Angie told me my big problem, when it came to ever getting into those most ideal of velvet pants (long since copied, even by Alexander’s, kiss of death): I considered Robert perfect. “And nobody is ever turned on by real worship. Fake worship, okay. But you, you’re idolatrous. I find it increasingly hard to watch. Especially when he sometimes almost notices you.” I denied believing in the Gustafson perfection.

“Okay then. Name three of your Robbie’s very worst bad faults. Now.” She stomped one high-heel boot.

“Well, he’s too busy to see us often enough …”

“That’s not a fault. That’s a scheduling glitch, you besotted idiot. Now, me? I do his laundry. I see he has li’l mishaps, has certain fluids to him. Angels don’t. See? Angels never sweat. Distressed angels give off a form of powder. At most. I know this from a former life. It’s why I’m still so mad for Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder. I do iron Robert’s jockeys, I understand accidents happen. But, tell Angie true, sugar—you’ve got a key, you’re over there constantly—have you ever taken home his used undies, tell me true now.”

I said absolutely not. No way. Then, faking shamefacedness, I hung my head. “Do … socks count?”

She threw a pillow at me.

We were often the only people alive who thought we were the only people alive worth laughing at. When we got going, we could clear the room. We rarely noticed.

Fact is, we were both really waiting. For our Robert to “declare.” We both assumed that only a few details and the right mood-lighting stood between us and Robbie’s down-on-one-knee offer of a betrothal eternal.

“But what if he actually chose one of us?” I asked her, frowning, shocked at the idea. “What would that do to our friendship?”

“Our what? Who are you? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“Seriously, Angina. If one of us got to see and feel all of him instead of his wasting it on these inferior society types he keeps balling, then what? I mean, if I found that you’d so much as touched him twice, down there, in the powdery floury part? It’d kill me, honey, wouldn’t it you?”

“But, for drill, and to take a more reasoned view (that’s how my darling Jimmy Stewart GP of a daddy talks, you’d love him), might it not be better to keep it in the family?—Okay, honestly? if you ‘get’ Robert before I do? I’ll kill you. On first hearing, I might consider killing you both. But, in the end, after careful consideration, you’re the only one that’d have to go.”

“I understand.”