“Hello?” I said to Valerie.
“Are you sure you want to marry him?”
“Yep. Can you come to the wedding?”
“Sure,” Valerie said. “What time?”
“Four o'clock. And I'm going to get married at home.”
“Does Mom know?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh boy.”
“Maybe we shouldn't tell her,” I said. “Maybe we should just all show up.”
“That sounds like a better way to go,” Valerie said. “If you give her four hours, she'll hire caterers and a band and have the house filled with flowers and two hundred people.”
“Yeah, but I can count on you and Albert to be there, right?”
“Absolutely. Are you pregnant?”
“Uh, maybe.”
“This will be so amazing. We can have our babies together.”
“I didn't say for sure.”
“I know, and I won't tell anyone. My mouth is zippered shut.”
“Thanks, Val.”
Bob was in the kitchen, smiling at me.
“Wipe that goofy expression off your face,” I said to Bob. “You're not fooling anyone. You ate my couch. There are big holes in all the cushions, and all the insides are coming out.”
There was a piece of fiberfill stuck to Bob's lip. I picked it off and dropped it on the floor with all the other big fluffy blobs of fiberfill.
“I hope this works,” I said to Bob. “The alternative is stun gun, and I don't think that would look great in Val's wedding album.”
I took Bob out for a walk around the block. When he was empty, we drove to the bonds office.
Lula and Connie were huddled together when I walked in.
“Look at this big-ass box of chocolates I got,” Lula said, working her way around a lump of caramel. “I got it from my sweetie for Valentine's Day. This here's gonna be the best Valentine's Day ever.”
Connie and Lula had the huge red heart sitting on Connie's desk. The top was off and the box was half empty.
“You better get some before they're all gone,” Connie said to me. “We decided this was lunch.”
“Which sweetie sent this?” I asked Lula.
“The big sweetie,” Lula said. “And anyways, I only got one sweetie now. He's my great huge gigantic hunk of burning love. You don't think Ranger will actually kill him, do you?”
“Ranger and Tank are like brothers.”
“Yeah, but remember in The Godfather where they offed poor Fredo?”