As John sat on the couch watching the news, Penny came in
with the mail and sat next to him, leaning back against the arm rest, and
settling her legs on John’s thighs. John used her legs as a drink holder,
setting his beer bottle between her knees, and she dutifully shifted her legs a
bit closer together to hold it. As she did so, John reached over and rubbed her
feet.
“Mmmm,” said Penny, smiling. She blew John a kiss, sending a
touch of magic with it. John actually felt the touch her lips on his, and he
smiled back.
Penny sifted through the mail, and started shifting through
it. Mostly junk and a couple bills. Penny stopped at an envelope she didn’t
recognize, however. It appeared to be a vacation offer. Shrugging, she tore
open the envelope and glanced over the contents, a pamphlet showing an ocean
liner.
John took a drink of his beer as the TV show cut to
commercial, and he glanced at the pamphlet. “Ha. I remember when we used to do
stuff for vacation.”
“I don’t,” said Penny. The two chuckled. The first vacation
together they’d taken had been a cruise ship. Unfortunately, they caught a
horrible flu the first day, and spent half the time confined to quarters. When
they finally got better, a tropical storm kicked up and the ship had been
forced to cut its route short. Still, they’d managed to buy enough souvenirs to
impress their friends when they got back.
“Why don’t we ever go places anymore?” said Penny. “You
know, besides the lake.”
“You don’t like the lake?”
“I love the lake. But the past five years, that’s the only
place we’ve been. It would be nice to go, I dunno, hiking at Yellowstone or the
Grand Canyon, or go to the Bahamas ,
or to Ireland
like we always said we would. Hell, even just do a roadtrip down the coast,
y’know?”
“Yeah, I hear ya.” John pat her leg. “Well. I mean, we could. Not too much really stopping us.”
He paused. “Except, you know, America
getting chopped up into a bunch of little kingdoms and travel between them now being
a tremendous pain the ass.”
“Queendoms,” said Penny. “They’re called Queendoms now.”