Sorry, sorry, sorry! I meant to post this about a week ago, but I've been sick. This chapter is a little different, as you'll see, but I think you'll like it. Enjoy, and reviewers get, as part of a special limited promotion, a lunch date with the character of your choice (though be careful if you choose Mr. J; you know how jealous Harley can be). Come on, how can you resist?
Remember who you are already! Ivy scolded herself, absently making the orchid in the vase on the table grow a few centimeters taller. It was just a simple little lunch meeting, for crying out loud. She had finally bitten the bullet and asked Dr. Jonathan Crane to lunch, just to talk about that strange day they had spent together and put it behind them. Even the most disciplined professionals like themselves can slip up under stress, get all emotional, and the best thing to do was to clean up the whole sticky situation before it gets out of control.
She had asked him to meet her at the Golden Lotus, an old favorite Chinese restaurant of hers with pretty murals on the walls and a wicked spicy bean curd. And even if she had taken more time getting dressed than usual, in a pretty aquamarine slip dress totally inappropriate for snowy mid-December and jade earrings, well, she told herself, she always liked to make a good impression. And certainly she had arrived at the restaurant ten minutes early, but punctuality had always been important to her. No she wasn't nervous, she told herself yet again. The notorious Poison Ivy was never nervous and no I would not like to order appetizers, and stop assuming I'm waiting for a date, it's just a lunch meeting! she snapped at an unfortunate waiter.
Jonathan Crane polished his glasses once before entering the restaurant. It was good of Ivy to ask him to lunch; after that day, they really should talk, and he was much too shy, er, that is to say, much too preoccupied with his work to call her. This would give them both a chance to clear up that whole slip-up and get on with their respective lives. Briefly he scolded himself for not changing into something more stylish than his lab coat over slacks and an oxford, worrying what she would think of him, but quickly pushed the thought aside, and opened the door to meet his fate- er, that is to say, Ivy.
I either Ivy or Jonathan had seen the expressions on their faces when they each saw the other, they'd have been ashamed of themselves. For all Jonathan's talk of being cool and rational and a man of (mad) science with no time for weakness, and for all Ivy's talk of being an invulnerable temptress loyal first to herself, they both lit up. It was only for a second before they caught themselves, but in that second, the only word for the thing on their faces was joy.
"Hey, Jonathan," Ivy said, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach and keep up a coolly professional smile, despite the frankly adorable way Jonathan's cheeks had turned pink from the cold.
"Nice to see you, Ivy," said Jonathan, trying very hard to ignore how pretty Ivy looked, with that three-foot-tall orchid tangled in her hair. He sat down. "So, I saw on the news about the refinery explosion. Your work, I take it?"
Forgetting herself, Ivy's eyes lit up. "I used the plant you gave me, and it tore down a whole wing. You should have seen it, it was just beautiful. Did you use that new toxin on Victor yet?"
"The plant worked? Really?" Jonathan was grinning now, and so was Ivy. "I'd never seen a gift like yours, and so I wondered . . . it must have been magnificent. Oh, and you would have loved it when I tried the toxin on Victor. You could hear the screams all the way to the Arkham cafeteria, which made for a few very interesting lunches . . ."
The waiter who brought the couple at table seven their spicy bean curd, cold sesame noodles, and shrimp with black bean sauce couldn't help but overhear a few snippets of conversation, and it was some of the most interesting eavesdropping he'd done all day. As far as he could tell, the pretty redhead and the studious-looking young man who seemed so in love were both botanists who took great pride in their work; they kept referring to "the business," and mentioning organic compounds, genetic modifications, that sort of thing. Probably some sort of project for the government, they got a lot of those here. He still remembered the African American fellow with the calm voice who had spent an entire meal on his cell phone asking the strangest questions about airplane landings and sonar.
I was only after he had delivered the fortune cookies that he noticed the couple had gotten a little quieter, like maybe something had gone wrong with one of their projects. He went to deal with the frazzled-looking police officer commissioner the heavy mustache in thee corner (wait, hadn't the news said he died a while back . . . ?), giving the couple some privacy.
"Jonathan," Ivy had started; she had to admit it had been a nice lunch, but it was time to set the record straight so they could both move on. But somehow, her mouth disagreed with her mind, and she found herself speaking very fast, before her mind could catch up with what she was saying, "I know I'm a mad eco-terrorist with a track record that always seems to end in my lovers' getting arrested or some similar fiasco, but you're the only person I've ever met who was really like me, and I . . . I like that, so all I'm asking is that you give this craziness and me and all of it a chance. That's all I'm asking of you." Ivy wouldn't have believed she said it if she hadn't heard it herself, but there it was.
"I can do that," Dr. Jonathan Crane blurted out. As with Ivy, he spoke long before he realized what he was saying, although he knew he felt very strange. A lesser man might have called the emotion fear, but Dr. Jonathan Crane understood fear well enough to realize that this was something different. "I mean, I know I'm a slightly . . . unconventional scientist, who thinks about fear more than anyone should, and who can be shy and awkward besides, but I can do that."
Neither of them were the type who favored sweeping emotional gestures, so he simply took her hand in his and squeezed it once, very gently, and for them, for now, it was more than enough.
As Ivy shifted her tiny, fuel-efficient car into gear, she pulled out her cell and dialed Kitty's apartment, where her two best friends were dutifully waiting for a full report on her lunch, once again proving that sometimes your best friends know you better than you know yourself. As soon as they had both picked up a line, Ivy sighed and said, "Kitty, you owe Harley five bucks."
After the initial responses (Kitty asking, "How did you know about our bet?" and Harley squealing "Yay! Money!"), what Ivy said sunk in. You could feel Harley's smile over the phone as she said, "I knew it was gonna happen eventually. I knew it."
"I didn't," said Kitty, laughing. "But Ivy, if I know you, and I do, you're still a little shell-shocked, but once you get over that, remember that I'm so happy for you!"
"Thanks," said the, as predicted, shell-shocked Ivy. "I'm actually on my way over, we need to rehash the whole lunch, I'm afraid."
After they had both assured her that if she didn't come over to discuss, they'd come after her with every weapon in their personal stashes, Ivy hung up and sighed again. Because, to her great annoyance, it had actually happened. She had, against her will, fallen in love.