The Greeks of Beaubien Street (31 page)

“Thank you so much for arranging everything, Rog. I really appreciate it,” Albert said, scooping vegetable linguine into his mouth.

“My pleasure. I wanted to go as badly as you did,” Roger said. “I’m just glad it worked out this way. We deserve to have a good weekend together!” He reached over and squeezed Albert’s hand.

Chapter 40

Peter and Joan got the idea for a weekend at the beach when Joan came home from work the day of the lab coat incident. She knew she had crossed a line into insanity, and that possibly a weekend away from home would help regain her sense of couth. “Do you have anything pressing that might keep you home this weekend?” she asked Peter. “I’d like to go to the beach. Summer’s almost over and we haven’t gone much.”

“I didn’t have anything planned,” Peter answered. “What about Nick and Paula, though?”

“Ugh, I forgot about them. Have you heard from Nick?” Joan asked.

“No. Not since the day after the big reveal,” Peter said. “Have you talked to Paula?” He knew it was a stupid question; when didn’t she?

“About every hour. If I’m not talking to her, Liz is. I can’t leave her behind.” Joan sighed. Her goddamned brother-in-law had disturbed the peace and serenity of her ordered life. She’d fantasized about taking long, luxurious vacations with the six of them, and a retirement village where they would spend the rest of their lives together, playing cards and going to plays. Nick had ruined it. Now, if her gut was correct, he was canoodling with a woman young enough to be his daughter, and was unapologetic about it. Not to mention the Chris and Gus fiasco; who knew where the revelation of that mess would head.

“Call her. I’ll call John,” Peter said. “If Nick isn’t going to stay in touch, he’ll miss out on a few things around here.” Peter got up and went into his study where he could get the scoop on his errant brother without arousing his wife’s suspicions further. She appeared to be on the edge as it were. Life would go on as it always had, but without his big brother. Peter wondered if there would be a big difference.
What did he contribute, anyway?
Like all close couples, there was always one person who stood out, whose behavior was either reprehensible or intolerable. They’d heard stories about other social groups in which there was someone who got drunk at every gathering or stole things from the other member’s homes, or never paid their fair share. Maybe because the three men were brothers, there was never a glaring problem. Nick didn’t do much; he usually leaned against a wall with his pectorals tightened up, or when he got older, just acted the charming one while John and Peter tried to keep up with him and failed, especially John. The women didn’t fight, although there some competition between Paula and Liz. But when Joan got pregnant at the age of forty eight, and the others were barren, they rallied around her so that for nine months she didn’t have to lift a finger.

So the plans were made. Peter and Joan would pick Paula up in Brighton and the three of them would drive together. John and Liz were leaving a little later in the evening and would meet them at their favorite hangout. Peter talked to his sister Maria and arranged to pick up the key for the house. Everything would be as it always was, except his brother Nick would not be there. The only thing missing as far as Peter was concerned was hero worship.

They took the northern route to Saugatuck, through Lansing and Grand Rapids. They were always a little surprised and saddened by the contrast of those cities when compared with Detroit. They had their rundown neighborhoods, but nothing like Detroit’s. Sister Sophie lived in a brand new subdivision southwest of Grand Rapids; they had plans on stopping in to see her Sunday on their way home.

For three hours, Paula and Joan, sitting together in the back seat like chauffeured little old ladies, yammered on and on about Nick and Christina, Nick and Dawn, and Nick and Paula. Peter thought, if only they knew about Nick and Susan, Nick and Betty, and Nick and Maureen. By the time they got to Saugatuck, they were spent with Nick. Peter caught his wife’s eye in the rearview mirror and they laughed.

“Do you feel better?” he asked. They drove a little south of Saugatuck and got off at the Douglas exit, pulling onto the Blue Star Highway, and into the parking lot of Christos Roadhouse. John and Liz would meet them inside. There was a little wait for a booth, so they went over to the bar to get a beer. Joan sat the only stool available and Paula stood to her side with Peter. They continued their conversation, when Paula, who was looking for Liz and John at the door, went still.

“Oh shit,” she said. Joan and Peter turned around and there stood Jill in the doorway, looking around to see if there was an empty stool. When she saw Paula, she turned to go back out. “I can’t let her go,” Paula said, running after her niece.

“Jill!” she hollered. But Jill wasn’t stopping and short of running, she picked up her pace. “Jill, please wait.” Paula yelled. Finally, Jill thought how ridiculous it was that she was running from her aunt. She actually laughed. Turning back to her, she said “Sorry Aunt Paula, that was stupid of me.” She took a step toward her aunt and they embraced, having never done so before. Her family wasn’t big on the hugs. Paula was moved by some inexplicable emotion; here this young woman had been betrayed almost as badly as her father had, yet she was the one who was apologizing. Paula didn’t understand that sort of strength.

“I owe you a huge apology, Jill. Can you ever forgive me? I was lashing out and it was completely misplaced,” Paula explained. Jill was glad she wasn’t making excuses.

“I guess so. But I have to ask one question first,” she said. Paula shook her head
yes
.

“Why’d you want to hurt my dad? I feel like he went through enough. I get it that you never liked me because of my mother. But why Gus?” Paula was thinking and couldn’t come up with an excuse. Right. Why’d she purposely hurt Gus?

“I wasn’t thinking, if the truth be told. I had just found a box that had letters to Nick from your mother, along with DNA test results and other legal papers. I was freaked out. What did it mean? I guess I felt like making a scene. I’m sorry. It was tacky to do it at a funeral dinner, too.” She didn’t have any other excuse, so Jill could take it or leave it. She added, “My husband was correct. I had forgotten my manners.” They hadn’t noticed that Liz and John had pulled into the back parking lot and were just now walking around to the front door. They looked over at their niece and sister-in-law and nodded their approval. John held the door open and Liz went in.

“Would you come in? I think we should keep talking,” Paula said. But Jill had had it. She didn’t want to hear any more about Nick and her mother. She’d come to the beach to get away from all that Greektown drama.

“It’s nothing personal, but I don’t think I will come in. I really need some down time. I know you might not believe this, but I really don’t care who Chris’ father is. He was left to grow up all alone because someone didn’t have the courage to stand up to my grandmother, or was happy to not have to see the evidence of the affair on a daily basis. If that’s my dad, so be it. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Have a good weekend,” she said, turning from her aunt.

“Aren’t you staying at the house?” Paula asked. Jill shook her head
no
.

“With Maria. Some friends of mine are coming from the city and I want to see them too. Enjoy yourself,” she said, meaning it. Maybe another time she’d stay with them, when her questions had been answered sufficiently, and she wasn’t on a witch hunt to find out exactly who was to blame for her brother languishing in a group home when he could have been home, growing up in Greektown with her.

~ ~ ~

Paula walked back into Christo’s alone. “Are you okay?” Liz asked. “That looked intense.”

“How’d you get her to stop?” Joan asked.

“She stopped on her own. She accepted my apology graciously, and that was that. She’s staying at Maria’s. I had the feeling there was more to it than just me being a blabbermouth, but she wasn’t sharing and I didn’t push.” Paula didn’t tell them the narrative in which Jill placed the blame for Chris’ lonely life squarely on her father’s shoulders. She would have that one thing to her credit; she would be loyal from now on. And then, as though she hadn’t had enough humiliation for one evening, Liz placed her hand over Paula’s and said “don’t look now.” Joan gasped. Paula looked to the door again anyway, expecting to see her niece, and instead of Jill, there, larger than life, was her husband Nick and his woman-child. “Oh for Christ’s sake. Is Christo’s Roadhouse the only place open tonight?”

Nick, his arrogance still full force, walked right up to his wife and family and introduced Dawn to everyone. Peter had to hand it to his brother; he still knew how to pick them. She was tall and dark like Paula had been, but about half her age. She was Irish, too. Paula was mortified. She felt like she was looking at a much younger version of herself. She had to give Nick some credit; he had some balls. She bit down on her tongue as hard as she could. No one was asking them to join the group, thank God. She had enough curiosity that she almost wanted them to sit at the same table so she could observe her husband at work. Where’d he get his nerve? It suddenly hit her that maybe Nick was sick. Like mentally ill sick.

Dawn couldn’t keep all the names of Nick’s family straight. Which one was Nick’s wife? One of the women looked a lot like her mother. She didn’t want the conversation to be about his ex all night, so she didn’t question him. Already their relationship was taking some turns she wasn’t thrilled with; he didn’t like to go out at night very much now that they could be together in his apartment, and he didn’t make love to her as much as she thought they would. Before he left his wife they did it every time they got together. Now that they were together all the time, they’d only done it once. She didn’t want to complain, not yet. They were supposed to be having a romantic weekend at his family house on Lake Michigan, but now he was saying that those other people would probably be there. She didn’t relish spending the weekend with his wife.

“Will you be okay if I go back to their table alone and see if they’ll be at the house? We might do better at a hotel out of town if they are,” he said. She agreed and he walked away. She saw the woman she suspected was his wife look up at him with a smile on her face. For being recently dumped, she didn’t seem that upset. Maybe she was trying to get rid of him. Nick walked back, strolled was more like it, with a smile.

“They’ll be at the house, but assured me we would have the whole third floor for privacy,” Nick said.

“How can we stay where your wife is going to be?” Dawn asked. “Even in the worst soap operas, I never heard of such a thing.” Nick laughed.

“My family is a soap,” he explained. “We won’t have to deal with them, but you’ll find my brothers and their wives are fun. My wife, my soon to be ex, won’t bother you. If she does, we’ll leave.” The waiter came over and took their order, but Dawn didn’t have much of an appetite. These people were her parent’s contemporaries. What was she thinking when she started up with this guy old enough to be her dad? She thought of how he was in bed, how his penis was flaccid and stayed that way unless he took something. His back had more hair on it than his head did. He moaned and groaned when he got up out of bed, and she thought he was dying when they had to climb the stairs to his temporary apartment yesterday. What had she liked about him that would make her play around with him to the point that he left his wife? She felt awful. She was guilty of being disrespectful and childish. At that moment, she knew she wasn’t going to spend the weekend with him, no matter how accommodating his wife was.

“I want to go home,” Dawn said. “This was a mistake, and now I know I can’t stay here with you and those people.” Nick frowned.

“Well, I want to stay,” he said. He put his hand up to shush her when she opened her mouth to argue, which really pissed her off. “Let me think for a minute, okay?” he said. He got up again and walked over to his brother’s table. Dawn saw them look over at her, the one she suspected was the wife looking at her with some compassion which completely threw her for a loop. He came back to their table.

“Let’s go now. I can put you on a train in Holland that will take you right into Ann Arbor, okay? Get on your phone and see if one of your friends can pick you up at the station.” He stayed standing, digging through his wallet and throwing bills on the table. He got her coat off the coat hook and held it out for her to put on. Every once in while she saw him glance over at his family and they smiled at him.
It’s worth the embarrassment to get the hell out of there,
she thought.

Chapter 41

Saturday morning was cool and sunny. Jill got up early from her comfortable bed in the den of her Aunt Maria’s home. She dressed in layers with a bathing suit on first, then a pair of shorts over the suit, and a long sleeved, hooded sweatshirt with WSU Criminal Justice emblazoned across the front. She got her beach bag with towels and suntan lotion, a book she had wanted to read for ages and a bottle of water. Her aunt had beach chairs stacked in the garage and she got one and put it in her trunk. The house was in the woods at the foot of Mount Baldhead, a huge tree covered sand dune. Jill wasn’t going to walk to Oval Beach however; there was no shoulder on the two lane road leading up to the beach entrance and too dangerous for pedestrians. She pulled out of her aunt’s driveway and promptly forgot the 15 mile an hour speed limit. She could see the whirling blue light in her rearview mirror. It was the Michigan State Police.

“No way,” she muttered. She pulled over as far as she could without sliding down the sandy embankment. Looking in her rearview mirror, she saw something that made her heart skip a beat: a young, tall, handsome man, walking toward her car.
Pull yourself together
, she thought. She got her driver’s license and proof of insurance out of her wallet and had it ready by the time he reached her window. He ducked to look in and she handed it over while smiling.