Round The Table
Living just to keep going
Going just to be sane
All the while not knowing
It's such a shame…
"It's snowing, Mommy," Morgan pointed out, craning her neck, trying to see further out of the window.
"I know, baby," Cassandra said distractedly, squinting at her sketch.
"Can we build a snow-person, later?"
"It's a snowman," Gray corrected her as Zach glared over his head at Cassandra for the umpteenth time.
"Whatever," Morgan said, flipping her fingers in a 'W' shape at him. "Snow-person is more p-o-l-i-t-i-c-a-l-l-y correct."
"No, it's not."
"Yeah it is!"
As they argued, Cassandra alternately sketched Zach and shovelled Cheerios into her mouth like popcorn, ignoring her nephew's deathstare as she did. She had been secretly working on a profile portrait of Zach in oils as a Christmas present for Karen ever since she'd arrived, determined to capture the boy before he became a man, resulting in her sketching him in different moods and poses, trying to find one to fit. He had become a giant since she'd last seen him, his growth spurt accompanied by episodes of acute self-consciousness and acne, often getting on everyone's last nerve with his long silences.
The only reason Zach barely tolerated her sketching was because he had a crush on Tori Higgins, the cute girl from next door, her family having moved in at the beginning of fall, and she came over every other morning, Zach obsessed with impressing her. Tori had deemed Cassandra 'the coolest aunt ever' and observed the progress of Zach's portrait with great enthusiasm, resulting in Zach's reluctant compliance. However Tori was unfortunately more interested in it than Zach, confiding in Cassandra that she wanted to design and make her own jewellery. She was a year younger than Zach, but gave the impression of being older, speaking with a gravelly voice that reminded Cassandra of Kathleen Turner. She had various body piercings and dreadlocked blonde hair, her rebellious image sitting at odds with her serious manner.
"When can we have pancakes, Mommy?" Morgan complained, fiddling with her fork. "You keep saying we'll have them for breakfast, and then we don't!"
"Raise it with your auntie," Cassandra advised, "I don't keep this table."
"Auntie Karen keeps a mean table," Morgan pouted, making Gray's head snap up.
"My mom's not mean!" Gray protested. "You're just a greedy pig!"
Morgan glared at Gray from under her bangs. "I-am-hungry!" she then bellowed, leaning over the table in her mother's direction. "I-wanna-pancakes!"
"Is the one and only Tori coming over today?" Cassandra asked Zach, quickly changing the subject as she mock slapped Morgan's hand away from her cereal bowl. "She said she was going to show me some designs for a ring and bracelet set she'd come up with, inspired by Star Wars no less, which should be interesting. I'm expecting stark lines and muted sparkle."
She dramatically framed the words with her hands, but the effect was lost on her audience, Zach just shrugging his shoulders before resuming his deathstare. Gray shot her a funny look before resuming building his Lego tower whilst Morgan merely muttered mutinously to herself about pancakes again. Cassandra rolled her eyes before returning her attention back to her sketchbook, carefully shading in a tuft of Zach's hair whilst helping herself to another handful of Cheerios at the same time.
"Zach has a new girlfriend," Morgan suddenly piped up, startling everyone. "Tori's old hat."
"How new is new?" Cassandra said as Zach flushed bright red, turning his deathstare on his cousin instead. "Is she shiny new or nearly new?"
"Nearly new," Gray said, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he added yet another Lego brick to his tower.
"Actually, we've been dating for a while," Zach said through gritted teeth. "She's in my class at school."
"Really?" Cassandra frowned. "I need to catch up with the times, man."
"Tori likes girls," Morgan added, taking a slice of toast. "So does Zach."
"Yeah, you should just give up, Zach," Gray said, weighing up the aesthetic virtues of a red brick versus a yellow one, before deciding on the latter, "Tori digs Lacey Peletier so it's never going to happen."
"So says you," Zach muttered under his breath as he took another slice of toast. "It's just a phase she's going through."
Cassandra rolled her eyes again, before resuming her sketching, her mind wandering against her will back to the disaster of her date from last night. She had reluctantly worn her new blue velvet dress with thick black tights and her sister's navy high heels, her copper hair coiled into a neat chignon, Cassandra feeling immensely ill at ease, having become used to dressing without looking in the mirror every morning, leading to a questionable fashion sense. Her date had been called Tom, a good looking Harvard graduate who now worked in banking and was raising his young son on his own. She had been prepared to be pleasantly surprised, but within five minutes of sitting down to dinner, he had opened the conversation with an anecdote about his ex-wife before continuing straight on from there, eulogizing at length on the same theme.
With great effort, Cassandra had made herself sit there and listen politely, whilst pretending not to overhear her sister and brother-in-law argue, their fight proving bizarrely fascinating, Karen lambasting Scott's predilection for eating peanuts in bed, saying she hadn't married Dumbo, Scott saying their whole marriage was a circus. At this, Karen had suddenly snapped and poured a glass of water over her husband's head, following this up by tipping his plate of spaghetti bolognese over him for good measure. She had then stormed out of the restaurant, Scott haring after her, dripping water and sauce everywhere, calling Karen every name under the sun, leaving a stunned silence in their wake.
Cassandra had been too embarrassed to make her own excuses and leave and she had reluctantly agreed to cut the dinner short to go bowling instead, but this had been a bad idea in more ways than one, Cassandra nearly breaking her neck every time she got up to take a shot, her high heels skating all over their lane. She had been glad to go home, but not as glad as Tom, even as he'd manfully tried to hide his relief when she'd said she was calling it a night.
She hadn't seen hide or hair of Karen since then, only overhearing her on the phone around midnight when she'd made a trip to the bathroom, Karen's voice low and urgent, piquing Cassandra's curiosity since her sister made going to bed early a religion. It had brought to mind the incident from earlier when Karen had hid her phone, her secretive manner instantly making Cassandra suspicious. She had attributed it to Karen's double-dealing over the double-date, but now she wasn't so sure, not unless Karen was going overboard with the matchmaking, with another disastrous date in the offing. And as for Scott, he had briefly made an appearance at breakfast before disappearing again, grabbing some toast and marmalade without so much as a grunt in their direction. He had then holed himself up in the rec room, leaving Cassandra to hold court at the breakfast table.
"So much for a family breakfast," Cassandra muttered, her pencil flying across the page.
"What, Mommy?" Morgan asked, standing up on her chair in order to reach the butter.
"Can you draw me a dinosaur, Cass?" Gray asked as Zach leaned over to get the butter first, his elbow clipping the back of Gray's head by accident. "Ow, Zach!" he said with a glare at his big brother who just shrugged again.
"Watch what you're doing, Zach," Cassandra said as she hurriedly lifted Morgan down, "and what did I say about climbing the furniture, kiddo," she admonished her daughter, "you could really hurt yourself!"
"But I didn't," Morgan said equably as she stood up on her chair again, snatching the butter back. "And I'm not a baby."
"I said, can you draw me a dinosaur?" Gray said impatiently, waving his hand in front of Cassandra's face, only to knock over his Lego tower, scattering the pieces to the wind.
"Gray!" Cassandra exclaimed as she fished a blue brick out of her Cheerios. "What did your mom say about toys at the table!?"
"What did Mom say about drawing at the table?" Gray fired back, folding his arms across his chest.
"What do you guys say about a trip to Jurassic World?" Karen said, making their heads snap round in shock, only to see her standing in the doorway, her blue eyes glittering strangely in the midst of her pale face.