Beyond Evolution

For the record, David Insbruck thought he had hit the lottery. Rogue wasn't pulling any punches, learning a harsh lesson in her own journal upon discovering her friends' had placed her on eHarmony, and she had decided that night that enough was finally enough. For starters, nothing in her closet would do. Granted, she tried to put something decent together but each ensemble drew a bored or frustrated sigh and thus she tracked down Lorna. They were the same height and sort of close in weight, but Lorna obviously had decidedly better taste in 'going out' clothes and Rogue was delighted by the bevy of dresses she had to choose from. She'd settled on an above-the-knee, clingy black number and a pair of peep-toe heels even though there was six inches of snow on the ground and counting, and of course she did her hair and make-up to match.

He'd picked her up promptly at 7:00PM at the gate, where she had already be waiting to avoid any of the weird misgivings he might have had given the address, and he went about the gentlemanly task of getting out and opening the door for her, beaming with pleasure that she looked better than the pictures Cal had posted. "So, Marie, tell me about yourself," he inquired, inciting little more than a wry smile and a nervous laugh, hinting at the various complications in her life and perhaps some of the very reasons why she was sitting in the car with a perfect stranger to begin with. "Oh, well I work at a school," it began and she was doing it all right for the most part. She was pretty, had a nice body, was dressed for sexual success and she was able to keep up her end of the small talk. Rogue liked that he only knew her as Marie. The double-life angle made her feel secretively mysterious but it's not like she could talk about it, and as the drive continued on, the questions started becoming more difficult to answer. "What grade do you teach?" "Oh, well I don't really teach." "Well what do you do?" Why couldn't he just accept her first answer? Were dates really like job interviews? Rogue didn't know, she'd never been on one. "Oh, I umm, I make sure the kids stay out of trouble." That seemed to satiate him long enough to make it to the restaurant, although the lulls in their conversation were growing longer and longer.

It was a nice restaurant -- French, if Rogue recalled. She'd ordered a poulet of some kind and immediately thought of both Remy and Adrien, biting her lipsticked lower lip and staring nervously across the table at the person she was actually on a date with. He'd ordered them wine and nobody thought to ask Rogue for I.D., but she was only months shy of her twenty-first and what could one glass of wine hurt? "I really shouldn't," she demurred in her honey-sweet Southern accent, watching as her glass was filled with a Burgundy that would be the cure-all for the date. "They said it could interfere with my medicine," she offered, even though Dave never asked and Rogue turned red in the face, grabbing up her glass and drinking it like water. Dave stared, wide-eyed, and laughed nervously in return. "Thirsty huh? We should probably order..." And there fell an uncomfortable silence between them. The waiter came and took their orders and disappeared again, and it was then that Rogue felt the first wave of liquid courage. "Ya know, it's nice goin' out like this. Remy'd never do anythin' like this. He damn near threw me out a window for wishin' him a Merry Christmas," Rogue sassed, still angry apparently and making Dave kind of uncomfortable in the process. "Oh y-yeah? Whose Remy? Nevermind, I don't actually want to know," Dave frowned. Unfortunately, it didn't stop Rogue from continuing on. "I mean, I guess it's because of the concentration camps. No-one's been the same since then," she sort of rambled and blurted, Dave's face contorting into sheer disbelief. Rogue saw immediately that she shouldn't have said that, shutting herself up with more wine which only seemed to exacerbate the suckfest she was making this. Man, it was hitting her hard and fast, her green eyes glazing over and goofily squinting up at the waiter when he arrived at the table to top her off.
( Well, umm, our food should be here any moment.. )