“No, no, no,” he said from the doorway as I was smoothing down the wrinkles on table number one. His fingers were murderer-red from pomegranate. “Table protectors first.”
“Doesn’t the tablecloth protect the table?”
Sometimes when Oliver was being stressed, me being silly was helpful. Sometimes, though, it was the opposite. And, sometimes, neither of us could tell which. This was definitely the third kind of sometimes. “The tablecloth,” said Oliver, with a slightly desperate smile, “makes things look neat and provides limited protection against stains. The table protector prevents heat damage and worse spillages.”
“Okay.” With the jury out, I gambled on playful. “So that’s a table protector to protect the table and the tablecloth to protect the table protector?”
“I’m aware that it’s fussy, but it does actually work.”
“So do we need something else to protect the tablecloth which protects the table protector which protects the table, or will the tablecloth be all right on their own?”
Oliver’s look was sliding fromI am mostly enjoying the joketoI really hope you’re joking.
“The things that protect the tablecloth that protects the table are called…”
“Fuck. Place mats.”
The fact that I’d literally forgotten place mats existed put an end to my honestly pretty feeble tableware-based comedy routine. Once I’d grabbed them from the cupboard and laid them out, I followed Oliver into the kitchen.
“Remember,” I said very firmly, “this is something we’re doing with people we like because we enjoy it. It’s not a test we can fail or trap we can fall into. It’s just dinner.”
He used the back of his wrist to push a lock of hair away from his forehead, leaving a streak of scarlet pomegranate. “Rationally,I know that. But I haven’t done this level of cooking in quite a long time, and it’s harder than I remember it being.”
“I promise you,” I told him as confidently as I could manage, “this will be the best Levantine-themed meze selection thingummy any of us have ever had.” I thought for a moment. “Well, except James, probably. But he has a Michelin star, which is basically cheating.”
Somehow, that at least half worked. “I know. And you’re right. It’s just…this took a lot of organising, and I want it to go well.”
“And it will go well,” I said, in my calmest, most reassuring voice. “These are our friends. They’re just going to be happy to see us and each other. We’ve got this.”
Either convinced or making a show of being convinced for my benefit, Oliver nodded and hurried off to do whatever arcane cooking-related activity he needed to be doing next.
While I’d been forgetting place mats and trying to remind Oliver to have a sense of perspective, Jaz had been on Spud duty. She’d done his feeds, and his walks, and by the time I was satisfied that the table was as presentable as I could get it, she’d come home, got Spud comfortable in his pen, washed her hands, and joined Oliver in the kitchen, where she was sautéing onions like a pro. I wasn’t quite naïve enough, or for that matter closet-Tory-voting enough, to assume this meant that being suspended had been good for her. But I did hope that maybe now she’d had a chance to settle in, now she was getting guitar lessons off my mum, now Oliver and I had maybe managed to show we were on her side, she was starting to feel at least a little bit at home.
“And you’resureI can’t help?” I asked, hovering in the doorway and sincerely hoping for a negative response.
If I hadn’t already worked out how much the whole dinner party thing was getting to Oliver, I’d have got the message when he replied, “Actually, there’s rice soaking over there that needs to be put on,” instead of “Oh dear God no.”
As it turned out, we were saved from discovering how badly I could fuck up the simple act of putting wet grains in hot water because the doorbell went. And for the less than a minute it took to walk into the hall, I was grateful to whatever cosmic force had saved us from the pan of burning slush I would inevitably produce. Then I actuallyopenedthe door and I remembered that since it was too early for guests and too late for post, that meant it could only have been bad news.
It was bad news in the shape of Next Door’s Kid’s Dad. He was wearing beige chinos and a blue polo shirt, holding a cricket ball, and looking furious. “Your guest—”
“Foster daughter,” I corrected him.
“Yourfoster daughter”—he put a whole lot of poison into the words—“has just fucking smashed our fucking greenhouse.”
I tried not to addhave a greenhouseto the list of reasons I thought Next Door’s Kid’s Parents were wankers. Objectively, I knew that greenhouses were perfectly normal things to have and probably some non-wankers had them. But Next Door’s Kid’s Family had such an aura of wank that it seeped into everything I associated with them.
“When was this?” I asked, trying not to jump immediately toAre you sure it wasn’t your incredibly shitty child.
Next Door’s Kid’s Dad narrowed his eyes in a why-are-you-not-agreeing-with-everything-I-say kind of a way. “About an hour ago.”
Bollocks. The timeline checked out. About an hour ago, Jaz had been out with Spud, and unless we invented a dog-to-English translator ASAP, he wasn’t going to be much use as an alibi. “I’ll have a word with her,” I tried.
“You said that last time.” Next Door’s Kid’s Dad was raising his voice just slightly in a way that I didn’t like but also didn’t quite feel I could object to. “And look where that’s landed us.”
As preoccupied with cooking as Oliver was, his Spidey sense forsocial disapproval must have started tingling because he appeared, aproned, sweaty, and lightly dusted with cumin, beside me. “Hello, Richard.”
Ah yes, I’d forgotten that Next Door’s Kid’s Dad was an actual Dick. Although not the kind I liked to get pictures of. I mean yes, actually the kind I liked to get pictures of, in that me and Oliver had the whole pictures-of-men-named-Richard joke. But I wouldn’t want a picture of him specifically. Because he was a dick.
