Callie puts her arms around me and brings me close. “That’s how I feel about you.”
We hold each other in the effervescent, surging water. Our bodies squeezed together as if pressing flowers for a scrapbook, preserving the moment for later days when we will find ourselves apart and thirsty.
Dinner at Dionysis
Just before six o’clock, Gus walked through the front door and was confronted by the aroma of melting feta cheese, roasting lamb, and fresh flower arrangements strewn throughout the house. He was balancing Manny on his hip, and corralling his mother’s many parcels from their tourist excursion with his other hand.
“Ach, Mana! It smells so good in here. It reminds me of when you would cook for Easter or Christmas when I was growing up.”
Mrs. Horiatis waited outside of the door until Gus turned to look at her.
“What’s wrong, Mana?”
“Well, we had such a nice day. You, me, and my grandson. Why spoil it? Let’s go have dinner at Denny’s.”
“Mana. You have to be kidding. Callie has been working all day cooking to impress you. I can’t believe you’d want to eat at Denny’s instead.”
“Don’t tell me that this Callie can cook Greek food. Do you have a skili? Maybe he can sit under the table, and I can feed him what I can’t eat. And then you can take me to Denny’s after the Amerikanitha goes to sleep.” Mrs. Horiatis removed her embroidered handkerchief from her pocketbook and blew her nose into it.
“Oh come on, Mana. It will be delicious. Xeni has been here all day teaching her how to cook. She’s an excellent teacher.”
“Xeni? Who is Xeni? Einai Ellinida?”
“Yes, of course she’s Greek. With a name like Xeni? Of course. Come on. Come in. Let’s sit down and have something to drink.” Gus put down the bags in the foyer and transferred Manny to the other arm. “You’re getting heavy, little man!”
“Ela etho, manari mou. Let Yiayia hold you.” Once they climbed the stairs, Mrs. Horiatis took the baby from Gus and entered the living room where she nearly tripped over Xeni’s shoes. “Para ligo na skototho!”
“Well, I don’t know if you would have died from the fall, Mana.”
“Well, where are they? I don’t see any women here.” She pinched Manny’s cheek.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re in the kitchen.” Gus called out, “Callie! Where are you, babe? We’re back! Callie?”
“I’m coming! Just a minute!” A few moments later Callie came down the stairs with her hair pinned up and a flower tucked behind her ear, wearing a strapless short dress and no shoes.
“You look great, babe. Did you forget your shoes?” Gus was trying to sound pleasant, but could tell from Callie’s face that she could sense the tension underlying his question.
Manny started to whine and struggle in Mrs. Horiatis’s arms.
“Hey, baby boy! Mommy missed you so much!” Manny held his arms out toward his mother. Callie deftly took him from Mrs. Horiatis and gave him a big hug. Manny wrapped his arms around her neck and squeezed. “Oh I love it when you hug me, baby boy! Mommy loves you so much!” Callie sat down on the couch, pulled down the top of her dress to expose one breast, and Manny happily latched on, hungry and tired from his outing. Mrs. Horiatis gasped and genuflected, turning away from the sight of Callie’s exposed breast.
“Did you guys have a fun day?” Callie asked, brightly smiling.
Mrs. Horiatis remained silent for a moment. “Why don’t I give him a bottle?”
“Oh, well didn’t you already give him a bottle of breast milk while you were out? Besides, he likes it straight from the source. Don’t you, sweetie?” Callie stroked Manny’s hair as she spoke to him.
Mrs. Horiatis looked at Gus. “That was breast milk? You said it was formula.”
“Oh no, we don’t give Manny formula. Just breast milk,” said Callie proudly.
“Well anyway, formula, milk, whatever. Same difference,” Gus said.
“It is not the same!” both Callie and Mrs. Horiatis cried out.
“Okay, whatever. He had a bottle and now he’s nursing. When’s dinner, Cal?”
“Dinner’s ready. We’ve just been waiting for you.”
“Where’s Xeni? I want my Mom to meet her. She’s staying for dinner, right?”
“I think so. She’s upstairs getting changed. I lent her a dress to wear. We got so sweaty cooking all afternoon.”
Mrs. Horiatis excused herself, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t forget, Constantino, I want to go to Dionysis’s house after dinner!”
“Who’s Dionysis?” Callie asked.
“Oh, just an old friend. We used to call him Denny.”
“Doesn’t your mom want to stay in tonight so we can get to know each other better? I’ve hardly seen her since she arrived.”
“Yeah, babe. Don’t worry. The food smells great. We’ll have a little wine. She’ll warm up.” But Gus doubted that she’d warm up and was starting to think that there was no amount of wine in the world that could bring these women together.
In Callie’s Panties
Gus and his mother are downstairs with Callie and the baby, and I’m standing here wearing my white bra and Callie’s panties. They are leopard print with black lace on the edges of the leg holes. I’ve never worn anything so exotic in my life. I was going to say slutty, but Callie isn’t slutty. She’s something I don’t understand yet. But she is good to me. She treats me like I’m normal, no matter what I say or what I do. She doesn’t turn away when I open my heart to her.
My clothes are a wet mess on the floor near the bathtub. I shove them into my bag and look again at the outfit that Callie has selected for me to wear. I don’t know if I can do it. But what choice do I have? My dress is drenched and I can’t go downstairs in my bra and her panties. Of course, that isn’t my mother-in-law down there. I can do whatever I want. Standing in the tub with my body pressed against Callie’s showed me that. The house didn’t collapse, no icons fell from the walls, and there was no aftermath. Only that exact moment of . . . she called it “connection,” when it felt like our hearts were beating in unison and our bodies were melting together, and I was lost in that embrace, and I never wanted to find my way out of it.
I wonder if God would ever let one woman get another woman pregnant.
Hurricane Horiatis
Mrs. Horiatis slowly climbed the stairs to the guest bedroom, shaking her head from side to side, imagining the barbaric life her grandchild would lead with the devil Amerikanitha for a mother. She was aghast at the way the redhead pulled her breasts out all the time. “We saw them already!” she said out loud as she reached the top step. “Put them away, hristianie!” Then Mrs. Horiatis realized that she didn’t even know if the Amerikanitha was a Christian. “Hristos na filai,” she gasped as she genuflected. My grandson must belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. I cannot leave until he is baptized, she thought. Po! Po! What a mess my son has made. Well, I needed to lose some weight anyway. She was affirming her choice to starve rather than eat soy chorizo when she rounded the corner and bumped head-on into Xeni.
“Me sinhoris. I’m so sorry!” Xeni placed her hands on Mrs. Horiatis’s arms. “Are you endaxi?”
“Yes, koritsi mou. I’m fine.” Mrs. Horiatis was stunned. Not because of their collision, but because there standing in front of her was a classic Greek beauty with thick brown hair and intense dark eyes, a sculpted nose, and full rosy lips. Her hips were curvy like a fertile, ripe pomegranate. This was the kind of woman that she’d hoped her son would find.
“I’m Xeni. You must be Kyria Horiatis.”
“Yes. Heroume poli.” Mrs. Horiatis looked Xeni up and down. She approved of the dress Xeni was wearing. It was not too long and not too short. She wasn’t showing too much cleavage. The maroon color brought out her eyes and lips against her olive skin. Very respectable.
“So nice to meet you, too. Kalosoresate. Welcome. Did you have a nice trip?”
“Oh. It could have been bet
ter. They squash us like sardines in those airplanes.”
“It is a hard journey between Greece and America.” Xeni hugged herself.
“Tell me, Xeni. What village are your people from?”
“Pirgos. In the Peloponnesus.”
“Ach! Pirgos! Eimaste from Amaliada! We’re neighbors. What is your father’s name?”
“Christopoulos.”
“Christopoulos . . . Christopoulos . . . No, I don’t know any Christopoulos. But it is a beautiful name.”
“Yes.” Xeni smiled. “Are you hungry? We prepared the trapezi for you. So many wonderful dishes. I hope you will enjoy them.”
“Since you prepared them, koritsi mou, I’m sure I will!”
“Well, we prepared them together. Callie is a very good cook.”
“Oh, come on now. It’s one thing when an Amerikanitha looks up a recipe in a book, and it’s another when an Ellenopoula like you cooks. It’s in your blood!” Mrs. Horiatis smiled and pinched Xeni’s cheek. “My son deserves the best.”
“It sounds like you have already made up your mind.”
“Oh koritsti mou, you know when a Greek mother comes to visit it is like a hurricane. Only the strongest unions survive!” Mrs. Horiatis laughed.
“Sounds like trouble!” Xeni smiled and hugged Mrs. Horiatis.
Mrs. Horiatis was surprised by Xeni’s sudden hug, but returned the hug warmly. “Xeni mou, we are going to get along just fine. I can tell already. Let’s go and taste some of the delicious food you prepared.”
The Dinner Scene
Dinner was delicious, each dish better than the last. Gus sat with his mother on one side of the table, while Xeni and Callie sat on the other with Manny in between them. Gus noticed his mother staring from Callie to Xeni and back throughout the meal, and could just imagine the tirade going through her head. How could my idiotic son have picked the Amerikanitha when there was a beautiful Ellenopoula right under his feet, cooking in his kitchen and caring for his son. How does he expect to pass on our culture, our language? Gus sighed heavily.
Callie offered Mrs. Horiatis servings of every dish and tried to explain how she had made this or that. Gus could see that Callie was feeling nervous. He wondered if she had noticed that his mother had been staring at Xeni all night and didn’t seem to notice when Callie tried to start some conversation with her.
“Mrs. Horiatis, what do you think about the tzatziki? Is it too salty?” Callie would ask.
“I don’t know. What do you think, Xeni? You look so pretty in that dress.”
“Well, I think it’s just right. Callie did a great job.”
“What about the stuffed squash blossoms, Mrs. Horiatis?” asked Callie.
“Did you make the kolokithanthi gemisti, Xeni? They are delicious. What a romantic dish—stuffed flowers! Xeni, I wish I had your beautiful skin.”
And on and on they went, Callie seeking approval, Mrs. Horiatis courting Xeni, and Xeni deflecting attention to Callie. Gus watched with irritation as the women turned the same corner over and over again.
“Okay, enough ladies! Everything tastes good, Callie did a good job, and Xeni looks great tonight. Big deal! You’re giving me a headache.” Gus couldn’t wait for the evening to end. He excused himself from the table, but the women hardly took notice.
• • •
I can still smell the scent of the flowery bathwater on my skin as I sit at the dinner table watching Mrs. Horiatis and Callie in their awkward dance. As much as I want Callie to succeed, there is another part of me that wants her to fail, for Mrs. Horiatis to drive a wedge between Callie and Gus. I rub my arms where Callie touched them as we embraced. I wish that everyone else would go to bed and that Callie and I could quietly clean the kitchen together.
Manny suddenly adds his two cents by throwing his spoonful of cereal across the table and accidentally hitting his yiayia in the face. Her hands fly to her mouth.
“What kind of table manners do you have around here? It is a mother’s responsibility to teach her son how to behave!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Horiatis. He didn’t mean to hit you,” Callie begs.
Callie’s ingratiating attitude toward Mrs. Horiatis snaps me out of my reverie. Why is she letting the old woman pound her into the ground . . . ?
“Can I get you an ice pack?” Callie asks.
. . . if she cares that much what the old woman thinks . . .
“Does it hurt?”
. . . then she must really want to be with Gus . . .
“Manny, say you’re sorry!”
. . . and she can’t really care that much about me . . .
“I’m leaving. I have to leave. I can’t take it anymore.” I can’t believe that I am wearing Callie’s leopard-print panties and that I’d—I can’t even think it, what I’ve done. Callie and Mrs. Horiatis try to convince me to stay, but I am determined to leave. I can’t take another minute of watching Callie woo Mrs. Horiatis. There is an aftermath, the house is collapsing, and the virgin is falling.
STUFFED SQUASH BLOSSOMS
“What a romantic dish—stuffed flowers!”
1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup cottage cheese
2 teaspoons finely minced mint leaves
2 eggs, beaten
Salt
Pepper
20 squash blossoms
1 egg, beaten
Flour
Extra-virgin olive oil
Mix together the feta, cottage cheese, mint, two eggs, and salt and pepper in a bowl.
Gently open the blossom and fill it with the creamy filling. Dip the flower into the beaten egg and then drag it across the flour, carefully shaking off any excess. Fry the flower in hot olive oil until it becomes gorgeous and golden on both sides.
Place the flower between your lips, being careful not to get burned.
Belly Dance
Callie smoothed gardenia-scented lotion onto her arms while looking absentmindedly into the mirror above her dressing table. Gus watched her from the bed where he was lying thinking about his mother, who could not be more different from Callie. He wondered if he might have some kind of defect in a heart valve because it felt impossible for the two women to coexist without causing him palpitations. Callie poured more lotion into her palms and warmed it between her hands before rubbing it into her calves and then thighs. He noticed the way she moved her hands up and down her legs, following the definition of her muscles, gliding over her velvety skin. She had amazingly soft skin.
Callie put the lotion down on her dresser and wrapped her robe closer to her body. The silk fabric caught in the air, hovering slightly before settling down upon Callie’s body. It sparked a memory for Gus—the first night he’d seen Callie. He’d gone to the Grapeleaf Restaurant for a drink and some mezethes. He liked the music there. They played some Greek songs but mostly Middle Eastern. Sometimes when he was feeling lonely, going there for an ouzo and the drumbeats made him feel good. The bartender knew him by name, and when he’d walked in that night, he’d said, “Hey, Gus, you picked a great night to come!” and laughed as he plunked a shot of ouzo and a bowl of peanuts down in front of him on the bar.
“Oh, yeah? How come? Are you giving out free ouzo?” Gus winked at the bartender.
“Oh come on, you know it’s student belly dance night.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Gus smiled. Student belly dance night was always good for some entertainment. The local belly dance teacher brought her students into the restaurant for a dance recital a few times a year—earnest girls dancing around in jerry-rigged sequined costumes trying their best to look exotic. Usually the students were blond or overweight. And they all took on fake Middle Eastern names for the performance. They never knew the words to the songs because they couldn’t understand the languages being sung. They all wanted to look sexy, and so they danced toward the single men sitting at the bar, sometimes draping their veils over a bar patron’s head and dancing faster than the music called for.
“Better give me an extra shot,” Gus chuckled. Just because many of the dancing girls were ridiculous didn’t stop Gus from going home with one or two. He felt it was a public service to make their fantasy of a dark-haired, olive-skinned, bouzouki-playing lover come true. He always spoke to them in Greek as they screwed, and he insisted that they keep their costumes on, shaking their breasts so their coined bras jingled.
That night it was the usual performance of clumsy, sexy girls dancing their hearts out to the drums. Gus and the bartender rated the girls on their performances with peanuts, and the first to run out of peanuts downed a shot. It was around Christmas, and one girl had made herself a costume out of red velvet and trimmed the bra with white marabou feathers. The bartender pushed a few peanuts forward to reward her originality. After the usual suspects had all come out and danced, shimmied, and thrust their hips toward the bar, Gus was ready to go. None of the girls had interested him that night. Then the teacher, a plump woman with dark eyeliner and long, dyed black hair, came out to introduce the last student. “Won’t you all please welcome my newest student, Calliope!”
The crowd clapped obligatorily as the slow music started to flow from the speakers. Callie emerged from behind the curtain with her wavy red hair cascading down her back. She was wearing a sea-foam green skirt that floated over her long legs, and she held a sheer veil over her upper body as she slowly stepped towards the stage, lifting and dropping her hips with each step. Her softly curved stomach undulated with the music, and as the tempo picked up she lifted her veil above her head and twirled, revealing her ample breasts contained within a silvery blue net.
Unlike the other students, Callie seemed lost in the music, almost oblivious to the audience. Gus stared at her intently, willing her to look in his direction. Her arms snaked above her head as she slipped into a sensuous backbend, her body arched in an impossible curve, throat exposed, mouth open. Gus’s head was throbbing from the ouzo, and his body strained from desiring her. The music swelled and she twirled in circle after circle until her veils caught the air and hovered around her like a surging tide. The bartender slid five peanuts toward Gus. Callie ended the dance on the downbeat of a drum, one slender arm extended up into the air, and the other out toward the bar, pointing at Gus. As the audience applauded with genuine enthusiasm, Gus shoved all of his remaining peanuts at the bartender, knocked back his ouzo, leapt off of the stool, and walked a straight line toward Calliope, mesmerized.
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