"Greg, honey, I have to cancel our session today."
"No sweat. When do you want me to pencil you back in?"
"A couple of days. I'm just so busy this last week before New Year's, I don't have the time. "
"What's keeping you away?"
"I've just spent the last hour un-twisting and re-rolling the streamers so that they'll still have that festive look to them when I use them again, next year."
"Cheap bastard."
"The proper word is frugal, naughty mouth. Re-decorating is only the beginning of my duties. I have year-end orders I have to get finished and I have to get my tax paperwork ready and---"
"And that dreamy boy, Steve. Heās there, again, isn't he?"
"Don't interrupt, you inconsiderate thing! Yes, he's here, but that has absolutely nothing to do with it!"
"Yeah. Okay. Sure."
"Show some respect, you cur."
"A what?"
"Look it up in the dictionary."
Later, I snuck a peek at the book Steve was reading. He went into the bathroom to relieve himself and I rushed over to his window table. It was a book of plays by Arthur Miller. His bookmark was set at Act Two of "Death of a Salesman," where Biff finds out his father is cheating on his mother.
"Have you ever read it?" asked Steve, as he sat back down at the table.
"You're going to give me a heart attack. I didn't even hear you come out of the bathroom," I said, handing him back the book.
"Well, have you?"
"Read it? Honey, I was in it and I was fabulous."
He arched one eyebrow. "Oh, really? What part? Willy?"
"I played the younger brother."
"Happy?"
"Yes, that's it. I'd forgotten his name. It was such a long time ago."
He smiled and said, "We should go to lunch some time and you can tell me all about it."
