Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me (19 page)

When we get home, it's past midnight. I know my friends in NYC will be eating dinner, but I send a text saying I miss them anyway. I take a picture of myself blowing a kiss and consider sending it to Alex. Not exactly sexting, but it seems bold anyway. Though he did send
me
a picture of an ice cream cone, so . . .

I'm still mulling it over when I get a reply from Matt (who is apparently
not
at dinner) asking me to get on Skype. Since Yiota is with her friend tonight, I have the room to myself.

I log on, and Matty's image flashes onto my screen. He's dressed in a black shirt with mesh sleeves, his hair is spiked, and he's wearing a ton of makeup—liquid liner and glitter on his eyes and some kind of face paint on his cheekbones, like blush, but yellow.

“Whoa,” I say. “Is this your new day look?”

He laughs. “I'm going with Scott and his friends to a dance club later,” he explains, keeping his voice low. “Just trying out a few things. So, how's your family stuff going? Your e-mail was kind of . . . I dunno, vague. Your uncle Theseus sounds pretty crazy, though.”

I laugh. “Yeah, he is, I guess—but in a good way.”

“So? Are you okay or what? Seriously asking here.”

“Um,” I reply, hesitantly. “It's . . . interesting.”

“Just
interesting
?” Matt puts his eye right up to the camera lens, so it fills the whole screen. “ZOOOONAAAAAAAA. This is me, remember? Use your words, please!” He backs away again and waits for me to answer.

I take a breath, and then the words come out in a tumble. “Well, it's . . . My cousins are wonderful. And I wrote you about my
thia
Angela, what she said at the beach, so that was an amazing surprise. Then my grandmother is, like, this tiny storybook granny who everyone adores—including me—and I can't reconcile her at all with the evil witch I've imagined her to be for the last decade. But two of my other uncles haven't been very friendly to me at all, which is uncomfortable, and the other uncle isn't here for me to meet; I guess he's sick or something, I don't know. And no one really talks about my mom at all except to say I look like her, and whenever I mention my dad, they ignore me or talk about something else, which makes me absolutely irate, you know?”

“Totally. So, do you want to leave?” Matty asks.

“Well, no. But I used to have such an unwavering stance about my Greek relatives, and now it's kind of . . . blurry.” Saying what I've been thinking out loud isn't making it any clearer, so I opt to change the subject instead. “Enough about that—tell me about this club!”

“Oh my God, Zona, it's
insaaaaane.
The last time we were there, there were these go-go dancers—guys, obviously—wearing only manties, and this one guy—”

“Sorry, what? Did you just say
manties
?”

“You know, like man panties? Panties for—”

“Okay, I get it, thanks. How do you get into a place like that?” I ask, deciding to never discuss manties again if at all possible.

“Fake ID. Scott got me one.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Besides, these are gay clubs. They don't care as long as you're cute or with people they know.”

“Well, I told you my one and only clubbing story, so . . . yeah. But I'll take your word for it.”

Matt laughs again. “Oh, right. Well, I never drink anything unless I see it made right in front of me—I don't care who's buying. So anyway, we're at this kiki . . .”

I'm glad Matt is having fun and making new friends—of course I am. I know how hard it's been for him not to have other gay guys to talk to. But he never cared about any of this stuff before. Now he seems to be
Mister
Nightlife. He's honestly the smartest guy I know; I can't imagine he'd do anything stupid, like flunk out of school or start doing drugs, but I wonder what other things Scott and his friends might be doing, or getting Matty to try. Maybe Hilary isn't so far off the mark. I think it's time for Matt to come back down to earth, at least a little bit.

By the time we hang up, I've learned a lot about the NYC club scene and been instructed to erase the kissing selfie. I do—Matty's right; it might be a bit much to send to a guy who's . . . well, a guy who I don't know
what
he is.

I wish I could reach my dad and talk over the family stuff with him—trying to explain my feelings to Matty made me realize it would be easier to sort through them with Dad's help.

I'll try again tomorrow,
I think as I climb under the covers and drift off to sleep.

“
We
aren't going anywhere. You are,” Melina says with a sly grin. Yiota laughs, then turns the laugh into an unconvincing cough.

We're sitting outside in the sun eating breakfast a few days later, and I've just been informed that I'm taking a trip to the country. By myself.

“
Nay, nay,
you going!” the little cousins squeal, delighted.

“Yeah, I'm gonna need more info, thanks.”

“
Pro-Yia-Yia
wants to meet you. She lives in a teeny town near Spilli—you'll go stay with her for a few days and let her get to know you. You can see what a traditional Cretan village is like, where your family comes from,” Melina explains.

“Uh . . .
Pro-Yia-Yia
? What is that?”

“Not what—
who.
Our great-grandmother.
Yia-Yia
's mother. She's, em . . . the mother-in-law,
Pappous
's mother-in-law. She runs the whole family, basically.”

“Why doesn't she live here, then?”

“No, no—her, em . . . She has her own many people there, her own children, their children—like
Yia-Yia
and all of us. But
Pro-Yia-Yia
is the oldest of the whole family, so she is in charge. She tells everybody what to do.”

“I see. From her fortress in a minuscule hamlet in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like a dream.”

Melina looks at me quizzically. She still doesn't always get sarcasm. Or maybe she doesn't know what a hamlet is? Ah, well.

“Yiota, you did
not
tell me about this,” I say, turning to her. She widens her eyes, the picture of innocence.

“No? I'm sure I must have mentioned it,” she swears. She's bluffing. She and Melina sneak a look at each other and I can tell they're trying not to laugh again. Clearly there is more to this than meets the eye, and everyone is in on the joke but me. Time to put the old rusty journalism skills to good use.

“How old is
Pro-Yia-Yia
?”

“Oh, I have no idea. Maybe . . . ninety-five years? More?” Melina says.

“And she lives all alone?!”

“Her children and the neighbors visit her and make sure she has what she needs, and she is in excellent, em . . . healthy?” Melina nods to herself. “Health. She walks in town and cooks and gardens. She's . . . you would say, she's a ‘character.'”

“Uh-huh. And does she speak English?”

Yiota laughs. “No, of course not!”

“And how am I supposed to communicate with her? Can't you come, too?! This is nuts.”

Yiota looks stern. “We have to stay here and help with the olive oil and Easter preparations. Besides, I already have gone for my turn.”

“Me, too,” Melina adds. “Two years ago.”

“I'm sorry, your
turn
? What—”

“
Pro-Yia-Yia
likes to spend time alone with each member in the family,
nay
? See that they are, em . . . how to say . . . carrying a legacy? So these ones”—she makes a face at the little kids—“are still too small. But you
have
to go.
Pro-Yia-Yia
wants to meet you—she said on the phone yesterday to Baba, and what she wants . . .” She raises her eyebrows.

Okay, I get it. This old lady has the family wrapped around her little finger.

“Zona, do not look this worried! You'll figure it out.” Yiota grins at me, a gleam in her eye. I don't like the sound of this at all.

As I lug my overnight bag down the barely paved road—it has a row of stones at the edge but no sidewalk—I gaze dejectedly at the four identical square buildings in front of me. Each one has a faded, barely legible sign written in Greek letters. There are no people on the road, I don't smell any bread, and I realize there's basically no way to figure out which is the bakery without going into each building and trying not to look like a complete moron in the process.

The last thing Yiota said to me before I left early this morning was, “Have fun! By the way, you have been working on your Greek, yes?”

This. Is. A. Disaster.

In the first store—which is definitely
not
a bakery—I find a toothless old man who stares at me in total silence until I finally just back out apologetically. The second store is locked.

I head into the third little store, which is less like a bakery than a small grocery store. There are, however, racks of bread, which is a hopeful sign. It is totally empty.

“Uh,
kalimera
?” I call out. A door swings open from what could be a kitchen and a cheerful-looking woman in a red shirt appears, wiping her floury hands on a towel.

“Kalimera,”
she says. Then she starts off in a string of Greek that I can't understand.

“Sorry, sorry—I don't speak Greek,” I say for the millionth time since January. She just stares at me now. Oh, no. “Um, I'm trying to visit my, um . . . Athénè Pelonis? My
thios
Theseus said someone at the bakery could call . . .” I mime a telephone.

Nothing.

I hold out my little notepad with the phone number written on it.

The woman takes a look, then grins broadly. “Ah,
Pro-Yia-Yia
!” she exclaims.
“Greekgreekgreek
Athénè
greekgreekgreek!”

I smile at her, hoping this will end soon and I'll have the slightest clue where to go. She finally realizes I don't have any idea what she's saying and goes back behind the swinging door, calling out to someone.

A guy in his twenties comes out, also very floury and with one giant furry eyebrow across his forehead. He smiles at me hesitantly. “You are Zona?” he says in a soft, heavily accented voice.

“Yes!” Does this guy speak English? And know who I am?!

“Em . . . I your cousin Markos. I . . . all your cousin.
Pro-Yia-Yia
.” He points to the woman in red and to the door.

Well, that's
some
English, anyway. I'll take it. “Cousins!” I exclaim. “Great. And . . .
where
is
Pro-Yia-Yia
? Her . . . house?”

Markos and the woman exchange some words, and then she says something to me that I don't understand. Markos says, “I take you . . . van, house. Yes?”

Sounds good to me.

We go through the kitchen—
definitely
a bakery!—and exit through a back door. After Markos manages to start what may be the first bread delivery van ever invented, we drive around a short bend behind the main street and up a hill that is lined by crumbling stone walls. It occurs to me that this might not be my cousin at all, but just a random man who likes to hide the bodies of American teens in construction sites. But since I don't have any other options besides staying put and jumping out, I hope for the best.

He stops outside a very crumbly wall and we get out. He takes my bag with a smile, and I follow him down some equally crumbly stone steps. At the bottom is a big stone platform surrounded by walls and filled with trees and plants (in terra-cotta pots of all sizes) and flowers. It's rustic and beautiful.

Bent over one of these plants is a teensy, stooped, unbelievably ancient woman dressed in all black. She has a kerchief tied over her thin white hair and the sharpest, shiniest black eyes I've ever seen. She's got to be at least a hundred. Maybe two hundred.

Pro-Yia-Yia
.

Without even looking up from her plant, she barks, “Markos
greekgreekgreekgreekgreekgreek,
” and he scurries down the steps with my bag.

I follow, taking in the lush greenery and the cool white stones. There's an old stove built into the wall, and I can see a river from where I'm standing. Right there, just flowing past the enormous garden.

I don't actually see a house, however.

I'm unsure what to do.
Pro-Yia-Yia
's body looks so fragile, like she'd break if I tried to hug her—she can't be taller than four foot eight and weighs maybe eighty-five pounds. I'll let her make the first move.

“Kalimera,”
I say.

“Kalimera,”
she replies. From the low wall she picks up a wooden stick—just like the mean lady in the market!—and uses it to march right up to me. She looks me over in silence, frowning, tugging my hair, reaching up to move my head to the side to inspect my profile, squeezing my cheeks and chin. Finally she looks me square in the face and nods sharply, with a grunt.

I smile stupidly at her. She seems to be waiting for something. Does she have a magic ring I need to kiss? I feel like I'm in a video game and I don't know the password to get to the next level.

Luckily, Markos reappears at that moment—without my bag. “You, em . . . This way, to house?” he says, gesturing.
Pro-Yia-Yia
has gone back to tending her plant, so I follow him.

Maybe this will be a fun adventure,
I think. After all, I'd never get my own house with a princess bed back in NYC. I start thinking about how I'm going to fill the little fridge with stuff from the market: fresh veggies, some cheese . . .

Markos is still talking, so I go down the ladder and follow him back outside. He goes through a second wooden door that's sort of mid-garden and leads onto an enclosed stone terrace. There's a detachable showerhead attached to the wall at about knee-level, and a knob. It's completely out in the open.

“For . . . wash,” Markos says.

Um, for
what
now?

Next he points to an ugly brown rug hanging from the top of a little arch next to the “shower.” He pulls it aside, revealing a small stone “room”—at least it's enclosed—with another little window (square hole). There's a sink and a toilet.

Outside.

I mentioned that the door to the bathroom is a weird brown rug, right? And the shower is basically a sink?!
OUTSIDE?!