I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Twenty-Two

'He asked if you were hung over?'

'Said I seemed sluggish. How would he know, he doesn't know what I'm normally like.'

She smiled, 'Fair point.' After putting a bit of stew on some Yorkshire pudding she asked, 'How was your evening?'

'It was all right. Not nearly as bad as I'd expected.'

She nodded, 'That's good. Any plans to go back out into the world again?'

I laughed, 'I'm happy here, thanks. The world is a bit too, you know, big and open and full of drunken teenagers for my taste.'

'I shall have to keep you locked up here with me then, shan't I?'

I heaved a sigh, 'Geez, I guess so.' After I had a sip of wine, I asked because I knew it was the polite thing to do, 'How was your evening?'

Chewing, she nodded, 'All right. I believe Matthew was a bit jealous of you. I'm afraid I spoke of you a trifle too much for his liking.'

I tried not to smile, 'Why would he be jealous? He was the one who was here last night.'

'That was his view of things, as well. Kept telling me you would be fine and to stop fretting so. I told him that he didn't understand your anathema to social settings.' She stopped herself and sipped her wine, but I could tell there was more to the conversation than that.

'And? What did he say?'

She seemed to be having a difficult time meeting my eyes, how novel. Pushing her food around on her plate she eventually said, 'He said that you needed to grow up.'

'Oh.' I could feel my jaw clenching, but it was either that or throwing something.

She cleared her throat. 'I told him that you simply didn't belong with people your own age. That you got on just fine with people of your maturity level, which was higher than that of most men I knew. I then asked him why he thought he had the right to make judgements since he'd never met you.'

If that was the content of their conversation about me then I didn't have much of a problem with it. I tried to sound as though I was concerned for her, 'What did he say to that?'

'He wanted to know why the two of you'd never met and then answered the question without allowing me the opportunity to respond (I hate when people do that). He said, "Because she didn't want to meet me, right?" I also hate it when men ask you a question like that and then bully you into a response by saying, "don't you agree?!" as though you'd be an idiot not to.' She took a sip of wine. Though her tone was level I'd never seen her so angry. She continued, 'I said, "Well I can't bloody well blame her for not wanting to meet you. The way you're acting, I wish I'd never met you!" And he went on about how I was permitting a child to run my life, which I said was utter rubbish and it rather descended into incoherent shouting from there.' Her cheeks were flushed. I was sorry her evening upset her so, but at the same time I was flattered that she'd defended me rather than side with Matthew.

'But this afternoon you said you had a lovely evening.'

She examined her wine closely before having a long draw of it, 'Well, sometimes... Sometimes a little aggro serves to make things more...intense.' She had another mouthful of wine and continued avoiding my eyes.

It took me a long while to catch her meaning and then I was embarrassed and a little sickened. An argument over me had turned into...oh, I couldn't even think on it. I wanted her to know she needn't explain further so issued a soft, 'Oh.'

Why in hell was that? When I was ticked off at someone the last thing I wanted to do was kiss that person. Then again, there really wasn't any situation in which I wanted to kiss anyone in the first place. Maybe it was something you could only understand after you slept with someone. If that's what happened to you then I wasn't going to sleep with anyone, ever, because I didn't want to enjoy yelling. Maybe that's why so many married couples argued so much. From then on every time I saw a couple fighting I'd probably wonder if that did anything for their sex life. People were so weird.

'Catherine? Hello? Your mushy peas aren't that fascinating, are they?'

I blinked and realised in my mental diversion I had rather slumped over in my chair and was only inches away from my plate of vegetables. To compound the ridiculousness of the moment, I must have had a particularly horrified expression on my face, as though I was sincerely mortified by the actions of my mushy peas. Once I realised this, I started to giggle and couldn't stop. After a few moments of that, during which Alex watched me, utterly bemused by my sudden swing from mortification to uncontrolled mirth. As I went on laughing she asked,

'Are you quite all right?'

I wiped my eyes, still cackling, 'I'll be fine,' and carried on laughing. As soon as I'd catch my breath I'd be overtaken again by the mental picture that had burned itself into my head and go off on another gale of laughter, clutching my stomach. When it looked as though I'd finally regained control of myself she asked in a serious tone,

'Have you been taking the pot?'

I giggled again, but managed to answer, 'No. I just...never mind. It was stupid.' I had completely lost whatever train of thought I had going before my burst of joviality and sighed and asked, 'Would you like pudding? I made a trifle.'

'You did? Of course I would.'

I brought out the trifle from the refrigerator. 'I haven't made the topping yet because I didn't know when you'd be back and I wanted it fluffy.'

She pushed her chair back, 'That's quite all right, would you like me to help?'

'You can clean the plates, if you'd like.' The mixer, powder and bowl were on the counter already so all I had to add was the milk and blend it until it formed peaks. After that I smoothed it over the top of the custard and sprinkled candies over it. I scooped some into two bowls and we returned to the table. After Alex had a bite and issued a hum of approval she said,

'Keep this up and I'll think you don't need me anymore.'

'Don't even joke about that.' Though it made me smile on the inside.

As we were doing the washing up she said, 'Perhaps from now on you should meet my men friends first off so they can see...how you are.' She chuckled, 'That's not what I mean. I mean, so they can see that you're unusual.' She chuckled again, 'That you're different from people your own age and that there's no reason to be threatened by you.'

I hadn't considered the fact that she would probably have other guy friends. The thought of having to face them made me tired. I wanted them to be threatened by me; they sure as hell intimidated me. I wanted an as unimpeachable place in her life as I believed any future boyfriends of hers would have.