"We like to keep our wits about us."
"That's a waste," the taller man said.
"No, you have it backward. We don't get wasted," she told him, and they laughed again.
Why was she teasing them, flirting with them? "Mind if we sit next to you? I'm Steve Toomer, and this is my friend, Gerry Bracken."
And looked at me and then turned to them and said, "Well, we don't mind." He started to sit on the stool and then froze when Ami added, "But our husbands might. They'll be in soon, and you know how men can get jealous."
"Oh, you're married," Steve said, his voice dripping with disappointment.
Ami flashed her wedding and engagement rings. I didn't see how it was possible for them not to have noticed anyway, but I realized she might have been keeping it out of sight just so she could tease them.
"Happily," she said.
"What about you, Virginia?" Gerry asked me. "Where's your ring?"
"She's allergic to gold. Makes her finger swell," Ami said.
The two of them looked at us and then at each other. Steve's face turned sour, his eyes like dark darts.
"You're going to get in trouble one of these days, fooling like this," Steve warned. "Husbands or no."
"Life's more exciting when you live in the danger zone," Ami told him.
He grunted, looked at his partner, and then nodded toward their comer of the bar.
We watched them retreat, Steve holding his shoulders up as if he wanted to keep a cold wind from going down his back.
"Why did you do that? They got very angry."
"I like to test the waters. See if I still have what it takes," Ami told me. "Besides, I wanted to show you how to handle men like that. Just like I promised, I'm going to teach you a lot, Celeste, and I'm going to have fun in the process."
Steve and Gerry left the bar after another ten minutes, but they paused near us.
"Your husbands must be awful stupid, leaving you two out here so long," Steve said.
"Oh, but they have so much trust and faith in us," she replied. "That's the kind of woman you need."
"I don't need any woman," he growled, and walked out.
Ami laughed.
"See? Men are such boys. They're more gullible than women, and so much more vulnerable. As long as the woman knows what she's doing."
We stayed nearly two hours before Ami decided we should go home. She had another Cosmopolitan, but I'd barely finished my first one. What I had drunk had made me dizzy already, and I was very tired.
"It's been a full first day for you, but you've enjoyed every moment of it, haven't you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, even though I could have done without the flirtation at the bar. I couldn't help but wonder how Wade would feel if he had seen it.
"You're not upset about what I did back there, are you?" she asked me.
I shook my head, but not as firmly as she would have liked.
"This is all so new to you." She looked really worried suddenly. "All that religion didn't get into you back at the orphanage, did it?"
"I have my own beliefs," I said.