Hall & Oates [NaNoWriMo Fail]

Family Man

prompt 5: in which a character stays for family night

Hall

Family night is a lot like mixing gravy and chocolate; you'd think that since they're both good things that they'd be good together, but it turns out that it's just gross and anticlimactic. And 17 years into my existence, my mother still hadn't wrapped her mind around this, so once every two weeks she, Katherine and I would sit at the dining room table and stare at each other until she'd finally say that we could go to bed. It was a comfortable routine and I didn't like it, but I'd gotten used to it. And as usual, Katherine had to ruin it.

"Amanda told me that she and Alexis saw you talking to Noelle Pierce the other day," she said, shoving a spoonful of spinach lettuce into her mouth (she was doing this thing where she ate healthy food for one meal of the day so that she could justify binging on candy. I predicted that she'd lose all of her teeth by the time she turned 20).

Mom looked at me and I looked at Katherine who just shrugged and feigned innocence when we all knew she was just trying to rile me up.

"Who's Noelle Pierce?" Mom asked, cutting her pasta so that it looked more like rice covered in meat sauce.

I shrugged, "Just a girl we go to school with."

Katherine frowned, "She's really weird. In art class she sits all the way in the corner and Arianna said that she heard her talking to herself one day."

I dropped my fork and glared across the table, "Two things. 1) All of your friends' names start with the letter 'a,' why? 2) Why are you talking about her like that? You don't know her."

"She's weird."

"You eat candy, every meal of the day. You're weird."

"Am I, or am I not eating spinach right now?"

My mom cleared her throat gently and caught our attention in that way that only moms can. She smiled up at us and set down her knife and fork, by then her plate was nothing but mush with tomato sauce on top. "I have something I wanna tell you."

My sister and I exchanged looks, because whenever she told us something on family night, it was a big deal. Like the time we came home and there was no furniture in the living room, we had a family night and she told us that she'd lost her job and had to sell the furniture to pay bills.

Yeah, that was a great memory.

"What's wrong?" Katherine asked.

She frowned, "Nothing, nothing. It's just that...I have this friend I want you to meet."

I blanked for a minute, because there was no way that my mom was out making friends without me noticing. And there was no way that she was actually using the word 'friend,' when she actually wanted to say 'boyfriend.'

Katherine looked lost as if someone had asked her to recite the pledge of allegiance in Latin. "Why?"

Mom frowned, "Because I want him to meet the two most important people in my life."

"Him?" By now Katherine was holding her fork like it was a murderous weapon and squinting her eyes at our mother like she was deranged because...she kinda was.

"Katherine, chill out."

Her gaze darted my way and then she excused herself, rising from the table and walking down the short hallway to her room.

"What did I say?"

I smiled, "Nothing, Katherine's kind of a jerk Mom." I wanted desperately to tell her that I didn't want to meet her friend and be irrational and loud and an asshole, but Katherine had already taken that role. So, I had to be the supportive, mature one and listen to my mom rant and rave about some guy named Darius that I didn't give two shits about.