Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) (3 page)

The younger brother pulls a jar from the kitchen cupboard, eases off its lid. Two tall glasses go on the counter, side by side. A spoon scoops a sticky white substance from the jar. He drops it in the glass, spoon and all. Twice he does this, before filing both glasses with cold water from the refrigerator. One each.

“You know,” he says, “one of the best things about not being a kid is that we can have this anytime we want.”

This is vanilla
hyporvrychio
, a thick glob of confectionary that sticks to the spoon. The white sweet, with its strong vanilla flavor, is a Greek childhood favorite. A few years of that and your tiny white teeth will turn black. When Mama was out, they used to take turns sneaking spoons into the pantry. Minor miracle they made it to adulthood with any teeth.

Instead of sucking and licking the spoon, Max bites into the white and waits for the sugar grenade to go off in his mouth before swallowing. He could eat the whole jar in one sitting. No shame.

“Do you suppose Zeus himself created this up on Mt Olympus?”

“I think God gave him the recipe.”

“Blasphemer,” Max says, laughing. Feels good to be with his brother again. Things come easy.

Kostas sucks the spoon before speaking. “So how is Mama punishing you this time? Greek guilt? 'We did everything for you, blah, blah,’ or '
Panayia mou
, I'm dying without grandchildren’?”

“This time? Both. She's pushing me to marry.”

“Have you met someone?”

“No, but Mama has. She wants to introduce us.”

Kostas shakes his head, spoon bobbling in his mouth like he’s a kid again. When he pulls it from his mouth, it makes a small pop. “You’re a stronger man than me. I would have tossed her into the sea by now.”

“And they say you're the holy one.”

“God turned the wrong woman to salt.” Another suck of the spoon. “So who’s your bride to be?”

Max shrugs. “Mama said she’s the daughter of a friend.”

“Which could mean anything.”

“Exactly.”

“So what will you do? Marry her?”

“No.” The cement ship drifts out of sight. “Maybe. I wish I knew. Mama gave me the family honor speech. She already promised this woman I would marry her daughter.”

“Tricky situation. Tell her no.”

“I can't.”

“Of course you can. What is she going to do, take your stethoscope away?”

Max gulps down what’s left of the vanilla water. If only life could be as simple and sweet as this dessert. But no, life is more like a soufflé: destined to crumble and fall under the slightest change in pressure.

“Aren’t you going to give me some priestly advice about honoring our mother and father?”

“Is that what you want to hear?” Kostas waits for a nod, receives a shrug. “Would you like to hear my opinion as a brother or a priest?”

Max says, “Both.”

“Then as a priest and a brother I will tell you the same thing: This is a new century and parents no longer choose for their children. Do what you think is best.”

“It's not that easy.”

“Yeah,” the priest says, “it is.”

Max groans. “I should have entered the priesthood.”

Not the worst idea ever, but close.

“Come, let’s go light a candle for you. Perhaps God will help you to see the way. Or maybe, if we are very lucky, He will cut out our mother’s tongue.”

The idea of their mother deprived of her favorite weapon makes them laugh. They don’t stop until the incense-laden serenity of the church below envelops them. On the hottest July days, the underground church stays October cool.

Max lights a candle, sends a silent prayer to God for direction. Better to double up, he thinks. Ask the old gods of Olympus to take mercy on his soul, just in case God’s busy today.

Kostas taps the collection box. Max feeds it a ten Euro note.

“The church thanks you, Brother. Now go and be the man you want to be. Don't be Mama's bitch.”

Light twinkles down the far end of a dark, hopeless tunnel.

Five minutes later, he’s navigating the twisty mountain. Everything will be fine. He’ll tell Mama “No,” and she will have to understand.

That’s how it’s going to happen. Easy.

The phone starts howling in his pocket, but he’s too busy dodging an overflowing bus to get it. Not until he reaches the bottom does he get a chance to check his voicemail.

One message. Mama, of course.

“Max, you are coming for dinner Saturday night at seven. Wear something nice and don't be late. If you have an emergency I will know you don't love your Mama or your poor dead
Baba
. Grandchildren, Max. I'll die of a broken heart if you don't give them to me soon.”

He gives the gas pedal hell.

D
ay one
: Vivi makes
believe John is out showing houses.

That goes okay until dinnertime. With no one to babble endlessly about square footage, Vivi gets even more bored than usual. She rolls a pea at Melissa, hoping to start a food fight, but Melissa keeps on reading.

D
ay two
: She crafts a crude voodoo doll out of a sock and hair John dumped in the bathroom trashcan. Permanent marker face. No needle, so she uses a knife to give it a few whacks.

Now he’s headless. Headless John.

D
ay three is
the day of promises she has no intention of keeping.

If John comes back, I promise not to stare at his shiny forehead or comment on his expression of perpetual surprise. If John comes back, I promise to not kick him in the nuts for leaving. If John comes back, I promise not to spit in his lunch and put Nair in his shampoo
.

D
ays four through six
: dedicated to the art of crying.

O
n the seventh day
, Vivi caves. She squeezes
Nair
into John’s shampoo.

S
he thinks
of it as the week of accomplishment, because it’s been seven days of avoiding her mother. But (tick tock, tick tock) time is running out. Dinner at her parents’ place is tomorrow night.

Melissa creeps in and out of the house like a pretty blonde ghost. Once in a while, she offers to make coffee or toast, but mostly she locks herself away in her room with a stack of books for company. She took the news wordlessly for the most part, asked where she was going to live.

With me, of course, Vivi told her. And Melissa’s tense face relaxed back into its new, bland mask

Vivi really doesn’t want to call her mother.

The phones are mocking her, the way she knew they would. They’re too sleek and modern, slick like car salesmen. Not the kind of thing you use to settle into a nice long conversation with coffee in one hand and a good friend in the other.

Pick up. Put down.

Pick up. Put down.

Twenty times.

A short prayer: Oh God, let it be fast and easy.

Throw Mother Nature and Eleni Pappas in a boxing ring and Eleni will be the last woman standing – guaranteed. It’s happened before.

Take Vivi’s period. Hers arrived in time to make the beginning of sixth grade a year to really remember.

“Impossible,” Eleni Pappas had said. “You are too young.”

All (bloody) evidence to the contrary.

But what happened? No more bleeding for a whole year.

After that, Vivi was scared. Her mother was magic, she was sure. If she could delay a period, surely she could do bigger damage, to something like her height or cup size.

And now look at her, stuck at five-two.

Exhibit Two: Junior year, Vivi’s first date. Eleni wailed and stamped her foot when she discovered the object of Vivi’s affection, Mike Clemens, wasn't Greek. She stood in the doorway staring him down, barring him from entering, Vivi from exiting. Eleni went all out with the war paint, a thick layer of frosted green shadow and engine sludge gluing her lashes together.

“Just because my daughter is Greek,” Eleni Pappas announced, “doesn't mean you get to go Greek with her.”

Vivi sank into the purple-pink rug.

The date didn’t happen. Mike decided he had somewhere else to be, like, with a normal girl whose mother didn’t openly discuss anal sex.

School ended and Vivi applied to colleges two hundred or more miles away from home. Last thing she needed was Eleni deciding she'd pop in for a visit without prior warning, her double-edged tongue slicing, both faces with their eagle eyes nitpicking every detail of her new life.

She froze Vivi out for a month when her daughter picked UCLA.

The freeze lasted until Vivi’s first night in California, when she began a torrential downpour of phone calls. Twenty times a day she'd be on the phone, giving Vivi her own special brand of Eleni advice.

“Vivi, do not forget to change your underwear every day.”

Or, “Vivi, sit at the front of class. You learn more if you are not looking at the back of the people's heads.”

And Vivi’s personal favorite: “Vivi, keep your legs shut. I do not want your friends to think I raised a whore.”

She sent Vivi a quarter, told her to hold it between her knees.

Vivi got knocked up, anyway, which was the Worst Thing Ever, until John married her. All Eleni said after that was, “Two years, mark my words. You will wish you had listened to your mother and married a good Greek boy.”

Vivi makes the call she doesn’t want to make.

Eleni pounces on the other end. “Whatever you are selling, I do not want it. We are poor.”

These are people who have caller I.D., so her mother knows damn well who’s calling.

Vivi throttles back the scream. “Jesus, it’s just me. I need to tell you – ”

“Vivi, my doll, you do not have to call me Jesus. You are coming for dinner Saturday, yes? I'm making your favorite
galaktobouriko
.”

Vivi shuts her eyes, fantasizes about a swift death (her own) before then. “No, Mom. I mean yes, Melissa and I will be there.”

“Good, good.” She can almost hear the tap tapping of Eleni’s ubiquitous low heels. “And Yanni?”

It’s waaay too early in the conversation to lose control. “It's John. He's not Greek, we are, remember? We're separated, Mom. A week ago. So to answer your question: No, John will not be coming.”

Vivi doesn’t have to be there to know her mother is waving her hands at the heavens. “
Ay-yi-yi
! What did you do now? Why did he leave you?”

“Who said he left me? Maybe I told him to go.”

“No, he left you,” she says smugly. “A mother knows these things. Did you burn his dinner? I told you not to use that microwave. It is unnatural to cook that way. Or did you forget to iron his underwear?”

“You don’t iron Dad’s underwear.”

“Maybe you neglected him in the bedroom, eh? Some men have strange needs. Your father he likes to – ”

Jesus, God, anyone with a spare lightning bolt, strike her down

“Mom, no. Look, it's done, okay? No more John.”

Silence.

“Mom?”

“Okay,” Eleni says, all sunshine and puppies. “So you will be here Saturday?”

The plot is gurgling in its cauldron. Witchy-Poo is saving the interrogation for Saturday. That way she’s got plenty of time to sharpen her tools.

It’s going to be a hostage situation.

“Yeah,” Vivi says, inching toward the slaughter. “Mel and I will see you tomorrow.”

There is triumph in Eleni’s voice as she says, “You would not have this problem if you married a good Greek boy.”

A
door slams
.

Vivi’s asleep again, until that happens. On the sofa (of course) where she’s been anesthetizing her brain with a concoction of soaps and talk shows. She can’t be bothered showering, dressing; her bones are limp and untrustworthy.

She’s a cliché. A stereotype. Smells like it, too. There’s an environmental disaster happening on her skin and in her hair. The EPA is coming any day now to begin cleanup.

“Is that you, Mel?”

Melissa casts a slight shadow. She’s a scrap with a nimbus of gold light illuminating her blonde hair. The open kitchen blinds have allowed the sun to sneak in where it’s not welcome. She’s in school clothes, a backpack over one shoulder.

Is it a school day? It must be.

What kind of mother is she?

A shitty one, apparently. Must run in the family.

Vivi counts off the days on trembling fingers and comes up with Friday. Still exactly one week since John left, same as it was before the nap. The days are glissading into one another.

“Have you been there all day?” The
'again'
is silent.

“I made coffee. I went to the bathroom. Does that count?”

The halo moves. “I've got homework.”

Before Vivi has a chance to offer help, Melissa’s bolting up the stairs.

Now Vivi is wondering, if she’s such a cliché, how do other women cope? Is it a gradual process? Will she wake up one morning and discover she’s still alive?

She’s thinking about following Melissa upstairs when the phone kills her plan.

It’s John. Her pulse quickens.

“I'm coming over to pick up a few of my things. Is that convenient?” He sounds like funeral director: polite, apologetic, detached.
So sorry about your dead marriage
.

His things . . .

Melissa and Vivi used to be his things.

“That's fine. There are boxes in the garage.” Why is she making this easy for him? “Come to think of it, why don't you take all your stuff? I can have it all boxed and waiting in the driveway.”

“I was hoping I could see Mel, too. Is she home?”

Asshole. He waited a whole week to ask.

A bright thread of hysteria winds itself around her words. “Of course she's here. Where else would she be? She's up in her room with her nose in a book where she always is.”

“Don't make this harder, Vivi . . .”

The invisible rubber band that has been slowly winding tighter since he left suddenly snaps.

“Hey, don't you dare put this on me. You threw me away. Come and see our daughter. Come and get your things if you have to, but don't put the blame on me. We'll be here, but make it snappy or your things are going out with the trash!”

She throws the phone, but it doesn’t know how to fly. Immediate regret; now that’s John’s gone, how long is it going to be before the money runs out? She needs to be practical. They have to talk money and soon. She and Melissa can’t stay in this house with its mortgage and crippling property taxes.

Keeping house doesn’t pay the bills, and she can’t – won’t – rely on alimony for long. Besides, the idea of doing something for herself looks new and shiny.

She has a B.A. in nothing much, and an M.B.A. she completed part time after Melissa started school. Her plan involved working, but John wanted a wife at home – one who could impress on demand.

Yeah, she sure impressed him.

If she had any balls, she would pack everything up and move. But their lives are here, aren’t they? And no way will the courts let her move Melissa too far from John.

Nice fantasy, though. She feels better – feels better all the way upstairs and into the bathroom.

Goodbye, grime and sweat.

When she’s done showering, she raps on Melissa’s door and waits her customary four beats before going in.

Melissa’s busy with a book. She doesn’t look up.

“Hey, Kiddo, I thought you were doing homework.”

She lifts the book so Vivi can see the title. “I am.”

Times have changed. No way would her school have put Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the reading list. Her school was old school.

“Nice,” she says. “Your dad is on his way over.”

Nothing but silence.

“Kiddo, your father loves you. Just because we're separated – ”

“I don't care,” Melissa murmurs.

“Of course you do. This is just going to take some getting used to.”

“I don't care.” She slams the book shut. Contempt turns her eyes a hard, glossy brown. “And you shouldn't either. God, look at you, you got all dressed up for him. You're pathetic.”

Wow, Vivi thinks, because Melissa just punched every other word out of her head. Just . . . Wow.

Is that how her daughter really feels? That Vivi’s a pathetic creature to be pitied?

Yeah, no. Not even close.

Okay, maybe a bit.

“Well, I might be pathetic, but I'm still your mother and while you're living under my roof, I'd like some respect. After that, we can renegotiate.”

Vivi sulks in her room for thirty seconds. Knees tight against her chin, shins mashed against her thighs. She’s a hedgehog, stripped of its needles.

She’s still got a spine though, hasn’t she?

John walked out and the world is still spinning. Melissa is safe, healthy, and in the next room. John's leaving hasn’t killed Vivi – he doesn’t have the power.

Her head falls back, bangs the wall.

“I can hear you, Mom,” Melissa calls out. “Quit spying on me.”

Yeah, that’s enough brooding for today.

The boxes are in the garage, like she remembered, flat and stripped of old packing tape. Like a machine, she goes at them, pushing cardboard chunks back into shape, sealing their bottoms with tape.

A whole second is how long she gives herself to admire her handiwork, when she’s done. She grabs four, then it’s upstairs for cleanup duty.

The closet steps up to the plate first.

Once upon a time, she loved this closet. Now, looking at John’s suits, sorted by color and season, she hates its guts.

These stupid suits have got to go. She rips them from their hangers, dumps them in the boxes. Shirts, underwear, socks stuffed in the box. Shoes on top of those, leather-soled fabric weights. Watches? Dumped in the box. Cufflinks? Dumped in the box. Everything John’s? Dumped in the box.

The lavender drawer liners can stay.

Box four goes in the bathroom. She shoves it up to the counter – the His side.

Dozens of bottles crowding the counter, crowding the cupboard. John does love his potions. Promise John youth and he’s there, swiping his credit card.

In one smooth move, she sweeps every last bottle and jar over the edge. Some don’t make it, and that’s okay. She cleans the mess with toilet paper, and does what?

Dumps it in the box.

Let him clean up his own mess.

Now the boxes are overflowing with John’s junk, so she climbs in one box at a time, stamps, stomps, makes wine.

It takes a lot of tape to keep all that together. Good thing she has an abundance of tape.

Hair pops loose from her ponytail. While she shoves it back in she’s humming. There’s nothing like a good spring (or, um, fall) cleaning to blast away the cobwebs.

Now all she needs is a good way to get John’s shit downstairs.

J
ohn’s timing is
. . .