Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) (31 page)

Her aunt waves like Vivi’s going on a cruise. Only thing missing is the “
Bon Voyage
!”

Vivi slumps against the back seat. This day is perfect – puuuurfect.

The police car rolls down the hill – backwards.

The cop who isn’t driving turns around to look at her. “You are American, eh? Do you know Robert DeNiro?”

S
econd time Vivi’s
been
in a jail cell this year (if she’s counting twelve-month stretches, not the calendar year). How does this one fare?

She takes inventory.

One granite mattress, two sandpaper sheets, one pillow with an eating disorder. The blanket is woven from Europe’s finest steel wool.

Vivi can’t sleep in this palace.

It’s not the bedding. It’s not that night two of the festival is happening a block over and doesn’t care that she’s trying to sleep.
Boom, boom, boom
. Singing, laughter, and the occasional squeal.

That’s not so bad. It’s good to hear people celebrating.

The main reason she can’t sleep is on the bottom bunk.

Eleni won’t shut up. On and on, mouth chewing air. Bringing up this, bringing up that, dredging up crap that happened thirty years ago. Raking muck. Cursing that one plumber for traipsing his filthy boots over her clean kitchen floor.

Vivi thinks about killing her just to get some peace. Finally, she says, “Did you kill Sofia?”

That makes her mother clam up. Temporarily. Vivi pictures her down there, opening and closing her mouth, a guppy in a metal-barred fishbowl.

“Of course not! What would make you think such a thing?”

“I don't know, Mom. But the police must have something or you wouldn’t be here.”

Eleni climbs out of her bunk bed, looks Vivi in the eye.

“They arrested you, too. Did you kill that worthless donkey?”

Touché. “No. But then I had no motive. You did.”

“Dora!” she curses. “She told you!”

Vivi can’t do this lying down. Now they’re both pacing the postage stamp-sized floor.

“Why not? Everyone else seems to have scoop on our family history. It’s like John all over again, me being the last to know. Why didn't you tell me I might have a half-sister out there?”

Eleni stops mid-pace. “She is nothing to you! That woman opened her legs for so many men the Virgin Mary Herself probably does not know who the father is.” Back to pacing. “Do not stir up the past, Vivi. Nothing good comes of it.”

“In case you have noticed, the past is beyond stirred. Someone shook it up and let it fizz aaaaall over the place! That woman is dead and they think one of us – maybe both of us – killed her. Your past could stop us from having a future. What about your granddaughter? Do you want her to grow up without a mother and grandmother?”

“Vivi, why do you say such ugly things to your mother? This has nothing to do with Melissa. We are both innocent, the police will see that.”

Vivi climbs up on her perch. Back to the wall, she bangs her head lightly on the cinderblock. Repetition – it’s great for concentration.

“Lots of innocent people in prisons, Mom. The news is full of them.”
Tap, tap
. “Think, Mom, there has to be a reason we're in here. They have something that makes them certain one or both of us are guilty. What could they possibly have besides an ancient grudge?”
Tap, tap
. “I’m the worst mother in the world.” Eleni stays silent. “No, no, don’t contradict me.”

Eleni takes the low bunk – again. Vivi goes back to sifting her ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’.

W
hat’s Melissa doing
?

Is she okay?

Did she feed Biff?

If only John hadn't bounced out of the closet with CPA Joe. If only he’d been honest with himself years ago. Yeah, it’s been hard for her, but how hard was it for him to live a lie? Poor, stupid bastard.

Rewind: If only John hadn’t bounced out of the closet . . .

Melissa wouldn’t have cut her wrists.

She and her mother wouldn't be in jail.

Melissa wouldn't have lost her virginity to some smooth-talking Romeo with a loaded missile in his boxers.

They wouldn't be in Greece at all.

And she wouldn’t have met Max.

Vivi thinks impure thoughts, fucks Max in her head, over and over. Feels the way he made her feel. He’s a talented man, but that’s not his bottom line by a long shot. He’s kind, affectionate, sensible, and –

“
M
om
?”

“What, Vivi?”

“Where were you last night?

“After the festival I went to Dora’s house.”

“And after that?”

“I walked back to your house.”

“No,” Vivi says. “
Thea
said you left, then she went to get water around midnight. That’s when she saw Effie’s husband. You came home hours after that.”

“Maybe I was having drinks with the rest of the family at the festival.”

“I don't think you were.”

“Well then, Miss Know-all, where was I?”

Vivi scoots forward. Her legs dangle over the edge. “I think you went to Sofia's house to confront her. Or you came across her somewhere and somebody saw you together. That same somebody told the police that maybe you were the last one to see her alive.”

“Where is the harm in talking to an old acquaintance?”

“Nemesis. And everybody knows it.”

Silence.

Vivi says, “But that doesn't explain why I'm here.”

Back to the cinderblock wall, to the tap, tap, tapping.

“Stop that. You are giving me a headache.”

“You’re giving me a headache,” Vivi says.

“Ungrateful brat.”

“I’m grateful,” Vivi says. “Being in jail is awesome. Everyone should try it sometime.”

One block over, the festival is winding down. Happy, tired voices dance along the street.

“Yes, I spoke to Sofia. She came to me. Leaped out from behind a tree as I was leaving Dora’s house. She wanted to let me know that she took something from me just as I took something from her. I took nothing! Elias never wanted to marry her.”

“What did she take?”

“It is nothing. Old business.”

“Mom . . .

“What she told me was a lie. The same lie she has been telling for years. She said that she had your father’s first child – not me. She said she took that first from me. No matter what I do, Elias’s firstborn child will always be hers. Like I said, a lie. Her daughter is not your father’s.”

“Do you know for sure?

“Of course I know!”

“Okay, okay.”

Another stretch of silence. This time Vivi almost misses the talk.

“Say something,” she says.

“Your father and I,” Eleni says from her bunk, “before I left, we had a fight, and he said maybe he should have married Sofia instead of me.”

“Whoa, what? Why didn’t you say something?”

“And what would you have done? Pitied me?” The bunk creaks. “You were such a happy baby, Vivi. It broke my heart when you married John.”

And the revelations keep on rolling.

“Why? I thought you and Dad loved him, even though you objected at first.”

“Your father always wanted another son. John filled the position. But I knew different. Something was not right about him, I saw it the day you brought him home.”

“I wish you'd told me sooner,” Vivi says.

“Would you have listened? Just like your mother, nobody tells you how to live. When you married John, I could see you were not happy, not the way a bride should be. You did not have that glow from lots of good sex.”

Vivi’s horrified, and rightfully (in her mind) so.

“Mom!”

“We are grownups, no? Then we can talk of sex. But it was more than that. John was not attentive to you the way a man truly in love is. His eyes did not follow you when you left the room. There was no excitement when you came back. You were always the one reaching out to him.”

Wow. Her mother is Oprah. Greek Oprah.

Opah?

Whatever. Vivi is all shook up. All these years, she thought Eleni adored John. Her beloved son-in-law. If she had a choice between sides, she always joined Team John.

“I thought you liked him more than you liked me.”

“How could I love anyone more than I love my little Vivi? You have all the good pieces of your father and me, and maybe some of the bad too, eh?” Eleni’s voice is smiling. “You are better off without John. I am glad he left you. Look at you now – you are strong!”

Vivi’s face glows red, her mouth goes Sahara. Feels good, in a weird way.

The John years were filled with probability.

The Vivi years are filled with possibility.

Anything can happen. It doesn’t matter that Melissa (sweet, vital Melissa) is stumbling; Vivi’s going to take her hand, show her where the steel lives.

Eleni makes a self-satisfied noise. “You are smiling again. Good.”

“I’m not smiling,” Vivi says. “There’s no smiling in jail. How long until Pavlos comes back?”

“That crook. I should have known Dora would send for him.”

“I can find another lawyer.”

“No, a crook is good. A crook that is family, even better.”

N
ot even lunchtime
and
the cop has
tzatziki
on his upper lip.

“Visitor,” he says. Then he gets out so the visitor can get in.

Eleni gasps.

(Vivi doesn’t, because Dad being there isn’t a surprise.)

“Elias, what are you doing here?”

What is he doing here? Reaching for his wife, that’s what. The man practically crawls between the bars so he can get ahold of her. Then it’s hugging and kissing and –

Love. Real love.

Vivi looks out the window. Nice blue sky. Lots of sun. Not too far away, someone’s cooking
souvlaki
. Too bad some partygoer urinated beneath their window last night.

Eventually, her dad drops the dime on Vivi.

“Vivi called. She thought you needed me. She was right.”

Eleni gives her the look, but Vivi can tell she’s secretly pleased. “You silly man,” she says.

Vivi’s father glances from one woman to the other. “Will someone please tell me why both my girls are in jail?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Eleni asks her daughter.

Vivi shrugs. There was no time. The moment she mentioned her mother and trouble, her father was out the door.

“It is nothing,” Eleni continues. “They think we killed someone.”

“Sofia Lambeti.” His face gives nothing away.

“Don’t tell me you’re upset!” Eleni says.

Elias Pappas turns his attention to his daughter. “Vivi, I brought you a present.”

“Do I get a present?” Eleni asks.

“When we get you out of here, then you can have a present, eh?”

Vivi’s present walks in the room, rough, tired, no sign of his usual swagger.

“Surprise, I'm a jailbird,” Vivi says.

Max laughs. “Suits you.”

“You haven’t lived until you’ve been arrested in front of the whole neighborhood. Have you seen Melissa?”

Her father nods at the door. “She’s in the waiting room. My poor girl is terrified you’re going to the electric chair. I told her that they used to have a firing squad, not the electric chair.”

“Not since 1972,” Max says. “Greece hasn’t executed anyone since 1972.”

Vivi says, “Shit.”

“Language!” Eleni barks.

Vivi doesn’t bite back.

S
he’s watching
herself earn her place in this cell. Slowly wringing the neck that put her in here.

It’s okay that she’s here. There are worse things, worse places. Sometimes life turns strange corners. Go to bed one night and the world is one way, wake up in a world gone mad.

It’s okay.

Vivi can live in a behind bars if she has to. She can eat their bread and cheese, drink their water, pee in a lidless, stainless (not-stainless) toilet. She can go to court and watch her character go on trial, listen to the other guy tilt the truth until it fits his template.

And that’s okay, too. Vivi is (if anything has been proven thus far) a survivor. Three parts woman, one part robot.

What’s not okay – seriously NOT okay – is Melissa being frightened.

That’s the complete opposite of okay.

Vivi knows she didn’t kill Sofia, didn’t help Eleni (or anyone else) kill Sofia. While Sofia was busy dying, Vivi was busy doing . . .

Well, doing Max.

Which means someone around here is a major-league liar. And because of that lie, her daughter is afraid Vivi’s going to do life or give life.

Vivi’s doing the time, so she thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to commit a few rounds of mental homicide.

It’s amazing what a furious mother can do with an imaginary lead pipe, barbed wire, and zero consequences.

“
W
hat did the police say
?” Eleni asks her husband.

He shrugs. “Nothing. They tell me nothing.” A nod in Max’s direction. “But to him, they talk.”

“They know me,” Max says, in his own defense. “A witness saw Mrs. Pappas arguing with the deceased before she died. Then someone called in an anonymous tip, that the two of you killed the woman together. Vivi, you allegedly lifted the deceased into the tree at your mother’s request.”

“Ha-ha,” Vivi says weakly. “It’s a lie, of course.”

Max nods. “I told them we were together at the time, and after I left Melissa was there. Which she confirmed. The good news is that you’re both free to go – for now. They’re processing the paperwork.”

“They’re letting Mom go, too?”

“New evidence, they said.”

“I told them you would kill each other if they leave you in here together,” Vivi’s father says. “The paperwork on two dead women in their custody would be taller than Mount Pelion. And Greek police, they do not like paperwork so much.”

“Ha-ha,” Vivi says.

Ha-ha.