Triple G: The Man, the Mystery (A tale by Beatrice)

I like to throw parties, especially parties for myself. As far as I’m concerned, my birthday is a holiday of me. While most people would prefer to relax and bask in the pleasure of having people fawn over them, I like to be in charge and control everything. I like to throw parties with themes, potentially with costumes. However, little did I know that the year of my seventeenth birthday, the theme would, unbeknownst to me, transform from “Fun and Girly with Hello Kitty” to “Potential Assassination Attempt on Beatrice by the Greek Mafia.”

This entire situation revolves around a guy who is now known as “Triple G”, a name that will make no sense to you until I explain how he came to be known as such. Triple G was a guy I had a crush on who lived in another state and whom I texted continually. We did not know a lot about each other, but we were slowly learning, a pastime that would turn out to be dangerous and, perhaps, life-threatening.

Things that were common knowledge about Triple G: He is Greek, his whole family is from Boston and Chicago, and he used to be a figure skater, along with possessing an impeccable sense of style. I soon learned that he was wealthy because, at some point, he mentioned that he owned horses and his family often races them. I was surprised, given that, initially, he had hidden this little factoid from me. Suddenly, I find out that he owns twelve horses, regularly races them, and has a shocking amount of knowledge regarding proper attire for such occasions, the latter of which I discovered when he commented on how he wanted bring me along and stick me in Yves St. Laurent and slingbacks (and I’m ashamed to say that, at the time, I had no idea what either of those were, as my typical dress code consisted of jeans, snarky t-shirts, and Converse. Hey, it was high school).

When I informed my mother of his apparent wealth, she asked me what his dad did. As far as I knew, his dad was unemployed, which was interesting considering the amount of money they had. And the horses. And the high fashion references. My mom jokingly suggested that they might be a part of the Greek mafia. I admit, I laughed because, at the time, I didn’t think there was any such thing as the Greek mafia.

Nonetheless, I googled it, along with asking a friend who was Greek. Contributing to my growing paranoia, I discovered that the places Triple G and his family had lived were considered hubs for the Greek mafia…which freaked me out a little. However, at this point, he was still mysterious and charming enough that his attractiveness prevented from scaring me away from him entirely. For now. My thoughts at the time? ‘Huh, what a coincidence.’

On the day of my seventeenth birthday party, while I was standing knee-deep in my pool, with my pants rolled up my legs, enjoying the attention of all my peers and relishing in my birthday-related awesomeness, I mentioned, jokingly, to him on the phone what my mother had said about the Greek mafia.

There was a long and weighty silence.

O_o

Triple G then said, “…Let’s talk about this later.”

My memory at this point gets a little fuzzy, but I distinctly recall bringing up this topic with him again, only to receive a dismissive response coupled with an excuse somewhere along the lines of, “You’ll be safer this way.”

…

Consequently, my paranoid, jump-to-conclusion, Alfred-Hitchcock-watching mind immediately conjured the vivid and disturbing image of Greek mafia men with baseball bats, coming to hunt me down. In fact, Triple G was located only 5 hours away. And he had a private jet. With which could easily find me.

I then expressed my fears to my friends, who, being as addled-minded, crazy, and overly-dramatic as I was, immediately came to the same conclusion: Triple G was a part of the Greek mafia. He was practically the Greek equivalent of the Godfather. This, in turn, led to his extremely inspired nickname, “Triple G”: The Gay, Greek Godfather. Portia and V, slaves to alliteration, desired to tease me as much as possible and therefore decided to throw in “gay” because of his ice skating past and attention to fashion (disclaimer: none of us believes that having an interest in ice skating or fashion makes a person gay. This is a joke.).

Also, I’d just like to note that the always creative Portia and V decided to give me a giant pineapple with a bow for my birthday, along with a build-a-bear Hello Kitty doll wearing a dress and slippers with pineapples on them. Be jealous.

For some inexplicable reason, we then decided to watch the film Deception, with Goldie Hawn. Ironically, we had given V a baseball bat that very day in order to prepare her for an upcoming trip to Italy, dubbing it her “Italian Boy Beater” because she is so pale and beautiful, she would need it. Thus, she carried it around with her for the entire party, which made me feel a little more secure, and yet I was constantly, at any moment, anticipating seeing the burly shapes of men with gold chain necklaces nestled in their chest hair lurking nearby, or perhaps a horse’s head in the cushions of my couch – in essence, I was expecting the worst, any mafia stereotype my brain could conjure. Deception did not help the matter, as it is an extremely creepy film about betrayals and the secrets kept by men we think we know. How applicable. THANKS.

Essentially, the end to this gripping tale is entirely anticlimactic because, basically, nothing ever happened.

Nonetheless, I did, at one point, have a conversation with Triple G’s father, who’s main comments on the relationship were a bunch of cryptic creepiness and the statement, “We should never have let it get this far.”

And then I never had any contact with them again.

As far as I’m concerned, that was a near-death experience. Probably not really. But seriously. I was scared enough that I felt as if I was on death's door. Memorable party? Yes. For all the right reasons? Well...no. No, not really.