Dinner

(Chronological index: After college, Before Denise)

"Maxie called," Annie reported. "She can't make it tonight." I paused in the door, then removed my keys from the lock and stepped inside.

My sylph was running yarn between two cabinet handles, stretching it across the kitchen pass-through. It was either an art project or an owner-trap. I ignored it, and her, and stepped towards the phone. And the answering machine.

I trust Annie, I really do. I depend on her for a lot of things. But she has been known to alter messages from girlfriends she doesn't like or approve of.

There was a message, according to the blinking light. Turned out there were three. Two complete silences, which tended to mean an autodialer hadleft a message while Annie's greeting played.

Then Maxie. She started by responding to whatever Annie's greeting currently was. "Well har de har har. Isn't that funny. I swear, Annie, you're so sweet you're going to fall into batter some day and make a wonderful cake."

I lifted one eyebrow, but Annie was ignoring me, too. "Anyway," Maxie went on, "Our biggest client showed up at the office, rumors of some sort of billing scandal. We've got to account for every cent by the time his lawyer's office opens tomorrow. Can't come over. I'll call."

I cleared that and played the greeting. Annie's voice rang out. "Hi! After the message, please leave a beep!"

"So you changed it." I stepped up behind her and rested my hand. She tied off the latest loop and turned, hands on her hips.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She sounded sincere. She ALWAYS sounds sincere. I scooped her up and went to the bedroom to change.

She sat in my hand calmly enough. Rocked through my emptying my pockets onto my dresser (the one that doesn't have ladders in it). Then she stretched, feet slightly spreading and back arching.

"So what do you want to do all on your lonesome, Master?" she asked.

For an answer, I pinched the hem of her sundress and lifted it. She cooperated well enough while I undressed her, though she looked a little surprised that I stopped at the dress.

She lay back on my hand, panties and bra, feet dangling over my wrist, and watched me paw through her clothes rack in the top drawer of her dresser.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"That red one."

"That's kinda dressy for Hooters," she said.

"True. But I'd been thinking of Rio Bravo." She sat up suddenly, eyes locked onto mine.

"That's… That's a real restaurant, Ray."

"Yep." I set her down on the dresser and lifted her skirt. "Hands."

She raised them up obediently and I slid the red sheath down over her. "That's, like, tables with tablecloths. Indirect lighting. No maps on the placemats!"

"I can get you a kids' placemat if you want," I said. "They even have crayons if-"

She wiggled and twisted to settle the dress in place, still looking up at me. "They have a SYLPH menu, master! With tacos the size…" She gestured with her hand. On scale, they were, for her, about three times the size of the tacos I ordered. Not perfect. But the fact that they even tried made a world of difference for my sylph.

"Yep," I said. I left her on the dresser and started changing. I didn't quite get dressy enough for a wedding, but I did pick something my high school would have accepted for 'dress for success' day.

She was doing her hair when I went past her, looking for my dressier shoes. "Slow down," I said soothingly. "We have reservations and plenty of time."

"What about your date?" she asked.

"I'm afraid she's going to yank hair out of her head trying not to slow me down."

Annie came to a full stop and turned to look up at me. "I'm your date?" Then her smile dropped to a frown. "Oh. I'm your consolation prize."

"Annie," I said, a little exasperated. "This was always your date. I just invited Maxie to go along with the two of us."

"Sure," she said, shoulders sagging. She turned back to her mirror and dragged the head of the toothbrush through a few curls. I thought about taking her picture, in case I ever needed to define 'disconsolate.'

So I picked her up gently and turned her to face me. "Someone," I said, "has lost track of the calendar."

"It's Friday," she said.

"It's January 19th," I pointed out. Her eyes got big.

"It IS!" she said.

We used the carrier, mostly because she can't wear heels in my pocket. And she insisted on wearing heels.

She stood in my hand as we waited for our table, smiling. I had made sure to hold her up where the hostess could see her when I said, "Foster, table for two?"

I admit, the 'two' had been reserved for Maxie and me, because they don't count sylphs. But it just worked out as a happy coincidence that I could do this, upgrade Annie's status for our date.

I had intended to say 'table for three' but this was cuter.

The hostess saw that I was an indulgent owner and whispered to the staff. When we arrived, the table was set for one human and one sylph. She even had a candle on her own little table.

It wouldn't burn, but the flame was made out of a material that sparkled in the light of the real candle. I held her seat for her and she nearly cried.

It wasn't The Day we were celebrating. It never really caught on as a holiday. My catching her in the wild hadn't been unalloyed joy for her.

We also never marked the day that she actually became my legal pet. That was not a high point, either. It was a long and bumpy road between us for many years. The trauma of her shrinking, my immaturity as an owner, the physics of living in a birdcage… All counted against the close friendship we ended up with here today.

Frankly, it was as much a surprise for us as it was for family and friends that watched us relate to each other.

But when we examined that road, there were some distinct smooth patches. The first was when we bonded over The Raven. That experience had shaded many events in the next few years.

So today was Edgar Allan Poe's birthday. And we celebrated.

Her menu was stood on a tiny easel. She could sit and consider, not roam over an open page, or try to read from my shoulder.

They were spoiling her rotten. She knew and accepted it as her due. And I was okay with it.

She ordered a chimichanga that would be about the size of her forearm. And without an ounce of hesitation, added a jar of wine to her order.

They brought our appetizer, guacamole and chips. Annie considers guacamole a food group and was scrambling to get to the bowl. I dropped a hand in front of her as a barricade.

She looked up, hurt and betrayed. "Don't want to stain the dress." And I pulled out a plastic bib from Hooters. It covered her from chin to toe. I put it on her and sat her back down.

Then I used a chip to scoop up a teaspoon of the dip to place it on her plate.

"Oooh, master," xhe cooed.

We ate in a companionable silence. Yes, Annie is capable of companionable silence. She has five silences in her repertoire. That's just one.

Three of them involve being mad at me. Or maybe at the world, but usually at me. And the last is her sated silence, where she's so full that even talking is an effort.

It's probably no surprise that that was the silence I was shooting for.

After the appetizer, it was time to see the tortilla machine. Five heated disks spin in a glass oven. Balls of raw dough are taken up, rolled flat, then flipped from disk to disk, ending at the bottom as perfectly toasted tortillas.

Annie finds the whole process fascinating. So do I, but I tried hard not to make any comments. She hates when I engineer in public.

After that, we wandered by the koi pond and Annie tossed in some fish food. The splash as one rose to take it seemed like a scene from Jaws and she ducked back against my fingers. As always, I refrained from calling her a silly scaredy-cat.

A different waiter delivered the meals. One plate perched on his palm, one pinched between two fingers. "Who had the chimichanga?" he asked. Annie smiled and carefully identified herself as the diner he was looking for.

Dinner was fun. She suggested we start a tradition of gift exchanges on these holidays. "Gifts?" I asked. "I wore a shirt with buttons. I let you outta your cage!"

She considered that for a moment, then called me a Neanderthal and went back to eating.

Just as we were finishing, she started to fidget. "What?" I asked.

"Um, Ray?"

"Right here."

"Ray, do you remember Bebe?"

"She of whom we swore never to speak again?"

"That's the bitch," she said with a nod. "What would you say, Ray, if I said I could hear her voice here, somewhere? With the supersensitive sylph hearing that I use to fight crime in fair Gotham?"

"Not a chance," I said. "Bebe's in the Drama Queen Protection Program. They've got her somewhere in Texas, I think."

That caused a little derail. "If she was in a protection program, Master, then you'd hardly know where they put her."

"It's not witness protection," I pointed out. "It's drama queens. They can move them, but they can't shut 'em up."

"Ah." She nodded, but didn't look satisfied with my comment. "Um. Okay, what would you say if I said I could hear the voice of an ex that you don't actively hate?"

"I'd say I'd like to know who it was, and I'd probably go over and say hi. Or at least catch her eye and let her decide if she wants to invite me over."

"Uh huh. Now, Ray, I'm not trying to start anything, but what if-"

"Who, Annie?"

"Well. Well." She twisted a bit in her seat. "What if the 'ex' I have in mind isn't exactly an ex?"

"A friend? Susan? One of Frank's girlfriends?"

"No, no, Ray." She stood and stalked over to my wrist. "When I said 'your ex,' I wasn't stretching the 'you' part."

"Oh, so you were stretching the 'ex.' I get it." I nodded, happy that I'd figured out her code. Then I realized. I had a few ex girlfriends. But only one ex girlfriend that wasn't exactly an ex. Not yet, anyway.

I stood up at the table and looked around. Rio Bravo has a lot of dividing walls and plants inside. Makes for quite a few intimate little rooms.

So I picked Annie up and went to the men's room. Or at least as far as the door. Then I went to the pond again. And the tortilla machine. And the lobby.

Maxie was at a table similar to ours. An intimate two-person table in a corner near where the Sunday brunch buffet gets set up.

She was not dressed to find accounting errors. She had a slinky thing she'd thrown on, sparkling in the candle-light. It lifted her generous bosom up and presented it like a trophy. You could probably have rested two shot glasses on her breasts.

"Flashy, if you like that sort of thing, I suppose," Annie mumbled. I took a step closer.

Annie's voice lost all decorum. "Two timing BITCH!" she shouted. That one step got us around a cactus standing between us and their table. We could see that there were three seated at the table. Including a sylph. He was dressed in a tiny suit and tie. Near as I could see, it matched the clothes of the man seated across from Maxie.

"OOOOOH!" Annie squealed, but not loud enough to be heard that far away. I turned around, blocking Annie's sight and voice. The hostess was coming back from seating someone. Her eyes did a little triangle path from Annie to my face to the table behind me.

"Drama?" she asked.

"I'll kill her! I'll tear out his intestines and strangle her with them. Ray, I'll need a block and tackle, forty feet of dental floss and a knife."

"Could we have our check, please?" I asked.

"I swear! Cheating on YOU I can understand. But throwing herself into the arms of a lesser form of sylph life? Male? She's POND scum!"

"Right away, sir," she said, sliding off towards the kitchen entry.

"God, it's not like the one thing he has that I don't could possibly be big enough to compensate HER for MY absence!"

Annie's rant continued until I was in the car and we were headed home. It was a nice act. Just enough truth to be convincing. But I knew it was mostly that she was having a scene to distract me.

"Enough," I finally said. "We won't let her ruin our evening."

"What? SHE abandoned us to a night of close personal bonding, Master, AND demonstrated to us that she has the self-control of a bulldog in a fireplug warehouse. She made our evening, sir. Hell, she made our whole WEEK!"

"But there's still the evening before us," I pointed out. "What's next?"

"Dancing," Annie announced, in a voice that brooked no argument. I headed for home.

I put on the CDs she chose, lifted her to my shoulder and tucked her in against the hollow of my throat. She stretched across me and nuzzled against my skin.

"What's love got to do with it?" Tina crooned. I tilted my head towards my bestest friend and slowly rocked.





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