Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) (30 page)

T
here’s
no time for
a pity party.

Vivi wants to throw herself at her bed and cry herself dry, but Eleni is there with coffee and questions. Vivi takes the coffee, ignores the questions. Eleni isn’t too persistent – not when she has an audience outside. She goes out with the broom, makes a performance of sending everybody on their way.

And they go happily because the story is unfolding somewhere else now, anyway.

O
r so they think
.

T
he police don’t knock
on Vivi’s door because it’s wide open and they can see her on the couch.

Vivi can see them, too.

Shit, she thinks. Shit, shit, shit. She’s sitting there looking like she’s got a rampant case of pink eye, when in reality she’s spent the last hour boohooing over Max.

Eleni, of course, isn’t around. She and Melissa are both sleeping off the morning. It’s peak siesta time.

Two cops. The guy with the belly and another guy in plainclothes.

Cop Number Two introduces himself as Detective Lemonis, then he gets right down to business.

“Mrs. Tyler, do you have an Eleni Pappas staying with you?”

Deep voice. Good for playing bad cop.

“Do I need to call a lawyer?”

The policemen swap looks.

Lemonis says, “Why would you need to call a lawyer?”

“I was born in America,” Vivi says. “We don’t do anything without a lawyer.”

“Maybe you need a lawyer. We don’t know yet.”

This all feels very circular, very strange. There’s still the matter of Olivia and her whereabouts, yet here they are asking for her mother.

A door opens and Eleni strolls out in fresh makeup. “Vivi,” she says. “Have you got pinkeye? Don’t touch me until you see the doctor.”

“The police are here,” Vivi says.

Detective Lemonis says, “Eleni Pappas? We have questions for you.”

“I do not know anything about anything or anyone.”

There’s a first time for everything.

“Are you acquainted with a Sofia Lambeti?”

Now Vivi really doesn’t like where this is going. She looks at her mother. “Don’t say a word, Mom. I’m calling a lawyer.”

“Vivi, be quiet,” Eleni says. “I know that whore. She opens her legs for everyone. Maybe you ask her customers if they know her, eh?”

“Mom, be serious.”

“I am serious. Everybody knows she is a whore.”

Detective Lemonis and the chubby cop exchange glances.

“Mrs. Pappas, Sofia Lambeti is dead. We found her on your daughter's property this morning. Do you have any knowledge of how she got there?”

“No.” Wide-eyed. “Do you?”

“We have information that you and she had a confrontation last night.”

“Maybe we did. I don’t remember. Why are you asking me questions when you already have the answers?”

“Mom, enough,” Vivi warns her. “I’m calling a lawyer right now. Don’t say another word.”

“Bah! I do not need a lawyer, Vivi. As soon as they start asking people, they will see that she was a lunatic, a crazy person.”

The cops aren’t laughing. Chubby cop steps forward with his handcuffs.

“Eleni Pappas, you are under arrest for the murder of Sofia Lambeti.”

“I am not!” Eleni sits on the floor, arms folded.

Hello, headache. “Mom, I kind of think you are.”

“Why, God? Why did You give me a traitor for a daughter?”

Policeman on either side, both of them trying to pull her off the ground, but Eleni is doing that dead-weight trick, straight out of a toddler’s arsenal. She curls her legs around the nearest chair.

It’s a sixties-style protest.

Vivi doesn’t know what to think, but she knows what to do.

“Listen to me. Right now you don't have a choice,” she tells her mother. “They're taking you whether you fight it or not. You can either go willingly and I’ll find you a lawyer, or I'll call Dad and tell him to get his butt here and bail you out himself.”

Eleni is aghast. “You wouldn't!”

“Try me.”

“Fine, I will go. But if any of those lesbians try to squeeze my cheeks, I will bite their fingers off. And I will never make my
galaktobouriko
for you again.”

“Too bad,” Vivi says. “Guess I'll have to buy it from the Greek restaurant, same as you always do.”

That one moment of shock gives the cops a foothold. Eleni goes, kicking and screaming. No dignity, that one. No dignity all the way into the police car.

Vivi watches the car kick up stones and dust. She watches until it’s like that small storm never happened.

What a day. Mother of a murderer one minute, daughter of one the next.

Some new beginning.

She goes back in and finds the phone.

Two rings, then: “Eleni?”

He can’t see her, but Vivi shakes her head anyway.

“It’s me, Dad. I really need you to be here. And Mom does, too.”

M
ax doesn’t fuck around
. He’s a man on a mission. Target: Mama.

He’s got things to say, things she needs to hear, starting with his broken engagement.

“You look terrible,” she says, when she opens her front door. “See, this is what you get for fooling around with foreign whores. Maybe you should go to the doctor and see if you caught a disease.” She clutches her chest; same old, tiresome melodrama. “I told you, but you never listen to me.”

“Enough, Mama.”

He takes a seat at the kitchen table. He’s eaten here a million times. Won’t make it to a million and one if this doesn’t go his way.

“Don't you tell me enough. I say when it is enough!”

“If I hadn't listened to you for all these years I wouldn't be in this mess. All you want to do is make me miserable. You pushed my brother – my best friend – away from this family because he wouldn't bow and scrape at your feet. If you wanted someone in the family to be a lawyer, maybe you should have done it yourself.”

Her fists connect with the tabletop and its plastic cover.

“I am a sick old woman and this is how you speak to me? The shame! The devil will come and cut your tongue from your wicked mouth!”

Max leans back. “You're not old or sick. You just like pretending you are so everybody will play your games. I'm done playing, Mama. Anastasia is not for me. I won't marry her, and nothing you say can change that. I don't care if you're the shame of the whole country because of it. You should be ashamed for forcing your will upon your grown children. Shame on you. Shame on you for not loving your youngest son enough to accept his choices. You cannot love, you can only manipulate.”

She says nothing. For a long time, nothing.

Then: “You must hate me.”

Yeah, whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it. He reaches across the table, takes her hand.

“Mama, I could never hate you, and neither could Kostas. But your time of controlling our lives is over. If you want to see either of us again you have to accept our choices. We're men, so let us be men, eh?”

Of course it’s not that simple, is it?

The doorbell chimes, and, after one last mournful look, Mama scurries off to answer the door.

Anastasia. Listen to the vicious rhythm of stilettos on marble.

“I knew that dog would run to his mother.” She shoves her way into the kitchen. “I told the gypsies downstairs they could piss in your car.”

Max smiles like he’s never known rain. “Don't be so bitter. It's not like I asked for the ring back.”

“Of course I would not give the ring back. Your whore will never have my ring.” She’s all lit up like a maniac. “Guess what I heard, Max? Your whore is a murderer.”

“Enough of the lies, Anastasia. Your problem is with me, not with Vivi.”

“Is this true, Max?” Mama asks

“No, a woman died on her property this morning, but – ”

“See, I told you,” Anastasia crows.

Mama looks at him. “Max?”

“ – they don’t know if it was murder or suicide.”

“She was a murdered,” Anastasia continues. “What decent person has bodies littering their land?”

“Anastasia,” Mama says. “Enough!”

Isn’t that a surprise?

But Anastasia doesn’t stop. She’s nowhere near a stopping point. In fact, she’s winding up for the big one.

“The police arrested the whore's mother just now. Maybe she helped her mother, eh? Will you write to her in prison, Max? Apply for conjugal visits?”

Max thinks Anastasia sounds much too happy for it to be a lie. And she works for a law firm, so she’d know. He pulls his keys out of his pocket.

“Mama, I have to go. Vivi needs a friend.”

Okay, he said he couldn’t be her friend, but that was then. Things have changed.

“I need you,” Anastasia says.

Always with the little girl routine.

“I have nothing to give you, Anastasia. I don’t want you.”

The woman doesn’t have wings, but that doesn’t stop her from flying at him. Fists, scarlet nails, teeth. Only thing missing is Wile E. Coyote’s dust cloud.

Max doesn’t fight back – he steps back.

Anastasia falls forward. It’s enough to throw a spanner in her assault. Deprived of her primary target, she picks another.

Nice teeth, that girl. And they should be: she spent a couple of years with a silver smile. Seems like a shame to sink them into her former fiancé’s shin.

Suddenly, she’s sliding backwards, arms waving for him to save her. It’s like a scene out of a horror movie. Doesn’t matter which one – they’ve all got a scene just like it, where the about-to-be-deceased gets sucked into the darkness.

Mama is the monster (although to Max she looks like an avenging angel) standing over the spitting woman.

“I didn't bring him into this world so you could bite him like a dog,” she says. “Get up!”

Anastasia stands, legs shaking with a mixture of anger and fear. “But I want him to marry me.”

Mama grabs her by the hair. It’s beautiful, really, the way she shoves Anastasia out the front door. “Apparently my son does not want to marry you. Out!”

On the way back into the kitchen, Mama drops the ring in his hand.

“It's a lucky thing you did not marry that one,” she says. “I always knew she was crazy.”

M
ama walks
him to the Jeep.

“You shamed me, Max. But I think perhaps I deserved it.”

“You think?”

“Don’t push me, my boy. One thing at a time, eh?”

“Okay.”

They hug, she kisses him on both cheeks, and that’s that.

“Maybe you can bring your brother for dinner soon, eh? It's time we were a family again.”

I
t’s
useful having a
superhero in the family.

Thea
Dora comes to the rescue. One of the cousins is a lawyer, and she convinces him that the family name is in jeopardy – and does he want his children to live with that stigma? And his grandchildren? And their grandchildren? No, she does not think so – so it is in his best interests to help.

She doesn’t give him a chance (or a second chance) to say no.

Consider it his housewarming gift, she tells Vivi.

So while Cousin Pavlos is at the police station making deals with the blue devils,
Thea
Dora insists on entertaining Vivi and Melissa.

Which is how Vivi winds up sipping coffee under her aunt’s grapevines. Melissa is out in the street with the neighborhood kids.

Effie swings by, which . . .

Sucks.

“What's it like to have a criminal in the family?” she whispers as soon as her mother is out of earshot.

“You tell me,” Vivi says. “She's your family too. Wow, I hope her criminal genes weren't passed down to our kids.”

Effie throws a worried glance at George. The boy is trying to shove his big toe up the garden hose.

It’s kind of fun to wind her up and watch her spin. But they’re swimming in the same gene pool, aren’t they? Effie has her own bag of mean words and tricks to rattle.

“Maybe the police will have lots of question for you, too. Who knows where you were last night?”

“I was at the festival, with everyone else.”

“Not for long, eh?”

“If you have something to say, Effie, say it.”

Effie looks away first. “When are you leaving?”

Thea
Dora picks that moment to bustle out with a tray of cherry sweets. “Nobody is going anywhere. Eat up, Effie. You don’t want your backside to get small like Vivi’s!”

Best joke ever, you’d think, from the way she’s shaking. She’s laughing, laughing, and Effie’s scowling like she wants to slam a stake through her mother’s heart.

“Enough, Mama, I'm on a diet.” Still, she doesn’t say “No” to the sweets, or the spoon that comes with them.

Behind her daughter’s back,
Thea
Dora wiggles her eyebrows in a passable Groucho Marx imitation. Only one thing can save Vivi from laughing: eating.

Her aunt sits between them. The chair sighs as she lets the wood take her weight.

“
Po-po
,” she groans. “I hope Pavlos does not keep us waiting. I cannot stand for Eleni to be all alone in a cage with all those lesbians.”

Vivi says, “She's not in prison, it’s just the local jail. Worst case, she's in there with some drunk who's sleeping off a pint of ouzo. And I don't think any self-respecting lesbian on this planet would want to feel up Mom in her polyester stretchy pants. Her disposition alone is a turn-off.”

“I know you are right, but poor Eleni. That Sofia has been nothing but trouble for this family. It is a good thing she is dead.” She says it matter-of-factly.

Effie scoffs. “Mama, don't defend what has happened here. A woman is dead and
Thea
Eleni killed her.”

“Effie, this is my house. Have some respect. Eleni would not kill anybody, not even that woman. Why would she need to? She won her prize already. Sofia was eaten up inside with jealousy and hate. It ate away at her brain for all these years, until finally her wits were completely gone.”

“Prize?”

Aunt and cousin exchange glances. There’s a story here, Vivi knows, and it’s juicy.

“Tell her, Mama.” Effie looks downright happy, a definite sign this story is juicy-bad, not juicy-good.

Her aunt groans. A few minutes melt away while she gets her crotchet ready. The silver hook is making pretty flowers.

“I will live to regret this when Eleni finds out I am the one who tells you. But some things are not content to remain in the past where they belong. Even when the police find that my sister is innocent of this crime, other people may not believe it to be true. You will be of more help to her – and yourself – if you know the truth.”

“I need to know,” Vivi says. True. She also wants to know.

“Yes.”
Thea
Dora looks sideways at her niece. “I think it is time. Many years ago, long before your parents left Greece and you and Christos were born, your mother was one of the prettiest girls in town. So many boys she had begging for her attention, that our mother would throw old bread and scraps not fit for the animals at them when they came calling. Eleni, she was not so interested in any of them, although she thought them amusing. Mostly because she could make them do anything she wanted. Then one day she met your father. He was very handsome, but quiet and much more shy than Eleni.”

“He still is,” Vivi says.

“He is a good man, your father. Effie's father was a pig, but he could show a woman a good – ”

“Mama!”

Now here’s a first: Vivi agreeing with Effie. Some things don’t need to be said or heard. Where’s the brain bleach when you need it?

“When they met, Eleni fell in love with him like that!” Finger snap. “He was all she would talk about, all the time. Our father made her sit outside to eat so he would not hear ‘Elias this, Elias that’ all through the meal. But your father was already promised to another woman – a woman his family had chosen for him.”

Aaaand there’s the juice. Bitter, bitter juice.

“Sofia,” Vivi murmurs.

“Yes, Sofia. She was very quiet like your father, but sneaky, like the fox. And Eleni, she was not discreet. Always she says what she thinks and feels, so it did not take long for talk to reach Sofia. She was furious when she discovered Eleni was in love with her fiancé. Before long, she was following Eleni all over town, checking to make sure she was not with Elias. Of course, as soon as Eleni realized what Sofia was doing, she would walk for miles out of her way, with Sofia sniffing her footsteps like a hound. At the time, we had many laughs about it. We would take turns constructing new routes and creating fake rendezvous, all to make Sofia crazy.

“Somewhere along the way, Elias decided he had enough of Sofia's accusations and suspicions, so he convinced his parents that if he married Sofia, their children might be crazy, too. By this time they heard all the rumors and decided that their son was right, Sofia was not an appropriate bride for their only child. They wanted good strong grandchildren who would carry on the family name.

“Once the engagement was broken, Sofia became even more crazy. In the middle of the night she would throw rocks on our roof. When Elias and Eleni began courting, Sofia would often follow the couple, screaming obscenities at them. She set our father’s motorcycle on fire. She strangled our cat. She told anyone who would listen that your mother made witchcraft with her vagina and used it on your father – can you imagine? Then one day she stopped, just like that. Eleni and Elias became engaged, and they married soon after.

“Eleni was so beautiful on her wedding day. You have seen the photos?”

Vivi nods. “She was beautiful. They looked happy.”

Happier than she was on her wedding day.

“Sofia came into the church screaming that she was pregnant with Elias's child. Eleni snapped. She marched through the church, a warrior of Artemis in her long white dress, and grabbed Sofia's ear. Almost pulled it off her head! By the ear, she dragged that woman from the church and threw her out like a bag of garbage. Can you imagine, your tiny mother doing such a thing?”

“Was Sofia really pregnant?”

Her aunt shrugs. “Then? Who knows? Not long after, there were rumors Sofia was sneaking around in the woods with different men, many with poor reputations, some married with their own families. She left town for a while and came back with a daughter, but was it your father's? Nobody knows. Maybe not even Sofia knew.

“Not long after, your parents left for America. Sofia kept her distance from the family until Eleni came back. And now she is dead. It is for the best – a blessing.”

Holy shit. Vivi’s hands shake when she picks up the coffee cup. She’s full and fat from so much information.

Before she had no answers and one question; now she has answers but also a hundred questions.

And another (painful) thing: she and Max are her parents, all over again. Maybe he wasn’t happy with Anastasia but he was content, until Vivi shook him up like a Pepsi Cola. He could have had a happy life with another woman, one who was young enough to give him a dozen chubby-cheeked babies. One who wasn’t toting Vivi’s emotional baggage all over town.

A hundred questions. She starts with one.

“What happened to Sofia’s daughter?”

Effie pounces. “What, you think she would want to see you now, after your mother killed hers?”

“No good can come of it, Vivi. It is best you leave it – and her – alone,”
Thea
Dora says, without looking up from her crochet.

“If you wanted me to leave it alone you wouldn't have told me.” Vivi looks at her aunt, sees the truth of that comment smeared all over her face.
Thea
Dora is itching for her to go out there, settle the town gossip once and for all. Is Sofia’s daughter her half-sister? Vivi’s blood can answer that question.

Goodbye, last untainted sip of coffee. Hello, sludge.

Thea
Dora sets aside her hook, her yarn, her cotton flowers. “My love, let me read your cup.”

Why not? She slides the cup on its saucer.

“I can see it now,” Effie says. “Suffering, disaster.”

Thea
Dora tilts the cup this way, that way.

“I see a gate. Much success will come your way. That is good, yes?”

“I'll take it,” Vivi says, not buying a word of it. On the other hand, a tiny piece of her wants to believe – but only when the cup is showing nice things.

“Trees, also. This means good things are coming. But there is an eye, the sign of a duplicitous person. Someone is jealous of you and they will betray you. Maybe they already have. I cannot say for sure. It is on the cusp of future and present.”

“Cheerful.” Vivi peers in the cup. Nothing but brown blobs. You could say it’s all Greek coffee to her.

Effie pushes her cup forward. “Now do mine, Mama.”

Dora picks up her crochet. “We already know your future, Effie. You will get fatter, your children will grow up to have many sons, and your worthless husband will continue to sleep with that donkey from the supermarket. What do you want to know?”

Effie glances at Vivi, but Vivi’s doing the right thing, looking far, far away.

“Stop spreading lies, Mama.”

“Bah. Just last night after Eleni left, I went to get water, and what do I see? I see him driving to her house. He was not home at midnight, was he?”

“We were at the festival,” Effie says.

“Oh?”

“Mama, stop! Not in front of her!”

Her. Like she’s dog shit on a shoe. Still, she cuts Effie a lot of slack this time. Vivi’s not the only one with parental woes; lack of empathy runs through the family veins.

She holds out a shaky olive branch. “If you ever need to talk, Effie . . .”

“I don’t need your pity!”

Smack. Goodbye branch.

“I only meant – ”

“Once again it's all about you,” Effie says. “You should never have come here.”

“Enough!”
Thea
Dora slams her fist on the table, makes a small earthquake.

Vivi says, “Hey, my husband was a cheating bastard, too. I thought we – ”

“Don't compare your troubles to mine! Mama, you need to still your tongue.”

“Effie,” Vivi’s aunt says, “we are all family here. Everybody in town knows. It is no secret.”

Vivi (in a rare Eleni moment) says, “I didn't know. So not everybody. Technically, now everybody does . . .”

Yeah, the death toll in town is high enough today.

Anyway, the conversation is destined to get cut short. Somewhere down the street there’s a commotion. Melissa shoots into the yard, panting.

“Mom, it’s the police. They’re coming.”

Thea
Dora drops the crochet needle, heaves herself out of the chair. It sags with relief.

“Good,” she says. “They have let Eleni go free, of course!”

That doesn’t sound right. The police don’t drive you home the morning after – or the day of. It’s the drive of shame, for you. Get a ride from a cab, from a lawyer. Walk if you have to. Just get out of here.

And don’t leave town until we say it’s cool.

Vivi, Effie,
Thea
Dora, and Melissa all rush out into the choking street. It’s all very Three Stooges, the way the car bumps and bounces. Every few feet (meters, if you’re living the base 10 life) there’s a new thing to dodge. Bicycles, kids, chickens – none of them step aside with gusto. The whole neighborhood is there to watch this hot, new show.

“Maybe they want to arrest you, too,” Effie says. “You and your mother could be cellmates.”

“Or maybe they just found out you beat your children.”

Bicker, bicker.

The police car is getting a workout, today. It’s the same one that came for Eleni. Two uniforms. Younger and in much better shape (read: not donut-shaped) than the cops who arrested Eleni.

“Paraskevi Tyler?”

Effie points.

Thanks for nothing, Vivi thinks. She raises her hand the grade school way. “I'm Vivi Tyler. Is my mother okay?”

“Paraskevi Tyler, you’re under arrest for your role in the murder of Sofia Lambeti.”

Where’s the part where they ask questions before jumping to conclusions?

Where are her Miranda rights?

(Same place as Ernesto Arturo Miranda’s bones: back in the USA.)

“Mom?” Melissa’s shaking and white. Vivi hugs her as hard she can.

“Stay with
Thea
Dora, okay? If I'm not back by this evening, make sure she takes you to feed Biff. I love you, Honey.”

No melodrama for Vivi. She offers up her wrists and goes without a fight.

“This is a mistake.”

Snap, click
.

“That’s what they all say,” the cop tells her.

Not only is she an alleged criminal but she’s common, too.

“Make sure Biff goes potty before you lock him back up again,” Vivi calls out.