Torn jean’s response was blunt. “I do, but who cares? That was donkey’s years ago. And why are you still hung up on all that, anyway? I don’t recall ever hearing you revisit our geeky childhood years as much as you’ve done over the past twenty minutes.”

“I’m not revisiting our geekiness, silliness. Just hers. I dunno, it’s just that, um, I didn’t expect her to…”

“To give all of that up?”

“Not only.”

“Oookay. That she’d somehow gotten off the Harvard-to-the-Valley track, shed her glasses, somehow end up a glamazon on Steven’s arm, and…”

“Yess!!! Yes! I don’t get it. Do you? I am so .. just so surprised about how easily she gave up on her dreams, her talents, and her, well, her genius?!”

“No, I don’t get it. But, again: who cares? You sure it’s not the whole, “yeah, the Gulfstream’s in the shop for an oil change “ or whatever you do to maintain jets like that…”

Power-suit slammed her hand down emphatically on the bar. “Hell, yeah! That, too! Like, what the fuck was that? I mean, how did that slip into the conversation? One minute we were reminiscing about how different everyone looked back in the day, and then the next minute … I mean, did we even ask her about how they got to LA? Or that we even cared to know?”

“Oh, Em! Don’t you get it? That was “I’ve got hunky Steven and a Gulfstream in the garage and you don’t” attitude. She’d always been the mousy, super-nerdy one with weird hair-cuts and you’d been the 

balletic, long-legged pretty girl all the boys were crazy over type. She must have been waiting a long time to spring all of that on us. ”

“Gross! So tacky. Who gives a shit about their stupid jet? And Steven! Yewww, I mean, I would never …never … whoa! I would fucking die before I’d ever end up on the arm of a creep like Steven!”

“Yeah, Em, that was totally weird, the way he kept trying to get his arm around your waist, right?   I mean, hasn’t he learned anything at all from the time we were in our teens, and you kept rejecting him?”

“Still gives me nightmares when I think about all those times he showed up at my house uninvited. Do you remember? I’d call you because he was knocking on my door at the weirdest hours? Thanks, by the way, for wedging yourself between us during the reception …”