CHAPTER 26

Later that day when I had eventually disentangled myself from Ric and those glorious sheets. I had lunch with Marylou.

We went to Pino's.

I had missed my friends. And I had missed Pino's.

I had missed Pino's a lot. Not so much when we were in Europe, but you try finding a pizza joint this good on an abandoned army base.

Mare and I slipped into a back booth and straight into conversation.

'it's weird'

'you're telling me.'

'it's really weird'

'I know.'

'He was… you and Joe were… for so long…and now' Marylou couldn't seem to make whole sentences. But I understood I had had the same reaction.

'Your sister's boyfriend has seen you naked'

'uh huh'

'you've seen your sister boyfriend naked?'

'yep' all kinds of naked

We let that sink in for a while as we placed our order.

'you seem really calm. I thought for sure when you found out you would freak'

'Oh I freaked'

'major?'

'not so much. No. I just thought about something that Grandma said a while back, maybe they are right for each other, I don't know.' Talking about all this emotional stuff is hard. Luckily our pizzas and beers arrived.

God! How I've missed this. I think my moan was a little loud. The couple at the next booth turned around and stared.

'Maybe he had been dating the wrong sister all these years' I shrugged

'No sweetie don't say that. Joe and you were good together.'

'For a while' she amended. 'You're just both in different places now though.'

'yeah, he's in a Valerie place.'

Marylou and I both burst out laughing.

The rest of lunch she caught me up on what was happening in Marylou world and all the important local gossip. I told her a bit about my job in the desert. Nothing specific and nothing about my impromptu trip to Europe.

After lunch I swang by the office. It had been too long since I had spoken to Connie or Lula. Vinnie I could live without.