"Robert, other that the fact that she's a babe, I can see why you married her. This pasta is absolutely fantastic and the antipasto was to die for; I can't wait to see what's for desert."
I like to hear about people and throughout dinner I encouraged the young couple – comes out, they were both twenty-eight – talk about themselves. While far from a 'church mouse', Lorry had been rather quite throughout the meal while Robert told me about how they had met at college; two shy students with roommates who were anything but. The roommates had set them up with each other in an attempt to get them out of one of the dorm rooms and it worked, at least for Robert and Lorry. Each being so shy, they took to each other and became friends and that friendship had blossomed into passion. And yes, a software engineer and an accountant can be passionate.
After graduation Robert had worked the numbers and convinced Lorry that if they were ever to own a house in the expensive market in which they had found employment, they would have to live very frugally for a few years to save up enough for a down payment. Lorry had a friend from college whose parents lived on a boat and suggested they talk with them about living on boat to save money. That is how they came to be liveaboards, as people in the boating world refer to them. They had as much room on their 37' trawler as a small apartment and the total cost was a $1,000 less than the apartment would have been. The bonus was that they could take their 'apartment' with them to the beach.
"Well Bert, I bet Robert could go for something creamy for desert and I could go for a show, what were you thinking would be good?"
My turn to be naïve, "Actually I'm quite full so why don't I do the clean-up; on ALWAYS I do the cooking and the rule is that whoever cooks doesn't do the clean-up, so what's good for the goose is good for the gander." Her expression made it clear that I had missed something but she said that we could all do the clean-up and see what's next. Lorry might have been shy but she was not a shrinking violet and it was clear that she had something in mind.
I was pretty sure that, Robert's, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, look when Lorry had called us to dinner meant that he hadn't said anything to her about what had happened onboard ALWAYS. Pretty sure I was, wrong I was too. I was soon to learn that Robert couldn't keep his mouth shut, in more ways than one. I guess not being able to talk about his work – a big mouth CPA doesn't get very far – made him spill his guts to Lorry about everything else.
Well, we finished the clean-up and took our after-dinner drinks up to the sundeck to enjoy the warm summer evening and talk. I was no sooner settled into a lounge when Lorry proceeded to inform Robert and me that she wished she could have watched what we were doing on ALWAYS. Clearly, Robert should never play poker because he wears his thoughts on his face. He was not expecting that out of Lorry. The next thing out of her mouth was, "Robert says you're AC/DC so could I watch the two of you now?"
So this was the 'show' she was talking about and I was to be Robert's "creamy desert".
"Lorry, you are watching us now."
