Dinner for two

Cherry

By Terrence Oblong

Sun, 15 Mar 2020
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3 comments
 
I wasn't sure what Kerry thought about me.
 
Sure we got along and clearly clicked together on stage, but what was our relationship? Did she think anything of me or was I just one of the gang?
 
I didn't ask her for a date. It wasn't a date. I said "Fancy going for a meal before the show," and she said "Yeah, why not."
 
So it wasn't a date.
 
But I didn't ask anyone else along. In fact I kept schtum about it. Not because it was a date, but I didn't want it to become another all-comers-hang-out. I wanted some quality time with her is all.
There's a reason why I wouldn't ask Kerry for a date. I had no chance. She was out of my league. She had better offers on an hourly basis.
 
Kerry had total control of her body, every action of every body part seemed precise, planned and expertly enacted at all times. On stage she used every body part as an actorial weapon. "It's nice to be alone," she said, as we were sitting down, "Away from the Funny Mob." As she was speaking all her body parts were put to work, her eyes snatching the attention of a waiter, her mouth smiling him over, her hands pouring out two glasses of water from the bottle on the table, and with a slight shrug of her head, her hair bounced contentedly to announce that she was happy here.
 
"The mostly funny mob," I replied. While her body wrote a veritable epic novel of non verbal communication, I relied on words alone, like a short story trying to compare with Proust's A La Recherce du Temps Perdu, or  Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

We were in Edinburgh as part of our University Review, hilariously entitled the Funny Mob. This was our chance to impress, to take the world of comedy by force, to hit the big time.

The standard of the Funny Mob was variable. Mostly we were okay, we had a few funny scenes, mostly the ones with myself and Kerry in them, and the best we'd ever been was that improv session I did with Kerry. We totally rocked. Crack open the Perrier awards, the stars have arrived.
 
We had a connection, no doubt about it, you could tell from the few scenes we had together, we just rubbed up against each other and produced laughter. And when we'd done that improv, we come up with that ingenious scene about a bickering married couple in a sex toy emporium.
 
As we were waiting for food to arrive a man came into the restaurant with two sacks over his back, assumedly a supplier with spuds or similar veg. He was young, muscly and wearing a trim, trendy goatee beard.
 
"Santa's really buffed himself up," Kerry said.
 
"I guess he has to, think about it two billion mince pies and glasses of sherry in one night, he  has to spend the next 364 days working it off."
 
The food arrived. Kerry thanked the waiter with a smile, donned her napkin with a gesture of authority and twinkled her eyes at me, the exact meaning of which I couldn't place. It could have been a simple expression of happiness, but maybe there was more there.
 
As we began to eat, we heard shouting from the kitchen. The first shout was partly inaudible, but feature the words 'moldy potatoes."
 
"My spuds are fine," another voice said, assumedly buff Santa, "You must have stored 'em somewhere damp."
 
"Oh it's my fault is it? I gave you a hundred quid for six sacks of shit I had to throw away and I'm to blame. I mean, I've only ran a kitchen for thirty years, I don't know where to store my veg."
 
"Well maybe you're getting old and forgot where you put them."
 
"You cheeky fucker. I'll show you where I store my meat shall I?"
 
In response, buff Santa screamed. "Jesus, fuck!" and ran at breakneck speed through the restaurant, followed by an enormous chef brandishing a huge kitchen knife and screaming obscenities in what sounded like at least three different languages.
 
Kerry and I looked at each other, calculating our best move. Getting up and leaving the restaurant might not be a great move, I calculated, just in case the chef took offence.
 
"Let's hope we like the meal," I said to Kerry. "I don't fancy our chances if we have to complain about the food."
 
She laughed again. We made each other laugh, no doubt about it.
 
The chef returned to the kitchen shortly afterwards, no blood on his cleaver, no additional meat for the freezer.
 
"I might switch to the veggie option for the main course," she said. "You never know in these places where they source the meat."
 
I laughed. She smiled at my laughter, like a cat that's just stolen the keys to the cream mine.
We made each other laugh.
 
Over the course of the meal I'd been thinking. I know this wasn't a date or anything, but we're both single, we get on, and we have a chemistry.
 
"I've been thinking," she said.
 
"I thought you must be thinking," I said. "I could see the steam coming out of your ears."
 
She laughed. The laugh of a girl about to ask you out.
 
"You see," she said. "You're funny. We have a natural rapport."
 
"It can't be denied," I said. "That improv we did."
 
"Exactly. I've been thinking about it, we should write it up, tighten it up, turn it into a sketch. And we can work on a couple of ideas I've got."
 
"What are you suggesting?" I said, confused.
 
"We should form a double act. There's a twenty minute slot coming up at the Cavern Club Introduces Night next week, I met a guy who can get us on the bill. And if that goes well,  there's a daily thirty minute slot coming up at the Taverna, Daisy and her performing cat have cancelled, the cat walked out apparently."
 
At this point in the conversation the police arrived. I've never seen so many police except for at a football match, or an anti-austerity march. They charged into the kitchen like the Keystone cops, there followed much shouting and banging of pans, as if the chef was launching every saucepan he had at the cops. As I was thinking it a wok came flying out of the kitchen, like an Unidentified Wok-shaped Object.
 
What could I say?
 
"Yeah, let's form a double-act," I said. It wasn't the offer I'd been expecting, well, hoping for I should say, but let's face it, it was the best offer I'd had for a long time. And it could just work.
Certificate 15
Story
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

And what a great opening story about rotten potatoes and a disgruntled chef. I enjoyed your story as always.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

thanks Jenny, the sub plot of the chef chasing a supplier out of the kitch with a meat cleaver and the police arriving en masse to arrest him really happened in a restaurant myself and Mrs Oblong went to once. 

 

Submitted by celticman on

sounds believeable, I just hope the chef washed his hands before picking up a meat cleaver, or flinging pots and pans