“And what about you, Shanna, what have you been up to?”
“Oh, you know! Taking care of Patience and Clémence. They’re about Hannah and the twins’ age now, but you know how it is: for twenty years there’s nothing else in your life.”
“Oh, I know! I know.”
“We’re doing good together, Charlotte and I. For a while, what with me being elected Mayor and her brand booming, we didn’t have much time for each other, but we found a balance. And she’s still faithful to herself, you know her, but she’s matured.”
“Haven’t we all?”
“Very true. Thankfully.”
“Guys, isn’t it too early to start decorating the tree?”
“You can’t tell us what to do, Mom!”
“… Guess I can’t.”
Fire’s Underwhelming
The night falls fast — as if we were in Winter or something — and the women of the family decide to go chat outside, around a cozy campfire.
Our first guests are arriving in about a minute, and Cléo and Cyril clearly need some time to collect before they spend time with anyone who isn’t each other. I’m not sure what they find in this teenage movie, but I guess it’s the kind of things you forget. Though I can’t remember this being my kind of thing.
We have quite the guest list today. Aunt Miranda, cousin Nolan and Gram, of course. But also Amanda, Cléo’s “friend” (Cléo absolutely insists that they’re just friends), and…
And a work colleague of mine, Lev. I suspect Mom and Dad are getting worried their eldest daughter has a friend, and I don’t. Neither of them has said anything, but I can practically hear it nonetheless.
At this rate, Cléo’s gonna become the heir.
Cléo is eating her doughnut, totally oblivious to this line of thinking, even as Mom and Dad are basically doing the wooing of my colleague for me. Not that I would want to do it myself. I don’t dislike the guy. I can even see why Mom and Dad think he would be a good fit for me. Sort of.
I just don’t want any part of this.
Instead, I’d much rather grill our last, and late guest, Shanna. One of Mom’s high school friends. I want to know everything she has to tell me about my Mom’s past. Because of my interest as an archeologist, of course. Of course.
Anyway, Mom did it first. She thought she was whispering low enough, but they had a whole conversation about how really, it wasn’t surprising at all that Marie and Romain broke up, and good for Marie.
I also want to know what Gram will think of my cupcakes. I am already infinitely grateful to her to pay close to zero attention to Colleague Lev, but when I see the sincere smile on her face after she takes a bite of the chocolate icing, I could just go and hug her.
In fact, I do just that.
Once our bellies are full and heavy, we all gather around the television, to varying degrees of “collapsed on the couch”. But there’s still quite the sugar rush in our veins. And since it’s much too cold outside to actually exercise, we switch on the console.
Amanda isn’t half-bad at video games, and next to her, I can see Mom approving silently. Meanwhile, Colleague Lev has politely declined the controller he was offered. I know this is an instant disqualification from the acceptable list of suitors for my parents, and I smile internally.
So long, Colleague Lev.
Another Odd Machine
Having your mom work in a high-tech lab really comes in handy.
For example, in honor of Ice Day, she brought home a cupcake-making machine. It makes my job a whole lot easier, though it did take a minute to get the hang of it.
I like this machine much better than whatever mess was there a few weeks ago. You know, the one that almost got Dad frozen to death from trusting Mom too much.
No one’s ever died from a chocolate-strawberry cupcake.
Cooking
Officially today “Ice Day”, but really, we all call it “Get-Fatter-In-The-Winter Day”.
It’s all about entertaining guests with pastries, plenty of pastries, all the pastries. Mom and I start working on biscuits — which is the only thing she can not mess up — and cupcakes early. Dad watches and does his best to help by handing us the ingredients.
Our kitchen is big, but not that big, so we end up sending him to the living room, where he does a little celebratory dance in preparation of the meal of pastries ahead.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 