Chapter Fifteen
In which Oscar's family descends.
Chapter Fifteen
Calling Oscar's mother from Japan turned out to be a mistake, in some ways; she managed to get out of him when they were likely to land in New York, and had enough of a head start to tell Oscar's father, who made another ten or twelve phone calls to the rest of the Shelley clan.
When they came through Customs, carrying their luggage, a good two-thirds of Oscar's extended family was waiting in ambush for them on the other side. Félix and Portia found themselves, for once, the odd ones out as they were engulfed in a crowd of laughing strangers, all of whom were paying more attention to gawky, unassuming Oscar than either of them. Most of the strangers bore, to a greater or lesser extent, some resemblance to the shy architect, as well.
"I've done this before," Portia said to Félix, out of the corner of her mouth. "Passive resistance is the key."
"What?" Félix asked, watching Oscar struggle to disentangle himself from his family. Three adolescent children were fighting over who got to carry his bag.
"Portia, Félix," Oscar called, giving a younger man a playful shove out of the way. "Guys, come on, back off a little, huh? Portia, you remember my parents..."
Portia shook hands and endured a hearty slap on the shoulder from Oscar's father.
"And this is Félix Carvell, my employer," Oscar continued, bringing Félix forward through the crowd by the elbow. Oscar's father, a burly, bald man in a business suit, shook his hand with a hearty grip.
"Heard a lot about you," he boomed, and Félix grinned at Oscar. "Been dragging my boy all over, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Félix answered, in his lightly accented English.
"Meet the family, meet the family," Oscar's father continued. Oscar opened his mouth to stop him, but his mother, a pleasant-looking woman with the same sandy hair as Oscar, brought them both up short.
"My name is Annie, this is Oscar Senior," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Carvell. And good to see you again, Portia."
"My pleasure," Portia replied, dislodging a small child from her luggage.
"Oscar Senior?" Félix asked Oscar, in an undertone, as the group began to slowly ooze its way towards the airport exit.
"In concept only. He's Oscar D, I'm Oscar E," Oscar answered.
"What's the E for?"
"Ein't telling you," Oscar said grimly. "Ma, where's Iz? Didn't he come?"
"He's at home, sweetheart," his mother answered. "Someone had to look after the ham."
"Two hams, no waiting," Oscar murmured. "Iz is my brother. Isaac, properly," he added, to Félix and Portia.
"Younger, yes? You've mentioned him once or twice, I think," Félix said. Several of the children were following him closely. Another was trying to leap onto Oscar's rolling bag, every few feet.
"Yeah, he just turned twenty-two."
"And what does he do?"
"Sit, mostly," Oscar replied, with a sigh.
***
The rest of the family, which Félix began to refer to as "the Cousins" simply because he couldn't keep the family ties straight, poured into the Shelley house, in a New York suburb, like a tidal wave. One immediately began to play the piano, another spilled a soda on the couch, a third knocked something over, and a fourth let the dogs out of the bedroom they'd been carefully penned up in. They went insane over the piano-player, the large one's deep booming barks accentuated by the small one's shrill yips.
"I'm so sorry," Oscar said to Félix, who gave him a blank look.
"This is wonderful!" he answered. "All these interesting people!"
A young girl with eyeliner even heavier than Félix's and bright pink lipstick sidled up to Oscar, staring at Félix.
"Hello," Félix said. "Which one are you?"
She stared at him with a sort of stunned-fish look, then hid behind Oscar.
"That's Elizabeth."
"Elyza," she corrected, in a way that made the gratuitous Y more than clear.
"She's having a phase," said a new voice, and Oscar turned and grinned.
"Iz," he said, giving his younger brother a hearty handshake that was almost reminiscent of their father's forceful grip. "Félix, Portia, this is my brother Iz. Iz -- "
"Yeah, I've seen you in the magazines," Iz said, shaking hands. "I can always tell it's you because Oscar's knee is in the picture. Come into the kitchen, we'll get drinks and escape the rugrats."
Only Elyza followed them into the kitchen, where Oscar's mother was checking on an enormous ham in the oven. Félix inhaled appreciatively.
"Beat it, squirt," Iz said to Elyza, who looked obstinate. "Go up to my room, you can read my Sandman comics."
With a roll of her eyes, she left, and Iz rummaged in the fridge while Oscar leaned against the counter, and Félix and Portia took seats at a breakfast table.
"Almost ready to eat," Annie said, smiling. "Do you like sweet potatoes, Mr. Carvell?"
"Félix," he replied, affably. "Yes, I think so."
"Hope all that French gourmet food hasn't spoiled you on home-cooking, Oscar," Annie continued.
"Hardly, ma."
The small-talk continued as Iz poured several glasses of wine, with Oscar's mother asking most of the questions and Félix and Portia answering. Oscar Senior wandered back in, offering to set the table, and deftly avoided several cousins running through the kitchen on his way.
Their attention was eventually drawn by some louder-than-usual shouting in the front hall, which eventually produced a gang of adults who appeared to be just a little older than Oscar. They were introduced as the offspring of his mother's siblings, and at least three of the five carried babies on their hips.
"This is Oscar's godson, Little Oscar," said a man with Oscar's mother's dirty blonde hair, showing off a small, squashy-looking infant.
"You recycle names in your family," Félix said in French. The rest of them looked inquiring.
"Oh, he says Oscar's a good-looking kid," Oscar translated, while Portia went into a coughing fit. "Félix, this is Alf, he's the cousin I told you about, the real estate agent."
"My pleasure," Félix said in English, shaking the hand that wasn't holding Little Oscar. "I hear you are to provide a brownstone for us to look at."
"I've actually got a choice of three -- Nina brought the photos and groundplans," Alf replied. "I thought we could look at them after dinner, if you wanted."
"Thank you; I'd like that very much," Félix said politely. Oscar often forgot how good Félix's English was, and how polite he could be; he was never impolite, precisely, but he was...informal.
"My pleasure, Mr Carvell," Alf replied, giving Oscar a grin. "So, Annie, when do we eat?"
"Ask Iz, it's his ham," Annie replied. "He's becoming quite the chef."
"She means I have a lot of time to cook, because I don't have a job," Iz called, bending over the oven.
"What is your profession?" Félix inquired.
"Innocence," Iz said. Portia snickered, but Félix gave him a polite, blank look. "You know. I profess innocence," Iz clarified. Félix beamed.
"I see where Oscar gets his sense of humour," he declared. Annie smiled and ruffled her older son's hair. Oscar Senior guffawed.
"Looks ready to me," Iz pronounced, as a crashing noise in the distance heralded the arrival in the kitchen of one enormous white dog, who skidded across the kitchen tiles, and a smaller, scruffier dog, who began yapping furiously, both apparently on either end of the "terrier" spectrum. One of the multitudinous cousins ambled through, distracting them with the cat she was carrying, and the entire circus barrelled out again.
"God, I love your family," Portia said with a grin.
***
"I don't believe you told me what it was you did for a living," Félix said to Iz, once the entire extended family was settled down to dinner, spreading out over two tables. "This really is delicious ham."
"Iz doesn't do anything," Oscar Senior said, a little sternly, and Iz rolled his eyes.
"He's exploring his options," Annie corrected.
"When Oscar was his age -- "
"Oh god, here we go," Iz muttered. "When Oscar was my age he was in a prestigious architecture program at a very good school, as I'm sure Mr Carvell knows."
"We all take different paths," Oscar said calmly, having weathered this debate before. "When I was Iz's age I was also a bundle of nerves and I had nightmares about waking up in an Escher illustration."
"HA!" Oscar Senior laughed and pounded the table, and Portia almost inhaled her potatoes, startled. It was a common hazard of dining with the Shelley family that she was clearly only beginning to recall; Oscar Senior was like a hand grenade that could go off into a table-slapping guffaw at any time.
"It was a serious problem, dad," Oscar replied indignantly, and Portia tried to laugh and choke at the same time. Iz thumped her on the back, helpfully.
"Nothing more than blowing off steam. It stopped, didn't it?"
"Well, yeah," Oscar admitted.
"Which one?" Félix asked.
"Which what?"
"Which Escher illustration?"
"Oh, the, the one with the clown," Oscar said, looking embarrassed. "The fountain running upwards, with the clown sitting in the corner holding an inside-out box? I was doing a lot of drafting..."
"Such a hard worker," Annie said, spooning some green beans onto Oscar's plate. Oscar could see Portia storing up the jokes for later.
"Yeah, ma, I know," Iz sighed.
"That is why we're in New York City," Félix put in. "Looking for work for Oscar and Portia."
Iz gave Félix a narrow look that Oscar couldn't interpret. "Next time you could stick to Europe," he muttered.
"Iz," Oscar Senior said, warningly.
"At least they only nagged me twice a day, then," Iz grumbled.
"Iz, could I have a word with you?" Oscar asked, setting his napkin on the table.
"Sweetheart -- " Annie began.
"Let the boys talk," Oscar Senior announced. "Better out than in."
Iz sighed and followed Oscar out of the dining room, into the kitchen.
"Hey, Iz, uh, do you suppose you could spend one family dinner not picking a fight with our parents?" Oscar asked, in a low voice. "I mean I know this is sort of your raison d'etre -- "
"I don't speak French," Iz snapped. "Unlike you."
"Iz -- "
"Why should I sit there and take that?" Iz demanded.
"Because it's only once, and that's not just my boss and my assistant in there, they're also my friends," Oscar replied. "Just try to see this -- "
"Boss," Iz interrupted, making quotes in the air with his fingers. Oscar frowned.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I bet Ma and Dad wouldn't be so perfectly pleased with the golden son if he was outed," Iz replied. Oscar looked horrified. "See? I'm keeping enough secrets already without sitting there and taking Dad's insinuations about me."
"I'm not sleeping with Félix Carvell!"
"Sure, Oscar."
"Oh my god, I would ask what you're smoking but I'm afraid of the answer."
"I know all about him, you know, I looked him up. He spends all his time at nightclubs and private parties and -- "
"I am not having this conversation with you, Iz," Oscar said, mortified.
"He's trouble for you, and you're trouble for me. So send him on his way and then go back to your high-paying downtown job in New York so that at least you're not here all the time, showing me up, or so help me -- "
"Iz, I did not go through four years of school, starve as an intern, and work twelve hour days to make you look bad! I don't care if you never have a paying job."
"I could get a paying job if I wanted!" Iz protested. "I'm working on my novel!"
"Good! Work on it, by all means, but stop blaming me for the fact that you're twenty-two and you still live at home. If you have a problem with Ma and Dad, telling them that I'm sleeping with someone I am most assuredly not sleeping with is not going to help things any. Jesus! I can't believe we're arguing about you being jobless and me being gay in one fight!"
"AHA! You ARE -- "
"I'm not gay, Iz! That was rhetoric. If you can't sit down to a civil meal -- "
"You call that civil!"
" -- without snapping at Ma and Dad, it's clear that one of us is going to have to leave. Félix and Portia were already staying in a hotel downtown tonight, it won't be hard for me to join them. I'll be gone as soon as possible, all right?"
"You'd like that, I'm sure," Iz growled.
"Iz..."
"Fine. If I keep my mouth shut for the rest of dinner, you have to be gone by eight."
Oscar put out his hand, and Iz rolled his eyes.
"It really is a good dinner," Oscar said, haplessly.
"My brother builds houses, I make good ham. Great," Iz sighed. "Come on, let's get it over with."
Chapter Fifteen
Calling Oscar's mother from Japan turned out to be a mistake, in some ways; she managed to get out of him when they were likely to land in New York, and had enough of a head start to tell Oscar's father, who made another ten or twelve phone calls to the rest of the Shelley clan.
When they came through Customs, carrying their luggage, a good two-thirds of Oscar's extended family was waiting in ambush for them on the other side. Félix and Portia found themselves, for once, the odd ones out as they were engulfed in a crowd of laughing strangers, all of whom were paying more attention to gawky, unassuming Oscar than either of them. Most of the strangers bore, to a greater or lesser extent, some resemblance to the shy architect, as well.
"I've done this before," Portia said to Félix, out of the corner of her mouth. "Passive resistance is the key."
"What?" Félix asked, watching Oscar struggle to disentangle himself from his family. Three adolescent children were fighting over who got to carry his bag.
"Portia, Félix," Oscar called, giving a younger man a playful shove out of the way. "Guys, come on, back off a little, huh? Portia, you remember my parents..."
Portia shook hands and endured a hearty slap on the shoulder from Oscar's father.
"And this is Félix Carvell, my employer," Oscar continued, bringing Félix forward through the crowd by the elbow. Oscar's father, a burly, bald man in a business suit, shook his hand with a hearty grip.
"Heard a lot about you," he boomed, and Félix grinned at Oscar. "Been dragging my boy all over, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Félix answered, in his lightly accented English.
"Meet the family, meet the family," Oscar's father continued. Oscar opened his mouth to stop him, but his mother, a pleasant-looking woman with the same sandy hair as Oscar, brought them both up short.
"My name is Annie, this is Oscar Senior," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Carvell. And good to see you again, Portia."
"My pleasure," Portia replied, dislodging a small child from her luggage.
"Oscar Senior?" Félix asked Oscar, in an undertone, as the group began to slowly ooze its way towards the airport exit.
"In concept only. He's Oscar D, I'm Oscar E," Oscar answered.
"What's the E for?"
"Ein't telling you," Oscar said grimly. "Ma, where's Iz? Didn't he come?"
"He's at home, sweetheart," his mother answered. "Someone had to look after the ham."
"Two hams, no waiting," Oscar murmured. "Iz is my brother. Isaac, properly," he added, to Félix and Portia.
"Younger, yes? You've mentioned him once or twice, I think," Félix said. Several of the children were following him closely. Another was trying to leap onto Oscar's rolling bag, every few feet.
"Yeah, he just turned twenty-two."
"And what does he do?"
"Sit, mostly," Oscar replied, with a sigh.
***
The rest of the family, which Félix began to refer to as "the Cousins" simply because he couldn't keep the family ties straight, poured into the Shelley house, in a New York suburb, like a tidal wave. One immediately began to play the piano, another spilled a soda on the couch, a third knocked something over, and a fourth let the dogs out of the bedroom they'd been carefully penned up in. They went insane over the piano-player, the large one's deep booming barks accentuated by the small one's shrill yips.
"I'm so sorry," Oscar said to Félix, who gave him a blank look.
"This is wonderful!" he answered. "All these interesting people!"
A young girl with eyeliner even heavier than Félix's and bright pink lipstick sidled up to Oscar, staring at Félix.
"Hello," Félix said. "Which one are you?"
She stared at him with a sort of stunned-fish look, then hid behind Oscar.
"That's Elizabeth."
"Elyza," she corrected, in a way that made the gratuitous Y more than clear.
"She's having a phase," said a new voice, and Oscar turned and grinned.
"Iz," he said, giving his younger brother a hearty handshake that was almost reminiscent of their father's forceful grip. "Félix, Portia, this is my brother Iz. Iz -- "
"Yeah, I've seen you in the magazines," Iz said, shaking hands. "I can always tell it's you because Oscar's knee is in the picture. Come into the kitchen, we'll get drinks and escape the rugrats."
Only Elyza followed them into the kitchen, where Oscar's mother was checking on an enormous ham in the oven. Félix inhaled appreciatively.
"Beat it, squirt," Iz said to Elyza, who looked obstinate. "Go up to my room, you can read my Sandman comics."
With a roll of her eyes, she left, and Iz rummaged in the fridge while Oscar leaned against the counter, and Félix and Portia took seats at a breakfast table.
"Almost ready to eat," Annie said, smiling. "Do you like sweet potatoes, Mr. Carvell?"
"Félix," he replied, affably. "Yes, I think so."
"Hope all that French gourmet food hasn't spoiled you on home-cooking, Oscar," Annie continued.
"Hardly, ma."
The small-talk continued as Iz poured several glasses of wine, with Oscar's mother asking most of the questions and Félix and Portia answering. Oscar Senior wandered back in, offering to set the table, and deftly avoided several cousins running through the kitchen on his way.
Their attention was eventually drawn by some louder-than-usual shouting in the front hall, which eventually produced a gang of adults who appeared to be just a little older than Oscar. They were introduced as the offspring of his mother's siblings, and at least three of the five carried babies on their hips.
"This is Oscar's godson, Little Oscar," said a man with Oscar's mother's dirty blonde hair, showing off a small, squashy-looking infant.
"You recycle names in your family," Félix said in French. The rest of them looked inquiring.
"Oh, he says Oscar's a good-looking kid," Oscar translated, while Portia went into a coughing fit. "Félix, this is Alf, he's the cousin I told you about, the real estate agent."
"My pleasure," Félix said in English, shaking the hand that wasn't holding Little Oscar. "I hear you are to provide a brownstone for us to look at."
"I've actually got a choice of three -- Nina brought the photos and groundplans," Alf replied. "I thought we could look at them after dinner, if you wanted."
"Thank you; I'd like that very much," Félix said politely. Oscar often forgot how good Félix's English was, and how polite he could be; he was never impolite, precisely, but he was...informal.
"My pleasure, Mr Carvell," Alf replied, giving Oscar a grin. "So, Annie, when do we eat?"
"Ask Iz, it's his ham," Annie replied. "He's becoming quite the chef."
"She means I have a lot of time to cook, because I don't have a job," Iz called, bending over the oven.
"What is your profession?" Félix inquired.
"Innocence," Iz said. Portia snickered, but Félix gave him a polite, blank look. "You know. I profess innocence," Iz clarified. Félix beamed.
"I see where Oscar gets his sense of humour," he declared. Annie smiled and ruffled her older son's hair. Oscar Senior guffawed.
"Looks ready to me," Iz pronounced, as a crashing noise in the distance heralded the arrival in the kitchen of one enormous white dog, who skidded across the kitchen tiles, and a smaller, scruffier dog, who began yapping furiously, both apparently on either end of the "terrier" spectrum. One of the multitudinous cousins ambled through, distracting them with the cat she was carrying, and the entire circus barrelled out again.
"God, I love your family," Portia said with a grin.
***
"I don't believe you told me what it was you did for a living," Félix said to Iz, once the entire extended family was settled down to dinner, spreading out over two tables. "This really is delicious ham."
"Iz doesn't do anything," Oscar Senior said, a little sternly, and Iz rolled his eyes.
"He's exploring his options," Annie corrected.
"When Oscar was his age -- "
"Oh god, here we go," Iz muttered. "When Oscar was my age he was in a prestigious architecture program at a very good school, as I'm sure Mr Carvell knows."
"We all take different paths," Oscar said calmly, having weathered this debate before. "When I was Iz's age I was also a bundle of nerves and I had nightmares about waking up in an Escher illustration."
"HA!" Oscar Senior laughed and pounded the table, and Portia almost inhaled her potatoes, startled. It was a common hazard of dining with the Shelley family that she was clearly only beginning to recall; Oscar Senior was like a hand grenade that could go off into a table-slapping guffaw at any time.
"It was a serious problem, dad," Oscar replied indignantly, and Portia tried to laugh and choke at the same time. Iz thumped her on the back, helpfully.
"Nothing more than blowing off steam. It stopped, didn't it?"
"Well, yeah," Oscar admitted.
"Which one?" Félix asked.
"Which what?"
"Which Escher illustration?"
"Oh, the, the one with the clown," Oscar said, looking embarrassed. "The fountain running upwards, with the clown sitting in the corner holding an inside-out box? I was doing a lot of drafting..."
"Such a hard worker," Annie said, spooning some green beans onto Oscar's plate. Oscar could see Portia storing up the jokes for later.
"Yeah, ma, I know," Iz sighed.
"That is why we're in New York City," Félix put in. "Looking for work for Oscar and Portia."
Iz gave Félix a narrow look that Oscar couldn't interpret. "Next time you could stick to Europe," he muttered.
"Iz," Oscar Senior said, warningly.
"At least they only nagged me twice a day, then," Iz grumbled.
"Iz, could I have a word with you?" Oscar asked, setting his napkin on the table.
"Sweetheart -- " Annie began.
"Let the boys talk," Oscar Senior announced. "Better out than in."
Iz sighed and followed Oscar out of the dining room, into the kitchen.
"Hey, Iz, uh, do you suppose you could spend one family dinner not picking a fight with our parents?" Oscar asked, in a low voice. "I mean I know this is sort of your raison d'etre -- "
"I don't speak French," Iz snapped. "Unlike you."
"Iz -- "
"Why should I sit there and take that?" Iz demanded.
"Because it's only once, and that's not just my boss and my assistant in there, they're also my friends," Oscar replied. "Just try to see this -- "
"Boss," Iz interrupted, making quotes in the air with his fingers. Oscar frowned.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I bet Ma and Dad wouldn't be so perfectly pleased with the golden son if he was outed," Iz replied. Oscar looked horrified. "See? I'm keeping enough secrets already without sitting there and taking Dad's insinuations about me."
"I'm not sleeping with Félix Carvell!"
"Sure, Oscar."
"Oh my god, I would ask what you're smoking but I'm afraid of the answer."
"I know all about him, you know, I looked him up. He spends all his time at nightclubs and private parties and -- "
"I am not having this conversation with you, Iz," Oscar said, mortified.
"He's trouble for you, and you're trouble for me. So send him on his way and then go back to your high-paying downtown job in New York so that at least you're not here all the time, showing me up, or so help me -- "
"Iz, I did not go through four years of school, starve as an intern, and work twelve hour days to make you look bad! I don't care if you never have a paying job."
"I could get a paying job if I wanted!" Iz protested. "I'm working on my novel!"
"Good! Work on it, by all means, but stop blaming me for the fact that you're twenty-two and you still live at home. If you have a problem with Ma and Dad, telling them that I'm sleeping with someone I am most assuredly not sleeping with is not going to help things any. Jesus! I can't believe we're arguing about you being jobless and me being gay in one fight!"
"AHA! You ARE -- "
"I'm not gay, Iz! That was rhetoric. If you can't sit down to a civil meal -- "
"You call that civil!"
" -- without snapping at Ma and Dad, it's clear that one of us is going to have to leave. Félix and Portia were already staying in a hotel downtown tonight, it won't be hard for me to join them. I'll be gone as soon as possible, all right?"
"You'd like that, I'm sure," Iz growled.
"Iz..."
"Fine. If I keep my mouth shut for the rest of dinner, you have to be gone by eight."
Oscar put out his hand, and Iz rolled his eyes.
"It really is a good dinner," Oscar said, haplessly.
"My brother builds houses, I make good ham. Great," Iz sighed. "Come on, let's get it over with."