AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He picked the pierogies up off the counter and headed through the living room to the dining room and the rest of his family.
In the dining room, Vivian was laughing at the anecdote of Dan panning Tilly’s restaurant and then picking her up at the Taste of Chicago, each unaware that she was the chef to whose restaurant he’d given a bad review. Instead of being an uncomfortable story, Tilly’s lively hand gestures and gift with words made it one of their best party stories. Karl slipped into the chair next to his wife with the odd feeling that the family table was finally complete. Until tonight, hearing Vivian chuckle at Dan’s tales of the ribbing his friends had given him over the review, Karl hadn’t known something had been missing.
* * *
THE CAR RIDE home was uncomfortable. Vivian’s enjoyable chat with Karl’s sisters had come to a screeching halt when his mom had entered the dining room with roast pork and twenty questions. Vivian had smiled and tried to remain pleasant, while avoiding the questions she thought were none of the woman’s business—and inappropriate to be asked at a get-to-know-you dinner.
“Everyone seemed very nice,” Vivian remarked to the passenger-side window and cars they were passing. By everyone, she meant Karl’s sisters, his brother-in-law and Dan. She hadn’t expected someone as straitlaced as Karl to have a sister with wild blue hair, and his other sister, Renia, while reserved, had an undercurrent of real warmth.
Qualifying her statement seemed rude, and she could be polite to Karl, who had watched the interaction between her and his mother with interest but hadn’t done anything to interfere. Just because she came from mysterious people and a state that Easterners couldn’t distinguish from Iowa, didn’t mean she didn’t know how to be polite.
“Did you enjoy the food?”
“Yes. It’s the first time I’ve ever had pierogies. Probably the first time I’ve ever had Polish food that wasn’t kielbasa from the grocery store.” The only thing the sausage they’d eaten for dinner had in common with the vacuum-wrapped oval from the meat case was the name. Then there had been the cucumbers in a light sour cream dressing. “It was all delicious.”
“No Polish blood in you?” His question was lightly asked, but she’d been asked that question about ten different ways over the past two hours.
“I didn’t realize you were also obsessed with my ancestry.” Being offended warred with her fear of losing the little stability she had managed to grasp.
And she’d thought better of him.
“Of all my mom’s questions that you avoided answering, that’s the one I care least about. Tell me why you got fired and why you’re hiding from your dad, and I won’t bat an eye when you tell me that your grandparents are from Jupiter.”
“Is that why you didn’t stop your mom from combining dinner with a security clearance interview?”
He didn’t sigh, but she could feel the frustration come off his body in waves at her remark. “Vivian,” he said finally, “I haven’t known you very long, but you don’t strike me as the type of person who wants a man to rescue her just so he can prove he’s not neutered. You were holding your own. If you had needed to be saved, I would have done so.”
“What do you call me living in your apartment, eating your food and using the transit cards you leave on the table?” Suddenly she needed the parameters of their relationship defined. If he didn’t see her as helpless and dependent, how did he see her?
“Providing you with a helping hand isn’t the same as a rescue. If I were rescuing you, I’d have done this whole thing differently.”
“How?”
“I’d have a suit of armor and horse,” he said with the same flat tone with which he said everything else.
Something between a snicker and a sigh escaped her mouth. She hadn’t told his mother anything about her heritage because she was offended that it seemed to matter. When Karl said he didn’t care, she believed him.
Besides, if she offered him some answers, perhaps she’d win a reprieve from the questions about her father and why she was fired. She didn’t know that much about “her people” anyway. Her father had a habit of alienating people, even family. Maybe especially family.
