After Forever Ends (36 page)

Oliver and I looked at each other.

Alexander stood, “It’s no problem, Mel,” He said mildly going to the door. He took the bag from her hand and kissed her lightly, then turned back to us, “Oliver and Silvia, this is Melissa. My wife.”

I think my jaw may have dropped, but I was not sure if it was because Alexander was married or because of the way this girl looked. She was unbelievably gorgeous. She stood just above Alex‘s shoulder, possessed a ridiculously small waist, had ample bosoms, straight blonde hair to the middle of her back, large, round blue eyes and a heavy, pouting mouth. She looked as though he’d yanked her off the front of a bloody magazine.

“You wife?” Oliver stood up with a start, “Well…” Oliver was almost never at a loss for words, but at that moment he stammered, “Alexander! You mentioned her a thousand times, but you failed to tell me you’d married her already! Although I had a feeling,” He gave his brother a somewhat dirty look, then smiled broadly at the woman before us, “Well, come here then, Melissa!” He opened his arms, “Welcome to the family! It’s fantastic to finally meet you!”

“Oh my God! Oliver!” She looked terribly excited as she sort of tip toed over to him. She met his embrace, “I feel like I know you! You look just like Alex! Just like him! I can’t believe you’re here…or I’m here…or whatever!” She sounded like she had lost her mind. She stepped away from Oliver, “And Silvia! I’ve heard so much about you, too!”

I stood up not knowing whether I should hug her or hold out my hand, but Melissa knew exactly what she was going to do and threw her arms around me. It was an odd little clasp, warm at first, but then felt like she really didn’t want to touch me or do it at all. Her cheek was hot against mine. “Alex says such fantastic things about you! He’s always telling me how smart and funny you are,” She pulled away from me and took a moment to look me in the face. As she did her smile faded subtly, “And beautiful, too, I see.”

I had an impulse to give her a push. A great, hard push. So hard that she flipped backwards over the coffee table and crashed on to the sofa.

“Well…wow!” Was all I could sputter.

There was an awkward silence from the twins as she and I stared each other up and down. I was certain that I could kick her arse in two seconds. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d ever beaten up a snobby bitch.

“So what’s to eat?” Oliver asked to break the tension, “I worked all day and I’m starved!”

“I made meatloaf,” She was really unbelievably attractive as she spoke, moving back to Alexander like a swan across water. “I hope you both like meatloaf!”

Oliver looked at me, “Is he serious?” His eyes asked. His crooked grin said, “She’s a complete disaster!”

“I hate her,” I told him telepathically, “Tell your brother to send her packing!”

“Meatloaf?” Oliver asked, smiling, as he turned to Alexander and his new sister in law. He could always read my mind. I should have known he would be amused by my disapproval.

Melissa looked at Alex searchingly. “Oh,” She explained, “It’s like a loaf of bread, but made of meat…”

Alex saw the look on our faces, “That doesn’t sound as good as it is. It’s fantastic.”

“We know what it is, don’t we, Dickhead?” Oh, a stab! She truly was from out of town if she didn’t think we had meatloaf in the United Kingdom. I adored that man, my husband. He covered his insult quickly with a compliment, “It smells like heaven, yeah?” Oliver rubbed his hands together quickly and grinned at his new sister in law, “Is it done, Melissa?”

“Yes, it’s done,” She looked a little confused by Oliver’s remark, but was quickly won over by his charm. Oliver had that same quality as Edmond to make you feel immediately welcome and at home, “I just have to warm the bread. I would have made the bread myself, but I couldn’t find the right kind of yeast,” She spoke over her shoulder as she headed into the kitchen.

“You’re not going to find the right anything around here,” Oliver said as he followed her, “In Newtown, if you look maybe, but not here. “

We all gathered around the tiny table in Alexander’s tiny kitchen. Melissa doled out thick slices of meatloaf and mash on to each of our plates, “I hope you like it,” She said honestly. Her breasts were so large I thought they were going to go straight into Oliver's food as she leaned across him. He leaned back and stifled a laugh, “It’s Alexander’s favourite thing I cook,” She continued as she moved on to me, “Which is really nice because it’s so easy to make.”

“I'm sure it wonderful,” I mumbled, watching my husband cover his face with his hand. He shook a bit and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He didn't dare look at me or Alex lest he burst out with a snort. He pursed his lips and got himself under control as he dug a fork into his meat.

“This is bloody fantastic!” Oliver hadn’t even swallowed yet. His eyes got wide and he covered his mouth. He made a grab for his cider, “Christ! It’s hot!”

“It is good,” I said quietly, “So when did you two get married?”

“Just before we came home,” Alexander set his knife down, reaching for his wife's hand, “Melissa wanted her mother to be at the wedding.”

I nodded. I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was that I was bothered that Oliver and I were not there and his “surprise” sucked. “I’m sure your mother would have liked to have been there as well. Tell me, how did the two of you meet?”

“Well, we met at the university…” She began.

“You’ve an architect then?” I had the feeling she had never read a book in her life.

“Uh no,” She fluttered her long, curled lashes. Her eyes were exactly the colour of deep blue sapphires and they bored into mine, a sort of dare. I wanted to thump her right in the face. Oliver looked at me sideways and hid another smile. Melissa continued, “I was there to see my sister in a play.”

“Is she an actress?”

“She wants to be.”

“What about you? Are you an actress?” I held her eye, blinking casually, “You look like an actress.”

“Me?” She laughed. It was fake, “No. I used to do some modelling, but…”

“But what? Too many blondes on the runway? Did one knock you off?” I was getting myself worked up into a right fist fight. Oliver sniggered, but Alexander looked at me as if I’d gone mental. I took a bite of meatloaf into my mouth and chewed it carefully.

“No, I didn’t like it.”

“Too much competition?

“Not really.”

“Did you attend university at all then?” I changed the discussion, refusing to take my eyes off of her. I could see her begin to squirm. I'd always had a talent for that. “The Evil Eye”, I'd been told I had more than once. It was the ability to stare at a person and actually make them feel my presence by just looking. It made most people incredibly uncomfortable and it was working like a charm on Melissa. Easy pickings. I’d dealt with bigger and nastier spoiled brats than her at Bennington. It had been awhile since I’d had an all-out bitch contest, but she was going to be a breeze. Melissa was a snack compared to some I’d faced and I’d only had to hit two of them. The others I’d simply intimidated into submission.

“For a while.” Her resolve was failing. She dropped her eyes.

“What did you read?”

She hesitated, “What do you mean?”

“Read. At university. What did you read?”

Melissa looked completely confused. “As in books?”

Oliver hid his smile behind his fork.

Alex cleared his throat, “She means what did you study.”

“Oh! I was an English Major.”

“Linguistics or just English?” I asked.

“English.”

“Then you must be a teacher. It’s about all you can do with a degree in English these days,” I flipped my fork in my hand like a baton.

“I actually didn’t finish that degree.”

I was not overwhelmed with desperate shock, “Really? Did you fail out?”

“No, I switched my major.”

I wanted to ask her if it was to basket weaving, but I held my tongue. “To what?”

“Culinary arts,” She replied.

“Did you finish that course of study then?”

“Yes,” Her suntanned face flushed. She was brassed. I had her where I wanted her, “Did you finish yours?” She snapped, suddenly looking me in the eye again.

“Oh, aye,” I had been being a cow since I first laid eyes on her, but now she had taken a poke at me and I was going to have her for supper instead of that insanely good meatloaf. Culinary degree indeed! “I have a Master’s of Science in Microbiology, a Graduate Degree in Biophotonics, in fact, and a Bachelors of Science in Accounting. I speak fluent French and English as well as Welsh, which you better learn quickly,” I put extra emphasis on ‘and English’ to mock her former major. I watched her flinch when I mentioned learning Welsh, “Currently, the team I’m spending my days with are using lasers to irradiate blood cells and recording data to find new and better ways to cure small problems we have on Earth. Little things, you know? Like cancer,” I sat back in my chair, very satisfied with myself, “What’s your work? Since you no longer model?”

She flushed deeper.

Oliver pinched my leg under the table. “So you’re a chef? I can bloody believe that! This food is absolutely fantastic!”

Alexander looked at me like he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or ask me to leave, “We met at uni in the café, Sil. Melissa had just seen her sister in a play and she was getting a cup of coffee. The lid wasn’t on properly and her drink spilled all over. I got her some serviettes and when the barista replaced her coffee we sat down and had a chat.” He looked at her softly, “It was like…kismet.”

Kismet? Was he out of his blooming mind? Alexander said kismet? Something was indeed wrong in the universe if Alexander Dickinson of all the wanton rogues who dwelled within it was using words like kismet! I thought for a second about smacking him, too. There was something not right about this girl, but I was not sure what it was yet. I couldn’t believe Alexander wasn’t on to it. I opened my mouth to say a little something about kismet, but Oliver pinched my leg again.

“That’s how it happens. Small events, yeah? I hit Silvia in the head with a ball, that’s how we met.”

“I’m really clumsy. It was embarrassing,” Melissa smiled at my husband all sugary sweet. It shot through my chest like a red hot arrow. I was going to kill her.

“Oliver wasn’t being clumsy,” I started in hotly before she could finish, “He was being careless. There’s a difference, you know? Carelessness is an oversight. You can’t help being clumsy, it’s a liability of the way one’s brain is designed. Not a good quality in a kitchen, I would imagine. Have you ever tripped and tumbled into a hot oven with a spring loaded door?”

I said this all very quickly. It was obvious that she had not understood a word from the confusion on her face. Sometimes I loved the way my accent complicated a situation.

Oliver and Alexander both laughed out loud. Alexander coughed to stop himself when he saw the look on his wife’s face. Oliver suddenly became insanely thirsty and guzzled his cider.

The room was deathly quiet as she glanced from face to face, avoiding mine completely. Finally, she spoke, “I tried to be cool and wait for him to call me,” She pretended she wasn’t ruffled. She was looking right at Oliver. I didn’t like the way she was ogling at him, either. It was something like the way a streetwalker would eye a fifty pound note, “But I couldn’t. I called him the next day and asked him out and that was it. We were in love.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet I think I’m going to – Ow!” I stopped short when Oliver pinched me again, this time harder than the other times. I slapped his shoulder just as hard. “Stop it!”

“And he accepted, obviously!” Oliver was being exceptionally kind, but I knew he would have cheered me of if I took a whack at her. He was only holding me back for the sake of his brother. “How lucky for the two of you.” He paused, as if gauging the explosiveness of the situation. “So you haven’t met Mum and Dad yet, Melissa?”

It was my turn to be quiet and let my husband take an unintentional jab. I had some more meatloaf. I hated to admit how fantastic it was, but it was the most wonderful thing that I’d ever eaten in my life. It made me want to scratch her eyes out. A chef! An honourable title, I supposed. Suddenly it seemed to me that I could hardly boil an egg.

“No, not yet,” Alexander gave his brother a knowing look.

“Well, no rush for that, yeah?” Oliver didn’t sound at all like he meant it.

“Bollocks!” I said loudly, “She’s family now! She deserves to wade in the same deep river of hell that I do when it comes to your folks! Share the pain, that’s what family’s all about!”

I watched Melissa flush yet again.

The boys stared at me with the same disbelieving smirks on their face.

“Well, it’s true!” I insisted.

“So, Big Brother,” Alexander finally broke the silence that followed, “What’s happening with you?”

Oliver took a sideways glance at me to make sure I was finished and then launched into a rundown of his daily life. I let them talk. I supposed I had said enough by then. It had been a long while since the boys had been face to face and I could see the both of them relaxing in each other's company. I hadn't seen in Oliver relax like that for a long, long while.

They were the only conversation for the remainder of the meal. I made it a point to keep my mouth shut and my eyes down. When dinner was done, I helped Alex clear the table while Oliver assisted Melissa with the dishes. After, we adjourned to the front room for wine, dessert and more chitchat.

Melissa had made tiramisu from scratch. She seemed very proud of this, although I knew from experience that tiramisu was not difficult to put together. Still, I said nothing. I had decided that there was no point and anything that would come out of my mouth could potentially lead to a court hearing. Oh, I so wanted to clock her!

“No, thank you,” I said when Alexander tried to hand me a dish, “That’ll make your arse expand exponentially, fast and for real.”

She gave me a nasty look out of the corner of her eye as she passed. I leaned forward and meant to trip her, but Oliver put his hand against my knee and shook his head.

There was a lot of wine and way too much irrelevant conversation happening that evening for my taste. I've never been a big wine drinker. It upsets my stomach and gives me a headache, so I just sat quietly and waited for the nightmare to end.