Adele returned from the kitchen after putting up the wine and briefly checking on dinner to find Joaquin and Aidan sitting on the couch chatting in what would have been a casual manner had Joaquin not been blushing furiously and clutching her favorite cushion so tightly her fingernails were likely to tear through the fabric.

“…oddly enough, in my figurative work I’m very inspired by the sculptures of Rodin, I just love his use of planes and the way he breaks up space.”

“Yeah, I can really see that in your charcoal pieces, now that you mention it. I probably never would’ve made the connection though, because they’re two such different mediums.”

“Who would you say influences your work the most?” Joaquin asked, glancing up briefly at Aidan.

“Probably the surrealists, all the way back to Bosch. At least on an intellectual level. Stylistically I’m very intrigued by printmaking, especially bold wood cut prints.”

“Speaking of art,” Adele chirped as she sat on the arm of the couch behind Joaquin, “how’s Tortured Number One coming along?”

Aidan grinned. “Oh, I couldn’t find my gold paint, so I decided to go ahead and take it to the repair shop after all.”

“Pity, it could’ve made you a fortune.”

“I know. It’s gonna cost me a fortune instead.”

“What?” Joaquin finally asked.

“My bike,” Aidan said, “didn’t Adele tell you about our little brush with death yesterday?”

“Yeah, she did, but, huh?” Joaquin said hesitantly, looking over her shoulder at Adele.

“We got the bike in the trunk of my car,” she explained, “and decided that if it were painted gold and had a plaque explaining an obscure metaphor it’d be a fantastic example of modern art.”

“Yeah I could definitely see that at a gallery,” Joaquin mused. “Between a stack of disused Frosted Flakes shipping crates and half a dozen baby dolls impaled on spikes.”

“I think I’ve been to that exhibit,” Aidan agreed.

A buzzer went off and Adele jumped up. “Dinner should be almost ready. Come on Jo, you get to help.”

“Do you need me to do anything?” Aidan asked.

“You any good at opening wine? I always break the cork and Jo, well,” she smiled.

“I’m completely useless,” Jo frowned.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he shrugged and followed them into the kitchen.

The topic of conversation over diner had drifted from the series of landscapes Aidan was working on to the mathematical nature of Seaurat’s color theory to the varying ideal female form over the last four hundred years. When Adele had tried to change the subject by mentioning a movie she’d been wanting to see, the topic somehow mutated from how brilliantly insane Wagons East was to some sort of Pop Art movement.

“Of course Warhol is the undisputed king of Pop Art,” Aidan said, “but I think even he knew that what he was doing was frivolous. I mean look at The Factory, he had other people doing most of his work, he knew that as long as it had his name on it he could make money and people would think he was hip, and he was okay with that.”

“I absolutely agree,” Joaquin breathed. “Takes the idea of post modernism to the extreme, the art is very self-aware.”

“In a society like ours though it’s pretty hard to find art that doesn’t know it’s art.”

“Very true.”

Despite his sincere tone, it was obvious Aidan was bored with the conversation. Which Joaquin probably would have realized if she had at any point been able to look him in the eye, which she hadn’t. He poured himself another glass of wine and Adele decided that it was probably a hint that she should do something before he ended up getting completely plastered.

“So is everyone ready for dessert?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Aidan smiled, pausing to fill both her wine glass and Joaquin’s. “Dinner was wonderful, by the way.”

“Oh, thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“Do you like apple pie?” Joaquin asked tentatively.

“She’s such an American isn’t she,” Adele teased.

“I’ll have you know it’s a French recipe, thank you,” Joaquin countered, “there’s nothing American about it. It’s also the only worthwhile dessert I can make without the smoke alarm going off and some form of emergency response being called in.”

“You should’ve seen the destruction last time she tried to make instant pudding.”

“Now I’m a little worried, but sure, I’ll live on the edge,” Aidan chuckled. “I’d love some pie.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and pick out a CD to listen to while Jo and I clean up and get dessert ready,” Adele suggested as they all stood from the table. She pointed him in the direction of the small stereo system in the next room. Joaquin took a deep drink from her wine glass.

“You’re sure you don’t need any help in the kitchen?” Aidan asked.

“No, we’ve got it under control,” Adele nodded, and as soon as his back was turned, she dragged Joaquin and her glass into the kitchen.

“What was that for?” Joaquin demanded, rubbing her arm where Adele had grabbed her.

“Jo, do you really think that Aidan wants to sit around and talk about art all night?”

“What? Why? He’s an artist after all.”

“So are you, but we never talk about art,” Adele pointed out. “The poor man spends all week trying to deal with you and all his freakish art students – do you want me to spend all weekend asking you about your fonts and kerning and transparency masks or whatever it is you do at your job? Give him a break for god’s sake.”

“But art’s the only thing I can talk about and sound vaguely intelligent,” Joaquin whined as she ran her finger around the lip of her glass.

“Sure, you sound smart but you’re also bloody annoying.”

“Well then what am I supposed to talk about?”

“I don’t know, you seemed pretty happy to talk about bad 60s pop groups all last night.”

“Yeah, but that was just Leo and Ben.”

“And this is just Aidan.”

“He’s not just Aidan,” Joaquin pouted quietly.

Adele sighed and rubbed her temple with two fingers. “If you ever want to get laid you’re—”

“This has nothing to do with anybody wanting to get laid,” Joaquin interrupted, but Adele ignored her and continued.

“You’re going to have to at least pretend like you’re a normal human being. Just for a little while. Do you think you can try and do that? For me?”

“Not with my genetic makeup.”

“If this keeps up I’m sending you back to your parents, you can find out how their sex seminar went.”

“I never want to have sex again,” Joaquin cringed.

“Go take a peek at Aidan,” Adele said smugly, nodding towards the living room. “Then come back and tell me that.”

Joaquin scowled at Adele, who fixed her with a “you know I’m right and there’s nothing you can do about it” glare. Giving a short huff of exasperated breath, Joaquin sulked out of the kitchen to start clearing the table, followed closely by Adele.

“You guys have got quite an album collection,” Aidan mused as he noticed the girls in the next room.

“Thanks,” Adele chirped, stacking the empty plates.

“I had a terrible time getting mine through customs,” Joaquin said, watching as he plucked a couple of CDs from her shelf. She didn’t trust herself to pick up a fragile dish while concentrating on speaking for fear she’d do something more to embarrass herself. “I think they thought I was a bootlegger or something.”

Aidan gave an appreciative laugh. “Yeah Jo, you really strike me as the criminal mastermind type.” He put one of the CDs back and continued his search. Joaquin scurried into the kitchen with the empty salad bowl and the leftover chicken. Abandoning the dishes on the counter, she moved to the oven to take out the pie that had been warming there.

Aidan and Adele were chatting in the next room, but Joaquin could only pick out a few words as she pulled a carton of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. “How about this,” she heard Aidan say. She leaned back against the refrigerator, fully expecting to hear some Bach, maybe Scott Joplin or one of the more mellow Whitlams albums. When the opening track of one of Adele’s favorite and oft-played Depeche Mode albums began to play, she visibly flinched, knocking a Wizard of Oz magnet off the fridge door.

She cautiously moved into the dining room, where Adele was picking up the last of the dishes and gushing about how fantastic David Gahan was while Aidan spun the CD case in his hands and nodded in time to the song. She blinked at them blankly.

She didn’t know why she was so surprised. She’d just assumed that Aidan, her intellectual art teacher, would have forsaken the 80s and their general lack of aesthetic appeal. But there he was in her living room bopping along to the music in an absurd little dance the likes of which she hadn’t seen since high school.

“Oh, hey Jo,” Adele laughed as she finally noticed her in the doorway.

“Something wrong?” Aidan asked, cocking his head at the slightly startled look on her face. “Haven’t set the kitchen on fire have you?”

Adele giggled. “Joaquin doesn’t share our fondness for the great bands of the eighties, do you?”

“The Beach Boys albums were hers then.”

“Was there ever a doubt?”

“No.” He shot Joaquin a cheeky grin.

“I’m just gonna back away slowly, pretend that there’s been no dancing, and get dessert ready,” she breathed and stepped backwards into the kitchen.

“She doesn’t like dancing either,” Adele pointed out.

“There’s no avoiding weirdness in my life,” Joaquin said to herself as she cut into the pie. “It’s attracted to me and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s gotta be something in my magnetic field. Probably all that damn tofu and jicima my parents made me eat growing up.” The first piece of pie she tried to move from the dish to a plate crumbled into a gooey mess. “I hope they fall into the Grand Canyon.”