The Feasting Virgin by Georgia Kolias

Author:Georgia Kolias [Kolias, Georgia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612941745
Publisher: Bywater Books
Published: 2020-06-13T16:00:00+00:00

Friends

Gus loaded the bags of food into the back of the car and rubbed his forehead. It seemed as if his mother’s visit was now going well enough. She was spending a little more time with Callie. They’d had breakfast together that morning while he and Xeni got cleaned up. “Of course, she still has her demands,” he mumbled to himself. Mrs. Horiatis insisted that the whole crew accompany her on a visit to an old friend who lived in a grand old apartment building in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Once a high-class neighborhood, it now was home to drug addicts, prostitutes, a large population of Asian immigrant families, and a number of senior citizens who lived alone in isolated government-subsidized apartments. The balance of the families and seniors versus the prostitutes and drug addicts was constantly shifting as one more Vietnamese restaurant took hold while the XXX live theaters changed headlining acts, one more playground got cleaned up of syringes, and another homeless person found shelter for the night in a storefront alcove.

Mrs. Horiatis used all this to make Gus, Callie, and Xeni feel sorry for her elderly friend who watched the drug deals and curbside pickups from her bedroom window all day and night. She’d convinced them all to bring her friend a portable Greek feast and visit with her for an afternoon. Gus dreaded being trapped in the old Greek woman’s apartment and imagined the stale smell and dusty doilies that would blanket the place.

Xeni had prepared the meal according to Mrs. Horiatis’s request, a roast pork loin with garlicky potatoes and lemon, kolokithokeftedes—deep-fried patties made from grated zucchini and feta cheese—a lettuce and dill salad, freshly baked bread. And for dessert, homemade yogurt served with a drizzling of honey and sprinkled with chopped walnuts and brilliant pomegranate seeds. The food smelled delicious, and Gus was tempted to break into the foil-wrapped packages for a sampling of the old woman’s meal. Just then Xeni emerged from the house with one more package for the trunk containing a bottle of wine and a bottle of water. Gus snickered. “What, my mother doesn’t think they have water in the Tenderloin?”

“Well, you’ll notice that this is not just any water, Gus, but a fine artisan water from the mountain springs of Lake Arrowhead,” Xeni quipped, “and a fine bottle of screw-top wine hand-selected by your mother.”

“Hey, have you ever gone to Greece and seen those mountain springs the old-timers are always going on about?” Gus asked.

“You mean, the ‘water of God’?” Xeni volleyed back. “You should have heard my father go on with his idealistic recollections of his mountain village.”

“Man, the old-timers are always going on about their mountain springs, and then you go there to see and the whole mountain is covered in goat crap. So gross. Give me municipally treated tap water any day. At least I know that there have been no goats anywhere near it.”

“Yeah, just freeways and urban pollution,” Xeni retorted.

“Hey, there’s fluoride in our urban-pollution water.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.