Hold Me Today

by Maria Luis

  To: Mina Pappas

  From: Nick Stamos

  Subject: Can’t wait

  We haven’t exchanged emails in a while. Just wanted to send a reminder that I’ll be by to pick you up around 8 a.m. We’ll grab Dom on the way. Countdown to Epic Bad Decisions: T minus 12 hours. Let the shit show begin.

  P.S., Already contacted the B&B we’re staying at. I don’t care what Sophia or anyone else on this damn “singles’ retreat” says, me and you are staying in one room with one bed. Might have also snagged us a room with a fireplace—thought you might like it.

  Hugs,

  Nick

  Hugs, Nick.

  “He’s killing me,” I mutter, running my thumb along the edge of my phone case. It wasn’t supposed to end up this way: Nick becoming the first person I think about when I wake up and the last person I talk to before conking out on my twin-sized mattress.

  A fake relationship.

  One overhaul of a salon.

  I’m going to need to talk to Effie about my feelings for her brother. I know she warned me away. I know she was only looking out for both mine and Nick’s best interests, respectively, but I think . . . I think I want to try out something more with him. Hell, we’re practically dating anyway, and my life hasn’t otherwise imploded. That’s good news in my book.

  Plus, I’m still me. Mina Pappas, hair-salon owner, lover of fantasy movies and bright, bold lipstick shades. Nothing has changed for the worse, only for the better. Somewhere along the way, Nick has become something so much more than just my best friend’s older brother who I crushed on back in high school.

  He’s become my best friend. My partner-in-crime. The one person I know I can trust to get me, no matter what. If I could watch The Lord of the Rings with him every day of the week, just to listen to him bitch about Frodo, I would in a heartbeat. That’s how far gone I am—Frodo is my favorite.

  Besides Legolas, of course, because yum.

  “You can do this,” I tell myself.

  “Can do what, koritsi mou?”

  My head snaps up at the sound of my mother’s voice, and at the Greek term of affection she’s always used for me: my daughter. It’s always felt a bit like a slight, if only because my dad never calls me that himself. It’s always Ermione, or, if he’s feeling particularly good-humored that day, Mina.

  Standing in the doorway in her night robe, my mom’s blonde-bouffant is tucked in pink hair rollers that are straight out of the 1980s. On her feet are the same pandoflas that Katya bought her for Christmas two years ago, and though they’re a little tattered in the toe area, she refuses to get rid of them.

  I toss my phone in the mess of clothes on my bed. “Just getting ready for that trip I told you about.” I wonder what she might say if I confess that I’ll be sharing a room with Nick all weekend. She’d probably be beside herself with joy—her eldest daughter finally dating a Greek man, the only thing she and my dad ever asked of me.

  “Find yourself a nice boy, Ermione. A Greek boy. He’ll take care of you.” She’s repeated the words so many times that I can repeat them verbatim, and though it rubs me a little raw to think I’m falling into their plans for my future—their narrow-minded, you’re-only-good-for-one-thing plans—I want Nick way too much to consider sacrificing what we’re building for the sake of sticking it to my parents where it hurts.

  He doesn’t deserve that. I don’t deserve that.

  My mom enters my room, her shoulders stiff as she looks around the space. “Of all my babies,” she murmurs, “I knew you would come home, Ermione.”

  There’s nothing remotely positive about her words, not with that disappointed look on her face. “It’s not permanent, trust me.” I give her my back, unwilling to let her see that I feel disappointed by her lack of faith in me. “I’ll be out of your hair by next week.” If not, I’ll be begging Effie to let me camp out on her couch.

  “You need to find a nice, Greek boy.” She plucks at a sweater I was considering bringing with me and moves it over so she can perch at the head of the bed, near my pillows. “This hair business, koritsi mou . . . it’s not going well.” Her accent is thick and stained with disapproval. “You lose your money and then? Your stairs break and you come home.” She clucks her tongue, then tips her head up in that classic, Greek head-nod I’ve seen from my family since birth. “Óxi, it’s no good.”

  Age-old frustration grinds my molars together as I shove a pair of jeans into my small, weekend suitcase. “Katya is in graduate school for business management.” Calm, I warn myself, stay calm. I force out a heavy breath before continuing. “You and Baba are paying her tuition.”

  My mom doesn’t even look contrite at the mention of her and my father shelling out thousands of dollars for Katya’s expenses. My sister is not a brat, and she never takes a thing for granted. She’s all that’s good in the world and has one of the best hearts I’ve ever met, but that doesn’t help the pure hypocrisy in this house.

  “Your sister is different.”

  This is a conversation we’ve hashed out hundreds of times before. Back when I had to stay home to babysit instead of joining sports teams or drama clubs or anything besides sit in this damn house all day long until my father came home from work and my mom decided to leave whatever friend she hung out with that day.

  It wasn’t that I was good at nothing, it was that between her and my dad, they trained me to only be good at one thing: being a parent.

  I cooked dinner for Katya and Dimitri. I packed their lunches for school. I sat and supervised when they had friends over. I helped them with their homework when I didn’t even have time to help myself. And maybe I would have done better in school if it weren’t for the fact that responsibilities fell on my plate as a kid like rain falls from the sky during a storm.

  There was no time to dream when all my hours were spent catering to the dreams of others.

  My gut twists angrily, and I whip around before I can think better of it. “How?” The word explodes from my mouth like thunder piercing the sky. “How is Katya different than me? Go on, I’m all ears, Mama. You tell me why my sister can be studying for her MBA on your dime while I should be selling the business I own and marrying the first Greek man who asks me.”

  My mom sits with her shoulders straight and her mouth pursed and her fingers tangled in her lap. “Koritsi mou, Ermione, your sister—”

  “Is? What?” I bite out the words, shoving my hair behind my ears.

  “You are the oldest.”

  An incredulous laugh rips from my chest. “That’s not an excuse.”

  I watch as she flounders for the correct English words, because unlike her two other children, I’m not fluent in the mother tongue. I have no doubt that she knows exactly what she wants to say but the language barrier, as it always has, remains a twenty-foot fence that could rival the Great Wall of China.

  “You are . . . you are—”

  “What?” I throw my arms up, completely at a loss. “I’m reckless? I’m impulsive? You think I need a man to control me?” Controlling the way my dad has acted toward her—the way he checks her phone routinely to see who she’s talking to, how he scans her credit-card receipts and only gives her so much cash. My mom has never worked a day in her life. Twenty-something years of living in this country, never working outside the home, never doing much more than mingling with her Greek friends—it’s no wonder she looks at the world through a non-inclusive lens that keeps everyone not fully part of her community out.

  Including me, her own daughter.

  My mom utters something in Greek, and I’m so sick of feeling less than in this world, in this culture that should belong to me but doesn’t, that I snap, “In English!”

  It’s the first thing I say that shreds her proper posture. Her shoulders collapse and those tangling fingers rise up to press over her heart like I’ve wounded her. Don’t hug her. Don’t you dare feel bad for finally saying what you mean. My legs qu
iver and my hands turn clammy with guilt for being rude, and my stupid heart beats faster in a whisper of, why can’t you just love me as I am?

  Head dropping back, I stare up at the ceiling and seek patience. “Just say it,” I grind out, hating the tremor in my voice that reminds me of my teenage years, “whatever you’re thinking, just say it, Mama.”

  And then she shreds my heart in two: “Smart, Ermione. Katya is . . .”

  I can’t move.

  She keeps talking, and I hear it all like I’m in a fog. Mentions of me failing classes in school and not being able to learn Greek the way my sister and brother did. She glosses over my pink hair and my revealing clothes like footnotes in a book titled Bad Girl Mina Pappas.

  All while I stand here and try not to let the tears gathering fall and give her any amount of satisfaction. I’m not dumb or stupid or an idiot or any other word my peers once hurled my way.

  I have trouble with words, no matter the language.

  It doesn’t make me incapable of learning. It doesn’t mean that I absorb knowledge like a sieve, none of it sticking long enough to make a difference.

  And even if I was that way, it shouldn’t matter. My mom, my dad, they should still love me because I’m theirs.

  The tears fall and I’m helpless to stop them.

  “Ah, Ermione,” my mom croons, coming to her feet and crossing over to me. Her arms wrap around my shoulders like she can make me feel better after tearing my soul in half. “It is okay—naí? Baba and I, we only want you to find a nice—”

  “No!”

  I shrug my way out of her hold, ducking under her arms before I can sink into their hypocritical, judgmental warmth.

  “Ermione—”

  With a hand slashing through the air, I cut my mother off. Her green eyes, so unlike my brown ones, stare back at me, completely bewildered. “I have dyslexia, Mama.” I curl my arms around myself. “Dyslexia. It’s not the plague. It does not mean that I’m incapable of taking care of myself!”

  She falls back a step. “A husband—a sýzygos—will help you.”

  “Yeah? The same way Baba helps you?”

  “Naí, koritsi mou,” she says it so pleasantly that I want to scream.

  Instead I do what I should have done thirty minutes ago. I point to the door behind her and swallow down every last bit of fight I have within me to rebel. There’s no point. She’s stuck in her ways, and I’m . . . exhausted. “I’m going to bed, Mama. We’ll talk about this when I get back.”

  I hold myself ramrod still as she ambles over and kisses me on the forehead. “Kali nichta, paidí mou.” Good night, my child.

  I wait until the door shuts behind her before I fly into motion. I throw clothes and my blow dryer and shoes all into my suitcase. It all goes in, one by one, and on a random decision, I duck beneath my bed and dig through the bin of old notebooks until I find that stupid diary to GSN. I toss that one in, too, because Nick promised me a fireplace and it’s time to see all those suffocating emotions go down in flames.

  Only once I’m done, my suitcase bumping down the staircase behind me, do I call the one woman in the world who knows all that I am and still loves me anyway.

  “Mina,” Aleka Stamos greets when she picks up on the second ring, “it’s late, koukla mou. What’s wrong?”

  “Can I stay with you tonight?”

  Her answer is immediate. “Yes, of course. Come. I will wait up for you.”

  I manage to hold back all of my tears until I reach her house. It’s not the same one I found refuge in while growing up, this one much bigger and nicer, but as soon as she sees me, it’s like the time fades away. She pulls me into her embrace, and I catch her familiar scent of lemon. I don’t know how long my best friend’s mother hugs me. I don’t know how long my tears last until I feel light-headed and she’s pressing a glass of water into my hand and telling me to drink.

  The last thing I do before I pass out in the spare bedroom is reach for my phone and call Nick. It’s after 3 a.m. and I’m not surprised when I get his voicemail. “Pick me up at your mom’s in the morning,” I say, my voice thick and raspy from all the crying I’ve unleashed, “Good night, Nick. I . . . good night.”

  32

  Nick

  I let myself into my parents’ house the morning of our road trip to Maine. Morning light streams in through the front windows of the parlor, and I follow the sound of voices to the kitchen.

  Coming here this morning wasn’t part of the plan, but neither was the choked voicemail I received from Mina in the dead of night. When I woke up and listened, it took everything in me to wait until eight, like we talked about yesterday.

  Hearing her like that . . . I could almost hear her tears through the receiver, and the sound nearly broke me. And the worst of it is, I know the only people who would drive her to tears are the ones who birthed her. Much as I want to bang on my chest and break down doors and come to her rescue, I can’t do any of that when it comes to Kyrie and Kyria Pappas.

  Mina might not love her parents the way I adore mine, but that doesn’t mean she wants me turning into the Hulk when it comes to them either. Not that I haven’t been tempted more than once this morning.

  No one messes with Mina on my watch. Not that asshole from back in high school. Not some prick on the street. No one.

  The minute my feet hit the kitchen tiles, my mom and dad whip around. Identical grins lift their mouths, and even though I only saw them last weekend, they rush forward to hug me. Ma takes first priority, then my dad.

  “Where’s Yiayia?” I ask in Greek.

  “In the sunroom messing with her plants.” My dad rolls his shoulders. “You know how she is.”

  Yeah, we all do. I look toward the hallway, the need to see Mina and reassure myself she’s okay pulsing through me.

  “Nick.” My mom loops her arm through mine. “She’ll be fine. But don’t . . . don’t ask her to talk until she’s ready, okay? Have a good weekend. Have some fun.”

  There’s not a chance in hell I’m letting this die down. I want—I need—her to tell me herself that she’s okay. And then I want to know why she came here of all places, not to Effie or even to me. Especially to me. The initial hurt from this morning resurfaces. I thought we were past keeping each other at arm’s length, and it stings to know that while I’m all in with this sort-of relationship of ours, Mina might still be clinging to the idea that we’re just a fling.

  Just a fling.

  Have Mina and I ever been “just” anything? Looking back on our interactions with each other over the years, I don’t think so. Mina has always been more to me, even if I was desperate to prove to myself otherwise.

  “Niko mou,” Ma says, drawing out each syllable patiently, like the mother she’s been for the last thirty-two years. “Let it go.”

  I force the tension out of my limbs. “Working on it.”

  A small pause, and then she asks, “Is there something between you two?”

  I could lie. They’d believe it. Mina and I have been at each other’s throats for years, always circling, always pushing—but maybe they would see right through me. Mina and I have been at each other’s throats, yes, but we’ve also shored up our differences when the other needed support.

  When the other needed love.

  My chest expands like I’ve swallowed a helium balloon.

  I love her. Mina. I scratch at my heart, like that’ll do something to appease the swell of emotion in my chest.

  All these years, I’ve been looking for my other half, my Aleka to my George, my Sarah to my Effie. And she was right here all along. I almost laugh out of the pure ridiculousness of the situation.

  Because how does a guy like me, who’s always so careful with his emotions, not realize something as monumental as loving a woman like Ermione Pappas? I can’t even say with certainty that it’s a new thing. How can I, when I’m assaulted with memories of her in every aspect of my life? Her in that tiny bikini right before her top was washed away. Her
in my arms on prom night, when I forced myself to do the responsible thing and put distance between us. Her in my goddamn bed on my wedding night, my own personal rock bottom, with I Love Lucy reruns playing and Mina—God, Mina—lending me a shoulder and a hug and an ear when I needed it.

  And that night, rolling over and wanting to pull her in close.

  This time the laugh comes, but it’s thick with emotion and doesn’t sound at all like me. Because, yes, even on my almost-wedding night to another woman, I caved to the desire Mina always sparked to life within me.

  I didn’t touch her. I didn’t climb under the covers.

  But I looked—oh, how I looked—at the way her brow furrowed in her sleep, how she quietly huffed and puffed while she snored. And my chest fucking ached at the way she slept on her side, facing me, and her fingers were stretched out, as though daring me to take them within mine.

  Ermione Pappas has been a thorn in my side. She’s driven me wild and made me want to haul her over my shoulder and spank her ass on more than one occasion, just to see her lips part in shock. But she snuck into my heart so many years ago that I don’t know what it’s like to live without her sewn into the fabric of my being.

  Knowing that what I’m about to say is gonna shock the hell out of my parents, I square off my shoulders and add steel to my tone. “I love her. Mina, I love Mina.”

  I don’t know what I’m expecting for a reaction but it’s not the one I’m given. My dad claps me on the back with a whoop! and there’s no hiding the tears that gather in my mom’s eyes as she whispers, “Oh, Niko, finally.”