I wasn’t going to argue with her. The thought of seeing her again gave me that happy nervousness I hadn’t experienced since I’d been with Carmella. Like I said, I was no monk and there had been no shortage of women to warm the other side of my bed, but there hadn’t been any buzz with them beyond the buzz of bitterness. Dating always sucks, but dating in middle age sucks a whole lot worse because everyone involved has baggage, usually in the form of ex-spouses—either dead or divorced. You have no idea how much fun I had explaining that I had one of each. And even when the bitterness quotient was low, dinner conversation usually degenerated into a discussion of kids and grandkids or comparing whole-grain cereals and doses of Lipitor. Then, if dinner was nice enough, if there had been sufficient alcohol consumption, I’d wind up falling into bed with my dinner companion. You want to talk about baggage... Bed is the Broadway stage of baggage. No, don’t turn me over. My husband always forced me into that position and even when I liked it I hated it.
