The frills almost made Ziva want to leave the apartment the moment she walked in. She could only imagine what the little boy who lived there felt every day. Clarissa offered her a seat in the kitchen, and they both nibbled on the hummus and vegetables Ziva had brought.
"So, um, is anyone else coming over?" Ziva asked, uncertain what to talk about. If only she'd asked Tony about conversation and small talk. He was so good in those situations.
"No, it's just the three of us," Clarissa said brightly, gesturing to little Joe standing in the corner of the kitchen, staring silently at Ziva. "Joe, why don't you tell Ziva how old you are while I finish up dinner?"
"I'm five," Joe stated, moving a little closer to Ziva.
"Wow, that's…really cool," Ziva returned, unsure of what to say.
"And what grade are you in?" prompted Clarissa.
"I'm in Kindergarten, and I did coloring today! Wanna see?" Ziva nodded, and he ran and got a piece of paper with an outline of a cat on it. The cat was colored yellow and blue and green and most of the crayon lines were outside the cat, but Ziva praised it anyway.
"It's very nice, Joe. What else do you do in Kindergarten?"
"We have snacks and read books and last week we went on a field trip to the zoo!"
"That sounds like fun. I have not been to the zoo in a long time."
"We should all go sometime," Clarissa said from behind the counter where she was mixing some dressing into a bowl of salad.
"Why is your hair so curly?" Joe questioned, coming even closer and reaching up to touch Ziva's hair.
"Uhhhh…umm." Ziva looked helplessly at Clarissa. She'd never been good with kids; what was she supposed to say? Clarissa nodded encouragingly at Ziva, but what did that mean? She was just going to have to go for it and hope she'd said the right thing.
"Um well my mother had curly hair and she passed it down to me, and my sister Tali. Just like your mom passed down some of her traits to you."
"Oh. What are traits?"
"They're different parts of you, like the color of your eyes, and your height, and things like that."
"Alright guys, dinner's ready. C'mon Joe let's wash your hands first. Ziva you can sit at the head of the table if you'd like." Clarissa and Joe headed down the hall to the bathroom.
Ziva walked over to the dining room and sat down at the head of the table, then decided she had time to check her phone quickly. She had a text from Tony: How's it going? J
She smiled at her partner's text, and quickly typed back: I think it is going well, we are just sitting down to dinner now.
Clarissa and Joe came back from the bathroom, and they all sat down to eat. Clarissa had prepared a delicious dinner of chicken breast and cheesy potatoes, as well as salad and a pie for dessert. It was now that the adult conversation would commence.
"So, Ziva, what do you do for a living? I rarely see you unless it's either very early or very late."
"I work for NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Services. My team and I investigate into the murders of Navy personnel, Marines, and that sort of thing."
"What's murder?" Joe piped up, pieces of lettuce waving in midair on their way to his mouth.
"Murder is when a bad guy kills someone on purpose. I have to find and catch the bad guys." Ziva replied.
"Whoa that's really cool! How many bad guys didya catch?"
"Quite a few, Joe." Ziva smiled at the little boy's enthusiasm.
Clarissa was not so excited. In fact, she looked rather sick to her stomach as she tried to change the subject. "So what do you do in your free time?"
"Every morning I go for a run, and when it's nice out I will run to work sometimes. And occasionally in the evenings my team and I get together to watch a movie or have dinner or something."
"Do you talk about dead people then?"
"Joseph David! We will not be talking about dead people at the dinner table!" Joe hung his head, and Ziva's face turned a bright shade of pink. She should have realized that most people aren't accustomed to death and destruction here in the United States, and murder shouldn't be the topic of discussion during dinner.
"That was my fault Clarissa. I brought it up."
"No, no it's fine Ziva." Clarissa swallowed hard as if still trying to keep her food down.
"So, um, what do you do for a living Clarissa?" Ziva backtracked as fast as she could to a safer topic.
"I'm a registered nurse at the hospital nearby, and I work the day shifts when I can. It pays the bills, and I like helping people." Clarissa looked grateful for the change in subject. "I'm really good at making doilies, so sometimes I sell them to my coworkers or patients. It's a nicehobby." There was a little too much emphasis on the word 'nice,' Ziva thought.
"My mother used to knit a lot. I remember her knitting as us children did our schoolwork, in the early days. Then I joined—I was, um, very busy, and never saw her knitting after I left school. But she kept knitting, and was always giving me a pair of hand-knit gloves behind my father's back." Ziva smiled slightly at the memory of her mother, and saw that Clarissa was much more at ease with this conversation.
The rest of dinner and dessert were supported by memories of childhoods, and soon it was Joe's bedtime. Joe wasn't ready to go to bed. He wanted to talk about murder and dead people more, and show Ziva his trucks and do finger painting and a hundred other things, but Clarissa insisted it was bedtime.
"I'll be right back Ziva, I just need to put him to bed, why don't you grab the leftovers you want now?"
Ziva nodded and was turning back to the kitchen when Joe's voice choked out "Wait! I h-hafta say g-g'night to Z-Ziva, Mommy!"
Ziva looked at tear-stained Joe in his mother's arms, and told him, "Goodnight Joe. Maybe sometime I'll have time to come over and play with you and all those cool trucks in your room if your mom says it's okay, hmm?"
Clarissa agreed, and Joe was shipped off to bed while Ziva put some leftovers in a container and looked around Clarissa's apartment for some sort of conversation starter.