“I don’t see where that’s any of your business,” I growled. I glanced around and noticed that for the moment, there were no people hovering around this part of the chimpanzee exhibit. The last thing I wanted was an audience while my parents treated me like I was a child. At least the chimpanzees on the other side of the glass didn’t seem interested.
My dad said, “Sam, who you’re living with is certainly of concern to your mother and I.”
“Thanks for caring, Dad,” I scoffed.
“Don’t talk that way to your father,” my mom barked.
“Why not? It’s not like you guys are doing much in the way of parenting anymore.”
“I beg your pardon?” my mom said stridently.
“I went to the financial aid offices, you know,” I grumbled, “and they told me that I can’t get more student loan money as long as I’m your dependent, because of how much money you guys make. The government says it’s your responsibility to help pay the difference. Last time I checked, you refused.”
“Now, Sam,” my dad said with an edge, “we discussed this at length. If you are willing to change your major back to Accounting, like your mother and I asked, we’d be happy to pay the difference.”
“But I don’t want to change my major back,” I said. I did my very best to keep any hint of whining out of my voice. Why was it that I seemed to have regressed around my parents since they’d arrived? I didn’t like how their presence made me feel and act fourteen again. Like I was a little kid who didn’t know anything and my parents had all the answers, which I knew they didn’t.
“If you don’t want to change your major back,” Dad sighed, “then there is very little your mother and I can do.”
“Then why don’t you leave me alone?” I whined. “Why don’t you go back to Washington D.C.? I’m doing fine here by myself.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t need your help.”
My mom chuckled, “I doubt that.”
“What do you know,” I growled at her. “I have a place to live, a job, and I like studying art. And I have an awesome boyfriend who cares about me. If you’re not going to help me, stop telling me what to do.”
“Are you sure?” my mom scoffed. “With all those naked young women around him day in and day out, it’s only a matter of time before Christos’ eyes start to wander. Then where will you be? Without a place to live would be my first guess.”
And like a bullet through window glass, my remaining confidence shattered into useless fragments. How did my mom manage to do that so easily? My heart skipped a beat or ten and my throat filled with porcupine quills as I tried to swallow a dry lump of dread that wouldn’t go down.
If I’d learned one thing about Christos since his trial, it was that he didn’t tell me everything that was going in his head. Was he thinking about the long term with me? Or was I passing fancy? Maybe he was interested in Isabella, or one of the other naked women he painted seven days a week. They were all gorgeous models. I wasn’t. I was just a regular girl from D.C. trying to study art. Why would a stud like Christos be interested in plain old Sam Smith when he was surrounded by supermodels?
No, that couldn’t be right. Christos had asked me to move in with him and had voluntarily hauled all my stuff into his house. That meant he was serious, right? He was in it with me for the long term. Right?
So why were my mom’s questions making me so nervous?
I felt tears begin to well. I needed to hide them from my mom or she would use them against me and go in for the kill. Before she had a chance to attack, I turned away from her and my dad to watch the chimpanzees to distract myself.
One of the older female chimps had walked over at some point and sat beside the glass only a few feet away from me. She looked up at me with the deepest, darkest, most compassionate eyes I’d ever seen, like she was looking into me, communicating on some primal level and trying to comfort me. She puckered her lips at me in a strange gesture. Was she trying to tell me something? No, that was crazy.
A young chimp ambled over to her on all fours and fell into her lap like it was his favorite place to hang out. He wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck and she wrapped her arms around him while making kissy faces at him. She began gently grooming him. He looked like he was in heaven.
I wish that mother chimp was my mom too.
“Christos isn’t like that,” I said timidly. I wiped tears from my eyes before turning to face my mom.
A maleficent smile curled her lips. She looked like the Evil Queen from every storybook ever written.
Oh, boy. I needed some ice cream.
“All men are like that,” my mom said victoriously.
Quick as a blade, I asked, “Is Dad like that?”
A flash of anger danced across her eyes, but she didn’t respond.
There was a long, tingling silence.
“Yes, Linda,” my dad said with nervous humor, “am I like that?”
My mom’s eyes widened noticeably in surprise. She flicked a quick glance at my dad, then chuckled and drilled me with her stare, “No, your father is not like that.”
Wheels turned in my mind, “Mom, how do you know so much about men? This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned men cheating. It sounds to me like you’ve had some bad experiences? If not with Dad, then who?”
My mom was taken aback. Heck, I was taken aback. I couldn’t believe I’d asked her that.
Mom chuckled, “That’s none of your business, Sam.”
“Is it any of my business, Linda?” Dad asked innocently.
“There you guys are,” Spiridon said, walking up with an armful of water bottles.
“We got some ice cream bars, too,” Christos smiled, “in case anyone wants a snack.” He held one up to me. “Chocolate dipped vanilla with butterscotch filling. I thought you might like one.”
“Thank you, agápi mou,” I said warmly as I took the ice cream bar and peeled back the wrapper. I leaned against Christos while I ate my ice cream. He put his arm around me as he ate his and we watched the chimpanzees together. I was in heaven.
Christos was nothing like my mom wanted me to believe. The ice cream bar he’d brought me was proof because it was the yummiest ice cream bar in the history of ice cream bars.
My mom was such a bitch.
“When are you going to realize that you’ll never make any money as an artist?” my mom asked as she sipped her tea on the couch in the Manos’ living room.
Christos and Spiridon had gone out for dinner to give my parents and me time to talk alone. I’d begged them to stay, but Spiridon had insisted. I think he understood my parents wanted to talk to me in private.
“Your mother is right, Sam,” my dad consoled, like he was being nice and supportive. “It’s unlikely that you’ll ever make any money as an artist. If you ever hope to have a career, pay a mortgage and a car payment, you need to pursue a sensible career path like Accounting.”
I’d heard this argument a thousand times from my parents, and my dad had always provided facts and figures to back everything up. As a teenager, I had always believed them. Every time we’d argued, my resolve had crumbled and I’d reluctantly given in to their ideas.
I was done with that.
This was my world, not theirs.
“Look around you, Dad,” I motioned at all of Spiridon’s paintings hanging in the room. “You heard Spiridon yourself. He paid for this house with his paintings. What makes you think I can’t do it too?”
Dad said thoughtfully, “Well, for one thing,—”
“Ha!” Mom interrupted, “you think a few cartoons can compare to the paintings Spiridon has done?”
“I can paint!” I whined.
“All I’ve seen is your horrid cartoons of that degenerate wombat,” Mom cackled. “What do you know about painting?”