by Alex A King
Mom is going to hate her.
“It’s nothing. Just a cut.”
They both start swinging. “Are you in school?”
“Not yet,” Melissa says. “Are you?”
“Negative. Do you have a boyfriend? Mine is pretty hot, but he only calls when he wants a blowjob. It sucks. I’m dumping him tomorrow.”
Melissa can feel herself going all red. “We only just got here but I guess I'll be going to school in the fall.”
“So that’s a “No” on the boyfriend then?”
“Nope.”
“Shit. We need to find us a couple so we can double date. What do you like? Blond? Tall? Older men? You don't want to go younger, trust me.”
“Why not?”
“Because you want someone experienced, not a little boy.”
Melissa’s suddenly full up with hot and cold butterflies. She’s a virgin, and it’s been forever since she kissed anyone. Not since Matt Riley took her behind the garden shed at his fourteenth birthday party.
“But not too old,” Olivia continues. “Anything past twenty is way geriatric. I'd be surprised if a guy could even get it up without porn and a fistful of Viagra after twenty-one. Although, I suppose we had to come from somewhere, right? I mean it's not like our parents were teenagers when they did it with each other.”
Melissa can’t help thinking about her folks. They weren’t much older when she was born. “My parents are separated. What about yours?”
Olivia shrugs, the tops of her shoes grazing the concrete as she slows the swing.
“Sure, I mean they live together. But you should hear them fight. We've been here for three months and they argue every single night. Dad yells, Mom screams. Dad walks out, and Mom goes to sleep crying. By the time I go down for breakfast they're pretending it never happened. I wish they'd just be honest and admit they're screwing other people.”
“My dad was screwing someone else.”
“Did you ever see her?”
“Him. Yeah.”
Olivia whistles. “Wow, your dad was screwing another man?”
“Yeah.” It’s weird the way she’s almost proud of having something scandalous to share.
“Is he gay?”
“Duh, he had sex with a man. That totally means he's gay.”
“Maybe he’s bi. Lots of people are.”
Going both ways seems to be trendy, these days. Girls kissing girls to get a guy’s interest. Yeah, there are the kids who genuinely want both, but in high school they’re overshadowed by the girls who like putting on a show.
“I think my dad's totally gay. I mean he left us to go and live with his boyfriend.”
“That's kind of cool.”
Not cool at all, but Melissa shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It's okay. I mean it's not like we go shopping and try on shoes together. And his boyfriend's not a designer or anything awesome. He's just an accountant.” She leaves out the part where she hates Ian’s guts and wants to see him hit by a semi-trailer.
“So your old man's queer, no big deal. No one's going to care.” Smile like a predator. Two rows of too-white teeth and pointy canines. All the better to eat you with. “So, Tyler – that's what I'm going to call you – did you cut that wrist yourself or was it an accident?”
Melissa tries to look mysterious. “I’ll never tell.”
“You're a whack job,” Olivia announces. 'We're going to have the best summer.”
Yeah, best summer ever.
52
MAX
ON THE WALK HOME, things get better. The conversation flows easy again, and by the time they get back to the house, Vivi is laughing.
Then she says, “Did I leave the inside lights on?”
“No. Just the porch light.”
“Someone’s inside my house.”
“Family, maybe?”
Vivi shakes her head. “No one else has a key.”
Melissa has been dawdling all this time, but now she runs to catch up. She’s slightly out of breath when she asks, “What’s going on?”
“Stay there,” he tells them.
Biff’s motor mouth starts up, but it’s coming from behind the house. The dog was inside when they left.
Vivi rattles the keys. Max shakes his head when the door swings open under the weight of his palm. He knows she locked the door. Saw it himself.
A helmet-haired bird in a navy pantsuit leaps through the opening, almost bowls him off the porch.
“Vivi,” the bird squawks, “how many times do I have to tell you not to leave a key in the flowerpot?”
He doesn’t see it, but he feels it: Vivi pulling herself tall and taut, ready to shoot an arrow.
“The power of Christ compels you,” she says.
The bird reaches past him, slaps Vivi’s head.
53
VIVI
MELISSA FIRES HERSELF AT Eleni. “Hey Grams, I didn’t know you were coming!”
“There’s no key in the flower pot,” Vivi says.
“You did not lock the door.”
“I locked the door.” She looks at Max. “I locked the door.”
“You locked the door,” he confirms.
Eleni peers down her nose at him. “Why should I believe you?”
Max says to Vivi: “You’re right, we’re related.”
Eleni and Melissa are a tangle of hugs and kisses, but Eleni’s eyes are stuck to Max’s face. He’s a tongue and she’s ice. She’s Greenland in winter cold. “Who are you?”
Max holds out his hand. “Max Andreou. Melissa’s pediatrician.”
Eleni beams at Melissa. “Are you okay, my beautiful girl? You look fine to me. What does she need a doctor for?”
“It’s nothing, Mom,” Vivi says.
“It is something or she would not need a doctor. Darling,” she says, clutching at the pearls she isn’t wearing. She grabs Melissa’s arm with the hand that isn’t busy acting in a melodrama. “What happened to you?”
Melissa manages to unravel herself. “It's nothing. I'm fine. Mom, can I go to my room?”
“Sure, Honey. And take Biff with you.”
Biff? Where is Biff?
Good question.
“Where’s my dog?”
“What dog?”
“My dog. The one that was in here when we left.”
“Oh,” Eleni says. “I tied him up outside. Tomorrow I will call the dog catcher.”
“Mel,” Vivi says. “Bring Biff in, please. And ignore your grandmother.” She swings back around to the woman who brought her into this world. (“Three days of labor, and still you did not want to come out. The house was a mess when I got home.”) “My house, my rules.”
“Dogs spread disease.”
“Not true,” Max starts. “There’s a great deal of research that suggests pets boost immunity. They also help lower blood – ”
“Silence,” Eleni barks. “Are you putting your penis in my daughter?”
Vivi wants a quick death, an instant death; is that too much to ask?
And poor Max, he’s standing there –
Laughing?
“What’s so funny?” Eleni wants to know.
“Nothing.” The laughing doesn’t stop.
“It is not nothing or you would not be laughing – unless you are crazy,” Eleni says. “Vivi, why do you keep company with crazy people? Have I taught you nothing?”
Vivi is stiff and sore from the toilet debacle, but there’s some strength to spare. She hoists her mother’s two suitcases, dumps them out on the porch. “You can’t come into my home, insult my friends, and change my rules. The dog stays, you go. That’s how it is.”
Max winds down. “I should go.”
“Good idea,” Eleni says. “Best idea you ever had.”
“You stay,” Vivi tells Max. “And you,” she tells Eleni, “I'll drive you over to stay with Thea Dora. Max, would you mind staying with Melissa for a few minutes?”
He nods and Vivi turns back to her mother.
&
nbsp; “Mom . . .”
Eleni starfishes the door. “Don’t you want to know why I am here?”
“Not tonight, Mom. I'm too pissed off to care right now.”
“Please.”
This from a woman who hurls words like a teppanyaki chef hurls food?
“Mom . . .” She can’t do it, can’t toss her mother out into the warm spring night. “One night. Tomorrow you go to Thea's.”
“Good. This place smells strange. It smells like . . .”
“Mom. Enough.”
“I left your father.”
The bottom falls out of the world. It’s been doing that a lot lately. But this is like finding out Santa’s a big, fat, red and white lie.
“Shit,” she says, and Eleni says, “Don’t swear,” and Vivi says, “Do you want to talk?”
“I’m tired. Tomorrow we talk.”
Vivi gets her settled in.
Max stays.
* * *
Not a featherweight, that one. He could have blown away, but here he is.
He stays after she tucks Melissa into bed, Biff playing second blanket on her feet. He stays after she calms her mother and settles her into the spare bedroom. They go outside and he stays while she curses God, men, and her mother.
He doesn’t interrupt, except to pass her more coffee.
“Our mothers bring us into this world, then they think up ways to torture us,” he says, during the third cup.
The coffee is hot, sweet, spicy.
Like Max.
“Cynical. I like to think I’m making Mel’s life better. Not doing a good job, am I?” His mouth opens. “Wait, don’t answer that.”
“Don't judge yourself so harshly. Children will grow up and become who they want to be and do what they want to do.”
“Like us?”
He laughs. “I was thinking of Kostas. For me, there is no hope. For you . . . maybe. It depends.”
“On what?”
He leaned closer, across the chair’s slender arm. “On whether you kill your mother and bury her where no one will find the body.”
She laughs till it hurts.
They sit there together, two people worn down by family, each with their own set of secrets. The air is thick with all the things that have gone unspoken, and will remain unspoken.
“I could grow old right here in this place.” He sighs as though he’s trying to lift the world with that one breath. “Vivi, I told you my mother has expectations – for me, for our family.”
The bottom is about to drop out of the world again, isn’t it?
“You did.”
“It’s very important to her that I marry – and soon. I was taking too long, so she chose my fiancée for me.”
“Ah, the good old Greek arranged marriage. That’s before our time, isn’t it?”
“It still happens – between some families.”
“Do you love her?” Vivi asks, mouth packed with cotton. “Your fiancée, I mean.”
“Does it matter?”
“Don't ask me, ask yourself. I'm not the one marrying her.”
“I've never stayed with a woman for long. I've never loved any woman enough to get married. So, my mother chose a good friend’s daughter. She says grandchildren are long overdue and that my father's name will die if I don't have sons. No, I don’t love her – yet. But you must understand, promises were made before I met you.”
“Why are you telling me this?” But she knows why – she knows.
His hand curls around hers. Heat seeps through her skin, into her bones; his thumb slowly rubs her palm. It is hypnotizing, erotic.
Vivi clears her throat, crosses her legs, trying to deflect the sudden fire.
He doesn’t pull away.
“Because if the world was a different place, I could – would – fall in love with you.”
Her cheeks burn in the dark.
“But,” he says slowly, “the world is how it is.”
“Lucky for us we’re just friends.”
She lets her hand fall away. Something has been lost – there’s no picking it up.
They sit that way until the stars tire of watching and move to another part of the world, to observe other people who are lucky not to be in love with one another.
54
VIVI
THE VOICE IN HER head screams for blood.
Except it’s not in her head, is it?
Vivi bolts out of bed.
She’s still in the dress she wore last night. Everything comes back. Her mother is here (shit). Max is not. After he left, Vivi passed out without bothering to change.
No time to change now, either. She throws open the spare room’s door. Her mother is in bed, sheets hoisted around her neck.
“Get it away from me,” she howls. “It is going to bite my face off.”
Vivi looks. She laughs. She can’t help it.
“It is not funny,” Eleni screeches.
Not funny – hilarious.
Eleni has company. Last night Vivi opened the windows and shutters to let the cool air in, never thinking to close them again before bedtime. Sometime between then and now, a plump turkey found himself a room for the night.
Gobble gobble.
The flabby red wattle below his chin quivers. He pecks at the sheet.
Her mother screams. Eleni Pappas downsized by a turkey – who’d have thought it?
The turkey doesn’t give a damn – he’s attracted to the screaming. He hops up on the bed, settles on her chest.
Gobble gobble.
“Aww, he wants a kiss,” Vivi says, almost choking on the laughter.
Gobble gobble. The turkey’s head bobs.
“It is going to peck my eyes out!”
“If you're that worried, close them. I'll get Biff.”
Biff isn’t in any hurry to leave Melissa’s room. Probably thinks Eleni deserves it for tying him up outside. Vivi doesn’t say it, but he’s right. He pads into Eleni’s room, drops his butt on the floor. Does nothing except watch the turkey get comfortable.
Vivi points at the turkey. “Go get him, Tiger.”
Biff doesn’t get him. Biff sat, and now Biff stays.
So it’s up to Vivi to play the hero.
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll wrestle the turkey. You both suck, by the way.”
She pulls an old T-shirt out of the cupboard – one of John’s that somehow got mixed up with hers. It makes a decent matador’s cape.
“Come on, turkey. Let’s do this.”
She throws the shirt, but that turkey is faster. He has wings and she has thumbs and a full bladder. But it’s all good, the turkey has himself a new perch now: Eleni’s head.
Vivi doesn’t die laughing, but close. This is one of those MasterCard moments. “Melissa,” she calls out. “Get the camera.”
“You do that,” Eleni bellows, “and I will kill you!”
Melissa appears with the camera. The flash stuns them all for a moment. It’s a 10.0 megapixel moment.
In the end, Melissa saves the day. The girl works magic with a whiskbroom, gently shooing the turkey out the front door.
Biff looks baffled by the whole ordeal, head cocked, blinking, wondering what kind of craziness he’s been adopted into.
Vivi sits next to the big dog. “You'd have been all over it if he was sliced up on bread.” They watch the turkey amble down the road. Periodically it stops to look back and gobble indignantly.
When Eleni reappears, she’s wearing a fresh polyester ensemble. Now Vivi’s on inspection. “You are wearing the same clothes you had on last night,” Eleni says.
“Maybe because all my clothes are in here and I didn't want to disturb you.” Not a great answer, but it’s the truth. “I'll move my stuff out today.”
“No, it is okay.” She puts on her best sad face, the one she wears when her husband forgets their anniversary or Valentine’s Day. “You don't want me here. I will go and stay with Dora.”
“Mom . . .”
�
��I know where I'm not wanted. My own daughter . . .” She mumbles something else, but the crunch of bicycle tires mutes her volume.
The bicycle stops right outside their gate. Its rider has burgundy hair, a sweet face, and a bikini straight out of a rap video.
“Mel!” the girl calls out, ignoring the fact that Vivi’s sitting right there.
Biff barks, but he doesn’t get up.
Out of the house runs Melissa, dressed for the beach. “That’s Olivia, the girl from Canada,” she says, in the slow, careful tone she uses for her parents and other idiots. “Can I go hang with her?”
Vivi thinks about saying “No.” She wants Melissa close, safe. But here is safer – safer than where they used to be. And Melissa, her face is shining and smiling and hopeful. Vivi can’t crush that with one syllable; it makes her happy to see Melissa’s sunny weather. So she says, “Yes” to the beach and saves the “No” for a more fitting occasion.
Melissa kisses Biff on the nose, and then she’s gone. Vivi waves, but it’s too late – the girls are lost in their own conversation, making secrets, forming conspiracies, the way girls do.
Behind her, Eleni is dragging both suitcases. They have wheels, but where’s the drama in that?
“Why you let her go off that way?”
Vivi says, “Remember the conversation we had last night? My house. My kid. My rules.”
“I will call a taxi.”
And there goes Vivi’s blood pressure, aiming for the sky.
“Mom, I said you could stay here.”
“I changed my mind. I want to go.”
“Pretty please with baklava on top?”
“No, no. I can tell when nobody wants me.”
Okay, so Eleni knows how to push her buttons, but Vivi knows how to push Eleni’s buttons, too. She punches the big red one labeled CO-DEPENDENCE.
“I could use your help.”
It’s magic, the way Eleni stops. “What kind of help?”
“I have to get a job, and I'll need help around the house. Maybe you can watch out for Melissa.”
“Do I have to wash the dog?”
“No.”
“Can I cook?”
“Sometimes.”
“Okay,” she says. “I will stay, but only because you are begging. Take these bags back inside for me. They are heavy.”