“I love Mother Bear’s Pizza!”
“You know it?”
“I went every time I visited Dad and Sheryl. My other favorite place is Nick’s English Hut.”
“Ah, Nick’s is great,” Anders enthuses.
Nick’s English Hut is on Kirkwood Avenue, a popular street that radiates straight from the campus. Sheryl used to claim IU Bloomington was one of the prettiest campuses inthe United States, up there with the Ivy Leagues, but she’s a proud Hoosier, so I’m not sure she can be trusted.
It is objectively beautiful, though, with ornate buildings made of local limestone, thick, deep windows, and even the odd turret. It has a bit of an old English feel about it.
Nick’s English Hut, however, is about as English as the nearby Irish Lion is Irish. But at least the Lion has leprechaun wings on the menu. No one can accuse them of not getting into the spirit of things.
“Man, Nick’s stromboli sandwiches,” Jonas moans. “We’re going there on Thursday,” he tells Anders in no uncertain terms.
“How can you be thinking about your next meal when you’re still eating?” Anders asks him.
Jonas shrugs and licks his fingers clean.
“The last time we went to Nick’s, Scott reckons he saw John Mellencamp in the loo,” I say to Bailey.
She smiles and nods. “I used to see him around Bloomington all the time. He lives the next town over.”
“When was this?” Anders asks me.
“A couple of years ago.”
“Sorry, who’s Scott?” Jonas looks baffled.
“Wren’s fiancé,” Bailey tells him. “Well, herex-fiancé.”
Jonas is taken aback. He glances at his brother, but Anders doesn’t react because he already knew I was engaged.
“How long were you together?” Anders asks me evenly.
“Three years.”
Jonas looks at Anders again. Then at me. Then at Bailey. She grins at him. He smiles back at her. “So where’syourhusband today?”
“Work.”
“What does he do?” Jonas asks, and I’m glad to hear him asking this question so casually, as though it doesn’t bother him that Bailey is married.
I hope that means he’s not interested in her. I don’t like to think of him hitting on a married woman. Obviously, his attachment to Heather is a bit more understandable because of their history, but an affair on any level is deplorable, in my opinion.
“He’s a golf tutor,” Bailey replies, as I try to focus on the conversation going on around me.
“Golf?” Jonas recoils. “Is he preppy?”
“Not at all,” Bailey replies with a laugh.
“He used to have a very quirky, very non-preppy mustache,” I chip in.
“Oh, Imisshis mustache,” Bailey laments.
I’ve seen a bit more of Casey over the last couple of weeks and I really, really like him. I think he and Bailey make an awesome couple. He’s amiable and sweet, and she’s her usual upbeat self around him. But at the same time, he seems to ground her. I get the feeling he’s never angry or mean, and he truly seems to adore her.
And yet... Bailey seems unfulfilled.
