Chapter nineteen: The chart
The smile on Lara's face didn't seem to be willing to ever go away, just as if the corners of her mouths had been fastened with a staple gun, and whenever the word "Dana" crossed her mind, the smile seemed to get wider and wider. She felt energetic, hyper even, she felt like running around and of course her behaviour didn't go unnoticed.
"Hey, Lara, you're okay?" Simon's voice ripped her out of another daydream.
The redhead looked up from her working station and grinned at her best friend. "Yeah, I'm fine, totally fine, perfectly fine."
Simon crooked a brow and leaned onto the counter. "What's the reason behind your happiness?" he asked with a grin. "No, wait, let me guess...maybe a certain tennis player?"
Lara couldn't help but giggle like a fool, though she slapped herself inwardly for this childish reaction.
"What happened?"
The question caused the chef to giggle even harder, a slight blush covering her features as she remembered the sweet confessions that she and Dana had shared earlier that morning. "She's in love with me, Simon," she whispered with a grin.
The waiter didn't seem to be impressed. "Yeah, I could tell last night, Lara," he said, now blushing himself. "I mean, walking in on you two going at it in your kitchen pretty much told everything."
Lara's face turned a deep crimson at this and her smile faded. "Oh God, please tell me you didn't tell anyone about it."
"Don't worry, I didn't," Simon said at which Lara sighed in relief, she didn't like the idea of being teased about her love life by the entire kitchen staff. "You know, this way I'll have something to tease you about."
The redhead groaned and decided to ignore her friend to return to her work.
"So? What happened?" Obviously Simon didn't seem to have the same idea. "Did she ask you to marry her or what?"
Lara shook her head. "God, no, that would be way too early...," she answered, and in her thoughts she added, "...and so not a Dana-thing to do."
"Then what did she do, huh?"
The silly smile returned to the sous chef's face. "Well, she's in love with me."
The black haired man groaned, seemingly annoyed. "Yeah, you already told me that, but what did she do to get you to smile like a fool in love."
"She's told me that she's in love with me and I told her back," Lara answered, trying to keep the giggle out of her voice.
Simon smiled at her and patted her shoulder. "Well done, Lara," he said. "That's actually the first time in almost three years that I see you in a relationship. It kinda gives me hope that I'll find a nice girlfriend one day."
"Yeah, you will, Simon," Lara answered, not caring about the snide comment. "Good luck."
-
On her lunch break Lara decided to do something she hadn't done before, but had been wanting to do for some time. Grabbing her bottle of water and the banana she had brought for lunch, she got out of her chef's jacket and slipped into a pair of flip-flops sandals, since she wasn't allowed to wear her kitchen shoes outside the country club's kitchen, and made her way to the tennis courts. Dana seemed to be working on her returns, backhand and forehand, or at least that was what it looked like to Lara. The chef spotted Dana's bag on the stands and decided to sit down next to it. Taking a sip of her water, she followed her girlfriend's movements with her eyes, admiring her well-trained body. While waiting for her coach to serve, Dana suddenly turned her head into the direction of the stands and a smile sprung to her face. She waved at Lara and walked towards the net. Wondering what this was about, Lara watched as her girlfriend talked to her coach, turned back around and came walking towards the stands.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" the tennis player asked, sounding a little out of breath, setting her racket aside and taking a seat next to the taller woman.
Lara smiled. "I'm watching you train, or should I say, I was watching you train," she joked. "Why did you stop?"
Dana returned the smile, reached for a towel and began to wipe the sweat off of her arms and face. "I needed to take a break."
"That's all there is to it?" the redhead asked playfully, causing the other woman to giggle.
"Well, maybe I wanted to spend some time with you," Dana said with a smile. "Can I have some?" she asked, pointing to the bottle in Lara's hands.
Lara grinned. "Don't you have your own isotonic drinks?" she teased.
"Yeah, but I want water," the athlete answered, sporting puppy dog eyes.
The sous chef did a mock sigh and handed her bottle over. "But I warn you, drinking this, you will absorb millions of Lara-germs."
Dana put her off. "You can never have enough Lara-germs," she said, taking a sip. "And there's no way I didn't absorb another million of them when you kissed me this morning or when we made love last night." With that she rested her head on the other woman's shoulder, sighing in contentment.
The simple gesture caused Lara to feel all warm and fuzzy and she wrapped one arm around Dana's waist. They sat like that for a while, neither saying anything, enjoying each other's presence, until Lara's stomach growled lowly.
"Someone's hungry, huh?" Dana joked, not lifting her head from its resting place.
The redhead nodded, reaching for her banana. Peeling off its yellow skin, she took a bite and noticed her girlfriend staring at the fruit. "Want some?" she asked, offering her banana to the smaller woman.
The brunette hesitated. "I don't know, Lara. I don't wanna eat your lunch."
Lara shook her head at this, chuckling. "Just take a bite, Dana, before I reconsider this. I won't starve."
Giggling, Dana did what she was asked to and returned to rest her head on her lover's shoulder. Another silence engulfed them while Lara ate her banana.
"Any plans for tonight?" the sous chef asked after a while, taking another sip of water.
Lifting her head from Lara's shoulder again, the athlete smiled, saying, "Hmm, I can think of something."
Lara's curiosity was peaked. "Tell me about it."
The smile on Dana's lips brightened. "Well, we could go have dinner at some restaurant and after that we could go to Radar."
"Radar?" Lara wondered, never having heard of that place before. "What's that place like?"
The question caused the tennis player to chuckle. "No, it's not a place, Lara. It's, well, it's a special night at The Planet, you know, an all-woman's night," she explained, blushing ever so slightly. "What do you say?"
The chef smiled, loving the idea. "Well, I'd say, you pick out a restaurant to have dinner at and I pick you up at eight," she suggested.
"Eight o'clock it is," Dana said, taking one of the chef's hands into hers.
Lara nodded, watching her girlfriend play with her fingers when suddenly a thought popped up in her mind. "What's the attire gonna be?"
"What?" Dana was obviously puzzled.
"What are we going to wear?" Lara asked. "Casual or overdressed?"
The athlete's lips curled up in an amused smile. "Oh, I was thinking jeans and tank top."
The sous chef returned the smile. "Sounds perfect," she said, leaning in to place a loving kiss on her lover's waiting lips.
--
The Planet was pretty packed when they arrived. Following Dana around the place, Lara looked around. "There are even more people than the last time we came here at night," she noticed.
Dana nodded. "Yeah, Radar night is always a busy night." Suddenly the athlete stopped in her tracks. "Look, there's Alice and Shane," she said, pointing towards a table. "Do you want us to go over there?"
"I don't see a reason not to," Lara answered, earning herself a small smile.
The tennis player grabbed her girlfriend's hand into her's and led her to the table Shane and Alice were sitting at.
"Shane, look at that..." Alice spoke up, waving the couple over. "It's the lovebirds."
Shane turned around and smiled at them, pointing to two vacant seats.
"Out on a date, huh?" Alice asked as Dana and Lara sat down at their table.
"Yeah, Al," the athlete said, turning towards Lara. "Do you want something to drink?"
The chef smiled. "A beer would be fine."
Dana got up from her seat. "Okay, I'll go get us some beer," she said, walking away into the crowd.
Lara watched her walk away before turning back around towards the two other women present at the table, a little unsure of how to start a conversation with them.
"So, Lara, did you come right here or did you have dinner before?" Shane asked, causing Lara to wonder whether the black haired woman had noticed her slight unsureness.
"Well, we did have dinner before, though the chef in me doesn't really consider it as dinner, but rather as some kinda snack, quite unhealthy, but, you know..." the redhead answered, earning herself confused stares.
"Where did you two go?" Shane asked.
The question caused Lara to chuckle lowly. "A fast food restaurant."
Alice gasped. "Oh my God, you took Dana to a fast food restaurant?" she asked, sounding somewhat disbelieving.
Once again the sous chef could only chuckle. "Well, she suggested it, you know. She said something about wanting to try something new and how this would be the only time ever."
The two women giggled at that.
"Wow, Dana is becoming such a bad girl recently," Alice said with a smile directed at Lara, wrapping her arm around the redhead's shoulder and pulling her into a half hug.
"Alice, what do you think you're doing?" Dana's voice came from behind, sounding quite playful.
"Nothing," the journalist answered, slowly letting go of the chef and turning around to face her friend, a silly grin on her lips.
Lara couldn't help but smile. Over the past few weeks she had grown to like Dana's friends a lot and she was feeling that her feelings were reciprocated, especially by Alice and Shane, who she really loved spending time with.
"Here's your beer," Dana said with a smile as she sat back down again, placing a bottle in front of Lara.
"Thank you." Returning the smile, Lara reached for the bottle and took a sip.
"Hey, Lara, can I ask you a question?" Alice asked, watching the redhead with curious brown eyes.
Lara nodded, though she didn't know what the outcome was going to be. "Sure, Alice."
A smile crossed the blonde's lips. "You can call me Al, you know."
Lara smiled back. "Okay then...sure, Al."
"Okay, I've been wanting to ask you this for quite a while now and, well..." Alice paused, seemingly formulating the question in her mind. "Well, how come we've never seen you around here before? I mean, look at you, Lara, you're an attractive woman..." Lara blushed at that. "...you're a gay woman and, before you got together with our Dana here, you were an available woman and still, we never saw you at any club or bar or any other place..."
The redhead smiled at that. She would have asked the same question if she were Alice. "It comes with being a chef, you know," she explained. "My schedule is quite busy and it used to be even busier when I started working at the country club about three years ago, before I was promoted sous chef...and it also comes with me not really knowing about the lesbian hangouts around town, you know. I mean, when I moved here to start working at the country club, I was too busy to even bother thinking about dating and I really didn't know anyone, so, I don't know, I just never really had any gay friend around here who could show me some of these bars and clubs, well, I did have one or two dates, but that was nothing serious at all, so..." Lara shrugged, having summarized the story of her lonely LA life and not knowing what else to say about it.
"Poor baby," Dana said in a cute voice, resting her head on the chef's shoulder.
Shane nudged Alice's shoulder. "Well, that does explain why she wasn't on your chart," she said and the journalist nodded.
"Yeah, that sure does explain why she wasn't on it."
"What's the chart?" the sous chef wondered, not knowing what the two women were talking about. "And why should I be on it?"
The question caused Alice to grin while Dana and Shane sighed in unison.
"You shouldn't have asked that, Lara," Dana said in a warning tone, sighing once again.
Alice, seemingly not caring about her friends' reactions, moved her chair closer to Lara's, grabbed on of the beer coasters and reached into her purse to produce a pen. "Okay, Lara, I'll tell you what the chart is..." she said with a grin. "Well, the chart is about connections between people..." Alice wrote Lara's name onto the beer coaster and circled it.
"What's that?", the chef asked, pointing to her name, wondering what she had to do with that chart-thing.
Alice chuckled. "That's your name in a circle," she said in some kind of duh-tone.
Lara crooked a brow. "Yeah, I know, but what does my name have to do with the chart?"
"Well, I'd tell you if you stopped interrupting," Alice replied, sounding somewhat teasing.
The sous chef nodded and gestured her lips to be sealed, signalizing that she'd listen to whatever Alice was going to say.
"Okay, as I told you, the chart is all about connections, right? So, now, let's see how many people it takes to link you to me, okay?" With that the blonde wrote her own name onto the beer coaster and circled it as well. "Alright, obviously you slept with Dana..." Alice grinned at Lara and Dana and proceeded to write Dana's name onto the coaster, linking it to Lara's by drawing a line between the two names. "...Dana slept with Melanie..." Another name was written on the coaster and Lara was beginning to see what the chart was about. "...Melanie slept with Heather, Heather slept with Brooke, Brooke slept with Nina who slept with me." Alice linked her own name to Nina's and shoved the beer coaster chart to the sous chef. "So, as you can see, it takes only five people to link you to me."
Looking at the diagram on the coaster, Lara nodded her head. "Yeah, it sure does."
"And, you know, it's not just us, Lara. I mean, you could name any lesbian in town and I could link her to you in, like, six moves," the journalist said, looking at Lara as if waiting for her to say a name.
"I could, Al, if I knew any lesbian in town. I mean, you guys are the only gay women I have met since I moved to LA," Lara said with a shrug.
Suddenly Shane sat up in her chair, bracing herself on her forearms. "What about those dates you mentioned earlier? Didn't they tell you their names or weren't they gay or what?"
The chef grinned. "Oh, right, them. Let me think, hmm..." Trying to remember the names, Lara noticed the three other women staring at her quite intently. Alice and Shane appeared to be curious, while Dana seemed rather jealous. "Okay, umm, one of them was Alicia," Lara finally said, remembering her first LA date.
"Alicia?" Alice repeated the name as if wanting to make sure she had heard right.
"Yes, Alicia," Lara answered, somewhat confused by Alice's reaction. "Why? Is something wrong with her?"
The blonde shook her head. "No, no, I was just making sure I had heard right, don't worry," she said.
"But, Al, if Lara and Alicia dated, umm, why wasn't she on the chart when we checked?" Dana asked, sounding somewhat puzzled.
Alice nodded. "That's a good question, Dane," she said, turning to the chef. "Lara?"
Lara sighed, not really wanting to tell what had happened. "We didn't date, okay?" she began, running a hand through her red hair. "Simon set me up on a blind date with a friend's sister: Alicia. And, well, there wasn't even the tiniest spark flying between us..." The redhead shrugged, thinking back to that weird day. "...and before the date had really started, Alicia called her brother to pick her up, so..."
Dana raised her brows. "How could there not be any sparks? I mean, I was on fire the moment I first saw you," she said and placed a kiss on her girlfriend's lips.
Shane chuckled lowly and patted Dana's shoulder. "The sparks were meant to fly between you guys, that's why."
"Okay, okay, okay, enough with sparks that fly around, guys," Alice interjected, waving her arms about. "Can we please go back to the chart?"
The other women turned to look at the journalist, nodding their heads.
"Thank you," Alice said when she had her friends' attention. "Okay, Lara, if you can't name any other lesbian, name one of us." She gestured around the table.
Lara smiled. "Okay, what about Shane?"
The black haired woman sighed. "I knew it."
"I'm sorry, Shane, but Dana would have been way too obvious and Alice already linked herself to me," the redhead apologized.
Shane put her off. "No, it's okay, Lara."
All of a sudden Dana started to chuckle. "You know, she hates being reduced to being a stud.", she joked, earning herself a glare from the hairstylist.
"Rather be a stud than not getting laid at all, huh?" Shane returned with a smirk.
The tennis player's eyes widened in shock. "Shane!" she gasped.
Shane chuckled amused. "What, Dane? It's true."
"Well, not anymore," Dana informed, grabbing one of Lara's hands as if to prove her words. "I'm getting laid now."
At this blunt statement Alice, Shane and Lara burst into laughter. Talking about sex wasn't really a thing Dana did outside the bedroom-Lara knew that-and the way she just had was just too funny.
"Oh, you're all so funny, the three of you," the athlete growled, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking more than pissed, causing the other women to laugh even harder.
Having regained her composure, Lara placed her hand on her girlfriend's shoulder, but the brunette shook it off, throwing a fuck-you look her way.
"Cool down, Dana," Shane tried to calm Dana. "Don't wanna start a fight with your woman, right?"
The tennis player sighed, gave her lover an apologetic look and placed a brief kiss on her cheek. "I'm sorry, Lara."
Giggling lowly, the redhead returned the smile. "It's okay, Dana."
Once again Alice waved her arms about, trying to get the attention back on herself. "So, now that we've all made up again, could we please focus on the chart?"
"Yeah, go on, Al," the three women said in unison, causing Alice to smile.
"Great!" the journalist said, writing Shane's name onto the coaster, circling it. "Okay, hmm, let's see..." She looked around, obviously deep in thought. "The best way to link Shane to Lara, hmm..." Mumbling to herself, Alice ran a hand through her blonde hair. Suddenly she snapped her fingers, causing Lara to jump ever so slightly.
"Geez, Al!" the redhead exclaimed.
The blonde chuckled. "Sorry, Lara," she said, patting Lara's shoulder before returning her attention to the beer coaster chart. "Okay, look, I could link Shane to you through Alicia, but the thing you and Alicia had-whatever it was-doesn't get you on the chart, so..." She pointed to Dana's name. "...we'll have to use the obvious," she stated with a giggle. "We all know you slept with Dana who slept with Melanie." Now Alice pointed to the lines she had drawn earlier. "Now, Melanie also had a thing with Nazila and Nazila has once spent a night with Shane."
Lara watched Alice link the names and grinned. "So, basically, the chart's about who slept with whom," she stated, looking at the blonde.
"Basically, yes,"Alice answered. "We could elaborate this further and I could link you to each and every LA lesbian, even though you've never met them, but this would take us the whole night and even longer, but, yeah, you're right. Basically the chart is about, well, about sex."
"It's kinda cool," the chef said, still looking at the tiny chart in front of her. "Though I wonder how you know all this. I mean, who slept with whom..."
"Well, she's obsessed with these things, Lara. She can't think about anything else," Dana informed, throwing a challenging look at Alice.
Shane chuckled. "Yeah, she even has a giant chart in her living room."
The tennis player nodded. "Yeah, and she also put the whole thing on the internet and, as she said, people are adding names to it, making it grow exponentially."
Alice ignored the remarks, seemingly unimpressed. "Yeah, yeah, make fun of me, you two. At least Lara likes it, don't you?"
The redhead nodded, really liking the idea behind the chart and impressed by the effort Alice must have put into it. "Yes, I do," she admitted, earning herself a happy, somewhat triumphant laugh from the journalist.
"You're cool, Lara," Alice told the chef, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. "I like you," she whispered into Lara's ear, causing her to smile.
"I like you, too," Lara whispered back and returned the hug, feeling that she was just becoming a true part of the group.
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at kickboxing.gurl: Oh my God, you're flattering me...thank you. I promise, I'll keep going.
at auggy1984: Seems like you really liked the last chapter...as I did. Thank you.