“That’s kinda beautiful. I’m glad you two had that,” I said sincerely.

“We still have that. People just know about it now,” she replied with a smirk.

“I guess,” I mumbled. “I still don’t think you needed to keep it a secret for so long. There might have been some bad reactions at first, but it would have blown over. And then everyone would have just hassled you for falling in love with someone so weird.”

“You mean, sort of like we all do about you?” she asked in a completely serious tone.

“Al’s not weird!” I protested out of loyalty to my wife. All it got me was a knowing look. “Okay, she’s a little weird. But nowhere near as weird as Jenny is.”

“I beg to differ. Jenny’s got some weird stuff, but I think Alice wins that contest,” Shane replied.

I would have argued, but I was feeling tired. “What’s wrong with us? Why did we fall in love with weird people?” I asked her.

“Well, for me, it was because I just did. For you, well…it’s kind of a good match, weirdness wise.” I tried to throw a pillow at her, but she blocked it.

“Blah blah blah,” I muttered around a yawn. She saw it and stood up.

“All right, you really do need to get some sleep. Charlie’s supposed to call as soon as he knows anything, and he’ll be upset if he knows you’re still awake. I don’t want to lie to him about it,” she said. “That, and I want to wait for Jenny to come back.”

“Where’d she go?” I asked, finally realizing that she’d been gone a lot longer than a trip home to get some clothes would have taken.

“Work. There was a big delivery coming in this morning, and she likes to be there to oversee things,” Shane replied.

“But don’t you guys have people to do that?” I asked.

“Of course we do. We have people who could run the entire place for us if we wanted them to. But she likes to actually do things there, so she’s there all the time.”

I shook my head. “You two seriously need to retire. From the Planet, at least. She can still write and you can still do your photography, but you should get out of the restaurant business. You guys deserve some rest.”

Shane laughed. “It’s not as if we actually work. Sure, Jenny makes sandwiches and sometimes I help, but otherwise we don’t really do much. I go in there and sit. Sometimes I go behind the counter and act like I’m doing something, when in fact I might pour some coffee. It’s not exactly strenuous.”

“Still,” I said. She was heading out of the room again when I called after her, “Hey. Tell Jenny I thanked her for the toast if I’m not awake when she gets back.”

She didn’t say anything, just kinda waved back at me in acknowledgement. I smiled, finally feeling a little better about things. I decided to go ahead and follow everyone’s advice and actually spend my day in bed asleep.