Page 100 of Oar Than Friends

‘What’s in them?’ asked Alex, reaching for his third, and I now understood why she’d made so many.

‘A secret,’ Kate’s grin spread, in fact it had yet to drop since Alex took a first bite and his eyes widened until I thought they might burst.

‘And you made all this?’ he repeated.

‘Only the rolls,’ she nodded, ‘Marco made the fries, I can’t do fries, but I made the rolls from scratch; the dough, mayo, and shelled the lobster. I got them from the fishmonger place in town I noticed when we went for a walk the other day, so I pre-ordered them. Thank god, too, there was a line out the door today. Everyone was picking up oysters for New Year.’

I held the plate up before her nervousness got the better of her and she began hyperventilating. ‘You haven’t had one yet.’

‘Oh, yes!’ she reached out, then paused, ‘Oh, shoot! I’ma dumbass. I forgot the butter sauce. Hang on, I’ll be right back, you have to have it with the butter sauce.’

She took off like a whirlwind before I could stop her.

My mother kept her eyes trained on Kate until she disappeared into the house, and sat back, ‘Arthur, these really are excellent.’

‘Yeah, I know. When we first met, she said if she wasn’t studying medicine she’d want to open a restaurant which sold lobster rolls.’

‘Well, if she’s as good a doctor as she is at making these, she’ll go far in life.’

‘I really like her a lot, Artie,’ Phoebe added unnecessarily, seeing as we were all well aware of the girl crush she had on Kate, and stuffed a handful of fries in her mouth.

Alex and Hector nodded in agreement.

‘Thank you. I’m glad you do because I like her too,a lota lot.’

My mother sat up a little straighter, Olly’s grin widened and Phoebe leaned forward, pinning me with a squinted eye. ‘More than a lot?’

I hesitated; I hadn’t told Kate I loved her yet, so I certainly wasn’t going to tell my gossipy sister who’d probably try and beat me to the punch by declaring her love for Kate to her first. I loved Kate, and I wanted everyone to know, but she’d find out before anyone else. Thankfully, my mother interrupted before an interrogation took place, because I would definitely crumble.

‘I’m glad you persuaded her to come. It’s been a lovely Christmas, and wonderful to have all my babies home with me.’ She pulled Phoebe and Hector, sitting on her left, into a hug.

I caught my mother’s smile. None of us needed her to add to the sentence; that Christmas would have been a lot different this year without Kate.

One thing I knew for sure, if my dad had been here instead, we’d have been miserable and arguing.

‘Here you go, pour this over your rolls.’ Kate placed a couple of small sauce-filled jugs on the table when she returned, her eyes flaring as she glanced at the plate. There had been two dozen rolls when she’d left, but it was now half empty. ‘If you can fit any more in.’

‘Yeah. Course we can,’ Alex reached for another – possibly his fifth – free-pouring the creamy sauce over the top, and bit into it, ‘ermigawdsogoog.’

‘Safe to say he likes it.’ I turned my nose up at his disgusting mouthful and passed over the plate to her before he could inhale the rest. ‘Are you going to have one?’

‘Sure am, thank you.’

‘Kate, Arthur told us you want to open a restaurant.’

Kate swallowed her bite, picking up her water with a kind of forlorn nod as she faced my mother, ‘Oh, yeah, I did. I mean, I do, it would be cool. But I don’t know when I’d have the time, I’m studying for the next six years. So I guess it’s a pipe dream.’

‘If it’s a dream, you must find a way to do it, my dear.’

Kate tensed beside me, ‘Yeah, it’s a bit complicated.’

‘Mama …’ My voice held a warning tone to stop because I knew she was about to push on the point, but Kate’s complication lay in the fact she was studying medicine because of her brother, not because she wanted to. Except Kate waved me off.

‘No, it’s okay. When my brother died he had beenaccepted to study medicine at Cambridge on a scholarship. My parents were so proud of him – he would have been the first in our family to go to college, and it was a big deal. So I’m trying to make them proud too.’ She picked up her lobster roll and bit into it, ignoring the silence of everyone else at the table which I could hear at full volume.

My mother reached out and took Kate’s hand, ‘My darling, they would be proud of you, whatever you chose to do. Parents just want to see their children happy.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she replied, though it lacked any conviction.

---