And it did. The starters had come out iffy, but the shish barak, as far as I could tell, had worked extremely well. As it should, given Oliver had spent the last week risk-managing all the potential fuckups and making at least one trial batch a night. To be honest, it meant I was kind of sick of shish barak, but, as party sacrifices went, I could live with it.
Peter, having finished his first dumpling and started his second, was nodding enthusiastic agreement. “Really good. I mean really, really good.”
“Especially for a man who doesn’t eat meat.” James Royce-Royce seemed to be experiencing genuine foodie joy. “Without being able to taste as you go, this is excellent.”
Finally beginning to relax, Oliver nodded a polite acknowledgment of our friends’ praise and said, “Thank you.” Looking demurely down, he took a bite of his own meal. He got about two chews in before he paled, set his fork to one side, and spat something into a napkin with far more delicacy than it should have been possible to spit anything into anything.
“Is,” I asked, “is everything okay?”
His expression unreadable, Oliver took a knife and began picking through the contents of his lentil-and-rice bowl. Finally, he turned to Jaz and said. “Jasmine, did you put lamb in mymujadara?”
Jaz had a wicked little smile. “Yes,” she replied. And then, as Oliver’s jaw began to clench and his lips began to get very thin and very tense, she went on, “See how that worked? You asked me. I told you. I may be traumatised, but I’m not afucking liar.”
Chapter 35
You know that bit in a horror movie where everybody realises that they’ve been eating human flesh this whole time and there’s this silence broken only by the clink of people putting down cutlery and everybody starts avoiding each other’s eyes?
This was that, only without the cannibalism.
“Do you have any idea,” Oliver began, and knowing what I did about Jaz,do you have any ideawas quite possibly the worst opening he could possibly have picked, “how wrong”—okay wait,thatwas the worst opening—“what you just did is?”
“No,” said Jaz, “because I don’t know right from wrong, do I? I’m the girl that gets suspended and puts kids in bins and breaks windows and put meat in lentil stew on account of how my headcase mum fucked me up, remember?”
Jaz’s righteous indignation wasslightlymarred by the fact that she had, in fact, done three out of those four things.
“Jasmine.” Oliver’s voice was calm. “Go to your room. We’ll discuss this later.”
For a moment I thought Jaz was going to literally laugh in Oliver’s face instead of just metaphorically laughing in Oliver’s face. “Oh my God, are you sending me to bed without any supper? WhatwillI do? You gonna take away my pony next?”
“Jasmine.” Why Oliver still believed that repeating Jaz’s fullname over and over was on the sameplanetas a good idea, I couldn’t work out. “Go to your room. And leave your phone.”
I’d expected her to fight him on that one, but she’d gone too deep into not giving a shit. She yanked her phone out of her pocket and skidded it across the table at Oliver. “Right. Fine. Whatever.”
She made for the door, but Oliver somehow,somehow, wasn’t finished yet. “Jasmine, please don’t just say, ‘Right, fine, whatever,’ then walk away.”
“You told me to go to my room,” she said, half turning. “I’m going to my room.”
I reached out and rested a hand on Oliver’s arm. “Let her go,” I said. “Please. We’re having dinner.”
Perhaps it was thepleasethat did it because Oliver never could resist a social nicety. And also because he, like, cared about me and shit. Either way, he said nothing else, and Jaz took the opportunity to slip away as discreetly as she could manage, given the apocalyptically massive scene she’d caused.
“Y’know,” said Brian, “if I could be sure my kid would turn out like that, I’d almost be willing to have one.”
“When it’s your fucking uterus,” replied Amanda, “be my guest.”
Under my hand, Oliver’s arm was trembling slightly. “Jasmine is wonderful in many ways,” he said carefully, “but fostering has not been without its challenges.”
“How about,” I suggested, “we just move on and… What do you want to do about food?”
Oliver was looking down at his contaminated mujadara. “Honestly, I think I’ll be fine. I can fix myself something later.”
The carnivores in the room went guiltily back to their shish barak. And, for about as long as it took to eat a dumpling, we all sat in awkward silence until Bridge, as much to get the conversation moving as anything else, piped up with, “I don’t suppose I can borepeople with baby pictures, can I? It’s a bit”—she pulled a self-consciously embarrassed face—“new-mum stereotype, but, well, new mum.”
James Royce-Royce’s phone was already out. “Oh, if that’s what we’re doing, I also have some fabulous ones of Baby J I don’t think I’ve shown you.”
Brian and Amanda shared weary looks. “I suppose,” she said after a moment of silent couple telepathy, “it’s better than sitting here watching Oliver not eat rice.”
“I’m sorry, I’m being inconveniently vegan again.” He was trying to make it sound lighthearted, but between being tricked into eating meat and having a public blowup with his foster daughter, we could tell his heart wasn’t all that light actually, thank you.
