Chapter 1: Dinner

As Mark pulled into his driveway he stopped the car near the street edge. He hit the button for the garage door and as it started to rise he put the car in park and jumped out to retrieve the mail from the curbside mailbox. Holding the mail in his lap he pulled into the garage and parked his classic Dodge Challenger. He held the mail steady in his lap as he reached into the backseat to retrieve his computer. Exhaling a deep sigh he headed to door leading into the kitchen, pausing to click the button to close the garage door. It had been an arduous work-week and he was so glad it was now the weekend.

“Hey Wendy, I’m home,” Mark called as he dropped the mail on the counter and continued into the living room. He dropped his backpack next to his recliner and collapsed heavily into the over-sized chair. He kicked out the footrest and rested his head back while closing his eyes.

“What are you doing?” asks Wendy as she enters the living room and slaps Marks’ feet. “If you want to change clothes you need to get to the bedroom now. We are meeting Rita and Damon at 7:00 and we need to stop at the post office and Home Depot beforehand.”

“Ahh, shit, is that tonight?” asked Mark in a resigned tone.

“Sure is, and remember, we had to cancel the last time so don’t start thinking you can weasel our way out of tonight. A few weeks ago, the hail storm had just come through and damaged the fence. We had to get it sufficiently repaired to keep the neighbor’s dogs out or they would have had a field day in the pool.”

“Yeah, I remember,” groaned Mark as he closed the footrest and headed into the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee in the Keurig.

“Where are we meeting for dinner?” asked Mark.

“A new place near the mall. Thai Table. I overheard Betty highly recommend it the other day.”

“Who’s Betty?” asked Mark with a look of confusion as he added cream and sugar to his coffee.

“I thought I told you? She is the new business analyst manager we hired. She started on Monday and sits a cube over from me. Seems to be real bitch from the one-sided conversations I hear. Treats her employees like shit. However, I’ve heard her talk about food and restaurants several times, and she clearly knows the local scene.”

Mark took a large gulp of the hot liquid and nodded his head. “OK, well hopefully it is good. The last new restaurant we tried was awful. We don’t want to have to order pizza again after paying almost a hundred bucks for a meal and leaving hungry.”

“It should be fine. Just don’t overdo it on the spicy level. You think you are a macho man with the heat, but it usually bites you in the ass – either figuratively at the restaurant, or later on the toilet,” says Wendy and she let out a small giggle.

“Smart ass,” retorted Mark.

“I am,” she said, “but that’s why you love me. Now scoot. We need to leave in a few minutes.”

Wendy hurried across the restaurant to the table where Rita and Damon were already seated. Mark took a detour to the restroom after drinking a second cup of coffee in a mug as they ran their errands.

“Sorry we’re late. We had to run by the post office and Home Deport,” says Wendy as she approached the table. Rita slid out of her bench seat and gave Wendy a quick hug before they both slipped into opposite sides of the table.

“No problem,” said Damon as he raised his glass. “Gave us a chance to get a drink and order some appetizers.”

Rita asked, “Hope the Home Depot stop wasn’t for anything broken at the house? Like a fence?” Rita laughed at her own joke.

“No, nothing like that. We just needed to get weedkiller and light bulbs. We could have gone tomorrow, but the last time we tried to go on a Saturday morning it was so packed with the DIY’ers that we swore we wouldn’t do that again.”

“Where’s Mark,” asked Damon.

“He was dragging his ass when he got home from work, so he had a couple cups of coffee. Had to hit the restroom before coming to the table.”

Rita laughed, “I know someone else who was dragging ass this afternoon, had a coffee and a large soda, and then needed to make a pit stop before being seated, too.”

Damon sputtered a bit as he sipped his drink, giving his wife a playful dirty look.