CHAPTER TWO: TOMATO SOUP
"Rogue?"
"Hmm?" It was late at night, and Rogue was exhausted. "What is it?" She had spent all afternoon helping Kitty boil the potion, which had bubbled and thickened and eventually wound up looking like sour milk and smelling like potpourri. Then had come the task of bottling it up in a clean container; 'clean' meaning that Rogue had spent fifteen minutes scrubbing the container with antibacterial soap while Kitty looked on critically. Finally, the concoction had been stored in the very back of the refrigerator, where nobody ever looked unless they were in the mood for moldy leftovers. "What is it, Kitty? Ah'm tired."
"Do you think that potion will, like, work?"
Rogue groaned and turned over in her bed. "It had better. Ah've worked my ass off for that stuff."
"Thanks for the help, by the way."
"No problem. Ah love wasting my time." Rogue stifled a yawn. "Now be quiet, Kitty. Ah want to get some rest tonight."
There was a moment of silence.
"Rogue?"
"What?" Rogue asked impatiently. "Ah thought Ah told you to let me get mah sleep!"
"Like, chill out. Just one more question."
Rogue grunted.
"Do you think anyone will, like, find it?"
"Back there? Not unless they're mad." Rogue pulled her pillow over head. "Good night," she said, muffled. "And don't wake me up."
"Good night," Kitty whispered.
"Hey, Pretty-Kitty."
Kitty looked up from her sandwich. She smiled brilliantly, instinctively reaching up a hand to stroke a stray stand of hair behind her ear. "Lance! Hey! Like, what have you been up to lately?"
Across the table, Kurt and Rogue both watched the exchange: Kurt anxious, Rogue bored.
"Oh, this and that. You know how it is." Lance gave a charming grin. "Mind if I sit down? We have a lot to catch up on."
"Sure." Kitty slid over to make room, glad she was wearing her new hoop earrings. "I've, like, missed you in history class."
"A guy like me has more important things to worry about than Benjiman Franklin being the first president," Lance said nonchalantly. He took a bit of his apple. "Like I said, I've been busy."
"George Washington," came a cold voice.
Lance looked over in mild annoyance. "What's that?" He saw who was talking. His face relaxed into a sneer. "Oh, the fuzzy little blueberry. You're still hanging out with him? What a total waste of time, Pretty-Kitty."
Kitty frowned.
"George Washington was the first president, not Bejiman Franklin," Kurt said, unfazed. His eyes were hard as marbles. "You might want to start coming to school more often, unless you want to be a moron all your life."
"Yeah, well." Lance said, voice equally cold. "Some people have better things to do with their lives than listen to teachers and tag around where they aren't wanted."
Kitty nudged him sharply. "Lance, stop. Like, just cool it, OK?"
"Anything for you, Kitty-Cat."
Kurt returned darkly to his lunch.
There was a brief, awkward silence.
"So," Kitty said, a little too cheerfully. "What have you, like, been up to?"
"I'm not sure I can trust you enough to tell you, Pretty-Kitty," Lance said, flipping her hair flirtatiously. "You might just tattle on me."
"Like, no way." Kitty unscrewed the cap to her thermos. "I wouldn't do that." She took a long drink. Her face changed slightly. "I - don't think so - anyway -" She burped. "That's good."
Rogue, curious, lifted her own thermos to her lips and took a sip. After a second Kurt followed suit.
"What do you have there?" Lance asked, interest piqued. "Are you Xavier kids starting to dip your toes into the world of fine liquor? Good for you. It's about time." He reached for Kitty's thermos. "Let me have a taste before the lunchroom lady sees us, Pretty-Kitty. What brand is it?"
"It's not vodka; it's, like, tomato soup." Kitty still looked somewhat dazed. "Jean made it this morning."
Rogue wiped her mouth with her napkin. "That's a hell of a lot better than anything Jean's ever made before."
"Ja, no kidding." Kurt took another hungry gulp, anger forgotten. "You know something? This is really delicious!"
"You can say that again," Rogue agreed. "Jean should cook more often."
"I never thought I'd, like, hear those words coming from your mouth." Kitty spotted Scott and Evan across the cafeteria. She waved them over. "You two! Have you tasted this soup yet? It's, like, totally great!"
Lance handed Kitty her thermos back. "Damn. That is tasty, Pretty-Kitty. I'll have to get the recipe."
Kitty ignored him. She was busy drinking more out of the thermos.
Scott and Evan slid in to the empty seats. "Have we tasted what?" Evan asked. "The soup?"
"I haven't," Scott said. "Even though Jean made it."
"Actually, Jean making it is the reason I wasn't trying it," said Evan, winking at Rogue and Kurt. He pulled the cap off his thermos and paused, suspicious. "This is a joke, isn't it? I refuse to believe that girl can make anything edible."
"Hey, watch it," Scott said warningly. He took a sip from his thermos. His expression changed from dutiful to pleasantly surprised. "It is good."
"What did I, like, tell you?"
"That's amazing," Evan said, after he had tasted it too. They were beginning to cause a slight stir in the lunchroom. Students were craning their necks to see what was going on. Evan took another swig. "Can Jean start cooking dinner instead of Auntie O? This is the best stuff that's ever come out of that kitchen."
"You know what it tastes like?" Lance asked, seeming to be unaware that he was sitting at a table surrounded by Xavier students. "It tastes just like wine."
"Wine?" Kitty repeated, and she grew suddenly pale. "Wine?"
Across the table, Rogue spit her soup back into her napkin with a horrified expression.
"Whoa, what's wrong?" Lance asked. "Haven't you kids ever tasted alcohol before?"
Kitty and Rogue didn't bother to answer. To the complete bewilderment of their friends, they looked as though they'd just been struck with lightning. Kitty pushed her thermos away as if it might bite. "Like, this is awful," she said, her voice quavery. "This is, like - this is - this is awful. Just awful."
"Kitty, what's wrong?" Kurt asked, as baffled as everyone else.
"Rogue?" Scott asked. "Want to share with the rest of us?"
Rogue looked physically sick. She shook her head mutely.
"Where's Jean?" Kitty demanded tensely. "I, like, have to talk to her. It's totally urgent."
"She's in the restroom," Scott said, frowning. "What's the matter? Can't you tell us?"
Kitty ignored him. "Rogue, come on." The two girls rose to their feet, still looking pale and frantic, and dashed across the cafeteria towards the hallway, narrowly missing a group of cheerleaders. Several older students shouted at them, annoyed, and the lunchroom monitor gave them a dark look. Evan, Scott, Lance, and Kurt watched in amazement as the girls vanished out the door. There was a long silence. Then Evan shook his head. "Women."
"This is hardly a joking matter, mein freund," Kurt said, anxiously. "Something has upset them. Very badly, by the looks of it."
"Whatever it is, it has to do with the soup," Scott added.
"All right, that's it! I'm not touching this stuff!" Evan copied Kitty and pushed his thermos away. "I knew it was a bad idea to try anything made by Jean. That's the last time I risk my life on her cooking." He dodged Scott's half-hearted swipe. "Hey, watch it!"
"Jean is a good cook."
"Maybe it was accidentally poisoned," Kurt suggested nervously.
"Don't even say that."
"Why not? It's possible, nein?"
"Listen, Kurt, Jean wouldn't put poision in the soup."
"I said accidentally, Scott. Settle down."
"You know what I think? I think those girls just went crazy. There's no other reason for getting afraid of tomato soup."
"You're probably right."
"Nein, I don't think so. Rogue isn't the sort to go crazy."
"Kitty might."
"Yeah, but over soup?"
While they talked, Lance rose silently from the table and disappeared into the hallway.
Jean leaned towards the mirror and quickly guided the mascara wand through the lashes on her right eye. The restroom was deserted; everyone else was either off eating lunch or making out. Both, in some cases. Jean had the entire place to herself. Spread out on the sink around her were the contents of her purse: brown eyeshadow, a tube of lipstick, crimson blusher, an eyebrow pencil. Jean put the masacra wand back on the sink and glanced around feverishly. "What's next?" she muttered. "Lipstick? Blusher?" She stared at herself critically under the bright restroom lights. "No, that will make me look too washed-out. Dammit! Why don't I have any concealer?" She rifled through her purse.
The restroom door burst open.
Jean didn't even bother to look up. She had just discovered a small tube in her coin pocket. "Aha! Pink lipstick! That will look much better than red." She began smearing it frantically across her lips. "Perfect!"
"Jean?" The voice was hesitant. "Are you, like - OK?"
Jean whirled around, grinning brightly. Rogue and Kitty gazed at her, mouths slightly agape. "Kitty! Marie! What a surprise!" Jean tossed her hair over her shoulder. "What do you think? Do I look sexy?" She struck a supermodel pose. "You may as well tell me I do, girls, because I know it already."
"Um -" Kitty said, at a complete loss for words. "You look, like - different."
Rogue made a strangled noise deep in her throat.
Jean had changed from the last time they'd seen her - that morning, to be exact. Her hair, instead of lying loose around her shoulders, had been pulled back into a flashy bun. Her face was coated with cosmetics. Her eyelashes were brittle and clumped, her eyebrows were drawn on like two fat crescent moons, and her cheeks were brilliantly scarlet. The first four buttons of her blouse had been undone, showing a peek of lacy bra. She looked like a cheap hooker in a bad movie. "Aren't I wonderful?" she asked, turning back to the mirror. "Now scram, girls. I have a lot of work to do. Oh, and would either of you happen to have foundation cream?"
They ignored her. "Jean, what's, like, wrong with you?" Kitty asked, dazed. "Why are you - I mean - like, what's the point of dressing up like that?"
"I'll tell you why I'm trying to look my best," Jean said, coating her mouth with lipstick. "It's because I - well - I fell in love." She giggled. She may have blushed, too, but it was hard to tell when her cheeks were already the color of a fire engine. "For the first time in my life, I'm wildly in love."
The two girls groaned in unison.
"Oh, shit," Rogue muttered. "Oh, this is awful." She buried her face in her hands.
"Jean," said Kitty, pale but determined to hear the worst, "what did you put in the tomato soup?"
"That wonderful soup I made this morning?" She gazed at the ceiling with a dreamy look. "I wonder if he would like a bowl of it? We could sip it together in a little cottage by the sea, and when we were done we could-"
"Jean!" Kitty interuppted loudly. "What did you put in the soup?"
"I don't know. It was condensed soup. Do you think I know enough to cook from scratch?" She laughed a high, shrill, falsetto giggle and paused, frowning. "Does that laugh sound sexy to you girls? I've been working on it so hard. Here, let me try again-"
Rogue cringed.
"Did you have to put water in? Or milk?" Kitty yelled desperately over the noise. "Jean, stop laughing and, like, answer!"
"Well, I think it may have been - milk. Yes, that's right! I know Scott likes it creamy so I put in milk instead of water. And then I ran out of the regular milk, so I searched around in the back of the fridge and found this little spare bottle. It looked sour, but it smelled fine, so I put it right in."
"A-all of it?"
"Of course." She did a pirouette in the mirror. "And I even tasted it before I put it in the lunch boxes. In fact, it was so good I had a whole bowl. No more of that from now on, though. I need to diet!"
"Jean, like, you put a love potion in that soup," Kitty said bleakly. "A powerful love potion." A horrible thought occured to her. "What about the people at the Insititute? Like, Ororo and Logan? Will they eat the soup?"
Rogue looked up anxiously.
"Of course," Jean said airily. "It's on the course for lunch. By the way, girls, does this dress make me look fat?"
Kitty and Rogue didn't bother to answer. They both looked on the verge of tears. "The whole school," Kitty moaned. "Like, the entire school. They've all eaten the soup by now. And I have, like, no idea how long it takes to wear off. Maybe never."
"Never?" Rogue was white with depair. "But Ah drank it. Ah don't want to be in love with some bimbo for the rest of mah life."
"Neither do I," Kitty sighed. "It, like, seems to take about an hour to start working. It must have just hit Jean. It will hit the rest of us in like forty-five minutes."
Jean started singing a pop song offkey.
"Shut up!" Rogue yelled. She turned back to Kitty. "Isn't there any way to reverse it?"
"Not that I, like, know of."
"You could have researched a little better," Rogue hissed, thoroughly annoyed. "One of the first rules of casting spells is to always know how to fix it if it goes wrong! And this is about as wrong as Ah've ever seen a spell go." She paused. "And it's gonna get even worse."
"Gee, sorry," Kitty said defensively. "How was I, like, supposed to know that Jean would put it in the soup? It was supposed to just go to one person."
"Who?"
Kitty flushed. "I, like - I - I -"
"Who?!"
Kitty hung her head resignedly. "It was, like -"
"Kurt," Jean sang suddenly. The two girls stared in amazement. "Kurt, Kurt, Kurt." She smiled at them. "Doesn't he have the most beautiful name? Just like the rest of him."
Kitty shook her head slowly, disbelieving. "Oh, no. It, like, can't be. It can't."
"But it is!" Jean trilled. "I've fallen in love with the most wonderful boy alive! A prince among men, a god among his peers! He's mine forever now. He'll always be my one true love." She sighed dreamily. "Dear, darling Kurt."
Kitty burst into tears.