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Half an hour later, I pulled into a lucky empty spot at the West End Diner. We’d been coming here since Jace was a baby. Stepping through the door, the familiar chaos welcomed us inside.
“Ela, moro mou!” Maria, the owner, barrelled down on Jace. “So big! So strong!” She pinched his bicep and Jace grinned. “Ela, agori-mou. Come to the kitchen while Mommy has some rest.” Maria turned to me, her eyes kind as always. “Have some rest, koritzaki mou. I’ll put our boy to work.”
She walked off with him, and I heard her giving him the rundown. “I have made four desserts for today. You must try them all and tell Thia which one-”
The slamming of the kitchen door cut off the rest of her sentence, but it was the same routine every week. Maria and her family had watched Jace grow up, and they’d been dragging him into the kitchen for extra treats since he was three years old.
Maria’s daughter, Voula, who was my age, directed me to sit at the booth they reserved for staff and family while she brought me a coffee. She slid into the booth across from me and leaned her elbows on the table. “I have four minutes. Tell me about tall, dark, and handsome. Elisavet told me he came into her store to buy you dolmadakia,” she demanded in her deep, raspy voice.
I rolled my eyes, and Voula laughed. Her laugh was just as loud and obnoxious as mine. Many were the occasions we caught hell for laughing in church. It was with Voula, I got caught climbing out the window of the church during Greek school. It was with Voula, I smoked my first cigarette, and it was with Voula, that I committed my first and only act of vandalism, by covering her first boyfriend’s front yard in toilet paper when he decided to move on with another girl without breaking up with her first.
When you share that kind of history with someone, they feel entitled to the details of your life. Even apart from that, our shared Greekness was enough for her to demand answers.
“He’s my university boyfriend. He moved here and we’re catching up.”
“He’s hot, hmm? Has Jace met him yet?”
I frowned at her, unusually irritated by this line of questioning. “No, Voula, of course not. I haven’t seen him in years and I’m going to introduce him to my son?”
“Right, right, of course.” She looked around; people were lining up at the counter. “Shit! I gotta go. We’ll talk soon.”
I was rethinking the wisdom of going there when I got a notification on my cell phone. I opened the message without thinking.
Vander: Good morning, Ruby-mine.
I moved my thumb and hit the text box to reply, then thought better of it.
Vander: I know you’ve seen my message, and I’ve seen your dots. Don’t overthink it.
Ruby: I’m not!
Vander: Good. How’s your morning been?
Ruby: Fine.
Vander: What are you doing?
Ruby: I’m out for breakfast with Jace.
Vander: He’s there with you right now?
Ruby: Well, he’s in the kitchen with the owner. They’re Greek.
Vander: Ah. Is that typical?
Ruby: We’ve been coming here since he was a baby. It was one of the first outings I was able to do on my own with him.
Vander: Do they know about your agoraphobia?
Ruby: Is there anything that happens that the Greek community doesn’t know?
Vander: True.
Ruby: They know about you, too.
Vander: What do they know about me, koukla mou?
I could almost hear his deep voice, laced with humour.
