See You In September

Crisis averted (at least until the enormous bill comes and Lars wants to share it) life plods on.

While I am at the shore with Caren and Joe I get a couple of calls about job opportunities. Folks are back from their summer hiatuses and ready to grudgingly begin the mundane working man's tasks. I am careful not to respond to any phone call once happy hour has begun. No one needs to slur their way through their strengths and weaknesses.

I continue my maniacal routine of walking insane numbers of miles and tending my yard and generally wearing myself down to a nub so I can sleep at night. I am in kick boxer shape. I am sure I can crush a man's skull with my thighs if necessary.

I see Craig. Handsome as ever and loads of fun. We run all over town, playing bocce and pool and drinking fabulous microbrewery IPAs. We talk incessantly. I love getting to know him. He's endlessly interesting and we have tons of interests and opinions in common.

We walk to a wonderful Italian restaurant in the little coastal city where we've met. I am not terribly hungry after 3 beers but he's starved. He asks me if I'll share with him if he orders a bunch of food. I tell him I will and he makes a joke about the liverwurst and onion sandwich we once shared. It always makes him laugh that while was still spreading mustard on his half, mine was well on its way to being fully digested. There were nothing but crumbs on my side of the plate and I was already eyeballing the little pile of pickles on his side. I tell him I eat like a condemned man. Or a Viking. You'd think I had a hollow leg.

The food comes. The pasta. The bread. The pepperoncini. The calamari. He spoons pasta on my plate. I feed him an olive. We feast. He's laughing again at how much food I can put away in one sitting and still look like Olive Oyl. He slops marinara on his shirt. I call him a knucklehead and dab it with the napkin from my lap after dipping it into my water glass. The bar tender thinks this is adorable. Craig seems pleased by that.

We take our drinks and make our way to the bocce pit. He seems to have learned the rules but not the terminology. He forgets the name of the white ball. He dubs it "the pannini." Every time he says it I laugh. We play a full game, bravely but poorly, and laugh our heads off in the pit below the main floor of the restaurant. At one point, we look up and realize that there are dozens of people watching us play, lined along the wrought iron gates that surround the pit. We chat with them all, feeling like David Beckham must feel when he's recognized at the airport. They obviously think we know what we are doing. I wonder if they know that the white ball is not called a pannini.

We finish our drinks curled up on a sofa on the mezzanine watching a ballgame. His team is in the wild card hunt. He likes that I can talk about sports. I like that he doesn't think I am an idiot when it comes to sports. When the game is over and his team has lost, we leave and make our way to the last dive bar pool hall of the evening, we are stopped by 3 couples about to enter the restaurant. They engage us in conversation about the food and the neighborhood and where we'd recommend going. They are all from out of town. I like the way Craig works the crowd. He invites them to play pool with us later and tells them where we'll be. He'd fit right in at Girls Weekend.

Once on our way, Craig comments to me. First he tells me that I look beautiful and that he's always amazed that I am the same girl that he knew in college (which isn't as offensive as it may sound. I look nothing like I did in school. And I know I look better. Who can be offended by that? Anyone can look good in their 20s. I am pretty happy to have improved with time.) Then he tells me that he's noticed that wherever we go, we seem to attract a lot of attention.

This is not a foreign concept to me. When I am out with the girls, we create scene-stealing moments just walking in the door. I look at him like he's nuts. "Of course we do. That doesn't happen to you all the time?"

He shakes his head no. I tell him that we attract a lot of attention because we're "that couple." We're the couple all the other couples want to be. We are having fun. We're talking. We're making each other laugh. We hold hands. We kiss. We poke good natured fun at each other. It is clear that we enjoy each other's company. Other couples want to be us. People hope what we have is contagious. It's like when we were on our first date and he placed a really funny drink order making an inside joke to me and then everyone at the bar ordered the same bizarre thing.

He doesn't say anything. Just nods. He smiles, takes a long look up and down at me, and pulls me close to put his arm around me to cross the street to the dive bar.