Over Dinner
“How’s the steak, honey?”
“Fine, dear.”
“Just fine?”
“Yup!”
“If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t fix it.”
“It’s a bit dry.”
“No it’s not, it’s just well-done. I thought you liked your steak well-done.”
“I do, but-”
“This is the way I always cook it, you never complained before.”
“Maybe I… Never mind.”
“Maybe you what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a little bored with steak.”
“I thought it was your favorite?”
“I suppose, but, too much of anything…you know.”
“We could try it rare.”
“What?”
“Rare.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s something different.”
“No, I don’t want a bloody steak. I like mine well-done, always have.”
“But you’re bored with it.”
“With steak, not its doneness. It’s cold, too…”
“Had you been here when you said, it would’ve been hot.”
“Why didn’t you rewarm it?”
“It’s not good for the steak; it gets dry and overdone. You should have been here when it was
ready.”
“Maybe so.”
“Here, have some potatoes… Better?”
“The same.”
“No it’s not, you’ve just got it in your head that you don’t like it is all.”
“I never said I didn’t like it.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No, just that I was a little bored with it.”
“But the potatoes liven it up.”
“It’s still a bit bland.”
“Bland? I thought you said it was dry… How’s the wine?”
“Delicious.”
“Yes, it is. Does the wine make your steak any less bland?”
“It does, far more than the potatoes do.”
“It’s a good thing they go so well together then.”
“Yes, but that’s not always the case. While a young wine needs the aid of a well-done steak to
balance and bring out its best qualities; a robust, mature wine doesn’t necessarily need the
assistance.”
“Well, you don’t have to have steak if you’re tired of it, but there would be no need to have wine
in the house either."
“Don’t talk like that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Whose truth?”
“Mine… Aged wine goes just fine with steak.”
“Just fine?”
“That’s not what I meant, honey.”
“It’s what you said, dear.”
A Toronto, ONT, native, Morgan Christie's work has appeared in Hippocampus, Aethlon, Blackberry, Germ Magazine, Moko, and elsewhere. She is a candidate at the University of Oxford for the Mst in Creative Writing.
