"No!" Izzy screeched at my Mother as she picked a knife up off the counter. "That's not one of the new ones!"
"Then why is it out, Isabelle?" Mother complained, picking up a different one and chopping away at the ingredients she was preparing. "Can you just clear away anything I can't use?"
I took a step into the kitchen, which smelled divine as usual in spite of the chaos it seemed to be in. Izzy was hovering around looking busy and rearranging the scene around our Mother, who was the only one doing the cooking. She looked stressed.
"What's going on?" I asked. She didn't usually get so flustered about preparing for dinner guests. In fact, she loved to entertain.
"Oh, Alexander!" Mother greeted, having not seen me come in. "Sorry about the mess. We invited Simon to dinner tonight."
I didn't quite see what that had to do with anything. I looked at Izzy hoping she could explain, or at least appear just as ignorant as I was. Instead she looked offended that I didn't see the problem.
"I was looking it up online, and it turns out you can't cook Jewish food in your normal pans!" Izzy announced, exasperated. "You can't even eat it with the same forks."
"By 'Jewish food', you mean Kosher?" I asked, taking a look at all the new cooking utensils around. I was getting a bad feeling about where this was going.
"That's right." Said Mother, nodding and cleaning up some of her workspace. "Of course, Isabelle only told me this morning-"
"Simon doesn't keep Kosher." I told them, a little reluctantly seeing all of their efforts. Immediately the two women stopped moving.
"You're sure?" Izzy asked, furrowing her brows.
"Pretty sure." I said. "I've seen him break those rules plenty of times. Haven't you?"
My sister kept guiltily quiet for a few seconds; after which my Mother burst into laughter. When things go wrong like that you can either become stressed about it or laugh it off, she had chosen the latter. That was nice. And lucky, on Izzy's part.
"Magnus, come in!" I could hear my Mother from my seat in the living room. "Alexander was just telling us about his new job."
"Sorry I'm so late, Maryse." Magnus apologised. He'd been held up at work when somebody higher up at his magazine wanted to change their next cover last-minute.
"Oh, not at all." My Mother pardoned him. I heard the door close behind my boyfriend as he stepped inside.
"I brought wine?" Magnus offered as consolidation. Spending so long with Camille had given him a pretty decent knowledge of liqueurs and the like. Knowledge my parents appreciated.
"Ooh, how lovely. I'll just go pop it in the kitchen." Mother said as the pair of them entered the living room together. She flashed the bottle at us on the way out but without Father there, there was nobody to impress.
Magnus came and took a seat next to me. I kissed him and Max pulled a face, but Max thought kissing was gross full-stop, so I wasn't too offended.
"Did you get the shots you needed?" I asked, just making sure that Magnus had left his work completed. He tended to be in a terrible mood when he wasn't happy with the results - would you want thousands of copies of your worst school project floating around to the general public?
"Despite all odds." Magnus sighed dramatically. Izzy giggled and Magnus greeted the others in the room. Max was sat on the floor leaning on the coffee table and Simon was perching on the arm of my sister's chair. He kept looking over to the kitchen and back to Izzy in a mortified sort of way. My guess is that he felt guilty, which was dumb because all the fuss was really my sister's fault.
"So, Alexander, this shop? Theresa's?" My Mother asked on her way back into the room.
"Tessa's." I corrected.
Like me, Tessa hated people using her name in full, so we had a mutual agreement when it came to shortening them down.
I re-told the story of the incredibly fortunate day I'd had when I walked into the shop for the first time. As it turned out, Tessa's family was full of antique fanatics. Recently she'd lost some relatives who had left their entire house - and all the treasures in it - to her. Although she hated to sell it all away, she really had no use for the stuff. She kept photographs and anything sentimental, as well as some jewellery and clothing, and decided that the rest could be sold off.
Of course, stock like she had would be wasted on e-bay or at a jumble sale. She opened her shop with the money she'd gotten from selling the house itself.
"She's going to learn-by-doing, I think." I told my family. "Start buying in once she gets the knack for it."
"Well it sounds very exciting." Mother smiled.
"Does it?" Said Max. His interests didn't really span to this sort of thing. I'd long since made peace with the fact the things I loved were actually quite boring to the people around me.
"Your brother doesn't have the most usual of tastes." Magnus smirked.
"I'll say..." Max commented, looking unusually intently at Magnus himself.
Max had never cared much about the fact Magnus was male. Up until recently, it had made no difference to him. But not long ago, he'd had this project on family trees. Max had been sweet enough to include a branch for Magnus - and one for Simon, too - which his Teacher had thought was a mistake. Explaining to her hadn't been a problem. The problem was that some less open-minded kids had overheard, and weren't at all shy about voicing the bigoted opinions they'd been raised with.
Max had been pretty surprised and very angered by their reaction.
So, that day my little brother got in trouble for shoving one of the other kids down sprawling over his chair and onto the ground; an action which was so unlike him that he'd gotten off lightly (although I'd had a word with him about it - I didn't want him getting into trouble over me). Since then he'd befriended one of Helen Blackthorn's younger siblings and had carried on as normal, for the most part.
Only... Now that my normality had come into question, Max's interest in exactly what it was that made me different had increased. Considering that had previously been zero, I found it quite noticeable.
"So, do you two live together now?" Asked Max over dinner. I still had food in my mouth, so Magnus was the one to reply first.
"Not yet." He said, much to everybody's surprise, even my own.
Not that I didn't envision us living together at some point in the future... But I hadn't really thought about it, and Magnus' instant response made it seem like he had.
"We haven't actually talked about that." I told Max after I'd swallowed. I tried to cover my awkwardness with laughter. Unfortunately that never works.
"Though you do stay with me from time to time." Magnus pointed out. He then turned his attention to my Mother and started to change the subject. "Did you teach your Son to cook? He has your talent."
"Like how Father stays here from 'time to time'." Izzy said, providing unnecessary air-quotes like she was clarifying something.
Mother shot her a look, which could have been about the interruption, but probably had more to do with her bringing our Father up. Seeing as it looked like a sensitive subject, I didn't ask. If they wanted to get together again that was really their own business and I was sure they'd announce it when they were ready.
Simon, sensing that the conversation was about to take a turn for the worse, dropped the millionth compliment he'd given my Mother that night. Clearly I'd been right on the money with the guilt thing. Isabelle's boyfriend did not want any efforts made for his sake to go unappreciated. This is just one of the reasons I liked Simon as a potential family member.
He was even first to offer to take the dishes.
"So..." Magnus said, lounging in the passenger side seat as he usually did on the way home from my Mother's. This time we'd brought my car so I wouldn't need to worry about being uninsured. By now we were almost at Magnus' place. "That's a 'no' to us living together?"
"Well, not right now." I said, in the nicest tone I could muster. It sucked that I had to keep my eyes on the road. This wasn't about me being mad at him or anything. It was about going at a steadier pace.
"Have I done something to offend you?" Magnus asked, missing my intention completely. "You seemed happy to stay with me after the Zach thing."
I groaned.
"I don't want to talk about the Zach thing. I just think it's too soon, that's all." I told Magnus. I pulled the car up to park and faced my boyfriend properly. He seemed to be searching my face for honesty.
"So should I not invite you up?" He asked, placing his hand over mine on the gearstick. I let go of the car part and held onto him instead.
"Oh I don't know about that..."
A new family-time chapter; I hope that you readers enjoyed it. I should post the next chapter 'Spontaneous' in the near future. Thank you very much for reading.