LOVE AT FIRST DATE

Chapter 6: Their First Fight

"No way, baby," he assured her with an ear-to-ear grin, tearing open the envelope of his electric bill. He crossed over to the wall unit that housed the television in the living room, Michelle directly on his heels.

"You cannot do this to me!" she bellowed in frustration, bumping into him as he stooped to open a drawer and grab his checkbook, then following in his steps again as he moved into the kitchen, opening and closing drawers in search of stamps.

"I know that when you combine breakfast and lunch, they call it 'brunch,'" Tony paused, reflectively staring off into space, "but what do ya call it when ya do lunch and dinner together? Would that be 'linner,' ya think? Or 'lunchner'?... It wouldn't be 'dunch' or 'dunchner.' That would sound too weird, don't ya think?"

"You are not changing the subject, mister, so you might as well just stop trying. Tell me what happened then. He was going through a litany of 'romantic garbage' about Jane... and then he was reading your mind... and something about Jane and October... and a bear... Is Jane a zoologist? Yes or no!"

"It was a boy," Tony grinned, dropping into the chair that Michelle had occupied during breakfast. "A healthy, bouncing, 147-pound Kodiak. They named him Cody after Chris's cousin."

"Don't you dare get smart with me!" she seethed. "This is not the least bit funny—or fair! I have a right to know the end of that story."

"Fine," he relented with a deep sigh. "And then they lived happily ever... Owww!"

Tony rubbed the back of his head, feigning a stinging sensation where Michelle had landed the rolled-up Newsweek magazine she'd been waving around in a threatening manner for the past five minutes. Oddly, although the swat was as feebly weak as it could get, it had suddenly stirred the memory of his first dog, Peppy, whom the family's housekeeper had once swatted with a rolled-up Wall Street Journal, for which she had been promptly fired on the spot. Not for having swatted Peppy, but because she had used the holy book of Wall Street instead of the LA Times, which his Dad, an avowed Republican, still referred to as "that commie-pinko rag" to this day. And if disrespectfully mishandling the sacred journal hadn't been enough for the housekeeper to have sealed her own fate, she had rolled up the editorial section, which his Dad hadn't even finished reading yet.

"That hurt, Michelle," he lied, trying desperately not to laugh.

"You don't know what 'hurt' is, buddy," she fumed. "You start talking right now or you are gonna be in a world of hurt when I'm done with you!"

"Will pink fuzzy handcuffs and leather be involved? 'Cause I may have to get back to you on that," he smirked, reflexively bracing for another Newsweek delivery to the back of his head. But when none appeared to be forthcoming, he cautiously turned in his chair and glanced back at Michelle. She was absolutely livid.

Tony had already planned to fill in the blanks to the parts of the story Michelle had missed, only this time over "linner" at that new Thai place a couple of blocks away. He was actually grateful for the do-over opportunity and figured a restaurant would be more romantic than sitting at a breakfast table paying bills. He clearly remembered "restaurant" being on the list of romantic places in that extremely long men's magazine article he had read in the dentist's waiting room.

Besides, he was hungry again. And even though, by restaurant standards, four o'clock-ish was a little too late for lunch and way too early for dinner, the restaurant was brand new to a neighborhood saturated with competitors. Tony was certain that, under the circumstances, the proprietors weren't about to turn prospective long-term patrons away just for having shown up at an unorthodox hour. That would be corporate suicide, given the statistical odds against a new restaurant even surviving its first year.

But Tony had no intention of letting Michelle know of his plans to clue her in over linner just yet. He was having way too much fun tormenting her.

"You almost made me overpay the electric company by a thousand dollars, y'know," he facetiously complained, rising up from his seat to find the AmEx bill he just remembered having brought in from the mail the day before. Michelle trailed directly behind him, Newsweek clenched firmly in her pathetically weak fist.

"Don't make me have to get rough with you, buddy!" she threatened him loudly and clearly. "You seem to have conveniently forgotten that I'm an officer of the law who's gone through the same exact training as you, and trust me when I assure you that I will not hesitate, if necessary, to resort to—"

She seemed to be flying through the air. Wind and colors were suddenly passing her at amazing speeds on both sides of her peripheral field. She looked up from the carpet where she now seemed to be lying almost flat on her back, except that a strategically placed foot beneath her, slightly above her tailbone, appeared to have broken the fall that she couldn't quite remember having taken. She peered up at him through eyes that felt double their normal dimensions, although she couldn't quite recall offhand when they had begun to expand in size. Nor was she exactly sure why his hands were holding her by the shoulders as he coyly smiled down at her, terribly pleased with himself.

"You seem to have forgotten to pick up your hand-to-hand certification in Badass class," he chuckled with the same smug smile that the rookie would sport, following the extremely few times he had managed to put one over on her.

"You took fundamentally unfair advantage of me!" she accused, wanting to poke his chest with her fingertip, but having to settle for his denim-clad calf instead, since it was as far as her immobilized arm could reach. She was trying not to sound like too huge of a sore loser, but her inability to either free herself from the strategic, albeit gentle, hold he had on her shoulders, or to position her feet in such a way as to get back up on them again, was infuriating her more with every second that ticked by.

"How do you figure that?" Tony asked innocently, continuing to hold her in his favorite disarming position, wondering what the odds were of getting her to say "uncle." He hadn't even been successful in getting her to say "The Sperminator" yet, so he decided to put the idea on the back burner. "I thought we were both officers of the law who've gone through the exact same training," he reminded her of her own words.

"If you had allowed me to complete my sentence," she glared up at him, incensed, with icy eyes and a clenched jaw, "you would know that I had intended to go on to cite my near-perfect score at the firing range... as opposed to your own, if I might be so blunt as to remind you of."

"You're not gonna shoot me," he snickered confidently, easily drawing her back onto her feet in one smooth whisk. "You wouldn't have the heart," he said, casually strolling back to the table. "At least not according to what you were saying earlier on."

Michelle froze.

"Huh? ... When? Earlier when?" she asked, fearing the worst.

She was only too aware of her tendency to talk in her sleep. She had never even known that she did it until a couple of years ago. She and her brother Danny had slept in the twin beds in their Aunt Hildie's guest room when they'd spent a weekend painting the kitchen, hallway, and dining room for her, as they did together every year. Danny had razzed her the following morning, repeating a variety of statements he had coaxed out of her as she'd cooperatively murmured away, including the fact that she secretly despised their aunt's pet schnauzer; had always wanted to jump out of the cake at a bachelor party, just once in her life; and wished she had bigger breasts, but was afraid to go for silicone implants after having read a host of controversial reports regarding their ultimate safety in the long run.

None to Michelle's surprise, Tony ignored her direct question, as usual, opting instead to simply grin like the Cheshire cat and seat himself back down, leaving her standing there with her face systematically draining itself of color.

"What was I saying? When?" she demanded to know, stooping over to pick up the rumpled Newsweek magazine, feeling she'd likely be needing it again shortly.

As she tightly re-rolled it between her palms, she paused to give herself the recognition she felt she was due for the sting her swat had generated moments earlier, judging by how loudly he had yelped upon impact. Danny, on the other hand, always only laughed at her whenever she'd swat him with a magazine. But they had grown up in a household that had only subscribed to Reader's Digest and the TV Guide, both of which were small publications. The key to landing a blow she could really be proud of evidently rested in the standard, fuller-sized magazine. She made a mental note to pick up an issue of Vogue, which was generally twice as thick as his flimsy Newsweek. Or, better yet, a French Vogue, the thickness of which typically resembled the telephone book of a small city. In fact, she decided, that the minute he began to show signs of habitually withholding information from her, she would take out a subscription in his name and address, just to be sure she would always have a French Vogue on hand.

"I would repeat what ya said, only I'm not the type who kisses and tells," Tony nonchalantly informed her, positioning a stamp on the electric bill's return envelope and dabbing the flap with his tongue. "But I'll tell you this much," he added, struggling to keep a straight face. "I know you're not gonna shoot me, because you know that I know that you know… Well, suffice it to say that you don't hate me, okay? Quite the opposite, in fact."

"What 'fact'? What did I say! Out with it, mister!"

"Y'know, I'm gonna start putting you in the interrogation room more often. I mean that, honey," he frowned, as though suddenly appreciating the true brilliance behind the executive epiphany he'd just had. "Do you have any idea how much the Unit would save every year on torture devices, training, and specialized personnel just by subscribing annually to Newswe — oww!"

The magazine landed square across his bare shoulder blades this time as he had reached for the AmEx bill.

"Don't make me have to defend myself, Michelle," he warned her, struggling not to burst into uproarious laughter from how very much of a punch her wallop most definitely did not pack. The force that her delicate arm was able to muster was stunningly lightweight, in fact. She had better be a good shot, he chuckled to himself, because if she ever had to physically restrain a prisoner, she'd be laid up in the hospital for a month thereafter. He made a decision on the spot that he would be the one to train whatever puppies they might acquire over the years, convinced that any swat Michelle would apply in the housebreaking process would only make the dog laugh in her face.

"You know what? You're just making this all up," it suddenly dawned on her, accompanied by an enormously soothing sense of relief flooding her every molecule, knowing there was no way she would ever violate the code: not even in her sleep.

"How would you know one way or the other, even if I were?" he confidently smirked. "You were out like a light."

"Because the woman never says that kind of thing first. Not in her sleep. Not under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Not under any circumstances, ever. It's an unwritten code of the hills. The guy has to say it first. It's been that way for centuries."

"Oh, I see," Tony sing-sang with a patronizing smile as she suddenly felt her molecules beginning to tense up again. "Well, if that's the case, I guess I must be mistaken about what ya confessed to me, then."

Michelle's solar plexus clutched on the word "confessed," but she nevertheless decided to just toss in the towel at this point, since she was obviously getting nowhere with him, and resigned herself to possibly never knowing what she had told him in her sleep — not that she was entirely sure she even wanted to know. If she had told him about her desire to jump out of a cake, for instance, she might very well go on to become the first living soul to go down in the Guinness Book of World Records for having literally died of embarrassment.

She threateningly clapped the rolled-up Newsweek against the open palm of her hand a few more times, just to remind him of the damage she was both capable and willing to perpetrate upon him again in the future, if necessary.

"I'm gonna get you for this someday, Almeida. You mark my words," she leaned into him and vowed, speaking in a low, controlled voice only inches away from his face. "I'm gonna devise a way to make you just as crazy as you're making me, and you're never going to know when it's coming, either. I could spring it on you next week or five years from next week. Try sleeping at night with that in mind, okay, buddy boy?"

"Hey, I'll sleep just fine," he leaned in and further infuriated her with a quick kiss, "just as long as ya keep telling me stuff like you were saying before… Owww!" he whined, then broke into laughter, incapable of holding back the floodgates any longer, which only made her that much more irate. But nowhere close to the degree as when he took her Newsweek away from her by simply and effortlessly popping it out of her white-knuckled fist with the same ease he would a lollipop from the hand of a four-year-old.

"Wait… C'mere, baby. Come back. I'll stop laughing… I swear," he said, guffawing himself half-sick, with tears pouring out of his eyes, but nonetheless stretching his arms out to her, wanting to ease her frustration. He knew he couldn't have it both ways — easing her frustration and causing it, too — but felt it incumbent upon himself to at least give it a try.

"Don't you touch me, you behemoth!" she fumed, prompting him to double over in uncontrollable laughter upon realizing that he had no idea what a "behemoth" was. It was just one of those words he'd always meant to look up, but had just never gotten around to it. He fleetingly considered asking her what the definition was, but feared she might actually shoot him with his own weapon at that point.

"Okay, okay," he said, attempting to pull himself together and make peace with her again. "Just — just go get dressed, honey."

"I thought I was," she snapped, curiously staring down at his new white long-sleeved t-shirt with the big Cubs emblem on it, then up at him again as he pulled some paper towels from the rack, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose into them.

"Honey, don't use that, for Pete'ssake! What's wrong with you?" she chastised him, dangerously nearing her wits' end. "You're gonna make your skin all sore and irritated! Don't you know anything?"

It was completely beyond her how a man so intelligent could be so frighteningly ignorant at the same time, not only in the arena of feminine protection products, but common household paper goods, as well.

"No, I meant get dressed in your clothes. In that pretty dress."

"Why? Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you out to 'linner,'" he said, allowing a final stream to tears to flow from his behemoth eyeballs into the unacceptable paper toweling before Michelle forcibly snatched it from his hands, replacing it with the aloe-treated facial tissues she'd frenetically pulled from her purse. "Just hurry it up, okay, baby? I'm starving," he said, struggling to end his laughing jag before she became the first person in history to file for a divorce prior to marriage.

"But what about The Navarone Guns you were dying to see?" she asked.

"It's 'The Guns of Navarone,'" he flinched, as though someone had just hammered a nail through his head. He glanced upward while he blew his nose again, imploring the testosterone gods to have mercy on him for having hooked up with a woman capable of making so egregious an error. "It's too early to watch it," he informed her.

"Don't be silly, honey. It's a DVD. There's no set showtime. You can watch it anytime you like."

His hand moved up to his forehead, then down the length of his face.

"'The Guns' is a nighttime movie, Michelle. It's still daylight outside. You just don't understand," he shook his head, certain that the gods were shaking theirs, too, and signing him up for an eternal box seat in hell once his time on Earth had expired.

"Do you really like that dress?" she asked, unknowingly interrupting his appeal to the overlords for just a little more time to work with her.

"Yes, honey, very much. Speed it up, though, okay?" he pleaded, running cold water into the kitchen sink and leaning in to splash it in his face.

Michelle slowly headed toward the hallway, pausing momentarily before making the turn.

"So, umm… Is there anything... y'know... any one particular thing you happen to like about it?"

"About what," Tony answered, not certain if it was all right to dry his face with paper towels. But Michelle didn't look too distressed as he reached in their general direction, so he went ahead and took the chance.

"The dress. You said you thought it was pretty."

"It is, honey. I like those flowers on it," he mindlessly mumbled. "Why?"

"No reason," she said indifferently, lightly shrugging a shoulder. He looked up at her as she turned into the hallway, surprised to see such a bright, shy smile across her face, considering she had been beating him with a Newsweek and accusing him of behemoth-like behavior only mere minutes ago.

"Why?" he repeated curiously, catching up with her and trailing her into the bedroom.

"Nothing, dear. I just sort of... well, y'know, made it, is all. No big deal," she casually brushed it off, appearing a little embarrassed for even having brought it up in the first place.

"No way," Tony said gently, with a broad smile spreading, purposely injecting an element of shock and amazement into his reaction. "You made that? Get out of here…"

He did like the yellow flowers against the white background — or was it the other way around — but nowhere near as much as he loved the familiar light blush creeping across her cheeks as she worked to conceal her pride.

"It was no big deal, honestly, honey. It's just a sundress," she shrugged again, removing it from the closet. But from the nervousness in her voice alone, Tony could easily see that it was indeed a big deal to her. She obviously wasn't all that confident in her sewing abilities; nor did she seem so sure she had done a good job, evidenced by the way she peered closely at the stitching on one of the shoulder straps before laying the dress on the bed and smoothing it out with her hands.

He pulled out a shirt that his sister had given him and tossed it onto the bed, thinking Michelle would probably like the way that really pale, thin mint-green pinstripe running through it sort of matched the leaves in her dress. He went about pulling boxers, socks, and a relatively new pair of black jeans from his bureau drawer, noticing that she seemed to be glancing around the room in search of something.

"Hanging on the handle... in the tub," he reminded her, pulling her "matching set" bra from the underwear drawer and tossing it onto the bed. "Don't take forever, okay?" he implored her, feeling another hunger pain stab him in the gut.

He hurriedly slid out of his old jeans and began re-dressing himself, getting up to the point of one leg inside the black jeans before hearing a cell phone ring in the living room — his or hers, he couldn't tell which. But as he hobbled inside, his heart sank to his feet, fearing the absolute worst-case scenario: that it was CTU-related, and either he or she, or both of them, were being called in to handle something that could just as well have waited until Monday morning.

"Almeida," he cautiously said into the mouthpiece, only to exhale a huge sigh of relief a second later. "Mom… Yeah, good. What's going on," he said, struggling to cradle the tiny phone between his ear and shoulder without inadvertently hanging up on her as he danced his other leg into the jeans and dragged them up over his hips.

"No, Mom… Mom? … No, today's not good… Nah, I can't… 'Cause I'm in the middle of something… Mom? … Ma… I just told you I…"

He released a deep sigh as she steamrolled over him, wondering if he should allow his face to accidentally disconnect them, on second thought, and just take the heat when he called her back a few hours later, pleading dead-battery. He leaned a hand against his hip, silently and patiently standing and listening as she reiterated the fine details of a situation he already knew all about.

"Well… what about Mrs. Madison? … Maddigan. Right. Why did you even bother hiring her if— But, Mom," he said, closing his eyes and dropping his chin down to his chest. Please, Lord, no; please not today, he thought in disbelief. "So why can't Lou just put in a couple of hours of overtime, if that's the case?" he griped, then rolled his eyes at himself for having forgotten that Lou's little girl was back in the hospital for yet another orthopedic surgery on the leg she had badly broken two years back.

"Look, Mom, I don't know what to tell ya, but today is so out of the question, it isn't even funny… Nah, it's not that… No… Mom, it's just something, y'know, personal, okay? … No, I feel fine, I swear… No, I don't wanna speak to Dad about it…"

He shut his eyes again, a little more tightly this time, knowing he was losing a battle he was never going to have won in the first place. He rubbed his fingertips back and forth across his forehead, quickly formulating an alternate plan of action in his head.

"Geeziz… Yeah, I know, Ma, but… Yeah, I understand all that, but… Fine… Geeziz… No, fine, okay?… Yeah, I'm angry! Why? Is that gonna change anything? … Here, take down the address I'm gonna be at. Do ya have a pencil? … No, you call Lou and tell him the address. I'm in the middle of something here… Huh? … What's whose name? … Mom… Ma… Just go get a pencil, okay? I'll hold… I'm not being fresh, Mom. I'm just in a hurry. Can ya go get a pencil? ... Fine. Fine. Can ya please just go get a pencil? How's that? ... Geeziz..."

Michelle frowned, wondering what all the commotion was about inside as she slid out of her Cubs t-shirt and into her "matching set." His words were too muffled to discern whom it was he was barking at. It couldn't be Chappelle. He barked differently at Chappelle, she calmly reminded herself, saying a quiet prayer that whatever was riling him up was anything in the world other than CTU-related. It would break her heart if they had to go in.

Silence. Except for the sound of the refrigerator door opening.

"I hope you're not wrecking your appetite," she called out to him. "I'm ready to walk out the door in three minutes, tops, dear."

"It's just milk," he called back, hastily taking another long slug directly from the container and returning it to the refrigerator shelf before Michelle could emerge and give him grief for not using a glass, as every other woman in his life had religiously done from the day he was born. He invested a quiet moment in shaking off his anger and frustration before returning to the bedroom. He refused to allow his mother's ill-timed request — make that adamant insistence — to interfere with his time with Michelle.

"Who was that?" she asked, groping at the buttons on the back of her dress, instantly feeling her snoop antennae go up as he reentered the bedroom.

"A surprise," he said, putting on a happy face and sliding into his shirt. "You're gonna love it."

"Tell me," she said.

"No, and don't start," he replied, turning her around to fasten the remaining buttons. "Y'know, I still can't believe you made this," he commented, happy to change the subject, and for yet another opportunity to make a little bit more of a fuss. "Who helped you with it, anyway?"

"No one, silly. I did it myself," she casually announced, nervously smoothing her palms across the thigh area. "Why? Does it look complicated?"

"Well," he said, spending a moment giving it some thought, "it looks like there's an awful lot of stuff involved here… Y'know, ya got the straps, for one thing… Then the front's sewn onto the back, and the back's got that opening, and everything… Then all these little buttons… Where do ya even go to buy something like that, anyway? Ya never see them around, like in a supermarket, or anything…"

It was all she could do not to laugh out loud.

"You buy buttons right in the fabric store, silly," she informed him, wondering which rock he'd just crawled out from under. "They've got zillions of them in every imaginable size, shape, pattern and color."

"Ah," was all he said, probably feeling a little foolish right about now, Michelle assumed. Men. If there were suddenly no women on Earth anymore, men would all be walking around with their shirts wide open, not a one of them having any idea where to go to purchase buttons, she was certain of it. In fact, who was she kidding: they wouldn't even bother wearing shirts anymore. Dispensing with the dress code would likely be the first thing they would do. Bare chests would become the new norm, and sports jerseys would serve as standard fare on formal occasions.

She suddenly felt a delayed rush of exhilaration course through her. She couldn't believe he had thought someone must have helped her; it could only mean that the dress had turned out better than she had thought. It was hard for her to be objective, but overall, she felt she had done a reasonably decent job under the accelerated circumstances; especially given that buttonholes had been involved. She was embarrassingly pathetic at that. For whatever the reason, she just couldn't seem to get the hang of it.

"Y'know, I could make you something, too, if you like," she mentioned nonchalantly.

"You're kidding me," he said, moving to the bureau and quickly dragging a comb through his hair with the usual four careless strokes.

"Nah. What would you like? I mean, I can't really make a coat, or anything exceptionally complex like that, but..."

"Well, good thing we live in sunny California, in that case, huh?" he lightly offered in the hopes of easing her concerns, entering the bathroom to quickly brush his teeth while she finished gathering her hair into a ponytail-ish kind of thing at the top of her head.

"So, what do you think you would like?" she smiled excitedly as he returned to the dresser. He paused to tuck in his shirttails and slide on a belt before picking up his watch. He thought hard for a few moments, or at least tried to make it appear that way, and purposely threw a frown into his expression, while he was at it. It would increase the illusion that he was busy giving deep and serious consideration to her exciting offer, he felt.

"You're saying I could have anything I want, basically? I mean, short of something excessively complicated, like a coat?"

"Basically," she answered casually, trying not to come off as too boastful or pretentious about her talents.

"Hmmm," he said, blending a little awe into his tone before returning to his thoughts.

It didn't really matter what she ended up making for him. If the thing ended up having three sleeves, he would still gush over it as if it were couture that had fallen into his hands straight off the runway of whichever the hottest design house was these days. It was Michelle's pride in her creation, coupled with her timid desire to tell him that she'd made it herself, that warmed his heart to no end. She'd reminded him of a kid showing her mother a drawing she'd done in school, a little uncertain about having colored the dog purple, but bursting with pride and newfound security in her decision upon watching her mother proudly adhere her drawing to the refrigerator door.

Dying of suspense, Michelle crossed over to him and assumed the task of buckling the wristband, hoping that eliminating his need to multi-task might speed the decision-making process along. He quietly petted her hair with his free hand, noticing her periodically glancing up at him, trying to determine if he was genuinely impressed with her ability to sew, or just leading her on and pulling her leg.

"Y'know, I think I'd like a surprise, actually," he said with a serious, thoughtful frown and a nod of his head as she completed her band-buckling task and patted his wrist. "I kinda like surprises, to tell ya the truth."

She made a mental note of that.

"Okay," she chirped, greatly relieved of now having the option to make something on the easier side, like a cotton bathrobe, instead of having to stick with whatever he'd decided on, which might have been something more complicated, such as a shirt with a slew of buttons. All it took was one screwed-up buttonhole to doom an entire shirt, she knew only too well.

He fished a sports jacket out the closet and mechanically filled its pocket with the usual necessities. "Don't forget your cell," he reminded her as he reminded himself.

He took a quiet moment to communicate with the gods again, asking them to take note that the woman sewed. That had to count for something. After all, how many women sewed these days, just like back in the Old West? The days of John Wayne, when men were men and women were women, and that was pretty much all there was to it? Surely he deserved extra points for having found a woman of such high caliber and bygone talent. Especially when you factored in that she also had less power behind her magazine swats than even his mother, and probably threw a ball like a girl, too.

He suddenly felt a great sense of relief flooding through him as he watched her perform her final task of slipping on a slinky pair of sandals, with a slender little high-heel like the kind women always wore in those great old movies from back in the 50's. Maybe that box seat in hell wasn't quite as etched in stone as he had originally presumed. Maybe he still had a shot, once his time on Earth had expired, at being eternally seated at the right hand of John Wayne after all.