Oh, and she had a new boyfriend and he was really cool.

When she heard about Mitch, it was Roberta that talked me into making the pizza.

“You have to!” she’d nearly shrieked. She did this because I’d waxed on perhaps a little too enthusiastically about Mitch’s looks, his warm smile and his neighborly behavior.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He freaks me out.”

“Yeah, I get that. Johnny Depp came in and fixed my faucet then told me he wanted to try my pizza that would freak me out too. But I’d still make him my freaking pizza.”

Johnny Depp was hot, very much so, but he was no comparison to Mitch. Too skinny, not tall enough and I doubted when he said my name it would sound as good as it did when Mitch said it.

“That’s easy to say,” I returned. “Johnny Depp is never going to fix your faucet. Mitch is my neighbor.” I leaned in closer to her. “You should have seen me Roberta. I was a total dork. I made an absolute fool out of myself. I don’t need to sit down to pizza with him. I might drop some on my shirt or something worse. I might talk with my mouth full. I could do anything, say anything, he freaks me out that much.”

She examined my face and stated, “Seems to me he didn’t think you were a dork.”

“He did, I’m sure he did. He’s just nice. You don’t come right out and tell someone they’re a dork, especially not if you’re nice,” I returned.

“If he thought you were a dork and that was a turn off to him, he wouldn’t ask for your pizza,” she pointed out.

I leaned back sharply and stared at her because this point held merit.

She kept speaking. “Maybe he likes dorks. Especially cute ones, because if you were a dork, I bet you were a cute one.”

I kept staring at her. No one liked dorks. Even cute ones.

Did they?

She grabbed my hand. “Mara, make him pizza. I know Destry jacked you around because Destry’s a jackass and that’s what jackasses do. But not all men are jackasses. It took me a while to learn that but I’m here to tell you it’s true.”

She was there to tell me it was true. She’d been seeing her boyfriend Kenny for seven months. He was a really nice guy and wasn’t hard on the eyes. He had two kids of his own and he was a good Dad.

But I didn’t understand why she was talking about Destry, the Five Point Five who broke my heart.

Pizza with Mitch wasn’t a date. First he’d never ask me out on a date. Second Mitch was the kind of guy that if he wanted a date, he’d ask for one. If he wanted anything from a woman, he’d ask for it and get it. I knew that with the number of Seven to Tens that frequented his apartment. A date with Mitch would be a date, not coming over for pizza.

“I don’t know,” I hedged.

“Make him pizza,” she urged.

“Really, Roberta, I’m not sure,” I told her.

“Make him pizza,” she pushed. “You aren’t pledging your troth. You’re making a nice, handsome guy pizza. So you drop barbeque sauce on your shirt. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.” She squeezed my hand. “What would be the end of the world is if you stuck yourself in that apartment with your candles and music, having LaTanya over for Glee, going over to B and B’s for tarot card nights, coming to my place for action movie marathons and that was it in your life. No risks. No chances. Nothing that made your heart beat faster. Nothing that made your toes curl. Nothing that was exciting. Nothing that gave you a thrill. That, honey…” she gave me another hand squeeze, “would be the end of the world.”

“I don’t need a thrill or not that kind of thrill. That kind of thrill is not for the likes of me,” I explained and her face turned funny as she looked at me.

“Everyone needs that kind of thrill, Mara, and I don’t understand what you mean ‘the likes of you’. The likes of you should be having those kinds of thrills all the time. Honestly, I’ve wondered. LaTanya has wondered. B and B have wondered. Even Mr. Pierson wonders why you aren’t living a thrill a minute.”

I didn’t understand what she was saying but explaining to her what the likes of me meant was explaining to her my One to Ten Classification System. I didn’t want to do that, especially explaining where I felt I came in on the scale. I’d learned not to share this information because friends who cared about you always tried to talk you into believing you were so far up that scale it was unreal. My oldest friend Lynette, who still lived back in Iowa, was the only person I’d told about my system. She even tried to talk me into believing I topped the scale at Mitch’s rank of Ten Point Five. She was convinced of it and tried to convince me. I knew she was wrong and I knew she was convinced of this because she liked me. I liked her too. She was a definite Eight Point Five. When she was in a good mood and her sunny disposition shone even more brightly, she soared up to a Nine Point Five so she had nothing to worry about.

I couldn’t wander around in a daze of thinking I was in another league which meant making the mistake of making a move toward someone out of my league. This, as I mentioned, only led to a broken heart.

Therefore, I didn’t explain because friends could be convincing. That was why I got messed up with Destry who had the looks of a Seven but was a Five Point Five since he was a jackass. Friends could be very convincing. I’d been convinced of other things due to friends. Some of them good, like when Lynette talked me into getting the hell out of Iowa and away from my crazy mother. Some of them bad, case in point Destry.

Because I couldn’t tell Roberta this, I gave in on the pizza. Since Mitch had moved in, I had managed to go from nearly fainting every time I saw him to being able to say good morning. I’d survived him in my place being nice and teasing me. Perhaps I could have pizza with him. Maybe if he came to another one of Brent and Bradon’s parties or LaTanya’s cocktail extravaganzas, I could chit chat with him before escaping. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Because of this I went to the grocery store after work, got the ingredients for the pizza, two bottles of red, two bottles of white and two six packs (one of fancy beer, one of good old American beer) so Mitch would have choice. Friday morning I set the chicken to marinade and Saturday morning I went back out to the grocery store so the salad fixings would be fresh.

* * * * *

And that brought me to now. The salad in the fridge, the beer and white wine chilled. I was staring at a prize winning pizza that, after twenty minutes in the oven, would be a pizza feast fit for a king.