Fork In The Fondue
"Fondue
Fork?" Jamie read, looking up at the sign. "That's called cheesy." Caitie, Val,
and Tyler cracked up. "What?" asked an annoyed Jamie.
"Well,
cheese, fondue…" Tyler explained. Jamie rolled his eyes and grinned.
"It got
good reviews," Val informed them. The quintet was testing the newest restaurant
in Kingsport—a fondue shop, no less. Caitie and Jamie agreed to come on the
condition the overachievers paid for it. With the bill split three ways and
Fondue Fork not overly expensive, the others agreed.
"Yeah,
well, so did Superman, but that movie sucks," Caitie said bluntly. All three
guys stared at her with open mouths. "What? It did."
"Caitie,"
Val whispered loudly, "I think the guys think it's macho. You're treading on
Guy Turf. Remember, they watch Jackie Chan."
"Val, you
like Jackie Chan." Caitie turned to Val. "You took karate from third to seventh
grade, remember? You were a purple belt." The males looked at the cheerleader,
amazed.
"You were a
purple belt?" Tyler asked. Val turned red.
"Yeah. Then
I broke my leg practicing for my black belt test and—well, I think we're, sort
of, um, late for our reservation, aren't we?" she inquired anxiously. Jamie
looked at his watch at the same time Tyler and Hank, interested, looked at
theirs. The watches that had told so many times of death now told Val's fate.
"We have
five more minutes," Hank informed her.
"Well, we
should be early," Val decided, nodding and pulling open the door. "Yeah. Early
is good."
The others
followed her in.
"Dang,"
Jamie whispered to Tyler, "you'd better not try to make a move on her."
Tyler
scowled at him and then replied, "I took karate for two years. I barely got to
yellow belt."
Jamie
grinned and made karate chop motions in the air.
*
"Monsieur,
Monsieur, Monsieur, Madame, et Madame." The waiter, a young man about
twenty-four with short, bleached blond spikes, gestured to the table. "Es
heureux."
"You've
never taken French, have you?" Jamie accused the waiter as he sat down.
"Uh, nah,
not really," admitted the waiter, falling back into American English.
Jamie and
Hank looked at each other before saying in unison, "Monsieur, Monsieur,
e-noon-see-ate. Le mot venirait ta bouche comme un drapeau dans l'air." Their
play on Monsieur LeBon drew laughs from the others, who had gotten acquainted
with LeBon on a call.
"Well,
anyway, tell me if I may be of service. My name is Chad; and before you ask,
I'm not hanging, dimpled, or pregnant; and I am your waiter this evening."
"No,
really?" Jamie asked in mock wonderment. Caitie elbowed him. Hard.
"Dude,
funny. Real funny. Now, I'm leaving now. See you in a few." Chad nodded, gave
them a thumbs-up, and left.
"My kind of
man," Jamie said with approval. "I didn't know punks worked here."
"You don't
know that he's a punk," Val informed him. "He may be an overachiever like us."
"Nah,"
Caitie and Jamie said at once. Jamie explained, "That is the kind of person who
looks very much at home in a Metallica tank. And overachievers don't usually
end up working at Fondue Fork in their hometown."
"And he
goes to Godsmack concerts," coughed Caitie.
"And you
would know because…?" Tyler asked. The brunette looked around with feigned
innocence.
"I don't
like Godsmack, you know, and I only went to the concert because Jamie forced me
to." Caitie glared at Jamie.
"I only
went because Kenny was going," Jamie argued. "I don't like them either."
By this
time the others were cracking up.
"Tell me, did you spend the entire
time making out?" teased Val. They both glared at her with dark eyes.
"Um…who
wants to order?"
*
"You know,
we should go see a movie after this," Hank suggested. "And Jamie and Caitie can
sit together and make out and Val and Tyler can sit together and make out and I
can have everyone's popcorn," Hank said devilishly. Four equally red faces
looked at him with annoyance. He shrugged. "Just a suggestion."
"Oh,
great," said Val, annoyed even more. "Now you made me drop my stupid bread."
"Do you
think it's left or right?" Jamie asked Caitie. She thought a moment and then
smiled.
"Left.
Definitely left."
"What's
left?" Val inquired, jabbing another piece of bread onto her fork.
"Well, if
you drop your fondue, then you have to kiss the person on your…well, we're not
sure if it's left or right, but we think that left would be best in this case,"
explained Jamie, grinning a smile equal in mischief to Caitie. Val widened her
eyes and looked to her left. Tyler.
"Him?" Her
jaw was hanging open. "I have to kiss him?"
"Thank you,
that made me feel good," Tyler said dryly.
"Sorry,"
she apologized, then turning back to the grinning duo. "And why might I have to
kiss him?"
"Tradition,"
was Caitie's smiling answer. "And for the fun of it, let's say on the lips. At
all times." The grins grew bigger, and one started on Hank's face as well.
"Um…sorry
about this," Tyler directed to Val, turning an interesting shade of pink.
"It's all
right." Oh, she was going to get Jamie and Caitie later. This was both highly
embarrassing and…well, very highly embarrassing. Admittedly, she would like to
kiss Tyler, but under more private circumstances, thank you very much. Val
looked again at the Cheshire cats before gently reaching out to touch Tyler's
face as their lips connected.
"Oh, sick,"
groaned Jamie, shielding his eyes. "This wasn't such a good idea after all."
Val and Tyler seemed to be getting very into the tradition, as was indicated by
the way Tyler was wrapping his hands around Val's jaw-line and the way Val's
arms were going around Tyler's neck and the way they were deepening the kiss
like there was no tomorrow.
"Guys, I
don't know if we should be watching this," Hank said nearly a minute and a half
later. "I mean, they're going to probably beat us up later."
"Wait, I
think they're using their tongues," Caitie noted with interest, leaning
forward. She, at least, was absolutely captivated by this. Jamie peeked from
the holes in between his fingers and smiled with an idea, taking his hands
(which weren't really serving their purpose, as his fingers were spread apart
and they made convenient peepholes) off of his eyes.
"Look."
He reached
out and pushed back Val's chair so that it was tilting. A small shove, and—
"Aiee!" Val
and Tyler both landed on the floor. Groans and moans and lots of ouches could
be heard before two pairs of blue eyes appeared on the edge of the table. The
brown eyes opposite them widened in fear. Hank interrupted the war of the
optical organs.
"You know,
I think I could do with some more Coke," he informed them. Val and Tyler picked
up their chairs and sat down on them firmly, grinning like imbeciles, to put it
bluntly.
"Tell me,
Val, what's the Quadratic Formula?" Jamie questioned.
Val looked at him weirdly before
saying, "X equals negative b plus or minus square root of b squared minus four
ac, all over two a. No duh, Jamie."
"I was just
making sure that no brain cells had been lost in the suspended time of lack of
oxygen," Jamie said sweetly. Val and Tyler rolled their eyes.
"Yeah, so
Tyler, what's the point-slope intercept form again?" Caitie asked.
Val leaned
over and whispered into Tyler's ear.
"I don't
even want to know what they're talking about," groaned Jamie. "I'm feeling
nauseating pain already."
But no,
there didn't seem to be any indication that it was something that would cause
Jamie to hurl, because all Tyler did was take his fondue fork and plunge into
the molten cheese, spearing Caitie's piece of bread.
"Hey!" She
pulled at her fork and the bread came off of it. Holding up her fork, she
glared at Tyler. "Jeez, what was that for?"
Tyler
handed the bread to Val. "You seem to have lost your fondue."
"And that,"
continued Val, "means you have to kiss the person on your left." She smiled
indulgently as she glanced to Jamie on Caitie's left.
"But it was
taken! It didn't fall off!" Caitie protested.
"Look at
your fork. Is there anything on it?" asked Val. Caitie rolled her eyes and
shook her head. "Ha. So kiss Jamie."
"He's my
best friend," whined Caitie. "That's not right!"
"Tyler's my
friend, but I kissed him," Val pointed out. "How is that different?"
"Well,
everyone knows you like Tyler, and everyone knows he likes you, and everyone
knows you flirt with each other all the time."
"And you
and Jamie don't?" Tyler asked. Val grinned.
"Oh fine,"
Caitie said sulkily, kissing Jamie on his cheek.
"Nope," he
said, turning her face as she began to sit up again with pink-tinged cheeks,
"on the lips."
He took
control of the tradition, kissing her lightly. Caitie, whom no one thought
could honestly blush, was now scarlet.
"That
wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked. Caitie smiled.
A lot more
pieces of bread were lost in the cheese.
The only problems occurred when
Tyler lost his piece of bread and when Hank lost his.
"I am under
no circumstances kissing Hank and no one here is going to make me," Tyler said
stubbornly.
"You know,
it might be right," Jamie said. "We can pretend it's right."
And no one
argued with that as Tyler and Val went into another kiss. Then Hank lost his,
but he merely "passed it on" to Caitie, who in turn kissed Jamie.
The rest of
the night went smoothly.
"Um, I
don't think there's any more cheese to lose our bread in," Jamie noted, poking
the pot. "And we ran out of bread a while ago."
"We did?"
Val asked, pulling away from Tyler. They had sort of gotten lost in a
super-long kiss somewhere along the way.
"Yeah.
We've been taking out bread and dropping it," Jamie told them, still poking at
the cheese with his fork.
"And I'll
be taking that," said Chad as he came over to their table, turning off the
burner and picking up the pot with oven mitts.
"Hey, dude,
I like the hand gear," Jamie said with a grin. "Il est tres beau sur tes
mains."
"Oh, sure,
rub it in," scowled Chad. "I'll bring your check out in a minute unless you
want dessert?"
"No," they
chorused.
"Hank, that
movie sounded sort of like a good idea," Val said. The majority of the bread in
the pot was hers and Tyler's due to Caitie and Jamie's ironic embarrassment,
but they were still up for making up for lost time.
"What? Oh,
sure, but I get your popcorn. Want to see A Knight's Tale? There's an 8:30
showing," said Hank, taking the napkin off of his lap.
"Ooh, Heath
Ledger," Val smiled. Tyler and Jamie rolled their eyes, the movement caught by
Val. "Oh, come on, it's not like I'm ever going to kiss Heath Ledger."
"Well,
that's what you said about Tyler," Caitie reminded her, "and you two are making
out very enthusiastically."
"Shut up."
Val's cheeks were pink. Tyler smiled.
"This is
the bill," Chad informed them, returning. Jamie gaped falsely.
"You don't
say." His voice was overly awed.
"Dude, just
because we went to the same Godsmack concert doesn't mean that I necessarily
like you," Chad said.
"I don't
even like Godsmack," argued Jamie. "I only went because a friend of mine begged
me to."
"Uh huh."
Chad didn't exactly sound like he believed the teen. "I'll run the credit card
through the machine and be right back," said Chad to Hank, taking the card.
"You guys
can just pay me back," Hank notified Val and Tyler, who were looking very
confused.
"Sure,
that's great," agreed Tyler as Chad came back very speedily with the credit
card.
*
"So…I
didn't know you were a purple belt," Tyler said, trying to start a conversation
with Val as they walked out of the restaurant a little behind the others.
"It's not a
fact I advertise," Val nodded. "Everyone wants to see if they can beat me."
"I think
you should be proud of your accomplishment, though. I mean, that's really
fantastic. I tried karate once and only just passed the yellow belt test," he
admitted.
"At least
you passed it, though, right? I mean, you could have stayed at white belt. Why
weren't you good at it?" she asked curiously.
"I guess I
couldn't find enough inner peace with a crush on a very amazing girl in sixth
grade," Tyler replied, taking her hand gently.
"You
haven't known me since sixth grade," Val reminded him, stopping as she turned
to him. "We met in ninth grade."
"Yeah,
well, it was worth a try. You ever heard Savage Garden?" he asked, leaning in
closer.
"Of
course."
"'I knew I
loved you before I met you, I have been waiting all my life…'" Tyler said
softly as he kissed her.
"Oi, you
two lovebirds! We're waiting!" yelled Jamie. Tyler and Val broke, smiled
at each other, and ran to catch up.
"So you're
glad we came for dinner here, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Well…it
was a free dinner for us."
"Oh, come
on."
"Come on
what?"
"Admit it.
You had fun."
"When it
all boils down, everything's just another fork in the fondue."
The
laughter echoed down the street.
Okay, you have to admit it was funny. The last part was sort
of more mushy than funny, but the rest was hilarious, right? Right? Now, I'm
counting on LOTS OF REVIEWS. Lots with a double capital L and capital OTS, got
it? Good. J So…REVIEW. Now. Please?
---Ivy Leaves