Katey's Cootchie
Twelve Months: Thursday, April 1
She took another spoonful and tasted it. "Isn't soup supposed to be hot?" she asked.
Their host, seated to her left, bellowed an unkind laugh, but Barbara the hostess seated at the opposite end of the formal dining table from her husband was more composed. "No, Katey, not this kind. Gazpacho is traditionally served this way," she said gently. "It's very much a beloved dish in Spain, where the evenings can be so warm. I think it goes well with the Spanish style shrimp. Do you like the fusion aspect, with the lemongrass and basil in the pad Thai? The noodles, I mean?"
"I guess so. I didn't realize the party was going to be this fancy," the young woman replied defensively. The cocktail attire of the host and hostess, and of the other guest couple seated across the table, was in contrast to her own tank-top and jeans and her boyfriend's jeans and polo shirt combo.
"Some shrimp for my Shrimp," Mitch said, just a beat late. Katey was almost exactly five feet tall, after all.
"I wouldn't call our little get-together fancy, love," the tall woman said, ignoring the younger man's feeble attempt at humor and addressing his companion again. "Just a relaxing way to get to know one another." She smiled just a bit too earnestly.
"Wellllll, the symphony music kind of makes it fancy," Katey observed, regarding the ambient music in the room.
Syl to her left roared again. "Just tafelmusik, sweet cheeks. Chamber orchestra, St Paul's I think. It's Telemann, of course. Hardly a symphony."
"What's Toffle?" she asked, shrugging helplessly.
Her boyfriend put his arm around her. "I didn't pick her out for her knowledge of fine arts," Mitch said, though he belatedly added a chuckle to try to take the edge off of the condescension toward his much younger girlfriend. Especially since he didn't know who Telemann was either. He just knew when to keep his mouth shut on things he didn't know.
Barbara stood up and looked reprovingly at her husband. "Please, dear, don't be quite so hard on her. You weren't a music major, and I'm sure when you were 21 you didn't know Telemann from Handel either." She began to move toward the end of the room where Syl was.
"22 last week," Katey amended, holding up her wrist. "He gave me a watch for my birthday."
"Very nice, love. And no doubt you have a very good head on your shoulders," Barbara said, looking over her own shoulder more toward Mitch than to his girlfriend. "They don't hire dummies at the motor vehicle department, I'm sure."
"You don't have to be a genius either," Katey responded. "I don't know if I'm gonna keep working there, anyway. It's a long commute."
"True. They closed the satellite office up here, years and years ago. Long drive, especially in winter, and it's hard to hire nearby anymore. Going up and over eighty-nine hundred feet, every day, makes a tough commute."
"Anyway," Katey said, "I don't claim to be smart. Not compared to Mitch. He's *super* smart. Got his own company, and everything. He sold another patent this week."
"It's not really a..." Mitch began, exuding false modesty. Barbara had pushed open the 50s-era swinging door to the kitchen and exited the room, so she didn't hear this last bit anyway.
"Yes," said Syl, interrupting. "We read the profile, of both of you. For the Sharmas, as well."
"Not everything went into her profile," Mohan Sharma quickly said.
"Not everything *has* to," his wife said through gritted teeth.
Katey was uncomfortable with the tension from the couple and sought immediately to change the subject. "Where are you from?" she asked her.
"Topeka."
"I mean," the younger one clarified, "where are you from *originally*?"
The brown-skinned woman glared at her. "Kan...sas. I was born in Kansas."
Her husband injected himself into the question. "She's 'Radhika from Topeka'. Here's the whole story since you ask. Her parents both came over here for school, met in New Jersey and got married and landed in Kansas for teaching jobs eventually. Her grandparents are all still in India. Me, my own grandparents all came over, together - my grandfathers had been classmates - and so my parents were born in California, and I was raised here too. So Radhika from Topeka and I met out here, in college. And we moved up to Duo Lakes in '97. So I guess you could say we're as American as Yankee Doodle. Haha."
"So, not an arranged marriage?" Mitch asked, with a trace of amusement.
Mohan took the joking cultural slight in good grace. "My parents were, actually. Might have worked out better for us too, if it had been." He said it with a smile, but it seemed obviously pointed.
Katey interrupted. "Can I use your restroom?" she asked Syl.
"The bathroom is toward the front door," he replied, motioning toward the far door of the dining room. It was difficult to tell whether he was in his 60s and in pretty good condition, or in his late 40s and already going downhill. Unusually tall and bald headed, he wasn't as overweight as his nearly six-foot tall wife. "Go around the stairway."
Katey took ten minutes. When she came back, the scene was considerably different.
Their buxom, matronly hostess, in her fifties and presumably of similar age to her husband, was seated again at the table, and the dinner plates and bowls had been replaced with servings of pudding. But Katey's eye was hardly drawn to the dessert, as she returned to her seat.
"You okay?" Mitch asked solicitously.
"Maybe," she said guardedly. "What's going on?"
"Sit down, please. It's a Spanish dessert," Barbara replied with a straight face. "Flan. That's what's going on. In keeping with tonight's fusion theme."
The men all snickered. "Spanish Inquisition," Mitch offered.
"Didn't expect *that*," Syl said, playing along.
"Python," Mitch said quietly to her, by way of terse explanation that left her just as much in the dark as if he hadn't.