That's Amore! - Janelle Denison [33]
Efi had once asked her mother what had turned her aunt so bitter. Penelope Panayotopoulou had said something about goats and family property and a wedding that never was but the story was so outside anything Efi could relate to she hadn't understood much of it at the time. Of course, she'd been ten years old and she hadn't seen goats outside the walls of the Detroit Zoo. That had changed quickly when her father decided she and her three younger sisters needed to understand more of their heritage and instituted annual family trips to Greece, in a small town in Ancient Olympia where his family was from.
While the majority of their time was spent on the Ionian beach, it had been the goats and chickens wandering the hillside town that stayed in her mind. She was just thankful she hadn't seen any of the animals being sacrificed for dinner like her younger sister Eleni had or she might even now also be a strict vegetarian.
Kiki bounced from the bed. "Come on, try it on."
Efi made a face. "Why? You've already seen me in it."
"Yes, but I want to see you in it again. Here."
She eyed the Vera Wang creation rumored to have been the one designed for J.Lo's non-wedding to Ben Affleck. She'd wanted the dress on sight when she and Kiki and her mother had flown to New York six months ago to shop for a dress. But now that it was there, hanging in her room, seven days before her wedding, she was almost half afraid to touch it for fear of getting it dirty.
Kiki picked up one of the boubounieras—Greek wedding favors—on the dresser and straightened the white bow. "God, I hate you even more. If that were my dress hanging there, I'd live in it until the day of the wedding."
Efi laughed. "You would not."
"I would so. Not only that, I'd probably wear it for days even after the wedding."
"That would put a crimp in the honeymoon."
Kiki grinned widely. "Who said you can't lift the skirt?"
Efi tossed a bed pillow at her friend.
They heard a car pull up outside, then voices fill the otherwise quiet of Grosse Point, Michigan, a posh, wealthy suburb just north of the bustling metropolis of Detroit on the St. Clair shore. Efi moved to her window along with Kiki and they stared down at what had to be at least twenty relatives getting out of one taxi. There was much cheek kissing and welcoming by Efi's parents. Then Aunt Frosini edged out of the cab and everyone seemed to freeze midmotion; an instant that might not be noticeable to outsiders but everyone there understood too well.
"Speak of the devil," Kiki murmured next to her.
Efi drew a deep breath. "Let the festivities begin."
EFI'S FATHER, Gregoris Panayotopoulou, tapped his knife against his wineglass to gain the attention of the fifty or so relatives seated in different areas of the large house for the first of many pre-wedding dinners for the families of both the bride and the groom. Efi felt Nick's hand on her leg and her knee jerked involuntarily, knocking against the table and nearly upsetting the dozen or so glasses there. Even as heat suffused her cheeks and her thighs, she smiled at everyone when they looked her way.
Her father cleared his throat, offering her a disapproving frown. "Today the flamboro, the Greek wedding flag, was hung outside our home, marking the blessed ceremony to take place one week from today."
The guests tapped their own knives against their glasses until Gregoris lifted his hand. "Father Spyros, would you like to say a few words?"
The Greek Orthodox priest seated at the end of the table stood up, the end of his long gray beard nearly dipping inside his glass of retsina as he straightened in his black robes. "I would be honored to speak at this blessed event, the beginning of…"
Efi tuned out and stared at Nick, who grinned wickedly next to her, pretending an interest in what the old priest had to say.
Nick Constantinos was more than handsome. He was of the same make that had inspired