“I missed Greek school somehow,” Will said. “What do they learn?”
“The language, church holy days, Greek culture and religion in general. It’s usually a couple of hours twice a week at the church.”
“So you didn’t learn Greek.” Will sounded disappointed.
Amber explained, “Will loves languages.”
“You’ve come to the right place, then,” Cassie said. “A lot of people in town still speak it at home. You may hear it today. Anybody you ask will be thrilled to teach you a few words.”
“Jeez,” Savannah said. “Greek’s nothing to get excited about.”
“I love hearing it spoken. Even if I’ve only learned a little.”
Savannah wasn’t finished yet. “If you weren’t really part of the family, Cassie, then why are we going today? I don’t want to be there!”
Cassie remained calm, but Amber saw her hands tighten around the steering wheel. “I never said I wasn’t part of the family, Savannah. I said my parents didn’t attend a lot of the family events. If you don’t want to be with us and enjoy the party, maybe you can find a quiet spot by the water and sit by yourself all day.”
The rest of the drive was blessedly short and silent. Amber paid attention to street names and turns, something she did almost without thinking. By the time they parked at the end of a long driveway with cars extending past nearby houses, she could find her way back to Cassie’s on foot if the need arose.
“You can tell which house we’re heading for by the bouzouki music.” Cassie got out and Amber and Will did, too. Savannah stayed in her seat, but Cassie ignored her. The temperature was soaring toward eighty, so Amber had chosen to wear a sundress and sandals. Cassie popped the trunk and together they removed the food. Then they started toward music that reminded Amber of mandolins.
A memory swept over her. It was both unexpected and sweet, one of the few she was glad to recall. Her “papa,” her father’s father, had played a mandolin on his wide front porch on summer evenings, and whenever she visited, he would lift his granddaughter to his lap so Amber could pluck the strings. For a moment she could almost smell the honeysuckle climbing up his trellis and feel the brisk mountain breeze.
Then the memory was gone. Because even good memories were too often gateways into places her mind didn’t want to go.
“You really didn’t have to bring anything,” Cassie said as the three of them walked down the street skirting parked cars. “But they’ll love you twice as much for bringing food. This family loves to eat. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.”
Amber was relieved when the conversation ended and they reached the end of the block, which was directly on the water. She followed Cassie up a path to an unpretentious concrete block house with a million-dollar view. The house itself was painted white with robin’s-egg-blue trim and a blue tile roof unlike any Amber had ever seen before. Porches and decks flanked every side, and across the road, a row of mangroves stretched down to the water. The landscaping was simple. Palms and live oaks. Colorful shrubs and patchy grass.
“That’s Spring Bayou,” Cassie said, pointing to the water. “It’s a big deal on Epiphany. You’ll see why when the holiday comes around in January. We’ll have a ringside seat.”
Amber was trying to note everything without being obvious. As soon as they came into view, people streamed over to hug Cassie and meet her guests. Amber shook hands, accepted hugs from people she’d never met, a few whose English was generously accented, and tried hard to respond when people spoke to her.
Worn out immediately, she felt a hand on her elbow and turned to see Travis. “I’ll help you put your food on the table.”
Amber smiled, naturally this time, and thanked people. Then she let Travis lead her to the back of the house where three long tables, placed end to end, were already sagging with food. Will, still clutching Cassie’s baklava, stayed behind to talk to a boy he’d recognized from one of his classes.
Amber set her sweet potatoes in one of the few empty spots. Travis wore a tropical shirt and shorts with deck shoes and no socks. Thanksgiving was clearly not a time to dress up at Yiayia’s house. She felt the stiffness in her spine loosen just a little. “How many people are here? Will all this food get eaten?”
“They’ll come and go, but probably close to seventy,” he said. “Maybe a lot more. And the food will be gobbled.”
“The family is that big?”
“You missed the memo? Living next door makes somebody family. Living with one of us definitely makes somebody family. It’s not just a joke that I don’t know how I’m related to most of this bunch. It doesn’t matter.”
She thought how easy it would be for strangers with ill intent to insinuate themselves into the crowd. She kept her voice light. “How do you weed out the people who have no right to be here?”
“I guess we go on the theory that everybody has the right.”
She wondered if anyone had ulterior motives for being here today. At this point she wasn’t feeling paranoid enough to think the motives had anything to do with her. Still she planned to stay alert.
Cassie and Will arrived together and set the baklava on the dessert end of the table. Before they could regroup, a woman probably in her seventies broke away from a group of laughing men and headed their way.
“Yiayia,” Cassie warned.
Lyra Costas held her arms wide and enfolded her granddaughter. “You look so pretty today. I see your father in your eyes and your mother in the way you hold yourself and move. Like a dancer.”
Cassie winked. “I think I look more like you.”
Yiayia was clearly delighted. “And that beautiful daughter of yours?”
Cassie didn’t miss a beat. “Savannah is sitting in the car brooding.”
“Ah, girls that age. How well I know. And what did you bring today?”
“My special hazelnut chocolate baklava.”
“You are so clever. You were always such a good baker. But I taught you baklava. I remember teaching you. How is it you’ve made something that’s not real?”
Cassie laughed. “Yiayia, let me introduce my new friend Amber and her son, Will.”
Amber was suddenly and completely folded into the older woman’s arms, and then quickly Will was given the same treatment.
“You are taking care of my Cassie? Living with her so she won’t be lonely?”
Amber hadn’t thought about their arrangement that way. When she allowed herself to think about it at all, she visualized herself being stretched on the rack. But she’d already decided this was not a woman one disagreed with. Lyra Costas was short and comfortably round, with abundant silver hair piled on her head and dark eyes that never stopped darting from one face to another. She had a warm, gracious smile, but Amber was sure that when it drooped to a frown, everybody paid attention.
“Cassie has been incredibly generous with Will and me,” Amber said.
“Yes, I know what my great-granddaughter did.”
For a moment Amber wasn’t sure who she meant, then she realized Lyra was talking about Savannah. She glanced at Travis, who raised one eyebrow, as if to say, “See, I told you.”
“Girls that age are faced with so many decisions,” Amber said carefully.
“You are kind, kinder than most people would be. I like you and your handsome son.” She patted Will’s cheek. “I hope you will be happy today and eat some of everything from our table.”
“Amber made sweet potato casserole with marshmallows,” Cassie said.
Lyra looked startled, but her smile broadened. “I will eat anything with marshmallows. You must have known. You are a woman of great sensitivity and consideration.” She hugged each of them again and then waltzed over to another group.
Cassie watched her go. “In case you didn’t know? You two were just ushered into the Costas family. Yiayia liked you.”
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* * *
Savannah was hot and hungry, both of which she was trying to ignore. After abandoning Cassie’s car she had commandeered one of the many folding chairs set up for Yiayia’s guests, dragging it across the street and down a few houses to the edge of the water.
She wished she could find a better place to hide out, since sitting by the water was Cassie’s suggestion, but she had nestled the chair behind some kind of spiky shrub. Unfortunately the shrub offered little respite from the sun, nor was it foolproof as a hiding place. A quartet of little boys had come down to the bayou to throw sticks, and an older couple had strolled over to entice her to go up for dinner. She’d insisted she wasn’t hungry, and they’d finally taken the hint.
Cassie hadn’t appeared, and neither had Cassie’s aunt or grandmother. So much for so-called family.
She was bored out of her mind. Yesterday Cassie had taken her phone after the high school called to report that Savannah was skipping classes, so now she didn’t even have texts from her friends in New York to fall back on. She’d skipped out on History a few times, yeah, but only because she hated the teacher’s pop quizzes, which required detailed analysis of assigned readings. She might remember history from her “real” education in New York, but this teacher assigned pages from original sources. Of course these were pages Savannah never read and certainly wouldn’t remember if she did. The whole class was high-key lame.
The air smelled of roasting meat and the sulfur of rotten eggs from wells dug deep into the sandy soil. As the afternoon had progressed, she’d peeked at a group of men at Yiayia’s who appeared to be roasting turkeys on spits and what she was afraid might be a lamb, as well. Now the spits had been cleared away and the men had moved on, and the last time she’d peeked, everyone was clustered around a long row of tables dishing up massive amounts of food.
In New York Cassie had frequently dragged Savannah and her father to Zorba’s, a neighborhood restaurant that had reminded her of home. Savannah liked Greek food, but not at Thanksgiving.
The music was getting louder now, so it seemed like maybe the meal was over and she could finally go home. She turned to peek through fronds, cringing at what she saw. A long line of people of all sizes and ages were holding hands, arms held high, and moving back and forth, then slowly to the right. From what she could tell, the music was recorded, but one old guy was standing with something that looked like a gourd with strings, playing along.
She started to turn back until she saw a familiar figure coming toward her.
“Will...” The word tasted bad. The worst kind of geek was living in her house, sleeping in what had been her bed. When she moved back into her suite, she would fumigate the mattress.
She had more reasons to dislike him than she had fingers. Among other things he didn’t seem to care what people thought. He wore pants that were too short. No guy would dress like that on purpose, but if he noticed, he didn’t let on. He was an overachiever, too. He had some kind of after-school job stocking shelves, but he still made top grades. Not that she cared. Not that she’d checked. And, of course, Will was a mama’s boy, always doing little stuff for Amber, like fixing her a plate and leaving it in Savannah’s refrigerator.
He and his mother were like twins. They had some weird psychic understanding of each other’s thoughts. Or maybe they were aliens.
She watched him coming closer, carrying something in front of him, and when he got too close, she turned back to stare at the water. He didn’t take the hint. Will came around to stand in front of her and held out a plate overflowing with food.
“If I’d been out here as long as you have, I’d be hungry.”
She shrugged. “Too bad I’m not.”
He turned and lowered himself to the grass beside her with athletic grace, not even using his hands. He set the plate on his lap. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much food in one place before.”
“Go eat more then.”
“I couldn’t eat another bite. Your mom made this amazing good baklava that—”
“She’s not my mom! She’s my stepmother. And maybe not even that, since my father’s dead now.” Savannah wondered if that was true. The idea that she and Cassie might no longer be related legally should have made her happy, but instead she felt oddly uneasy.
“She puts up with you,” Will said, staring at the water. “That’s what mothers do.”
“Like yours puts up with you.”
“Mine doesn’t have as much to put up with.”
She stared at the plate on his lap. The scent of garlic, of onions and oregano, of roasted meat, was tantalizing, and despite herself, her mouth watered. Will had plopped a portion of pastitsio on the plate, a pasta and meat dish topped with something rich and cheesy that she remembered from Zorba’s. She’d always ordered it. Whenever they ate there, her father had called her Pastitsio for days afterwards. She wanted to dig her fingers into it and suck off the sauce.
“Wow, it’s hot out here in the sun,” Will said. “It’s cooler up there. You could sit in the shade and eat.”
“Why are you trying to be nice to me?” The words were out of her mouth before she’d thought about them.
“I’m not trying. I am nice to you. Even if you don’t make it easy.”
“You moved me out of my room!”
“Well, we both know why.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but this time no words formed. Instead tears threatened to fall.
“I hate everything about my life,” she managed at last. “I hate this place. I hate my stepmother. I even hate my real mother because she won’t leave Africa to come and get me. And I hate having strangers living in my house. I hate it!”
“Summed up, your life sucks.”
She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “Don’t make fun of me!”
“I’m not. You think your life sucks, so I guess it does. That’s how that works. I’ve been there. You can always find a reason to be unhappy, if you need one.”
“Who are you, Dr. Phil?”
“Please. I’m much better at figuring out things than he is.” Will lifted an arm in emphasis, nearly upending the plate. “You’ve been dealt a bad hand. There’s no getting around it. And we shouldn’t be living in your house. It’s awful. Everybody’s tiptoeing around trying to be quiet, to be nice.” He paused. “With one particular exception.”
She wanted to stay angry, but something about the way he said it eased the pain in her heart. “I don’t want to be nice.”
“And you have succeeded. So can you call that a win and go eat some dinner to celebrate? I could use some more of your...Cassie’s baklava if any of it’s left. And if it’s not, there is so much other stuff. I’ve had a break. I think I can take on a small plate.”
She watched him rise with the same weird athletic grace. He held out the plate. She got to her feet, too. “I still don’t like you.”
“What’s there to like?”
“Cassie just left me here to bake in the sun.” Savannah didn’t know why she’d said that. Who cared?
“She doesn’t know what to do with you. Nobody would.”
“My father would have. He always knew.” This time the tears spilled over.
Will didn’t touch her, and he didn’t sympathize. “I’ve never had a father.”
“So?” She scrubbed at her eyes again.
“Tell me about yours. I don’t get fathers. You can explain.”
Somehow they were walking up toward the others. Savannah grabbed the plate and held it against her waist. “You must have had a father.”
“Yeah, it’s biologically impossible not to, right? But I guess I just had a sperm. An unidentified sperm. The positive? I’ve got a great mother.”
“But you’re poor.”
“And humble. Incredibly humble about everything, but never resigned.”
“You know everybody thinks you’re weird, right?”
Will looked down at her and gave a small smile. “I put on a good show. But somebody else in Cassie’s house is every bit as good an actor. People think I’m weird, and they think you’re mean. We’ve probably performed beyond our own expectations.”
“Getting weirder,” Savannah said, but she felt her tears drying up because a smile was trying hard to peek out of her misery. “Weirder all the time.”
10
“IS IT OKAY BEING here with everybody today?” Roxanne, in leggings and a blue silk cheongsam from a trip she’d made to China, joined Cassie in the kitchen, where the women had gathered to clean up. Her hair was braided back from her face and fastened in a bun at her nape, with a silk flower tucked inside the knot for accent. She looked pretty and festive, like someone who had spent time choosing her outfit.
These days Cassie ran a comb through her hair when she got out of bed and shrugged her way into whatever happened to be clean in her closet. Today she’d followed that pattern again, grabbing a black knit dress that never wrinkled and pairing it with a string of pearls and a swipe of lipstick to show she was in the holiday spirit. Of course, she wasn’t.
“I’m doing okay,” she told Roxanne. “First Thanksgiving without Mark.”
“What did you usually do?”
“When Savannah was small, we always drove to Connecticut to eat with his parents.” She forced a smile. “Then, blessedly, they moved to Seattle.”
She remembered how annoyed Mark’s parents had been during their Connecticut days whenever Savannah made noise or forgot her manners. At their final Thanksgiving dinner together, Mark’s mother had hired a bored teenager to take Savannah to the local playground so the adults could eat in peace. Eight-year-old Savannah’s only taste of the holiday was a plate of microwaved leftovers at the kitchen table when she returned. The whole awful day had been a glimpse into Mark’s own childhood and the reason he was so devoted to being a good parent himself.
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