Swallow

"A cooking class?" Sam frowned as Freddie led her into a room in the Seattle Community Center. "This is your big surprise for us?"

"What? I thought you liked cooking," Freddie pointed out as the couple headed over to an empty cooking station to wait for instruction.

"I do," Sam nodded. "But not when I'm going to be in a classroom. That's school, Fredbag. I left that place fifteen years ago and I didn't plan on going back."

"Look, you wanted a night away from the kids," Freddie said. "So I, being the wonderful husband that I am, went to all the trouble to sign us up for this."

"Baby, just fyi, when your wife says she wants a night away from the kids," Sam said. "Take her to a snazzy restaurant and a movie she won't fall asleep in. Not a class at the community center."

"You're not even giving it a chance," he said. "And you know, you do get to eat whatever you cook."

"You do?" Sam asked. "For real?"

"Uh-huh," Freddie grinned.

"Alright, I'll give this chiz a chance," Sam sighed. "But for your sake, you'd better hope we're not cooking anything vegetarian."

"I promise, if we do, I'll take you out to that steakhouse where it costs forty dollars just for the soup," he told her.

"Okay, class," a lady who looked to be about in her sixties said, stepping to the kitchen station at the front of your class. "It looks like we're all ready to begin. I know we're all anxious to find out what we'll be cooking today, so I won't keep you in anticipation any longer! Today we'll be preparing cherry cobbler!"

"You see? You love cobbler," Freddie whispered to Sam.

"Excuse me, sir in the striped polo," the teacher said, looking back at Freddie. "No talking during instruction, please."

"Er, sorry," he mumbled as Sam smirked.

"If everyone would please follow along with me with the ingredients at your station," the teacher continued. "First you will wash your cherries and de-pit them."

"Hopefully this cobbler tastes better than the blueberry cobbler Carly tried to make for the Fourth of July last year," Sam said as the class began the first step. "Remember it pulled out one of Spencer's fillings?"

"Well if we just follow the teacher's directions, I can't see how we can go wrong," Freddie said, rinsing off his cherries. "Just try to listen, Sam."

"Relax, will you?" Sam said. "You're just lucky I'm not throwing spit balls at this lady. You know, she sort of looks like Ms. Briggs, only her boobs aren't as pointy."

"Now that everybody's cherry's are nice and clean and de-pitted," the teacher said. "You're going to mix in three-fourths a cup of sugar into the cherries. It will make your cobbler nice and sweet."

"Really? Because I was under the impression that sugar would make the cherries salty," Sam mumbled under her breath.

"Be nice," Freddie whispered.

"I am being nice," Sam retorted.

"Alright, now in a separate bowl, stir together one cup of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda and a pinch of salt," the teacher instructed.

"You know," Sam said, mixing the ingredients together. "If we bailed now, I bet we could still get tickets for that that movie with the killer army of bambie dolls."

"We're not bailing," Freddie said firmly. "This is a perfectly fun date night. Besides, I paid one hundred bucks for us to take this class."

"A hundred bucks?" Sam exclaimed. "Dude, you totally got ripped off by a community center!"

"Like those trampoline shoes you bought last week weren't a rip off? Hey!"

Sam had just threw a handful of flour at her husband, leaving his face and shirt white as a ghost.

"Uh oh," the teacher said, walking over to Sam and Freddie's station. "Looks like somebody's a bit of a klutzy Suzie."

"No, no, actually, it was her who-" Freddie stared, but the teacher didn't let him finish.

"Here you go," she said, pulling off her pink, frilly apron and putting in over Freddie's shoulders. "Maybe this will help you."

"Oh, um, this-this really isn't necessary," Freddie sputtered, but the teacher had already walked away.

"Wow," Sam smiled, trying to suppress a laugh. "You look pretty sexy in that."

"That's right, laugh it up," Freddie said. "You just wait until my cobbler's better than yours-Are you taking pictures?"

"Well I have to show people this," Sam said. "I can't just keep it to myself; that would be selfish."

"We're almost done now," the teacher said to the class, taking her spot back at the front of the room again. "After you grease your baking pans, pour in your cherry mixture and then pour the flour mixture over it."

"This was easier than I thought," Sam commented as she poured her mixtures into her pan. "I could try this at home some time. The girls' Sunshine Girls leader's always after me to help at that big bake sale they have every summer. Maybe this year I won't tell her you're in the hospital with pancreas problems."

"You give me pretend pancreas problems just to get out of baking?" Freddie asked, amused.

"Hey, I buy plenty of cookies to make up for it."

"You're now going to put your pans in the over at four-fifty for forty minutes!" the teacher called out to the class.

"Ugh, this is why I don't bake," Sam groaned as her and Freddie slid their pans into their oven. "Why can't this stuff bake faster?"

"You need to be patient," Freddie told her.

"Well what are we supposed to here for forty minutes?"

"We could talk," Freddie suggested. "Of walk around the community center and see if we can find any other classes that interest us, or-and you're asleep."

It was true; Sam had slumped down against the counters and was now fast asleep.

Chuckling at his wife's behavior, Freddie slid down next to her and proceeded to busy himself playing Scribble Jump on his pearphone. When the timers on the ovens all finally went off, Sam instantly woke up and grabbed her pan from the oven.

"It's about time," she said, staring down at her cobbler.

"Yours looks different than mine," Freddie frowned. His was dark and brittle looking while Sam's looked golden and flakey.

"You may now all go ahead and taste your cobbler!" the teacher said to the class. "I'll walk around and inspect everyone's myself."

"Oh my God, this is so good," Sam said, stuffing a forkful of her cobbler into her mouth. "How's yours?"

"I haven't tried it yet," Freddie said, trying to break a piece of his off. After nearly a minute, he finally managed to get a piece, and placed it in his mouth.

"Gross!" he cried at once, spitting it out into the nearby garbage. "This is disgusting!"

"It can't be that bad," Sam said, taking another bite of her own.

"Try it for yourself," Freddie told her, wiping off his tongue with a napkin.

Sam took his fork and tried a bite of his cobbler. It turned out that Freddie was not exaggerating. Sam's taste buds, which weren't particularly picky when it came to food, seemed to be screaming out in agony and she could not bring herself to swallow the creation.

"Okay," Sam said, spitting the cobbler out as well. "Maybe you've got a point."

"Well what have we here?" the teacher said, stopping at the couple's station again. "Why now this cobbler here looks absolutely amazing! I don't think I could've done a better job myself; which one of you made this?"

"Me," Sam said.

"You certainly seem to have a gift in the kitchen."

"It is my favorite room of the house," Sam nodded.

"Now…what happened to this one?" the teacher frowned, looking at Freddie's cobbler.

"I'm not sure," Freddie said. "Maybe it was the oven or something-"

"Let's not go blaming out equipment," the teacher said. She looked more closely at the cobbler. "Well your first problem, sir, was that you didn't grease your pan."

"Oh," Freddie blinked. "I guess I just-"

"And it looks like you forgot to add baking soda," she continued. "And your oven appears to have been turned to 550! It's no wonder your cobbler turned out so abysmally; didn't you listen to my instructions?"

"I-I-"

"He's got a bit of a listening problem," Sam said, putting her arm around Freddie.

"Oh, I see," the teacher nodded understandingly. "Well, don't all men? It's just lucky you were smart enough to pay attention."

"She did not!" Freddie exclaimed, but once again, the teacher walked away from him.

"I don't like her," Freddie mumbled.

"Let's get out of here," Sam said, picking up her pan of cobbler. "Before you burn anything else."

"What was I thinking signing us up for a cooking class," Freddie sighed as the couple headed out of the classroom.

"Hey, I actually had fun tonight," Sam told him, taking his hand.

"You did?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I got some cobbler, the teacher actually complimented me, plus it was two hours with none of our kids screaming for me, so that's definitely a perk."

"You know, I'm sure Carly won't mind watching them for another couple of hours," Freddie said. "Why don't you and I go and get some forty dollar soup?"

"You know I won't turn that down," Sam grinned. "But babe? You might want to take back that pink apron first."

Freddie looked down and saw that he was still wearing the teacher's apron. "Now I really don't like her," Freddie muttered.