Chapter 15: The De Lucas
944 Words
"I'm looking forward to this." Cam is drying his hair with a towel and strangely upbeat.
"Why?"
He shrugs with a mischievous grin. "You'll have an excellent time; my family is too big and weird not to."
"Oh really?"
"Yes. You will."
"So do we know each other, or will we pretend to be introduced?"
"Let's walk together."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Wow."
"What?"
"I'm meeting your family. I guess we just got serious." He does a juvenile snorty-laugh
****
Gabriel lives in a charmingly skinny looking townhouse that's painted in a way that makes me, inexplicably, think of the Easter bunny and Mini Eggs.
"So this is where you grew up," I say to Cam.
“When I was six, I think?” he. “We lived in Montreal for a while so that my parents could finish school.”
"Your parents got pregnant in university?"
"Now that is a story for another time."
He hasn't combed his hair in any stretch of the word; it's even more tousled than usual. He wears a nice shirt, white linen, and a pair of gray plaid pants that I used to be unique, but now every remotely stylish boy owns them.
He opens the door for me, and we step into the foyer that's just a landing at the bottom of a steep staircase. The coat rack is absolutely full, and he opens the door opposite the coats and tosses my jacket into the dark room beyond. He slips out of suede gray boat shoes and smirks at me.
"Ready?"
As soon as we start climbing the stairs, I hear the voices and laughter. The top of the stairs opens out into a spacious kitchen separated from the living and dining room with a marble-topped breakfast bar. A handful of—surprisingly both—men and women work at the stove and counters, chopping vegetables and stirring the pot and the rest sit on the plushy couches watching a soccer match on the flat screen, along with numerous children who bear no resemblance to anyone in the room.
Two boys around seven to ten, with a dark brown positively glowing complexion, share a Lay-Z boy with grudging acceptance, and an East Asian girl lounges sleepily on the lap of a man who could only be Cam's father.
"Darling!" A short, waifish woman notices us first and hurries over. She smothers Cam in a hug and reaches on her tiptoes to pet his already mussed hair. "What happened to your face? Are you all right? How is school? Who's your friend?"
He pulls away with an easy laugh and nudges me with his elbow. "This is Katherine. She lives in my building. Kat, meet my mom, Evelyn."
“Oh, Gabriel’s Katherine? Nice to meet you, honey." She smiles genuinely and takes my hands. "I'm so glad you could join us!"
"Kat!" Gabriel. He vaults over the back of a love seat and strides over. He stands as tall as his brother but is a little lankier somehow (younger, more boyish) — a little looser, more open.
Cam ruffles his little brother's hair and Gabriel grimaces, side-hugging him back. "Hey wait, did you guys come together? Do you, like, know each other?"
He seems mildly concerned at this which thoroughly amuses Cam. "Yeah, Kat and I go way back." He winks in my direction. "Balconies and elevators."
I roll my eyes. "Thanks for inviting me."
"No problem." He grins, wide and true. "Wanna watch Arsenal demolish Newcastle?"
They introduce me to their many adoptive siblings: Akari, James and Riel, all from Ethiopia: Vivienne, their sister from China who immediately climbs into Cam's arms and refuses to let go: and Alec, an adorable five-year-old boy their parents recently brought home from Russia who doesn't know English yet.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, we sit around a pleasantly scuffed table with the other guests. It's an eclectic group, writers, artists, plastic surgeons and philosophy professors all chatting together around the same table. The kids are shrieking and fighting and giggling with palpable joy.
And love, that too. They all obviously love each other, even Cam the presumably emotionally-detached almost-twenty-year-old. They absolutely adore him.
He sits directly across from me, and Gabriel sits to my right. He hasn't said a word to me after the hello and some soccer commentary, and he has mostly resorted to heavy glances. Long glances. Akari sits at my other side and tells me why apple pie is the best pie on the planet (it's the cinnamon, he says).
Someone knocks their sock foot against mine, and I pull my legs beneath my chair. Cam grins down at his lasagna.
"So Cambriel, tell me," a brilliantly red-haired woman, I think she's one of the surgeons, says from across the tabletop. "Any special ladies?"
"Ah, Eloise, there are just so many to choose from," he says with humorous tact and a lascivious wink. "They're all special."
She snorts. "You're your father's child."
"Hey," the tall, lithe man beside him objects, sharing his Caesar salad with his Alec and speaking to him softly in what sounds like fluent Russian (but how could I know?). His dad, Isaiah, bears a remarkable resemblance to his eldest sons: the same strong jaw, straight nose, bright flashing eyes. "That's my son you're comparing me to."
Cam grins sidelong at his father; then someone touches my foot again. I peep at Gabriel, and his are resting on the rungs of his chair, Akari's crossed apple sauce style.
I stare down as black smart wool socks caress my leg — Cam's socks.
I kick his shin, and he smothers his laugh with a cough.
- Writer
