Chapter Eighteen
Basil
Challenge: Run a 10k away
Bereft, I did the only thing any full-grown Greek man would do: I drove home to Mama. I had to walk back to Chelsea’s to get my car, and I stood outside in the road talking myself out of knocking on her door and begging her to let us go back to how things had been before.
What had happened? Everything had been so easy between us, but she claimed it had all been an illusion. Or was that a lie? Either way, I didn’t know what to do with the hurt she’d surgically delivered. Evan would be happy to learn that I was not, in fact, bulletproof.
I was Icarus, and in my arrogance, I’d flown too close to the sun.
When I arrived at my parents’ house, I let myself in through the mud room. I thought I’d surprise my mom, but when I walked into the kitchen, the first thing she said was, “You couldn’t call?”
I gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Hi, Ma.”
She held her doughy hands away from my face. “What? And you couldn’t come on Thanksgiving? Everybody was here yesterday. Why are you coming today?”
“You’re not happy to see me?”
She gave me another kiss on the cheek. “Of course I’m happy.” She eyed me. “You don’t look well. Have you eaten? Are you hungry?”
“I ate, Ma. I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll make you something.” She opened the fridge and set a variety of dishes on the counter.
“I’m not hungry. Sit down. I just wanted to talk.”
She stopped cutting meat off the cold lamb, dropping the knife with a clatter. She swung around. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I pulled the knife from behind her and started slicing potatoes.
She slapped the back of my hand. “You want potatoes? I’ll heat some up.” She grabbed a skillet and set it on the stove.
I sighed and reached for the oil. She waved me away. “Sit. Talk.” She poured olive oil into the pan and turned on the heat.
I gave up and sat down. “Thanks, Ma.”
She sliced the potatoes as she talked. “So what’s the matter? Are you getting enough sleep?”
The lie played on my lips, but she would have heard it. “No. Not much.”
She looked up at me and tilted her head, like she had a tricorder in her mind and could diagnose any medical problem with a scan of her eyes. “It’s that woman.”
I smiled. I could never get anything past her. Also, confession time, she called me every few days, so she knew I was trying to date Chelsea. She’d already asked me if Chelsea was Greek and if she went to church. Since she’d kept me from Thanksgiving, Chelsea wasn’t high on her list of popular people.
She shook her head. “When I was your age, I had five children.”
“I know.”
I ate while she filled me in on all the family who had come over. Most lived close enough to go home as soon as dinner ended, but Theo Kostas and Yia Yia had come over from Greece, so I knew I should stay the weekend and catch up with them. I hadn’t seen either in years. They’d chastise me for never coming to Greece. I never heard the end of my trip to France when I was in college. “How could you come all the way over to Paris and not visit your family in Greece?” Experts in the guilt trip, all of them.
When I finished eating, I excused myself to go find my uncle. Ma began clearing and said, “I should invite Sophia for dinner.”
I stopped dead. “Don’t call Sophia.”
“When was the last time you talked to her? What a beautiful girl. I don’t know why you stopped seeing her.”
“That was ten years ago. Don’t call her.”
She stacked the plates in the sink as if the conversation was settled. I said again, “Ma. Don’t call Sophia.”
It wasn’t even noon, and I needed a nap.
My yia yia sat in the La-Z-Boy knitting a doily. There were only about forty of them scattered throughout the room. My uncle and dad crowded together on the sofa, watching a soccer game, drinking coffee, bitching at a bad play.
My uncle stood and clasped my hand, then pulled me in for a hug, pounding on my back. He smelled like all the men in my family—virile. I stepped back and said, “Καιρ? ?χουμε να τα πο?με!”
He tsked. “If we haven’t seen each other, it’s because you never come to visit. Your father tells me you’re looking for work.”
It felt like an insult, like my dad had been talking shit behind my back. I scowled but bit my tongue. “Thank you, Theo Kostas, but I have a job.”
Dad blew a raspberry, dismissive. “You have a job, not a career.”
“Dad, leave it. If I want another job, I’ll find one.”
“If you’d finished school—”
“This again?” I turned to leave, but my yia yia raised her hand and said my name.
“Γεια σου, γιαγι?.” I leaned in to her outstretched hand so she could pat my cheek, then bent to give her a kiss.
She ranted in Greek about how she’d die before I ever came to see her and how could I not be married by now. I promised her I’d visit, like I always did.
When I went to leave, my uncle called out, “If you come in January, you could start in the restaurant during the slow season. I could use the help.”
I knew the offer was a favor, nepotism at its finest, but even so, would it be so bad to work for family?
“I’ll think about it.” I’d concocted so many reasons to turn him down in the past, but maybe it was time to reconsider my options, since every door was closing and nothing waited for me in Charlottesville. I no longer had the excuse that a girl held me back. Chelsea had made that clear.
“You could head up the restaurant. I’ve heard you’re a wizard in the kitchen.”
I paused and soaked in his words. My parents would never squander their praise to my face, but catch them talking to anyone else, and you’d think their kids were all geniuses and sterling examples of American success. It gave me a buzz of pride to hear my dad had been bragging about me.
And if I was being honest, a promise to head up his kitchen sounded like a lifeline.
If only it weren’t halfway around the world.
On the other hand, I’d get to connect with a whole other part of my identity. My parents had shown me photos from where they’d grown up, and my yia yia rhapsodized about the beauty of the beaches. A neglected part of my soul wondered whether I might find myself in my cultural heritage. Or would I just feel more adrift, estranged from my own family? There was only one way to find out, but it felt like an admission of failure.
“Can you send me more details?” I said, opening my mind to the idea finally. “It sounds like a great opportunity.”
Theo Kostas beamed, pounding my dad’s back. “Ah, Zander, you have raised a good son.”
My dad puffed up. “Το μ?λο κ?τω απ? τη μηλι? θα π?σει.” The apple will fall right below the tree.
My chest swelled with pride.
With a bounce in my step, I headed toward the kitchen, hoping to make my excuses to my mom and flee. But when I entered, I found my sister Zoe sitting at the kitchen table, sucking her teeth, clearly waiting for me to appear. My family was a never-ending soap opera.
Zoe knew all about my dating frustrations, and she arched a brow, all smug as she said, “This can’t be good.”
“What?”
“Sit.” She gestured to the chair beside her. “What did you do wrong?”
I paused halfway into the seat. “Why do you assume anything is wrong?”
“Because you cooked an extravagant meal to impress a girl and you’re now here. So you must’ve done something wrong.”
“Maybe nobody did anything wrong.”
“Ω Θε? μου.” Greek for ohmigod . She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “So somebody did something wrong. And that somebody was you. Did you burn the turkey?”
“Squab and no.”
She threw her hands up. “So what happened?”
“I’m honestly not sure. I think she dumped me.” I cringed at the confession, but Zoe was my closest sister, in age and in temperament. She’d always been more like a friend, even when she gave me a hard time. Especially then. “I thought things were going so well, but it was all a game for her, I guess.”
“Oh, no. She didn’t get on the Bas train?”
I shut my eyes for two seconds and shook my head, clearing it of static noise. “What are you even talking about?”
“It’s always so easy for you. You expect everyone to love you, and you can’t stand it when people don’t fall for you immediately.”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you remember when you were in high school and you didn’t get invited to Sophia Papadopoulos’s birthday party?”
I sighed. My family loved to recount my past idiocies. “Really?”
She shot me a pointed look. “You followed her around, trying to befriend her.”
I shrugged. “It worked. I got invited to her party.”
“But it worked too well, and then you were stuck dating her until you worked up the courage to let her down.” She snorted a laugh. “Even then, you couldn’t just break up with her because you can’t stand to be unliked.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“No? You’ve been chasing after a girl who told you from the start she wasn’t going to fall in love. Am I getting that wrong?”
“You think I’m only interested because she doesn’t want me? You think she’s a challenge?”
“Yeah.” She fell back in her chair, like she was dropping a mic. “I think you’re in love with the chase. You’ve always been this way. So extra. Always believing you could win anyone over with your charm.”
My knee-jerk reaction was to always argue back, but I closed my mouth, processing her words. She wasn’t wrong that I liked the pursuit. It was romantic to woo someone. And if I lost interest before they did, well, that wasn’t because I’d satisfied the challenge, was it? Evan had said something similar, accusing me of being immune to pain because I was long gone before I had to pay that bill. Was the fact that Chelsea had hurt me proof that Evan was wrong? Or was Zoe right, and only my ego was bruised?
“Two things can be true at once,” I concluded. “I can be a romantic and fall in love.”
She studied me, eyes narrowed. “And have you fallen in love?”
“I don’t know.” I swallowed down a lump in my throat. “I honestly don’t think she believes anyone could love her .”
“And you think you could?”
“Yes.” No hesitation.
She exhaled a sharp breath, and that’s when I knew she’d changed sides. “Tell me why this girl?”
How could I explain when there were so many versions of Chelsea?
There was the sexy vixen who drove me wild with lust. And she knew that. She dressed the part and mercilessly eye fucked me in the most sensual, wanton manner imaginable. I sported a perpetual boner from her looks and words alone.
There was also the girl-next-door who could throw on the grungiest sweats, twist her hair up into a messy bun, and trigger every protective instinct I had. She knew that, too. She knew she had me wrapped around her finger.
Finally, there was the friend I’d come to know, the girl who laughed at my dumb jokes and listened to me whenever I vented. Yeah, she also brought out my Greek like one of my sisters, but she could go toe-to-toe with me, and in my world, risking an argument to challenge someone to be better? That was a sign of love.
She’d cracked me open, coaxed me out.
“She could be Greek,” I started, and Zoe sat back with a grin.
“Go on.”
“She has this inner strength. She knows exactly who she is, what she wants, and she’ll fight her corner.”
“Feisty?” Zoe asked.
“But—” I choked on the word and had to take a breath.
Zoe laid a hand on my wrist and didn’t crack a joke while I screwed up my mouth to speak without sounding so emotional.
“She’s soft. She hides it behind a tough shell, but whenever she drops the walls, I get this gentle, quiet version of her, and I want to wrap myself around her and be a fortress for her.”
“You really care for her.”
I licked my lips and huffed a shaky laugh. “You say I love the chase or just want to be loved. But I want her to let me in so I can get to know her better.”
“Does she know all that?”
“Yes. But she’s so, so afraid.”
“What happened yesterday? Why are you here and not there?”
“She got some bad news.” I didn’t want to share details of Chelsea’s private life without her permission. “Nothing to do with me, I swear.”
“Exactly how did you insinuate yourself into her issue?”
I held up my hands, all innocence. “All I did was try to console her.”
“Right. I bet it went, ‘I’m sorry for you situation, but do you still love me?’”
God, had I done that? I replayed our conversation, recognizing how I’d inadvertently forced Chelsea into a corner. We went from “you’re worthy of love” to “our relationship was a failure” in the blink of an eye.
“So how do I fix this?”
She tapped a finger against her lip, thinking. “You won’t want to hear this, but she has all the information she needs for now. You have to give her space to figure this out for herself.”
“And meanwhile?”
“Be a human, and go listen to sad love songs. Eat a tub of ice cream, you ηλ?θιο?.”
“Don’t call me an idiot.”
“Shoe fits.” She swatted me, and I had to laugh. “And maybe let her take the lead.”
Great. Chelsea’s lead would likely be to shut me out of her life.
The ice cream sounded like a great plan. I seriously considered hiding in my bedroom with a gallon of Rocky Road and marathoning romance movies, but my brother arrived for dinner with my nieces and nephew, who ran through the halls while my dad yelled at them to go outside.
Ma and Zoe moved through a complex choreography at the kitchen counter. I wanted to offer to help, but they’d shame me if I tried, so I hunted for the other men, hugging the kids as they tore past.
I found my brother, Nicky, with my uncle and brother-in-law, also named Nick, in the basement at a card table. I pulled up a chair. “Need a fourth?”
Nicky dealt. “Next hand, Bas.”
It was lucky for me he was the older son, since he’d managed to fulfill all his familial expectations. He’d married a Greek woman and knocked out a couple of kids early on. He’d finished college at the top of his class and gone on to med school. He drove a Chevy Tahoe and took his young family to Greece every couple of years. He made me look positively American.
I should have been jealous. Especially since he was kind of a dick, but as the baby, I’d been given a lot of slack. If it meant living with comparisons to Nicky, at least nobody really needed me to walk in his shoes. Not that they’d come right out and say that.
I surveyed the manly scene, a diorama of chest hair and testosterone, and reconsidered offering to help in the kitchen.
“Something bothering you, Bas?” Nicky’s gaze remained intent on his cards. Had I sighed? Or had the gossip reached the man cave?
Theo Kostas grunted, puffing on his cigar.
Here were men with wives they’d probably pissed off more than once, so I took a gamble. “I’m having issues with my—”
Ex-girlfriend? Friend? Ex-friend?
“Lady trouble?” Theo Kostas’s laugh rumbled deep in his chest. “Remember you’re always wrong.”
I shook my head. This had been a bad idea.
“Apologize in person,” Nick said, tossing a chip into the pile. “And do not show up empty-handed.”
“Zoe told me to give her space.”
They all groaned, shooting each other knowing looks, like I’d fallen fresh off the turnip cart.
Nicky laid a hand on my shoulder. “Bring her flowers or jewelry. Women always love something pretty.”
“Definitely flowers,” added Kostas with a wink. “What kind does she like?”
“I—” Shit, I had no idea.
For the next hour until the women called us up to eat, four Greek men sat in a haze of smoke, discussing the merits of roses versus lilies, and for once, I felt a sense of belonging.