A Recipe for Daphne Nektaria Anastasiadou (the rosie project .TXT) 📖

focused so much on working up the courage to ask that he hadn’t thought of how he would ask. “Do you think that getting married in one’s seventies makes one a laughing stock?” he said. Where had that come from? Dimitris mentally pinched himself.

“Sometimes.” Rea stuck a lokum into her mouth and took a sip of coffee to melt it. That was always the way she ate candy. Otherwise the sugar bothered her teeth.

Dimitris continued: “So, if you were giving advice to a widow friend, you’d tell her not to remarry? Out of fear of what people would say?”

“I might have a few years ago. But then I heard something interesting: you shouldn’t let your actions be controlled by what others say, because they will say it no matter what you do. And I heard on a talk show that it’s never too late to change your life. Not even at seventy.”

“That’s modern.”

“Just like me,” said Rea.

It was time. Dimitris pushed himself off the sofa, knelt on his good knee, and took the black velveteen box from his pocket. “Will you be my wife?”

Rea covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes glassed. She looked out the window, toward the children who were now sticking carrots in the faces of the snowmen. “I . . . I . . . ”

He had misjudged. She didn’t want to marry after all. He had upset her. “Don’t worry, Rea, I didn’t really think—”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said. “Of course I will.”

She leaned down to him, cupped his cheeks in her palms, and gave him the open-mouth kiss of which he had been dreaming for years. When his knee began to ache, he sat beside her on the sofa and asked the even bigger question: “But will Kosmas give his permission?”

“Why in the good world would I need his permission?” said Rea. “I’m over seventy. Can’t I make my own decisions?”

“And your widow’s honor?”

“To hell with widow’s honor,” she said.

24

Intervention

“Better,” said perihan, the tango instructor. She was so short that she didn’t even reach Kosmas’s chest. “An improvement, but . . . ”

This was the part of the Sunday lesson that Kosmas hated most. Every Tuesday evening he participated in a group tango lesson, and every Sunday evening he did a private with Perihan. Both took place in the penthouse dance studio at which Kosmas had attended his first milonga with Daphne. So far, he had mastered the walk, the embrace, turns, and basic pivots. At the end of each private session, Perihan would choose one of her favorite songs and order Kosmas to lead her. A thorough critique followed.

They were standing in the middle of the dance floor. Perihan slid her pointy tortoiseshell glasses up her nose and said, “That sacado was nice the first time. Beautifully executed. But then you did it three more times. You see, tango is like dating.”

Kosmas had already learned to expect outrageous statements from Perihan.

She put her hands on her hips. “When a man does something once, it’s nice. But four times? Boring!”

He protested: “But you said I had to dance to the end of the song. I’m just a beginner. I don’t know enough moves not to be repetitious.”

“I guess we need to keep working,” said Perihan.

Kosmas changed out of his new suede dance shoes, thanked Perihan, and hurried down the stairwell. Before he reached the door, his phone began ringing with a Skype tone. Daphne appeared on his little screen. He could tell that she had just washed and styled her hair: it shone in the sunlight of her balcony. “Congratulations,” she said. “They make the perfect couple.”

“You know already?”

“My aunt just called. Apparently the news is a few days old. I’m surprised you didn’t tell me yourself.”

She was right. He should have told her. But he had been avoiding any thought of his mother’s engagement. “It’s been a little overwhelming. I haven’t really digested the whole thing.”

“You’re not happy for her?”

“Of course I am. Dimitris is a good guy. But I’m even happier that you called. How are the Valentine roses? Holding up?”

“Still beautiful. Thanks again.” Daphne took a sip from a big American mug. “My aunt also said that Mr. Fanis is having a fling with Selin.”

“Mr. Fanis does have a certain reputation,” said Kosmas.

“That’s Istanbul gossip for you. Selin says he’s been a perfect gentleman. He hasn’t even tried to flirt with her. She’s almost starting to feel unattractive.”

“How about you? Do you miss flirting?”

The screen froze. Damned Skype. It always chose the worst moments to malfunction. “There is a problem with the call,” the message said. “Hang on while we try to get it back.” The little white dots bubbled, and then Daphne reappeared, holding up her passport. “I’m a Turkish citizen now.”

The stress and exhaustion brought on by the lesson, as well as the sudden good news, overwhelmed Kosmas. He sank onto the stairs. “That’s so exciting. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. How’s the Balkanik coming along?”

Between caring for his mother and working, Kosmas had managed to translate the recipe into something he could use. He now understood the general construction: the Balkanik was a long hollow pastry with a consistency that fell somewhere between that of an éclair and a sponge cake. It was filled with lightly flavored creams: chocolate, vanilla, cardamom, rose, pistachio, saffron, mastic gum, orchid root. The creams were piped one beside another, but not mixed. Finally, the filled pastry was glazed, carefully coiled into a snail-shell shape, and reglazed. The replication, however, was not easy. The wheat of the early 1900s was not the wheat of 2011, as Fanis often said. Hamdi’s measurements were inexact, his cooking times nonexistent, and a few terms escaped Kosmas’s comprehension. Even so, Kosmas was getting close.

“Super,” he said, trying to sound confident. “I’m sure I’ll have it perfected soon. And I’ve got more good news. After Easter we’re taking over the next-door shop space. We’re going to double the Lily’s size.”

“Hayırlısı,” said Daphne. May it turn out for