Chapter 22
Over the next week, Niko called in every favor he could think of to help him prepare for the pageant.
When he tried on his only suit for the first time in a decade and found it barely fit, he went to see Marie, the seamstress who’d had a shop off Spring Street for the past thirty years.
He’d been doing minor repairs for her for years, usually “forgetting” to send her an invoice (and sometimes legitimately forgetting).
In return, she turned around the alterations overnight.
His regular barber squeezed him in for a last-minute haircut, despite being fully booked, waving away Niko’s credit card.
And, without asking, every single one of the other contestants independently reached out to offer to help him get up to speed.
Through it all, though, he couldn’t bring himself to spread the word he was leaving, even though it would’ve been the perfect opportunity.
He justified it by telling himself he wanted to focus on one thing at a time, but he knew deep down he wasn’t ready for it to feel that real yet.
So for now the only people who knew were Jo, Simon, and Merritt, none of whom seemed eager to bring it up—which was fine by him.
Between that and his budding relationship with Merritt, he felt so overinflated with secrets he was worried he’d pop if he bumped into a corner too hard.
He did tell his mother he was leaving, though, who immediately burst into happy tears.
The words were barely out of his mouth before she was assuring him that his stepfather would be able to easily find Niko a job at his insurance firm, and since his sister Alex was about to start her freshman year at the University of Arizona, he could stay in her room until he got on his feet.
Even though moving back in with his mom wasn’t exactly the step he’d hoped to be taking at thirty, he was filled with gratitude for her all the same.
He was lucky, having a mother who wanted him to be close to her, who would do anything to give him a soft landing.
This was absolutely the right thing to do.
Of course it was natural to have conflicting feelings about this chapter of his life coming to an end, but that didn’t mean it didn’t need to.
After briefly catching up with both his sisters—Lydia, the youngest, was still living at home, going into her junior year of high school—his mom came back on the line.
“When can we expect you, agápi mou?” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her speak Greek other than the odd word here and there, but there was still a slight lilt to her syllables that had never gone away.
Niko scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “The last weekend in August, I think. But I was planning on visiting Yiayia and Papou for a couple of weeks, so I can’t start the job until after I get back.”
His mother was silent for a long beat. “Okay,” she said, the warmth draining from her voice, in the same forced tone she always got on the rare occasions he brought up his grandparents.
He wasn’t sure what came over him next. Maybe it was the bizarro-world atmosphere of the last few weeks, in which so many things he’d previously thought unimaginable had become his new reality.
He’d never expected Merritt to agree to go to LA on his suggestion.
Couldn’t hurt to push his luck on this front, either. Stranger things had happened already.
“Why don’t you come with me?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she responded finally.
“Why not?” he asked. “Are you really never going to talk to them again? Not let Alex and Lydia have any relationship with them?”
“Your sisters are almost grown, I don’t control them,” she said defensively. “And I don’t need to justify this to you.”
Niko swallowed. He knew he should just drop it, but all he could do was wedge his foot into the rapidly closing door. “I’ll buy your ticket. Even if you decide you don’t want to see them, don’t you want to see your siblings? How long has it been?”
His mother heaved a sigh but didn’t respond.
“Will you at least think about it?” he asked. “For me?”
She laughed under her breath. “Okay, Nikolaos. For you, I’ll think about it.”
Since she’d pulled out his full name, that meant it was past time to let it go.
They hung up shortly after, and Niko had to fight off the cloud of dejection that threatened to hang over his head for the rest of the day. He wanted to talk to Merritt about it, but they were both so busy that they could only steal a few moments here and there until the morning before the pageant.
They were in the kitchen of her house, drinking coffee, while Barry, the electrician Niko usually worked with, installed Merritt’s light fixtures. His first semiserious electrical shock several years earlier had been enough to convince Niko that he needed to subcontract that particular task.
Since Barry was nearby, they kept their distance—except the first time he left the room, when Niko pulled Merritt into his arms for a long, slow I missed you kiss.
Now, sitting next to each other on the bar chairs she’d recently had delivered, she had one foot out of her shoe, idly running it up his ankle as they talked.
When he recounted the conversation with his mother, he was surprised to see her brow crease, her expression going somber.
“Do you think I shouldn’t have invited her?” he asked.
She looked down into her coffee. “I don’t know. I get it, but…I just don’t think this is something you need to take on.”
“It’s not,” said Niko, although the words sounded hollow, even to him.
“But…it is at least partially because of me that they don’t talk.
They’ve been stuck in a holding pattern for so long, maybe they just need a little push.
Especially my mom. It seems like it’s mostly on her end.
I think my grandparents really want her in their lives again.
One time I was in the garage and found a whole shoebox full of unopened letters from Yiayia. ”
After a long beat, she met his eyes. “You know I’m not really in contact with my mom, either, right?”
He shook his head. “You haven’t told me anything about your parents.”
She sighed, pulling her foot back and resting it on the rung of her own stool, Niko already missing the contact. “Well, my dad died when we were ten, and my mom never remarried, so it’s just parent, singular.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” he said quietly, sympathy thrumming through his chest.
She shrugged. “It’s okay. Or, no, actually, it’s not okay. It’s the fucking worst. But there’s nothing anyone can do about it now, so.”
He reached out his foot to brush hers, their ankles intertwining under the counter. “You were close with him?”
She nodded tightly. “He’s the reason I…He was the one who taught me to play piano. He was a session musician.”
“What’s a session musician?”
“He’d get hired to play backup for recording sessions.
But he wasn’t part of a band, and wouldn’t go on tour or anything like that.
He played, like, fifteen instruments. He was a genius.
And he was really tall, and he knew all the words to every song ever written, and had the best laugh.
” Her mouth softened, her gaze going distant.
“He and my mom were both living in New York when they met—she was a writer. And then after my older brother was born, she got a tenure-track position at Johns Hopkins, which is how we ended up in Baltimore. But he would still commute up to the city to work.” She waved her hand in front of her face with a self-conscious smile, her eyes flicking back to him.
“Sorry. You probably don’t need that much backstory. ”
He shook his head hurriedly. “No, no, it’s interesting. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you come from such an artistic family.”
She toyed with her rings, sliding the one on her middle finger over her knuckle, then back again.
“It was great, in some ways. It taught me to take my work seriously from a young age. But…” Her gaze flicked up, meeting his.
“It also taught me that being an artist means being selfish. Selfish with your time, first of all. You have to pour hours and hours into it, and everything outside that bubble just fades into the background. But also, selfish with your perspective. You kind of need to position yourself as the center of the universe. Your point of view, your need for self-expression, is your priority. It can be hard on your relationships.”
Niko nodded slowly, thinking about what it had been like to date Helene.
How she’d chastise him for interrupting her, when it seemed like she’d just been staring off into space.
The nauseating jolt the first time he’d recognized himself in one of her poems. On the other hand, she’d never complained like some of his other girlfriends had about him losing hours painting, or cutting plans short so he could wake up early enough to catch the light.
“Anyway,” Merritt continued, “my mom mostly writes short stories, but she published one novel, six or seven years ago. About a writer and her famous musician daughter, who moves back in with her after an overdose.”
Niko inhaled like he’d been sucker-punched. “Wait. I thought a novel meant it wasn’t true?”