Chapter 3?
The booth's cushion buttons stuck relentlessly into her back Nikki squirmed in her seat trying to find some position in the red leather booth that the over sized button did not attack her. A few minutes of valiant effort ended in Nikki just slumping down in defeat She glanced over at the other tables, that had not evil over sized buttons. She would have reserved one of them if not for the packed reservation list.
"Serves me right for going on a date the day after Thanksgiving Break!" Nikki somberly muttered looking around the room to see if she could see her date anywhere. It did not take long to complete her scan and establish that he had not arrived, no one was around other than a few couples and herself. Despite the full reservation list very few had come to fulfill their reservations. Maybe she could convince the waiter to let here move to a table rather than endure the tormenting booth all night.
The waiter arrived with a tired strain on his face, it had been a long day already and the reservation list proclaimed it was going to be a long evening. The sight of a single girl in the booth was a relief. How much would a single girl eat?
"Your order?"
"Hmm." Nikkie really did not notice the waiter until he asked again, then she snapped back to reality. "Oh! uh.. I will just have a water for now. I am waiting for someone."
"Water it is." He pretended to write it down, "Should I come back when he arrives?"
"Yeah." Nikki nodded and returned to her musing. She guessed it was rather obvious she was waiting for a date to arrived. Leaning back, again she found that the evil button was still haunting her. After a few more unsuccessful squirms Nikki resolved to just throw her coat from its content resting spot beside her, to being squashed between her and the menacing button of doom.
Another few minutes passed, and the waiter returned with her water. Nikki stirred the ice cubes in the glass haphazardly with her straw. She had been planning this date all Thanksgiving Break. Everything had to be perfect. She arranged her schedule to match his, she had picked the perfect time of day, she picked the restaurant that would be informal but not fast food like, and she even picked her clothes to have complementary color schemes. Everything was perfect, except one thing. The guy was not anywhere to be found. She had been stood up on the perfect date. She rested her head against the top of the booth back. The restaurant waiters were laughing behind the kitchen door she bet. Jon would probably make some snide, "I told you so" remark is he was watching her.
Except he probably was watching her, he was her ride to the restaurant. Nikki could drive and she had a usable car, but part of the date's plan was to have her date driver her home. Jon agreed to his part. He, however, was a guy who would wait in his car patiently until he was sure whoever he dropped off was inside their house. Nikki doubted that he would leave until he saw Nikki and her date sitting down in the booth by the window.
"Great not only does the staff know I was stood up, so does Jon." Nikki covered her reddening face. Tonight was a disaster. Thoughts of finding a back entrance and taking the bus home began to formulate in her head.
"Sorry I'm late." A familiar voice said a bit loud, followed by the sound of someone taking off his coat. "Traffic was terrible with the snow starting to fall and all."
Nikkie looked up to see Jon confindently sitting down across from here. "Sheesh, these these buttons are brutal." He flet a few poke him in the back. The waiter noticed a guy's arrival and began to walk over to the booth.
"What do you think you are doing?" Nikki whispered fiercely.
"Saving you from further embarrassment." Jo replied a-matter-of-factly. "Besides you can only count so many snow flakes until you get mind numbingly bored." Nikki looked out the window and finally noticed the snow dumping from the sky, starting to turn the asphalt world white.
"It started a few minutes ago."
"I see he finally arrived." The waiter cast a disappointed look upon Jon. "May I take your order."
I will have the Salmon with garlic sauce," Nikki promptly gave her praticed response, "and he will be having the steak with a salad on the side." She already had a ruined date, but Nikki wanted to salvage as much as possible even if it was no longer a date. Plus, she knew that Jon wanted the Salmon rather than steak.
The waiter left to hand the orders off to the chef. Jon broke the silence again. "So this is where I say...."
"I told you so." Nikki finished Jon's trademark response to when anything turned sour. Jon was pessimistic about a lot of things and unfortunately right most the time. "Yeah, you were right as usual. You don't need to gloat I am already miserable enough to just leave."
Jon just chuckled and turned to watch the snow until their food arrived fresh from the grill.
"Smells good!" Jon paid the bill qui8ckly before Nikki could even get out her wallet from his purse. An icy glare sped at Jon. "Brrrr, no need to try to make it start snowing in here, Ice Queen."
"Part of the date was me paying."
"I know, but I really don't think we are dating, I am just subbing so to speak I guess." He grinned at her shudder, even the Ice Queen could get a chill. "I didn't think you would like that mental image." Another brief icicle shot at Jon before Nikki settled down to eat.
"So how is Business-law class going?" He asked, carefully timed between mouthfuls.
"It's okay." Nikki stared blankly at her half eaten fish, "But I have heard that the final is hard."
"Still haven't told your parents you are taking the class?"
"What do you think!" She shot yet another incredulous look at Jon. "You know full well my dad would go ballistic if I even mentioned law at all!"
"This steak is good. Your date is really missing out." Jon commented, placing the last piece in his mouth savoring its flavor.
"Did you even hear me!" Nikki demanded flabbergasted, nearly standing up in her chair, but calming down as soon as she realized a some of the other couples were staring at her. Jon was doing this just to annoy her.
"Of course I did." Jon smiled setting his fork lightly on his empty plate, and sliding it to the center of the table. "So, are you telling them you are taking another dance class like you did last year when you took Law I?"
"No." Nikki replied quietly suddenly finding herself not as hungry as she had thought. She slid the plate to the center as well before continuing. "I am telling them that I am taking an aid position. "
The conversation paused when the waiter arrived to take away the dishes. Nikki and Jon seemed like a married couple by the way they argued about the choices each of them made.
"Not to sound like an older brother," Jon replied in a slightly more serious tone. "but you really should not be hiding what you are taking from your parents. It is only going to make it worse when they do find out." He turned to look outside again. "They will find out."
"I only have one more semester, and I am not even taking a law class." She snapped back angrily. "Besides what exactly do you know about parents, yours are..." Her force trailed off into nothing, and she turned her face away. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up."
"Eh, it's fair I brought up yours." Jon replied shrugging away her comment. His face turned from solemn to grinning. "After all, All's fair in love and war." He paused shortly for effect. "Date." Nikki's eyes darted around the clean table to find something to throw at Jon to shut up his choked laughter.
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
"Ok, ok, sheesh three shut ups. I really must have ticked you off." Jon raised his hands in surrender. "How about we drop the whole school thing and go and get coffee and tea?"
The idea was agreeable to Nikki. The two of them got up and headed out to Jon's car. He had to dodge a few punches from Nikki, but finally stopped pretending to be her date.
~***~
It turned out the closest coffee shop to the restaurant was the Starbucks next to the school. Nikki considered Starbucks to be the next unholy empire of the west, next to Walmart, but tonight even the bland, overpriced, watered down, disgusting Strabucks coffee sounded good. Jon personally did not care for coffee period but knew this Starbucks had tea, and while he shared a similar aversion to Starbucks, the snow was starting to be a vision hazard and a visit to Starbucks would be a pleasant reprieve. He pulled into the near empty parking, only the employees' cars were there.
"Well, ready for the cheapest coffee at the most expensive price?" He joked as they ran from the car to the entrance, attempting to avoid being added to the white scenery.
"I am buying this time!" She stated in Jon's a-matter-of-fact tone. "Go find us a seat by the window."
"Gee. I don't know if I can do that." Jon surveyed the completely empty lobby. "There aren't many tables that aren't taken."
His wit fell upon deaf ears. Nikki was too busy ordering her coffee in the exact way she wanted it. Only after succeeding at making the college student actually write down an order did she respond. "Ha ha, what kind of tea do you want?"
"Bengal Spice as usual."
"What he said, I really don't understand how he drinks that stuff?" She shrugged and grabbed her coffee and his tea. Nikki turned to look at Jon. He was sitting at a table by the window, the biggest possible one. It could fit ten people.
"It was the only one free." He gave her an apologetic look, and took his tea before she poured it on his head.
"Leave it to you to make things as complicated as they could possibly be." Nikki rolled her eyes and sat down in a seat facing the window. "Are you expecting company?"
"You never know." Jon stirred his tea waiting for it to thoroughly seep before drinking. "So how is the mentor program going for you, helped any poor helpless freshman."
"Yeah, it is easy credits and colleges love my donation to the less motivated." She sipped her coffee, it was not as bad as she feared. "I did get a new 'assignment' today though."
"Who is it?" He sampled his dark colored tea, and began his repetitive stirring.
"I really wish you would stop the rhetorical questions you know full well who it is."
"Rob Falcione?"
"The one and only." Nikki grabbed a packet of sugar and ripped it roughly to and more sugar to her coffee.
"Rob isn't a bad guy, though I can see where you could be annoyed." Jon was finally satisfied with the tea and took the bag out. "As soon as he gets used to you, I bet you will have an easy time."
His reassurances did not seem to be as effective as he hoped, it seemed that she was feeling worse. "Yes now that I have reassured you that it will be fine, feel worse, such a natural reaction. Why do I even try?"
Nikki's gaze adverted from the window. "You know that Jonathan Williams kid?"
"Yeah, some star sophomore football player. Never met him. Rob knows him thought?"
"Well, it seems he had the same idea to go get coffee, along with Bert, Jeremy, and some other girl." Nikki gulped down some more coffee. Jon turned around to see the four lower class-men racing from a minivan to the entrance of the Starbucks. None of them had yet to notice the seniors.
"Well it seems we finally get to meet him." He sipped some more of his tea, and held out a hand closing on finger at a time. Five... Four... Three...
"Hey Nikki!" Jeremy interrupted the count down just before two. "What are you two doing here."
"Dangit." Jon grumbled.
"Ignore him Jerm. He is just upset that he was wrong." Nikki replied, "Jon just picked me up from a date and it wasn't too late so we came here."
"Now the real question, why are you four here?" Jon added with a suspicious tone.
"Gene ruined Bert's date and so he offered to take us here to make up for it." Jeremy pointed over his shoulder at the football player ordering their drinks.
"Who is that with Bert?" Nikki asked in interest, she did not know that Bert had a girlfriend.
"Angela Liu." Jon answered for Jeremy. "Bert needs to remember that my locker is the one right by hers. I am tired of getting love letters from him."
Nikki almost spat out her coffee trying not to laugh. Gene, Bert, and Angela walked over to the table, not acknowledging that the seniors were there until they almost sat down.
"Whoa, hey." Bert caught himself. "I didn't expect to see you two here."
"The same goes for us, but some moral compromises had to be made." Jon replied as they sat down, Gene sat as far away from Nikki as he could. Gene finally caught what Jon meant by moral compromises and snickered.
"Well, I suppose I should introduce you two to my girlfriend." Bert motioned in the direction of Angela turning the attention from Jon's Starbucks crack. "This is..."
"Angela Liu." Nikki interrupted, reestablishing the mystical nature of seniors, "Good to meet you."
"Anyways, this is my friend..."
"Jonathan Williams, or more often called Gene." Jon interjected.
"Ok, I am officially creeped out!" Angela spontaneously entered the conversation holding on tightly to her hot chocolate.
"Are you two... uh together." Gene nervously asked. Any air of superiority that both seniors had was lost the moment Nikki choked on another laugh. This time unsuccessful at keeping all of the coffee in her mouth.
"Ew." was all Jon could say, his breath exhausted from laughing at Gene's question.
"You can take that as a no." Jeremy interpreted for the rest of the group. For some reason Jeremy's interpretation did not make Gene feel anymore comfortable sitting at the table.
"I would get a deck of cards out and start a game but for one they are in my car." Jon looked over at the, formerly black, white neon. "And two, weren't you supposed to be home at seven, Nikki?"
"Crap." Nikki stared at her watch, five till seven. "We are going to be late. I guess we can blame it on drivers forgetting to drive because of an inch of snow." Jon nodded and stood up.
"Well have fun drinking your various poisons." He received a glare from the Starbucks employee. "But we must be off, before I get banned from the cafe." Nikki and Jon once again ran out into the snow to get to his coated car.
~***~
Nikki waved to Jon as she walked into her house. As usual, Jon had waited for her to get inside and then drove off to get home before the roads became any slicker. The night had been stressful but over all pretty good after she gave up on her Houdini of a date. She took off her red shoes and placed them quietly on the mat.
"How was your date?" Her mother was the first to welcome her back, hungry for any juicy details about her daughter's date. Nikki knew she could not fool her mom.
"I was stood up." She sighed.
"He stood you up?" Her mother's eyes widened hoping she misunderstood, " You mean he never showed up?"
The heaving footfalls echoed down the stairs, announcing her father's arrival. He had a few questions for his late daughter.
"Why were you late?"
"Dad, I was only five minutes late." Nikki explained, "The snow made a bunch of drivers forget what they were doing. So Jon..."
"Jon?" Her dad raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were going out with a Jim from school."
"He stood her up." Her mother came to her rescue.
"Jon picked me up and we stopped for coffee waiting for the snow to let up a bit." Nikki figured it was best not to tell them about the dinner.
"Jon's father was a lawyer, as I was told." Her dad turned around and started going back up the stairs. "I don't trust lawyer. They always at trying to swindle something out of someone."
Nikki's mom attempted to pump Nikki for more information, but gave up when she realized Nikki just wanted to be left alone. The rest of the night would be catching up on homework.