She is tall. With brown boots hugging her calves over brown leggings. A long grey sweater with a wide ruffled bottom and broad bell sleeves is buttoned with a single large button over her chest. Hundreds of tight twirls of hair, the color of twine, are wrestled into submission by a clip on the back of her head.
He wears jeans and a blue work shirt. His hair and beard are grey but between the two is a pair of bright eyes behind black-rimmed glasses.
We are standing outside Giovanni's, waiting for a table for two. "Only four of us waiting," he says to us as they approach from the parking lot, "I thought it'd be packed." They step inside, and immediately return to wait with us. "Ten minutes," he says. "That's not bad." We all smile at each other and in a few minutes, Husband and I are called in by the hostess. She leads us to a booth and we sit down across from each other. When the waitress comes, we order a Coke and a lemonade and Ranch Cheese Fries. When they are led in a few minutes later, to a booth across the room, they sit down together, on one bench of the booth, next to each other, and talk animatedly about something.
They are us. In maybe 35 years. A handsomely aging couple, still excited to eat out together. With plenty to talk about as they enjoy pasta and salad and garlic breadsticks. A couple proud of each other, a couple who are friends. Even after many, many years.
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