“No, don’t—!” I held up my hand at the last second.
She jerked the cup right at me and 32 ounces of cola with minimal ice splashed onto my shirt and rained all over my shoes and the tiled floor.
“My day is definitely brighter now,” Tiffany smiled and walked out, dropping her cup on the floor. The bitch didn’t even pay.
I needed a mop. My shirt was sopping wet.
The other customers in line gave me conciliatory looks. I was ready to burst into tears, but I dutifully rang up each person in line. At some point, I realized tears were running down my face against my will, but I rang everyone up anyway.
When there was a lull in the customers, I stepped out from behind the cash counter and prepared to go into the back to find a mop or crawl into a corner and bawl my eyes out properly.
“Samantha?”
I hadn’t even heard the door bing-bong.
“Christos? What are you doing here?”
“I decided to surprise you as soon as Isabella left for the day.” He held a small but classy pink sunflower bouquet in his hands. I’d never seen anything like it. It was perfect.
More tears. But this time, it was the good kind.
He set them on the counter in front of me. When he saw my dirty shirt, he said, “What happened, agápi mou? You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”
“Would you believe Tiffany threw her soda in my face?” I sniffed, trying not to cry again.
“What?!” he asked in total disbelief.
“Yeah, like twenty minutes ago,” I wiped my runny nose on the back of my hand. “I need a tissue.”
He grabbed a napkin from beside the hot dog stand and handed it to me over the counter.
It smelled like hot dogs. I was used to it. “Thank you, Christos.”
He leaned over the counter. “This is ridiculous, Samantha. We’re barely seeing each other anymore. I’m dying without you. Painting all these nude women every day has gone from hollow to desperately lonely. It’s so much better when you’re there to keep me company. It’s like I’m painting for us, not for my rabid customers. When you’re there, I don’t care what I’m doing. I have a blast.”
“I feel the same way,” I said.
“Do you want me to eject the painting career, and get a job with you here at the Grab-n-Dash?” he joked, all smiles. “I totally would, if it would make you happy.”
“No, I’d never ask you to work here. The people who come in here are animals.” I smiled when I pictured Eminickle and 2 Small Crew. Well, not all of my customers. Just the Tiffanies.
“You sure? I think I’d look hot in a…what color is that again? Your shirt?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s radioactive, which means, if somehow I have cancer, my shirt is curing me. If it doesn’t kill me first.”
“Agápi mou,” he snickered, “this is the wrong place for you.” He reached over the counter again and cupped my cheek. Frowning, he realized how awkward and unromantic it was with the counter between us. “Wait, hold on a second. I need to do this right.” He backed up from the counter and looked around, examining the rack of candy behind him until he found what he was looking for. He grabbed two packages and moved the bouquet he’d brought for me to the side, then vaulted over the counter like an Olympic athlete, and dropped to one knee.
He peeled open the wrapper on one of those giant candy rings. It was red.
“Cherry!” I smiled. “My favorite.”
He slid the candy ring on my finger and looked up at me earnestly.
The waterworks in my eyes started up all over again. OMG, what the hell was he going to say?
“Samantha Smith, will you…”
OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!
“…move in with me?”
“Yes!”
He stood up and I jumped into his arms.
Home at last. My mom had no idea what existed between me and Christos. How could she? My dad was nothing like Christos. Maybe that’s why their marriage was the way it was. Well, my mom wasn’t a prize in the romance department either. She preferred tax day over Valentine’s Day, I was pretty sure. I suddenly felt a pinch of compassion for my parents. Maybe neither of them had any idea what true love could be.
Christos hugged me tightly and smooched me on the lips. I felt something in his hand pressing into my back. “What’s that?” I asked.
He held up a box of candy cigarettes. “For later, after we have celebratory sex in your new home.”
“You are the biggest dork I’ve ever loved,” I smiled through tears.
“The only dork you’ve ever loved, agápi mou…”
We kissed passionately for a long time, I think until my shift was over. I didn’t care. I loved my dork and his dork.
SAMANTHA
That night after work, Christos and I had dinner at the Manos house with Spiridon. We all sat in the kitchen while Spiridon cooked. He refused to let me do anything.
Spiridon made lamb kebabs. On the side was Tzatziki, which Spiridon explained was Greek yogurt with cucumbers and garlic, dolmades, which I had learned to love, and Kolokithopita, which were fried zucchini fritters.
I shoveled up some Tzatziki off my plate with a triangle of pita bread and took a bite. So yummy.
“We’re celebrating your moving into our house, Samoula,” Spiridon said from where he stood at the stove.
I wrinkled my nose. “What’s a Samoula?” I asked.
Christos chuckled. “It’s a Greek nickname for Samantha, right Pappoús?”
Spiridon turned around and smiled at me. “Yes. Now that you’re moving in with us, Samoula, you’re going to have to learn not only to eat Greek, but to speak Greek, think Greek, and live Greek. You did warn her about us, right Christos?” Spiridon winked at his grandson.
“Are you kidding, Pappoús?” Christos laughed. “If I’d told her what she was getting herself into, she would’ve run screaming back to Washington D.C.!”
“I would not,” I chuckled. I hadn’t even moved in yet, and already I felt completely at home in the Manos’ house, like I’d live here for years.
For the first time in my life, I felt a hint of what a home could be. Home was a grounded place. A place I’d dreamt of since I was a little girl, but never known firsthand. Home was a comforting, supportive environment.
I thought about my little corner of the art studio at the back of Spiridon’s house.
Home was also a nurturing environment. A place to help me grow, to allow me to become a woman. A place where I could gently set aside the girl within me and embrace the woman I was meant to be.
Sure, I recognized that my parents had done much to raise me. They had provided, they had directed. They had controlled. They had tried to make me a robot. A drone I never wanted to be.
I wanted to jump into life and discover things.
Christos had helped me do exactly that. It was as if he swam in a sparkling, magical ocean, and was constantly asking me to dive in with him and explore a vast, unknown world of exciting, enchanting possibility.
And now I had.
I was jumping in, all the way.
As the three of us ate together and filled our bellies with nourishing food while laughter filled our hearts, I felt like I was finally in the right place.
Finally home.
Christos had awoken me from a nightmare that had haunted me for my entire life.
Now I was alive.
I was awake, and I was never going back to sleep.
I was ready to live.
With Christos by my side.
After wiping his face with a napkin, Christos asked, “Do you still have those candy cigarettes?”