It Takes Two at Tu Tu Tango

Xavier, a.k.a. the X Man, shows the two women to a small table in the middle of the room. “Do you ladies dance?” he asks, handing them menus.

“Dance?” asks the slightly taller of the two women, dressed in a business suit. Just this morning the woman decided she was coming down with a cold and thought about canceling the dinner so she could go home early from work and put on her sick clothes--a brown sweatshirt and blue sweatpants she’s had since college--and eat leftover turkey noodle soup and maybe heat up the neck hot pad in the microwave and wrap it around her like a scarf, but her office is only five minutes away from Cafe Tu Tu Tango, where she has agreed to meet a friend she has not seen in a while, so what the heck, she came anyway.

The X Man, who is the restaurant manager, stands before the women with his hands crossed in front of him, smiling. “You ladies do the hula?” he asks.

The woman who is coming down with the cold sniffles and says, “Oh, sure. We hula all the time. Hula, hula, hula.”

The X Man laughs and nods his head.

“Actually, I do know how to hula,” says the other woman, wearing a brown cashmere poncho. She starts to pull it off but changes her mind. The table is not far from the door to the patio, and every time someone comes in or out, a cool breeze follows.

“Well then, I should tell Pete,” says the X Man.

“Pete?” asks the woman with the cold, wiping her nose with a tissue. She thinks if she could just get a glass of wine she might feel better.

“Yeah, Pete. He’s the Samoan guy that leads the Polynesian drummers. They come on in about 10 minutes.”

“Actually, this wouldn’t be an ideal time for me to do the hula, if you know what I mean,” says the woman with the poncho.

The X Man shrugs. “Key lime cheesecake tonight, ladies,” he says. “That’s on our additions menu. Alicia will tell you all about it.”

“Hi there,” says a young woman in a red polo shirt. “I’m Alicia. Have you dined with us before?”

“I have,” says the woman with the cold.

Alicia bends down and points to the menu. “Everything here is an appetizer dish. So you might want to order a couple of things, see how you’re doing, then order more if you’re hungry. Would you like a drink?”

“Absolutely,” says the woman with the poncho. “Sangria.”

“Red or white?”

“Ummmm, white.”

“I probably shouldn’t, but it’s been a long week,” says the woman with the cold. “I think I’ll have a glass of the David Bruce zin. And maybe we’d better order a couple of thingies before the dancers come on.”

“Our most popular dish is the Cajun chicken egg rolls,” says Alicia. “And the artichoke empanadas on the additions menu is really good, and if you order that or anything else off the additions menu, 50 cents goes to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County.”

“Oh, really,” says the woman with the cold. “I work there. Guess we’d better order the artichokes. And the Cajun egg rolls.”

“You work at CHOC?” asks Alicia. “I’m a nurse.”

The woman with the poncho frowns. “I thought you were our waitress?”

“Actually, I just graduated,” says Alicia. “I start work in the emergency room at Long Beach Memorial after the first of the year, but I think I’m going to keep this job too. I love working here.”

“How can you be a nurse and a waitress at the same time?”

Alicia smiles. “I get bored easily,” she says as she walks away.

“There’s something very reassuring about having a waitress that’s also a nurse,” says the woman with the cold, searching her purse for another tissue. “Just in case she needs to do the Heimlich maneuver on us or something.”

The two women get their drinks and pass the egg rolls and empanadas back and forth as they talk about their high school-age daughters, who go to the same school.

“Yesterday she asked me for something,” says the woman with the poncho, leaning forward across the table. “I said absolutely not.”

When she says “not,” her voice gets higher, like a singer.

“And what did she say?”

The woman leans back in her chair, crosses her legs. “She didn’t argue. I think she was just testing me. You know how teenagers are. They want to see how far they can push you.”

Four bare-chested men wearing red-and-yellow flower-print Polynesian sarongs around their waists and leis around their necks come out and start banging on hollowed logs. The house lights dim, and one of the bare-chested men takes a lit baton and twirls it around his shoulders. He puts his arms out and smiles. The audience applauds.

When the fire twirler is done with his act, six women wearing lacquered coconut-shell bras and feathered headdresses and hula skirts come out. The drummers pound their drums and the women slap their hips back and forth and wave their hands and arms around like kelp in the ocean.

Alicia brings the women their drinks. The drummers have stopped for a moment. “Do you want dessert?” she asks the women. They both nod.

“How’s the chocolate souffle cake?” asks the woman with the cold.

“My favorite,” says Alicia. “I also like the crazy bananas.”

“Shall we split one?” asks the woman with the poncho.

“Heck no. Let’s get both.”

The drummers and the dancers go into the audience looking for men and women to come up and dance with them. They are pulling at the arms of a hesitant woman at the table in front of them when the desserts come.

“Act like you’re really into that banana-nut ice cream,” says the woman with the cold. The Samoan fire twirler stands in front of their table, his arms outstretched, smiling. The woman with the cold smiles back and holds up a spoonful of ice cream. The other woman holds up a fork full of chocolate cake. The fire twirler shakes his head and walks away.

The Polynesian dancers give the volunteer women a brief hula lesson and then Pete, the leader of the troupe, stands before them with a microphone telling them what to do as the drummers bang the hollow logs. Blushing and giggling, the six young women do the hula.

“I could do that,” says the woman with the poncho. She scrapes the last of the chocolate souffle cake with her fork.

“Oh, I know,” says the woman with the cold.

Sundays-Wednesdays, 11 a.m-11 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m.-midnight; Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-2 a.m.

David Lansing’s column is published on Saturdays in Orange County Calendar. His e-mail address is occalendar@latimes.com.