Julianna Berkowitz (_witchywoman_) wrote in supernextdoor, @ 2012-04-20 07:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | #group scene, 10.03.11, adam, gio, julianna |
Family Meal
Who: Adam, Gio, and Julianna
What: Family dinner
When: Monday Evening
Where: The Berkowitz’s house
Warning: None
“Is this one of the cousins who hates me for depriving them of a wedding to fuss over?” he asked Julianna as he helped her finish up dinner. He’d left the office as early as he could manage to help her prepare for her cousin to come over for dinner. His wife had one of those crazy huge Italian families and he couldn’t even begin to keep track of all of her relatives.
"None of my cousins hate you, Adam." she said with a chuckle as she pulled the garlic bread out of the oven. She had made chicken parm for dinner with a side of eggplant parm for herself and Adam as she was a vegetarian and he ate kosher. Really, she ate a lot of eggplant. Italian cooking could be very difficult for a vegetarian and while she cooked a lot of other foods, when family came to visit she bucked up and made them a proper meal they would expect. "Maybe I should of just done individual pizzas or something." she said, having had changed the menu three times since this morning and was still fretting. Gio was her favorite cousin certainly and they had always gotten along, but she wanted everything to be perfect because in her family everyone would know about the dinner about five minutes after it was over.
"Ok, so there's wine chilled and breathing there, I got sparkling cider um, there's garlic bread. The cannoli's are done and in the fridge..." She was a bit of a wreck, rushing about the kitchen. "Oh no! I forgot to bring the napkin holder up from the basement!" she said and looked about ready to burst into tears.
Adam was skeptical. “Sure they don’t,” he drawled. “I know how important big weddings are to your family.” He sighed and levitated the garlic bread pan from her hands to the counter with his telekinesis. She needed to relax. He didn’t mind her vegetarian diet, it was kosher. Which pretty much eliminated that religious difference between them. And it meant he could always have dessert. “It smells wonderful. I’m sure she’ll love it.”
He sighed again. “Sit down, motek,” he told her. “I’ll go get it. Stressing yourself out isn’t good for the baby.” He leaned over to steal a kiss before heading downstairs to get the napkin holder.
With a sigh, Julianna did as she was told, smiling as he stole a kiss before going to get the pretty napkin holder she had. She knew in her heart Gio wouldn't of cared if they had ordered a pizza and watched TV, but Julianna wanted to show she had done a good thing in marrying Adam, even though he was Jewish and did it by eloping. Her moment of relaxation was quickly ended by the sound of the doorbell and she beamed, hopping up from her chair and going to the front door, opening it and letting out a happy squeal of delight. "Gio!!"
Gio wouldn't have cared if they all sat on cardboard boxes full of unpacked dishes and ate TV dinners while watching reruns of SVU. But she figured on Julianna outdoing herself as she often did. When the door opened up and her cousin squealed, she did as well, her arms immediately going around Julianna and tightening in a fierce hug. "Julianna!" she replied just as eagerly. It took a moment for her to release the other woman, but when she did, her eyes moved over her cousin, taking her appearance in inch by inch. "You're positively glowing." she murmured. And she was. Pregnancy was definitely looking good on her.
She ushered her cousin inside and closed the door, taking a moment to notice the smells wafting through the home. "First, your house is beautiful." she smiled. "And second, you didn't have to go to all the trouble that you quite obviously did." Oh sweet Julianna, always going above and beyond. "But thank you all the same. It's going to be nice living out here where I can start having you over for dinners and be the one to run around like a fool doing way too much."
Adam heard the squealing and headed upstairs, remembering halfway up them he had gone downstairs for something. It took him another minute to remember what and a couple more to find it. Then he made it back upstairs and into the kitchen. He was not looking forward to this no matter what Julianna said. His experience with her family was the nightmare wedding planning sessions, which if he never had to deal with anything like them again, he would die a happy man. “Found it,” he told his wife as he walked out into the main room. “It only took me half a trip up the stairs to remember what I went down there for.”
He looked at her cousin, nodding. There was some resemblance there, especially the curves. “Hi.” Adam held out his hand to her and then realized he was still holding the napkin holder. “Sorry,” he apologized, levitating it over to the table. “Nice to meet you.”
Julianna's entire face lit up the moment Adam came into the room. "Thank you, dearest." she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek as she looked at him adoringly. While she was happy her cousin was there, for just a moment Julianna saw no one but her husband.
Once she could pull her eyes away she smiled as he levitated the napkin holder to the table. "I think you two might of met once at that one cake tasting thing, but well, best just start all over."
Gio smiled at Adam, partly because he was the most adorkable thing she'd ever seen in her life and partly because Julianna couldn't stop beaming around him. "Psh." she said of his offered hand and moved to give him a warm hug. "We're family now." she reminded him. "Handshakes are for strangers and you're gonna be seeing a lot of me." Mostly because she was Italian and nosy and would be constantly lavishing anything she could on their soon to arrive baby as any relative would. Babies were meant to be spoiled and she intended to do just that.
Pulling back, she looked Adam over. "You picked a good one, Juli." she murmured. "And you of course did, Adam." she laughed, releasing him finally from her grasp. "And I gotta say that I admire your cajones." The man had balls going against the rest of the family like that. "Plus you gave all those old biddies something to talk about besides me for once." she grinned. "So congratulations, to the both of you."
Adam chuckled and returned the hug. “Thank you,” he said. Oh G-d, the cake tasting thing. No wonder he didn’t recognize Gio. He’d tried to block that out completely. It had been one of the worst wedding planning disasters. “You weren’t one of the people my father threw cake at, were you?” That had been humiliating. “If so, I apologize. I have no idea what got into him that day.” He smiled and laughed at her comments. “Well, I didn’t want to end up waiting until the baby graduated from college to get married. Which was about how it was looking. I regret nothing, except not doing it sooner.”
Julianna slipped her arm around Adam's waist and kissed his cheek. "I didn't want to wait anymore either." she said before looking to Gio. "Thank you for the congratulations. I'm sure you're thrilled to not be the center of chatter at the afternoon coffee clotches at least for a little while. Come on, I made your favorite." she said with a smile and led everyone into the dining room where all the food was spread family style.
Gio grinned at adam and let out a little laugh. "No." she told him. "I managed to duck thankfully so I came out unscathed." Yeah, that had been an interesting event to say the least. "And I'm plenty aware of what got into your father." she teased. "Gin." She thought it was absolutely hilarious. Watching people clean cake out of their hair, so long as it hadn't been her, was the most amusing thing that she'd seen in ages. It was like a food fight in a nursing home.
"I'm thrilled to not be the center of their attentions or dating advice. If I had one more man coming to my door with roses and a note from my mother telling me that I needed to go out with them, I might have ended up on the other end of the courtroom, being prosecuted instead of prosecuting." she muttered. She loved her mother, and she meant well, but Gio was in no hurry to have a wedding and babies like her mother ached for. She followed Julianna and Adam into the dining room and let her eyes move across the table. "Julianna, this is beautiful..." And it smelled delicious.
“Well, I’m glad we saved you from committing murder,” he told Gio. “Don’t worry, I leave the matchmaking to Bubbeh.” His grandmother was probably worse than all the old biddies in her family put together. “But for what it’s worth, it’s better than you think it is.” He smiled at Julianna. “Being married.”
Okay, that was probably enough PDA. Adam kept his arm around Julianna as she lead them into the dining room, then pulled out her chair for her. He waited until Gio and his wife were seated, pulled out his chair and stopped. “I’ll go get the wine,” he said. “And the cider.” Yeah, he knew they were forgetting things. Or he was. “I’ll be right back.”
Julianna couldn't really help the PDA all that much. She was just so in love with Adam when she was around him, all she wanted to do was be close to him and love on him. "Thank you, honey." she said to him with a wide smile as he went to get the drinks they had forgotten to put on the table. She looked dreamily after her husband for a moment before turning back to her cousin. "I have to say I'm really glad you decided to move down here. It'll be like having a piece of home."
Gio smiled. "I had to sock it to the family. Do something to annoy them and something for myself all at the same time. I think it'll be a nice change for me." she told her cousin. "And I'll get to spoil your little one rotten when they arrive." she added. That was just an added bonus. The family would be jealous as hell when the baby arrived and Gio was the one that got to spend all of her free time with him or her.
Adam found the wine and the cider and was heading back out into the dining area when he remembered glasses. Opening the door with his powers, he levitated three of them from the shelf and plucked them from the air with his free hand. “Okay, now I think we’re ready,” he told the ladies as he set down the glasses and the two bottles on the table. Of course, now that he had nothing to keep himself busy with, he was at a loss for what to talk about. Instead he poured Julianna her cider and himself and Gio a glass of wine.
Julianna smiled as Adam finally sat down and saved everyone the awkwardness of saying grace by whispering a quick prayer to herself before putting her napkin on her lap. "I think it's great you're decided to settle down this way. Gio." she said happily. "I'm sure there will be plenty of work for a lawyer around here." She smiled to Adam. "Gio wants to open her own firm."
Gio nodded as she settled at the table. "That's the best part about my job, I can pretty much work anywhere. I mean even if I don't open up my own firm, I could pretty much walk into any courthouse and find someone who needs prosecuting." Getting paid to argue was a lovely, lovely thing. She really loved her job, honestly, even if it could be taxing at times.
Yes, that was one subject he’d been avoiding. There was no need to make this meal any more uncomfortable by going through a long before meal prayer. The after meal prayer was more important in Judaism anyway, and he could do that in the kitchen after clearing up. That way Julianna would have more time to catch up with her cousin. He nodded. “Probably plenty of work for you even if you don’t,” he agreed. “I thought about private practice, but I’m doing more good at the clinic and probably making better money than if I’d tried to go it on my own.”
"And you're home a lot more." she said, reaching over and smiling as she squeezed his knee gently. Julianna had very much disliked his crazy hours back in New York. They had barely had any time to see one another. Now, as man and wife and with his new job, she went to bed with him every night. She pulled her eyes away from Adam before she started staring at him all lovingly again and forgetting her cousin was in the room. She blushed when she realized she had done exactly that and started eating to cover her own sillyness.
"You're right about that." she sighed. "And that's another reason I'm on the fence really. I love working, but unless I get a decent amount of employees, my hours are going to be ridiculous." She would have to figure it out sooner or later. She had plenty of money stashed away for a rainy day to get her by until she figured out the best course of action. "I'm just happy to be here closer to Julianna." She was her favorite cousin after all.
Taking a bite off of her plate, she let out a soft little noise of appreciation. Once she'd swallowed, she looked to her cousin. "Like I said, you've outdone yourself."
“Well, I’m also not working alternating day and night shifts twelve to eighteen hours a day,” he reminded Julianna. Being an ER doctor had just been insane hourswise. Of course, his hours had probably been why he and Julianna hadn’t been accidentally expecting sooner. Since he could go to bed every night with her and not be sleep deprived and exhausted...yeah. “Things are a little slower paced down here than in New York City. So maybe it would be easier to start you own firm.” Julianna’s food was always good and he took a bite himself. “She always does,” he assured Gio. “My co-workers love her already, because of the sweets she sends with me for them. I get commended on my good fortune in catching her before some other guy did all the time.” And now he was getting distracted and dreamy eyed.
"And you know any help you need, Gio, I'm just a phone call away." Julianna was smart and could easily help Gio set up the basis for her form and what not. It would be yet another project to take on, but as usual, Julianna thought only of helping others.
A little blush came to her cheeks as the bth complimented her on her cooking and baking skills. "It's nothing I don't enjoying doing." she said. "You're always welcome for dinner, or lunch, or whatever Gio." she said and leaned over to give Adam a kiss on the cheek. "I'll make cookies for when I come in with you to the clinic on Monday."
"Julianna was always the best cook." she smiled. "I mean I can cook and it's not bad, but Julianna..." Gio sighed as if that was the only way to describe the sheer amazingness of her cousin's home cooking. "You're a lucky man for snapping this pretty thing up." Gio told Adam though she was certain he already knew. They were really just too cute together. Sickeningly sweet. Gio thought she might have to call the dentist after this dinner to check for cavities from the sweetness that oozed from the pair.
"I may take you up on dinner offers." she smiled. "But I want you two to come over to my place one night too, whenever I get everything unpacked and in order. So it might be a while." she laughed. After a couple more bites of her food, she turned her attention to Adam. "So, was the wedding lovely?" she questioned. "Or elopement rather? I at least want details about this wedding of yours."
Adam didn’t immediately speak up when Julianna volunteered herself for helping her cousin. Gio seemed like a smart cookie. She wouldn’t let his wife overdo it, he was certain. “Very,” he agreed with Julianna’s cousin. “I try to tell her that as often as possible, but she seems to think she’s the one who came out on top in this deal.” He grinned at his wife between bites of food. “You don’t need to come in with me first thing, motek,” he reminded her. “There really won’t be much for you to do first thing in the morning. We agreed to a few hours three times a week. Enjoy sleeping in while you can.” When the baby got here, she probably wouldn’t get to sleep in for years.
He smiled at Gio’s question. “We went up to Niagara Falls,” he told her. “It was beautiful. Especially Julianna. There’s pictures...somewhere.” Julianna would know, she had put them into an album.
Julianna smiled brightly at the mention of the elopement. "After dinner I can show you the photo album." she said, having been very proud of herself with how pretty she had made it. One thing they had sprung for was a proper photographer so there were plenty of beautiful pictures taken. She chose to ignore his scolding her on how much she intended on being at the clinic for now. She would do her best not to over do, but her husband needed her help and she'd be damned if he didn't get it.
Gio most certainly wouldn't let Julianna overdo it. She was pregnant and if she planned to help with anything it would be light work if Gio consented to that. Julianna tended to do more than her fair share, always the giving sort of person. She'd been that way for as long as she could remember. "That would be lovely." she agreed with a nod. She was certain that Julianna looked like a vision of loveliness as a bride and that was about the only sad fact of their elopement. It would have been nice to see her all dressed up and confessing her love before god and everyone. Still it was romantic that they rushed off and got hitched. Honestly she was a little jealous, but she kept that thought to herself.
Julianna had been the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen that day. Adam smiled at his wife. It had been pretty expensive to rush it, but worth every penny. Especially since it ended the harrowing wedding planning. She didn’t need extra stress right now. If their families had hurt Julianna now as much as they had before, Adam would have been the one throwing things at them. It still boggled his mind how a bunch of so called adults could act the way they did. His own father especially. Luckily, they were past that and he would remove Julianna from any stupid arguments about baby showers and christenings (and those would probably be as bad or worse than the wedding planning), citing her and baby’s health. One of the advantages of being a doctor, when he said things like that, they carried more weight. Something he was not above exploiting. Now it looked like he had an ally in that battle, since Gio seemed to enjoy defying her family in favor of being sensible.
Dinner was of course wonderful and after some good food and conversation, the trio settled into the living room after clean up for some cannoli and so Julianna could show her Gio the wedding pictures. "I managed to find this little boutique that did alterations on sight and they rushed my dress for me." she said as she showed Gio the pictures, glancing up at Adam. Their wedding might not of been traditional, but for Julianna, it had been perfect. She had become Mrs. Julianna Berkowitz, marrying the man she loved, and that was all that had mattered to her. "And doesn't Adam look so handsome?"
Gio looked over the pictures, her fingers sliding gently over the plastic sheet that held them in place. "Oh Julianna, that dress is beautiful." she whispered. It made her a slight bit jealous to see her cousin looking so happy, so in love. Even now sitting there in the living room all mushy over the good doctor over there. It was disgustingly adorable and Gio tried her best to hide her envy. "You two are just adorable."
Adam chuckled, taking a drink of his glass of wine. “Nobody was looking at me, motek,” he assured her. Which was how it should be on their wedding day. He grinned wryly at Gio’s common. “Thanks.”
"I was looking at you." Julianna said with a smile. Yes, they were disgustingly cute, but she couldn't help it. After all the crap their families had put them through and would still put them through, she cherished all the happy times she and her husband had. She looked at her cousin and gave her a hug. "I'm really glad you're here." she said and meant it. As much as Julianna loved to be away from the fighting, she did miss her family greatly and having Gio so close would ease some of that ache.
"I'm glad I'm here too." Gio agreed, setting the album aside and hugging her cousin in return. "Had to come help spoil that baby anyways." she grinned. She fully intended on doing just that too. That baby, as far as she was concerned. Was the luckiest soon-to-be-born human being in the world. Its parents loved one another and it would come into a happy home. That alone was lucky and Gio couldn't be more happy about being involved in such a loving family.
Adam smiled softly at his wife. “Okay, you were the only one looking at me,” he amended, moving to lean down and give her a soft kiss. He smiled over at Gio next. “I’m glad you’re here as well,” he assured her. “Someone else who can help me keep Julianna from overdoing it.” Yes, he was bringing that up. He needed all the help he could get, considering his job still took him away from home twelve hours ago.
Julianna pursed her lips before smiling and shaking her head. "At this rate I may as well be on bedrest!" she said with a laugh. Really, she kind of loved the fussing. She loved being that loved. Julianna looked at her husband and knew that even if running of and eloping wasn't what she had always dreamed of, it was perfect. Her life with Adam would be everything she ever dreamed of.