I couldn’t figure out Zander Dasios at all. He wasn’t the bad boy with a heart of gold, but he also wasn’t just the bad boy. He was, as Liv said, smokin’ hot, kind of a jerk, and definitely high on himself.
But there was more to him. Even Jack had never held a door for me. And who invites a near stranger to his house for dinner because she’s lonely? Well, and because he liked me, an idea that would have made me squeal if I were at all the squealing type.
I spent most of the day avoiding Ryan, who kept wanting to talk about religion. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested, but if I couldn’t focus enough to bring toilet paper to the bathroom, how on earth could I discuss Hinduism versus Shintoism?
Finally, the interminable wake ended, the last of the teary mourners went out the door with me right on their heels.
I ran home, waving at Petra when I passed her at the building entrance.
“Good luck on your date!” she called, jogging toward the El.
“It’s not a date!” I yelled back.
“Right!”
Liv had had the same reaction. Of course, she and Erin accosted me even before first bell the day after Zander drove me home. I played it off the best I could, but I couldn’t keep the giddiness off my face, I guess.
“Honestly, Cassie,” Liv had said, hands on her h*ps and looking imperiously down at me from her Scandinavian tallness, “you expect us to believe he’s inviting you to dinner at his house—to meet his family—because he feels bad for you? You don’t really think that, do you?”
I didn’t know what I thought. But I definitely found it hard to imagine that Zander Dasios invited every girl he liked to meet his mom before he’d even gone out with her. So I tried not to believe anything. Or think anything. Or feel anything. All of which was, of course, completely impossible.
Zander was right on time, escorting me to his beat-up car with the same tongue-in-cheek gallantry as the last time.
He had a classical station on, which made me smile because I’d never have expected it, yet it totally fit. It reminded me of Nan and thinking of her helped settle my nerves. A little. Enough that I could carry on a conversation with Zander, something that in the half hour before he got there, I’d begun to doubt.
But he was surprisingly easy to talk to, his superiority and arrogance softened in our aloneness.
“I’m an only child,” he told me as we drove through back roads, dark except for his headlights, though it was barely seven o’clock. “No brothers or sisters and totally spoiled because of it. As you might imagine.”
“I’ve probably seen more spoiled,” I said, thinking of Erin’s huge house and Ryan’s brand-new car.
Zander smiled. His long fingers tapped the wheel, alternating as if he were playing along with the piece on the radio. “Do you play piano?” I asked.
“I do. Since I was five. You?”
I shook my head. “But my grandmother loved classical music. I’ve heard this one a gazillion times.”
“Yeah?” he said. “I forget what it is.”
“Haydn. Sonata No. 62.”
“Wow.” He glanced over, then nodded. “Yeah. My mom’s going to love you.”
Zander’s mother was stunning, as elegant as her son was hot. And gracious and totally devoted to him. I’d been picturing dark hair piled high, overdone makeup, overeaten baklava—God knows why, since Nan, the only Greek mother I’d known, was nothing like that.
His father was nowhere to be seen. Every photo in the house was of just the two of them, which I guess kind of summed it up: he wasn’t in the picture. I thought of Nick Altos’s family, his mom also a single parent, but I was pretty sure this was a different story. Calliope Dasios seemed about the last person who’d ever get caught up with a druggie ex-con.
“Zander tells me you’re new to the area,” Calliope said, passing a basket of rolls across the mahogany table. She’d insisted I call her by her first name.
“I am. I moved here about three months ago.”
“From Pennsylvania.”
“That’s right,” I said, feeling a tingle inside. Zander had been talking to his mother about me. Not just my name, but details.
“And you’re on your own, more or less?”
“Well, I live with a friend, but yeah … I mean, yes,” I corrected, matching Calliope’s precise diction. “I don’t have family here.”
She nodded, motioning Zander to refill our water. As he reached for the crystal pitcher, I took another look around the dining room. The furniture was heavy carved wood and the walls were filled with paintings in gilt frames and shelves of “antiquities,” as Nan’s friend Agnes called them: ornate boxes, odd-looking tools, a bronze and glass candelabra. It looked expensive and a little overdone. Like the Greek church.
“Your parents are no longer living?” Calliope asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“They died when I was two.” I decided to leave it at that. Much simpler than the whole truth.
I glanced at Zander, who’d been mostly silent since we got here. He was watching us with a thoughtful and slightly unfocused expression, but smiled when he caught my eye.
“So why did you come to Bellevue?” his mom was asking.
“Well …” I hadn’t really had to explain that to anyone. People didn’t ask once they found out my parents and grandmother were dead. That usually stopped them cold.
“Why not?” Zander joined in finally, saving me. “Who wouldn’t want to live here? I mean, why go to Florida—or Greece, for that matter—when you could move to the windy city with the coldest winters this side of Minnesota?”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “I didn’t really consider the weather before I moved. What about you?” I asked Calliope. “Have you always lived here?”
“No,” she answered. “We moved around quite a bit when Zander was younger. Since he’s been in school, I’ve tried to stay put. It isn’t always easy.” Calliope’s dark eyes twinkled. “I’m afraid I’m a bit of a vagabond by nature. I like to see different places. Collect.” She gestured toward the walls and nooks of the room. “You may have noticed.”
I smiled too. Calliope had a way about her that made me feel uniquely comfortable, as if she were taking me into her confidence and sharing secrets. “I did notice,” I said. “So you … collected … all of this traveling?”