by Ariella Papa
Jamie was always the lead. Senior year, we did a production of Bye Bye Birdie and Jamie had several show-stopping numbers as Rosie. She convinced me to join the chorus and I did, even though I preferred to be backstage. I still find myself singing “I’ve Got a Lot of Living to Do.” My favorite part of working on the play was the hours I spent ogling Leon Cullen. Leon was an androgynous, skinny sophomore whom I wouldn’t have looked at in the hall, but when he got on stage as Conrad Birdie he exuded a strange mix of Mick Jagger meets Tom Jones meets Johnny Depp post-Wynona. He was a sexpot.
I told only Jamie of my crush. On the phone late at night we concocted all kinds of crazy scenarios where I would seduce him in the music room, but of course I never did anything about it. Until Jamie decided to host the cast party…
It was perfect. I had a reason to stay out overnight. Jamie’s mother even called mine to make sure I could sleep over. She didn’t say that boys in the cast were allowed to sleep over too. We all camped out in the backyard. What Jamie’s mother might not have approved of, but probably sort of suspected, was all the alcoholic concoctions that I drank. I only remember pieces of the night. I remember giggling in the double sleeping bag I shared with Jamie. I was daring her to call Leon over to us, and she did. She urged him to climb in and told him that we both wanted to kiss him. We put him in between us and laughed and laughed. In all my childhood I had never felt as happy and free and safe as I did with Leon lying between Jamie and me under the stars in a Park Slope backyard.
Leon may have hoped to kiss both of us, but Jamie quickly climbed out of the sleeping bag after suggesting I go first. It was my first kiss and my first everything. Kind of.
Unfortunately, I had combined too many types of alcohol. In the morning Leon smiled at me like something big had happened, but I only remembered portions of the big event.
Later I wasn’t sure if we really did it right. I told Jamie that it only counted for half a sexual experience when we were tallying the guys we’d—really she’d—slept with. I always wonder if I’ll hear about Leon starring in some Broadway show or on Law & Order or something. No one knows what happened to him. Of course I questioned whether or not he could be gay. I’ve Googled him plenty of times during periods of procrastination. As I did with Dan, I wish him all the best. More than Dan actually—I think he deserves to be famous. He sure knew how to shimmy in those Elvis-esque white satin pants.
When it comes to men, I think I’m pretty realistic. There was Leon and Dan—and Warren, a boy I met in Block Island who set a high bar for all future paramours. Unless Warren comes back into my life, I’m not sure my prince is ever going to come. I don’t necessarily think I need a prince, but just once I want to be comfortable with a guy. I want to hang out in socks together, and put on his shirt over my underwear, and laugh. I don’t know—I think I watch too many movies, or maybe I’ve been influenced by too many ads.
I turned on my cell phone to see if anyone had called while I was at dinner. I was hoping to hear an approval for some copy I wrote for a fashion spread. I had one message. It was Delilah.
“Hi, Voula, I’m sorry I couldn’t find your home number. I have some interesting, rather surprising news.” She giggled self-consciously. “Could you call me? I don’t care what time of night it is. I’ll be up.”
I was intrigued so I dialed her number. It was eleven-thirty, but she had said anytime. She sounded extremely alert when she picked up on the first ring.
“Delilah, hello, it’s Voula. You said I could call…”
“Yes, Voula, hello. You aren’t going to believe it. Hell, I practically fainted in the doctor’s office. I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant? I thought you were divorced.” Not to mention that she had two college-age kids.
“I am and I am. But I’ve been dating again. It’s been so long. I was sort of easing back into it, you know.”
More power to her, I thought and wondered how a woman pushing fifty could be doing so much better than I was. “I thought it was just menopause. I am forty-seven. Imagine my surprise. Those little eggs keep on producing.”
“Well, congrats, I guess.” Congrats? I wasn’t sure what I should be saying. If she was telling me about it, I assumed she must be planning on having it.
“Yeah, I know, it’s crazy, but I figure it’s cool, you know. It’ll be good.”
“So does this mean you’re—” I didn’t know what to say. We had banned pets—what was our stance on babies?
“Well, I think I’m actually going to move in with the father, I believe he’s called my baby-daddy.”
I laughed hard, remembering how Delilah had looked like a sweet soccer mom from Greenwich. I had to laugh before I thought about looking for a roommate again.
“That’s great, Delilah. Good luck to you.” I hung up the phone and sighed.
It was a sick joke. It had to be. My best friend couldn’t get pregnant, I didn’t get dates, and most likely Armando was going to fuck our new roommate. Or worse, we were going to have to do the whole search over again.
Babies, they screwed things up.
4
Kelly moved in the day I went to my cousin Georgia’s engagement dinner with my mother. The dinner was in the city, but my mother insisted I come to Queens first to get her, so we could go together.
I figured it was either look for a new roommate after finding out Delilah was knocked up or look for one when Kelly slept with Armando as she inevitably would. As usual, I procrastinated.
Armando tried to conceal his excitement when I said Kelly was in, but I knew he was psyched for a new challenge. Would he ever learn?
“Could you please just try, Armando? Try not to do anything with her. Please.”
“Vou-laah, what you dink. I no want noting wit dis girl.”
I shook my head. “I’ve heard it before. Can you please just not work your charm on this woman?”
“Cosa charm?” Armando was like Antonio Banderas— cheesy at times but also really hot.
I tried to convey it in the little Italian I knew. “Basta con the roommate fucking.”
Armando clucked his lips as he did when he thought I wasn’t being ladylike. For such a slut, he was awfully traditional. I fostered the Madonna role of his Madonna/whore woman complex by never having any boys over. I just wanted to make an impression, before I left him alone in the apartment to help her move her bedroom furniture.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Keep your shirt on.”
So, when I arrived at my mother’s apartment, I was already slightly impatient.
“We are already late” was how she greeted me.
“Well, we wouldn’t be if you had just met me in the city.”
“Too much trouble to pick up your mother.”
I didn’t reply. I saw my mother look me over and knew what was coming next.
“Where did you get those pants?”
It was a trick question. There was no right way to answer. If I answered truthfully, she would question me about the price, which she would claim was too high. I would be accused of selfishly spending too much money. If I claimed I forgot, she would say I bought too many clothes. If I made the pants cheap, she would say that she thought they were ugly or inappropriate or any number of negative comments. That was my mom. And Jamie wondered how I could be so pessimistic.
“Mother, let’s just go, if you think we’re going to be late.”
“See now, we have to rush.”
“I’m not that late.”
She didn’t say anything, she just got her coat. Silence was the worst possible reaction.
On the subway she didn’t talk to me, but as we got off at our exit, she muttered, “I could make you pants of much better quality.”
It was true, the clothes my mother made were nicer than anything that was in fashion magazines. She’d even made Jamie’s wedding gown. But if I let my mother make my clothes, I would be giving her back control that I had fought too hard to establish. I just couldn’t do it.
> Back in the day when the Greek Orthodox church was a bigger deal, getting engaged was an official religious ceremony. The priest would bless you, your fathers would shake hands and after that you could live together. This is because Greeks didn’t really date. They decided they liked each other, got engaged, were allowed to live together and “do it” and then married.
I always questioned what would happen if you decided you didn’t want to marry the guy after you took him on a test run. I asked my mother that once and she looked at me in disbelief.
“You? You should be happy to find a man who wants to marry you. What kind of question is that?”
I took that to mean that most women accepted their lot once they got engaged.
These days the engagement is much more casual. There’s still a handshake, but now moms shake too. There’s no official church ceremony, just a dinner. Even though Georgia and Victor have been living together for a year, now it’s more accepted. Georgia’s mother, my aunt Effie, will admit they live together instead of ignoring it. Last year when Georgia went with Victor on a Caribbean cruise, Aunt Effie said she was on vacation with “friends.”
Throughout dinner, my mother was on her best behavior. Aunt Effie was my father’s sister and my mother always wanted to put on a good face with his family.
“So,” Georgia said after dinner when our mothers were talking. “How is she?”
Even though I thought Georgia had it easy, she insisted on harping on the Greek thing: the unique hand we were dealt by being born into strict Cypriot families. In her case it meant that her mother was a little more traditional than most, but in my case it meant truly unstable.
“You know, the usual. Nice job going and marrying a Greek,” I joked. “Way to set the rest of the cousins up for disappointment.”
“At least he’s only half Greek. Of course as my mother says—” she switched to Greek, imitating her mother “—the better half.”
We laughed. Why did we put up with these weird rules and beliefs? We didn’t know any other way, I guess.
“There is something I’ve wanted to talk to you about.”
I smiled. The last time she’d said that, she wanted to set me up with one of Victor’s cousins who was almost fifty. The time before, she had given me a terrific pitch idea based on one of her graduate psych studies.
“What now?”
“Helen called us.”
I wasn’t expecting that and I glanced over at my mother to see if there was any way she had heard. Luckily, she was immersed in a conversation with my aunt Effie and Victor’s mom. I hadn’t heard my sister’s name spoken by anyone in our family in almost fifteen years.
“She called you?”
“She called my mother, yes. Of course Mom was too much of a chicken to call back, so I did.”
“When?” My jaw tightened.
“About a year ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me before now.”
“She didn’t really want me to. She misses you a lot, but she knows your mother and she didn’t want to get you into a situation that would make you uncomfortable.”
I was in shock. So many times I had wanted to try to find Helen, and something had always stopped me.
“How is she?” I asked, after checking that my mom was definitely still talking to her sister-in-law.
“Well, she had another baby. A daughter.”
I wasn’t even sure what the first one was. “With the same guy?”
“Yeah. He’s now her husband.”
As quietly as possible, I put my wrist on my forehead. I didn’t want to attract attention from my mother, but I just couldn’t believe it.
“They live in Brooklyn in Boerum Hill.”
I looked back up at Georgia. I wanted her to tell me she was joking, but she wasn’t. I wondered if it was possible that I had walked by Helen on the street, that we had ridden the subway together. I wondered why I had never bothered to Google her.
“Believe me, Voula, I don’t like being in this position, but I figured you had to be told.”
“Why? Why now?” But then it occurred to me, and my mouth dropped open. When I spoke my voice was a whisper, not because I was trying to be quiet, but because I couldn’t make it any louder. “The wedding?”
Georgia nodded and started to say something, but my aunt Effie called her over to show my mother her engagement ring again. It had been our grandmother’s.
I followed dumbly.
“Oh, mana mou,” my mother said, smiling. Georgia got a term of endearment for making her mother proud. I wondered if my mother would stop smiling when she found out our whole family was going behind her back.
I wanted to get more details from Georgia, but as it was her dinner she was pulled in other directions. When we kissed goodbye, she whispered that she would call me.
I didn’t say anything on the subway home. I just listened to my mother gossiping about our family. Basically all the women were divided into two categories: the ones who didn’t disgrace the family (meaning their mothers) and married well or didn’t marry but remained obedient, and the ones that she whispered about, the ones who seemed to me to be a lot happier. My cousin Zoe who lived in Paris and worked as a journalist; Victor’s sister who was married to (gasp!) an Eastern European; and even Georgia, who might have caused shame had she not been saved by her half Greek knight in shining armor.
“You see, Voula, you see how much happier Thea Effie is, now that she will not have to worry. Now she will be a yiayia.”
I wanted to tell my mother that she was a grandmother. I wondered if the presence of descendants would make any difference to her. It certainly would have quieted her for a while, but I couldn’t bring myself to devastate her like that. The father of her grandchildren was not Greek, but Puerto Rican, and no matter how nice he might be, my mother had prejudices that were set in stone.
Instead I closed my eyes as she said, “Instead of spending money on pants, you should spend money on finding a husband.”
“Are you saying you want me to marry a gigolo?”
“Listen to the way you talk to your mother,” she gasped.
I couldn’t take any more of this. In spite of how much of a disgrace I was, I knew that my mother still wanted me to stay over. She hated being alone, even though in many ways she had placed herself in this position.
I dropped her off at the front of her apartment and kissed her goodbye, but walked only a block before hailing a cab back to our apartment. I couldn’t stand the thought of her saying I was wasting more money.
5
I’d planned on taking the cab to Jamie’s apartment, but she wasn’t home when I called from my cell phone. I didn’t want to be alone. Usually, I knew what she was up to on the weekends, but I couldn’t remember what she had said she was doing when we talked. For all I knew she was home making a massive attempt at conception.
Instead, I went to Better Burger and bought a tuna burger. I had one more stamp left on my card before I’d be able to get a freebie. I was working on a story for NY BY NIGHT about the proliferation of cards, so I was collecting them. I had a nail card, the burger card and a coffee card. I sat in the window and watched the cute gay boys of 8th Avenue walk by as I dunked my fries in karma catsup, which tasted of curry.
I was reluctant to go home and see how the move had gone. I didn’t want to get involved with Kelly. She was sure to be just another roommate that passed through our apartment. First, she’d probably see me as a rival for Armando’s affections, then she’d confide in me about the ways he flirted and try to get me to speculate with her on a relationship with him, and finally, when all was said and done, she’d be gone just like everyone else in my stupid life. Why even bother? I hated people.
I realized that all of this anger was protecting me from thinking about what I didn’t want to think about. After Cristina died, my sister Helen went a little wild. Wild is good when you come from parents like the Jacobses who admit to smoking pot and still have sex. Wild isn’t
good when you come from the Pavlopouloses. I covered up for Helen so many times, even when I knew she was dating guys and bringing hair spray bottles full of booze to school.
My mother searched Helen’s room constantly, and broke her silence to scream and yell when she found notes from boys. My mother planned such elaborate methods of spying on my sister that she might as well have worked for the government. She’d walk by places where she thought Helen was hanging out. She’d pick up the phone quietly whenever Helen was on it. Years later, when Georgia was first studying psychology, she said she thought my mother was looking to release all the tension she felt over Cristina’s death.
I tried hard to be good during all this. Georgia psychoanalyzed me too, and said that I was trying to deflect what I knew was an explosive situation. It didn’t matter, though. My mother never bothered to praise me, she just continued to go after my sister; to spy and scream and sometimes to hit. I dreaded being in our apartment back then. My father stayed out of these battles between my mother and sister—until the night that Helen didn’t come home.
It was the first night that I’d slept over at Jamie’s. Maura Jacobs came into Jamie’s room and said that my mom was on the phone. I figured that she was checking up on me as she did with Helen. I remember feeling confident when I picked up the receiver. I knew I had done nothing wrong, and maybe my mother would be ashamed of herself.
Instead, my mother was hysterical. Helen had been forbidden to leave the house. Other people got “grounded,” we were “forbidden to leave the house.” We didn’t know what the penalty was if we disobeyed—none of us had been that brave—but Helen had finally decided to test the boundaries. My mother had gone to the store, and when she returned, Helen was gone. It was unthinkable. I knew without asking that I had to come home immediately.