Chapter 52: Doing great

                                      

“Janet, are you all right?” Donny asked.

“Yes, yes, fine,” she lied, setting her napkin on her lap. “It’s so pretty here.”

“It is. Mr. Frank takes great pride in…” Wes said, but Janet cut him off.

“Mr. Sebastian, tell me what you do for fun. We should do something crazy next weekend like bowling,” she said.

“Since when is bowling something crazy?” Troy asked.

“If you’d ever seen me with a bowling ball, you’d understand. I’m dangerous!”

Donny laughed.

“I guess there’s good reason to stay away from you then,” Troy retorted.

“Smart of you, Troy,” she said smiling at him.

Surprised, Troy stared at her, then turned to Jasmine. “She actually smiled at me,” he whispered to her. 

“So?”

“She never smiles at me. She usually insults me,” he said. “It’s just weird.”

Jasmine laughed. “Oh, stop,” she said, picking up her menu just as the waiter came for their drink order.

“Would you have a sparkling grape juice or apple cider?” Janet asked after the others had ordered. "Bubbly but not alcoholic?"

“Ooh, I’d like that better than coke!” Cindy exclaimed. “Wouldn’t you, Steve?”

“Uh, okay,” he said, shrugging.

“Yes, that does sound good,” Jasmine said.

“I’ll have some, too. Janet always has brilliant ideas,” Wes said.

Janet frowned. “Stop doing that,” she hissed under her breath.

“What?” Wes asked.

“Stop…just stop being… nice,” Janet said.

Stunned and hurt, he shook his head. “I won’t.”

“Suit yourself,” she snapped and turned back to Donny where she engaged him in conversation, completely ignoring Wes.

“Oh, man, I love these twisty things!” Steve said when the waiter placed several baskets of bread around the table. He grabbed three rolls and proceeded to butter them all.

“How about saving some for the rest of us?” Cindy scolded slapping his hand.

“But these are great. My mom makes them,” Steve said. “I’ll give you one, okay?”

“You’re so generous,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You want two?” he asked, almost pouting at the thought of parting with his precious rolls.

She laughed. “You can keep them. You had your grubby hands all over them.”

“Stevie, Mom couldn’t have made these tonight. She has too much other stuff to do, she may have given her own recipe to the Zeus chef,” Jasmine said.

Troy burst out laughing. “That’s Sous chef! Zeus is the Greek God.”

She shrugged. “Whatever you call them. They are the ones baking rolls and making salads and unimportant stuff like that,” she said.

Steve took a bite of the roll, liked it fine and stuffed the rest into his mouth. “Tays goo anbay,” he said around the mouthful.

“Janet wasn’t kidding. You really do need a lesson in being a gentleman. You’re worse than a cretin,” Cindy said, a disgusted look on her face.

“All guys are cretins,” Steve said after swallowing.

“My brother isn’t! He’s perfect,” Cindy said.

Wes smiled. “Thanks, Cindy,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Steve gaped at them. “That…that’s weird,” he said.

“What?” Cindy said.

“A brother and sister getting along. Are you sure he’s your brother?”

“Of course, I am! What do you think, I’m stupid?” she shrieked.

“No, but I think Wes is an alien being,” he replied, biting into his second roll.

Cindy rolled her eyes again while Troy roared with laughter. He wasn’t the only one laughing. 

Donny was vastly enjoying Janet’s amusing banter, most of which Wes could barely discern amongst the other chatter about the table. 

This, he thought miserably, was Jasmine’s idea of him doing great with Janet? He’d rather be drowning in the slowly melting butter!

“So, you’re mother made these?” Donny asked, buttering a piece of a roll and eating it. “It’s very good.”

“I think Jazzy’s right. I don’t think Mom made these. They just don’t taste quite right,” Janet said, making a face.

“But they’re not bad,” Donny said.

She shrugged. “Once you’ve had the best, anything else is…” She let the sentence hang. 

“She must be a fantastic cook then,” Donny said, wondering if it was willful pride and devotion to her mother for her dismissive comment. This was some of the best food he’d ever eaten.

“Mom makes these for special occasions,” Janet told him, taking a tiny bite of the roll. “But her idea of a special occasion could be anything from Jasmine getting a passing grade on a biology test to Stevie getting a home run.”

Donny laughed.

“Actually, they could both classify as miracles, not just special occasions, because Jasmine and biology are two opposing forces and Stevie and baseball don’t get along too good either,” she said.

Donny laughed so hard he almost choked on the bread and Janet had to pound on his back.

“You okay, Dad?” Wes asked, leaning closer to Janet. “You better watch it with Janet. She almost killed me that way too, the first day we met.”

“It wasn’t the first day,” she said, forgetting to ignore him.

“I think it was,” he said, trying not to smile. “You were sitting in the cafeteria talking to yourself about Luke Tramaine and I gave you half my sandwich. You liked it better than the school lunch, remember?”

She snorted. “That’s not saying much. I prefer the mud pies I made as a kid to school lunches,” she retorted.

Both Wes and Donny laughed.

“Don’t ya just love Janet, Dad?” Wes said.

“She is special. I can see why you like her,” he replied.

Janet blushed and kicked Wes under the table. 

To her astonishment, he smiled, put his arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear, “I love you, too.”

She wanted to kill him!