Who: Jesse, Nat, Tony, and Stevie Wyrzykowski What: Family dinner! When: Wednesday, 6 March 2019 Where: Jesse's house, Snowcap Warnings: Nothing really
Freshly dumped and about 92% okay with that fact (he was really going to miss those sandwiches, though), Tony slung his arm around Nat as they walked up to Jesse's door. "He said he was looking for something long term and he couldn't be with somebody who was flaky. Me? Flaky? I mean, for one thing, he's twenty-two, who's even looking for long term at twenty-two? And also, he's only known me for like three weeks, how does he even know if I'm flaky or not? But apparently I've got a reputation." He made one-handed air quotes over his sister's shoulder: the other arm had the salad bowl that was their contribution to dinner tucked safely under it. "Anyway, so yeah, that's done. No more Jin, no more Santa Fe." He sighed sorrowfully. "No more insane homemade breakfast sandwiches."
He paused on the porch to admire Jesse's new doormat and laughed appreciatively. Clearly he wasn't that sad. "That's great. I think we need a funny doormat, Nat."
Nat slid her arm around Tony's waist and gave him a squeeze. "What do twenty-somethings know, anyway? And who the hell else do you know in Santa Fe that's giving you a rep? You apparently need an app that gives you a scatterplot of everywhere you've dated so you can find the new pools." She laughed. "I'm sure you can get Delilah's to make an attempt at the breakfast sandwich if you ask nicely and flutter your eyelashes."
She glanced down and chuckled. "Beware of Twins." She'd seen that one in a shop once, and it was still funny, even if she suspected it was more about not waking babies than it was anything else. "Maybe, A Quodpotter and a Normal Person Live Here."
“Hey, watch what you say about twenty-somethings,” Stevie chimed in, coming up behind her older brother and sister. Just because she was turning thirty in less than a month didn’t mean she would let that slide. “Unless, you know, you don’t want dessert tonight…” The smell of snickerdoodles emanating from the foil-covered plate in her hands punctuated her words.
It wasn't hard to know when someone was on your doorstep, even if you didn't have wards up to warn you of anyone (or anything, since this was Snowcap) approaching. But of course Jesse did, and of course he was expecting the kids, but there are some rituals you still always have to do or else what was the fun in life? "Who can it be knocking at my door?" he sang out as he strode the last few steps, before wrenching the door open and grinning at them.
"Get in here all of you, it's freezing out there -- and I grew up in Superior. Ooh, what's that? Smells great whatever it is."
"Hey, I don't think there's anything wrong with twenty-somethings. Besides, I knew everything by the age of twenty-three." Tony grinned and dropped his arm from around Nat so he could give Stevie half a hug and drop a kiss on the top of her head in greeting. "Hey, Jesse. Would you please tell Stevie to stop reminding me and Nat we're old?"
He held the door with his shoulder to usher the girls inside. "That amazing thing you smell is dessert. I made it, Stevie's just holding it for me."
"Uh huh," Jesse said, giving that as much credence as anyone who knew Tony would. "Very sweet of you Stevie Nicks, wouldn't want your brother to hurt himself holding a plate. Let's get that to a safe place for now then," he added, hustled them all in and shutting out the biting cold, the better to give them hugs all 'round. "What'd you bring us, Nat King Cole?"
Nat dropped away from Tony and sidled up to her sister's opposite side, giving her a matching squeeze. Her face scrunched up as she caught a whiff of whatever was on the plate in Stevie's hand, and she gave Tony a disbelieving look at his compliment. Amazing? It smelled like old garbage. Only love for her sister kept her from saying that aloud. She was thankful for the excuse to pull away and go inside to hug Uncle Jesse, rather than keep her nose near that plate.
"Greek salad, extra olives." She kissed the older man on the cheek. "Tony helped, even. He put the lid on the dish after I made it." She flashed her brother a grin.
Stevie just rolled her eyes affectionately at Tony’s comment -- they all knew there was a reason that he wasn’t allowed to touch her baking supplies. She bounced from one family member to another, giving extra snuggly hugs to make up for the cold outside. Once she’d made the rounds, she stepped into the kitchen to set the cookies down on the counter.
“Any news about the squatter, Dad?” Stevie called over her shoulder. “I feel kind of bad for him, with all the snow…”
"Not sure, found some tracks." he called back, his voice lowering to normal as he led them in to the already-set table. "Hard to say. It's a big place. Don't worry too much, though. It's a bad winter, but it's not his first. And I'm pretty sure he's magic, he's been kicked out before and got back in.
"All right, so here we've got some good cheesy chicken for them that wants it, annnd ozo for everyone." Jesse paused, looking at Nat for help, as the person most likely to know obscure pastas. "Ouzo? It's like risotto but bigger." He waved his hand and seated himself. "It's got mushrooms in it, it's good, you'll like it."
Tony added the salad bowl to the table and flung himself down into his usual seat, across from Jesse with a sister on each side. He took an appreciative sniff. "Well, it all looks great," he complimented his uncle. "I'm starving. Nat wouldn't let me eat any of the olives while she was chopping them. It was torture."
"Good thing, or you'd ruin your appetite and there'd be no olives for the rest of us."
"I think you're looking for 'orzo,' though I imagine no one would complain too much if there was ouzo, too," Nat said with a laugh as she took her seat. She leaned in and got a good look at the dish. "And it looks great. Just saucy enough."
She smirked at Tony. "See? Good thing you've got me to keep you in line these days, you'd just be running amok all over everyone's olives." She turned so she could see her sister a little better. "So let's have the juicy news. Just how many of the new interns have already run afoul of some creature and had to come to you for a potion? Better or worse than last season?"
“Honestly, it’s usually hardly any in the first week,” Stevie replied, pouring herself a glass of water. “They’re all on their best behavior, not to mention still being very closely supervised. Ask me again in a month if you want a more exciting answer.”
Nat dished out some of the orzo onto her plate and held out the dish for the next person who wanted to take it. "Hey, maybe the safety speech will actually work this year. There's a first time for everything."
"That'd take a miracle," Jesse remarked, sliding some chicken onto Tony and Stevie's plates for them because the dish was too hot to pass, and old habits died hard, and even technical adults could have eyes bigger than their stomachs. "With our luck, we'll have an incident during one of the school trips and traumatize a bunch of kids." He seemed less bothered by the possibility than one might expect.
"Hey," Tony objected. "Don't jinx me, man. Do you know how much paperwork I'd have to fill out and how many meetings I'd have to go to if something happened while I was out with the kiddies? Because I don't, but I'm sure it's way more than I want to do." He took the pasta dish from his twin, spooning it out with gusto. If there was one food Tony loved… okay, it was all of them, but any and all pasta was high on the list. "Oh, speaking of school trips, Jesse, we've got the Charmbridge Magizoology class coming on Friday with Mrs. Grundy. We were wondering if she was there when you were at school. I mean, she's pretty old, but if she was your teacher she'd have to be ancient, right?" He grinned impishly at his uncle.
Jesse did know the level of meetings-and-paperwork that his nephew would be inflicted with, and it was significant. But there was no need to give him exact figures when the mere specter of any at all was enough to keep him careful (or as careful as he ever was). "I don't remember 75% of my teachers, and neither will any of you when you're as decrepit as me. Anyway we didn't even have Magizoology back in the 1800s, it hadn't been invented yet," he said, cutting up his chicken. "She might've been a student ahead of me or something, though, if she was at Charmbridge. Hard to say, married names and all." Not that he'd be that much more likely to remember a maiden name, unless he'd dated her or something. Charmbridge was nearly 40 years ago.
"I barely remember half of them now. And Tony only remembers the scary ones," Nat said, laughing and elbowing her brother. "I'd say we should unbury some old yearbooks somewhere and see if we can figure it out, but then that would probably lead to old pictures of us, and I'd really prefer not to revisit my seventh grade hair again any time soon, thanks."
"You always had great hair," Jesse said. "All of you did. It was just great for the time, and the times they are a-changin'."
A lull in the conversation allowed them all a chance to get in a few bites of food, though as Nat picked at her orzo, she found that she wasn't nearly as hungry as she'd thought she was. It probably had something to do with the weird-smelling sweets that were sitting near her side of the table. Maybe she was just off her food this week. "So I'm slated to do some training next week so I can be a backup while my boss is on vacation in a few weeks. I've got more experience than anyone else on the team, and now this. I figure that's got to be a good sign, right?"
Tony, by contrast, was eating like there was going to be a famine, and he was halfway done with his plate already when he paused to grin at his twin. "You gonna get that promotion? I guess if you do you'll be too much of a bigshot to have supper with your family." He poked her in the side and winked at Stevie. "We'll miss you, but don't worry, I'll eat your share."
Stevie, in the middle of both twins, was eating like a normal person, with something in between Tony’s voraciousness and Nat’s languor. She paused her fork in order to smile at her sister. “Yeah, that’s definitely a good sign! Almost like a test run for when your boss retires… and don’t listen to Tony, he’ll eat your share at the drop of a hat, but you should still come to family dinner.” From the way things were going, Tony might well eat Nat’s share tonight...
"At least someone here is following me," Nat said, leaning around to give her sister smile back. "I wouldn't be too much of a bigshot for family supper. But I might kick my freeloading brother out of my house so I can use his room to display all of my trophies and other accomplishments."
"Everyone has to leave the nest eventually, and you might benefit from a little privacy," Jesse said, giving Tony a straightfaced wink. He'd expected him to bring a date, but it wasn't the first last-minute change to the roster. "You're a shoo-in anyway, though I'm saying this as family and not in an official capacity, it can't be constituted as a promise, blah blah blah."
Tony waved his fork around the table at everyone. "Okay, first, I'm not in any kind of nest in the first place. Did you forget I already had an entire career I'm retired from? Second, I'm extremely good at privacy charms for my room, thank you. Third, I got dumped this morning and she's been single for months, so no privacy charms even needed. And infinity-th, Nat would never kick me out." He blew his twin a kiss, absolutely secure in that, and helped himself to more salad.
"I might if you keep reminding me about being single for longer than you," Nat grumbled, though without any actual annoyance. She scooped up pasta and put it into her mouth rather than flinging it over at Tony, even if the thought had popped into her head. Probably wouldn't do much for her higher ground.
Jesse jabbed his fork in Tony's direction, then Nat's. "If it makes you feel any better, since I'm twice your ages, over the course of my life I've been single longer than you've been alive. And look at me: I've got a great family, a house, a pretty good job, and I'm going to eat all the olives out of this salad if you don't stop me."
"Oh, you have not," Nat said with a laugh, finally giving in to her urge to throw something as she balled up her napkin and tossed it at her uncle. "Stevie alone has kept you in dates for the last twenty-nine years. Well, maybe twenty-eight. I'm pretty sure she at least waited until she could talk before she started setting you up."
“Alone is right,” Stevie piped up from where she had been quietly eating her dinner and watching the back-and-forth. “It’s not like you two ever helped me! Or like it ever worked…” She gave Jesse a sidelong glance before adding, “Anyway, just because you have a good life doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to have someone to share it with. Right?”
"In theory," Jesse said, throwing the napkin back at Nat as he picked olives out of the salad, one by one. "Though it might surprise you to know I spent a few years having to make all that happen on my own, and occasionally even succeeded. I'm a little rusty, but I might still be able to manage it now. Whaddaya think?" he said, and he stuffed a handful of olives in his mouth so his cheek bulged. "Have I still gog id?"
Nat laughed and leaned over to snag an olive before they were all gone. She popped the olive in her mouth and grinned, half joking, but mostly earnest as she said, "Definitely. I mean, who wouldn't want to be a part of this family?"