“Dead posh, so it is. Dead Yank. Ye see how they had all them different types of milk in them shiny containers? Brushed steel, I think them be's made of. Me eyes was boggling at the sheer variety on offer. Soy milk and almond milk and one percent and two percent and I don't know what. And no need to tell anyone how much of it ye want and then be raging as they've put in too much or too little, as we can put as much as we want into our cups ourselves. Wile modern, so it is.”
“Would ye tell me,” Maureen asked, “who in Derry would be outta their mind drinking, what did ye call it? Soy milk? And almond milk? What the bloody hell does almond milk be when it's at home, anyroad?”
“Do almonds even make milk?” Dymphna wondered.
It was as if nobody had spoken. Fionnuala continued: “And all them teas laid out in their fancy boxes! Marvelous! Never have I seen such a selection! Half the names I wouldn't trust meself to pronounce, but,” she nudged Maureen, “I swiped a few of each flavor and they're sitting in me bag now. What eejits management here must be! They've not even posted a security guard there! Sure, anyone could walk in from the street and take what they wanted.”
“They've CCTV in the ceiling,” Maureen said. “Don't be surprised at a knock on the door this evening and the Filth standing there to haul ye down to the cop shop.”
Fionnuala tugged out the tea bag and placed it on the table. She brought the cup to her lips. They all watched as she sipped it. She slurped. They hoped she'd like it. She smacked her lips.
“Och, lovely, so it is!”
“I'm sure it's the fifty pee off that makes it taste so good,” Maureen harrumphed. “And even at that price it be's a scam.”
Throughout this exchange, and as she watched the tea cup move up to Fionnuala's lips, then back down again, then back up, Siofra had the eerie sensation that something was inching closer and closer to her legs. She suddenly froze. She felt it, damp, warm and alive, press tentatively against her shin. A shiver ran up her spine. It was wriggling. Then it—they?!—slithered quickly...between her legs!
Her shrieks of unbridled horror reverberated throughout the joint. Fionnuala almost dropped her tea. Siofra jumped up, her chair clattering to the floor. Screams still sprayed from her throat. She pointed in terror under the table. Tears rolled down her face and her finger trembled uncontrollably.
“S-something,” she sobbed, “something's attacked me! Down there! In me, in me...lady parts!”
Heads from all tables whipped in their direction. The whole Kebabalicious was looking over at them in alarm. In the background someone yelled, “Security! Security!”
“Och, wise up, wane!” Fionnuala scowled, enraged, cheeks scarlet. “Naw!” she called out in a voice that pierced the restaurant. “Security won't be needed!” She turned to Siofra. “Sit yerself down! Ye're making a show of yerself!”
Padraig had glanced under the table. He roared with laughter. His mother had kicked off her clogs, and her sopping stocking feet were splayed atop the detritus on the floor there.
Still sobbing, Siofra forced herself to sit down.
“Ye almost made me spill me tea!” Fionnuala hollered at her. “Roaring outta ye like a mad thing! Could ye not tell yer mammy needed to rest her weary feet? Any other wane who loved her mammy would've stood up and let her rest her feet on her chair. Ye're a selfish wee bitch, Siofra, and a daft cunt and all!”
Through her sobs, Siofra glanced at Padraig. Brother and sister shared a knowing nod. It was only a preview, perhaps, a crack in the facade glimpsed...
A smile played on Siofra's lips even as she stifled her sobs. Already now, she was preparing her cheeks for the onslaught that would befall them at some stage in the near future. Smacks from her mother's hand. And while not exactly looking forward to it, she was somehow relieved. Her mammy was coming back again...
Fionnuala took another sip of tea.
The Irish Lottery Series
An Embarrassment of Riches
Hand In The Till
Fleeing The Jurisdiction
Best Served Frozen
Static Cling
The Irish Lottery Box Set (1-3)
Emergency Exit
Watch for more at geraldhansen.com
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Did you love Table For Nine At Kebabalicious: A Short Story? Then you should read An Embarrassment of Riches by Gerald Hansen!
“A Masterpiece!” Colin Quinn
When Ursula Barnett and her husband Jed win the Irish lottery, they think their troubles are over. But they are just beginning.
Ursula coerces her Yank husband to retire in her hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland, hoping to atone for her youthful sins as a collaborator with the IRA in the 1970s. At the first sniff of Ursula’s lotto win, however, her chronically greedy sister-in-law Fionnuala Flood rallies the family against Ursula.
Fionnuala’s life is a misery. She is married to a boozing fish-packing plant worker and raising seven seedy hooligans, from a convict son to an eight-year-old devil-daughter who will resort to desperate measures to secure the perfect Holy Communion gown. Between two part-time jobs, Fionnuala still finds the energy to put into motion plans which pit husbands against wives, daughters against mothers, the lawless against the law and Fionnuala against anyone fool enough to cross her path.
Family saga and black comedy, love story and courtroom drama, An Embarrassment of Riches will take you on a journey to Northern Ireland and beyond, where Protestants and Catholics wage battle daily, and where crossing family with finance leads to passion and tragedy, heartache and hilarity.
Read more at Gerald Hansen’s site.
About the Author
Best-selling author Gerald Hansen was a Navy brat, starting school in Thailand, graduating high school in Iceland, with Germany, California and his mother's hometown of Derry, Northern Ireland in between. He attended Dublin City University, and also lived in London and Berlin. The first of the five-part Irish Lottery Series, An Embarrassment of Riches, was an ABNA semifinalist in 2011. He loves music, spicy food, traveling the world (still!), and wearing Ben Sherman. He now lives in New York City.
Photo by Marcin Kaliski
Read more at Gerald Hansen’s site.
Table For Nine At Kebabalicious_A Short Story Page 3
