A Bouquet of Love (15 page)

“And this is a problem because . . .” Bella said.

“Because my family is Greek.”

“Okay.” She looked more perplexed than ever.

“Greek. As in . . . Greek food.”
Just
come out and say it, Cassia. She's going to
find out anyway.
“My parents own the restaurant directly across the street from Parma John's.”

“Super-Gyros?” Her gaze narrowed. “The new place?”

“Yep. The finest in Greek cuisine, run by a man—my father—who happens to have the most competitive spirit on the planet. He won't stop until . . .” Nope. Wouldn't finish the sentence.

Bella's brows creased. “So, the guy in the photo shoot—the one who has Uncle Laz so worked up. The one with the tights. He's . . .”

My gaze shifted to the window. Oh, how I'd hoped to avoid this conversation. “Yeah. That's him. My dad. Niko Pappas, superhero extraordinaire, star of stage and screen. Well, he will be, as soon as the new commercial airs. We were supposed to film it yesterday but the videographer had to cancel. And that reminds me, I wrote a perfectly ridiculous jingle for Super-Gyros, so I'm about to be famous too. For all the wrong reasons, I mean.”

“Oy.” Marcella's hand covered her mouth and she grew silent.

Bella's eyes widened. “This changes everything.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. But it doesn't mean that we can't be friends, right?”

“Right.” Bella nodded, but I could read the concern in her expression.

I looked Marcella's way, and she nodded too but didn't say a word.

“Of course we'll still be friends.” Bella smiled, but it looked a bit strained. “We can't let our silly families separate us.”

I could tell she was trying to sound convincing, but I didn't buy it. Not for a minute. My heart felt as if it had taken a swan dive into the icky waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“What can we do?”

“I dunno.” I gave a little shrug. “Something to end the feuding? A peace treaty?”

“You obviously don't know my uncle Laz.” She sighed.

“And you obviously don't know my dad. He's got this mentality that everything he does has to be bigger. Better.”

“Kind of like
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
?” She quirked a brow.

“Yeah, only he's not interested in weddings unless he happens to be catering one, and even then it's all about the money he can make off the bride. Now that I'm in the flower business, he'll probably count on me to send brides to him for food. See what I mean? With my dad, it's all business all the time.” I paused and thought about that last line. “Well, that's not true. Babbas loves the family.”

“Babbas?” Marcella looked perplexed.

“That's what we call him.”

“Ah. Interesting.” She shrugged.

“And my grandmother is Yia Yia and my relatives are nuts and we really are a lot like that family in the movie you just mentioned. Only weirder.”

“Impossible.” Bella released a chuckle. “I saw that movie. They were nuts. The whole family.”

“Oh, we are too. I have six brothers and sisters and we all have ABC names.”

Bella shrugged. “No idea what that ABC part means, but congrats on all the brothers and sisters. I come from a huge family too. You met my siblings.”

“Yeah, they're great too. But imagine living with all of them—or most of them—in an apartment above your store.”

“Lots of families do.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait . . . I've noticed someone sitting in the window, looking down. Couldn't really make out the face, though. Are you saying that was you all along?”

“Yeah. Me. And my sister Eva, who, by the way, has struck up a friendship with your sister Sophia.”

“Priceless.” Bella shook her head.

“We've been watching you and your husband, dreaming of what it would be like to have your life. Seems so . . . perfect.”

“Perfect?” She erupted in laughter and then looked at Marcella, who sniggered. “That's so funny.” The chuckles turned into full-fledged guffaws, and before long Bella and Marcella were doubled over in laughter.

While my friends laughed themselves silly, my sister's comment about the apron strings consumed my thoughts once again. I forced back the lump in my throat. This might seem funny to them, but I couldn't find the humor in the situation at all. No, all I saw were a thousand reasons my father could
bring all of our new relationships crashing down around us in one swift move.

“Sometimes I just want to leave. Get out of here. You know?”

Both women stopped laughing at that proclamation.

Marcella looked at me, her eyes widening. “Oh, Cassia, it all makes sense now. I understand why you're so infatuated with Judy Garland.” She gave me a knowing look. “It's that whole ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow' theme. You're subliminally longing for a different life.”

I couldn't help but sigh. She'd hit the nail on the head, after all. “Do I drive you crazy with the Judy Garland songs?” I asked.

“Drive me crazy? No.” Marcella laughed. “But I think we'd be safe to say you've covered every song in her repertoire since you started working for me.”

Embarrassment swept over me.

“Even
I
've
noticed.” Bella pointed a slender index finger at me. “And I have to agree with Marcella. I think she's on to something. Maybe you want to run from your situation—kind of like Dorothy did in
The Wizard
of Oz
.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged.

“Well, remember, it didn't solve her problems. She ended up doing battle with the Munchkins.”

“No,” I countered, “she didn't battle the Munchkins. She battled the monkeys and the Wicked Witch.”

Bella waved her hand in the air. “Still, it wasn't all roses.”

“Poppies.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Weren't the roses—er, poppies—bad or something?”

“Poisonous,” I said. “The Wicked Witch cast a spell on them.”

“Right, right.” Bella shook her head and leaned against the counter. “Anyway, when you run away from home, it never really ends well. You get chased down by an old lady riding on a broom, and then you have to walk a really long way down a yellow road.”

“Yellow
brick
road.”

“Right.”

“Point is, you've got to face your challenges and march through them,” Marcella said. “Not run away from them.”

“Not that I'd get very far anyway. Babbas would hunt me down. He'd come all the way to Oz to fetch me back to Kansas again. Er, Galveston. I'm never going to get out from under his thumb. That might not make sense to the average person my age, but it's my reality.”

“Then we have more in common than you know.” Bella's expression grew more serious. “I remember a time in my life when I wanted nothing more than to break free from the confines of my very large, crazy family. They are crazy, you know.”

I sighed. “Tell me about it.” When she gave me a funny look, I added, “My family, I mean. They're crazy.”

“Our two families are so much alike it's nuts. In fact, they're so much alike that maybe they could be related.” She paused, then snapped her fingers. “Or friends, at the very least. That's it, Cassia.”

“What's it?”

“That's the way we get Uncle Laz and your father to play nice. Point out all the things they have in common. Get them to see that they are more alike than they are different.” She started giving me all sorts of facts about our two cultures being related, even stating that Greeks and Italians were tech
nically kissing cousins. Her suggestions to merge the two, however, went in one ear and out the other.

Get Babbas and Uncle Laz to play along? Yeah, it sounded good in theory. In reality, I could already hear the Munchkins singing in my head. Or maybe those voices were the evil monkeys. Either way, I'd never find my way out of Oz with Babbas controlling every aspect of my life from behind the proverbial curtain.

You might be Greek if you hate going out in public with your family because people always think you're fighting when you're really just loud.

O
n the Saturday after my heart-to-heart conversation with Bella and Marcella, I went back to work at the flower shop. Marcella had somehow overlooked a large order for a wedding and needed my help pronto. Thank goodness we had plenty of flowers in stock. I still couldn't figure out how she'd managed to forget something this important, though. She seemed to be slipping up a lot.

We worked at a record pace. Marcella spent much of the time thanking me for helping her pick up the slack. “I truly don't know how I would manage without you, Cassia,” she said. “More and more I find myself distracted.” She gave me
a winsome smile. “I guess my heart's just at home with my family. You understand.”

“After our conversation the other day, you think I want to spend more time with my family?” I laughed, then shame washed over me. “I'm sorry. I guess it sounds like I don't love them. I do. Very much.” Even Babbas, though he drove me nuts at times.

“I understand, Cassia.” Her eyes misted over. “We've been through so many ups and downs in our marriage . . .” She grew quiet, then shook her head. “Anyway, I know what it's like to keep up appearances. It's better just to come clean and let your emotions out. Don't let things build up.”

“Right.”

She gave me a motherly look. “God has done so much in my relationship with my husband over the past few years. And with his family too. I truly believe he can mend whatever is going on between you and your father if you ask him to.”

“I have asked.”

“Well, don't give up. Keep asking and keep believing. We don't know God's time frame, but we do know that he wants us to be in good relationships with each other. One of these days you'll be proud to be a Pappas.”

I was proud of it already, though it rarely showed.

“Hey, speaking of your name, I want to apologize.” She laughed. “I actually thought your last name was Bethesda. I feel awful that I didn't even give your résumé a close look. Will you forgive me? I was so . . .”

“Distracted.” We spoke the word together.

“It's probably for the best that you didn't realize I was a Pappas at the time,” I said. “Maybe you wouldn't have hired me.”

“Not sure if it would've influenced me or not. But to my
credit, Bethesda sounds like a last name. Never heard it used as a middle name.”

“Right? And you probably won't again.” I quickly lit into a story about how and why I'd been given such an odd name. “My great-grandmother on my mother's side was a Bethesda before she married, so I was given her name.”

Oh, wow. I realized in that moment that my parents hadn't just slapped together ABC names for their kids. Each of us had a middle name from a family member who'd gone before.

“
Bethesda
means ‘flowing water,'” I explained. “Or ‘house of mercy.' I've always been drawn to the water.”

“Isn't there a Bible story with that name in it?” Marcella looked up from her work, curiosity in her eyes.

“Yes. A crippled man at the edge of the pool of Bethesda. The waters had curative powers.”

“Well, think about it, Cassia.” Marcella gave me another one of those motherly looks. “God has graced you with a name that has a special meaning. He wants to use you to bring healing to relationships. That should bring you some comfort as you think about the situation with your dad, right?”

I pondered her words as we continued to work. I'd never once given thought to the idea that God would use my name as a reminder that he longed to bring healing in my life. Now I couldn't shake the idea.

With the sting of fresh tears in my eyes, I nodded and whispered, “I think you're right. I'll pray about that.”

For whatever reason, this conversation reminded me of Alex—of the feud between his twin sisters. Everyone else in the family seemed to get along fine, but those two sisters just couldn't see eye to eye, especially with a fella in the mix. Why did some family situations have to be so complicated?

Marcella went into the back room to put the bouquets in the walk-in cooler, and I sat in silence, my thoughts firmly rooted in what she'd said. If only Babbas wasn't so . . . difficult. Then perhaps I could see things through hopeful eyes like Marcella did.

A short while later the bride-to-be's mother picked up the bouquets. I stretched my back, which was aching from working all morning. I prepared to head home but then ended up taking care of an elderly customer named Frank instead. I'd heard all about him from Marcella. Apparently this dapper fellow showed up every Saturday to purchase two dozen carnations, which he handed out to the widows at his church on Sunday morning. “So they never forget they are loved,” he always said.

In spite of his slow gait, Frank looked pretty chipper in his seersucker suit, bow tie, and circa 1980 shoes. I also noticed his trendy hairdo. Interesting.

“How are you today, Frank?” Marcella asked.

“Oh, the arthritis is giving me fits.” He put his hand on his right hip as he moved slowly in our direction. “And getting a good night's sleep is getting harder with this bad shoulder of mine. But I'm still blessed by the best.”

His response brought a smile to my face.

“You want your usual order?” Marcella asked.

“Well now, yes and no.” He rested an elbow on the counter and I noticed the twinkle in his eyes. “I'll take my usual two dozen pink carnations, but throw in a pink rose too.”

“A pink rose?” Marcella looked perplexed.

I walked over to the case and started pulling the flowers out.

“Yep. And wrap it separate.”

“Something we should know, Frank?” she asked.

“Maybe.” He arched a brow. “When I'm ready to talk. Right now just hand over the flowers and no one will get hurt.”

This got a laugh out of us. Marcella got busy with another customer, so I wrapped the flowers—all of the carnations in one bundle and the rose by itself, per Frank's request—and then handed them to him. After giving me his usual cash payment, all in ones, he leaned toward me and whispered, “There's a certain lady I've got my eye on, just so you know.” He gave a little wink.

“I thought so,” I whispered in response, then gave him his change.

He looked at me kind of funny as he examined the money. “You didn't charge me for the rose.”

“It's on me.” I smiled. “You just go nab that lady friend of yours.”

“Will do, will do.” He turned and whistled his way out of the store.

I reached into my pocket for money to cover the rose, but Marcella stopped me. “Oh no you don't.”

“But—”

“Nope. This one's on me.” She chuckled and the wrinkles around her eyes spoke of mischief. “But just FYI, you have no idea how many times I've given away roses to that man. He's had his eye on at least five or six of the widows in his church over the past six months.”

“Oh. Oops.” I laughed as I tried to picture Frank courting the ladies. Couldn't envision it. Still, the ladies had to be flattered. Or creeped out.

I walked home from the flower shop that afternoon, my arms loaded down with leftover roses that Marcella insisted I take home with me. As I sniffed the roses, I thought about
Frank. Some men aged gracefully, retained their charm. Some men—like Babbas—seemed to get rougher with age. Maybe when I got to heaven I could take this up with the Almighty. He could surely let me know why I ended up with a grumpy man for a father. Of course, by the time I got to heaven, that probably wouldn't be a top priority on my list. I'd be too busy singing in the heavenly choir or planting flowers in my heavenly garden.

This last thought led to some great internal questions about what flowers would be like in heaven. My imagination went crazy as I tried to picture the vibrant colors and luscious scents.

Thinking of flowers, as always, reminded me of Alex. I couldn't help but smile as I thought about how great I always felt when we were together. I decided to shoot him a quick text just to let him know that, followed by “Wish I could see you.” He responded moments later with “We need to remedy that. Soon.” My heart burst into song, and I nearly forgot about the situation with Babbas. Nearly.

When I arrived at Super-Gyros, I put the roses in vases and used them as centerpieces on the tables. While I worked, Mama filled me in on the day's details. I learned that my cousin Athena had called to let us know that she and her husband planned to come to Galveston the following week. To celebrate that great news, I decided to go for a bike ride. I put on my new riding shorts and brightly colored T-shirt and reached for my helmet.

Eva's curiosity must've gotten the better of her. She followed me out to the storage room where I kept my bike, chatting all the way, first about Athena's visit and then about my desire to ride.

“What's up with all the bike riding, Cassia? Why do you go out so much?”

I slipped the helmet on my head and clicked the ends of the strap together. “It's the only time I can truly be alone, away from all the chaos of the shop and the hundreds of people who surround me on every side. When I'm on my bike, I'm . . . free.” I didn't mention the fact that my family—God bless them—was the loudest I'd ever known. The screaming, even the friendly bantering, was so high-pitched I could hardly stand it at times.

“Could I go with you sometime?” she asked.

“Sure. But we'd need to get a second bike.”

“I think I'd like that.”

I gave her a smile and climbed aboard. After waving goodbye, I set the music on my phone to exactly the right song—“Somewhere over the Rainbow”—and stuck in my earbuds. Then I took off, ready to be free from all of life's struggles, including the obvious ongoing issues with my dad.

Well, until the trolley rolled my way. As it went on by, I noticed a new sign on the side: “Parma John's Pizzeria, the island's favorite eatery. Now featuring the Venus de Milo, a tasty Mediterranean pizza.”

Oh. Help.

Babbas would have a fit.

I rounded the corner, the wind blowing against my face. My thighs felt the burn as the breeze offered a little more resistance than normal. With my earbuds in, the music provided the perfect backdrop to convince me to keep going.

Off in the distance I caught a glimpse of seagulls circling a trash can. If I pinched my eyes shut for a second—not a wise move on my bike, of course—those seagulls might just
resemble my family members, hovering around me at every turn.

The song on my phone changed, and I found myself caught up in a familiar worship tune. The upbeat melody kept my feet firmly on the pedals, which moved in perfect timing. Talk about a great motivator.

After a couple of minutes, I turned onto a back street and slowed my pace as the music shifted to a new tune. The words to the worship song hit my heart, and I pondered the situation with my parents, how I'd come to resent the fact that Babbas expected so much from me. Seconds later I felt a tug on my heart as the Lord whispered words of peace over the situation. I thought about what Marcella had said, about how my name meant healing.

In that moment, I saw hope for my situation. Maybe my father would never change, but I could. My heart needed an adjustment, a shift.

As I rounded a bend in the road, the gulf came into view. With the sunlight reflecting off the water, it took my breath away. Sure, I'd bragged that the Gulf of Mexico couldn't hold a candle to the Pacific, but the glistening waters called out to me, drawing me in. I pedaled toward the seawall, slowing as I reached the crossing point. After waiting for the traffic to clear, I made my way across and went to the sidewalk on the other side. There I parked my bike and walked to the stairs, then headed down to the sand.

While I strolled along the water's edge, I was reminded of everything Bella had said, how she had suggested I play up the similarities between Babbas and Uncle Laz. Maybe we really could bring the two together. I would implement a
plan as soon as I arrived back home, and I would do so with a new attitude and greater patience.

Turned out the ride home was tougher than I'd imagined. The breeze picked up and worked against me all the way. By the time I got back to Super-Gyros, I felt winded in every sense of the word. Still, I needed to talk to Babbas, and I needed to do it now . . . before my courage slipped away on the afternoon breeze.