Savory dumplings. Savory dumplings filled with steaming hot soup (and just maybe a bit of pork since no other Teivel’s were around?). Tabitha imagined them with her gloved fingers crossed hopefully as she followed Jimmie to the serving stall.
“Oof, hey!” She hissed, pulled out of her imaginings of late supper and instead staring strangely at some beansprouts. Tabitha’s face fell and she quipped sarcastically, “Like we’re so inconspicuous by the beanstalk wannabe.” She flicked one of the sprouts, eyes widening as Jimmie’s plan altered again. “Me? Why…”
Of course, Fanny would see right through her younger brother. It would have been the same issue flipped if Simon was in attendance instead. It was too bad. Fanny sort of liked her? Or at least, Tabitha thought she did.
“Go on, go on then.” She waved Jimmie away, sniffling, gasping, and working until crocodile tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. Tabitha meandered back over to the stall where Fanny was working diligently making sure her sister in law caught a glimpse of her before she slipped behind the table closer to where Fanny could actually hear her.
“You know seeing everyone gathered and festive like this…it reminds me of my Mama. Did she ever come to any of these in solidarity? When I was away?” The tingle of emotion in her nose wasn’t so fabricated but Tabitha wiped away a tear for extra effect.
She shooed, he skedaddled, warmed by the glow of a coconspirator convinced and a show in the offering.
It was with one eye on the silver-screen-worthy performance that he sidled up next to the dame standing in for his far more prickly sister.
“May-mei,” he said, pulling out his smile No. 4 (the Just For You).
The sturdy younger woman squeaked, almost dropping the ladle. “JIM-mie! You scared me!” Then, “Oh no, now I’ve lost count, there was a very particular way I was supposed to be stirring...”
“Hey. Hey, don’t be like that. How ‘bout I step in and... help, yeah?” Turning up the wattage on the smile worked; that was de-fi-nitely a blush that wasn’t just the cold or steam of the cauldrons on the dame’s face.
In the near distance, he could see Fanny’s initial suspicious face melt into something that looked an awful lot like awkward concern.
“Tibby-cat, you’re the real cat’s meow,” he marveled under his breath, taking over the stirring. Every so often, once May’s back was turned, he diverted a ladle or two into a spare bowl at his feet.
The breeze blew, and Albion was a gossipy old dame at heart, ‘cause boy did private conversations travel on the wind:
“...she was welcome whenever we could have her, Tabitha, of course.” (Ha, he thought, delighted at how stiff and uncomfortable Fanny was.) “Come here, let’s get you cleaned up. It’s not good to end the year in sorrow. Why don’t you...”
His sister’s concerned gaze hardened into purpose once it settled back onto the dumpling booth, turning and abruptly shoving something that looked like a bowl at the redhead. He ducked down, careful to avoid being spotted.
“Jim-mie?” May’s voice cut into his eavesdropping, but the breeze had died down anyway. “Are you... oh, why’s that bowl down there?”
Time for an exit. “Nerts, you’re right! I’ll just be getting this out of the way in a jiffy. Here, May, I’m on the fifth stir counterclockwise. Quick, before the pattern gets lost!”
May’s plaintive But how many more stirs in what direction floated behind but only insubstantially, like the trailing cloud of steam from his acquired bowl.
He caught up, nudging Tabitha. “Hey. I got mine, let’s get you yours, yeah? What’d you say to Fanny anyway, to get a bona-fide bowl of approval?”
