Good Greek Girls Don't (10 page)

‘Easy for you to say, you've got Ari.' They've been together for over a year and he still treats her like a queen.

‘Yeah and while I'm living in Shepparton I have a boyfriend I can only see on the weekends.' She sounds a bit down.

‘You okay, Rick?'

‘Ignore me, Des. I'm just shitty with work.'

‘What's up? Tell me.' Ricki rarely lets work get to her. This must be big.

‘Nothing, Des. Don't worry about it. Get ready for your hot date.'

‘Shut up smart arse and tell me. I've got plenty of time.'

‘I got a transfer.'

Oh, God, where are they sending her now? First the bush, now where? The Simpson Desert?

‘You will not believe where.'

Oh, jeez, how many hours will I have to drive this time? ‘Hurry up and tell me already.' She knows that I am not a very patient person.

‘Ocean Grove.'

All right, this has potential. ‘When? Rick, this is great. Make sure you rent a place near the beach.' We must have our priorities straight.

‘I'm supposed to start there in three weeks.' Something in her voice gives away that she's not as excited about this as I am.

‘What's wrong, Rick?' She should be jumping for joy at this move. Ocean Grove compared to Shepparton is a no-brainer. This is second only to her coming home. ‘Ocean Grove will be great! It's close to Melbourne, beautiful ocean air, cute surfer boys to liven up the natural scenery…'

‘I just thought the next transfer would be back home. Jeez, Des, I've paid my dues.' She has a point. She's been out at Shepparton for over a year now. It must be hell on her relationship with Ari. It would be a bit hard to keep the momentum up with a two-and-a-half-hour drive between you and your boyfriend. ‘I'm too far away from everyone. I wasn't there when you needed me. My parents didn't tell me my mum had her appendix out until it was all over.'

‘They didn't want to worry you. They knew you'd jump in the car and drive straight home in the middle of the night.'

‘Yeah, well, no-one wants to worry me and I feel fucking useless.'

She has got to see something positive in this move. ‘At least this time you're only about an hour away. With the freeways it'll seem like you're right next door. You'll be able to spend more time with Ari and you'll be closer to everyone.'

‘I guess you're right.' And there's another positive that Ricki really should focus on.

‘And you'll have the beach. I'll come up this weekend and we can scour RealEstate.com and find you a place to rent by the beach.'

‘Are you kidding? You are so in lust all you'll want to do this weekend is be with Chrissy-boy making kissy kissy lovey dovey faces at each other.'

‘Shut up, bitch. I am not in lust.' Liar liar pants on fire. ‘Besides, this is so much more important.'

‘Ari's driving up Friday night if you want to get a lift with him. And if you can't bare to be away from lover boy you can always invite him up.' I don't think so. And I think I will drive myself. Ari and I may kill each other given that he won't let me smoke in his car. Two and a half hours in a car without a smoke? Not going to happen.

‘You're so funny. I gotta go.' I've got to start getting ready. It's almost six-thirty and I'm still standing here in my bra and undies.

‘Call me when you get home, Des. I want all the gossip.'

Oh, yeah, this has potential for disaster. If I call Ricki when I get home, chances are we will sit on the phone for hours and fall asleep at our respective desks at work.

‘Okay, babe … Cheer up. We'll work everything out.'

‘Thanks, Des. Remember, no bonking on the first date.' Click, dial tone. She had to get the last word in. Back to my wardrobe.

‘Hi.' Casual, not too eager. ‘I'll be down in a minute.' I slowly walk down the stairs. Don't want to look desperate even though I want to run down the stairs and bolt out the door.

‘Where you go, Despina?' Damn, almost got away without having to face my mother. I was planning on yelling out that I was leaving just as I shut the door.

‘Out, Ma.' Got to make a quick getaway. Chris is waiting.

‘Who with?' How I wish right now that I could lie without my mother seeing right through me, but she can so there's no point.

‘A friend, Ma, and he's waiting.' I could kick myself. Why did I let her know that it was a guy? Why am I so stupid at times? ‘I'll talk to you in the morning, Ma.' She's just about to fire off a series of questions but I manage to shut the door on her.

I'm not altogether prepared for what I see when I look out at the street.

Chris has gotten out of his car, a black convertible SAAB, and is standing by the car door. What has he got in his hand? It can't be. No way, it's impossible. My imagination must be going wild because it simply cannot be what I think it is.

‘Hi.' I don't know what else to say.

‘Hi.' His reply is followed up by a kiss on the cheek. ‘This is for you.' Oh my God. It is what I thought it was. My eyes weren't playing tricks on me. It's a purple rose. How did he know? And where on earth did he get his hands on one? I'm speechless. I'm dumbstruck. Hold the press, this is a momentous occasion. Desi Delagiannis is at a loss for words. I hope my mother is watching all this. She's so predictable, she's bound to be at her spying position (the glass pane by the door with the very thin curtain). A part of me hopes that she hasn't missed a second of this. Although if she gets any closer to that pane, she's going to need an emergency trip to the optometrist for replacement glasses.

‘How?' Seriously, I don't think I'll be able to string more than two words together for a while.

‘Kati told me purple is your favourite colour.' Did she also tell Chris that the purple rose is a test? This is the first time that I have ever gotten one. I think Kati had a lot more to do with this rose than Chris is letting on.

‘But how did you manage to get one?' The grin on his face tells me that he isn't in any hurry to tell me.

‘My secret.' I'm about to tell him off. I think he is now a bit too cocky and needs to be bought down a peg or two.

‘Don't argue, Desi. My secret. Maybe one day I'll tell you.'

I'll just give him my ice queen look. No one can survive the ice queen look. But no, apparently my ice queen has melted. What's happening here? I am losing all of my powers.

‘So, where are we going?' He at least has to tell me that.

‘You'll find out soon enough.' This mystery thing is getting annoying. ‘Come on, let's go before your mother gets eye strain staring at us through the curtains.' There she is at, her spying position. She's so predictable. I give her a quick wave and a cheeky grin and she snaps the curtains shut. I hope she got an eyeful.

Sitting in the car, the mystery deepens. Just where are we going? I have a feeling that no matter where we end up tonight, this is going to be a night to remember.

We're at The Point at Albert Park. We even have a table overlooking the lake. Boy, Chris sure knows how to impress a girl. First the rose and now this. I feel so spoilt. I feel like I'm going to wake up and this will have all been a dream. Chris is staring at me. Why is he staring at me like that?

‘What are you staring at?' Oops, I think I embarrassed him.

‘Sorry. I was just thinking.' What was he thinking about? I've developed this amazing curiosity when it comes to Chris. I've hardly known the guy for two minutes yet I have this unbelievable need to know everything about him ‘Well, I hardly know anything about you, other than you're going to baptise Katerina's baby when it's born.'

‘Well, I don't know anything about you either, other than you did the honours at Katerina and George's wedding, and that you've been hassling them about me for a while.' It's so good to have the upper hand, even if it is only slightly.

Our waiter brings the meals over. I don't think I'll be able to keep anything down, even though I haven't eaten all day. I'm really no good at this first date thing. Why can't it come with an instruction manual? Oh well, at least with the food here I'll have something to play with when I don't know what to say.

These plates are huge – there's no way I am going to be able to eat all of it. If I do then Chris will think I'm a pig, but if I don't eat enough he'll think that I'm obsessive about my weight and all that. What to do? Oh, the dilemmas a girl must face.

‘So what do you do, Des?' I assume he means work. God, he's probably got some really fancy, important job and here I am, a team leader in a call centre, after having wasted four years at university.

‘I work in a call centre. You know, pretty boring, just get to boss my team around and then clean up their messes.' How lame. Any moron could do my job and they wouldn't have had to sit at uni for ages to get there. I need to turn this conversation around. ‘What do you do?' It's got to be something good, given the car he drives and the clothes he wears. I'll bet any money that this guy does all of his shopping on Collins Street. The Paris end no doubt.

‘I run a consulting agency. We basically get paid to tell businesses what they are doing wrong in their strategies, their security and all that stuff that they're too stupid to work out on their own.' Okay, a lot more exciting than me. God, he's probably never going to call me again after tonight. Not now that he knows how boring and unimportant I am. Oh well, one nice date with someone is better than none at all.

‘I bet there's more to you than you're letting on, Des.'

Okay, he wants to get deep and meaningful here –that's not going to happen. I might never see him again, so why give away too much about myself? That would just be asking for disappointment.

‘Not much to tell really.' Keep it nice and simple. ‘I'm rather boring. Went to uni, now I work full-time, I go out, I battle the evil forces of my family. Just the usual stuff.' Which Chris obviously finds amusing, given that he's laughing so hard he's about to choke on his chicken. ‘I'm quite dull really.'

‘I doubt that. I think there is a pretty good story inside of you.'

Sure there is. I'm full of really riveting stuff.

‘So what's your story then, Chris?' Given that the guy knew where to get a purple rose from, there is definitely something about him. But why do I have the feeling that he is going to reveal very little about himself?

‘Same as you. Work, enjoy life and try to convince my family that I'm not gay.'

Huh? I never thought it was possible to choke on pasta. Where the hell did he pull that one out of?

‘Gay?' There's no way that Chris could be gay. He couldn't be. Could he? God, please don't tell me that I am going to end up setting him up with Adrian.

‘Well, they think that it explains why I'm not married yet and why I moved out of home.' He doesn't live at home. Okay, he is definitely only pretending to be Greek. Greek kids do not move out of home. They stay there until they marry or die. Why else would I still be at home? I wonder why he moved out.

‘Come on, Des. You know what oldies are like.'

Don't I ever. My mother is starting to think that I must have some serious deformity or mental illness given that she married Effie off at twenty and Tas at twenty-two, yet here I am, twenty-eight years old and still a thorn in her side.