Chapter 12

That night, rather atypically for a midweek evening these days, our parents were home when each of us got back from school. Mom must have been in a domestic mood; she proudly announced that she had moussaka in the oven and we’d be eating together as a family. I didn’t mind. Mom didn’t cook “real” food all that often — in fact I’d taught myself to make a few things over the years, just so as to avoid a steady diet of hamburgers, mac and cheese, salad, frozen vegetables, and other quick fixes. There was always a variety of good, nutritious food in the fridge when our parents were out, but the default choices weren’t that interesting. But Mom was actually a pretty good cook. Her ancestry on her father’s side was Greek – I wasn’t sure about her mother – and I recalled her mentioning a long time ago that her father had worked in, maybe even owned a restaurant or diner once, though I wasn’t sure I even had that little detail of her family right. In any case, Mom had a small repertoire of Greek and Mediterranean dishes that she would prepare when she had time. Moussaka, a layered casserole of eggplant, ground lamb, and white sauce, with a faint overtone of nutmeg, was one of my favorites.

We gathered around our rarely-used dining room table in a slightly festive mood. Mom even put out candles, and Dad opened a bottle of red wine. Our parents, perhaps because they were musicians and spent a lot of time playing (and, I imagined, drinking) at bars, were fairly casual about alcohol; Dad had first offered me a small half-filled glass of beer at my dinner on my 13^th birthday, joking that I deserved it because I was a man now. After that I’d occasionally have a little when we ate as a family and there was an open bottle. It would have been easy enough for Chrissy or me to start drinking on our own – there was always at least beer in the fridge, we were often alone, and I don’t think our parents would have noticed. However, while I liked the feeling of being allowed to drink what my parents were having, I had never really developed a real taste for alcohol, and Chrissy so far as I know didn’t like it at all – she generally refused when my parents offered, though I saw her drink a whole glass of champagne once when she was 15, at a party my parents threw at our house for musician friends. Drinking wasn’t a forbidden mystery, in any case; and, lacking any real social life, I didn’t feel any peer pressure to indulge. I knew from overhearing stories that some of my classmates already drank heavily at parties, and that binge-drinking was a major problem at most colleges, including the one I’d be attending in the fall, having secured early admission and a substantial scholarship in the previous semester on the basis of my high grades. I didn’t anticipate drinking much at college either. I’d be living at home, not in a dorm, both to save money and by choice: the campus was a short commute away and I didn’t see any real positives to living in a dorm. Especially not now that Chrissy and I were together. But tonight I felt like a glass of wine might be nice, so I asked Dad to pour me one.

We clinked glasses and dove in to the meal. The moussaka was delicious, and the mood at the table felt almost festive. Mom and Dad had told us they had a surprise for us; they kept quiet about it until we were finished eating. Dad poured himself, Mom, and finally me another glass of wine, emptying the bottle; then Mom spoke up. It transpired that friends of theirs had offered us the use of their lake house – in Finland, of all places – for our summer vacation. They would be traveling the whole summer and we could stay as long as we liked. This wouldn’t be the first time we had been traveled abroad for a summer vacation. My parents had lots of interesting friends in different places. It had been a couple of years since we’d gone anywhere, but when we were younger we’d been to Greece, Croatia, Spain, England, and Mexico different summers. But Dad suggested that this time maybe could maybe take advantage of the offer and spend the entire summer at this lake house. He wanted some peace and quiet to do some composing. There was a jazz scene, apparently, in Tampere, nearby, and he was excited about the possibility of doing a collaboration with some avant-garde musician he knew there. “And Alex,” he said, “you deserve a real vacation this year before you start college. You worked very hard this year – don’t think I didn’t notice, spending every evening in your room studying. Tessa and I, we’re super-proud of you, snagging that scholarship.” Tessa was our mom. “You’ve always worked hard. And smart, you’re smart too. Not like your old dad. My grades were terrible. Except shop and music, of course.” I laughed dutifully – it was one of his oldest jokes. I had no idea whether it was true or not. My dad seemed pretty smart to me, if sometimes a bit absent-minded.