How to Be Brave(49)

But when I get there, Dad is in the middle of a meeting with some guy in a suit.

They’re huddled in a booth, very official-looking papers spread out before them. I slide into a booth two down from them. I take out my sketchbook but am distracted by trying to figure out what the meeting is about.

It basically goes something like this: The Suit punches numbers into a very expensive laptop, then writes a number on a Post-it note and says something to my dad. My dad then peers over his reading glasses at the number. He shakes his head. It doesn’t look good. They repeat this process a few more times, until finally my dad and the Suit stand up and shake hands. The meeting is over.

Dad sees me and waves.

He walks the Suit to the door and they shake hands one more time.

He comes over and sits down. “Georgia. I am glad you are here. We need to talk.” He takes a deep breath and then says this: “I have to close the restaurant.”

Close the restaurant? What is he talking about?

“That was Craig McIntire, our accountant. The news is not good. We finally are not making any profit at all. It’s been a very long time coming, but now I know for sure.”

“Wait. What? Can’t we change up the place like Mom wanted?” I don’t understand. He’s just giving up so easily. “New booths? Coat of paint? Menu?”

He shakes his head. “No money for that.”

“What about a loan? Like small business or whatever? We could save it. I’ll be done with school in a few months. I could help.” I can’t just let him give up this place that’s been more of a home to me than our home. I swallow back tears, but I’m invigorated by Marquez’s faith in me. I could help redecorate the place. Make it superhip. Maybe make it an artists’ mecca. We could have coffee and scones and live music and shows, maybe like the one I’ll be showing at in a few weeks.

“I already took out a loan a few years ago. Can’t do it again. Nothing to show for it.”

Oh.

“Well, what, then? What will you do?”

“Remember your uncle Vassilis in California? You met him. He wants me to come there. He has a catering business in a city called Azusa, and he wants to expand. He needs my help.”

“California?”

He nods.

He’s leaving Chicago for California? After thirty years in this city, he’s deciding to leave now?

“I want you to come, of course. You could go to college out there. They have many good schools. You could even get a job with Vassilis to help pay your way.”

I blink back tears, trying hard not to cry in front of my dad, trying hard to imagine this alternate future, one that is far away from the Midwest, far from the skyscrapers and tornado warnings and winter-tainted springs. Quite honestly, I don’t know what I want. I mean, this is what I want, right? I’m sick of being here, but then again, I never thought I’d actually leave.

“The sun is shining there now,” Dad says. “It is seventy-three degrees today.”

“And smoggy,” I say. “I hear they can’t even go outside some days because of the pollution.”

He responds in Greek: “H zoe einai san ena agouri. O enas to troei kai throsizete, kai o allos to troei kai zorizete.”

“Dad. I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“This is what I’m saying: Life is like a cucumber. One man eats it, and he is refreshed, while another man eats it, and he struggles.”

I guess this is what I get for complaining about snowfall in April. My entire life reduced to a cucumber seed and then subsequently uprooted and replanted five thousand miles away.

I don’t know what other choice I have. The world closes in on me. Static fills my ears.

But finally, after a few empty moments, this is what I say: “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, then.”

We sit in silence, both of us staring out the window at the pedestrians huddled in their layers, slipping and sliding across the icy sidewalk.

He looks at me. “Now, you tell me some news.”

This is the perfect moment to tell him about my day, about Marquez and the gallery show and my future as a professional artist.

But I don’t.

“I have homework.” I shrug. I can’t sit here anymore thinking about things that are out of my control, thinking about how everything is just so f*cking far out of my control. “Big chemistry test in two days.”

“Well then, you have work to do.” He stands up. He is about to turn around to go back to the register when he stops himself. He takes my chin in his hand and says this: “Eisai to ithio yia to mamasou. Oraio.”

I understand this perfectly.

You are the same as your mother.

Beautiful.

*

When I get home, I google Azusa, California. I imagine sand and surf and palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze, with movie stars jogging by.

Turns out that Azusa is a long, long way from the beach, and despite its romantic-sounding name, there’s not much there. First of all, the name itself is stupid. They’re not sure, but it might mean one of two things: everything from A to Z in the USA (ugh), or even worse, it might stem from an old Indian word meaning “skunk place.” It’s known for its brewery. It had a drive-in theater that closed in 2001. An “A” is etched into the nearby mountain. And … that’s it. Awesome.