Outside Oklahoma City, Wednesday evening

[vdistinctive]

Trudy had said Eliot and his family were going to be her guests, so he wasn't allowed to cook dinner. He'd said she shouldn't have to cook it either, and they'd both refused to make everyone eat leftover funeral casserole.

So Eliot pulled the rental car — rental van, because four adults was a lot to fit into a sedan and renting a van was almost tradition — into the lot of a little mom&pop Italian restaurant.

"There's Tru's car," he said as he set the parking break and turned the car off. He looked back towards Kathy and Parker. "Y'all ready for this?"

[ooc: FAMILY DINNER TIME! For those who know, and epic slow play.]

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[spin_kick_snap]

"That's fair," Kathy said and slid out of the car. She grabbed for Eliot's hand as they headed for the restaurant, but let go right before he opened the door.

Look, it was one thing to need support and something entirely different to look like you needed support.

"Hi," she said, with a shy smile and a wave.

Oh god, there were so many people. Well, okay, just four, but it suddenly felt like a lot.

[vdistinctive]

Jake and Johnny gave Kathy perfectly nice, perfunctory smiles and greeted her back. Trudy beamed and came got up to greet her properly.

"Kathy," Trudy said, face just full to the brim of Momness. "It's wonderful to meet you. Don't mind my boys, they're not the most social creatures."



Cassie stared, looking fascinated.

"And Cassie was just raised in a barn," Trudy said.

"You're actually, like, my age," Cassie said. "Mom said, but you know grownups. 'Your age' could be anything from 12 to 22."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I am," Kathy said, giving each person a nod that came perilously close to being a greeting bow. Sometimes when she was overwhelmed, she just defaulted to old habits and bowing in Koreatown had been as common as handshakes growing up. Moreso, when meeting elders and important people. "It's fine," she assured Trudy. "I'm not always, either."

And to Cassie, she flashed a small smile and said, "I'm eight--nineteen. I think Eliot said you are, too?"

[vdistinctive]

"Me and Ellie, yeah," Cassie said. "She's in Austin. UT. Business major."

"Business isn't a curse word," Trudy said idly. Clearly this was something that had come up more than once.

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"I, uhh, I'm not sure if I'm going to college," Kathy admitted, tucking her hair behind her ear. Her eyes were steady on the ground. "I was originally, but, now I'm not so sure?"

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah?" Cassie shifted over a little in her seat, patting the spot next to her in an invitation to sit. "You're not missing anything. Don't tell Mom or anything yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna go back."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy sat and gave Cassie a grateful smile. "I had all these grand plans when I graduated last year," she admitted quietly. "They just didn't really survive first contact with reality."

[vdistinctive]

"See, just that right there makes you already ahead of, like, half the people at my school. I mean — I do kind of go to a spacey hippie school. But still."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Which school?" Kathy asked, because even much changed, she was still a nerd. "And what for?"

[vdistinctive]

"UC Santa Cruz. I never declared a major, though. I took some art classes, but they want you to draw really boring stuff in the 101, all still lifes of fruit or old naked guys."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy grinned at her, sudden and bright. "California girl, too, then?" she asked. "I was Stanford. Gonna be pre-med."

[vdistinctive]

"Pretty sure my roommate would flip if I tried calling myself a California girl after only living there for 8 months. Which I'm not opposed to, mind you," Cassie said, grinning back. "Pre-med at Stanford. That's, like. ultra-nerd. I'm impressed!"

'Nerd' was one of Cassie's favorite words.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Pre-med at Stanford on scholarship," Kathy said. "I pretty much defined nerd in high school. Would've been valedictorian if--"

She cut herself off and reached for a water glass. "But yeah, eight months isn't enough for to be a proper California girl. It takes at least a year and a realization that winter is terrible."

[vdistinctive]

"Ooo, an unfinished if," Cassie said. Sorry, Kathy, Cassie wasn't one to just let things slide by out of politeness. "You definitely don't have to tell me anything, but just so you know, I'm going to invent the most soapy, melodramatic reasons for that 'if'. There will be evil twins." She smiled. "I can talk about evil twins because I am one."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No twin," Kathy said with a shake of her head. "But I did have a little sister. Sarah. Fourteen going on the sassiest twenty-three you could imagine."

Right. Sarah would be fifteen now and plaguing their parents to get her learner's permit. Kathy probably would have had to come clean to her about Anders and Dante by now, considering how often they'd have shown up at her campus and...

She wrenched her thoughts away from might-have-beens and if onlys and back to the present.

"Let's hear what you'd come up with," she said. "The more inventive the better."

[vdistinctive]

"Hmm. Well, obviously Sarah's in it somewhere, but I'm going to go for aliens now, I think. Or possibly werewolves."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Ugh, aliens," Kathy said, rolling her eyes. "All they do is kidnap you and shove you into weird pods and run simulations where you think you're in some old-timey Wild West scenario and everyone is racist."

...Sure, she was just, you know, running with what Cassie said. Totally not based on anything that had ever happened in real life.