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The kitchen was chaotic with so many people in it. Nicki and the boys had given up and volunteered to go set the table, after Nicki was almost trampled three different times. The counters, island and table were all involved with food prep. All four burners, crock pot, Nu-Wave, microwave and oven were going. The noise level was incredible with ten people trying to talk over, around, under and through one another, with phones playing as many different styles of music. "This one? Seriously? You like this stuff?" "I've seen your music collection, get bent." "Hey. Let's keep it civil."
After a frustrating week of voice mail tag trying to coordinate schedules for Nicki's upcoming birthday, Jack Boyle had finally shown up at the one place he knew Erin would be. He stood near the door with his hands in his pockets now, knowing he was outside the circle and always would be. Hell, if it wasn't for Nicki, he knew damn well that he'd have disappeared years ago. Henry and Frank knew guys. Turning from stovetop to sink, Frank caught the wistful look in Jack's eyes, and was small enough to enjoy it. "Erin!"
"Yeah, Dad?"
"You and Jack get everything cleared up for Nicki?"
Erin's head swung toward the door, as if she was just realizing that Jack was still here. Joe, Danny and Jamie looked up as well, And Jack would be lying if he said his sphincter didn't clench at the realization that all three men were at that moment wielding sharp knives. "I was actually just going." He pulled his right hand out, fumbling for the door.
"Yeah," Joe's nonchalantly cool tone matched the frost in his eyes. "Why don't you do that."
Nicki burst through the swinging door right then, zooming across the room at the sight of Jack's hand on the doorknob. She wrapped her arms around as much of him as she could reach, cursing once again being the pixie changeling in a family of giants. "'Bye, Daddy. I'll text you about lunch some time this week."
"I'll be waiting, honey." Breathing an inward sigh of relief, Jack made his escape. Nicki turned to the room.
"We have a problem with the table."
"The leaves are behind the breakfront, where they always are." Henry rumbled. "Linda, are you sure this is enough onions?"
"It'll have to be, the last one just went into Maria's sofrito." Upon Joe's return from the grave, he and Maria Baez had fallen like a ton of bricks for each other. Maria was thoroughly enjoying spicing up the usual meat-and-potatoes Sunday dinner fare. Eddie was working in her Serbian-Hungarian dishes around the edges, but Maria was a Puerto Rican fast attack destroyer, full speed ahead.
"We got the leaves out, Pops," Nicki continued. "The problem is the table itself. It's stuck."
She may as well have announced that Aaron Judge had just been traded to Boston. Frank's eyebrows went up. "Stuck?"
"Yes, stuck. I've got Jack at your end, Sean at Pops's end, and I went under to open the mechanism. It's frozen, won't move at all."
Looks flew across the room. "When was the last time we moved it?" Erin asked of nobody in particular.
Jamie tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. "Nana passed in '01, Mom in '05, Joe in '09, I went away to school in '02. Nicki was still small enough when I came back that you, me, her and Sydney could fit on one side with Danny, Linda and the boys on the other. Then Nicki moved into Linda's seat, so me, you, Eddie and Abby can still fit ... "
"So you haven't moved the table in ten years," Joe stopped Jamie's rambling. He reached back for the towel tucked into the waistband of his jeans to wipe the knife he was using. "Let me have a look at it."
Once he and Nicki had gone out again, chagrined looks winged around the room. "I never thought of that," Frank admitted. "As Jamie said, we all fit, I never saw a reason to bother with it."
"The humidity." Abby pronounced. "Eddie, go let them know we don't have any WD-40, either. Who's not blocked in?"
"Me and Jamie," Eddie replied. "But we'll have to excavate the car." she stuck her head out long enough to deliver the news, chuckling at Joe's "Oh, fantastic, thanks a lot!"
"How are we out of WD-40?" Henry wanted to know.
"Because while you were out with Erin and Linda all of yesterday, Frank was in the garage abusing something or another, and he used it all up." She glanced up at Frank, whose chin was on his chest. "Garrett and Sid have been in rare form all week, even for them." She paused at the matching snorts from Danny and Maria. "Giving them flying lessons off the roof isn't worth the paperwork."
"Garrett's turning into the Amazing Shrinking Man, but I bet Gormley would make a really satisfying splat when he landed." Danny looked up at Eddie. "How do you even pronounce this? Is this Klingon or something?"
"How did you learn to master human speech, I'm just so fascinated."
"You don't have to work with him," Maria shot back. "God poured his brains in with a teaspoon, and somebody joggled God's arm."
"Har har."
Joe swept in triumphantly, Nicki slung in a fireman's carry over his shoulders. "Got it! Dad, you really shouldn't leave things like that."
"After this, I certainly won't!"
Finis.