“She’s the one with the children?”
K.O. nodded.
“Do you have children?”
LaVonne answered for her. “Katherine is single, the same as you, Wynn.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he returned.
K.O. thought she might have detected a smirk in his reply. “It doesn’t surprise me that you’re single, either,” she said, elevating her chin. “No woman in her right mind—”
“My dears,” LaVonne murmured. “You’re being silly.”
K.O. didn’t respond, and neither did Wynn. “Don’t you want to hear what I saw in my cereal?”
Phillip purred contentedly as LaVonne continued to stroke his fluffy white fur.
“The future came to me and I saw—” she paused for effect “—I saw the two of you. Together.”
“Arguing?” Wynn asked.
“No, no, you were in love. Deeply, deeply in love.”
K.O. placed her hand over her heart and gasped, and then almost immediately that remark struck her as the most comical thing she’d ever heard. The fact that LaVonne was reading her future, first in cat litter and now Raisin Bran, was ridiculous enough, but to match K.O. up with Wynn— It was too much. She broke into peals of laughter. Pressing her hand over her mouth, she made an effort to restrain her giggles.
Wynn looked at her curiously.
LaVonne frowned. “I’m serious, Katherine.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. LaVonne, you’re my friend and my neighbor, but I’m sorry, it’ll never happen. Never in a million years.”
Wynn straightened. “While Katherine and I clearly don’t see eye to eye on any number of issues, I tend to agree with her on this.”
LaVonne sighed expressively. “Our instructor, Madam Ozma, warned us this would happen,” she said with an air of sadness. “Unbelievers.”
“It isn’t that I don’t believe you,” K.O. rushed to add. She didn’t want to offend LaVonne, whose friendship she treasured, but at the same time she found it difficult to play along with this latest idea of hers. Still, the possibility of a romance with just about anyone else would have suited her nicely.
“Wynn?” LaVonne said. “May I ask how you feel about Katherine?”
“Well, I didn’t officially meet her until this morning.”
“I might’ve given him the wrong impression,” K.O. began. “But—”
“No,” he said swiftly. “I think I got the right impression. You don’t agree with me and I had the feeling that for some reason you don’t like me.”
“True...well, not exactly. I don’t know you well enough to like or dislike you.”
LaVonne clapped her hands. “Perfect! This is just perfect.”
Both K.O. and Wynn turned to her. “You don’t really know each other, isn’t that correct?” she asked.
“Correct,” Wynn replied. “I’ve seen Katherine around the building and on Blossom Street occasionally, but we’ve never spoken—until the unfortunate incident this morning.”
K.O. felt a little flustered. “We didn’t start off on the right foot.” Then she said in a conciliatory voice, “I’m generally not as confrontational as I was earlier today. I might’ve gotten a bit...carried away. I apologize.” She did feel guilty for having embarrassed him and, in the process, herself.
Wynn’s dark eyebrows arched, as if to say he was pleasantly surprised by her admission of fault.
“We all, at one time or another, say things we later regret,” LaVonne said, smiling down on Phillip. She raised her eyes to K.O. “Isn’t that right, Katherine?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“And some of us,” she went on, looking at Wynn, “make hasty judgments.”
He hesitated. “Yes. However in this case—”
“That’s why,” LaVonne said, interrupting him, “I took the liberty of making a dinner reservation for the two of you. Tonight—at seven-thirty. An hour from now.”
“A dinner reservation,” K.O. repeated. Much as she liked and respected her neighbor, there was a limit to what she was willing to do.
“It’s out of the question,” Wynn insisted.
“I appreciate what you’re doing, but...” K.O. turned to Wynn for assistance.
“I do, as well,” he chimed in. “It’s a lovely gesture on your part. Unfortunately, I have other plans for this evening.”
“So do I.” All right, K.O.’s plans included eating in front of the television and watching Jeopardy, and while those activities might not be anything out of the ordinary, they did happen to be her plans.
“Oh, dear.” LaVonne exhaled loudly. “Chef Jerome Ray will be so disappointed not to meet my friends.”
If Wynn didn’t recognize the name, K.O. certainly did. “You know Chef Jerome Ray?”
“Of Chez Jerome?” Wynn inserted.
“Oh, yes. I did his taxes for years and years. What most people don’t realize is that Jerome is no flash in the pan, if you’ll excuse the pun. In fact, it took him twenty years to become an overnight success.”
The Seattle chef had his own cooking show on the Food Network, which had become an immediate hit. His techniques with fresh seafood had taken the country by storm. The last K.O. had heard, it took months to get a reservation at Chez Jerome.
“I talked to Jerome this afternoon and he said that as a personal favor to me, he would personally see to your dinner.”
“Ah...” K.O. looked at Wynn and weighed her options.
“Dinner’s already paid for,” LaVonne said in an encouraging voice, “and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.”
A nuked frozen entrée and Jeopardy, versus one dinner with a slightly contentious man in a restaurant that would make her the envy of her friends. “I might be able to rearrange my plans,” K.O. said after clearing her throat. Normally she was a woman of conviction. But in these circumstances, for a fabulous free dinner, she was willing to compromise.
“I think I can do the same,” Wynn muttered.
LaVonne smiled brightly and clapped her hands. “Excellent. I was hoping you’d say that.”
“With certain stipulations,” Wynn added.
“Yes,” K.O. said. “There would need to be stipulations.”
Wynn scowled at her. “We will not discuss my book or my child-rearing philosophies.”
“All right,” she agreed. That sounded fair. “And we’ll...we’ll—” She couldn’t think of any restriction of her own, so she said, “We refuse to overeat.” At Wynn’s frown, she explained, “I’m sort of watching my weight.”
He nodded as though he understood, which she was sure he didn’t. What man really did?
“All I care about is that the two of you have a marvelous dinner, but I know you will.” LaVonne smiled at them both. “The raisins have already assured me of that.” She studied her watch, gently dislodged Phillip and stood. “You’ll need to leave right away. The reservation’s under my name,” she said and ushered them out the door.
Before she could protest or comment,