Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me (18 page)

Before he met my mom, Dad lived on what he calls “bachelor cuisine,” and after they got married, she did all the cooking and he gained twenty pounds. After she died, he went right back to his old ways (which became my ways), so this is really the first time I've ever made (or helped to make, anyway) a big meal from scratch. No microwave. No box with instructions on the back.

We chop. We peel. We boil and mix and bake and then, after a very long time, we've made a giant meal that could feed an army, but will only actually be family dinner. And man, does it look good. I personally made three perfectly shaped
loukoumades
(fried balls of dough soaked in honey, with sesame seeds on top) all by myself after only messing up five. I Instagram a picture of them immediately and am excited when Lilena, Ashley, and Alex “like” it almost right away.

I show Melina a picture of Alex from the online class directory, and she tells me about a boy in her class she thought was going to be her boyfriend but then started acting like an idiot.

“So after he was flirting with my friend, I decided to just give him the shoe,” she explains.

“I'm sorry, the what? The shoe?”

“The shoe, yes, I gave him the shoe—this is an expression. You never heard this, to give someone the shoe?” She looks at me like I'm the crazy one.

Finally it clicks. “Oh—you gave him the
boot
!” I exclaim. Then we're both laughing, and the aunts kick us out of the kitchen for being too silly and annoying.

Since I already sent e-mails to Matt and Hilary when I got back from the market, I decide to text my GIS friends to say hi. Lilena and I have exchanged a few messages since my first night here (as she predicted, her mother had to go to a last-minute conference somewhere, so Lilena's stuck by herself in Kallithea), and she's fascinated by the stories about my new family.

I really like that Lilena is so interested in what I'm up to, but as usual I wish she'd open up about herself. Whenever I try to find out how she's doing—how she's
really
doing, which I have to imagine is lonely and bored and pretty pissed off—she changes the subject. I don't push her, though. She obviously doesn't want to talk about it, and I don't want her to feel even worse than she already does.

Hi from Crete,
I write to Alex next.
My relatives don't subscribe to the NY Times! May not survive . . .

He sends back a series of emoticons: a newspaper, a sad face, a knife, and—inexplicably—a snowman. The message makes me laugh, and Melina insists on reading over my shoulder.

“Don't write back right away,” she insists. “Make him think you're so busy. This will drive him crazy.”

Am I really going to take guy advice from my fourteen-year-old cousin?
I muse as I watch her dash back into the house for her phone.
Well, I guess it can't hurt to try it and see what happens.

I wander into the garden to call my dad, but his phone's off. I leave him a short message saying I miss him and that I'm fine. I don't want him to worry about me and get distracted from his work. Plus, I'm not sure how to describe what I'm thinking and feeling about all these new people yet—I don't want to hurt his feelings if I say I like them, or sound defensive if I say I don't.

I'm almost glad he didn't pick up.

I get a text from Yiota:
How you doing, okay? I'm at the beach with my friends—want to meet us?

The beach! Excellent idea. And I even know how to get there, after this morning's trip. I ask her which beach, and
Thia
Angela confirms that it's on the same road as the one we visited.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to get there.

I do not die on the bicycle. In fact, riding it—while definitely very dangerous—is
incredibly
fun. It feels like flying, with the sweet-salty wind whipping my hair back and the fruit-covered trees zipping by. We don't have a lot of giant scenic cliffs to cruise along in New York City.

The beach is bigger than the quiet one Angela took me to in the morning. It's packed with people and chairs and umbrellas, but I find Yiota and her friends pretty easily. I still can't get over the color of the water—it's so clear and every shade of green and blue rolled together. I snap pictures of everything, and Yiota and her friends get cold beers, which I decline (I have to ride back, after all), so they bring me the freshest, most delicious orange juice I've ever tasted.

I miss sunscreening a huge area on one of my legs, and within an hour it turns bright red and looks ridiculous. Then I see a totally naked old man walking toward us and start freaking out. Yiota's friend Danae explains to me about nude beaches here and how it's gross but no big deal. Then we realize the guy isn't actually nude but wearing a Speedo that is the exact same color as his skin, which is somehow even worse.

It's just the kind of glorious day you would imagine having in Greece. (Well, except for the creepy nude Speedo thing. Clearly.)

Glorious, that is,
until
you have to get your stupid one-gear bike back up the hill. Especially if you aren't exactly a thighs-of-steel-type bicyclist, or even a bicyclist at all. Let me tell you, you haven't lived til you've walked a bike up a giant cliff in the approaching darkness while being barked at by possibly rabid dogs who are clearly harboring a taste for young American girls.

I've never been so glad to see a house in my life as when I get back to the complex. I collapse in a sweaty heap on my bed and don't wake up until Melina comes to get me for dinner.

My
loukoumades
taste amazing, by the way. Even the wonky ones.

After dinner, we somehow manage to get the family—I still can't believe that everyone isn't even
here
yet—into various cars, and the entire group drives down to the town center. This takes a lot less time than yesterday's guided tour, and I realize the family complex isn't quite as far from downtown Heraklion as I'd thought.

Yiota is staying with one of her friends for the night, but earlier they talked about maybe coming to the mysterious Happening, too. I think about friends with older siblings back home, and I can't think of a single event other than, say, Thanksgiving dinner that they'd all willingly attend together with their parents. Which isn't to say that Americans—or New Yorkers, anyway—don't love their families, or that Greek kids don't ever want to get the hell away from theirs. Of course they do. But there's something here that's . . . different. Like, spending time with your parents is more important than the embarrassment of being seen with them.

It makes me understand a tiny bit more how hurt my mom's family must have been when she ran off with a stranger to a country so far away. It doesn't excuse their reaction, of course. But I never thought I'd even be willing to think about their side of the story.

We park the cars by the marina and walk as a group through the town center, past the fountain with the lions, past the Starbucks, and into the main square. There are about fifty people milling around, looking annoyed or confused or both. We stand in a small huddle, the adults trying to keep the little ones from running off, while
Thios
Theseus talks to a few people he knows.

“Well, guess what, baaaaaay-beh?” he says to Melina when he comes back, slinging his arm around her shoulder. Then to Ioanna and the group at large, he says something in rapid Greek. My
thios
Dimitris, the youngest brother, looks furious and starts shouting in Greek. His wife starts shouting back.

Melina leans over to me and explains, “Apparently they moved it! There were maybe three hundred people here before, but everyone is wandering like fools now.”

“I don't understand,” I say. “I thought it was, like, a community gathering. Wasn't it in the paper, or—”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Melina explains as we head back toward the parking lot, the little kids racing one another up and down the brightly lit streets. Except for Dimitris and his wife, no one seems remotely put out. “There were fliers all over town. But, you know, sometimes they change their minds about where to have, or when; it happens. Baba, he is going to call the mayor to complain.”

I laugh, thinking about what would happen if three hundred or so New Yorkers turned up for a show that was moved with no notice. Not a bunch of shrugs and people going to get ice cream, that's for sure. We stop at a gelato shop, and I notice Theseus on the phone.

“Who's he talking to?” I ask Melina.

“I told you—the mayor. Baba, he likes to make a point, you know? He's so embarrassing sometimes.”

We walk on, licking our cones.
Thios
Dimitris, who has barely spoken to me since I arrived and seems to like me about as much as Labis does, is still arguing with his wife, both of them gesticulating wildly. Soon we've left them behind us.

“Are they . . . ?” I ask Melina.

She laughs. “Oh, they are always this way. Fighting and making up. We ignore them mostly.”

“
Éla!
It's on the north side, past the marina!” Theseus crows, finally ending his call. He looks as excited as a kid who knows a secret before any of his friends. “Come on, let's hurry or we'll miss it!” He dances up the cobbled street past us until he comes even with Ioanna and the other wives.

“Excuse me, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaadies,” he croons in his Elvis voice. “But I need to hold hands with my wife, if you don't mind!” He takes Ioanna's hand, then turns back and winks at me and Melina.

I try to imagine my dad holding hands with my mother on this same street, but I can't quite get there. Actually, I can't picture him holding hands with anyone—except me, when I was little. I feel sad, suddenly, watching Theseus and Ioanna, so obviously in love after years together. I wonder if Dad ever wanted to date again and didn't because of me. Or if he's spent the last sixteen years missing my mom every day, not letting me know because I couldn't miss her that way, too.

It makes me even more furious that my Greek family won't welcome him—after all, it wouldn't bring Hélenè back, but maybe it would give him some peace. Let him feel close to her again. Something.

“Zona, you are okay?” Melina asks, poking me gently in the arm. I nod quickly.

I'm not used to having so many feelings all at once.

I send Hil a quick text:
Wish we could talk.

After a minute or so, I get back:
In class! Got yr email yesterday, but no chance to w/b. You ok?????

It's nice to feel connected to her a little. At least Hilary I can be sure of, even if I can't be sure of myself.

I write back:
Yeah, I'm on my way to a Happening. NBD.

•  •  •

While the adults are congratulating the mayor on a magnificent Happening or herding up the littlest cousins (some of whom are asleep on their feet), Melina and I sit at a café table with a few of her schoolmates.

“So, what do you think of Heraklion?” Phoebe, one of Melina's friends, asks me. “Not like New York too much?”

“Oh, I like it a lot here. But it's definitely . . . different,” I reply thoughtfully.

Melina and her friends laugh. “We aren't dying to go to mandolin shows, Zona,” Melina says. “It's more like, our parents want us to be with them, so we do it. In American TV or books every teenager mostly hates their parents. Not so much in Greece.”

“
Éla,
my parents, they are so annoying,” a boy with a pierced nose says. “They watching me all the time and making me crazy.”

“Everyone makes you crazy, Kon.
Greekgreekgreekgreekgreek,
” one of the other girls scolds him.

“I guess I just don't understand why my mother left all this behind if family is such a big deal,” I say. “I mean, I know she tried to get in touch with your family.
Our
family,” I correct myself when Melina gives me a poke. “And I know she couldn't have predicted what happened. But the way she just left, knowing how angry they'd be . . . She wasn't a child. She must've known they'd react the way they did, considering how overprotective our grandparents were. So why didn't she do something to make sure they'd stay connected?”

Melina looks thoughtful. Her friends are riveted. I guess new gossip in a small town is pretty exciting—even at a thrilling Happening. “I guess she was in love, and being . . . wild, maybe. She was not so old. I can see how it seems like you can do anything and fix it later. I'd love to meet a man who swept me away to somewhere else, so romantic.” Melina's girlfriends giggle. The boys groan. “But, Zona,” she continues, “Hélenè did connect you to us. Because of your name. Didn't you know this?”

“My name? Ugh, I hate my name. It's so weird and it doesn't even mean anything good.”

“What do you think it means?” she asks.

“Girdle or belt, right?” There's a flurry of Greek as Phoebe tries to explain what a girdle is to Kon. “What, is it supposed to be that I'm, like, belted to the family?”

Melina gives me an exasperated look. “Come on, Zona—do you think your own mother was this . . . how to say it . . . lame?
No.
In Greece, it is traditional to name grandchildren after grandparents. So, this way if you meet someone named Stefan, you can be sure his grandfather had that same name, yes? So, my grandmother's name is also Melina—from my mother's side.”

“Really? I didn't know that.”

“My grandfather is Konstantinos, like me as well,” Kon offers.

“Wow. Well, that's cool . . . but . . .”

“
But,
didn't you ask what is
Yia-Yia
's given name?” Melina asks impatiently.

Oh. I never did, come to think of it.

“It's
Zona,
of course!” she says triumphantly. “So you were always part of us, even when you didn't know it. You see?”

Oh. I am starting to see more clearly, I think.

“If you are not going to be smarter about these things, I will have to give
you
the shoe.” Melina grins.

And I grin back.