I wanted him to know that I had many other options. If he wanted a chance with me, he was going to have to give the best that he could.
I put the phone down and then walked to the kitchen. I was about to get a glass of wine, but then shook my head. I should just go to bed. The evening had been amazing and I wanted to think of Lucas’s chestnut brown eyes. I had a lot of work to do the next day. I headed toward the shower and turned it on. As I took off my clothes, I started singing to Cindi Lauper’s song “Girls just want to have fun”. I was happy. I was excited. The first date had gone well. I couldn’t wait to see how the rest of my dates went. And maybe by the end of it all, I’d have myself a boyfriend; maybe even for Christmas. I could actually tell my family I was seeing someone and he was perfect. All I needed was one good guy to turn my whole life around.
Chapter 5
“I just want you to be happy, Gemma. You know that is all Papu and I want for you,” my Yaya said in her sweet voice a couple of days after my first date. “You know, back in the old country...”
“Yes, Grandma. I know, back in the old country I would have been married at sixteen and had my first kid at eighteen. And my second kid at nineteen and I’d have grandkids already. And...”
“You would not have grandkids yet, Gemma. Don’t be, what is the word that you use...”
“Funny?” I asked, hopefully.
“Not funny. You’re not funny, Gemma.”
“Sweet?”
“You are sweet sometimes, Gemma. But now you are not sweet. Now you’re facetious.”
“Wow Grandma, where did you learn the word facetious?” I asked, surprised. She didn’t have the strongest grasp of English and certainly didn’t have a vocabulary that would rival that of someone who scored top in the SATs.
“Gemma, I just want you to get married, find a nice man. He can take care of you. You can have a big family. We all happy then. He comes to Christmas to celebrate with your family. We all celebrate birthdays. We take him back to Greece, heh? Show all the family. It’d be very nice, especially if he’s a Greek boy.”
“Grandma, it’s very unlikely that I’m going to marry a Greek boy. I don’t even know many Greek boys.”
“Well, if you let me introduce you to my friends.”
“Grandma.”
“What? My friends have good grandsons. I tell you, heh? Very good grandsons. You did not want to meet Theo or his brother Aristotle. I can see if they are still single.”
“Grandma, it’s actually okay, because I’m dating right now and I’ve got some really good options. I think you guys will be really excited to meet my boyfriend.”
“So you have a boyfriend already? You did not tell me this. Tell me everything, Gemma. What is his name? How old is he? What does he do? Does he have any Greek in him? Even if not a hundred percent Greek, a little? Fifty percent Greek, twenty-five percent Greek?”
“Grandma.”
“Okay. Okay. I know this is America. In America, you marry anyone you want. I’m okay with that, heh? If he Greek, even better, but I’m okay. Can be anyone. And maybe he like the Greek food, heh? Maybe we make him a Greek.”
“Yes, Grandma, who wouldn’t love Greek food? Especially yours?”
“Exactly. You know, I make the best food, heh?”
“You do make the best food.”
“And that’s why I have to teach you. You have to come over more often. I teach you to make the spanakopita and baklava. Way to man’s heart is through the stomach.”
“Grandma, I know how to make spanakopita.”
“No, you don’t know how to make it, Gemma. I see you buy it frozen from Trader Joe’s, heh? You say you make it, but it was from Trader Joe’s. I see the box in your trash can that day.”
Oops, she’d caught me. “Okay, Grandma. That day I didn’t make it, because I didn’t have time, because I have a busy job, but...”
“Your job is not so busy, Gemma. You work in a museum, you act like you doctor. You no doctor, you work in museum, heh? People go museum, they see some art.”
“I don’t work in an art museum, you know that Grandma.” I try to hold in a sigh. As much as I love my grandma, she really didn’t respect my career. She