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 Posted: Sun May 30, 2010 5:35 pm
He noticed Andrea leaning on his hand, and couldn’t figure out if he was getting bored or if he was very interested. Either way, Ladon started to look around, checking the restaurant out before dropping his eyes to study the tablecloth. The last thing he wanted to do was force Andrea to be polite, and if he was being boring, he would rather have Andrea talk then leading the conversation. Talking about himself always seemed egotistical, and he tried to remember the finer points of etiquette to help him alone. Back straight. Speak clearly. Don’t fidget. Look at the person you are talking to.
He failed at all of them, and he started to ease himself back into a stiff, straight sitting position and stopped playing with the hem of the tablecloth to look up at Andrea again. “ I can take you out on one of the paths if you want. You’re fit enough to go on them I think.” He did see Andrea do long dance steps when he saw him during his performance during his birthday. It said he had endurance.
“Do you spend your entire summer at your uncle’s place and do you and all of your siblings go with you?” Ladon was digging for more to talk about, since he didn’t know much about Andrea’s family aside from meeting his parents for a brief time. He didn’t even know that Andrea has siblings.
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Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 8:09 pm
If Andrea was aware that his interest was making his friend uncomfortable, he did not move to ease his inadvertent pressure. He truly was curious about what else Ladon liked to do for fun - talking about sewing seemed to make him a embarrassed, so he wondered if some other topic would work better. Something else Ladon wanted to talk about - Andrea did not want to ramble on too much about dancing.
Ladon's agreeing to take him out jogging was a start, he decided, and smiled in reply. "Sure, if you've got an easy one or something to start with," he said, laughing a bit. "You know how to get in touch with me, so just call whenever. I'll let you know if we end up going to my uncle's."
And on that topic, "We usually go for a month or so at a time," he said in response to his friend's question. "My whole family does. My mom can't stand to be away from her brother for too long, I think, but it's always pretty fun, so I don't mind going. My cousin is pretty cool, and so she and I usually hang out a lot while we're over there."
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Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 8:27 pm
“I can understand. I sometimes go for a week or so to see my sister, and once in a while I go to see my grandmother. It’s usually for holidays, but once in a while during summer. I do like going away from the city where there is more country. I think this is one of the first years I’ve actually had people to miss if I went away.” The statement was sad, seeing as he usually was begging for an excuse to get away from Destiny City and the miserable people that he couldn’t impress. For once, he had friends like Tate and Andrea, a team from the Negaverse, and a lot of responsibilities that made him feel needed. He wouldn’t know what he would do if he was taken away for a month. It simply couldn’t be done now, and he felt a swelling sense of pride to have a reason to stay in the city.
“What’s your uncle do and live? Do you have a lot of relatives? You seem like you come from a big family.” He pointed out, reaching over to sip some of the water, picking off the lemon and setting it aside. He was only starting to get use to sour things, but lemons were not something he dared mess with.
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Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:24 pm
Andrea shifted a little, folding one leg underneath himself in his seat. "Oh, my uncle and aunt and cousin live in Italy," he said. "My grandpa had a vineyard, and he left it to my uncle when he died." The twisted sadness he could still recall from his dream a few weeks ago about his grandfather's death tickled at the back of the boy's mind, but it was definitely not something Andrea thought worth bringing up. Certainly not over lunch with a friend when they were supposed to be relaxing.
"I guess my family is sorta big," he went on, glancing upwards momentarily as he considered it. "Or at least, I guess a lot of the people I know just have one other sibling to deal with at home." Andrea laughed a little. "I only have one cousin over in Italy, and then two on my dad's side of the family who live on this side of the ocean, but we only ever really see them at Christmas."
Returning his gaze to Ladon, the younger boy grinned. "So we're not quite the stereotypical loud, rowdy, huge Italian family. And no mafia ties or anything like that. Just wine grapes."
And that made the next logical step to the conversation, "Have you tried any wine, at home or whatever?" Of course they were underage, but in Andrea's mind, "drinking alcohol" and "drinking wine" had always been two entirely separate things. Still, he knew that not everyone else felt that way, and so his tone was a bit softer, and slightly cautious, but not trying to give the impression that a sip or even a glass of wine for a high schooler was by any means a bad thing.
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Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:44 pm
It was nice to here about his family, and he was greatly impressed that Andrea was part Italian. At least some fraction at least. It seemed exotic, especially with the idea of a small, family-owned vineyard providing a backdrop to what was sure to be magical visits overseas. Most people went over to Italy for just those experiences and Andrea had relatives who would open their doors. All his grandmother had was an overgrown lawn, a stump that was trying to grow, and unbearable heat.
As far as this conversation went, he was the less exotic of the two. Andrea was related to Italians who made wine and thought relaxing was going out to fancy, Italian restaurants while he cooked at home and never was overseas. It all made him feel very average and normal. So much so that he felt ashamed in that he never even drank wine when he was asked. He recalled a faint sip from somewhere in his childhood where his uncle thought it would be cute. All he remembered was a pungent smell and cringing at a taste he couldn’t eve recall now. As for anything else, he had adopted a DARE standpoint in not taking anything like drugs or alcohol. While he was sometimes proud of this fact, it wasn’t something you could boost about in high school or to your friends. Most points used for popularity were made through risks and harming yourself, and drinking was one of them. Saying you didn’t drink alcohol was up there was saying you were a virgin. You just didn’t do that sort of thing, and while he felt Andrea was nice, he didn’t think he’d be too understanding if he said he hadn’t tasted anything. It gave off the impression you were a party pooper or just never did anything exciting in your life. He wanted to be the fun friend. He wanted to be cool, too!
“Oh, sure. I’ve drank wine here and there. I like wine. It has a very nice taste.” He bluffed, brushing if off while he felt his heart race with the lie. As he took a sip of his water to help his drying throat, he raced for the next question. “ Do you plan on going to Italy later on in your life as a dancer or do you want to stay here in the states?”
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 1:08 pm
"Oh, we'll have to bring some from my uncle's vineyard back after this summer then," the younger boy replied with a pleased smile, indicating that he completely believed Ladon. "We can get together at my place for dinner or something and give the wine a try."
Andrea definitely blushed then as he realized that had sounded pretty gay, and focused intently on his own ice water for a moment, swirling the ice cubes around in the glass. Hopefully he would just look like he was thinking on Ladon's other question. It was, really, a pretty important one that Andrea had thought on already and still not really come up with a definite answer.
"I may see what happens with school and stuff, I guess," he replied finally. "I mean, I'm just a sophomore now, so I figure I don't have to worry about that just yet. See if I can get into a dance school for college or whatever and see where that takes me maybe." Andrea chuckled nervously. "Mom's hometown, where the vineyard is, is pretty quiet and makes for a nice vacation, but I dunno if I could live there right now.
"What about you?" he then asked. "Been outside the country at all yet? Or want to go somewhere?"
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