JABBALOVE

At The De Leaur's

Taz wanted to hug her brother through the phone when she got a surprise call from him. Rob was in town for a business trip and didn't bother telling her anything about it bacause yes, as typical as it might sound, he "wanted it to be a surprise". He said he had arranged a lunch date with her at a French restaurant uptown, and that it was probably all the time he could spend with her while he was inSac since his schedule allowed no ooportunity for extracurricular activities. Taz said "Okay, I'll be there at 12:00 sharp. See you." before hanging up the phone. She ran downstairs, eager to hear Gracie's reaction for what she was about to reveal to her, but stopped dead when an all-too-knowing Gracie confesses to being an accomplice of this whole scheme. "You knew he'd be visiting?" Taz exclaimed, not sure if she could trust anyone in her life at this point. "Does Bud know, too?" Gracie's pug, Bud looked at her with lazy, unimpressed eyes while Gracie told her off with a simple, "I know everything."

She called Nikki but the answering machine picked up. "Hey, Nik, my brother's visiting town, about to have lunch with him. Sorry I can't stop by anymore, but hey, just wanna wish you luck and remind you to kick ass. Call me, perv. Let me know how it turns out. Bye."

She grabbed her keys, kissed the twins goodbye, and told Gracie, "I still haven't forgiven you" and flew out of the door. This was her first time to go out on her own, unguided. She should be worried but she just missed her brother too damn much to be bothered by anything else. The cab trip to that French restaurant whose name she couldn't even pronounce without humiliating herself didn't take that long. Before she knew it, she was already paying the driver and stepping into a high-class French diner.

The restaurant was, as she expected, the type you'd only see in magazines and James Bond movies. It was elegantly fancy, filled with wealthy-looking people in their nine-hundred-dollar suits. Huh. Describes her brother's general preference perfectly. She went to ask the lady-in-waiting about her brother's reservation and was ushered to a table nearest the window overlooking the busy street outside.

Time check: 12:10. Huh. It wasn't like Rob run late for anything. But then of course, it could be jst the traffic. No need to get all riled up. The waiter came by her table, but she shooed him away immediately. She checked her phone for any messages from Nikki, or from Rob, for that matter, but nada. She sighed and slipped it back inside her purse. It wasn't long enough before she was looking at her watch again: 12:25. He said 12pm sharp, or did Taz get it wrong and he actually meant 12am? But she couldn't possibly be stupid enough to mistake 'midnight dinner' for 'lunch'. Ugh. She tapped her fingerss agitatedly against the table, beginning to get worried. Taz hoped whatever was keeping Rob would suffer a slow, painful death. Another twenty minutes had passed and Taz still found no sign of her brother coming. If she cared enough at this moment to go down memory lane, she'd realize that it was so typical of her brother to arrive late on family dinners, or any gatherings, for that matter. That's because his promotion at the architectural firm that he worked at back in New York demanded too much of his time. Too, too much. Maybe this was one of those too-common occasions that Rob would miss dinner and send apology flowers later. ugh. But she missed him! She crossed her arms and pouted into space, sinking down her chair.

"Waiting for someone?"

She thought she had fallen asleep before hearing a familiar that shook her awake. Her eyes moved up from being glued to the floor for so long and went wide as beaming Joe stood before her.

"Joe." Her eyes blinked over and over and over again like they had a mind of their own. Of course it's Joe, idiot. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled and dropped his eyes to the floor, gesturing to the white overall he was wearing, or rather, uniform, taz recognized at once. Why, of course. Joe did say he was a chef at (insert weird French word here) which Taz assumed was the name of a restaurant, this restaurant.