Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) by Alex A. King Read Free Book Online Page A

clerk’s not interested in them – just their money. He won’t come alive again until they wave some green under his nose. “Jeez, Mom, not here, okay?” Vivi tries to roll the polyester boulder, but her mother won’t budge.
    It’s a trap.
    Vivi walked (and drove) right into it.
    Eleni brought Vivi here so she can do her grilling in public, where Vivi won’t make a scene. The verdict is still out on whether the brandy is a lie or not.
    Well, Vivi isn’t playing this game.
    “Forget it. Not here, not now. The end.”
    Eleni puts on her bulldog face.
    Vivi says, “I said no.”
    Meanwhile, Melissa has caught up with them, bored with staring at booze she can't buy for a few more years, unless a forger hooks her up with a fake ID.
    “I figured you knew, Grams.” One finger traces an invisible line across the rum bottles. “Dear old Dad is gay.”
    Vivi’s head snaps around. “Melissa, that's not true.”
    Melissa shrugs, in that teenage way. No one can give a shit less than a teenager. “If you say so.”
    “Jesus, Melissa. Why would you make up something like that?” Vivi grabs her by the shoulders. Checks her eyes for a lie. “What happened? Did Dad do something to you?”
    “She has to blame someone,” Eleni says.
    Vivi glares.
    “When two men kiss on the mouth, it means they're gay,” Melissa says. “And I saw Dad kiss a man on the mouth.”
    In a flash, the semen-splattered tie pops into Vivi’s mind: John's or not? All the times they didn't screw in the past fifteen years. All the kissing they never did. Intimacy that never came.
    She goes cold, stiff. Total paralysis, except her right hand slicing through the air. That hand strikes Melissa’s face, cuts her down.
    “You little brat!”
    Vivi hurls the words, but they don’t stick. Melissa’s wearing body armor made of smug fascination. No reaction trumps reaction.
    Vivi cues a second slap.
    Eleni grabs her arm. “Vivi, enough!”
    This is Melissa’s carpe diem moment. Her hand blurs, finds her mother’s face.
    Vivi freezes. Can’t move. Can’t speak. Can’t believe .
    “People in school are talking about Dad.” Melissa spits the words out. “Josh Cartwright saw him cruising the park for gay sex. How do you think that makes me feel? All you care about is yourself!”
    Hands on hips, eyes and mouth accusing Vivi of being a bad mother. And she’s right: poor kid has two shitty parents.
    The clerk peers out from behind the cash register.
    “Don't say anything,” Eleni snaps.
    “I say nothing, crazy lady.”
    “John can't be gay,” Vivi says.
    Melissa opens her mouth to speak, but her grandmother clamps her palm across that open mouth.
    “He can't be gay. He married me. He chose me. We have a child!”
    “I knew there was something I never liked about him,” Eleni says. “At first I thought it was just his eyes were too close together. Then I thought, ‘Eleni, do not be prejudiced because he has squinty eyes and big nostrils,’ because your father, Vivi, his family have the big nostrils. But see, I was right! Now that I think about it, one time I saw John watching your father's buttocks.”
    Vivi wants to go ogre, sweep these bottles off the shelves, aim a few at her mother.
    “Mom! Jesus! Enough! My husband is gay and he never thought to drop that little tidbit into the conversation, oh, say before we got married? He should never have married me. Maybe I'd be married to someone straight and I wouldn't be standing here in a grungy liquor store with my lunatic mother and a daughter who loathes my guts! Marrying John is the worst thing that ever happened in my whole stupid life!”
    It’s one of life’s slow motion moments: Melissa walks backwards, hands in the air. She’s done. She’s so out of here.
    Hate is about the only thing tougher and shinier than diamonds. And Melissa, she’s shimmering with the stuff.
    The warning bells are much too late. Vivi’s mouthing, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, Baby , but the damage is