by Alex A King
ON THE BUS, NOBODY sits near the bloodied woman.
Why would they? She looks like bad, bad luck.
Vivi’s cool with that, doesn’t mind being in a bubble. Melissa is crystal, but it wouldn’t take much for Vivi to shatter. A touch could do it. A word.
She gets off the bus in Agria. Her seat stays empty until all her witnesses are gone.
34
VIVI
HOT WATER IS MAGIC. Pink curls circle the drain and – presto! – goodbye, Melissa’s blood.
Speaking of magic tricks: The floor is cleaner than clean.
A person could eat off something that clean.
Someone scrubbed while she was watching the doctor stitch Melissa’s frayed edges, made it like Melissa never wuz here.
Vivi needs a closer look.
Her knees say: Lady, you only think you’re walking out of here. You want out?
Craaaaaawl.
Too many years on her hands and knees (”C’mon, Vivi, you know I love it this way.”) to be happy about it. But this isn’t sex; it’s a fact-finding mission. Vivi wants evidence. Towel bandaging her core, hands roaming the marble tiles, she gets down to the dirty business of proving Something Bad Happened Here.
She tells herself a nice story. No blood means the whole shebang was a nightmare. Melissa is out in the kitchen, nose stuck in a book, devouring watermelon by the chilly pound. And after Vivi’s dressed, she’ll go out there, hug Melissa, and say zip about her shitty dream.
Too bad her story is a lie. Because there it is, a thin red-black line between two tiles.
She attacks it with a towel point dipped in shower water. Goes at it the way a dog goes at a bone. Until her shoulder screams, “Stop!”
Clean. Shiny.
No blood. The whole shebang was a nightmare.
Now Vivi is happy, happy, happy.
Everything is fiiiiine.
Pay no attention to the crying woman in the mirror.
* * *
“You look like a gorgon.”
Thea Dora is so helpful. She all but shoves Vivi into a kitchen chair. “How is our girl?”
If Melissa is their girl, why isn’t Thea Dora at the hospital?
“She’ll be okay.”
“Frappe?”
She’s already rattling the shaker, so frappe is inevitable. Vivi’s getting it whether she wants it or not.
Good thing she wants it. She takes a long drink and waits for the neurological magic to happen.
“Thea, can I ask you something?”
“Anything, my doll.”
“Your bathroom. How would you feel if I remodeled it for you? As a ‘thank you’ gift for letting us stay here.”
She looks confused. “What is the problem?”
Oh, she has no toilet. That’s all.
“It might be nice to have new colors, and maybe even a new toilet. I’ll pay for it – and do the work myself.”
Thea Dora spends the next two minutes bustling around the kitchen, cleaning clean things.
“No,” she says, finally. “This is the man's work. A women does not need to do such things.”
Vivi’s done it before, gutted the downstairs bathroom in their old house. Dismantled and reconstructed over a long weekend, when John was too busy (sucking dicks) to be home.
“It's not that hard.”
“Vivi, it is a nice thought, but I do not need such things. I am a simple woman and I do not need a fancy bathroom. What would I do with it?”
Same clenched jaw as Eleni. No way is Vivi digging out Thea Dora’s heels without a backhoe. Today, Vivi doesn’t have that kind of determination.
“It’s just an idea.” She rinses the glass, loads a few paperbacks into her bag. “I’m going back to the hospital.”
“Give Melissa a kiss from me.”
No mention of visiting. Melissa is the family pariah. Last night she tossed a blanket of shame over the lot of them with her faux suicide.
Vivi thinks: Fuck you.
She stomps to the bus stop.
So this is Greece – what a two-faced bitch. One mouth sings a metric ton of love songs, about heaven, and perfect beaches, and all the culture you can stomach, and new, shiny beginnings rooted in timeless tradition.
It’s a trap, a covering of leaves over the snake pit.
People are friendly, but they will never trust you. Fingers point, but never at themselves. Didn’t see that old woman over there? Doesn’t matter, should have waved anyway. Now you’re screwed for life. The sun is warm, but it burns, leaves you too lethargic to give a damn that the things depicted in the travelogue are all shine and no substance.
No more blindfold over Vivi’s eyes. Something has to change, and history makes it clear that Greece never yields.
Ask Xerxes. Yeah he won a few battles, but Greece turned out to be a huge pain in his Persian ass.
Stay or go?
The bus comes and she gets on it. An old rock takes the seat next to her. Vivi’s sunburn screams.
The gulf tries to dazzle her with its sparkling best. Beauty as a diversionary tactic. Look over here! Eyes here! Don’t mind the man picking your pocket, sticking the Kick Me sign to your back.
Stay or go?
Go or stay?
She debates herself all the way into Melissa’s hospital room, and still she can’t pick a side.
Melissa’s hunched over a coloring book. She waves with her good hand and makes something like a smile. She’s got company. Dr Andreou is sitting on the end of her bed, a coloring pen in his hand. He looks sheepish.
Melissa gets kisses and books. The doctor gets a smile.
“Do I have two children now?” Vivi nods at the half-finished picture between them.
Dr Andreou slides off the bed, hands the pen back to Melissa. “I came by to check on Melissa and got carried away. Reliving my childhood.”
“How is she?”
Melissa sticks out her tongue. “I’m awesome. Of course.”
“You heard the girl: she’s awesome.” He leans against the wall. “How you doing?”
“Besides having a complete mental breakdown, I'm peachy.”
“Peachy?”
“American expression. It means I'm fine.”
He smiles all the way to his eyes. “I'll add that to my collection of Americanisms.”
Vivi comes alive.
Good old stress, it crushed her libido into a dormant lump. And before that, all of John’s not-wanting made her not-want, too. After a point, that is. She wasted years wishing he’d throw her on the ground and fuck her – face up.
But now? Her libido is stomping the ground, snorting like a bull. It wants, it wants, it WANTS.
Dr. Andreou is off limits, but do you think her body cares? That’s a giant, italicized, neon NO.
He’s delicious. Face, body, and that mouth.
She looks away. Looks back.
(These two are doing a lot of looking.)
Vivi considers changing the subject, but the subject is already benign.
“Where did you learn English? It’s perfect.”
He grins. “Directly from the source: England.”
“Medical school?”
“All of my education after high school.”
“I'll probably send Melissa back to the states for college.” If they stay. “So, you're practically British?”
“Sometimes. Mostly I’m Greek.”
That smile.
Butterflies in her stomach are rehearsing for Cirque du Soleil. How long has it been since she last had sex?
Um . . . Over a year, definitely.
How depressing. No wonder she’s drooling.
Clanking metal throws an invisible bucket of water in her face. Lunch is coming. Meat and green beans and chunks of rindless watermelon. Melissa picks up a book and dives into the watermelon, but she’s suspicious of the rest.
Hey, Melissa is alive. She can eat or not eat anything she wants.
“Doctor Andreou,” Vivi says, suddenly. “Last night y
ou said you knew of a place where I can talk to God.”
“I do.”
Things could be so much worse. Vivi owes big.
“Can you give me directions?”
35
VIVI
WHEREVER THEY’RE GOING, IT’S by car.
Well, Jeep.
She figured him for a BMW or Mercedes kind of guy. Boy, is she astute.
“Mrs. Tyler, I've arranged for the hospital psychologist to visit with Melissa today. Doctor Triantafillou is very good.”
“It’s just Vivi. I was wondering when you'd bring up therapy. It’s a good idea.”
“Great. Greeks aren’t big on therapy. Here if you have a problem you go to your family or the church. Not an outsider.” He pulls out of the garage and onto the busy street. “I'd like to keep Melissa for a few days, to rest. I think you need it as much as she does.”
“I'm fine.”
“I don't think so.”
She looks surprised. “Does it show?”
“Not really, which is how I know. And call me Max.”
Greece is on her best behavior as Max (is that entirely professional?) steers his car up Mt Pelion. Turns out the doctor doubles as an excellent tour guide, pointing out this, pointing out that.
“It was up here on Pelion that Thetis and Peleus, parents to Achilles, wed.”
She smiles on the outside, worries on the inside.
Max carries on. “Pelion was also home to the hero Jason, and his Argonauts.”
“Now that I already knew,” Vivi says.
He takes his eyes off the road for just a moment. “Did you know Pelion was also home to the Centaurs? They came here because the mountain was so rich with healing and magical plant life. Some people believe they still roam, just out of sight.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
Is Melissa okay? What if she needs something and Vivi isn’t there?
“If I see one I will point him out,” Max says, smiling.
The winding road scales the mountain. Destination: sky. “Where are we going?”
“A small village. There is a church there I want you to see.”
“And you go there to pray?”
He holds her gaze a fraction too long. “When I forget myself it helps me remember who I am.”
“It's hard to imagine you losing your way. You move like you’ve got it all figured out.”
He doesn't reply.
What did she say? That’s the thing about people: they’re all walking minefields. Step on a crack, and Mama’s back won’t break, but her head might explode. Who knows what part of Max just silently exploded.
Finally, he says, “You love your daughter very much.”
The Jeep stops. Sheep flock across the street, shepherd coaxing them with his crook. A lanolin and shit cloud wafts behind them.
It’s a movie moment, and Vivi falls a little bit in love with the otherness of Greece.
“She’s my daughter, I’m her mother. I loved her long before she was born.”
“Mothers don't automatically love their children.”
“They should.”
“I think some love more easily and quickly than others. I see parents with their children every day. Love is not always equal. Sometimes there’s no love, only tolerance.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Or maybe they hide it well. You see parents in hospitals when they’re pushed to extremes. Maybe they detach to cope.”
“Now who’s got it all figured out?” Last few sheep scuttle across the road. The Jeep gets a move on. “My mother, her love is based on conditions. Be good, follow her plan, and she will love you. If not . . .”
“Chop, chop?”
“Yes.”
Vivi laughs. “Wait, are we related?”
“You're much too beautiful to be part of my very ugly family.”
Clearly the man has never looked in a mirror. Her cheeks go pink on pink.
“Today I feel like I'm the world's worst mother,” she says. “Melissa is a fantastic kid. She’s my favorite person. It’s been . . . difficult lately.”
Max slows the car. “She'll be fine. You both will.”
Straddling the road up ahead is a calendar-worthy village. It’s straight out of a movie, with its rough stone streets and goat herder coaxing his tribe through the thoroughfare. The jingle jangle of their bells reminds her of Christmas.
The Jeep stops outside an iron gate. Nothing behind it except a pair of doors stuck to the mountain’s face, and a couple of pink geraniums in those ubiquitous red pots.
The doctor’s face gives nothing away. “Come, Vivi. We’re here.”
He helps her out of the car. Nice touch. Thoughtful. Sweet. His hand is warm and big and strong. Then he drops it and the warmth fades, until the sun picks up where he left off.
Interesting door. She’s never seen anything like it.
Max must have a direct line to her thoughts, because he says, “The Church of the Holy Mother is built inside a natural cavern.”
She opens the door, steps into night.
Slowly, the stars become candles.
Max takes her elbow, navigates her through the dark maze. He performs the Greek Orthodox ritual, crossing himself, kissing the holy icons.
She copies him, because that’s what one does when they’re grateful.
The Church of the Holy Mother is anything but typical. The Orthodox Church loves to separate its constituents: men on one side, women on the other, with very few seats for either. Be cohesive, one people, yet segregated. But here are pews in even rows, with no dividing lines.
“Have you brought me a gift this time?”
Vivi jumps. The priest has materialized beside them.
He nods to Max. “I saw the Jeep.”
“Vivi, Father Kostas. Father Kostas, Vivi Tyler.”
The man in black kisses her hand. He’s young and vaguely familiar.
“Shouldn’t I be kissing your hand?”
He laughs. “The church makes exceptions for beautiful women. The church also says beautiful women can call me Kostas.”
Yeah, that laugh gives away his secret identity.
“You're brothers,” she says, almost breathlessly.
Kostas groans. “I hope I’m not as ugly as Max. It is a wonder anyone can stand to look at him.”
Max holds his hand up, palm flat facing his brother. “I know this is a house of God, but . . .”
The priest looks at Vivi. “He’s an animal. You should have him neutered.”
Vivi can’t help laughing. A flat palm is the Greek hand gesture for . . . uh . . . Rhymes with mastication.
Kostas’s eyes go back to Max. “Is this – ?”
“Vivi’s daughter is a patient of mine. I brought her here to see you.”
“I hope your daughter is not too ill,” Kostas says.
“She's doing better today, thank you. It’s been a difficult time for our family – Melissa especially.”
“And for you too, I think.”
Not easy being around these two. The way they look at her, they see her secrets.
“That’s what Max said.”
Kostas laughs. “And they say he is the stupid one!”
36
MAX
MAX LEAVES THEM TO it.
This is Vivi’s time, not his, so it’s back to the Jeep.
Good old Kostas. He should have known his brother would assume Vivi was Anastasia. Who else would he bring here?
Answer: Not Anastasia.
Thing is, up here she doesn’t exist, which is why he stopped Kostas from speaking her name. A world without Anastasia is relaxing.
Who is he kidding? Yeah, it’s partly Anastasia thing, but also the Vivi thing. Her company feels good and she’s nice to look at. Anastasia is all flash and glitter, but Vivi has a quiet, comfortable beauty.
She’s easy on the eyes and soul.
And she understood when he mentioned Mama and her mother lode of expectations. He almost told her, then, abo
ut Anastasia. But having a woman understand him felt too good. It’s been a long time. Now he’s wondering if Vivi’s mother has her tied up with the same Greek string.
Yeah, there’s something about the American woman he finds relaxing and exciting. And, God, she’s lovely.
The bastard inside him doesn’t want Vivi to know he’s engaged. Not because he’s going seduce her, but because he likes the spark, the connection, the zing of potential.
He laughs at himself, because even if there was no Anastasia, Vivi’s door is locked. She’s got unresolved issues, that much is obvious. And Max likes his love life easy and uncomplicated.
And there is an Anastasia. The Anastasia. His Anastasia. Anastasia who might be pregnant with his child.
In a few days the hospital will discharge Melissa Tyler, and then no more Vivi. She’ll go back to her life and he’ll go back to his. And Mama will be happy – at last.
They need to announce their engagement, and soon. Otherwise he’s going to change his mind.
He calls her – Anastasia, that is. Hearing her voice will keep him focused. If she answers. If she’s not already knee deep in bridal magazines and cake samples.
She picks up. He ends the call.
A moment later, his phone buzzes.
“Did you just call?”
He winces. Anastasia is shrill. How did he ever find that sexy? It’s high. No soft tones. He can see her ten years from now, still shrieking and nagging about how much time he spends at the hospital.
“Yeah. I just called to see what you were doing.”
“I'm working. What else would I be doing?”
Eyes closed, Max leans back in the seat. “I don't know. That's why I asked. I'm up visiting my brother.”
“Really? The one your mother hates?” She sounds surprised. How many brothers does he have?
“She doesn't hate him. She's just bitter because she can't manipulate him.” Unlike Max.
“I'm a woman, I know these things. Trust me, she hates him.”
Her certainty pisses him off. She’s never met Kostas and barely knows their mother. She barely knows him.
“I have to go,” he says.
“Wait, are we going out tonight?”
“Can’t. I have to be at the hospital.”