Chapter 13 #2
“Sure.” Without a hint of hesitation, Denny sat her on the small ottoman by the door and crouched down in front of her, rubbing gentle circles over her knees.
“Chickpea?” called a deep voice from somewhere inside the house.
Eris braced for a yell of response that didn’t come. Instead, Denny told her she’d be right back and ran off to the room at the end of the corridor. Cheerful greetings floated to Eris, unintelligible. It went on for a minute or two.
When Denny came back with a glass of water, Eris’ breath stuttered like she’d been afraid she’d never return. She accepted the water and gulped it all down in a go. There was a funny twinge in her heart, painful but somehow pleasant, an unknown blend of relief, gratitude, and love.
She stared at the bottom of the glass.
Love.
There was so much that she didn’t know what to do with it.
She didn’t have enough room for any more of it: if it grew any further, she might die from it.
‘Take it!’ she wanted to scream at Denny when it felt too immense to handle.
‘You gave me too much, take some back!’ But it was like throwing bucketfuls of water out of a flooding boat in the middle of the ocean.
A tender hand laid on top of her head.
There had been a time when anyone who dared a gesture like this would’ve had their hand bitten off. Now anyone had an exception.
Looking up, Eris saw exactly what she was expecting: Denny’s soft look embracing her from above.
“Better?”
She gave a slow nod while the twinge in her heart turned into a punch. Is this how it was supposed to feel all along? Being alive could’ve always been this simple?
“Better,” she said.
“It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind.”
“I’d tell you if I had.”
Denny gave her a touched smile. “You would?”
“Yes.”
Eris let her take the glass and pull her up. Together, they headed to the kitchen.
The interiors of the house were luminous and minimal in that sophisticated fashion that only wealthy people’s homes could be.
Denny’s parents were at the stove, bickering over a large pan.
Heather was tall and willowy, just like her daughter; Luke was a big man with broad shoulders and a fancy brush cut of thick black curls.
Denny cleared her throat and they turned around with million-watt smiles.
“You’re the lovechild of Charlize Theron and Idris Elba,” Eris murmured, prompting a snorty laugh from Denny.
“Eris!” Heather dropped a wooden spoon on a plate to come forward. She was her daughter in a different colour palette: short brass hair streaked with silver, sea-blue eyes, ivory complexion. “It’s so lovely to finally meet you!”
“My goodness, are those eyes real?”
Eris wasn’t sure what to do. Would a handshake be too formal for meeting her girlfriend’s parents? They weren’t moving, and neither was she.
Denny leaned towards her to whisper: “I forewarned them you’re not overly fond of physical contact.”
Luke flashed her a set of dazzlingly white teeth. “Welcome to our humble abode, love. Gardenia has been banging on about you.”
“Dad!”
Eris turned to Denny with wide eyes. “Gardenia?”
“Flower names run in the family on my mother’s side,” Heather conveyed. “It’s a beautiful name, darling. I don’t know why you have so many problems with it.”
“It couldn’t be something normal like Rose or Daisy, could it?”
“You don’t look like a Rose or a Daisy,” Eris meddled. “You were born to be Denny.”
“See?” Heather preened.
“I wanted to name her àjoké, but my wife threatened to file for divorce.”
“Oh, Luke, can you imagine the bullying she would’ve had to endure with a first name like that?”
“It’s spelled A-J-O-K-E,” Denny clarified.
Eris had to agree with Heather on the bullying.
“Please, don’t take her upstairs, Denny. It’s a mess up there, we still haven’t finished unpacking. And by we I mean Mr Procrastination here.”
A corner of Eris’ mouth curled. Like father, like daughter.
The nervousness was slowly fading. Heather and Luke didn’t match her concept of parents.
They were easy-going, unserious, and the more she observed them, the more she could see why Denny was the way she was.
Perhaps Eris would’ve been sparkly and carefree, too, if she’d been born to a family like this.
“Dinner will be served in a jiffy,” Luke informed them. “Someone misread the cooking time of the potatoes.”
“Who dropped my glasses into the Tasman Sea?”
“Well, now it can sea better!”
Heather swatted his arm with a huff that sounded oddly familiar to Eris.
It was like watching a movie: too fun and too perfect to be realistic. But the way Denny’s parents interacted with each other would convince even the most cynical heart that soulmates might exist.
“Fancy some wine, Eris?” Luke held up a bottle of Barbera that was worth, at a rough guess, a couple of days of Eris’ former salary.
She gladly accepted it, much to Luke’s satisfaction. It was delicious, rich and fruity, stronger than the cheap garbage she was used to.
“Let’s go wash our hands.” Denny dragged Eris to a small bathroom behind the kitchen.
“Hope you enjoy efo riro,” said Luke, bringing a huge, delicious-smelling bowl to the table. “Denny guaranteed you would.”
It was a very dense vegetable soup with plant-based meat, and, unfortunately, beans. It was accompanied by a casserole of roasted potatoes and another bowl containing fufu
“We eat with our hands, but if it makes you uncomfortable you can use a fork.”
Eris was more than happy to ditch the cutlery: the fork by her plate was oddly shaped and way too large for comfort.
“So, Eris,” Heather began once they were all seated. “How did you and Denny meet? She’s been elusive about it.”
Not knowing how deep in detail she should go, Eris stayed vague: “A guy assaulted me in the street. She put him in his place.”
“That’s my baby girl!” Luke strutted. He may look nothing like his daughter, but they were exactly the same at the core: bright and joyous. “I’m glad all those self-defence classes are paying off.”
Eris pushed her plate aside so that Denny could pluck all the beans out of it.
“Eris is perfectly capable of fending for herself.” Denny thoroughly verified there weren’t any beans left before pushing the plate back to Eris. “She was just a bit… under the weather.” Nice euphemism for ‘hammered’. “I took her to Aunt Auni to make sure she was okay.”
“Why not the A&E?”
“They would’ve left her there to rot for three days.”
“Ah, that’s fair.”
Eris cowardly hid behind a forkful of potatoes. She didn’t want Denny’s parents to base their impression of her on a hoax, but Denny didn’t know the whole truth yet and, if Eris wanted to come clean with them, she had to come clean with their daughter first.
“I can’t believe you’re not even asking about how we became flatmates,” said Denny. Eris suspected she wanted to change the subject.
A sunburst of wrinkles appeared at the corners of Heather’s eyes. “How did you become flatmates?”
“I saw where she lived and the kind of people she lived with, and asked her to move in with me.”
“She takes that from you,” Heather told her husband.
“Generosity?”
“Impulsivity.”