Page 19

STEFANOS

I head straight to the restaurant, knowing Baba will be waiting for me. Checking his watch and shouting at the waiters to hurry up with the orders, as if that’ll make me appear any faster.

The second I get through the door, my mom scoops me up and I’m immediately comforted by the familiar smell of her perfume.

The place isn’t busy yet, so she has time to grill me on what I’ve been eating and ask if I look slimmer.

“Leave him be,” Maria says as she comes flying out of the kitchen with plates loaded up her arms. “You tell him he looks thinner every time you see him. He should be a pile of bones on the floor by now.”

Mama pinches my waist. “He is a pile of bones. Go into the kitchen and see your father, he’ll make you something to eat.”

I kiss Maria on my way to the kitchen, where I find Baba wiping sweat off his brow with a dishcloth and bossing the cooks around. The second he sees me, his face spreads into an easy smile.

“Stef! You’re here.” He holds out the arm he doesn’t need to chop onions, and I practically run into him.

“I missed you.” I say to his chest. I’m sure his stomach grew since the last time I saw him, but heaven forbid I should ever comment on their weight.

“Come, sit, eat, you’re too thin.”

“I’ve already had all this from Mama.”

“Well, she’s right. Theo, get Stefanos a stool to sit on.”

Baba’s newest protégée comes out of nowhere with a stool and I do as I’m told and sit.

Baba takes a stool opposite me at the counter and watches me eat after ladling out a bowl of his famous keftedes with some potatoes.

“Good?”

“Mmm.” I close my eyes and moan around the food, immediately transported back to my childhood. I could cry with how much comfort this food brings me. It’s like seeing the Disney castle at the start of a movie. You just know you’re about to O.D on nostalgia.

“So,” he says as he gets back to chopping up some onions and garlic. “How’s school, what do you learn over there?”

I’m used to him shouting orders to people while I talk, and I don’t let it offend me. I know he’s listening. He’s just trying to do ten million things at once while he does.

When I stop speaking, he looks up from a pile of chopped onions – with miraculously dry eyes.

“Anything else?”

“Nope, I think I told you literally everything.”

Except I didn’t mention a word about Alexei. Or Dorian obviously. But Dorian hadn’t even come into my head.

“What about your new roommate? Are you getting along?”

“He’s…” a little prickly, but nice when you get to know him. “He’s coming by to collect those donations later.”

“Finally, a good kid, someone who cares for their community! Unlike your brother, who only cares about his phone and sneakers.”

“Speaking of Ari, where is he?”

Baba shrugs. “We gave him the night off from homework.”

“What!? How come I never got the night off?”

“You did.”

“We didn’t.” Maria says as she comes back in with empty plates.

“I know when I’m outnumbered.” Baba holds his hands up. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

Maria raises an eyebrow at me before going outside.

I follow her, catching her smoking a cigarette.

“That’s a filthy habit.”

“I’m cutting down,” she says, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “If you tell them I’ll kill you.”

I laugh, but I think I’ll always be a little bit scared of my big sister.

“I won’t tell.”

“So how’s things up at that big fancy school?”

“Fine.”

“God you’re worse than Ari. He practically grunts when you speak to him these days.”

“He’s fourteen, what do you want?”

She takes another drag on her cigarette, looking up at the fire escape crawling down the side of the apartment building next door. “I know. And he is a good kid really. You know what they’re like.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? The jailers.”

I snort. We haven’t called our parents the jailers for years.

“No normal kid sits in their parents’ restaurant doing homework as much as we did.”

She taps her foot against the wall in her comfortable-looking shoes. Her lighter slipped back in the pocket of her apron.

“It paid off for you I guess,” she says.

“It paid off for you too, you’re gonna run this place one day.”

“I suppose.” She bites the nail on her thumb before spitting it out. “Hey, remember all those classes they had us go to when we were kids?”

“Like what?”

She rolls her eyes. “You have such a selective memory! Like ballet and piano and Greek school… well, I guess you took to the violin like a duck to water, so they didn’t make you do all that stuff.

But me… it was piano lessons, then ballet, and when they didn’t work out, it was tennis, Baba thought I was gonna be the next Serena Williams.”

We laugh. I miss this. Miss my family. Miss the smells and sounds of the restaurant. Miss not having to perform the violin in a grand library to Ivy League people.

I shrug. “That’s what parents do, right?”

“Sure. But come on Stef, they tell everyone you’re the next Joshua Bell.”

I snort. “I love that you know who he is.”

“Hey, supportive sister here.” She grins.

“Yeah well, they think you’re gonna be the next… Gordon Ramsey.”

“Shut up. I’m serious. Are you doing okay over there?”

I look down at my shoes, letting my hair fall over my face. “I’m fine. I like playing the violin.”

“Yeah, but like, do you do anything else?”

“Sure I do other things.”

I can feel her eyes on me. Seeing things I’m trying to hide. “Like what?”

“Like study.”

She shakes her head.

“Just don’t forget to have fun okay? And you don’t have to do what they tell you to do.”

She ruffles my hair and tosses her cigarette before going back inside, and I’m left with the weirdness of our conversation floating around in my head.

When I was rejected from Julliard, I was a mess, I agree. But it’s been years now, and I got into a good school. I’m on track. Not to become the next violin sensation, but to have a career of some sort at least.

My father’s oldest serving staff member Artemis is in the kitchen when I go back in. The second she sees me, she bundles me up, her floral perfume engulfing me along with her big hair.

“My you’re so handsome!” she says, making me blush. “But too thin, Apostolis, he’s too thin.”

Baba runs a hand over his face to hide his smile.

“Fat and jolly’s out of fashion now Artemis,” Maria says. “Women like men lean these days.”

“Fat? Men should be strong.”

Maria winks at me before bringing the next order out and Baba shakes his head, telling me to ignore her.

“You’ll play your violin tonight?” She asks. Patting me down as if she’s going to find it in my pocket. “You have it with you?”

“I have it, it’s behind the waiter’s station, and yes, I’ll play it for you.”

“Good. You play so beautifully. Doesn’t he play beautifully?” She looks at Baba for confirmation.

“Yes, he does.” Baba agrees.

I stay in the kitchen, trying to help and getting shooed away until I roll my sleeves up and start washing dishes.

“You don’t have to help. You go rest. You had a long trip.” Baba says.

“No, it’s okay, I don’t mind.”

Baba gives up trying to stop me and carries on with what he was doing.

When Artemis comes back in carrying plates smeared with food, she looks flushed. Her eyes wide and her hair somehow more mussed than before.

“The most handsome man I’ve ever seen just walked in!” She says.

Baba laughs. “Go and get his number then.”

“He’s too young for me!” she says, sounding scandalized and holding her hand to her chest. “He says he’s here for Stefanos.”

My face feels like it’s been set on fire. I can’t even look at Baba.

“That must be your friend from school, go and say hello and take a plate out.” Baba says.

When I walk out into the restaurant, I spot Alexei by the hostess station and I understand what Artemis saw. Yeah, he’s probably the most handsome man I’ve ever seen too.

He’s wearing a brown jacket with a sheepskin collar, his hair half hidden under a grey beanie. For once he isn’t in sweats, but nice blue jeans.

It’s like he’s a God who’s been dropped into the human world and now he’s just trying – and failing miserably – to fit in.

He sees me and those dimples pop. Eros… no, stop it with the myths.

He takes his hat off, his hair all mussed underneath. Oh god please stop making it worse.