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“That is my favorite thing.” I took another sip of my coffee and balanced the glass on my knee. “Now I have to think about dating apps.” I grimaced.
“The apps are the worst.”
“To be honest, I’m way too introverted,” I said. “I probably won’t do it.”
“Maybe you’ll meet someone at work,” she said.
I lolled my head to look at her. “I hang out with a disproportionate amount of men in my field. And trees. Lots and lots of trees. Sometimes bushes. Shrubs. Not very many women.”
She laughed.
“Three years,” she said. “That’s a blink of an eye for a redwood.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I guess it does feel like less of a big deal.” I set my glass on the bucket. “So, what do you do?” I asked.
She let out a sigh. “I do accounting. I do it from home. And I hate it. Not the accounting part, I like that. The at-home thing.”
“I guess you have to, right? With that guy out there?”
“I do. It’s not really safe for me to have an office.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t be out in nature,” I said.
“You would slowly lose your marbles. Probably. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ says someone living that exact experience, doing that exact thing.”
“That’s got to be hard to work from home and not even have a nice space.”
“I tried to fix up my balcony,” she said. “I got some plants.”
“And how’s that going?”
“Let’s just say I don’t think you’d be impressed with my horticulture skills.”
I laughed.
“Well, if you ever need any plant tips from a guy whose wife left him for her cousin—”
“Wait, she left you?”
“Yes. She did.”
She started laughing again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, giggling. “I should probably be acting sympathetic right now or something, but I think I’ve forgotten how to behave around people? I’m so weird, it’s from lack of socialization.”
She tried to sober up. She couldn’t do it. I didn’t care, it was funny.
“They’re getting married,” I said.
She choked.
“The invitations are going to say Pecker and Pecker.”
She howled.
“So you can actually marry your second cousin once removed,” she said, wiping under her eyes.
“Apparently.”
