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“Gibs, you lived next to one of my closest friends and you didn’t tell me?” Bridget utters these words but the girl I only know as Care has her attention fixed on me.
“Um, Bridget, I think you’re missing the point,” the beauty with the piercing green eyes states. “He saved Meadow and me. I mean, things could have gotten so bad if it weren’t for him.” She turns back to me. “I never got a chance to say a proper thank you.” She has tears in her eyes, and she’s not wrong. The man scared me. If it weren’t for my prop in my hands, I’m not sure he would have left of his own accord.
“You, Gibson Smith, pulled a gun on Charis’s ex?”
Oh, so Bridget knows the story, but she continues. “You detest firearms with your every last breath, and you pulled a gun on Jimmy?”
Well, at least I know her name, finally.
“For the record, it was mounted in the rental house. It’s some sort of replica and is as useful as a water gun.”
Charis is still staring at me. Well, both women are right now. “You’re telling me, Gibson Smith, you pulled a fake gun on Jimmy. I mean, not to make light of a very serious situation, that’s actually fairly funny.” This is Bridget, but my attention is still on the beautiful woman.
“You came out challenging my ex-husband with a replica? Hell, you’re a quick thinker. That was genius, and I can’t be more grateful. And for the record, I’m Charis, if that was lost in translation.”
She’s a little more relaxed, and her tears have been wiped away. Bridge, as normal, has lightened the very awkward situation, and Charis is almost smiling.
“I’m Gibson, and you’re welcome. But I was doing what anyone would have done.”
She looks away from me. “I don’t think so. Jimmy’s a big MFer and prone to aggression when he’s not drunk. It’s multiplied tenfold when he’s in the state he was the other night. As a matter of fact, your statement to the cops was what my lawyer used to revoke visitation of our daughter, from my ex. And I’ve never liked him having Meadow for the weekend, even if it was just two Saturdays a month. Now, I can sleep in peace.”
“Hell, I can’t imagine.” My heart goes out to her at the memory of the big tears rolling down her face. I don’t know what else to say.
“Hey, Care,” Bridget says, breaking our conversation again, “do you mind working on the lettuce and onions next? Then, you gotta get home and get ready for your date.”
Date? What the fuck?
“Oh, you’re not coming today?” I ask, my question coming out like an insecure teenager.
Bridget isn’t out of the room yet, having slung her purse over her shoulder. “She’s sure as shit coming. She’s just coming with Simon’s best mate from the hospital. He’s sort of been claiming Charis since he started.”
A blush creeps up her face. “It’s just as friends. That’s it,” she insists, darting an almost glare to my best friend.
“Ah, better run to get ice. I’ll see you later today, Care, and thanks for the help. You’re a godsend.” Bridget whirls out of the kitchen, and I’m left alone with Charis.
“So, Charis is a pretty uncommon name. It’s very beautiful. I’ve never heard it before.” Really, Gibson, I say to myself, this is all you have for the gorgeous girl in front of you?
“If you listen very carefully, you may hear a bit of my Greek heritage coming through in my accent. It normally comes out only when I’m mad. But Charis is Greek for Grace. And when we moved here I was eight, I wanted to change my name to Grace. My mama forbade it.”
“You lived in Greece as a child? No shit? I was born in Scotland, and I was just asked the other day where my accent was from. Granted, it was by someone who grew up in the UK, and Simon hears it, too. My parents are Scottish. Moved here when I was ten. But after my grandparents passed away, there was never a reason to return, but I’d like to.”
Her attention isn’t on the lettuce Bridget has set out in front of her, but on me, intently on me.
“I feel the same way. And my ex-husband used to say there’s nothing left for me there. His family moved over when my family had. It’s like he’s lost his Greek heritage. I want Meadow to have the same connection I do to my home country.”
There’s a fire in her words, and I can detect her accent, and it’s not slight in the least. “I mean, I love America. I’m a citizen and all, but I can’t forget where I came from.”
Her anger is palpable in the moment. “Hell,” she continues, “if it were up to Jimmy, he would have shortened his very prominent Greek last name. You know,” she adds, picking up the knife as if she’s about to start on the lettuce, but uses it to point to me, and in her anger, I see both a passion in the way she speaks for her native land and a beauty that comes from it. “It’s a custom in Greece when you have a baby to use the paternal grandparents’ names, then go onto the maternal grandparents, if it warrants it. And so, when we had Meadow, I just assumed there was no need for discussion. I thought we’d use his mother’s name, and my mama’s as a middle name. He wouldn’t have it. He was so against this tradition we grew up with and it caused quite the huge wedge between us. They aren’t horrible names, and we could shorten it to make our own uniqueness. Katerina Selene. I wanted to call her Kate. He found the most un-Greek names. And speaking in Greek to our baby was going to be a big no-no.”
She suddenly stops and places the knife down. “Oh, crap, Gibson. I’m so sorry. I completely verbally vomited on you.”
“No, don’t apologize, Charis. You’re passionate, and honestly, passion is something missing in the world right now. Recently, I mentioned to a new person I’d met that I had no reason to ever go back to Scotland. He asked why not, saying something along the lines of you want to go visit, that should be reason enough, and he’s not wrong. It got me to thinking, and now I’m considering visiting after the school year is over.”
“School year?” she asks.
“Yeah, I’m a teacher, a kindergarten teacher actually.”
This elicits a laugh, as it normally does. “You teach kindergarteners? Wow, I would have never guessed. That’s cool.”
