"Kate and Allie helped me," Nancy replied as they all took their places.
"I would just like to say that it's so wonderful to have Grant, Carter, and Mark here with us, and Kate too, of course," Nancy announced.
"And Allie," Carter added.
Allie looked around at their table. She didn’t feel completely comfortable sitting down and eating with the family. She so clearly did not belong there that it was almost comical.
When she was a kid and her mother and her mother’s boyfriends would scream and fight, she never even imagined that she would be a part of a nice, stable family. All she dreamed of was a little one-bedroom apartment all to herself with a cozy balcony and maybe a dog. While in North Carolina, she felt as if she had almost achieved her dream. Looking around at Carter's family, however, was a cold dose of reality that she really hadn’t come far at all. But what did it matter? She would never see them again, anyway.
"How was your honeymoon?" Mark asked Grant while the food was being passed around.
"Great. I planned it really well, didn’t I, Kate?"
"I thought my mom helped you," Mark teased.
"Where did you two go?" Allie asked. Carter snorted, downed his glass of wine, and poured another one.
"Oh," Kate gushed, "it was wonderful. We traveled all through the south of France. We even visited the town where Julia Child wrote most of her books."
"Wow," Allie said. She had never known anyone who had done a real honeymoon in a foreign country before.
Carter kicked her under the table. She ignored him. He kicked her harder. She mentally cringed and then let out a loud burp. Grant snickered, Carter chuckled and almost spilled his drink, and Harris doubled over laughing while Nancy looked on, appalled.
"Excuse me," Allie said.
"That’s the type of woman I like!" Harris said, slapping the table.
"Honestly, Harris," Kate's grandmother said.
Dessert was a multilayer crepe cake covered in chocolate ganache.
"Have you had this before?" Kate asked Allie.
Gus whined at her feet.
"No chocolate for dogs," Grant said to the corgi.
"I've never seen anything like this," Allie said, marveling at the cake.
"Yeah, Les DesChamps is not the most highbrow of places," Mark said.
"How long have you been stationed there?" Allie asked.
"For a couple of years. I’m doing drone stuff."
"Ah," Allie said.
"You know a lot about the Marines," Mark said, inspecting his cake.
"Just through osmosis," Allie replied. "I do bartending for a catering company that has a lot of the contracts for officers' parties and the like."
"So you met Carter at a bar, you said?" Walter asked and took a bite of his dessert.
Allie stood up and grabbed the coffee pitcher off of the cart and topped everyone off.
"It’s the dive bar where I work the majority of the time. Some days, I work at a slightly more upscale establishment, although definitely not as nice as anything you guys have here, I’m sure. I do more craft cocktails there. It’s a lot of noncommissioned officers and commissioned officers. Officials will go there as well if they are visiting the base."
"Tom Toms Oyster Bar?" Mark asked.
