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“If I saw you on the street, I wouldn’t recognize you as Suzette’s daughter, but sitting this close to you, I definitely see the resemblance.”
“That’s so nice,” Lily said, pleased. “My mother was really beautiful in her youth. I have Herbert to thank for me not attaining my mother’s full beauty.”
“I think you’re gorgeous,” Jason said, serious. “Look in the mirror.”
“I wasn’t digging for compliments, I promise you,” she said, flustered. “I’m teasing.”
The car pulled in front of the diner, and John turned around.
“I’m considered a great critic of beauty in my family,” John said, looking at her carefully while his family moaned. “My son is correct. You’re gorgeous.”
“Great, Dad, make the girl uncomfortable,” Ted said, laughing, while Poppy giggled and swatted her husband.
They teased him, and it helped take the focus off Lily, who was slightly mortified, but once she calmed down, it endeared John Karas to her. Her father would never have said anything like that to her or anyone else.
They piled out of the car and trudged through the snow to the entrance. The owner of the diner, an older, bald Greek man who spoke to the family in Greek, looked at Lily curiously until Jason introduced her.
“Lily, this is Gus Zannos, owner of Gus’s.”
“Ah, you’re the girl who won the dance contest with my cousin here,” Gus said. “You’re royalty in Greektown.”
“I didn’t know he was your cousin,” Lily said when Gus walked away.
“He’s not really. All Greeks from the old country say they are related.”
“Except Gus was born in America,” Poppy said. “That accent of his is fake.”
“Manula, be kind,” John said softly, using the Greek word for mother.
Because Lily was new to the diner, the owner made a big production out of serving them with flaming cheese appetizers and shots of ouzo all around, on the house because he didn’t have a liquor license.
They ended up staying at the diner until the sun was ready to set, because everyone who came in had to meet Lily.
“I’d better get going,” she told Jason. “I have to make peace with my parents or move out.”
“I want you to make peace with your parents, but I also want you to move out,” Jason whispered.
Lily looked into his eyes. “I can’t read you,” she said, grinning. “Are you saying you want me to move into your apartment?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It’ll give us a chance to finish our last semester together and to see if we can stand living together. And then in March on Match Day, if I have to leave Detroit, I hope you’ll come with me.” He stood up and pulled her chair out. “Let’s go and talk about the rest of our lives.”
“I want that,” she said. “I’ll move in right after Christmas. It’ll give my parents a chance to get used to us as a couple.”
Holding hands in the car, they didn’t talk on the way back to the suburbs. The sky was inky black and so clear, with a hint of red at the horizon where the sun had made its exit. Passing colorful houses decorated for Christmas increased Lily’s desire to stay with Jason, for them to make their own Christmas traditions.
“Why am I already thinking about our Christmas tree next year? I don’t even know where we’ll live. I don’t even know if we’ll be together.”
“We’ll be together,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips. “You can trust me.”
She giggled. “Oh, is that right? And why can I trust you?”
“Because I have a feeling about us, and I’m always right. The doctor knows best. I have a high school memory of standing by the staircase and catching a glimpse of you over by the window, just hanging out. It had to be in the spring before graduation. You looked at me and then quickly turned away, like I had embarrassed you.”
“You know why,” Lily said.
“I know. But my point is that I had a feeling then, too. I can’t really define it, but it was just a feeling.”
“You watched me while you climbed the staircase,” Lily said. “I could feel your eyes on me, but I didn’t really know why. Nothing ever came of it.”
