xp_logs | log: [Julio and Lorna] - Sunday Afternoon (Reply)

Lorna finally formally meets Julio in, where else? The kitchen. She tries her Spanish at him and he tries not to laugh.

To be quite honest, the kitchen frightened Julio just a little. Back home, Julio wasn't allowed near the kitchen under specific threat of death unless Ana let him. Here he took his meals in the boathouse, but now that he was in the mansion proper, he figured he should at least go and check it out. That and Kyle had claimed all that was in the suite refrigerator, and Julio had learned to value the meaning of "Don't touch Kyle's Stuff."

Lorna didn't usually make meals for herself in the big kitchen. Her suite was better prepped for creating a single meal and much easier to maneuver even if it was less efficient. But she'd been down in the infirmary getting frowned at and poked unsympathetically by Amelia and figured that she could just whip up something easy before heading out to the pool for a bit of sun. It was a subtle sort of revenge to the dark looks Amelia gave her and the muttering about skin cancer. It occurred to Lorna that her attitude was more belligerent lately. She wondered if she should do something about that as she wandered into the kitchen.

Julio shut the door on the refrigerator, too many things labeled. He wasn't sure of what not to touch, so he figured there might be something in the pantry. If they had a pantry. He jumped a little guiltily when he noticed the woman with green hair looking at him. "Ah! Bueno. . .?"

Lorna stopped and looked at the boy for a moment. In all the insanity of San Diego and the following month she hadn't actually met the new kid. Mindful of Nate's request, she smiled brightly, "Hola. ¿Tiene usted hambre?" Her Spanish was rusty and her accent more French than anything but it was better than nothing. Besides, four years of a language should count for something right?

Julio tried very very hard not to laugh outright at her accent. It was not the worst he had ever heard, that belonged to a man from Boston who had learned his Spanish in Argentina, but it was still up there. But it was rude to laugh at people you just met. "A little," he managed with just a small sheepish grin.

Her grin turned a little wry, seeing his amusement but basically unoffended by it. "Sorry about the Spanish. Haven't used it much since I moved here and the French has kinda taken over. I'm Lorna." She offered him her good hand. "I was just about to make something for myself. How picky are you?" There was one girl currently committed to eating nothing but white foods. It was always better to ask ahead of time.

"Sorry," he stifled a chuckle, "I'm Julio. But I guess you know that." People he had never met would come up and address him by his first name. He figured it was due to the journals, of which he was doing a lot of backreading. Julio was starting to get disturbed by the amount of random crap that kept happening around this place. "I am not so picky. As long as there is Tabasco, I can eat it."

"Ah, you're one of the spicy kids. Okay, great. I'm in the mood for comfort food so we'll go with one of Martha's recipes." She almost appeared to be talking to herself as she yanked out not a recipe book but a notebook, old and tattered. "There's rice in the pantry, on the right, two shelves up and about two feet in, can you grab it for me?"

"It is in the blood of every true Mexican," Julio replied as he went into the pantry. It took him a minute to figure out which rice she wanted, but he emerged victorious shortly.

"You say that and yet I went to school with this girl who couldn't even deal with like, paprika. Which doesn't taste like anything." Lorna rolled her eyes and set to work, using a metal spoon in place of her bad arm for the most part. "By the way, Nate said he'd talked to you about me lending you some books. You're more than welcome to them and my class notes if you want. Earthquakes and EM have a lot of overlap."

Julio watched the metal spoon curiously. "There are a few here and there, but I always figured they were mutants," he snorted and shook his head, "I knew very little," he added wryly. He leaned on the counter and stayed out of Lorna's way. He knew enough to not even go near the chef unless invited. Or taste anything. He'd had enough spoons to the knuckles to last a lifetime. "And thank you for the books, they should help. I think," he paused, "I hope."

"They're bound to be a good start at least," Lorna observed, "We'll also start working on your powers. Who is your powers teacher right now? Nate? Ms Munroe? I'll work with them a bit and we'll see if you and I can't come up with something. How do you feel about jalapenos?"

"I....I do not know. No one is my powers teacher right now." Julio shrugged. "I am sure it slipped somebody's mind." He had wondered if it was feasible to have a kid with powers like him to run around with no real powers training. Nate had given him a few tips, but honestly no one had really sat down with him besides Moira. "And to the jalapenos, yes please."

Lorna dumped them on in a handful. "No one, really? Damn. Well, it has been something of a month I guess. Okay, we'll get started, hrm, Wednesday? I'll give you some reading to do before then and we'll start simple. The quarry is probably the best place to work." Moira would have powers notes on him, Lorna made a mental note to go retrieve them before the first lesson.

Julio's face broke into a true smile, and he ducked his head. "I am glad to start finally," he said, unconsciously rubbing his hands. If it wasn't so rude, he would have demanded they start now.

Lorna grinned back at him, "Oh sure, you say that now, but that's because you've never had me as a teacher. We'll trade though. I'll help you with your powers and you can help me with my Spanish. And no more laughing at my accent, I'm very sensitive." Her eyes sparkled and it was obvious she was just teasing. Turning she slid the pan she'd been working in into the oven then leaned against the counter.

"Excellent," Julio said. "So few here speak it very well, it would be nice to help someone else for a change. For a start, it does not sound like French." Julio's mood had brightened considerably. He was going to start training, and he had something to offer in return.

"Yeah, I know. You should have heard my teacher with French. He yelled at me all the time back I would pronounce French like Spanish. And now I have the opposite problem." Her smile was just a bit faraway, taking a moment to remember her teacher. She still missed him a random moments, unlooked for and unguarded against.

Julio shrugged. "I do not know any French. I stuck to English. My father would force me to speak it at home, so I figured it would be an easy class." Luis Richter would go days, weeks even, speaking only English to make his son learn. Julio figured out quickly it was 'speak English or go hungry'. "I have been informed my English has gotten much better since coming here."

"My cooking teacher, he insisted I learn. He said I could not learn to speak the language of food unless I learned the language of the heart. Which was only the first of many absurd things he said about French." Lorna giggled, "Your English is very good, you're a fast learner."

Julio blushed. "They are words. Words are easy. Plus, my English teacher told me I was a good mimic." Praise always made him feel slightly embarrassed. He was much more used to threats. Plus he was slightly nervous about being in the room alone with Lorna, now that he thought about it.

"It's a talent, picking up languages. One that a lot of people would love to have." She smiled at him and went to get some things out of the fridge. "It's not anything to be particularly proud of, I guess, you didn't pick it. But it's hardly something to ignore."

Julio nodded. He never felt like his ability to parrot English was anything special, useful and highly practical, yes, but not special. But who was he to say? "So," he said after a moment, "you are the school's cook, yes? How do you manage with so many people?"

"Chef, yes. Training, practice, luck and help. Not always in that order." She mixed up the rice and tugged the pan back out of the oven, setting it on the stove to cool. "Mostly it's a lot of planning. If you don't plan it out right, you're out of everything you need by Tuesday, the kids start rioting and you have to barricade yourself in the pantry and hope for a good negotiation."

Julio chuckled a little at that image. "I would imagine so." Julio's stomach rumbled quietly, whatever she was making smelled good. Today was definitely a good day.

"The Russians know this. You can beat an entire army if you just deprive it of its food." Lorna wasn't at all certain that this was something that the Russians knew but it sounded good and sometimes, that was the point. "Can you grab a couple plates? These are about cool. Martha's own recipe for enchiladas extraordinaire. I don't know if a white girl is really allowed to make them and still call it authentic Mexican but hey, we'll just fake it right?"

"It is a step above gas-station chimichangas and freezer burritos," Julio agreed. He quickly handed Lorna two plates and tried to not look too eager. When Lorna handed him his plate he forced himself to wait until she had prepared her own, then he dug in with relish.

"These are very good," Julio said when he came up for air. Still didn't compare to what he could get at home, but good nonetheless. "For a guera," he added.

Lorna stuck her tongue out at him and poked daintily at her food. "It's pretty good for a chef whose specialty is European, not Latin. So after this, come up with me to my rooms, I'll give you those books and you can get to work. I'll check with Cain about the quarry."

Julio nodded and set to work demolishing the rest of his food. For the first time in what felt like a long time, he felt slightly optimistic. The days since coming to the mansion had stretched out endlessly, with Julio trying to fill his time the best he knew how. Now there was a purpose, and he felt his anxiety lessen ever so slightly.