“As her lungs pumped and her head cleared, she wondered if all the effort she’d put into blotting out the pain had deadened her ability to feel pleasure, too. What a shame. What a loss.”

“And I want cabana boys named Raoul to rubwarm, fragrant oil all over me, from head to toe, all over my throat and chest and my legs and arms. Iwant—”Theo pushed the chair back on the deck and it made a loud scraping sound. He grabbed Lucy’s faceand kissed her hard, then rose up and placed her on her feet, taking her hand.“Where are we going, Theo?”“Shh.” He stroked her hair as he led her inside. “The name’s Raoul.”

“A punching bag. The guy was pounding on a punching bag. That realization took about a nanosecond to register in her brain before the real important information came to the forefront: LoriSue, God bless her slutty little soul, had been absolutely correct. He was male-stripper material, and he’d been thoughtful enough to strip to a pair of athletic shorts on his very first night in the neighborhood.”

“Dear God, there couldn't be a single thing more humiliating in this entire world. Unless, of course, Hairy had been out here in his maxi pad. Thomas sighed. Walking around the house with that thing tied around his waist, Hairy had looked like a—well, he'd looked like an ugly dog in a Kotex. Thomas had laughed his ass off at first, but soon discovered the crazy scheme had saved him about three cleanup jobs in one evening alone.”

“When the time is right, you might right, you might consider telling Theo that you’ve been in love with him for a long time now.” Lucy sniffed. “And I’m supposed to do this without Milk Duds? As if!” Doris laughed. “You know, being true to yourself takes courage, Lucy. Great joy always requires great risk, and even effort.” “Yeah. OK. But I’ve always been more of a drive-through person.”

“She'd even violated the only sensible rule of dieting she'd ever run across, the sage advice of the Muppets' Miss Piggy, who recommended never eating anything bigger than your head.”

“Have you ever met a man who looked so damn delicious that you wanted to sop him up with a hot buttermilk biscuit and inhale him in one gulp?”“Why, yes, I have,” Doris said.That was a shocker. “Really? What happened?”“I married him.”