All You Can Eat

A swelling classical tune piped through the single speaker in the top corner of the box of a room. Marge, from her spot across from Tony, bobbed her head, stilling the quivering up-and-down motion of her knee that'd been happening on and off ever since Mark left. Tony caught her eye, licking his lips and placing his used napkin down on his plate so gently it was like he was laying the delicate corpse of a dove to rest. He smiled tightly.

"I think that's Beethoven, wouldn't you agree?"

"Whatever it is, it's beautiful," she answered, trying to keep her eyes from drifting to the camera in the corner opposite the speaker.

"Guys," Erin said, from where she sat, head down, stirring her partially eaten meat into the exquisitely honeyed carrots, "Do you think he's seeing someone else?"

They both knew she meant Mark. Tony and Marge exchanged a brief glance before Marge reached out and put a hand over their friend's.

"I think you're thinking too deeply into it, hon," she said. "He's had a rough week with being fired. And you know how he gets- storming out over a slight. He's probably just got home now, and he's already probably regretting leaving like some toddler having a tantrum."

"Guy's a jerk," Tony volunteered, swirling the remaining wine in his glass. "Too bad he missed the second course, Mark loves a good pork chop.”

Erin sniffed, looking between him. "You really think he's home? I've been feeling like-"

"Of course he's home," Marge snapped, before softening her tone. "You should finish your food."

"Oh, I couldn't. I'm full."

Marge looked across at Tony. Tony raised his eyebrows. At that moment, a sharp knock sounded on the door. Everyone went still. Tony, as he was annoyingly wont to do, started humming under his breath. The knob turned and a white-coated chef appeared at the side of their table just as the music from the speaker crashed to a halt.

"Good evening, good evening," the chef crowed. He was a tall, slightly stooped man with a sweat-stamped brow. “Congratulations on making it this far in my exclusive all-you-can-eat extravaganza. You, my lucky guinea pigs, get to try each four delicious courses for free in exchange for your review. There is a special prize waiting for one lucky winner at the end- whomever manages to lick each course clean. But you already knew all that. I and the rest of the staff at LaCasse Fine Dining appreciate your considerable patience in waiting for each recipe to be made. Now, what were everyone's thoughts on the glazed honey pork chop?"

"Delicious," Tony proclaimed, leaning back in his chair, though Marge had noticed him making the particular face he tended to make when he thought meat was a little dry. The chef's shiny face turned to Marge, his teeth lighting up like a series of long white piano keys under his mustachioed lip.

"Wonderful," Marge breathed, though she had found it a little gamey. The chef- Lizaborton, as he'd introduced himself when they’d first sat down- flashed those large white teeth again and turned to Erin. It was here that his fluorescent smile flickered out of existence.

"But how can this be?" he asked. "Mademoiselle, you have not finished your meal. At this stage of the challenge-"

Erin stood up. Her chair made a scraping noise on the ground that made Tony flinch. "I'm good," she said. "I don't mean to be rude, but I should be getting back now. I'm disqualified anyway, right?"

Lizaborton blinked at her, then smiled, close-lipped this time. Marge thought it was strange those giant teeth of his could fit beyond those lips. Horse-teeth, her mother would have called them if her mother had still been alive.

"Sadly, yes," he said. "Not to worry, though! I will show you out."

Erin followed the chef through the door into the wood-panelled hall they had all entered through.

"Doesn't sound like they've got a crowd up there yet," Tony commented, cocking his ear in the direction of the door. They'd entered through a mostly deserted restaurant, low lamps glimmering in the center of tables, the same classical music playing that piped into their little back room now.

"Maybe it's an off night," Marge said. "It's Tuesday isn't it? A lot of restaurants are closed on Tuesdays."

"That's Mondays, I think," Tony said, after a waiter came to serve them a second bottle of wine. "About the restaurants."

"I think you'll find it's both," Marge said lightly. This was one of the things she liked the most about Tony's friendship; they could exchange light back and forth in even the worst situations. Not that this was one of those- no, this was a wonderful outing! She looked at the camera in the corner and took a deep sip of her wine.

"You've got to let it breath a little," Tony chuckled. "Say, it's dark outside, isn't it?"

If his voice held a note of worry he masked it well. Marge didn't need to look- she'd seen the window coming in and it had been dark then too. Tony didn't have an eye for detail like she did.

"5 pm is an early sunset this time of year," he mused, frowning slightly into his wineglass. "But! I suppose it makes for a wonderful ambiance! Why, you and me here together in this private room with this," he gestured around him as if lost for words, "fine, sumptuous fare. It's almost like we're back in college again on a date."

"Oh, stop." The man hadn't changed in thirty years. She couldn't tell if it was annoying or charming. After they'd waited, drinking their wine and letting their stomachs breathe for a half hour or so, the door from the hallway pushed back in and the same waiter who'd brought the wine came bearing two heaping plates. Despite the load already in her belly, Marge found the scent delectable.

"Here we have a filet mignon in garlic butter sauce with crispy onions and shallots, served over a bed of horseradish mashed potatoes."

"Oh my god, give it to me," Tony said, and they all laughed before the man ducked, bowing out of the room again. Marge cut into her steak; rich pink-red juice leaked out beneath her knife, which sunk in like butter.

"This doesn't look quite like any steak I've ever had before." The comment tripped unchecked from her mouth.

"No," Tony said, midchew. "Ish betther. Thish guysh a geniush."

"Close your mouth when you chew. You know that's why I broke up with you."

Tony swallowed. "It's a different reason every time," he said with fake moroseness. "I wonder what Erin and Mark are doing now. Macking out. Making up. Missing out."

"I wish you wouldn't bring them up," Marge said. The music in the speakers sputtered, skipping the slightest bit. "I mean," she amended, "They're just such buzzkills. I don't know what we ever saw in them."

"Aw, they weren't so bad," Tony said, then dropped his fork and put his hand to his mouth. Marge stared at him, and after a moment or two he began to cough, bringing his napkin up to wipe his mouth. “I must be getting old. This is the second time this week I've almost choked on my supper."

Marge looked back around at the camera. She couldn't help it. The music briefly came to an end, but was immediately picked up again- a swelling classical piece that sounded like something she'd heard before.

"So what do you think you're going to do if you win this thing?" Tony asked. "Half a mill is nothing to scoff at."

Marge had a mouthful of velvety, tangy potato in her mouth and she took some time to finish chewing and swallow before she answered.

"I was thinking the down payment on the Breckenridge house."

Tony looked at her, his blue eyes intent.

"Still?"

Marge snorted. "Yes, still. What, you think an old lady can’t have a dream home anymore?”

"It's not that, it's just-"

"I know, you never got why I liked it so much.”

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," a smooth voice rang out, and they both turned to see Chef Lizaborton standing in the door. His narrow, tall frame filled the narrow, tall opening into the hall. His long white teeth gleamed at them in an impossibly wide smile. "I see we have two people here who know the value of a good meal!"

Tony finished his last bite of meat and tipped his wine glass at Lizaborton with a roguish wink that would at one point in time have made Marge swoon. "It was divine!" he said. "Hats off to the chef!"

Lizaborton chuckled, bowed, and turned his long white grin on Marge. "And you, my lady?"

"Delicious," she said, resting her fork in the center of her now-empty plate. They brought new silverware with every course here, imagine that! Most places you had to practically beg for the first set.

"Excellent, excellent!" Lizaborton crowed, bowing to each of them in turn. I'll get out of your hair then, and leave you to enjoy-"

"Excuse me," Tony said. "But where would I find the restroom?"

"Oh, not to worry, sir, follow me."

Tony got up, but before he followed the chef out he leaned over the table, looking Marge in the eyes.

"Just so you know," he said, "I was going to spend it on the same thing."

"But you hated that house-“

"For you," he said and winked.

The waiter came back to refresh her wine and darted away again, the door slapping closed behind him. Marge was furious. What was he playing at, leaving her with that? Tears threatened to prick her eyes but she jammed them back; she would not let him do this to her. This was the real reason she'd broken up with him. He'd always been too selfless, too absurd. You couldn't thrive with someone like that, who always made you feel bad in comparison. Marge ran her hands over the luscious cream-colored tablecloth and then turned to face the window properly. Dark as hell out there. Then, since she was alone, she reached out and touched it. The slightly chalky, coated feeling of paint met her fingers.

She'd known as soon as she saw it, and how clever really! Deprivation of sight-seeing forced you to focus on nothing but the food, so that you didn't miss a single flavor. Marge was really good with directions and could visualize what she'd see outside anyway: the back parking lot, the poles shooting out of the ground, the stuttering lights flicking on as dusk tinged the sky a rosy pink. And below it all, the cracked pavement, the grass forcing its way in thick bunches through the suppuration and the cars sitting there side by side, engines long grown cold. Hers. Tony's.

Erin's. Mark's.

The music skipped and then started again, and she realized why she'd felt odd about it- it was the same song, played over and over on a seemingly infinite loop. It was Beethooven, too. Moonlight Sonata.

The door to her little dining cubicle flew open and she turned to see Chef Lizaborton's enormous toothy grin. It seemed like his teeth were growing, getting longer and whiter, though that was impossible- funny, though, the imagination she still had at her advanced age!

"Madam," he said, affecting a bow. "I wanted to deliver you the final course in person. Please accept my heartfelt congratulations for making it this far- but I hope you've left some room: this one's a little decadent; I couldn't let you get off light!"

He set the single dish before her and removed the cover with a flourish.

"Bon appetit!”

There was no vegetable or starch in this, the final course. The hunk of oddly-shaped meat sat in the center of the plate, cut just slightly down the middle. There was a savory brown gravy poured over the muscly girth of it, running down its rare, veiny sides and spreading out towards the edges of the plate. Marge picked up her fork and looked directly down the middle, where that thick sauce pooled, seeping down into every ventricle. She almost felt that she could hear the slow drip as it seeped into all four chambers and for a split-second she thought she saw something too: a brief pulse of movement. With a shaky laugh, Marge decided she must be going crazy, because for a moment it had seemed that the tender, selfless heart before her might still be beating.