Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) (5 page)

G
oodnight
, 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.

I
t’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 busy 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.

A
nastasia 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.

“You move fast.”

She bites her lip. He knows it’s calculated, but tonight he doesn’t care.

“So old fashioned. I didn't expect that from the boy who used to piss on his mother's gardenias.” Her laugh is thin, girlish. “Come on.”

He goes.

T
here’s a park nearby
. Max knows it well. He dumped his virginity there during his fourteenth summer. An amicable breakup.

Anita was her name. Pretty, German, Eighteen. Easy in the best possible way. God bless horny girls.

“They won't be expecting us back for a while. They'll just be glad we're bonding,” Anastasia says. She smiles her angel’s smile, her making-a-secret smile.

“Hey, gardenias like acid,” he says, belatedly.

“I don’t care. Do you?”

The heavily wooded park behind St Constantine's Church is the color of carbon at night. No lights, except on the edge closest to the church. It’s a good place for lovers and the merely lustful.

He goes, he goes, following her steps.

Like wearing a blindfold.

Max is a man who likes playing with blindfolds.

He groans when her soft hands pull his face to hers, lips parted, tongue waiting to be captured. Fuck, she makes him want to lose control, like some overeager teenager. It takes everything he’s got to grind her into the tree’s bark, good and slow.

“Fuck me, Max,” she whispers.

“No.”

She stops. “No?”

“No.”

One hand goes up her skirt, makes her naked from the waist down. He lets her really feel his fingers.

“Why not?”

“It’s not a debate,” he says. Maybe he’ll be getting married soon, maybe not. But until then, there’s fun. “I haven’t decided if you’re going to be mine.”

“A game. I like games,” she breathes.

He doesn’t like games, but Max sure loves to play.

R
ock bottom was last
week
. And now look, a new rock bottom.

Rock bottom’s bottom?

Life, you are one funny bitch, Vivi thinks.

Nice holding cell. A cozy six-by-eight. Shiny, shiny toilet and the worst bed taxpayers’ money can buy. Is it too soon to make a shiv, or should she wait?

She flops on the bed. The pillow doesn’t pretend to care – it keeps on being a rock.

John is gay. John is gay. Hip-hip-hooray.

In the old days, gay meant happy. She doesn’t feel happy. But then she’s not the gay one, is she?

Is John happy?

Someone has to be happy.

Round and round in circles, until someone comes for her.

She shuffles, on her way to death row – stupid woman walking. Into a grim room with sad walls and an equally sad table and chairs. Her escort points her to the bad-guy side of the table. Then another police officer comes in and sits on the good-guy side.

Oh God, she’d rather eat shit than call John to make bail.

“Sounds like you're a woman on the edge,” the officer says. She’s one of those big, no bullshit types. Ten bucks says she’d never be dumb enough to hook up with a gay man. Or any man.

“You have no idea.”

“Guess we should be grateful we don't have to charge you with homicide. Killing someone means more paperwork. I really don’t like paperwork.”

“I would never kill my daughter,” Vivi says. “It was just a slap. And I regret it, I swear.”

The officer holds up her hand. Vivi shuts up.

“I’m talking about that husband of yours. Your mother gave us the lowdown on his doooown low. That woman sure can talk. She kept calling him a
pousti
. At first I thought she was talking about some kind of Italian sandal, until your kid translated.”

“Are you charging me with anything?”

“No, you can go home – this time. You family is waiting on you out front.” She holds the door open. “If I were you, I would have ripped off little Willie and the twins and fed them to the dog.”

“We don’t have a dog.”

“So get a dog.”

Eleni and Melissa are sitting on a battered wood bench in the lobby. Melissa won’t look at her, and her mother won’t talk to her.

Which is fine. She just wants to go home and scrub the humiliation off her soul.

Then she’s going to deal with the two of them.

V
ivi searches
“how to get a life.”

But the Internet being the Internet, it only wants to sell her stuff.

So she tackles the problem old school: with a notepad and a thinking cap.

She’s there on the couch, wide-awake, when the night peels back from the sky and flaunts its golden petticoat.

It’s an omen. Spring is coming, and in spring anything is possible – not just allergies.

Vivi wants a brand spanking new life. The old one is a tatty pair of sweats, all baggy around the knees. It makes her look and feel like shit.

The big question: Is selling the house and finding a new neighborhood a big enough change?

Life won’t be the same, no matter where they go. Staying nearby, she runs the risk of bumping in John and his Mr. Perfect. Who needs that?

Last night Melissa came clean, told her all about what the kids at school have been saying. Vivi didn’t say it, but she wanted to kill John for his indiscretions. It’s one thing to betray her, but Melissa? Not cool. She wonders how many nights he spent cruising the park, looking for some action, while she and Melissa ate alone.

Is he even practicing safe sex?

Never mind. Of course he is. The man is the epitome of paranoid and O.C.D. when it comes to cleanliness. Every time they had sex, he couldn’t get to the shower fast enough.

Doesn’t matter, she’s still making an appointment to get things checked out under her hood. Can’t start a new life with someone’s secondhand, thirdhand, diseases.

A new life. She can do it. They can do it.

But where?

Someplace unfamiliar. None of the same restaurants, none of the same people. But not too far from family.

Back to the computer.

Google Maps is useless, for once. It shows her pictures of a better life, better places, but it’s skimpy on the finger snapping make-it-happen part.

She snaps her fingers. Clicks her heels.

Nothing happens.