Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me (16 page)

It's about three thirty in the morning. I'm lying on an air mattress in Yiota's old room next to her bed, and I'm so tired I can't sleep. Too many thoughts are whizzing through my brain. The insane amount of noise and food and laughter and yelling and just . . .
people.
People who, I realized as I was introduced to each one, actually do
look
like me. Some a lot, some just a little, but still, people I'm related to.

In some ways I feel like I've betrayed my dad by coming here, even though it was his idea. And also like I've betrayed myself, because I always said I didn't care about my Greek family, and now I've met them and I don't know
what
to think. I'm mostly just overwhelmed and excited and scared.

And a little deaf, maybe.

Everything was just raised to the highest
level
all day—meeting every person in the room, trying to gauge what they thought about the reunion, constantly being handed a new plate piled with food, a tiny glass of raki, a piece of cake . . . so many names and faces and mixing them all up and the endless laughing and crying and arguing and everything that makes a large group of people a family, I guess. I just never had anything to compare it to before.

Yiota took great pride in leading me around by the hand; I was adrift in a sea of strangers and a million feelings. My grandmother—my
yia-yia
—seemed to be hit the hardest by the whole thing. Of course, some of the people there (my cousins, mostly) were children or not born yet when my mother ran off with my dad, so they were just there because they're part of the family. But my uncles, my grandmother . . . I still feel like I need more information.

I wanted to sit with her especially, talk to her, try to understand how this round little woman with long silvery hair in a braid, who laughed and teased everyone around her (in Greek, of course, but I could tell), who insisted I eat and eat and eat some more in her broken English, who kept reaching over to touch my hand, my shoulder, my face, as though she couldn't believe I was really there . . . how this same woman could have sent all her daughter's letters back and never tried to find her.

When the party finally broke up, I followed Yiota up to her room, exhausted and ready to collapse.

“So? What did you think? Can you believe
Yia-Yia
, isn't she beautiful? Did you talk to
Thios
Theseus? He is my favorite—so silly and crazy. And aren't the little ones so cute? And Melina, you will get to spend time with her, she is so sweet and fun . . . And you must not worry about my father, okay? He is very kind, but still, I don't know—confused?—about all these things . . . Oh, Zona, I'm so happy you are here, finally here with all of us!” Yiota gushed the second the door closed behind us.

I sat on her desk chair. “It's . . . kind of overwhelming.” Her face fell, and I rushed to clarify. “Not bad—it's amazing. It's just so
much.
All at once, you know? I'm kind of taking it all in. And I'm really, really glad you're here with me. I'd be lost without you.”

Yiota smiled, her dark eyes sparkling. “Oh, I'm so glad! I knew it would all be okay.”

I smiled back, fighting to keep my eyes from fluttering shut.

“Oh! You must be so tired—we'll go to sleep. I just have to call Nik and I'll be right back.” She went to the door, cell phone in hand, already scrolling to her boyfriend's number. “Should you call Alex?” she asked coyly.

I yawned. “No, no. He's not . . . I mean, that would be weird. I'll text him in a few days, maybe.”

“Okay, okay. Just asking,” she said, closing the door behind her.

•  •  •

And now here I am, wide awake in the dark, Yiota snoring softly beside me.
Well, so what if I'm tired tomorrow,
I think, flipping over my pillow for the hundredth time.
I'm on vacation.

Before the holiday even arrives, there are weeks of fasting during Lent, which is what my family is in the middle of now. It's a very complicated system where certain foods get eliminated on specific days until you're basically eating a vegan diet, with the exception of shellfish, which for some reason is always allowed. Despite the restrictions, there seems to be a never-ending parade of things to eat—fresh everything, some of which comes from
Yia-Yia
's backyard and most of which comes from the market in town where they shop every day.

Compared to Athens, Cretan cuisine is heaven. I don't even care that I can't taste the amazing-looking cheeses and other off-limits items until Easter—I'm so filled with fresh vegetables and fruit and delicious warm bread that I can hardly move.

I spend the first whole day exploring the house and surrounding gardens with the littlest cousins, who speak tentative English in their tiny voices and want me to meet all their toys and see their favorite hiding places. Yiota explains that some of them are actually her nieces and nephews, whose parents are in Athens and can't come up until the holiday. There are a few boy cousins who look like they're probably in middle school and refuse to do anything but play video games all day, ignoring the rest of us. And then there are the moments I spend sitting with
Yia-Yia
, who will come looking for me and press my hand into hers and smile and try to make me eat more.

Although I'm staying in Yiota's family's section of the Marousopoulou complex, it's my
thios
Theseus—the third brother—who I gravitate toward, just as Yiota predicted. He's like a Greek Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder variety, not Johnny Depp, complete with fluffy reddish hair), always trying to sound mysterious. Also, he wears a
lot
of purple. Apparently he used to be a chemical engineer
and
a nightclub singer (which I can actually sort of picture), and he lived in the United States for over ten years, which is why his English is so good. He's obsessed with Elvis, old cars, and being right.

I liked him immediately when I met him at that first overwhelming family gathering, even though we only spoke for a second. Plus, I like saying “
Thios
Theseus.” The writer in me can't help but love a nice dose of alliteration.

His wife—actually, his second wife, Ioanna—is a lot younger than he is, and she doesn't speak much English at all, but seems very nice. Their only daughter, Melina, is fourteen and a freshman at the local high school. I'm relieved that there's another person about my age to hang out with. I love Yiota, of course, but I know she has friends here that she hardly ever gets to see, and I totally get that. Melina seems quiet at first and then suddenly transforms into her dad—loud and a bit nuts—and then back again, like a hermit crab going in and out of its shell. She is obsessed with America, motorbikes, and boys.

We're going to get along famously.

•  •  •

On the third morning, after breakfast (everyone eats meals together in the huge main house),
Thios
Theseus says he wants to give me a tour of Heraklion and the surrounding area.

“We have everything here, you know,” he tells me proudly. “Hip-hop, rap, kids with Mohawks. Just like New York, right?”

This may be the most astute description of New York I've ever heard.

We get in the car, me in the front so I can see and Melina in the back.

Remember what I said about insane Greek drivers? Not only does
Thios
Theseus
love
to go fast, he also loves to stop every other driver on the road to yell at them. For a while I think he just knows everybody driving by, but the angry looks from the other drivers reveal that he's actually telling them off. Oh, how I wish I knew what he was saying.

As we drive, he explains everything—and I mean
everything.
Every bend in the road, why it was planned that way, every house, who owns it, every tree, how it grows, and everything each of those things reminds him of. It's dizzying and fascinating. All this, by the way, as we whiz up and down hills that have sheer drops you can't even see to the bottom of . . . and no guardrails.

Some of the roadsides have white crosses stuck in the ground—not one or two, but dozens. When I ask about them, Theseus sneers, “These are marks of terrible drivers who pay no attention. Ignore those. Ignore!”

In between wishing I were wearing a just-in-case helmet and marveling at the fact that figs start out as plump green globes before they get dried and packaged by Sun-Maid, I sneak a peek back at Melina. “
Éla,
don't look at her, Zona! Her you can see later. Now, look at these trees. These are our olives—did Ioanna give you a bar of our soap? That is made after the oil is finished. You won't find soap like that in New York, let me tell you. So these trees, they were hand-planted, row after row—yes, do you believe it? Because they had to be brought from—
Éla!
”

He screeches to a halt next to a field where three men are working. I give Melina a questioning look and she shrugs, clueless but resigned to her dad's ways. Theseus is getting his cell phone out.

“Look, girls, you see this? This is a disgrace. They are stealing this man's artichokes! You know how you plant artichokes, yes? So you put each plant in the hole, but you can cut it in half, each one, yes? And then resell the plant because it will regenerate. These men are stealing half artichoke plants!”

“Baba, you don't know that—maybe they work for the owner,” Melina says quickly, clearly wanting to stop him from getting too crazy. See? Dads and daughters: the same everywhere. “Maybe one of them
is
the owner!”

“Melina,
agapi mou,
no. Trust me—they are stealing. I know the owner, and he would not have people here now, not this time of year! But I'm going to take a picture”—he clicks away at the red pickup truck next to the field—“and when he says something I will say, ‘Here is the truck of the men who stole from you!'”

“Why don't you tell him now?” I ask.

“Well, it isn't my business
now,
” he says, like that should've been obvious. Melina's scrunched down in the backseat, hiding. This is hilarious; I wish I were recording the whole thing. “But when he harvests and comes to the village complaining,” Theseus continues, “I will say to him, ‘
Éla!
Mystery solved!'”

And we're off again, skidding around the cliff, Melina shaking her head all the way.

“Now, Zona, you have a driver's license, yes?”

“No, actually.”

“How can this be? How old are you? Melina can't wait to get her license, she made me promise to take her out in my Fiat . . . my car—I wouldn't let Ioanna drive it, but for my little Melina . . . ah, who could say no to her, am I right?” He gazes warmly into the rearview mirror. “I rebuilt that car piece by piece, Zona. It took years, you wouldn't believe. The mechanics, they are morons, seriously. This car is almost forty years old, still perfect. I know what is wrong with it, I tell them every time, but they don't have the right parts to fix it. It's maddening. What were we talking about?”

I stifle a laugh. “Drivers' licenses. I'm sixteen, but kids don't really bother in the city—in Manhattan, I mean—because we take the train everywhere. My dad has a car, like if he needs to travel for work, but I just never bothered to learn. Why, you want to teach me?”

“Ha!” Theseus slams on the brakes. “You think you could handle it, baaaaay-beh?” He says that last part in an Elvis voice, which, I have to admit, is totally dead-on. “I don't know if you could keep up—maybe I'll consider it.”

“She was just kidding with you, Baba,” Melina chimes in.

“Look, girls, look! Zona, you look especially—see that bus, the one that just passes? I will tell you now how to get to town on your own.”