Page 79 of Holding Out for a Gyro
She turned her attention to me. “And this must be Chelsea?” She grabbed me and pulled me in as well. I had to bend down a bit to allow the shorter woman to put her arms around me.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Stavros.”
She backed up and held both of my forearms. “Call me Demi.”
As if.
The younger woman said over her shoulder, “You might as well just call her Ma. She won’t answer to her name in this house.”
Basil’s mom got a saucy look on her face, appraising me like I was a bowl of cream. “It wouldn’t be bad to start now, right?”
Bas adorably palmed his forehead. “Ma. Don’t make this awkward.”
When in Rome. “Do you need any help, Ma?”
She beamed. Bas sighed and seemed to relax.
Demi addressed the woman who’d given me the sage advice. “Ana, where’s Zoe? She’s supposed to be rolling the dough.” She left the kitchen, hollering, “Zoe!”
Ana took advantage of the slight lull to introduce herself. She wiped her hand on her apron and held it out to me. “We’ve heard a lot about you. Your pictures don’t do you justice.”
Bas looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and hide. I shook her hand, returning the compliment. “Bas always says such lovely things about you. He showed me a video of you singing. You have a beautiful voice.”
She waved the compliment away with a sheepish look at Bas. “That was ages ago.”
I added a mental name tag to Anastasia. One sister down, three siblings to go.
As if he read my mind, Bas took my hand. “Come on. I want you to meet Nicky and Gaia.” His brother and oldest sister.
He led me to the living room where some teenage kids were playing video games and didn’t even look up to say hello.Outside of a shopping mall, I’d never seen so many kids in one place.
When we headed down the hall, a couple more kids assaulted us, screaming, “Theo Basil! Did you bring us presents?”
“They’re in the car. I’ll bring them in later.”
He snatched at them, but they dodged him, laughing. One little boy tried to climb up his back. Bas knelt down and clasped the kid’s hands over his shoulder, stood, and spun around. There was barely any room, and the kid’s shoes scraped against the walls, leaving a mark. The other kids yelled, “Me! Do me, Theo Basil!”
He set the dizzy kid down and said, “I will, if any of you can tell me the Greek root of the word ‘gyrate.’”
That seemed to scare them away, and they fled. All except one girl of about ten. “I can, Theo Basil.” She waited for him to tell her to go on. “It’s easy. The root is ‘gyr,’ and it means ‘ring.’”
He nodded. “That’s good, Elektra. Can you think of another word with the same root?”
She bit her upper lip, and her right toe twisted into the carpet. Then her face brightened. “Gyro!”
Bas laughed. “Nice job. Climb up.”
Her mouth spread into the most beautiful smile, showing all her teeth. “Thanks, Theo Bas!”
After he deposited her back on the ground and she ran off, I had so many questions. “Is her name really Elektra?”
He shrugged. “Yes, why?”
“She’s a ten-year-old girl, not a supervillain.”
“You’re going to want to cover your shock when you meet my cousin Zeus.”
I laughed. But he didn’t. “Oh, you’re not kidding.”
