What’s to freak out about? You have a great boyfriend, right?”
“Right?” I should have sounded more certain, I know. But I wasn’t only trying to convince Janina of my feelings. “It’s complicated.”
“Have you finished his Christmas present?”
I held up the drumstick warmers I am attempting to knit. I found the pattern online and assumed they would be easy to make, thoughtful, and useful gifts. If his drumsticks get cold. But the warmers weren’t quite as polished as I had hoped.
“Have you started?” Janina squinted into the phone.
“Ha ha. It’s a delicate pattern. I’m sure he’ll like them. It’s the thought that counts, right?”
“Oh, he’ll like them. He’d like if you gave him a paper bag puppet. He’s madly in love with you, El.”
For some reason, this made me cringe. “Don’t say that. I mean, he likes me a lot. But he’s not madly—we’ve only been together a few months.”
“You don’t recognize that mad look in his eyes whenever he sees you like I do. You’re not getting rid of this guy easily.”
“Why would I want to get rid of him? He’s great. He’s fun and nice and plays the drums well.” I stumbled through a list of what makes Dmitri such a good guy. Who was I trying to convince? This should have been a no-brainer, but I was anxious about it. I hate being anxious. I changed the subject.
“I wish you weren’t going away for break. Why does your family have to go to Hawaii? I hear it’s horrible and ugly there. And cold. Really cold.”
“Yeah, I think that’s the other Hawaii. The one we’re visiting is essentially paradise. I’ll bring you back a lei.”
“Hide me in your suitcase?”
“If only. I better go pack. Kisses and happy Hanukkah!” Janina blew a kiss at the phone and hung up.
Now I’ll be left in the cold prison of my bedroom during December in Minneapolis. Life is a turd. My dad has escaped the basement. Janina is leaving the continental United States. And I get to spend Christmas with seven hundred Greek family and friends of my boyfriend who is “madly in love with” me. That last one should feel better than it does. Maybe it’s the close quarters that are getting to me.
I excuse myself from my dad’s grip and return to my room-hole. There I prop myself up on my futon, and attempt to knit the drumstick warmers while watching the first Harry Potter. It’s a lighter film, filled with fun and hope and tons of magic. Damn, I wish I were there right now.
Dmitri
“Ow!” Ellie turns to scowl at the eight-year-old on her right, who just stabbed her with the wooden wand we were each given with our dinner.
This night is not going well.
It’s T-minus three days to the Night of the Living Digrindaki Christmas—a lot of people don’t know, but Digrindaki is the plural of Digrindakis, as in one Digrindakis and two Digrindaki; okay, not really, but I think it’s funny—and I wonder if Ellie is as nervous about it as I am. I doubt it. She’s so determined, so nose-to-the-grindstone, that I’m not sure anything fazes her. I have this recurring nightmare of Aunt Stella getting a wad of both my and Ellie’s cheeks at the same time and pinching until she rips the flesh off our faces. Well, not an actual nightmare, more like a terrifying daydream, but I’m pretty sure it could happen.
Anyway, Ellie and I agreed that exchanging Christmas presents—sorry, holiday presents; she reminded me that not everyone celebrates Christmas—in front of my extended family on Christmas Day would not be the most comfortable thing in the world, so we decided to celebrate by exchanging gifts over a nice dinner out.
This date needed to be perfect, and that started with the selection of the restaurant.
Yelp and Google showed a bunch of choices in the small downtown of our little suburb, but none was quite right. There was an Italian place called Tri Colore, but most of the reviews talked about the wine cellar, which wasn’t going to be any use to us. There was an Indian restaurant called the Bombay Club, but Ellie isn’t big on spicy food. I was totally stressing out over it and was about to text Janina for help, when, on page three of the Yelp listings, I found my answer.
Away from downtown, closer to the mall and in a little strip center with what has to be the last Radio Shack in America, is a brand-new Harry Potter–themed restaurant called the Great Hall. The pictures on Yelp—and it’s so new there were only five—showed two long tables like the ones at which the different houses eat in the Harry Potter movies. The only review posted so far said “Definitely more of a Muggle experience. Stay away from the bangers and mash.” I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but it didn’t matter. This felt like fate.
When I texted Ellie the restaurant choice, she didn’t respond other than to say she would meet me there.
“Expecto Patronum,” the little brat next to Ellie says now, pointing his wand right be
tween her eyes. The kid’s mom finally notices her son is up to no good, mumbles a “sorry, he’s just so excited” to Ellie, and turns the boy’s chair to face his family.
Now that we’re here, I’m not sure this was the best idea. The only seating is at one of two long tables, you’re forced to dine with the people sitting on either side of you. Any sense of intimacy or romance is out the window. It doesn’t help that we’re the only couple here. The other diners are all frustrated and angry-looking parents with children too young to really appreciate or understand Harry Potter. It’s also the only thing actually open in this strip center. The Radio Shack is dark, empty, and out of business, and with both the nail salon and tae kwon do studio currently closed, the vibe here is more Halloween than Christmas.
The Patronus spell is the third one Ellie has had to endure from what is clearly the most hyperactive kid in the restaurant. She’s bearing it with style and grace, but I’m wondering when she’s going to crack and use her own wand to brain the little rug rat.
“So…,” I say.
“So.”
“I kind of thought this would be a bit more, you know, Harry Potterish.”
Ellie’s eyes soften a bit. I think she knows I tried and that has to count for something.
“It’s okay. I liked the idea of it when you told me, but I’m always wary of things that try to pass themselves off as part of the wizarding world.” She pauses to take a sip of her “polyjuice,” which tastes an awful lot like Kool-Aid. “You know, I stayed up the entire night of my eleventh birthday waiting for an owl or a Hagrid or something.” She smiles, but it looks more sad than happy.
Conversation usually flows pretty easily between me and Ellie, but tonight it’s just awkward. Besides the restaurant, I’m totally amped up over the presents in the plastic bag at my feet. We need to get the gift exchange over with so we can go back to enjoying each other’s company. It’s now or never.
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