"You don't have to cry each time he leaves. If I did what you did, my eyeballs would be permanently red all the time." I frowned because I thought I was being mean. Barbie looked at me as she ate her sandwich and wiped her nose with a paper napkin I gave her. Barbie was too emotional. Maybe because she was so young. I mean, she was only 22, happy, petite who was fixated on the 70s and constantly asked me questions about that era. I told her once I was only a kid back then. I don't remember it being any different than the decades following that.

"Of course, the 70s were different," she pleaded with me. We had taken a walk through the park. She loved to feed the squirrels. I wanted to be in the fresh air and didn't really like squirrels to begin with. I wasn't an animal lover like Barbie. I had nothing against them. I'm not that cruel hearted. But to me they simply were food or things that liked to poop wherever it stood. If humans did that, the world would probably suck even more.

"I have no idea where Denis went to. It's not like we weren't having problems. But I think we just stopped talking about it and let the bomb explode wherever and whenever it wanted to." Barbie looked up at me nodded her head. She was having problems with her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Ang. A very nice Vietnamese student who strung Barbie along like one of those wooden toy dogs. He was nice to me and everyone around him. But he wasn't so nice to Barbie. Eventually he dropped her and Barbie came knocking at my door Christmas Eve, in tears, and holding a bottle of vodka in her hand. We stayed up and watched a "Twilight Zone" marathon, got drunk, and Barbie vomited in my fish tank. But that's only a few months away. For now Denis was gone. We didn't know where he went, and Barbie still ate her sandwich.

"I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself. Let's go to a movie!" and I grabbed Barbie's hand and out the door we went. She still held the sandwich in her hand, but quickly shoved it into her small clutch purse.

"Let's go to the Ken. There's a Woody Allen movie playing."

Barbie crinkled her nose. "Wasn't he the guy who married his daughter."

"Yes," I said and I started my car. "But she was adopted so technically that doesn't count."

"Whatever. But it's still creepy," and Barbie rolled down her window and breathed in the fresh air. It was almost six and the movie started in thirty minutes. I had no idea where Denis was. But I was worried. I think Barbie was worried too, more for me than for him.