The Perfect Girl

     Vasilios sat in the taxi in front of his parent’s house, trying to find the strength to tell them that he wanted to marry an American girl. He knew that his mother had her heart set on a girl from the old country and would give her only son a hard time about marrying a ‘foreigner’. He paid the cabby, sighed, and trudged up to the house.

     “Vasilios, my precious, sit, sit, I made your favorite food,” Alcina urged him as he kissed his mother on both cheeks. “When you called to say you want to talk to us, we were so excited because we have something to tell you, too. We have good news, Vasilios. But please, first, sit down, child, eat, eat.”

     Vasilios sat at the small but lovingly set table as his mother flittered around him, heaping piles of Souvlaki onto his plate and carefully placing a steaming cup of black coffee in front of him. “I already put sugar, just the way you like it,” Alcina said.

     “Three and a half spoons?” Vasilios asked.

     “Oh, I put four. I was thinking round.” Alcina said sorrowful.

     His father sat in a corner and watched the interaction with quiet amusement.

     “Okay, Mama, what are the news? You are bursting with excitement,” Vasilios said and started eating.

     Alcina suddenly looked flustered and wiped her hands on her apron. She moved over to her husband and stood next to him, for extra support. “I talked to my friend in Santorini and her daughter, Syna, agreed to come to America and marry you, can you believe it? She is perfect.”

     “But Mama, … please, we talked about this. You know that I am in love with Amy. I came here today to tell you that I have asked her to marry me,” Vasilios said and put his fork down.

     “Oh, sweet Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph!” His mother threw her hands in the air before crossing herself. “What are you saying? No, no, no! We come to America and leave everything, the family, our home, jobs, lives, so you can have a better one, an education, go to college, marry a nice Greek girl and start a family. Anatole, say something, talk sense into your son,” Alcina begged.

     “Well,” Anatole began, measuring his words.” If he is in love with the American girl, it is his life, and we brought him here to this foreign country…”

     “Arrgh, stop this foolishness. What does he know about love? He will love Syna when he meets her, marries her, the babies come, then the love will come also. Here, everything is backwards. Vasili, think about your future, and your poor parents. We gave you everything we had.”

     “Mama, I am twenty-five years old, I did not come to ask for permission. I came to tell you and Papa that the wedding is in three months. Please, be happy for me.”

     Alcina called her son every night and begged him to listen to her and forget about the American girl. Every morning she went to mass and prayed to the saints, asking them to stop her son from making a mistake. She reminded him that he had always listened to his mama until he went off to college, but Vasilios stood his ground.

     A week before the wedding Alcina took a taxi to her son’s apartment. In her purse was a check, the full amount of her and her husband’s retirement savings, paid out and transferred over from Greece. With a smug expression on her face, Alcina rang the doorbell.

     “Mama, what a surprise, come in. I just came back from the realtor with Amy. We found a house; it’s very close to you and Papa. You won’t give me any grief before Saturday, will you?” Vasilios jokingly nudged her with his elbow and followed her into his living room. His mother straightened a pillow on the couch before she sat in a chair with her purse on her knees.

     “Vasilios, darling, you remember when you were a young boy, what was it you wanted most, hm? Do you remember?” Alcina asked with a smile.

     “Oh, you mean the car? That was a crazy wish, Mama, a Cadillac for a poor Greek boy. It was only a dream.”

     “Candy apple red, I know, like the one our neighbor had when we just arrived in America. You wanted it more than anything else in the world. What do you say,” she smiled and reached into her purse, “if you and I go to the car place in the city and pick one out for you?”

     Vasilios blanched when he saw the check and sank back into his chair. “Mama, where does the money come from?”

     “Don’t you worry, my boy. Secret savings, eh. But you know what it means, right? No wedding with the foreign girl. Be a good son and think of your poor mother’s heart…”

     Vasilios was a good son. He traded the love of his young life for a candy apple red Cadillac, just like his neighbor had, and he also was a good son and married Syna, the perfect girl that his mama had chosen for him.

     But when Syna was pregnant she became very homesick and longed so much for her family in Greece that Vasilios had no choice but to sell the car of his dreams so he could ship their belongings and move back home with her.

     And their two sons grew up to be happy and beautiful boys who knew their grandparents in America only through pictures because they lived in a place full of hope and dreams, but far, far away.