“I think I’ll be happier as a spinster—you know. I can be the mad old lady living in the back of the Professor’s house.”

Mona laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t try to jolly me out of my mood either. Instead, she refilled our glasses, and we let the conversation drift to topics that didn’t carry as much emotional weight.

I don’t know when we finished that bottle and opened another, but we were well into that second bottle when the conversation inevitably came back to me and my messed up relationships, except now we were being silly and giddy about it. We started making a list of all the people we knew who were single, straight, and available.

“Well, how about Jonathan at the Half Kaffe?” Mona said after we’d already listed everyone from Bernard Colbert, the stuffy head librarian at the Lower Crowsea Branch of the Newford Public Library, to the twenty-something and way too handsome Frank Jee who delivered take-out from his dad’s Chinese restaurant on weekends.

“I always thought Jonathan was gay,” I said.

“I don’t think so. He used to hit on me all the time when I first started going to the cafe.”

“Okay, then what about Goon?”

“Oh, please.” Then she grinned and said, “What about Geordie?”

That sobered me because of all the guys in the world, I wouldn’t let Geordie be made part of a drunken joke.

“No,” I said shaking my head. “It’ll never be with Geordie.”

“Why not? You guys are best friends and, I’m sorry, but everybody knows you carry a torch for each other. You’re just never single at the same time.”

I knew it was the wine talking, but she wasn’t far from the truth.

“We had our chance years ago,” I said, “but we didn’t take it and I’m glad we didn’t. You know that.”

“Liar.”

“Besides, he’s got a girlfriend. A fairy queen, no less.”

“Who lives in a shopping mall and calls herself Mother Crone.”

“That’s just her speaking name. Fairies all have two—their true name and their speaking name.”

“So, what’s her real name?”

“I don’t know. But Geordie does.”

“Still,” Mona said, “they can’t be that serious. She never goes anywhere with him.”

“I don’t know. We don’t really talk about her.”

“But if she wasn’t in the picture—”

“Geordie and I still wouldn’t get together,” I said. “Not like that.”

“But you’re best friends. It’s all so When Harry Met Sally.”

I sighed. “Life’s not a romantic comedy.”

“More’s the pity.”

“And think about it. You’re right. Geordie and I really are best friends. So if we did get together, what would happen when we broke up?”

“You guys wouldn’t break up.”