Read Online The Greeks of Beaubien Street by Suzanne Jenkins - Free Book Online

dynamic woman. I think if there’s a case to be made for a woman staying single, it was Sophie. She had a great apartment and traveled all over the world with a couple of her girlfriends. But I knew she was lonely. She wanted kids, too, and back in those days it wasn’t as prevalent, or shall we say acceptable , to adopt a kid as a single parent. I mean, it was done, but we had a pretty conservative family and she would’ve suffered a lot of wrath from the parents and her brothers.
    “It wasn’t uncommon for Greeks to have arranged marriages, but I think my parents were too busy to arrange any for us. We were all engaged on our own steam by the time we were in college, except for Sophie. My mother was starting to bug her about finding someone, ‘a good Greek boy,’ and getting married. When I graduated from Drexel and Christina and I got married, my parents really started in on her. ‘Everyone else is married!’ they’d yell. ‘What you waitin’ for?’ my mother would say to her. Finally, she told them she did want to get married someday, but no one was interested. We didn’t have the community of close friends like other Greeks here did because our relatives were all in Canada. But my brothers were all out in the world, so our father asked them to help Sophie find a husband.
    “Peter worked with a cousin of Joe Papodopolous and evidently, Joe used to hang out with this group of men when they played poker. Pete came to my dad and told him about Joe and we could hear our mother screaming, “A poker friend? You can’t find anyone better?” She had no idea about the family that Joe Papodopolous came from. You know, the money . Anyway, evidently it was love at first sight.
    “The families wanted to meet, so Peter invited Joe’s to Greektown and they got Sophie to attend. I remember the first time I had a little bit o’ shame about our humble store; Joe’s parents were probably expecting one of the big, fancy restaurants and not our little deli. They couldn’t hide their shock. But the meal was delicious, and Joe couldn’t keep his eyes off Sophie. She was good looking in her youth!”
    “Papa! Aunt Sophie is still pretty! Boy, oh boy. Andy, if we ever needed to bribe my dad for anything, I think we got the ammo tonight,” Jill said. “So you’re telling us Uncle Joe and Aunt Sophie have an arranged marriage. It seems to have worked out pretty well for them, I must say.” From Jill’s perspective, theirs looked like the ideal marriage. Sophie came to family
    get-togethers alone since the children had grown up. She and Uncle Joe weren’t connected by the hip like so many other couples. Of course, she needed to hear Sophie’s side of the story some day.
     

Chapter 7
    Sophie Zannos Papodopolous lived in a cocoon for so long that she’d forgotten what her original expectations were for marriage. She saw her brothers and their wives interacting and doing things together, going shopping or planning a garden or having friends over for cards. She tried to remember how long it was after her honeymoon before she gave up hope. Stubbornness ran in the family though, so if Joe thought he would be able to ignore her and use her like a maid or a baby machine without her picking a fight, he was wrong. It wasn’t until after their first baby was born that Sophie accepted that her marriage was over. Trying to engage her husband just wasn’t worth the humiliation. He’d be away on a business trip and Sophie would spend hours preparing for his homecoming: primping, getting the house in perfect order, and cooking a favorite meal and he’d ignore her once he got home. She’d be lucky if he kissed her on the cheek. After the children were born, it got worse. He’d be gone for six weeks at a time and wouldn’t call her or email. The first time it happened, she was so worried after days of unanswered voice mail messages and emails to him she called his secretary. It would be the last time she would try to track him