Show my cards, give you my heart Who: Derrick and Elaine When: Eight p.m. Where: Nice restuarant in Ann Arbor
Derrick's resolve to not talk to Elaine until she talked to him first hadn't lasted all that long. And by 'all that long' he meant 'two days'. Two days and then he'd called her up to tell her about the reservation that he'd made at what he thought was her favorite place in Ann Arbor. It wasn't that big, but it was nice and the food was good. They had candles too. Derrick believed that candles were very important. True, they'd been having arguments lately, but that always happened. His parents had argued all of the time. People who thought that everyone was just happy and smiling all of the time were idiots or they were witches who'd figured out some really good, really strong spells. Derrick was working on one of his own that would at least help out with getting Elaine to be more cooperative and less of an independently-minded woman who was going around moving into other guy's apartments and using other people's names. There was a difference between acceptably spirited and overly independent. Elaine didn't play jump-rope with that line, she straight out existed on the wrong side of it. Most people would have found someone else, but Derrick didn't want to. Derrick wanted Elaine, he had permission from her parents and he was going to do it.
And she'd say yes. What else could she say to him? They worked together when she wasn't being deliberately difficult.
Usually Derrick would've wanted to arrive together, but he'd needed to be in Ann Arbor for a few classes so he'd agreed to meet Elaine at the restaurant at eight p.m. He'd arrived early, he was always early, and had made sure to order an appetizer along with the best bottle of champagne they had. Because champagne was traditional according to multiple sources and why wouldn't Derrick be completely traditional at least when it came to this? He'd dressed in a nice suit, spent extra time making sure that his hair looked good... he'd even made sure that the waiter knew to not even mention any sort of bird when he talked about what the specials were. Derrick wasn't really clear on how Elaine felt when it came to eating things like pheasant -- wasn't it natural for merlins to kill smaller birds? -- or quail, so he'd figured he'd just play it safe. Nothing could be allowed to upset Elaine tonight. Everything had to be perfect so that her mood was perfect and she wouldn't start any arguments with him. His eyes flicked down to his watch as the minute hand ticked to eight and then he glanced at the door, just hoping that she'd have the decency to arrive on time for once.