“Wait. What? How did I miss that?”
Marlene shrugs her petite shoulders. “I noticed last night her cheeks look fuller, and she gets queasy over every smell, like Carmen does.”
“How dare these kids do this to us?” I ask on a moan. “I’m so not ready to be a great-grandmother. Nothing says old quite like that does.”
“You are not old, Livia,” Chris says emphatically. “You’re magnificent.”
Marlene’s busybody eyes nearly pop out of her head when he says that.
I’d die of mortification on the spot if I wasn’t on fire with curiosity about what might happen next. I can’t die right when things are getting so interesting.
“I couldn’t agree more, Chris,” Marlene says with her sweet-as-sugar smile.
Again, I want to smack her. That impulse happens a lot when she’s around.
“Livia is magnificent,” Marlene says. “She and I love to bicker.”
Alfredo’s snort of laughter sets us off. “That’s putting it mildly. The two of them are like angry cats half the time, but they’d cut you if you said a bad word about the other one.”
“That about sums us up.” I grin at my best friend. “It’s been like that between us from the minute her Vivian met my Vincent more than thirty years ago now.”
“We started poking at each other the first time we met,” Marlene says with a smile, “and we’ve never stopped.”
“It’s all in good fun,” Alfredo tells Chris.
“Most of the time, anyway,” Marlene says.
“There’s no one I’d rather have at my kitchen table after the night from hell,” I tell her.
“Likewise, my dear friend.” She glances at Chris and then to me. “Now that I know you’re in good hands, we’re going to go and let you get some rest.” With a sly grin, she says, “You should come to brunch next Sunday, Chris. I’m sure we’ll be back to normal by then.”
“I’d love to. Thank you, Marlene.”
I’m in for a grilling about him the next time we have two minutes alone, but I can handle her.
“Thank you for coming by to check on me.” I walk her and Alfredo to the door and hug them. “Means a lot to me.”
“We’ll be right here for you and your Milo,” Alfredo tells me.
“He’s our Milo. Mine and Marlene’s.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she hugs me a second time. “Yes, he is.”
We’ve shared everything over the years, including our grandchildren.
“We’ll see you later at the hospital,” Marlene says.
“See you then.”
My belly flutters with nerves as I return to the kitchen, where my much-younger, sexy flight instructor waits to further define our relationship. They say there’s no fool like an old fool, a thought that nearly makes me laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
“I am. I’m funny.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
We laugh a lot when we’re together, which is another thing to like about him. The list of things I like about him is long and includes the way he speaks of his daughter with such affection and obvious love. He was never married to her mother but has been in her life from the beginning. He taught her to fly when she was sixteen, and now she works with him teaching others.