Chapter 18
Only when Bev started filling each individual plate did something occur to me. I hoped the chatter around the table would cover the bizarre question that I had to ask Jene.
"You can't eat human food." I pointed to the full plate in front of him.
For a second, Jene mused over my question. It didn't stress him, but I had the distinct feeling that he wondered how to word his answer to me.
"Why is my question making you think?" I frowned at him.
"So, Jene, how long have you known Isla?" Dad interrupted with his own question and my frown deepened.
"He's got to answer my questions first." I crossed my arms and stared at Jene.
Beneath the table, Jene clasped my hand in his. The warmth of his hand and how it covered mine, but held me so gently, stifled my mouth. Sapphire blue eyes gazed into mine for a flitting moment, before he turned to my father.
"I have known your daughter since she was quite young." Jene answered. I snapped my mouth even tighter closed. How could I ever explain that answer?
"I'm Isla's father, and I have never seen you around before." Dad pushed himself out of the chair as if preparing for a fight.
"Dad, sit down! Honestly, you're going to give yourself a heart attack. What he meant was that he felt like he's known me since my childhood." I chided dad while trying to make up a plausible reply.
"Ah, I see." Dad sat down with a rueful glance at Jene.
"We'd love to hear about how you met." Bev's enthusiasm and wide eyes were as bad as dad preparing for a fight.
I squeezed Jene's hand in mine, so he'd know that I intended to answer this time. One of his fingers swished over the back of my hand in a light caress. I lost all frame of mind. Instead, all I could think about was what I'd promised Jene tonight.
"But you said we'd talk about my new car!" Candy pouted and I rolled my eyes, while a breath of relief escaped me at the same time.
"Candice, darling, we will get around to that." Bev patted her daughter's hand.
I used that distraction to turn back to Jene, "are you ever going to answer my question?"
"What question did you ask?" Jene went back to avoidance.
"You can't eat human food." I whispered the words during Candy arguing about her car.
"Might I say once again that you never once asked me a question." Jene went all stuffy and that left me suspicious.
"Don't try that obtuse answer. How are you going to eat this food?" I gestured to what sat on his plate as I squeezed his hand in mine.
"She-Gen told me that I had to build up a tolerance to many human things, including food stuffs. I intend to eat this meal put in front of me." As he said the words, he awkwardly picked up his fork, and stabbed a potato.
I turned my whole focus to him, rather curious with how this might turn out. Jene slowly raised the fork to his lips. I'm sure I'm the only one who saw him flinch when he placed the food into his mouth. He chewed and I kept watching him.
"Isla," hearing my voice, I glanced over to Bev. "Are you going to tell us how you met?"
"Uh..." my mind scrambled for an answer.
"Why won't you work?" Harrison stole my need to answer, and relief gushed over me. My step siblings kept interrupting at the most opportune times, and I couldn't be more grateful to them right now.
"Harrison?"
Bev and the rest of us stared at my flailing and quite aggravated stepbrother. The way his hand scoured against the lamp edge made me wince. It looked painful. I'd even noticed a bit of blood on the side of his hand.
I'm not sure why he had such desperation for a wish. Who would injure themselves deliberately trying to get a magic lamp to work? Then I recalled that this was my stupid stepbrother. He would expect Jene to be at his beck and call, because he had been since Harrison's teenage years.
"This stupid lamp!" Harrison started his feminine screeching.
"Are you getting sick?" Dad's look of concern made me huff. Of course, he'd only worry about his stupid star.
"No! My genie won't appear. Why won't the moron appear?" Harrison stared at the now sullen and quite bloodied looking lamp.
"Genie? Do you mean a genie who grants wishes?" Candy released the most incredulous laugh.
"Don't start! You wouldn't be here in this richness without me. You wouldn't have an expensive car without me. You would have nothing!" Harrison grew a bit hysterical as his hand blindly and roughly rubbed against the lamp.
"Have you lost your mind?" Candy leaned over and prodded her brother's arm.
"I'm sane, and I'm the only reason we have the life we have. If I didn't find this lamp, none of you would be here." Harrison shoved a finger from his mother to his sister.
"Harrison, calm down." Bev stared at him as if he'd truly lost his marbles.
"Don't treat me like that! None of you are grateful for what I've done. This is the only reason we have the life that we do." Harrison shoved the lamp into the air with relish.
"Oh, well..." Bev trailed off, and Jene shuffled from beside me.
I glanced at Jene to see an amused smirk upon his lips. After that, I stared at Harrison, who had started ranting at his family. It seemed that I had missed something within this exchange.
"We can't see anything, Harry." Candy sneered at her brother.
"What?" Harrison gazed at the lamp and then at Candy.
"You've got nothing in your hand. In fact, you look so dumb with your arm in the air like that." Candy twittered.
"It's a genies lamp!" Harrison screeched, while pointing at the lamp that only Jene and I could see.
"I'd much rather talk about my new car, then some fake whatever it is that Harry wants to shove on us." Candy exclaimed.
"I thought that wish had disappeared." I said quietly once Harrison started shrieking at his sister.
"The wish exists for everyone but yourself. You are the only one who can see the lamp beyond myself and him." Jene answered.
"So... about the food thing. Why do you need to build up a tolerance?" I asked, determined to get answers from him.
"I honestly do not know. She-Gen simply told me that I must immerse myself within human items that I tend to shun. I am simply abiding by her suggestion." Jene said and I nodded, because I believed him. Jene wasn't a natural liar, so it was easy to tell if he even tried to lie.
"Okay." I said, but my mind swirled with ideas about whatever my mother might be trying to attempt.
"Harrison, that's enough!" Bev didn't raise her voice, but her tone turned waspish, and everyone went quiet. "I want to know about our newest member to join our little family, not another fairytale you've made up." Bev turned to Jene who almost choked on a mouthful of food, and started to cough.
"It's always about Isla." Harrison whined in a bitter voice.
"Stories of genie lamps were perfectly fine when you were younger. You're now an adult with a job, so you should act accordingly." Bev stated in her 'I'm almost losing my patience with you' voice.
"But, but, I really do have a genie." Harrison kept trying, but Bev cut him off with an icy glare.
"Act your age, Harrison!" Bev snapped at her son.
"Actually, I had a question for you, Harrison." I said as I stared hard at my stepbrother, and tried to keep the laughter from my tone.
"What could you have to ask me?" Harrison wrinkled his nose as if I smelt horrible to him.
"I've spent a lot of time with you in the last few days, and I've heard some disturbing rumours. I didn't think dad would want them to get around, so I thought I'd ask you." I used my sweetest, most innocent voice, which only enhanced Harrison's glare.
"There's no rumours." Harrison insisted as he glanced to dad.
"I heard that you had a bunch of women at your place, and when you had enough of them you made them dress up as lizards to leave." I stated calmly.
Forks clattered to plates. Everyone's eyes fixed on me, and then a shocked Harrison, who had finally stopped rubbing at the lamp.
"How do you know about that?" Harrison turned suspicious eyes on me.
"Rumours get around pretty fast." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Harrison! Are you trying to make me look foolish?" Dad growled.
"No, and it didn't happen like that, honest. My stupid genie didn't give me the wish I asked for properly. The women turned into lizards, real lizards! I didn't do anything." Harrison tried to plead his case, but dad's eyes grew frosty.
"Les, you can discuss this after dinner." Bev interrupted.
"Fine." Dad snapped, but he continued to glower at Harrison.
Bev turned her smiling face to Jene, and I wondered if I'd jumped out of one fire into another unexpected one, "what do you do for work, Jene? Are you a model or an actor?"
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. We hadn't considered the questions my family might ask, or at least I didn't. How could he answer that?
"I am a blacksmith by trade." Jene replied and everyone stared at him.
We didn't have blacksmiths in our city, or none that I knew of. This was a place of movies, television, fanciful but eventual broken dreams, and money. Nobody needed a horse shod out our way.
"Uh, what he meant..." I began to try and come up with a plausible reason why Jene would be a blacksmith.
"Are you one of the ones who make all of those swords for the whole fighting scenes in movies?" Candy eyed Jene with an almost salivating gaze, but at least she found the answer I'd flailed with.
"I have made swords before." Jene admitted.
"Wow, sexy as hell, and so manly." Candy swooned.
"Candice!" Bev glowered at her daughter. "Where did you grow up, Jene?" Bev tried to keep her children under control while making enquires. I'd started to find the whole thing both anxiety provoking and amusing.
"I am from a small town that no longer exists. Modern society swallowed it with gargantuan structures that appear quite unstable." Jene replied, and once again, everyone stared at him. His answers fascinated me, so it must be the same with the rest of my family.
"I love your accent and the way that you speak." Candy continued with her flirting.
"Candy, get your own man." I snapped.
"Chill, Isla, it's just innocent flirting." Candy's smile dared me to start an argument.
"You're making Jene and I uncomfortable, so stop it."
"Make me." Candy purred with a malicious grin filling her face.
"Young lady, I have no interest in someone who feels they need to pay so much attention to their looks. You have made me uncomfortable by trying to embarrass me in front of your family. I wish you would desist." Jene gave an intense scowl to Candy as he spoke.
"Sorry." Candy whispered, and her face went beet red.
It took a lot for me not to snicker. The table went quiet for a moment. I realised that both of my step siblings now glared at me.
Harrison would rub at the poor lamp, glower at me, and then eat a mouthful of food. Candy pushed food around on her plate, glowered at me, and then opened her mouth to say something, only to snap it shut. This entertained me no end.
Dad and Bev both seemed to like Jene, so that was an added bonus. Every time I got to tick my siblings off made for a good day too. It appeared that I might come out on top tonight, which didn't always happen with my family.
Turned out the family dinner wasn't quite what I expected it to be. It had certainly kept me on edge and amused for most of the night.
Above all the thoughts of my family was the reminder of the promise that I had made with Jene. I wasn't backing out and I couldn't wait to get home.