xp_logs | Doug and Angie, Friday night

Backdated to Friday night. Doug has a Cunning Plan (trademark pending) to surprise his girlfriend with dinner out. Fluff-tastic.

Doug chuckled quietly to himself from the doorway. There was nothing more amusing to him than the image of Marie-Ange, one of the school's foremost fashionistas, flopped gracelessly on her bed nibbling on a pencil and staring at her sketch pad. He nodded slightly. If she was drawing, and on her bed, then she was done with her homework for the night, and his Cunning Plan (trademark pending) could be enacted. Sneaking up to the bed, he jumped and flopped exuberantly, causing Marie-Ange to bounce up off the bed slightly. "Hello, love," he said cheerfully.

Marie-Ange let out a squeak, and the pencil went skittering off to the floor. Thankfully, she'd not been drawing with it. "You are... in entirely too good of a mood." she said cautiously. "And are at dire risk of being tickled mercilessly."

Doug tapped a finger to his lips thoughtfully, considering the proper reply. "I suppose the thing to do then..." he grinned wickedly and rolled over quickly to tickle Marie-Ange "...is launch a preemptive strike!"

"So doomed!" Someday she'd find a way to get around that 'can read body language' trick of Doug's and manage to win one of these tickle wars. Today was obviously not that day. "Unfair advantage!" It was hard to scold him around fits of giggles.

Reading body language really was an unfair advantage in tickle wars, as each of Marie-Ange's helpless attempts to squirm free or push Doug away were easily dealt with. Finally, having tickled enough, Doug leaned down and kissed her. "So, feel like dressing up and going out to dinner?" he asked with another grin.

Marie-Ange only answered after straightening her top, and getting her hair as un-mussed as possible. "Yes, of course. How dressed up did you want me to be?" She had a nice new skirt too, and needed an excuse to wear it out. Hopefully, she thought, she'd get the chance

Doug honestly had no idea what levels of dressiness for women corresponded to levels of dressiness for men. Dressing up was so much easier as a guy. "Well, I'm going to be wearing a shirt and tie, but not a jacket, if that's any help," he said after pondering for a few moments.

Marie-Ange smiled, laughing quietly. "That is enough for me to figure it out, yes." The skirt, yes, definitly, and a top, and shoes. Which reminded her, she really needed to get another set of trainers, and heels to go with her grey skirt. It was probably time to go shoe shopping again. "Should I meet you at the garage, or are you going to 'discover' that you have left all your dress clothes in my room again?" It would not be the first time, she mused.

Doug answered his girlfriend by levering himself up from the bed, walking over to her closet, and whisking it open to reveal a few of his dress shirts, ties, and slacks hanging neatly. "Oh noes," he said jokingly, pressing a hand to his mouth in faux shock. "However did _those_ get there?"

"Are more of your clothes in my room than your own now?" Marie-Ange asked lighly. "Jamie and your computers must be lonely.." Not that she hadn't known those would be in her closet. She'd helped him pick out more than a few.

Doug shook his head, continuing to smile. "No, only a few things in here. It's convenient and all. And I rather doubt Jamie would be all that lonely if I let him have free run of the place. Like Kitty doesn't come over to visit at all..."

"True, yes." The less said about Kitty, Marie-Ange thought, the better. The school's resident girl genius managed, and she knew it was unintentional on Kitty's part, to make her feel inferior on a regular basis. "Where did you have in mind for dinner?"

Doug grinned wider and tossed his head loftily. "It's a surprise." A little bit of hard work and research was about to pay dividends, and Doug planned on enjoying every minute of it.

---

As he leaned against the podium, Francois, the maitre'd of La Chaumiere, pinched his nose. The evening's shift had not been going well. But, that was the restaurant business for you. He looked up as a pair of teenagers entered the restaurant. American teenagers. There was nothing worse, in his opinion. Brash, rude, and offensive, the lot of them. And that didn't even begin to cover the boys that tried to impress their dates, then ordered water and a small salad when they realized they had miscalculated how much they could spend on dinner. Mon Dieu, this was an upscale French restaurant, not Denny's!

He peered a bit closer at the pair as they crossed the lobby. Well, at least they could dress themselves properly. That was something, at least. "Can I 'elp you?" he asked saccharinely, playing up his accent. He could probably speak English better than these gum-chewing plebians, but Americans liked that sort of thing.

The brief eye-roll and hair toss would have been taken as Mildly Annoyed to anyone but Doug. For Doug, it told him that his girlfriend was about to very polietly cut someone's heart out, skewer it and serve it roasted on a platter with a nice pecan dressing. "I suppose, if you must." she answered crisply. "I suppose if it really pains you to do so, we could go elsewhere..." The exaggerated accent was just offensive, she'd decided.

Doug followed Marie-Ange's haughtiness with an elegantly raised eyebrow, something he'd worked for weeks perfecting just for a moment like this. "~Good evening, I believe we have a reservation under the name Ramsey?~" he responded in fluent French laced with Marie-Ange's Lyons accent.

Francois' attitude noticeably improved with astonishing quickness. "~Oh, but of course,~" he replied without looking at the reservation book. "~I apologize profusely if I seemed at all rude. It's just, well, some customers...well, there is a phrase I have heard Americans use, except I would not use it in front of a lady such as yourself,~" he nodded to Marie-Ange. "~Let us just say the first word is 'entitlement', and the second refers to a female dog. Crude, but apt.~" He plucked two menus from the side of the podium and turned toward the dining room. "~If you would follow me?~"

"That was sneaky, Doug..." Marie-Ange accused lightly, once they'd been seated. "I am not complaining, but you must agree it was just a touch underhanded." Not that the man didn't deserve it. The put-upon accent was truly awful, and he really shouldn't be assuming the worst of people just based on apperance. And he had an offensive moustache, though in that regard, she was aware she was entirely biased.

A bland, innocent look was Marie-Ange's reply. "Underhanded? Me? I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, dear." Doug covered the full-blown grin that was threatening to erupt by opening his menu and perusing the choices. He wondered if Marie-Ange had figured out yet why exactly he had picked this particular restaurant.

Opening her menu, Marie-Ange looked over the choices for a few moments, and then very slowly lowered it, raising an eyebrow at Doug. "You are entirely underhanded, and devious." She'd been unsuprised at the choice of a French restaurant. But a restaurant that specalized in Lyons' cuisine was a pleasant surprise. "And I love you for it."

The waiter, who seemed to appear magically out of a special waiter dimension precisely at an opportune lull in Doug and Marie-Ange's conversation, did not have the maitre'd's problem with condescension. "Bon soir, I am Denis," he greeted the pair cheerfully. "May I bring you something to drink? Mam'selle?" he deferred naturally to the lady at the table.

--

Marie-Ange speared a bite of her dinner with her fork, and looked up at Doug. "You really should have a glass of wine." She scolded lightly. He had declined earlier, in favor of water, and it was -bothering- her. She gestured towards her own glass, as if to say "See, mine is good.." and smiled. "This is good, with what you ordered. You do not have to actually try to understand the wine list. No one really does. We just pretend to."

Shrugging, Doug smiled at his girlfriend. "You're French, love. You think no fine meal is complete without a glass of wine to complement it. Me, I could take it or leave it." But, to appease Marie-Ange, he took the glass when she offered it and took a sip. He had to admit that she was right about it complementing his entree. He'd been slightly surprised, but not overly so, when the waiter had simply nodded at Marie-Ange's order. Between her subtle air of maturity and her native French accent, there hadn't been any fuss at all.

"That is because no meal -is- complete without something to compliment it. But not always wine..." Marie-Ange teased. "Pancakes would not be good with a glass, and I am not sure that any wine goes with pizza..." She wrinkled her nose, laughing. "I have not done nearly enough research on that to be sure though. Amanda and I had an ongoing project to see if there was something that complimented sausage and extra-cheese, but we never found anything, and now, of course, our experiment is on hold."

While Doug had not been sorry to see Remy LeBeau leave the mansion, he definitely missed Amanda Sefton. He hadn't been nearly as close to the British girl as Marie-Ange had, but they'd gotten along well enough. He'd never quite understood her relationship with Manuel de la Rocha, though, as it had seemed to bring nothing but pain to either of them. He'd sent some things to New Orleans when Angelo had gone to visit, and it made him happy that she seemed to have settled in quite well in the Big Easy.

"I think you're sadly limited to beer if you're looking to complement pizza," he replied cheekily. "And I don't think anything alcoholic would go with pancakes at all."

"Mimosas!" Marie-Ange said gleefully. "But only if they have fruit, and not syrup." She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one, espically not the waiter, was watching her show of immaturity, and then stuck out her tongue at Doug. "American beer is tasteless. Not that any other beer is much better, but yours is worse."

Doug shrugged in remarkably Gallic fashion. "I never said it wasn't. I don't like beer much at all, even the 'good' beer Amanda tried to foist off on me once or twice. It's too bitter-tasting for me." Taking another bite of his entree, he grinned at Marie-Ange. "So, was my surprise a success?"

A nod and a pleased smile was his answer, so that Marie-Ange could continue to enjoy her taste of home without being terribly rude and talking while eating. The little surprises, nights like this were, she thought, half of what kept her sane on the busiest days of school and training and studying. "I think that poor host's view of his customers may never quite recover.." She said, laughing softly. "He looked so startled..."

"Serves him right, being so pompous," Doug replied. "But I suppose he cultivates that attitude to get a certain sort of reaction out of people. Denis, on the other hand," he referred to their waiter, who appeared to have some sort of ninja skill, popping out of a super-secret waiter dimension only during appropriate lulls in conversation, then promptly disappearing again, "seems to be much nicer."

As the teenagers finished dinner, Denis reappeared to smoothly retrieve their empty plates and hand them off to a coworker. Brushing a few crumbs into a napkin which he stowed in his apron, he smiled at the couple. "~I couldn't help but notice your accents,~" he addressed them both. "~Where in Lyons are you from, and what brings you to the States?~"

Marie-Ange giggled, and shook her head. "My parents live near Mionnay, and I grew up there, but I go to University here, to study architecture.." The details of where she'd gone to school before that were not necessary, or entirely safe to give out, she thought.

A bright smile came across Denis' face. "Ah! Just like myself and my sister Colette. We are also here on student visas. She studies biochemistry at NYU, and I am an architecture major," he explained, switching back to English. "And you, m'sieur, did you meet your girlfriend at home, or by lucky chance at school?"

Doug chuckled dryly. "I'm from Colorado."

Denis raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Surely you jest. Your accent screams Lyons," he said incredulously.

Doug shrugged and reached across the table to clasp Marie-Ange's hand, and share a significant look with her. "Just Angie rubbing off on me, I guess," he demurred.

"He really is from Colorado. He has those shirts from the sports teams and his parents and sisters live there." Marie-Ange explained. "Doug just speaks French better then.. " Her cousin came to mind. "Then some relatives of mine, actually."

It was clear that Denis found the story too hard to believe, but he shrugged goodnaturedly. "Let me tell you about dessert," he said, slipping back into 'waiter mode'. "It's not on the menu, but the chef occasionally makes it, and for you two..."