Jhondie
I can honestly say that I don't care enough about Irene to hate her, but I do intensely dislike her. As I was introduced to Justin's grandmother, I had the most sickening feeling that I was going to have to bite the bullet and thank Irene though. Just to annoy her I had learned proper etiquette. Now it would seem that Mrs. Alvarez liked seeing such a well-mannered person. If she only knew that there was a babe in jeans and an obscene t-shirt waiting to escape from the sweet demure girl before her.
There were a few minutes of that awkward milling thing that you have to do waiting for dinner to be ready. I was introduced to Mitchell whose eyes never went above my chest and they were plastered to my butt if I turned around. Mrs. Alvarez watched me carefully, but not enough to be rude as she talked to the twins about school and to Denise about what she was doing in Boston. I managed to keep everything nice and polite for four minutes and then told Justin I was going to go help his dad in the kitchen. He was wise enough to let me go.
Mr. Carter didn't look surprised to see me in the least. He grinned. "You lasted longer than I did," he said. I had noticed the tension in the air between him and his mother-in-law. It was talk-show kind of thick.
I slumped my shoulders, and muttered a crude obscenity in French. "I feel better now," I said. He laughed. "I hate being perfect," I said. He shook his head. He didn't realize I was being serious.
"I didn't know you spoke Spanish," he commented, putting the rest of the stuff on the salad. There were a couple of radishes left to rosette, so I did them quickly.
"I have an ear for languages," I replied. I tossed the radishes on the salad. Everything was on the table. It was time. I went back into the living room, and had to bite back a laugh. Denise was trying to stand next to Justin, but Brit was shoving her way in between them, and clinging to his hand. She was a little old for that, but it was annoying the hell out of Denise. I was so pleased.
I smoothly came up and took Justin from Brit. She shot me a hellion look and I grinned back at her conspiratorially. I think Mrs. Alvarez noticed the by-play. She glanced at me, and the tiniest touch of a smile hinted on her mouth. Justin was trying to talk to Mr. O'Malley, but Mitchell was butting in with dumb comments and Denise was starting to pout that Justin wasn't paying attention to her. Maybe this dinner wouldn't be pure misery.
"Dinner is served," Mr. Carter announced from the doorway. Thank God. We all filed into the dinning room. Mr. Carter and Mr. O'Malley were at the ends of the big oval table. Justin sat next to his father with Brian on the other side of him. I sat next to Justin, and was across from Mrs. Alvarez. Brittany sat next to me with Mitchell across from her and Denise to his left. I was rather proud that Mr. Carter had managed to get Justin on the opposite end of the table without it looking obvious. The man was very intelligent.
Justin had warned me that Thanksgiving dinner was always started with a prayer. It was mostly for his grandmother's benefit, and I thought it staved off a lecture that Mr. Carter was raising his children to be godless heathens. I'd heard that from Irene more than once. Justin and I had never really discussed religion, but I knew he had been baptized Catholic as a baby, and he knew I did believe in God. That had surprised him a little, but I hadn't been in the mood to explain it. That would have meant talking about Manticore, and I hated talking about that hell, even to Justin.
Mr. Carter gave a short prayer, and proceeded to start carving a beautifully cooked (Jackie *had* been busy) turkey. Justin knew this guy that raised them, and well, long story made short, managed to get the guy something he wanted in exchange for a bird. There was a ton of food on the table, and I was almost positive that there might be enough to fill me up. Justin had teased me more than once about my over-active metabolism. I think it has something to do with not sleeping, but I could usually eat twice as much as him. What could I say, my body was designed to be on high gear, and it needed to fuel to compensate.
Mrs. Alvarez was looking at me a little funny as the food was being served. "Tell me," she finally said, addressing me. "I noticed you crossed yourself before the prayer. Are you Catholic?"
I smiled. "Yes, I am," I replied. Justin caught that and looked over at me, the surprise evident on his face. Denise shot me a dirty look, and Mrs. Alvarez looked pleased. What did I say this time?
"You did not know?" she asked Justin. "I would think that would be something very important you would want to know." I thought that I just might be starting to like the woman just a little. She didn't let anyone get away with anything, and she noticed things. It would seem Justin got some of his traits honestly. I had thought he took after his dad, but there was definitely some maternal influence in there.
"When did that happen?" he asked me. I could tell he was wondering if I was lying or not.
"When I was twelve," I replied smugly.
He took a drink. Mr. Carter had some excellent wine that went very well with dinner. "You never mentioned that," Justin said, looking at me strangely.
"You never asked," I shot back, and took a bite of the stuffing. Oh, there were cranberries in it. Please let there be leftovers for tonight. Justin could sneak up to his room while I was there all he wanted. I was going to be sneaking into the fridge for thirds. In any case, I was not going into an explanation of my decision to become a Catholic now. That would make for interesting dinner conversation. Then again, if we started discussing the many ways I knew to cause great suffering before death, maybe Denise would stop leaning over her plate so that everyone could see her cleavage. I wasn't fabulously well endowed myself (I doubted any of my sisters really were, we had been designed and it would be harder to be super-soldiers with something bouncing in front all the time) and she was doing her best to show that she had some perky assets of her own. To his credit, Justin wasn't looking, but I had noticed Brian glancing down the table at her once or twice.
Mrs. Alvarez was trying not to laugh at our little by-play. I had thought she might be like Irene, but I was pleased to see a sense of humor there. Justin said his mother had one. Maybe she had gotten it from her mother. "You are not all sweetness," she said to me with a smile and then turned to Brian who wanted to tell her about I wasn't sure, but I think she just complimented me.
"Denise's one flaw was that she wasn't Catholic," Justin whispered into my ear. Ah, so that was why the skank ho got mad. The food was fabulous, my lover was by my side, and his psycho ex was furious. I took a sip of my wine. Yep, it was easy to count the things I was thankful for that year.
Justin
Nana's biggest flaw was that she liked to arrange things to suit her. She had come up here with the intention of arranging a marriage between Denise and me. But, as dinner progressed, I was hoping that she was changing her mind. I had told her that Jhondie was perfect for me, and I thought she was starting to see that for herself. Nana had always been big on religion, and even though I wasn't, had always harped on me that I needed to find a nice Catholic girl when I was ready to settle down. Denise had said she didn't really care about religion herself, so Nana had decided that Denise would convert a few months before our wedding. I wasn't sure how she would arrange that, but knowing Nana, she would find a way.
It wasn't that I was afraid to stand up to my grandmother. As a matter of fact, I was one of the few people that actually would. But I did want us all to get along. I loved my grandparents, and wanted to be able to still take the twins to Mexico without hostility, and I liked the idea of maybe taking Jhondie down there the next summer. Jhondie had been confused about the sweetness remark, but I understood it. Nana believed in manners wholeheartedly, but she didn't confuse politeness with weakness. She had said more than once that a man needed a strong woman by his side in order to stay strong himself. That's why she had liked Denise so much. She just didn't realize that Denise's strength came from being severely mentally unbalanced.
"You did not go to Georgia with your family?" Nana asked Jhondie. They had been talking about family, and Jhondie said that her mother and sister were in Atlanta for the holiday.
"No, it was better that I stay," Jhondie replied. I paused in my conversation with Dad, wanting to hear if Jhondie could explain her relationship with Irene without using the phrase "stuck-up heifer". Jhondie looked just a little embarrassed for a moment. "My grandmother and I have differing opinions on many issues. It would be far less upsetting to my mother if I was not around her mother." She smiled. "Mr. Carter was kind enough to invite me over for Thanksgiving, and that seemed to be the best solution of all."
"Oh, how sad you don't want to be with your family for the holidays," Denise practically chirped, oozing with false sympathy. I could see the hairs on Jhondie's neck stand up. Denise smiled sweetly. "Bradley practically begged me to stay in Boston, but I told him that I always spent Thanksgiving with Daddy." She sighed deeply. "He's just the sweetest thing, but since I don't get to LA as often as I like…well, family always should come first."
Practically begged? Yeah, that probably meant he said "have a nice time, see you later" and then ran off to enjoy the company of the sane for a while. If he even existed. Still, it was a direct slap to Jhondie, and if she got any tenser, she was going to snap like a rubber band. The difference being, instead of a little bruise you might get with a direct hit from a rubber band, Denise was going to become one huge bruise from head to toe, and I doubted if the four men in the room could pull an angry Jhondie off of Denise. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I would even try.
Jhondie shrugged. "I'm just not the kind of person to deliberately cause trouble if I can help it," she said smoothly. "My father passing away in April was very difficult on us all, and I would hate to cause my mother more stress now." Damn, my girl was good, and from that little touch of a satisfied smirk on her face, she knew it too. Jhondie knew psych warfare. By mentioning her father's death, she grabbed all the sympathy, and Denise couldn't say anything about Jhondie's family or she would look like the heartless bitch that she was.
I'd never seen Denise totally confounded like she was then. Her entire plan of attack had just been defused, and she had gotten burned hard with no comeback available. Before she could think, Brit had jumped into the verbal warfare going on at the table.
"So who's Bradley?" she asked. Now Denise beamed, liked she was remembering meeting the love of her life. She was probably thinking about a small animal she had run over a few times just for fun.
"We met at this charity event a few months ago," she said, with an elaborate sigh. "It was to raise money for a children's hospital. He was coordinating part of it, and we met, and well…. we've been together ever since." She was staring straight at me, waiting for a reaction. She was waiting for me to ask her if it was serious between her and Bradley. She was going to be disappointed. I leaned over and asked her father how his crop of tomatoes did this year, ignoring her completely.
I could tell Denise was getting more and more frustrated as dinner went on. That worried me because when she was thwarted, she normally did something very drastic. It wouldn't be immediate, but it would be very spectacular when it happened. Jhondie ignored her in a subtly obvious way, keeping her conversation with Nana and Brit mostly. Brit started talking about Mexico, and how much she loved spending summers there, and that Jhondie just had to go down and see our grandparent's place in Cozumel one day because it was just so pretty there she would love it. With her little-girl innocence, you might think it was cute. I knew the little brat was plotting. She was acting like Jhondie was her big sister, something she had never done with Denise. Jhondie was just part of the family.
It seemed to take forever, but finally dinner wound to a close. The twins had cleared the table while Jhondie and I got the dessert stuff out. I ignored the gagging sounds the two hellions made when I kissed Jhondie while we were in the kitchen and thanked her for not killing anyone. She smiled sweetly, and told me the night wasn't over yet. Then she winked at Brit, who smiled back. God help me, they were working together suddenly.
