Mayonnaise

[intheheart]

Title: Mayonnaise
Rating: G
Summary: Ivy and Gina discover why letting your eight-year-old make the chicken salad is not necessarily a good idea.
Notes: Plain ol' domesticity.


Ivy bit into her sandwich, and immediately made a face. "Ew," she said, and set it aside.

Gina looked at her wife across the blanket, then down at her sandwich, and said, "Andy made these, didn't he."

"Yeah," Ivy said, sounding resigned, and brushed her wind-blown hair back out of her eyes. "Apparently he's inherited my cooking skills. Or lack thereof."

"It doesn't count as cooking if you're only making a sandwich," Gina said absently, lifting the top slice of bread. It looked normal enough: chicken salad, lettuce and tomato, bread. Well, he'd used a hamburger bun, but that was fine. He probably wanted to dress it up a little. Or else he thought a picnic needed hamburgers and was attempting to give his mothers a hint.

Ivy was shaking her head. "No, he made the chicken salad too. That's cooking."

More like putting things together, but Gina didn't want to fight about that when there were so many more exciting things to fight about. "You let him use knives by himself?!"

"No!" Ivy said, disgusted. "Have a little faith in me. I remember very well what I was like at that age. No, I did all the chopping for him, but he insisted on doing the rest himself." She looked mournfully at her sandwich. "Too much mayonnaise."

Gina took a small bite and made her own face. "Ugh, you're right. Poor kid. Should've done it myself."

"Never send a man to do a woman's job?" Ivy asked dryly, then shook her head again. "Okay, that came out way more sexist than I meant it."

"No, it's all right," Gina said. "It's fairly obvious that no one biologically related to you can cook, so it's probably just in the genes."

Ivy grinned at that. "And the fact that Andy isn't biologically related to me means..."

"Cosmic sign that he was meant to be your kid." Ivy leaned over and kissed her then; she tasted wonderful, albeit a bit like mayonnaise.

"Come on," Gina said, laughing, "let's go pick up something else to eat, and next time I'll make the chicken salad."

"I don't know," Ivy said, "the rest of the food still looks okay. We could just eat that." She reached into the cooler and came out with a green-skinned apple, held it out to Gina on her palm. "For the fairest?"

Gina laughed, and took the apple. "Last time someone said that it started a pretty big fight."

"I don't fight with people when I know I'm right," Ivy said, with a blithe disregard for the truth.

"Mmhmm." Gina took a bite of the apple and let its sharp-sweet taste explode on her tongue, chasing away the last of the mayonnaise.

--

"Did you like your picnic?" Andy asked, over dinner that night. He sounded casual but Gina knew him well enough to hear the anxiety in his voice.

"It was wonderful," she said, sincerely, and tried not to think about the chicken salad. "Leah, honey, eat your peas."

"Won't!" Leah said, stubborn.

"Oh," Andy said, "good. Because Aunt Clara gave us the chicken salad for lunch and I don't think I did it very well."

"A little less mayonnaise next time, champ," Ivy said, and smiled at Gina across the table.