“Because you’re stupid that way. Can’t see the forest for the trees when you’re standing in the middle of them.”
“Can we talk about the ways you’re muy estúpida?”
“We’re talking about you right now. That man is hopelessly devoted to you, and of course he wants to marry you.”
“We’re old, Livia!”
“So what?”
“What in the world am I going to do with a husband at my age?”
“Are you so demented that you really need me to tell you that?”
> I scowl at her, which only makes her laugh. The bitch. That’s one of my favorite English words. “There hasn’t been anyone since my Jorge passed.” I lost my husband suddenly a lifetime ago, when we were forty-two. “I’m not sure I could do… that… with someone else.” Jorge was my one and only, my one true love.
“You could.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I see a man who adores you and would do everything he could to make you comfortable.”
“I can’t picture it, no matter how hard I try.”
“So, you have thought about it…”
She makes me want to smack her, which of course she knows.
“I wish I could find a nice man like Alfredo.”
That shocks me. “You do?”
“Yes, I do. I’m tired of being alone. Aren’t you tired of it?”
“No,” I say, glancing at the doorway. I wouldn’t want Alfredo to overhear us.
“You want to hear a secret?”
Siempre. “Always.”
“I have a crush on my flight instructor.” Ever since Vincent decided the four of us needed lives outside of work, Livia has been fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a pilot.
“How old is he?”
“Sixty.”
“That’s fifteen years younger than you!”
“Believe it or not, I was able to do that math myself. And besides, it doesn’t matter. I like him. He likes me, and if he asks me out, I’m going to say yes.”
“You’d be a cradle-robbing cougar.”
“I liked you better before your English was so good.”
That makes me laugh harder than I have in days. I’m still laughing when Alfredo returns with a bowl and a glass of iced tea with lemon, just the way I like it.
“I never know if I’m going to find you two laughing or locked in mortal combat.”
“It’s a minute-to-minute thing,” Livia says, standing to give him her spot on the sofa.