fandomtownies | Ching Tai, Thursday evening

Oooh, a gentleman. Mary was impressed so far.

"Do you eat here often?" she asked. "I'm still trying the learn the menus of all the different restaurants in town."

"I get take out for lunch sometimes," Christian said as they sat down at a table. "It's pretty good. There's a fancier place called Cafe Fina in town, but it didn't seem to be open tonight."

"Been there already," said Mary with a smirk. "They were kind enough to indulge my love of Sinatra. That's the fun part about trying to open your own restaurant, though. I get to eat out all the time, write it off as 'market research' and put it on my expense account."

"Restaurant, huh?" Christian said. "You're a cook as well?"

"Oh good lord, no," said Mary. "I can bake cookies but that's it. The hotel has perfectly good banquet facilities and enough space for a restaurant, plus I seem to have inherited the services of five-star chef who had to leave Vegas also. It's going to be a joint operation. Gunther does the cooking and I get to manage the restaurant and hotel."

"I can't wait for it to open then," Christian said. "I have an appreciation for five star dining."

"Don't forget that it should be awfully convenient since it's right inside the hotel," said Mary. "The space is more or less ready. We're just trying to work out some kinks with the menu. Gunther can be a bit difficult to handle sometimes."

"Convenience is good," Christian agreed. "And I've got pretty expensive tastes. That's why I stay in the hotel instead of an apartment. So what are Gunther's specialties?"

"Looks like we have that in common. I've lived in hotels for the last two years," said Mary with a chuckle. "Gunther is originally from Germany and he makes a fantastic pork tenderloin. Unfortunately, he also has some odd specialties. You must have missed the burger experiment in the lobby."

"I must've," Christian said, grinning. "What happened?"

"When Gunther was still in Vegas, his restaurant manager wanted to start opening for lunch to boost their profits, but Gunther refused until she offered him a chance to create his own signature take on the hamburger. Well, Gunther went a little nuts. He wanted to make a burger that was as far from traditional American fare as possible, so he made these huge hamburger patties and served them on pita bread with lemon juice and some other stuff that I didn't recognize. It didn't go over so well the first time. Then when Gunther heard on the radio that we were supposedly opening a vegan restaurant here, he decided to fight back against rumors and gave out free GuntherBurgers in the lobby with mixed results," said Mary, trying not to laugh.

Christian did laugh. "I'm sorry I missed it," he said. "I'll have to catch his next performance." He took a sip of the drink the waiter had ~~handwavey~~ brought them. "So tell me about yourself," he said. "Are you from Vegas originally?"

"Yes, I am," answered Mary. "Up until I left, I'd never lived anywhere else. How about you?"

"Pretty much spent all my life in Miami," Christian said. "But I do a lot of traveling, too. And sometimes I fly out to other states to do pretty complicated surgeries." Christian definitely wasn't above bragging.

Mary was impressed. "That sounds so exciting," she said, fiddling nervously with her menu.

"My partner and I built up a great practice down there," Christian said. "But I needed a break and took a job working in the clinic here, and then took over running it when the last guy in charge left."

"You said you were a plastic surgeon, right? The clinic must be really different from your practice in Miami. I don't imagine many teenagers need nose jobs," said Mary.

Christian chuckled. "It's a lot different setting broken arms and stitching up wounds," he said. "The kids here do get in a lot of interesting trouble, but it doesn't compare to some of the weirdness I've run into in my practice." To say the least.

"I think you're the first person I've met here who hasn't tried to warn me multiple times that Fandom is weird," said Mary.

"People won't believe it until they see it anyway," Christian said. "I certainly didn't until I saw troll invasions and aliens attacking graduation. I worry about the kids here, but many of them seem to have the skills to deal with that kind of thing."

"The ones I've met so far were impressive," said Mary. "I arrived in the middle of that homicidal maniac business and I can't imagine that it was the kids who handled it. I'm not sure I could have dealt with it at that age."

She wasn't even able to deal with her father when she was a teenager. Danny had to take care of that problem for her. At least as an adult, she was able to protect her younger sisters from him.

"I hate to see kids getting hurt," Christian said. "But aliens and vampires and witches and demons aren't ordinary kids. Nobody will believe any of this back in Miami."

Mary has heard about the aliens, vampires and witches. But demons? That's a new one.

"I used to think if it was at all remotely possible, you would find it in Las Vegas. It took me at least a week here to realize that I was wrong," said Mary.

"Vegas has to have its share of weirdness," Christian said. "What's the strangest thing you've seen there?"

"Definitely the time that a guy pretended to have his kidney stolen (http://www.tv.com/las-vegas/urban-legends/episode/612845/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;14). It was all a big scam. He donated his kidney and then tried to make it look like he got his kidney stolen like in the urban legend so he could sue the hotel. Although we had someone find a finger in the all-you-can-eat buffet (http://www.tv.com/las-vegas/coyote-ugly/episode/619781/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;15) a week later and that was pretty weird. I guess nothing tops having the hotel owner die when a gust of wind carried her off the roof (http://www.tv.com/las-vegas/for-sail-by-owner-2/episode/545241/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;9) only to have her ghost come back to get deadbeats to pay their bar tabs (http://www.tv.com/las-vegas/the-bitch-is-back/episode/580869/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;12). That was just a really strange year."

"Try patients with multiple personalities (http://www.tv.com/nip-tuck/montana-sassy-justice/episode/262666/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;10)," Christian said, "girls smuggling drugs from Colombia in their breast implants (http://www.tv.com/nip-tuck/antonia-ramos/episode/262667/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;11), plastic surgery addicts (http://www.tv.com/nip-tuck/mrs.-grubman/episode/321365/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;3), conjoned twins (http://www.tv.com/nip-tuck/rose-andamp-raven-rosenberg/episode/335832/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;8), frat kids gluing their faces to another kid's ass (http://www.tv.com/nip-tuck/derek-alex-and-gary/episode/459779/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;2), and some nutcase who dismembered corpses so he could build his dream woman (http://www.tv.com/nip-tuck/frankenlaura/episode/466235/summary.html?tag=ep_list;ep_title;5)." He deliberately left out the Carver.

Mary giggled. "See, people keep telling us it's weird here in Fandom but it's really a very scary world out there," she said, waving for emphasis.

Ching Tai, Thursday evening

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