by Unknown
The music was infectious. Ari was all smiles as he pulled Lauren up off her feet and twirled her around on his way towards me. He pulled me into his arms and we danced while Ari playfully sang along with Belafonte. Ari is a great dancer, even when he is just being funny. He moved his body along with the beat and rocked me back and forth, sweeping me off my feet. My face hurt from smiling and laughing so hard. Several other people began to dance, Aggie and Andrew included, and when the song was finally over, all of the bystanders were clapping and laughing along. Ari didn’t let go of me, though... he held me to him and kissed me with passion right there in front of everyone and the laughing turned into whistles and whoops. My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I tried to cover them up with my hands. Ari pulled my hands from my face and wrapped my arms back around his waist, and kissed me again, causing a giggle to escape my lips.
“That little noise you just made has become my new favorite song; it speaks directly to my heart,” he whispered.
If my cheeks could have gotten any redder, they would have. I immediately felt shy and buried my face in Ari’s shoulder; he kissed the top of my head and swayed with me back and forth to the sweet, soft rhythm of the next song on his playlist.
****
On Friday, Rory and I ran again and he talked about working with me on some cross training to help me gain some strength. He admitted that I could probably outrun anyone who tried to catch me, but added that if that person caught me off guard, I wouldn’t stand a chance fighting him off. I accepted his offer of help.
After our run, I discovered that Ari and I had the house to ourselves, a nice change of pace. The rest of his family had gone out Christmas shopping and we took advantage of the quiet to go down to the beach to play around for a while. Ari got me a little closer to the ocean then I had ever been before. Thoughts of Mia came to me and I very quickly shot back a few extra feet.
“Of all the things there are to be afraid of! How did I find a girlfriend who is scared of one of the things I love the most?”
“I can’t help it,” I shrugged. “I just can’t get near the water. It scares me.”
“I’ll get you in that ocean one of these days, Ava, and you are going to love it!” he responded.
****
The more time I spent with the Alexanders, the more I learned about myself and where I and the other Greeks of Dana Point had come from. I learned that when anyone is suspected of being a descendant of the Greeks, he or she is asked, “Who are you?” Earlier, after Rory and Ari had both asked me who I was and I hadn’t responded with a breakdown of family history, they both assumed I was a watered-down version of a forgotten-about deity. I know now that I am Ava Zae Baio, a Moirai from Atropos and Lachesis. In English, I am known as a Fate. I determine destiny, I measure and cut the thread of life. I have the ability to focus on any person, find his or her thread and cut it. If I want, I can tell the exact second that someone is destined to die, and, if I feel so inclined, I can spare them and allot more time.
My dad, Adrian Moirai, was the most powerful Greek of our time. His mother had been a direct descendant of Lachesis and his father had come from Atropos. Together they had made a very valuable and prized commodity. My father was proud of his abilities and boasted about them – and the Kakos hunted him down when he was still very young.
When the Kakos found my father, he was living with Andy and Thais’ family in California. My father’s parents had worried that their son would be mixed up with the Kakos and had sent him to live with the Alexanders when he was still a small child. I learned that my father’s parents had stayed behind in Greece. They had been killed three days after they sent their son to America. My father had had to cut his own parents’ threads. Andy told me that being so connected to his parents’ deaths had made my father bitter and that he had never forgiven himself for it.
Andy and my dad had been extremely close. My dad was the one who actually introduced Aggie to Andrew when they were just sixteen. Aggie told me that she had been taking photographs in a park one day and had asked my dad to pose for her. He declined, saying that he knew someone far better looking than himself and that she would be much happier with Andy as a subject.
My dad started working right out of high school. He graduated from DPI in the spring and started his own company that summer. He started buying failing companies and turning them into profitable enterprises. He had made several millions before he turned twenty-five. The Kakos came to him one dark day and offered him more. He was power hungry and couldn’t resist. All he had to do was spare their lives and promise not to continue his own bloodline. If he agreed, he would have all the wealth and power he ever wanted and the Kakos would be free to live forever unharmed. My dad hated who he was. He hated ending lives and had no plans of falling in love or having babies. The darkness that surrounded him kept the expectation of happiness from him.
My dad had known that what he was doing was wrong. Making a deal with the Kakos was what his parents had hoped he would manage to avoid and was the very reason they had sent him to America. Their decision to send their son away also led to their own deaths. Once Adrian made his promise to the Kakos, he fell into a downward spiral and finally hit rock bottom. He was treated for depression in a hospital for some time before being taught by the attending physician how to turn his life around. My mother had just finished med school and had taken a job at White Memorial Medical Center. They fell in love immediately and they were married secretly by a justice of the peace.
My father was terrified that the Kakos would find my mom, Lucy, and kill her, so he kept their lives a secret from everyone he knew and loved.
Andy, meanwhile, suspected that my dad had gotten involved with the Kakos and convinced him to come clean one night. My father told Andy what he had done and how devastating the regret he felt was. He told Andy of his love for my mother, the secret marriage, and the unplanned baby on the way. But more than anything, he said, he was terrified that since he had broken his promise to the Kakos, the entire family would be hunted down and murdered.
Andy arranged to keep my father safe for as long as possible. My dad was told never to speak to my mother again if he wanted to keep her alive. He tried to stay away but when he found out that she had gone into labor, he couldn’t resist seeing her once more. He went to the hospital with the intention of seeing her again, with their baby in her arms, but he never made it through the front doors.
Andy searched for my mother and me but didn’t know her name or anything about her. Nor did he know my name or even if I had been born a boy or a girl. He felt that I would be the key to ending the war with the Kakos, but he also knew that as hard as he was looking, the Kakos were looking even harder. It was only a matter of time before they found and killed me.
****
Saturday Ari made plans for us to see the Los Angeles Ballet Company preform Sleeping Beauty at Royce Hall. I had taken dance as a small child. I was not particularly good at it and decided, when we moved to Chicago, to put that hobby on the shelf. Lauren, though, is a dancer, and from what I understand, she is quite talented. She has the perfect body for ballet, long and lean and strong and graceful. Lauren’s room had the same black-and-white, stylized canvas photos that Ari had in his room and they were hanging all about the walls. But hers were of Lauren, the dancer, posed in romantic tutus, warming up on the barre, doing a pirouette. One magnificent photo shows her doing a grand jeté.
So the fact that Lauren threw a royal fit when she heard that Ari was taking me to the ballet was no surprise. She begged him to take her with us, but he refused. She looked shocked when he told her no, as if he had never said that word to her before. And actually that might have been the case. Lauren glared at me the rest of the afternoon and I began to feel uncomfortable. Ari happened to catch one of her evil stares and he snapped at her.
“You weren’t invited, Lauren, so get over it. Don’t take it out on Ava.”
“I’m not taking it out on her! I just don’t see
why she gets to go and I don’t!”
Ari dragged his hands down the sides of his face in exasperation.
“Lauren you can be so obtuse sometimes I can’t even stand it. I promise to make it up to you some other day.”
This seemed to appease her quite nicely. Lauren looked up at me from under her long eyelashes and gave me a sheepish grin.
“Sorry, Ava. I hope you have fun.”
“Uh huh,” I said looking at her bemused. I have never seen a family so close knit in all my life. Clearly, whatever Ari had planned to do for Lauren was better than the ballet and she knew it.
Ari and I dressed up and went out to dinner for sushi and then to the show. Ari always looked good, and I had a difficult time keeping my eyes off him... that is, until the performance started. I don’t think I turned my head or even blinked one time during the entire show.
****
I didn’t have any more dreams the rest of the weekend. Andrew confirmed that the men I had seen at the table were in fact the Kakos. He was extremely concerned about my suspicion that they had been able to see me. I described for him my dreams of walking the halls and about how those people could always see me and talk to me. He explained that those dreams were different. I was supposed to be in them, making the choices. But as for the Kakos, they had not been expecting me and I should not have been visible to them. At the very most, I should have seemed more like a ghost, projected by their own concern.
I told Andy how, in the vision I had had of Mia’s death, no amount of my screaming could get the attention of her boyfriend – he couldn’t see me or hear me. Andy felt that the Kakos had been getting stronger, and more familiar with me and my abilities. I felt the overwhelming need to run away and hide. I was scared, terrified actually, but I was too tenacious to admit my fears aloud. I just nodded at Andy and excused myself from his study the first chance I had.
****
When we arrived at school on Sunday, I hung around with Emily until we joined the rest of the girls for movies and popcorn. When we said our goodnights, I headed straight for Ari’s room, not wanting to be alone. He was already in bed asleep but the sound of his door closing woke him up. He rolled over, making room for me, and pulled up his blanket, allowing me to crawl in next to him. I had known for some time that I was in love with Ari. I am more than in love with him; I am intensely and forever consumed with my adoration for him. We are fated to be together. The love I have for him eclipses all other emotions and senses. I did not know it before, but there was a hole in my soul. A piece of me had been missing, and for the first time in my life I was one. I am whole. I am happy. I laid there and listened to his quiet breathing and the soft murmur of his heartbeat and I feel asleep, wrapped up tight and safe in his arms, all night long.
****
Finals followed, and then Christmas break. My homework had piled up. I had an etude that I had been composing for piano, but I changed it around whenever the mood came upon me and grew increasingly frustrated. I felt confident about most of my classes, but still spent the majority of my time in the library. Ari and I were neck and neck for the top of our graduating class and I really wanted to beat him. Most evenings I was joined in the library by Ari, Rory and Emily, and I was starting to see a lot more of Julia as well. I didn’t know if she just needed to study or if she was using studying as an excuse to hang out with Rory, but I noticed the two of them together a lot more than usual. Julia was laid back around Ari and me. Ari said Julia had told him a while back that she didn’t know how to act around him anymore. She is flirty by nature and maybe she thought it best not to say anything at all for fear of upsetting me. But Julia is sweet and I couldn’t imagine her saying something that would ever anger me.
Chapter 12
Warning
Ari and I began spending every weekend at his family’s house on the beach. There was never a dull moment. People argued, yelled, and placed ridiculous bets with one another over the most inane issues. They teamed up against each other and pulled pranks and jokes. I laughed constantly at their antics. Nothing was private and there wasn’t one subject for conversation that was taboo. They discussed politics, sex, money and religion at the dinner table. It wasn’t rare for someone to get angry and leave before the main course...and it wasn’t rare for that same person to get over the difference of opinion that had driven them away and be back in time for dessert. The Alexanders were the closest group of people I had ever been around and they all had the unusual ability to make me feel as though I belonged.
I sat in the kitchen early one morning after a bout of nightmares. The sun had just peeked over the east side of the lawn and I had already read all three of the papers delivered each morning and had finished off more coffee than I really should drink.
“Morning, Ava Baby.”
“Hi, Aggie.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
I shook my head no and paused for a moment, hesitating.
“Aggie, who are you?” My voice was a mere whisper. I hadn’t had the nerve to ask that question of anyone yet. I am a very private person and have always hated to infringe on someone else’s privacy. But Aggie smiled. She took a seat next to me at the kitchen island.
“Ava, I am Agatha Eleni Paris Alexander, descended from Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality.” Aggie winked at me and I blushed.
“My mother’s parents moved to America right after they married,” Aggie continued. They had my mom, Eleni, shortly after. Eleni met her husband, Aristotle, in school and they married young. She had complications at birth and died. My father raised me.”
Aggie smiled again as she mentioned her father. “When I met Andy, I was crazy in love with him. He owned me body and soul. My Father forbade that I see him. He said I was too young and that Andy was a fool. He was worried about me. He was scared he would lose me the way he lost my mother. I disobeyed my father and ran off. Andy’s family took me in, just as they have taken in any of us who has been in need. Theirs was a very full home. They barely had enough room for me or the money to feed an extra mouth. They had Andy, Adrian, Thais, Troy, who was Julia’s father, and now me. I made some money with my photos and put myself through school and helped pay bills. I also helped put Andy though school and we were able to get a house of our own once we married. My father refused to come to my wedding. He said I was dishonorable and I had given him shame.
“Your father came to me one night. Adrian pounded on our door so hard he nearly knocked it down. My dad had been in his dreams; it was his time to die. Adrian urged me to go to him in his final hours to make amends. I was eight months pregnant with Ari at the time and Andy was away on business. I somehow managed to drive seven hours straight to be at my father’s side. I was so scared. I thought he was going to turn me away and I loved him so much.”
Tears formed in Aggie’s eyes and she looked off to a faraway place as she described how her father had put his hands on her swollen belly.
He had asked her if she was healthy. He was still worried about her and she was still his little girl. She told him she was healthy, that she had had a perfect pregnancy and that she and Andy were expecting a strong, Greek, baby boy very shortly.
“He asked me, and Ava, his voice was strong with emotion, what we planned to name our ‘strong Greek’ child.
“My hands were shaking. Andy and I had not yet chosen a name, though we had argued about a couple for some time. But I couldn’t bear the thought of my father dying and not knowing his grandson’s name so, with barely any thought given to my action I told him we would name our son Ari.
Aggie giggled. “It just popped right out of my mouth. ‘Ari,’ I said, ‘after his grandfather.’
“My dad looked me in the eyes for the first time in ten years. ‘That is a good name Agatha; you are a beautiful and smart woman. I am the one who has shamed you. I am sorry.’ I held him to me and cried. He died in my arms.”
I sat speechless for a few moments. Aggie’s story was not at all what I had ex
pected it to be. “So was Andy okay with the name Ari?”
“Yes, he thought it was perfect and it was. Ari came in to our lives and made everything perfect.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling.” My words slipped out and I flushed a little bit. It was true though; Ari had come into my life and made everything perfect.
****
I finished my finals on a Wednesday afternoon, a day before Ari. He had an all-day physics exam on Thursday.
I felt confident about my grades. Not that there was anything I could do to change them now. I had nailed down my piano piece, and for independent gym all I had to do was run five miles, so that was a breeze. Viola, Sophie and Emily left Wednesday night after we had a little Christmas dinner and gift exchange. They had loved the clothes at baio, making my shopping for them extremely easy. Since Ari had his exam on Thursday, we weren’t planning to leave for his house until Thursday night.
On Thursday morning, I found myself with nothing to do. My friends had all gone home, my boyfriend was in class and I had no homework worrying me. I plopped down on the couch in the commons next to Rory and started watching The Today Show; Matt Lauer was carrying on about all of the great new gifts available for the holiday season. Christmas was only five days away and I had hardly made a dent in my Christmas shopping.