.TheAdventuresofStephanie&Helen:pt2.

Okay. I only have one thing to say. Viva Kenny Rogers chicken! Oh, oh, and the font is red. Like Carin's face/Sulekha's nail polish.

The waiter swaggered over to the table, totally giving Stephanie the eye, and set the two plates of steaming, sauce-covered chicken down in front of Stephanie and Sulekha respectively.
Sulekha eyed his butt appreciatively as he walked away from their table. “Not bad,” she murmured. “Not bad at all. Steph?”
Steph lifted her head, her mouth full of vanilla muffin. “Whhapffh?”
Helen rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Just…cut the chicken.”
Steph stared dismally down at the plate in front of her. Sulekha had already started on hers, sawing it in half with the perseverance of Einstein. Carin was looking doubtfully at the half of Sulu’s massacred chicken that was soon to be hers and swallowing nervously. Helen was watching Stephanie with a hawk’s eye that reminded Steph eerily of her mother.
Steph prepared herself for a full-blown pout. Why did she always have to cut? Because I said so. She could almost hear Helen’s crisp voice in her head. But Stephanie knew the real reason.
Because she was the only one of them who was any good with a knife.
Steph rolled the wooden-handled steak knife in her hand, gazing at it dreamily. Gripping the handle in her left hand, she lovingly stroked the blade with her index finger, in a reverie despite Carin’s grunts as she and Sulekha shrieked their way through carving the chicken.
Helen, growing slightly - okay, VERY - impatient, tore her attention away from Sulekha’s and Carin’s Amazon Massacre in time to catch the almost loving glint in Steph’s eyes as she caressed the gleaming blade of the steak knife.
“Steph! If you don’t mind, I’d rather we have this chicken before it oxidizes!”
Stephanie came to attention with a swiftness born of years of practice. “Uh, right. The chicken. Yeah, I was, uh, just doing that.” Helen ‘hhhmmmnnd’ loudly but said nothing more, to Stephanie’s relief.
Fifteen minutes later, replete with food, drink, and laughter, the girls leaned back in the plush red seats, giggling. Stephanie was hyper, not an uncommon occurrence; Sulekha was completely at ease with the other two girls by now; Helen was relaxed, a TRULY uncommon occurrence, and Carin was…
… MURDEROUS.
“God, you guys should come sleepover or something sometime,” Helen gasped, raising her arm high above her head and letting it fall on the table with a bang that made Carin jump, a motion usually made by those who are extremely drunk.
This gesture wasn’t missed by Steph, who wondered if perhaps someone had spiked Helen’s orange juice.
“So. The bill?” Steph started to say, surprised to find herself giggling too. This was wrong. Steph didn’t giggle. She guffawed, and chuckled, and chortled, and grinned and snickered. But she didn’t giggle.
For heavens sake, giggling was for…
…well, you know…
… GIRLS.
Stephanie looked the three, giggling, girly baboons she called her best friends. Carin was actually wearing pink.
PINK.
Ah, screw it. Steph giggled just as hard as the rest of them.
“Waiter,” she choked out, flagging him down as he passed. Her hand brushed his and Sulekha promptly went down with another fit of giggles. The waiter looked down his nose at Steph - in a way that reminded both Helen and Carin of an old, much-hated schoolteacher of theirs - apparently having lost any and all interest in her once he saw her cackling like a hyena.
“Bill,” Steph managed. Then, “Thank you,” showing that all her mother’s best efforts to teach her some manners hadn’t been a TOTAL waste of time.
“I don’t feel like paying the bill,” Sulekha said unexpectedly.
“Lets not, Helen chimed in drunkenly.
“Tell you what,” Steph said. “Helen, you grab your throat, fake an allergic attack, go into anaphylactic shock, and fall on the floor like you’re dead. We’ll scream and carry you out - and we won’t have to pay the bill.”
All four girls giggled harder. Helen’s numerous allergies were a source of great amusement to all of them, seeing as an allergic attack would result in her airways closing and her choking to death. Stephanie had more than once considered slipping her a peanut just to see what happened, but had been stopped at the idea of a cold jail cell and a death sentence for murder in the first degree.
“No,” Carin gasped, “We don’t have to do that! We’ll just tell them we have eczema and don’t remember eating here.”
Helen fell suspiciously silent suddenly, the well-oiled cogs in her head suddenly starting to spin again. Eczema? She decided not to say anything, considering Carin’s feelings, which were considerably easier to hurt than the others’.“Uh, Carin,” Steph interjected, breaking the silence. “I think you mean Alzheimers.”
Taking a moment as if to process this new possibility, Sulekha and Helen burst into hysterical laughter as one, as if on cue. Helen cogs ceased their spinning and Carin blushed a red to rival Sulekha’s nail polish.
A feat a lot easier said than done, seeing as Sulekha was wearing L’Oreal Paris in Lady Luck Red.