I felt mighty bad about being so distracted worrying about a long-gone girlfriend, but Karen hardly seemed to notice. At least I wasn't spoiling her evening like Wendy was doing with her date.

When we made it back to the table, Paul was sitting down, staring daggers straight into Wendy. She was totally oblivious as she went around the table, trying to see what kinds of things she could take home. How is it that these girls can have no clue how their dates are going? Anyway, she settled on taking the centerpiece, and we all went outside and into the waiting limo.

Paul was sulking in the seats on the side of the limo, and Karen leaned against me as I slouched on the back bench.

"Hey, so do you guys wanna go to some 24-hour cheap-o restaurant for dessert or something?" Karen asked. She looked up at me, and I had this awful image of her flirting with me using whatever whipped cream came with her dessert. Actually, come to think of it, "awful" isn't really the word at all--quite the opposite really--but I just wasn't mentally up to it just then.

"No, I have to get into work early tomorrow," I lied.

"Yeah, me too, Karen," Wendy said, "sorry." I never found out why she was lying.