Reckless (43 page)

“Further,” Dad continued, “there’s no sense in her withdrawing from her current classes this late in the term, only to have to repeat them later. Sam, can you apply both your Oil Painting and Figurative Sculpting credits toward your General Education requirements?”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“Excellent. I believe that, when combined with Figurative Drawing from last quarter, you will have completed your Humanities series, correct?” Dad was on the ball, as always.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Good,” my dad continued, “do you know if Managerial Accounting will be available next term? Or is it only offered once per academic year?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned. I didn’t care either.

“Can you check?” he asked.

“I guess,” I moaned. All I wanted to do was get my parents off my back for the evening. I’d had enough of them.

“If all goes as planned,” my dad said in a positive tone, “you can register for the appropriate classes for Spring Quarter and resume your Accounting curriculum. Then you will be back on track to complete your major in four years.”

That was my parents. Making plans for me without asking how I felt about them. I was so done with this conversation.

“Do you find that acceptable, Linda?” my dad asked.

My mom sighed on the other end of the phone. “As long as she follows through, I’m fine with it,” she said to my dad. “But if we find out you have
not
changed your major back to Accounting, Samantha, your father and I will be having a very long discussion about whether or not we should continue paying for your education at SDU at all.”

She let that sink in.

“Fine,” I said. Were we done yet?

“And if I find out your grades are slipping because you’re spending too much time with that
Christos
,” Mom hissed, “rest assured, young lady, there will be hell to pay.”

“Your mother is right, Sam,” my dad said. “We’re not funding your stay at SDU so you can meet young men. You’re there to procure a degree. Period. You will have plenty of time for men when you are older.”

“Fine,” I spat. “Can I go so I can finish my dinner now?” I sounded whiny. I didn’t care.

“Yes,” my dad said curtly.

“Bye,” I sing-songed sarcastically.

“Good night,” my dad said.

“Remember what I said, Samantha Anna Smith,” my mom hissed. “Hell to pay.”

I thought to myself,
Wow, I love you too, Mom.

When they didn’t say anything else, I rolled my eyes and pressed END on my phone and dropped it on my coffee table.

What was it with my parents
both
talking like they were minions of Satan? Or Satan himself? Which led me to the obvious question, did Satan have a wife? And was she the one in charge of the whole operation?

I didn’t know, but if Satan’s wife was anything like my mom, I was convinced she ran the show.

Whatever.

I glanced at my scrumptious Roberto’s Carne Asada burrito on the kitchen table.

My appetite was gone.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

SAMANTHA

The next afternoon, I was back behind the counter for another brain-draining shift at Grab-n-Dash. I did my best to keep a smile on my face.

Sadly, as usual, this job and my neon-urine hot-dog-smelling uniform reminded me of all the things going wrong in my life. Yes, many things were going right, like in the Christos department, but a lot of it was Groansville.

I was pretty sure my History and Sociology grades were slipping further, and I was tired all the time. How was I going to get my grades up if I was too tired to concentrate?

Worse, my parents had become complete strangers. I mean, like, worse than they’d
ever
been in the past. Maybe because I’d always followed their rules. Now that I was making choices for myself, it had become clear they didn’t understand me at all. They didn’t realize that Accounting had always been the wrong place for me. Why couldn’t they see that?

When it came to my love for Christos, I was certain my mom and dad couldn’t even begin to understand. They didn’t have what Christos and I had. To me, they seemed like loveless roommates.
 

But Christos and I were in love.

Deeply in love.

Couldn’t my parents at least respect that, even if they didn’t understand it?

I wanted to live my life my way, not theirs.

Thinking about it any further was going to make me either throw up or break down in tears. Sadly, neither would set the right mood when a customer came in and I needed to say, “Welcome to Grab-n-Dash. How can I brighten your day?”

I tried to block everything out and focus on work.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the afternoon rush kicked in, distracting me from my gloomy mood. Customers rolled through the doors every thirty seconds. I generally had a line of people three-deep waiting to pay.

I was so busy cashing out the customers, I was surprised when I looked up into the eyes of Tiffany Shithouse-Mousetrap. For once, she smiled.

“You’ve finally found your calling, haven’t you?” she gloated while looking me over. “Nice baseball cap and matching shirt. The yellow goes with your teeth.” She held a 32 ounce cup of soda in her hand.

“Welcome to Grab-n-Dash. How can I brighten your day?” I winced as I said it.

Tiffany looked at me with rampant superiority. I saw the wheels behind her eyes turning. “You want to brighten my day? How about this?” She peeled the lid off her 32 ounce cup of cola.

“No, don’t—!” I held up my hand at the last second.

She jerked the cup right at me and 32 ounces of cola with minimal ice splashed onto my shirt and rained all over my shoes and the tiled floor.

“My day is definitely brighter now,” Tiffany smiled and walked out, dropping her cup on the floor. The bitch didn’t even pay.

I needed a mop. My shirt was sopping wet.
 

The other customers in line gave me conciliatory looks. I was ready to burst into tears, but I dutifully rang up each person in line. At some point, I realized tears were running down my face against my will, but I rang everyone up anyway.

When there was a lull in the customers, I stepped out from behind the cash counter and prepared to go into the back to find a mop or crawl into a corner and bawl my eyes out properly.

“Samantha?”

I hadn’t even heard the door bing-bong.

“Christos? What are you doing here?”

“I decided to surprise you as soon as Isabella left for the day.” He held a small but classy pink sunflower bouquet in his hands. I’d never seen anything like it. It was perfect.

More tears. But this time, it was the good kind.

He set them on the counter in front of me. When he saw my dirty shirt, he said, “What happened,
agápi mou
? You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”

“Would you believe Tiffany threw her soda in my face?” I sniffed, trying not to cry again.

“What?!” he asked in total disbelief.

“Yeah, like twenty minutes ago,” I wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand. “I need a tissue.”

He grabbed a napkin from beside the hot dog stand and handed it to me over the counter.
 

It smelled like hot dogs. I was used to it. “Thank you, Christos.”

He leaned over the counter. “This is ridiculous, Samantha. We’re barely seeing each other anymore. I’m dying without you. Painting all these nude women every day has gone from hollow to desperately lonely. It’s so much better when you’re there to keep me company. It’s like I’m painting for us, not for my rabid customers. When you’re there, I don’t care what I’m doing. I have a blast.”

“I feel the same way,” I said.

“Do you want me to eject the painting career, and get a job with you here at the Grab-n-Dash?” he joked, all smiles. “I totally would, if it would make you happy.”

“No, I’d never ask you to work here. The people who come in here are animals.” I smiled when I pictured Eminickle and 2 Small Crew. Well, not all of my customers. Just the Tiffanies.

“You sure? I think I’d look hot in a…what color is that again? Your shirt?”

“I don’t know, but I think it’s radioactive, which means, if somehow I have cancer, my shirt is curing me. If it doesn’t kill me first.”

“
Agápi mou
,” he snickered, “this is the wrong place for you.” He reached over the counter again and cupped my cheek. Frowning, he realized how awkward and unromantic it was with the counter between us. “Wait, hold on a second. I need to do this right.” He backed up from the counter and looked around, examining the rack of candy behind him until he found what he was looking for. He grabbed two packages and moved the bouquet he’d brought for me to the side, then vaulted over the counter like an Olympic athlete, and dropped to one knee.

He peeled open the wrapper on one of those giant candy rings. It was red.

“Cherry!” I smiled. “My favorite.”

He slid the candy ring on my finger and looked up at me earnestly.

The waterworks in my eyes started up all over again. OMG, what the hell was he going to say?

“Samantha Smith, will you…”

OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!

“…move in with me?”

“Yes!”

He stood up and I jumped into his arms.

Home at last. My mom had
no
idea what existed between me and Christos. How could she? My dad was nothing like Christos. Maybe that’s why their marriage was the way it was. Well, my mom wasn’t a prize in the romance department either. She preferred tax day over Valentine’s Day, I was pretty sure. I suddenly felt a pinch of compassion for my parents. Maybe neither of them had any idea what true love could be.

Christos hugged me tightly and smooched me on the lips. I felt something in his hand pressing into my back. “What’s that?” I asked.

He held up a box of candy cigarettes. “For later, after we have celebratory sex in your new home.”

“You are the biggest dork I’ve ever loved,” I smiled through tears.

“The
only
dork you’ve ever loved,
agápi mou
…”

We kissed passionately for a long time, I think until my shift was over. I didn’t care. I loved my dork
and
his dork.

SAMANTHA

That night after work, Christos and I had dinner at the Manos house with Spiridon. We all sat in the kitchen while Spiridon cooked. He refused to let me do anything.

Spiridon made lamb kebabs. On the side was Tzatziki, which Spiridon explained was Greek yogurt with cucumbers and garlic, dolmades, which I had learned to love, and Kolokithopita, which were fried zucchini fritters.

I shoveled up some Tzatziki off my plate with a triangle of pita bread and took a bite. So yummy.

“We’re celebrating your moving into our house,
Samoula
,” Spiridon said from where he stood at the stove.

I wrinkled my nose. “What’s a Samoula?” I asked.

Christos chuckled. “It’s a Greek nickname for Samantha, right
Pappoús
?”

Spiridon turned around and smiled at me. “Yes. Now that you’re moving in with us,
Samoula
, you’re going to have to learn not only to eat Greek, but to speak Greek, think Greek, and live Greek. You did warn her about us, right Christos?” Spiridon winked at his grandson.

“Are you kidding,
Pappoús
?” Christos laughed. “If I’d told her what she was getting herself into, she would’ve run screaming back to Washington D.C.!”

“I would not,” I chuckled. I hadn’t even moved in yet, and already I felt completely at home in the Manos’ house, like I’d live here for years.

For the first time in my life, I felt a hint of what a home
could
be. Home was a grounded place. A place I’d dreamt of since I was a little girl, but never known firsthand. Home was a comforting, supportive environment.

I thought about my little corner of the art studio at the back of Spiridon’s house.
 

Home was also a nurturing environment. A place to help me grow, to allow me to become a woman. A place where I could gently set aside the girl within me and embrace the woman I was meant to be.

Sure, I recognized that my parents had done much to raise me. They had provided, they had directed. They had controlled. They had tried to make me a robot. A drone I never wanted to be.

I wanted to jump into life and discover things.

Christos had helped me do exactly that. It was as if he swam in a sparkling, magical ocean, and was constantly asking me to dive in with him and explore a vast, unknown world of exciting, enchanting possibility.
 

And now I had.

I was jumping in, all the way.

As the three of us ate together and filled our bellies with nourishing food while laughter filled our hearts, I felt like I was finally in the right place.

Finally home.

Christos had awoken me from a nightmare that had haunted me for my entire life.

Now I was alive.

I was awake, and I was never going back to sleep.

I was ready to live.

With Christos by my side.

After wiping his face with a napkin, Christos asked, “Do you still have those candy cigarettes?”
 

“I do,” I smiled. “They’re in my purse.”

“Good, because you’re going to need them.”

“When?” I asked coquettishly.

“Right after dinner,” Christos grinned. “Well, more like three hours after we finish dinner.”

“I have to wait that long?” I would never have had this conversation in front of my parents. I didn’t even think twice about how raunchy I must have sounded to Spiridon, who was sitting across the table from me.

“For the cigarettes, yes,” Christos clarified, “but no, we’re starting as soon as I clear the table.” He smiled his cockiest grin.

“Gosh, would you look at the time?” Spiridon said, standing up from the table. “I totally forgot I was meeting an old friend for drinks tonight.”

“Oh?” Christos asked. “Who?”

“Walt Childress,” Spiridon said.

“You mean Professor Childress?” I asked.

“One and the same,” Spiridon said.

“Really,” Christos smiled. “When was the last time you two hung out?”

“It’s been ages,” Spiridon mused.