Adult Short Story - Third Place

The South Simcoe Arts Council has been shining a spotlight on up and coming writers of all ages, in all genres through its Creative Works Writing Contest since 2016.

We are excited to share the winners writings with you. Enjoy!

This award is sponsored by
Gary and Dian Bowers.

Good Girls Don't

Georgie punches Stavros hard in the face with a sudden unexpected right. Her uncoiling fist and a snarled "You bastard!" announce that the end has finally, really arrived. She just wants the money she's endlessly 'loaned' him back. Now. She's done.

Disbelief twisiting into outrage washes over Stavros' face. But Georgie is already pelting past his mother and sister standing with mouths agape in the cottage doorway. They urge her in with frantically beckoning arms. 'Well hold him off!"

Grabbing the door frame, Georgie launches herself into the main room. "What have I done! What do I do now?'' She hears Kyria Maria screaming at Stavros to stop and Evi urging him to calm down. Stavros roars back that no woman will tell him what to do, by God.

With the logic of fleeing prey, Georgie thinks shell jump out the room's large and welcoming casement window to safety. Throwing one leg over its broad sill, she prepares to leap. Stavros, hurtling into the room sees this, judges he'll catch her outside, and swings round just as Georgie reconsiders the two-meter drop to hardpacked earth and hesitates. To her delight and relief, the women are now motioning, "Come this way! Hurry!" She drops back into the room and flies out the door in the other direction around the house.

Clambering over a broken-brick whitewashed wall into the neighbour's garden, her heart pounding, Georgie feels oddly elated, as if this is some high-stakes game of hide and seek. In the falling dark, she slips behind the curtain of a willow tree that fills the garden, presses her back against its smooth bark and slides to a crouch. One hand clamped over her mouth to stiffle giggles, she trembles with the thrill of outwitting that lying thief she's given up being good
enough for.

Hugging her knees, she hears Stavros circling the neighbourhood on her Vespa; the one he won't let her ride, howling that he has a knife and she should come out so he can kill her. She's seen this craziness many times, but never on the streets of the village where others can see it too.

Stavros widens his search and the growl of the Vespa fades. Georgie stares intently into the rustling wall and does not move until complete silence has settled on the street. So far, this time, things are in her favour. He's flown into rages after scolding her for stopping at a café
after work when she'd laugh and ask does he think she's come half way round the world on her own to be told she can't go for a coffee by herself? She's gotten good at bolting into the bathroom, with the only lockable door. He pounds it and rages that it is her fault if he hits her. If only she knew how to behave, he wouldn't lose his temper.

Lord knows she has tried to do his version of 'behave' and it has ground her to dust. She arrived in the country wearing bluejean shorts and tank tops and now dresses like an Old Order Mennonite, lowers her eyes on the street, fabricates husbands and children to ward of prying taxi drivers' "Are you married?" She has learned the important thing is to signal her possession by a man, preferably one with money, power or a violent ethnic profile. This shuts them up immediately and keeps her safe from unwanted advances. As does swearing with relish (in Greek) back at cat-callers on the streets of Athens. "Sorry miss!" they stammer, worried now about a knife-weilding brother or husband coming after them to defend her honour.

Those fakes and manoeuvres are almost fun, but the coercion at home has escalated slowly to intolerable. Her lowest point was the time Stavros stopped her getting on a day-tour bus to the goddess temples at Elevsina. He'd grabbed her arm and yanked her back from the folded-open doors. "You're not going anywhere," he'd calmly ordered.

"Oh yes I am!" she'd spit back, trying to wrench free. Stavros had eyeballed the driver and repeated in his most charming and menacing voice, "She's not going. You can leave now." The driver had shrugged, pulled the doors shut and rattled off down the highway. Stavros ordered her home and she was so broken, so alone, that she went, crying quietly, but obedient to his outrageous demand.

Kyria Maria is still standing in her yard when Georgie reappears. The frantic woman clasps the girl to her chest and kisses her cheeks over and over. Then, taking Georgie by the hand, marches her across the road to Kyria Eleni's. With a nervous glance up the road, she lifts the iron latch and pushes Georgie through. In this world where men rule by word and deed on the surface, women maneuver in a silent underground sisterhood to help one another.

Georgie has slowly been let into the secret circle where the women lie for one another, laugh at the foolishness of men in the safety of their absence, and comfort one another when men get out of control. Kyria Eleni, who has been watching events from her balcony, looms suddenly large in her doorway, the lamplight shining behind her. Her arms are crossed defiantly over her massive bosom and she declare that Georgie will stay the night there and Stavros will have to deal with her if he dares come near.

Still shaking and light-headed, Georgie follows her into the kitchen where she is making Turkish Delight for her grandson. Rosewater and boiled sugar scent the air. "Sit down, dear. Would you like coffee?" Kyria Eleni shakes her head slowly from side to side and stirs the pot. "What an idiot that boy is. Why do you stay with him?"

"Good question," Georgie thinks. She sips at the tiny cup of bitter, hot coffee and considers as if from a distance, how close she's come to drowning in the great wave of Greek culture that has crashed over her and pulled her into its suffocating, azure depths. It comes to her that her obsession to master Greek these past few years has, yes, been for love of language and the need to function in a place where no one speaks English. She can now speak and act Greek, but is constantly surprised by situations where she can't 'think' or 'see' Greek. It is quite clear that this will never be her home.

In truth, the flame of her desire to speak good Greek has been whipped to real heat by her demand to be heard by Greek men, in their own language. The humiliation of being shut out of conversation as if she were a ghost, or calling from underwater, patronized and dismissed like a child splashing water or throwing sand when she spoke had shocked Georgie to the core. Learning Greek has been a campaign to reclaim her voice, force herself out of the shadow world of women. It would have been like disappearing not to try.

She's fought for air and made the difficult ascent back into her own heart's desire. The paralyzing heaviness, like chains wrapped around her seems to have left her, rusted away these last few months. Her arms declared their freedom with that defiant punch in the face, her voice with that curse.

When Kyria Eleni asks why do you stay with him? what can she say but, "I'm leaving tomorrow." In all but fact, she left weeks ago. Tomorrow's plane ride will finish it. Sitting in Kyria Eleni's kitchen, slurping her muddy coffee, Georgie breathes a sigh and begins to relax. She's nearly killed herself discovering the answer to that 'question at the bridge'. But she's made it across. Men in this culture have held the winning hand for a long time by selling the idea that good girls don't fight back. Georgie is now certain that good girls are the ones who do.