One and Only Sunday

by Alex A King

  "Relax, Socrates, I'm not running from anything or anyone. I needed a change of scenery, that's all. Only I got caught up in some of that Greek fly tape."

  But Socrates has moved on. He's staring down the street. "Gamo ti Panayia mou, here comes a big problem."

  Leo looks at the problem. It's woman-shaped. A lot of woman leverage into one black dress and a pair of unhappy flat shoes. Gray, kinky hair that won't stay in its bun.

  "Kyria Dora," his grandfather calls out. "Where is your broomstick?"

  "I put it in your bottom. Clean it before you give it back, eh?"

  The old man cackles. "This is Leonidas, my grandson. Do you remember him?"

  "I do not remember where I put my crochet, but I do remember Leonidas."

  She moves in on him the way a hurricane makes its moves on Florida. In seconds, his face is wet with kisses and he feels like someone dumped a load of sand in his middle.

  He doesn't remember Kyria Dora, but there's almost—

  (See: Helena Bouto.)

  —no going wrong with asking Greek women of a certain age about their kids.

  "How are your children?" he asks her.

  Kyria Dora pulls away, shakes her hands at the sky. But there's a sparkle in her eyes that says it's thrilled he asked. "My children! The boys, I never see. They only come when they want to eat my cooking. Their wives do not cook—they order takeout. And Effie … Effie is busy being famous on the TV. When she is not on the TV, she is busy being a lesbian. It is very hard work being a lesbian, I think. She is always protesting something."

  Leo hides his smile behind a flat, serious line. "It sounds like hard work."

  "You want coffee, Kyria Dora?" his grandfather asks.

  Leo jumps out of his seat, offers it to the woman. Both chair and woman groan as she settles her backside on its lap. "No coffee. I do not want to wake up yet. Maybe later."

  "Leonidas." His grandfather nods at the front door. "Go get Laki."

  Again with the hand waving at the sky. "My God, why must you carry that thing around?"

  "I feel a vision coming, but it will not come unless I am holding Laki."

  "Visions," she scoffs. But she leans closer. "A vision of what?"

  "How do I know, woman? I have not had the vision yet."

  Leo finds Laki in his grandfather's room. The statue's sitting next to a photograph of King Constantine on the dresser. It's not what he expected, this room. It's still feminine. The walls are covered with photographs of his grandmother. As a girl, as a beautiful young woman, as a wife, a mother, a grandmother. Here is Leo in her arms. She's looking down upon him as if he is her world. Pictures from her very end, his grandparents together. Old but still in love. Socrates holds her hand to his heart.

  It's a shrine.

  This is what he wants, here in this wall. Someone to do life with.

  But not everybody gets that.

  Maybe someday. Maybe not.

  For now, he's got bigger problems.

  He carries the statue outside, sets it on the table, sits on the patio's concrete lip and listens to the grownups jaw.

  "Your crochet is in your bathroom," Socrates says.

  "Of course! Now I remember. What else does your statue say?"

  "It will be hot today."

  "It is uncanny how accurate your visions are, old man."

  "Eh, sometimes I suspect Laki watches too much news, that is all."

  The chair creaks as Kyria Dora settles back on her haunches. "Anything else?"

  "Not yet."

  "Where is that boy?" She glances around, searching for Leo. "There you are. Is this your coffee? Of course it is. Who else's would it be? Finish it. Turn the cup over. Turn it three times on the saucer, then I will read it for you."

  Leo thinks the only thing the cup will say is that he needs a refill. But Kyria Dora is obviously friends with his grandfather, so why not do as she tells him?

  He chugs the mud and follows her directions.

  After a few minutes, she picks up the cup and holds it in her big hands. Then she looks at him, mildly horrified. "Leonidas, did you drink the coffee grounds?"

  "You're not supposed to drink the grounds?"

  "No! Just the coffee." She sets the cup back on its saucer, pushes it away. "Po-po! This one is stupid. If Effie was not a lesbian, I would make them get married. And they could make stupid children, even more stupid than the boys Effie already has."

  Socrates cackles. Leo grabs the hairpiece, sets it straight on his grandfather's head. "It was my first time. I didn't know."

  "No matter," Kyria Dora says. "There is a little in here, but not much."

  "What does it say?" Socrates asks.

  "I see a door. A door means change. Somebody is coming or something is leaving. That is all. The boy drank the rest of his future. You should meet my niece, Vivi," she tells Leo. "She is American, too!"

  "Apparently I'm not American enough for America. They keep telling me I'm Greek," he says.

  "That does not matter." She pats his hand. "To us you will always be a foreigner."

  26

  Kiki

  Forty days since they laid Stavros to rest. Time for another memorial service.

  Is he at rest? Who knows. Kiki can't think of a single person except Lazarus who recovered from death, and his account is sketchy, at best. If popular fiction is any indication, when someone claws their way out of the grave three days later, it's safer to hammer a stake through their heart than to assume divine intervention played a role.

  She's at the cemetery, again, standing to the left of Stavros's headstone. Not everyone from the funeral is here for the memorial service—only the major players. And after today, most of them can shuck black for colors.

  Not Kiki, though. For her, it's going to be a long, hot summer.

  Yiayia is sitting next to her in her wheel chair, wearing big, black sunglasses that make her look like a blowfly. "I hope Stavros does not mind this heat. It is going to be very hot where he is going."

  Mama, on Yiayia's other side, jabs her mother's neck with an elbow.

  "What?" the old woman says, faking innocence. "You do not think he is riding the elevator up to shake hands with God, do you?"

  "Enough! We're Greek Orthodox, we do not believe in purgatory."

  "Then Stavros is already very hot." Yiayia looks up at Kiki. "I am the mother, but look how she treats me, as if I am a child."

  "It is because you say childish things!" Mama says.

  Everyone is looking at them.

  "Shhh," Kiki says.

  Detective Lemonis is there, too. Eyes on Kiki. Eyes on her misbehaving family. Drinking deep from this shallow pool of Stavros's loved ones.

  Thea Helena is here, but she doesn't look present. She could be a store mannequin, the way she stands stiffly at Theo Kristos's side, head turned toward the road. Whatever she's doing today, attending her son's memorial service isn't scratched on her social calendar.

  She does nothing until the very end. Then her statue comes alive, beckons to Kiki.

  "It is a trap," Yiayia says.

  Margarita scoffs. "It is not a trap, it is Helena. She loves Kiki."

  "It is a trap, mark my words."

  Trap or not, if there's a way to mend what's broken, Kiki's happy to give it a shot, isn't she? Not just for herself, but for Mama. Mama's mood swings these days are seismic.

  Her heels peck at the grass. She stops in front of Thea Helena. What comes next? There's no protocol she's aware of, so she's winging it. Everyone is watching. Kiki's reputation hinges on how the older woman reacts.

  "Thea Helena, I'm—"

  The flying gob of spit slices off the end of her sentence. Smack. Wet drops splatter across her face.

  Definitely not a peace offering.

  Kiki turns, but her mother is there, stopping her with an iron hand. Holding onto her arm, Margarita gets up in her old friend's face with a clenched fist.

  "If you were any other woman I would beat you. It
is because we were friends that you are not crying and bleeding on the ground right now. Nobody spits on my daughters! Nobody!"

  The memorial service worked. Now no one will forget.

  Ever.

  * * *

  School is out until September. Which means all of Kiki's time is free. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.

  Except the beach. Yes she's in black for almost two more years, but socially forty mourning days are up, and Kiki wants to breathe air she hasn't shared with family.

  "Where are you going?"

  Yiayia is sitting under the vine-covered trellis, working her way through a bag of sunflower seeds.

  "The beach. I could use the sun."

  "The sun will kill you."

  "I can't stay inside."

  "Staying inside will kill you. The best chance of survival is in a doorway. That way when the earthquake comes you will probably live."

  Kiki flings her beach bag over one shoulder. "I'll take my chances with the sun."

  "Wait!" Her grandmother tosses aside the seeds. "I will come with you. We can look at the men together, yes? Maybe pick out a nice new one for you."

  "I don't—"

  "Stay there while I find my swimsuit."

  Yiayia rolls herself inside. A moment later, Kiki hears the crashing of cutlery forgetting how to fly.

  "Why won't you just die?" Margarita yells.

  "Kiki," Yiayia says, when she comes back, "your mother just tried to kill me with a spoon."

  "That's new."

  "I am only sorry that my daughter is so stupid she does not know how to kill an old woman. She should take lessons from whoever killed Stavros. Now that is someone who knew how to do murder."

  * * *

  Kiki walks. Yiayia rides.

  Guess who's pushing the wheelchair?

  "Are we there, yet?"

  "No, Yiayia."

  "Before we get there, I need a magazine to put over my eyes. Unless …" She looks up at Kiki's sunglasses.

  "I'll get you a magazine."

  "You are a good girl, Kiki. Even if you did kill Stavros."

  "I didn't kill Stavros."

  "So you say. But I will still love you if you did."

  "I didn't kill him."

  "Okay."

  * * *

  Days don't come more perfect than this. It's early but the beach is already full. Every spare inch of the pebbled shore is covered in towels or rattan mats. That's how you separate the locals from the tourists. Vacationers bring towels, expecting the white sands they've seen in postcards. The water is beautiful, yeah, but the beach is a long stretch of pebbles.

  The gulf is gentle with the shore and its swimmers. It bobs, sways, but never crashes. The seaweed waves at the sun, as though its wrists are tired, heavy. And the water, it's happy to gently jiggle the small, brightly colored boats that sit on its surface. The boats belong to fishermen—of course—but it is the young who use them to dive. Teenagers and children hoist themselves onto the slippery vessels and dive-bomb the water.

  Yiayia is being all kinds of helpful, pointing out potential suitors. "What about that one? He has a big pipe."

  Behind her dark lenses, Kiki shuts her eyes, prays for a single-minded tidal wave to wash her away.

  "I don't think so, Yiayia."

  Someone has shoehorned the man in question into a thong. A swimsuit that small would make okra look huge.

  "Bah! You should be like Soula. She tries all the men and keeps the ones she likes."

  Not all the men, but a lot of men, sure. Which is great for Soula, but not so much for Kiki. Right now she doesn't want any kind of man, especially one who might have to make conjugal visits.

  Her grandmother is wearing a bathing suit straight out of the war—one of the early ones. It's black from neck to ankle, with a band of white where her breasts used to sit. She's sweating, fanning herself with KATERINA, a popular teen magazine.

  "You should have worn something cooler," she tells her grandmother.

  "It is not the sun, it is the men! Can you believe what they wear today? How can they fit everything into something that small? It is magic, or maybe witchcraft, I think."

  Kiki flops back on her beach mat, closes her eyes and waits for the sun to bake her. It's better this way, with her eyes shut. That way she can't see what Yiayia hasn't noticed. Yes, they're surrounded by people, but not a one of them local. Everyone Kiki knows by name or sight is staying back, away from Agria's newest exhibit: Kyriaki Andreou, twenty-eight, alleged murderer.

  Good news gains weight fast around here, with so much gossip to swallow.

  With her eyes open, she can't help seeing bunches of heads clumped together, swapping stories. Kiki this, Kiki that. We thought she was a good girl, but no!

  Won't be long before they're pinning every crime in town to her chest.

  My chickens are dead.

  Kiki.

  The store was out of olive oil.

  Kiki.

  Somebody had relations with my donkey.

  Kiki, of course.

  She stuffs her head into the metaphorical sand, ostrich style, goes on a mental vacation to someplace where she's not an outcast.

  "Kiki!"

  One eye open, she sees her cousin Max's fiancée rocketing her way.

  Kiki sits up in surprise. "Vivi?"

  Vivi's a tiny thing, a V8 engine shoved into a Mini Cooper. American … well, Greek-American. Which makes her Greek or a foreigner, depending on the crowd's temperature.

  Vivi drops down next to her, crouches on the pebbles.

  "Yiasou, yiasou. I saw you both from the road."

  "Are you here to swim?"

  "No, I came down for ice cream. Melissa's working her butt off for me this summer, so I figured ice cream would be a nice treat."

  "How is she?"

  Vivi grins. "Busy!" The smile fades. "How are you?"

  Kiki shrugs. "Oh, you know how it is around here when everyone thinks you're a murderer."

  Vivi definitely knows. Last summer she and her mother both spent the night in jail for the murder of Sofia Lambeti. Turned out the poor woman killed herself, but half the town buys Vivi's olives because who murders a paying customer?

  "They haven't lynched you yet, so that's something," Vivi says.

  "Because she comes from a good family," Yiayia says. "Although this will not be a good family any longer if she did murder him."

  "I didn't murder Stavros."

  "Guilty people always say the same thing," she tells the centerfold in her magazine.

  Kiki stares. It's those kids from the UK, the ones who influence half the hairdos in her classes. She looks at the American woman. "See what I have to live with?"

  Yiayia nudges her with the magazine. "What about that one? Now that man could pull a plow."

  'That one' is a big red tank. Could be British with that lobster-colored skin, but the sandals say Germany.

  "We don't have a farm or fields."

  "Then maybe he can plow something else, eh?"

  Jesus Christ. "I'm not looking for a man, Yiayia."

  "Of course you are," she crows. "You do not know it yet, that is all."

  Vivi laughs. "And I thought my mother was bad."

  "Are you hiring?" Kiki asks.

  "Thinking of quitting teaching?"

  Kiki shakes her head. "I need something to do this summer. If I stay at home, I'll wind up drowning Mama and Yiayia in a bucket of rice pudding."

  "Your mother's rizogalo is terrible," Yiayia says. "The worst I ever ate!"

  "You won't be eating it, you'll be drowning in it."

  "If you have to drown me, make it retsina."

  Vivi pats her on the shoulder. "Come over later—even during siesta, if you like. I never sleep during the day."

  "Still?"

  "My blood might be Greek, but my head is American, and it tells me sleeping during the day is lazy."

  "I'll be there. And Vivi … thanks."

  Vivi hugs her. "If there's o
ne thing I know it's that things will be okay—okay?"

  "Okay."

  * * *

  They don't feel too okay as she pushes her grandmother over the pebbles, up to the road.

  "That Vivi mentioned ice cream, so now I want ice cream," the old woman says.

  Long line at the kiosk that sits on the beach's concrete edge. Everyone wants ice cream, EPSA (a local lemonade that is heaven in a bottle), frappe, magazines. The tourists want to try new things and the locals ask for old favorites.

  Kiki gets in line with her grandmother.

  Casual conversations all grind to a halt—everyone except the tourists. And their chatter dies when they realize the rest of the world has stopped.

  Everyone is looking at Kiki.

  Hooray. This she needs. "I didn't kill him, okay? Jesus Christ."

  The line shuffles forward, and they move with it. Nobody speaks.

  "Why would I kill him? It's not like I even wanted to marry the guy."

  Everybody looks at her. The locals because her motive is solid, the tourists because—what the hell is she talking about?

  Yiayia pokes her. "Say something that makes it sound like you did not kill him."

  "I didn't kill him."

  "Anything but that."

  Jesus. "There's nothing else I can say. I didn't do it."

  "Okay. Let me try. You are all Turks!" Yiayia shakes her fist. "Or maybe Albanian. They are the same shit!" She looks up at Kiki. "How did I do?"

  "Great." So great she's dying.

  "Yes, that is what I think, too. Take me to the supermarket and I will tell everyone there what I think of them. After that, the church."

  "That's not a great idea."

  "Of course it is, Kiki, my doll. All my ideas are good."

  * * *

  "… And then, I called them Turks and Albanians!"

  Kiki's mother closes her eyes. "Panayia Mou."

  "The Virgin Mary." Yiayia stabs the air. "Now there is a woman who understood false accusations. She would understand. Those Romans were probably secretly Turkish."

  Mama opens one of the kitchen drawers, pulls out a pair of gleaming scissors. "Here, Mama. Go play with these, pointy end up. Run."