Stavroula’s always felt like an outsider, that she didn’t belong. Having moved to the United States at the age of five, she’s neither Greek nor American, but an odd amalgamation: A Greek who spoke flawless English, or an American with a long, funny name. She was everything and nothing, depending on the moment, the day. And being trapped in this vacuum of fluxing identity, she experienced the frictions of the two cultures clashing.
She wanted to be American, but her family didn’t understand the importance of fitting in, going to slumber parties, or having the right tennis shoes. “I don’t want you sleeping at someone else’s house,” her mother would say. “Why would you want to sleep elsewhere?” Or her father would say, “It’s not the shoe; it’s who’s inside the shoe,” and launch into a tale about how, growing up on his island, they’d get only one pair of shoes a year.
She wanted to stay Greek, even though the kids at school couldn’t pronounce her name. To them, she was a weirdo who ate goat and squid. “Staffer…Starva-roll-A…” Her teachers would stumble with her name when they took roll on the first day of each school year. Giggles filled the room, the other kids laughing. There was no attempt at her last name. “You can call me Roula,” Stavroula would say, hoping it was easier for everyone. But the name quickly morphed into “Ruler,” then just “Roo,” which led to her nickname “Kanga,” a name that followed her through her senior year in high school.
She took it in stride, never showing that the barbs wounded. But she always longed to be accepted.
The dutiful daughter, she got a job as a teller in a bank managed by Greeks and contributed her paycheck to the family. Each week, she’d attend church with her family. Each week, she’d tactfully rebuff her mother’s blunt efforts to set her up.
But now she has a suitor, Seymour, and the prospect terrifies her. Her folks will never approve of him. Bliss isn’t a family name they know. He isn’t a member of their church, or any church for that matter, she guesses. Her father has spoken of non-Greeks often: they are fine for everything but family. A Greek can never marry a non-Greek; they will infect all that’s important, all that’s has been obtained through great effort and struggle.
Stavroula decides to stand Seymour up, not show for the date. Then she decides it’d be wrong of her. Just this once, she tells herself. One quick date, then it’ll be over, she tells herself.
“I’m going out with a friend tonight after work,” she tells her parents at breakfast. “A girl from the bank. We’re going out for dinner and a movie.” She feels soiled by the lie, feels certain her parents will see right through her.
“That sounds like fun,” her mother says, and nothing more.
Seymour is waiting for her outside the bank at six p.m. One quick date, Stavroula keeps telling herself.
They go to dinner, then out for bowling, and while they don’t talk much, Stavroula has a great time, enjoys herself thoroughly. Enjoys Seymour’s company, his attention.
At the end of the evening, Seymour asks her out again. She hears herself say “Yes.” There is no other word that comes to mind.
She lies to her parents, then lies again. One date, then another, then a third. She and Seymour go to Rockefeller Center, Coney Island, Central Park. Seymour doesn’t talk much, doesn’t like to talk much about himself or the things he’s done, his past. Still, Stavroula grows accustomed to him, his stance, the way he walks with her, making certain he’s between her and the curb. She grows to love his gruff affection.
Now, with Seymour, she’s found acceptance. She’s found the affection and appreciation that she so desperately longed for. She has something she’s never had before, a feeling of comfort and freedom. With Seymour, she’s found herself.
And while she knows what her parents’ reaction will be, she has to let them know, has to tell them of her fortune.
“I can’t keep this to myself anymore,” she tells Seymour. Stavroula’s told him of her situation, about her parents, that she’s kept their dating a secret for all these months. Even her elder sister, Christina, who she’s close with, doesn’t know about Seymour.
“Let me talk to your parents,” Seymour says.
“They won’t understand.”
“I’ll talk to them and tell them—” He breaks off.
“Tell them what?” Stavroula asks.
“Ah, you know. I’ll just tell them.”
“What? What are you going to tell them?”
Seymour swallows hard, looks away. “I’ll tell them that I love their daughter,” he says, turning his attention to his feet, the ground. “That I’m going to marry her.”
The strength is swept from her heart. Stavroula falls into Seymour’s arms, weeping. “Seymour,” she says, holding him tight, so tight that it hurts him. He loves her, loves her for who she is. “My Seymour,” she cries, kissing and kissing him, her sharp, salty tears biting his lips.
It’s the first time she truly feels loved.
“There’s someone I’d like to bring to dinner tomorrow,” she informs her family one evening. She and Seymour had been secretly dating for seven months. “A young man,” she says. Her mother stops knitting, the needles held mid-stitch. Her father looks up from the TV, his eyes focusing directly at her. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. All is spoken in his eyes. Already, she sees the outcome. Stavroula’s heart falters. Seymour will sit at the table, she realizes, but he won’t be welcomed.
The next night, Seymour arrives dressed in pressed pants and a suit jacket, flowers and a bottle of wine in hand. He’s cordial, polite, and respectful. The evening passes in awkward starts and fits. The pasta is undercooked, the steaks burnt. Her father refuses to speak to Seymour in English, forcing Stavroula to translate everything he says. Seymour speaks of the food, of how much he enjoys Stavroula, her company. All his comments are met with stony silence.
After dinner, Seymour asks Stavroula’s father if he might speak with him. Stavroula had coached him on what to say, to ask her father’s permission for marriage. It is all useless. “Sir,” Seymour says, “it is my intention to marry your daughter. I ask for your blessing.”
In clear, sharp English, her father says, “No.”
“I…” Seymour says, caught off guard by the curt response. “I have money saved, and I feel confident that—”
“No.” Her father sits back in her chair, stares at Seymour with thick contempt. It isn’t Seymour specifically. It’s who he isn’t: Greek.
Seymour says, “I believe Stavroula has some say in this matter.”
“You believe wrong,” her father tells him, rising from the chair. “Your friend is leaving,” he calls to Stavroula in Greek, “for good.”
The night, Stavroula’s admitted to the hospital, the pain in her chest crippling. She’s examined, tested, and examined more. The doctors can find nothing wrong. “We can find nothing wrong with you,” the physician tells her, checking her blood pressure one last time. “Your blood work came out well; your pulse is a little high, but normal, and your blood pressure’s on mark. Everything seems fine.”
“You’re not looking at the right things,” she tells him, her face pale. “You are looking at things that don’t matter.”
The next night, she sneaks out of her parents’ house and heads to Seymour’s apartment. Her face is swollen from crying. “Tell me to go,” she yells at him, standing on the threshold. “Tell me to leave.” She pled her case with her father, asking him to reconsider. “Seymour’s my happiness,” she told him.
“There are things more important than happiness,” her father said.
“Name one.”
“Family,” he replied. “Your mother, your father. Our name.”
“But Seymour’s family,” she said, wanting to explain that he’s the only one who understands her, makes her feel whole. “He’s family,” she says, a bitterness rising in her throat and choking her. “I can’t break from him.”
Now, she stands before Seymour, her lungs burning with anguish. She will do
as her father told her. She’ll finish with Seymour.
“I can’t marry you,” she tells him. “I can’t love you.”
Seymour steps forward and slides his arms around her, pulls her to him and holds her. “But you do,” he tells her. “Stavroula, you do.”
Later, as she lies in Seymour’s arms, her hair fanned across his chest, she knows she can’t return to her parents’ house, knows she has no home to return to. That life is behind her now, dead. She’s made a choice.
Her home is in Seymour’s arms.
Her home is Seymour.
The Trouble with Bliss Page 10