“Well, what happened. You sick, you need me to come, you need to go to hospital? Let me call your father, we come and we pick you up and we take you to the hospital. You okay?”
“Grandma, I’m fine. I’m not sick. I was a little under the weather, I just needed to sleep it off and now I’m fine, okay? Don’t I sound fine?”
“Gemma, you act very strange. Christmas Eve, you act strange, Christmas Day, you act strange. But I say, ‘She’s distracted, she sees nice guy. She’s having fun.’ But I think is more than that. This guy, he not treat you well? If he not treat well, you dump him. There’s plenty of nice guys. We go to Greece. Hey, my friend, Aristotle—”
“Grandma, I’m not going to hook up with a fisherman in Greece and I don’t want Aristotle, okay?”
“You’ll be lucky girl to be with Aristotle. You’re not—”
“Grandma,” I cut her off. “Everything is fine. In fact, I think you’ll be able to meet my boyfriend very soon, okay?”
“Oh, Gemma, you make us so happy, you make us so happy. So when? When he come over, you want us to make lunch tomorrow. He come to lunch tomorrow?”
“No, Grandma.” I laughed. “He’s not coming to lunch tomorrow, but maybe we can figure something out in the New Year.” I hated the fact that I was lying to my grandma. I mean, maybe Lucas and I would become a couple, maybe we wouldn’t, and maybe he’d be interested in meeting her and maybe he wouldn’t. It was really too early to say, but I just needed her to get off of my back because the more she’d figured something was awry, the more questions she’d ask. And I had a bad habit of telling her everything, even when it wasn’t good. And this was something I just didn’t want her to know about.
“Well, Gemma, you come to New Year’s Eve, you be with your family tomorrow?”
“Grandma, you know I love you guys, and you know I want to spend it with you guys, but I did promise the guy that I’m seeing,” in my mind I said to myself, “The two guys that I’m seeing.” “That I will be with him tomorrow evening, okay?”
“So why you don’t bring him over first and then you go to his party? That way we all get to meet him.”
“Grandma. That’s not really a good idea, actually. I don’t think you want to meet him tomorrow.”
“And why not Gemma, why not? You not have a black eye. Do you have black eyes? Did he beat you? If he beat you, you dump him. We go to the police station, we file report and he go to jail.”
“Grandma. No, of course he didn’t beat me and if he did, I wouldn’t be with him. You know me better than that. I do have self-esteem, okay? You know I would never be with someone that was physical with me.”
“Gemma, do you think you’re the only girl that’s been with a man that she loves, that gets physical? You think it’s only weak women that stay with these men? Strong women, they stay with these men as well, because they love them. They say the man going to change, they make excuses for him. He apologizes. ‘It was the alcohol. It was the drugs. It was the cigarettes. It was everything. It was the ghost.’ You not listen to him.”
“Grandma.” I let out a huge sigh. “I don’t have time for this right now. Please, I promise you, no one is hitting me, okay? Please understand, I cannot come tomorrow, but I will see if we can make plans with you in the new year, okay?”
“Okay, Gemma. You know I just want the best for you.”
“I know you just want the best for me, Grandma. And trust me, I want the best for me as well. I promise you, I am living my best life right now. Most probably too good. So do not worry about me, okay?”
“Okay, Gemma. If you say you living good life, I believe you. I want you to live a good life. That’s why we come over to the United States of America. I miss Greece every single day, but I tell myself I did it for my children. I did it for my grandchildren. I did it to give them opportunities that I would never have in Greece. In Greece, you would never have