Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1)

by Alex A King

  “What is that look for, eh?”

  Vivi says, “What look?”

  “That look.”

  “There’s no look.”

  “Trust me, there is a look. Your brother loves my desserts. I always fix them for him. He comes every weekend.”

  Yeah, that’s a lie. Vivi spoke to Chris a week ago, before her world exploded. Six weeks Eleni-free, he bragged. Laughed about how he deserved a chip.

  “How's Trish?”

  Trish is a sweetheart, but not a good enough wife for Chris, in Eleni’s book. Not rich enough, not fertile enough, not Greek enough.

  She doesn’t say it now, though. She’s too busy poking through the liquor cabinet, searching for something that doesn’t seem to be there. “He called last night to talk to his mama. He is such a good boy.”

  Typical Mom, sidestepping the question. “Trish is good for him. She keeps him grounded.”

  Mom straightens up. “No more brandy.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “But your father will. We must get some. Where is Melissa?”

  Melissa materializes in the doorway. “Here.”

  Eleni tugs off her apron, scoops the handles of her purse over one forearm. “Your mother is driving us to the store.”

  Melissa flops into a chair. “I'm not going.”

  “Of course you are going,” Eleni says. “What else is there to do?”

  Shrug. “Read, or I'll go to the garage with Grampy.”

  “She can stay here if she wants to. She’ll be fine with Dad.” Vivi says.

  Eleni licks her finger, rubs at invisible smut on Vivi’s cheek. “I don't think so,” she says in distant voice.

  Five minutes later Melissa leaves the house with them. The Eleni Pappas steamroller crushed the protest right out of her, too.

  * * *

  The Liquor Shack isn’t far. A couple of blocks. Mom barks directions; plays drill sergeant while Melissa slouches in the backseat.

  What’s she going to do with that girl?

  Parking lot full, liquor store empty. The red-roofed Pizza Hut is where the party is happening. The Liquor Shack's Indian clerk looks up when they walk in. Short guy in a white turban.

  He nods at Melissa. “Is she twenty-one?”

  “Twenty-two,” Eleni says.

  “She does not look twenty-two.”

  “Okay.” Eleni turns on one heel. “Come, Vivi, Melissa. We go somewhere else where they do not hate Greek customers and call us liars.”

  “He didn’t call me a liar,” Vivi says. “He called you a liar.”

  The clerk doesn’t look like a happy man. “I do not hate Greek customers, just underage customers, because the authorities will take away my liquor license.”

  “I already told you she is twenty-three,” Eleni says.

  “You said twenty-two.”

  Eleni shrugs. “Today is her birthday.”

  Yeah, he’s still not happy. But he’s not in any hurry to chase Melissa out. It’s been a slow day, and the middle woman looks thirsty.

  Eleni shuts up until they’re a row away from the liqueurs. Then she says, “Why did John leave you?”

  Panic, panic.

  Vivi throws a glance over one shoulder, but the clerk’s not interested in them – just their money. He won’t come alive again until they wave some green under his nose. “Jeez, Mom, not here, okay?” Vivi tries to roll the polyester boulder, but her mother won’t budge.

  It’s a trap.

  Vivi walked (and drove) right into it.

  Eleni brought Vivi here so she can do her grilling in public, where Vivi won’t make a scene. The verdict is still out on whether the brandy is a lie or not.

  Well, Vivi isn’t playing this game.

  “Forget it. Not here, not now. The end.”

  Eleni puts on her bulldog face.

  Vivi says, “I said no.”

  Meanwhile, Melissa has caught up with them, bored with staring at booze she can't buy for a few more years, unless a forger hooks her up with a fake ID.

  “I figured you knew, Grams.” One finger traces an invisible line across the rum bottles. “Dear old Dad is gay.”

  Vivi’s head snaps around. “Melissa, that's not true.”

  Melissa shrugs, in that teenage way. No one can give a shit less than a teenager. “If you say so.”

  “Jesus, Melissa. Why would you make up something like that?” Vivi grabs her by the shoulders. Checks her eyes for a lie. “What happened? Did Dad do something to you?”

  “She has to blame someone,” Eleni says.

  Vivi glares.

  “When two men kiss on the mouth, it means they're gay,” Melissa says. “And I saw Dad kiss a man on the mouth.”

  In a flash, the semen-splattered tie pops into Vivi’s mind: John's or not? All the times they didn't screw in the past fifteen years. All the kissing they never did. Intimacy that never came.

  She goes cold, stiff. Total paralysis, except her right hand slicing through the air. That hand strikes Melissa’s face, cuts her down.

  “You little brat!”

  Vivi hurls the words, but they don’t stick. Melissa’s wearing body armor made of smug fascination. No reaction trumps reaction.

  Vivi cues a second slap.

  Eleni grabs her arm. “Vivi, enough!”

  This is Melissa’s carpe diem moment. Her hand blurs, finds her mother’s face.

  Vivi freezes. Can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t believe.

  “People in school are talking about Dad.” Melissa spits the words out. “Josh Cartwright saw him cruising the park for gay sex. How do you think that makes me feel? All you care about is yourself!”

  Hands on hips, eyes and mouth accusing Vivi of being a bad mother. And she’s right: poor kid has two shitty parents.

  The clerk peers out from behind the cash register.

  “Don't say anything,” Eleni snaps.

  “I say nothing, crazy lady.”

  “John can't be gay,” Vivi says.

  Melissa opens her mouth to speak, but her grandmother clamps her palm across that open mouth.

  “He can't be gay. He married me. He chose me. We have a child!”

  “I knew there was something I never liked about him,” Eleni says. “At first I thought it was just his eyes were too close together. Then I thought, ‘Eleni, do not be prejudiced because he has squinty eyes and big nostrils,’ because your father, Vivi, his family have the big nostrils. But see, I was right! Now that I think about it, one time I saw John watching your father's buttocks.”

  Vivi wants to go ogre, sweep these bottles off the shelves, aim a few at her mother.

  “Mom! Jesus! Enough! My husband is gay and he never thought to drop that little tidbit into the conversation, oh, say before we got married? He should never have married me. Maybe I'd be married to someone straight and I wouldn't be standing here in a grungy liquor store with my lunatic mother and a daughter who loathes my guts! Marrying John is the worst thing that ever happened in my whole stupid life!”

  It’s one of life’s slow motion moments: Melissa walks backwards, hands in the air. She’s done. She’s so out of here.

  Hate is about the only thing tougher and shinier than diamonds. And Melissa, she’s shimmering with the stuff.

  The warning bells are much too late. Vivi’s mouthing, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, Baby, but the damage is done and her girl is gone.

  Too late. Too, too late.

  “Mel – ” she starts.

  “She is a better daughter than you deserve right now,” Eleni says.

  Vivi turns on her. “You just had to meddle, didn't you? You had to bring us here and poke with that sticky beak, instead of just asking. You have no empathy, Mom. I really hope you're happy.”

  Off in the (increasingly less distant) distance, sirens wail. Probably a fire. House fires are popular in winter, all those fireplaces puffing smoke and creosote into the air, all those people too cold to go outside for a smoke.

 
Except there’s no fire this time.

  The dime drops when a couple of police officers push into the store, slap bracelets on Vivi’s wrists.

  “You have the right to – ”

  “Remain silent, I know,” she says.

  Eleni says, “My daughter doesn’t know how to be silent.”

  Pot. Kettle. Black.

  Melissa’s outside, watching, crying. And the cashier is suddenly interested in everything.

  “Thanks a lot, asshole,” Vivi says, because who else could have made the call?

  “Child abusers get what they deserve,” he says.

  “I'm not a child abuser,” Vivi says – to him, to her mother, to her daughter, to the cops herding her out the door.

  Palm raised: “Talk to the hand, crazy lady.”

  Humiliating, being dragged away from a liquor store in handcuffs, flanked by cops twice her size. Lots of people outside, more than one holding up a phone, ready to make Vivi a YouTube “star.”

  The worst part? Melissa was right. The second she said it a bell tolled in Vivi’s soul. John is different, their marriage a sham; deep down, below the itchy, uncomfortable surface, she has known it all along.

  She’s not unlovable, undesirable, after all.

  It was always him.

  A firm hand shoves her head.

  “That's my daughter!” Eleni shouts. She appeals to the swelling crowd. “Look at the police, they are brutalizing her because they are prejudiced against the Greek people! What, you don't like baklava and gyro? You people owe everything to Greece. It is the birthplace of civilization!”

  Vivi climbs into the police cruiser. It’s an Eleni-free zone.

  “That your mother?” one of the cops wants to know.

  “Yeah.”

  “Apple doesn’t fall far from that tree.”

  Ha-ha.

  9

  MAX

  GOODNIGHT, MAX. MISS ME while you're gone,” the nurse says. She’s giving him that look, the one telling him she wouldn’t mind a rerun of their brief affair.

  Ha. Some affair.

  He fucked her one night in his Jeep, after a staff party. First and only time he touched a hospital employee.

  Bad idea.

  She got weird and clingy after that, started telling everyone they were dating. Left cute cards in his office. Invited him to meet her parents.

  He was kind, but honest about no possibility of a future.

  Now he gives her a polite, dismissive, “Have a good night,” and he’s out of there.

  * * *

  It’s a shitty night. The Pagasetic Gulf is its usual calm self – it’s Max who is the storm.

  All week, he’s been hoping for a disaster. A pandemic or a huge earthquake. Maybe a good war. Anything to stop this night from happening.

  One night, one dinner, he tells himself. He’ll do this once, but that’s it. And he’ll make Mama understand.

  Yeah right. Good luck with that. Mama doesn’t understand anything she doesn’t like.

  He finds a parking space in a side street near the Volos promenade.

  Warmish out, not cold. But the cold is coming. Summer’s had enough of Greece for this year, and soon it will swap places with winter. It’ll change its mind, be back again, when it gets bored with the southern hemisphere.

  He walks like a kid on his way to detention. Hands shoved deep in his pockets. Eyes on the ground. He means to walk slowly, but old habits have a tendency to fight for their lives.

  A smart man would have parked one street over, so he could see them before they see him.

  Too late. Mama’s there, waving her black handkerchief his way.

  He picks up the already fast pace.

  The good son.

  No longer officially summer, but the promenade is still closed to traffic. A string of tavernas line the street, their chairs and tables set out along the water. On the ribbon of road between, couples stroll. Arms linked, talking, flirting, seeing and being seen. Colored lights wink at the sky.

  A good place to bring a beautiful woman or hang with friends.

  He’s not surprised Mama chose this place. It was his parents’ favorite, for times they wanted to impress. The food is good and inexpensive. A meal can speed up or slow down and the wait staff doesn’t mind.

  He should have invited his brother, but Kostas isn’t stupid; smart men don’t accept uninviting invites. So, Max is going into the viper pit alone.

  “Here he is!” A cool leathery cheek to his. Mama reeks of Estée Lauder. “Maximos, you are late.”

  It takes some doing, extricating himself from her iron embrace. “I'm right on time, Mama. The exact time you gave me.”

  “Ah, Max, you are so unkind to me.” She gives him a warning glance only he can see, before turning back to her guests. “Don't mind our little joke. My son is very respectful.”

  Mama looks . . .

  Old.

  Older than she should. Now that his father is dead, she’s committed to wearing black for the rest of her life. Not everyone is made for black; it’s stealing the color from her face, even with all that makeup. A web of silver winds its insidious way though her tight bun.

  When did this happen?

  When did she get old?

  Her tongue hasn’t dulled, though. It’s still razor sharp on both edges and can fillet a human being, with a few well-places slashes.

  Tired through to the bone, he checks out the others. He recognizes his mother’s friend Tasoula, though he hasn’t seen her since he graduated from high school. Which would make her daughter . . .

  Wow!

  Gorgeous. Hot, hot, hot.

  A woman like that, a man throws himself happily on those rocks.

  The vision unfolds her long legs, stands. A delicate hand reaches for his.

  “Hello, Max, I’m Anastasia.” Her voice is honey – of course. “Do you remember me? I used to follow you around, begging you to play with me.”

  Barely. Ten years difference when you’re a kid is a lot.

  Now, it’s different. Now he wants to play.

  Oh yeah, he wants to play. And play hard.

  “Did I play with you?” he asks.

  “No.” She laughs. “You had more important things to do.”

  His mother’s arm is a vine, winding possessively around his. “My Maximos is a doctor,” she says proudly.

  “And your other son? Am I remembering correctly that you have another son?” Tasoula asks. Mama’s sour expression doesn’t deter her. “Younger, I think.”

  “Yes,” Mama says. “Kostas. He was to become a lawyer. I grieve every day.”

  Tasoula makes the sign of the cross: forehead to chest, shoulder to shoulder. “I'm sorry. We have been in Thessaloniki too many years, I did not hear he had passed.”

  Mama has gone too far. Max says, “Kostas isn’t dead, he’s a priest.”

  “A noble calling.” Tasoula looks confused.

  “Before he married,” Max explains.

  “Max!” Mama pinches his arm, the way she did when he was a boy.

  Tasoula nods. “Ah . . .”

  Mama raises her palms, like she’s calling on Jesus for backup. “What's a mother to do?”

  Max has to give her credit; she’s holding herself together, dialing down the crazy. Good thing, too. What would her guests think if she erupted in her usual way? They might think her insanity is genetic, and then Anastasia would be jerked out of (his) reach.

  Reality check: Anastasia is stunning, but can he seriously consider marriage with a woman he doesn’t know?

  He drinks her in, her long, lean body, that soft skin. She’s all legs and beauty. What does she smell like, he wonders, when she’s up close, caramel hair pulled away from her neck? How does she look on her knees?

  Mama’s watching him expectantly, waiting on him to push in her chair. When she’s settled, she sighs. “My only hope for grandchildren now is my Maximos. But he spends all his time with other people's children when he should be bu
sy making his own.”

  Same old song, same old dance.

  “I'm a pediatrician,” he explains. “It's my job to make sick children well. You wanted me to become a doctor and I’m a doctor.”

  But she’s never satisfied. “You should have been a real doctor, then you might have done your father some good.”

  Tasoula smiles politely. “There is a great deal of money in medicine. Plenty of money for a wife and many children. And your brother's work is impressive, also. It is important work bringing God's word to the people.”

  Mama crosses herself. “Kostas is cursed. He did not get our blessing. My husband died from the grief.”

  “Baba,” Max says, using the affectionate word for father, “had cancer.”

  “And would he have got the cancer if your brother had not ignored our wishes and become a priest? No!” She clutches her chest and the jet crucifix resting there. “Your brother murdered his father.”

  He wants to shake her, change her channel. Instead he puts on his own show and smiles. “Forgive her, she’s old and feeble. She could drop dead at any minute.”

  “How am I cursed with such a son?” She pats his hand, but the look in her eyes tells him this isn’t over. To stay in her good graces now, it’s dance, dance, dance on the end of her strings.

  He glances at Anastasia’s legs, wishes his father was still alive – for a million reasons. He kept Mama in check, gave her a constant project.

  “Anastasia,” he says. “What are you going to have?”

  She’s smiling. “Not hungry. I think I'd prefer to walk first.”

  He grins. Both mothers are watching.

  “Let’s do it,” he says.

  * * *

  Anastasia bides her time.

  It’s not until they’ve melded with the crowd that her fingers reach for his.

  Electricity shoots straight up his arm and down into his cock.

  “Are you a good fuck, Max?”

  Yeah, he keeps his cool, outside where it counts. He’s had plenty of practice. Forward women aren’t rare; he’s had his share of the forward and the backward kind. But this is different.