Disclaimer in part one.
I decided to update, even though it's only been 2 days, in honor of the fact that in the story, it's Jules and Grace's birthday. (I'm a dork, I know.) More sturm and drang, just stay with me... It will pick up eventually I promise.
Thanks! Please review!
"It was a total bust. We're totally behind in everything." Jules complained loudly, snapping a carrot with zest. "There was this college essay unit in English, plus we're halfway through Crime and Punishment. And, yeah, I've read it before—but that's not the point. Plus, we got assigned books for the independent critical analysis project! Assigned! I got Their Eyes Were Watching God, she got The Awakening. Thank god I didn't get that one.And you were right—missing two weeks of calculus sucks. Mr. Annoli has set us up with this junior wunderkind for a tutor. God, I bet he's ugly. And pimply. How are you possibly better than seniors at calculus unless you're ugly? It was all sucky." Looks usually didn't bother Jules; in fact, she was more apt to approve of people who didn't look too pretty. She was merely in a vicious mood.
"It couldn't have all been sucky." Sara tried to reason.
"Yes. It was. Can I graduate early?"
"And do what." Sara set the butcher knife next to her. "Sit around the house? Wait till college comes around?"
"Backpack around Europe." Jules suggested. "Where's Grace?"
"She's at tennis." Sara said.
"Still?"
"I guess?" Sara said. "Just call her cell or something."
As Jules was dialing, Grace waltzed into the kitchen. "Where were you?" Jules demanded.
"Quit being so snippy." Grace said. "I went to get smoothies with this girl from the tennis team. We—talked."
"Just call next time, okay?" Jules said vehemently.
"Sit your ass down and quit talking to me like that; I'm older, you know." Grace sounded peeved.
"Girls, please," Sara said exasperatedly, hoping that her tone was enough and she wouldn't have to get in the middle of an actual argument. "Grace, please—just…try to call. Alright?"
"Yeah. Sorry." Grace looked slightly chastised. "What's for dinner?"
Sara brightened. "Spaghetti, with this special sauce that I found a recipe for today in your mother's stuff. I've been simmering it since about four, actually. There's all sort of vegetables: carrots and mushrooms and peppers and olives and onions and everything. And there's a cake in the oven; a three-layer mocha-almond cake with espresso in the frosting."
"Wow—you're like spoiling us." Grace said carefully.
"Yeah. Nick and I were thinking: I'll cook tonight, and then we'll go out like Saturday night."
"Actually, I got invited to karaoke night with Charlotte. The girl from tennis." Grace looked sideways at her twin. "You're invited too. Saturday night."
Jules wrinkled her nose. "I hate singing. Everyone laughs at me."
"Well, think about it." Sara set down her knife. "We can go out a different night; it doesn't matter." She looked back and forth. "And girls—can we talk, about Nick?"
"What about him?" Grace said quizzically. "You still like him, right?" she sounded slightly horrified.
"Yes. That's what—that's what I actually wanted to talk to you about. How—how comfortable are you with Nick? How much Nick do you want to see?"
"Well, while I'm sure he looks great in boxers or even less, I don't wanna see that." Grace joked.
"Girls—really. How…we don't want to make you uncomfortable in any way. " But—we are dating. We'd like to do dating things."
"Well, you've already had sex with him, right? I mean, how much more 'dating' can you get?" Jules grinned, taking a head of lettuce out of the fridge to make a salad.
This was precisely the conversation Sara had wished to avoid. "Girls—don't think about that aspect. Nick and I are dating, and will continue to date, but how much are you comfortable observing?"
"Well, we wouldn't like to hear the orgasms through the wall or anything." Grace looked slightly sick. Jules just looked amused.
"Girls—please get your minds out of the gutter." Sara said sternly. "Are you alright with him coming over after work or being here when you get home from school and everything? And if we fight, it might be here. And you guys—okay with it, I guess?"
"Sara—please. You're not—you're not Mom. The concept of you having a sex life doesn't make us squirm. It's not going to gross us out if you have him spend the night." Grace's look of sickness turned in to one of pain when she mentioned her mother.
Sara picked up the knife again. "Alright." She said quietly. "In any case, he's coming over for dinner."
"Sara—we're really fine with it. You're dating. You're thirty-five. You're like a roommate with grounding privileges or something. You're having sex. We didn't expect that you're still a virgin at your age. In fact, we hope that you're having sex; it's supposed to make people be happier and easier to get along with. If you want, put a hanger on your door or something. And don't do the sneaking around crap, 'cuz that's really weird. And don't have like a line of men outside your bedroom. That would be weird too. But everything else is fine. And if it's not fine, we're going to tell you." Jules began shredding the lettuce with her fingers.
"Okay. I have a crap-ton of calculus." Grace breezed upstairs. "I'm going to study. Call me when it's ready."
"You're getting tutored too, right?"
"Yeah," Grace turned back around. "I met him already, actually. In the library during lunch, he's a library assistant during that hour. Anyways. Ethan McKellar. He's a junior, and he's British." Her voice betrayed her obvious excitement at him. "Honestly, I can't believe we didn't notice him earlier, Julesie. He's actually kind of hot, in a nerdy, Elijah Wood way. He took the BC test last year, as a sophomore, and so now he's tutoring for Mr. Annoli and taking extension math classes through Stanford. He's really ahead since he moved here from LA two years ago, and he'd been at some really tony magnet school there or something."
"I thought he was British?"
"Oh, he is. Totally. He's sixteen and moved to LA from London when he was ten. His older half-brothers went to Eton. One of them graduated with Prince William! Anyways, Mr. Annoli gave him our numbers and he's supposed to contact us sometime soon. Probably like tonight or tomorrow. We really need to get caught up, ya know."
"Yeah." Jules said faintly. "Do we want this to be a Caesar salad?" Grace rolled her eyes at her twin's seeming lack of interest and disappeared up the stairs.
"Caesar's good. So now calculus tutoring might not be such a bust after all. I can help you too, you know. Physics has a lot of calculus in it."
"Yeah. Sure. If this math tutor can't help or anything…" Jules was obviously off, thinking about the genius British math tutor. "I think I should go see whether Grace understands the calc, at any rate. The salad's done. Call us for dinner." She slid off her stool and walked out.
Sara stood alone, chopping vegetables and singing to herself, and then heard Nick pull into the driveway. "Hey, darlin," he drawled as he let himself in the back door. "I brought breadsticks." He swung a plastic bag onto the counter, put his hands on her hips, and started to kiss her neck.
"Great. Try this." She pooled a little sauce onto the wooden spoon, cupped her hand underneath it, and lifted it above her shoulder.
"Mmm. Mnnh." Nick said. "Delicious. Homemade? I'm impressed."
"Shut up," she elbowed him gently. "I aced classes like chemistry; I can cook. I just don't show off my talent all the time. I found this recipe in a box of Lilly's stuff this afternoon, when you were tied up at work and the girls were at school."
"Didn't you sleep?" he asked worriedly.
"Yes. Of course I did. And after I slept, I found this recipe. I think it was Grandma Sarai's. It was in the same box as the recipes for Seder dinner."
"You're Jewish?" Nick said confusedly. "I didn't know that."
"I'm not. My mother was, for a while. She and Dad renounced religion shortly before Troy was born. Dad wasn't Jewish; he was some sort of Lutheran or something. We weren't religious or anything. Aunt Maggie was from a good Catholic family—I mean, her full name is Mary Margaret Connelly. She raised the kids Catholic, since Uncle Nathan didn't care, but Lilly renounced Catholicism when she went to college, and eventually became Presbyterian around the time her girls were born and she and Thom started going downhill. Grandma Sarai died when I was eleven or so—but for the few years I knew her, it was awesome. We'd get Chanukah presents from her, and Christmas presents from our parents."
"Greedy." He teased.
"More like opportunistic." She replied. "Come on, what are you?"
She could feel him shrug. "Depends. My parents are Methodists, as are most of my siblings. Close enough?"
"I guess. I have to find a church or something for the girls. They're Presbyterian. They want a church. I don't know churches."
"It'll work out. Just look one up in the Yellow Pages." Nick reached for a crouton perched on top of the lettuce.
"Quit eating. My masterpiece sauce is almost done." She carefully stirred it a little more. "I talked to the girls about going out on Saturday—Grace apparently got invited to a karaoke night with this girl from her tennis team. So, that's out. Maybe Friday? And, anyways, I found out their birthday. It's November 22nd. We could always just wait until then. I don't know what to do for that—how are we supposed to celebrate? And, also, I think it's the night before Thanksgiving this year. Are we supposed to do anything for Thanksgiving? But they seemed pretty okay tonight. They have a hot British math tutor or something. Grace is excited, at least." She tasted the sauce. "I think it's done. Do you want to get the table set?"
"Yeah. Sure." He kissed her neck again and went to find the myriad dishes and placemats.
She arranged the breadsticks in a straw basket of Lilly's, even wrapped them in a clean dishtowel. Feeling very domestic, slightly ridiculous, and vaguely fraudulent, she yelled, "Girls! Dinner!" up the stairwell, and heard two sets of pounding come towards her.
Both girls had changed into Soffe shorts and sweatshirts; Grace had taken her hair out of its ponytail and was rebrushing it. Jules looked like she'd been getting ready for a quick rinse: hint of cold cream were smudged around her hairline and she'd carefully used tons of bobby pins to clip back all of her short hair. They slid into their seats as Nick poured drinks and Sara carefully drizzled her sauce over the flat fettuccini-style noodles. Grace jumped up to find a fleece blanket she'd made; she returned to the table with it cocooned around her. Finally, all four of them sat at the table. They looked at each other awkwardly. "Can we say the blessing?" Grace muttered, looking carefully at her fingernails.
Sara didn't say anything, remembering the girls' groans whenever their mother had requested that one of them bless the food. "I'll do it." Jules said, shooting a look that was both aching for approval and defiant towards Sara. Sara quickly nodded, and Jules sucked in her breath before quickly folding her hands, staring at the salad bowl, and saying, "Dear Lord, Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and us to thy service. In Christ's name we pray, Amen." in one big rush. She grabbed the salad bowl and the tongs, and quickly plopped some lettuce onto the plate before passing it left to Sara. Nick looked at Sara, cleared his throat, and began putting noodles on his plate before passing it to Jules. Grace had taken two of the eight breadsticks and prayed that Jules would only have one, like usual, so she could have the extra one. Grace passed the basket on to Nick, and slowly the food made its way around the table in complete silence, save for the metallic scratches of silverware.
"How was your case, Nick?" Grace finally asked. "Did you get it solved?"
"No, we're a little stuck." Nick sounded distant and stymied, his mind back at the lab. "The DNA wasn't the husband's, wasn't her boyfriend's. The two sons were extremely angry with her, since they'd just found out about the affair, but it wasn't a relationship to the father and neither boy was adopted. There wasn't a break-in either, though, so we're going through and interviewing neighbors and that's all we've got." He looked at both girls. "What'd you do in school today?"
"Got a lecture from the headmaster and a lot of pitying looks." Jules said. "It sucked."
Grace slammed her fork down on her plate so hard that a chip of china sprang from it. "Jules, I am so sick of you saying crap like this! Could you please be a little more pleasant? Or positive! Quit being so negative. You're always so down and depressed and you're always assuming the worst! You're freaking out. Quit it. Calm down!"
"Well, excuse me." Jules said. "I mean, God forbid that I get upset when people treat me like a freak! I'm normal! So are you, except you're just burying everything! Don't you get it? Mom died! She's dead, Gracie, and nobody is going about being sympathetic correctly!" Jules' eyes swelled with unshed tears. "And here you are, pretending everything's normal, like it's always been this way! It hasn't. It's new and I'm scared and you're not and I want to know why!"
"I am reacting! Just because I don't fly off the handle and bitch at everyone and say, 'poor me, pity me, but not that way,' doesn't mean I'm not feeling anything! I'm just handling it maturely!"
"No, you're handling it with denial and acting like an emotionless android who just wants to look like she's got it together so that nobody asks you any questions or brings up the subject! You can show emotion, you know!"
"Hey! Girls!" Sara yelled. "Now is not the time to be psychoanalyzing each other." She looked at them plaintively, almost pathetically. "Please—just talk things out. Don't yell. Today's been extremely stressful, I can tell. You're reacting differently, which is normal since you're different people. But, God, quit yelling at each other. And quit being so damn judgmental about who's grieving more. Let's talk after dinner and then you're going to joint sessions with Margaret."
Almost comically, Nick's cell phone began to trill an annoyingly upbeat rhythm. "Yeah—sorry," he muttered, twisting around to retrieve it from the counter. "It's Grissom," he told Sara before standing and walking to the corner. Grace looked down at her hands; Jules sighed heavily and started spinning spaghetti. "Yeah? Really? Okay? Give me…about a half hour. Alright." He turned back. "Grissom—he thought of another possibility. The sons might not be the father's, we're interviewing all of them. I have to go in." He put his hand on Sara's shoulder, kissed her good-bye, and said, "Dinner was great. I'll call you when I'm done; it might not take too long."
"Nah, I'll just see you at work. I have to go in early anyways." Sara replied. "Do you want to take anything? We just sat down."
"No, thanks. I'll be fine. What I had was delicious though." He squeezed her shoulder, and she absentmindedly patted his hand. "See you girls later."
"Bye, Nick," Grace said tiredly, while Jules just mumbled a goodbye underneath her breath.
"Why are you going into work early?" Jules asked as soon as Nick had left. "I thought you didn't have a case." Her voice was accusatory and her eyes were betrayed.
"I—don't. I just need to talk to Grissom. I need my schedule adjusted."
"What for?" Grace asked.
Sara picked at her napkin. "I'm actually going to try to reduce my hours and go down to three nights a week and four on call instead of five and two."
"Why?" Jules said bluntly.
"Well, to be around here. It freaks me out to leave you guys alone, so—this is the best compromise. I can still work my shift but I can try and be here, too."
"Oh," Grace said softly. "And Grissom will go for this?"
Sara shrugged. "I think so. I'm good at pleading. Why?" she sighed. "This was supposed to be a good thing, you both seem upset."
They looked at each other. "Nothing, really." Grace said. "Just—I—I don't know."
"Jules?"
She shrugged. "Just… more changes, I guess. Everything just moves so damn quickly. I hate reality. Being a grown-up used to sound like so much fun but it just keeps getting suckier." She got up. "I really have a ton of homework which I have not started. "I'll be in my room."
"Kay," Sara said, deflating a little. Neither girl had eaten much. "Are you done, too, Grace? We have cake."
She shook her head, carrying her plate to the sink. "No, thank you. I don't think I can hold cake down. It's too rich right now. It was wonderful, Sar." She said. "Thank you." She had tears in her eyes. She followed her sister out of the kitchen.
Sara put her head on her hands. Teenagers sucked. And so much for a nice, relaxing dinner.