“I know! Yes, I’ll be home in time. Yeah, bye.” Pete, who had turned sideways when he picked up his cell phone, swiveled his chair back to face the bar. He looked at the television on the wall, but wasn’t really watching. He took a sip of his beer and picked up his cheeseburger. “I swear that woman exists just to bust my stones,” He said.

I laughed. “Trouble in Xanadu?”

“Yeah, Xanadu. More like being in a cage at the zoo with that woman.” He took too big a bite, but kept talking anyway, bits of food slipping from the corners of his mouth. “I can’t even play a round of golf without Angela hounding me. We’re going out to dinner with her sister and my brother-in-law. Just the way I want to spend my Saturday night.”

“It’s only one-thirty, what’s the rush?” I asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know, Chuck.” He mimicked her a little, “You’re gonna need a shower and you always take a nap on Saturday afternoons after golf. I don’t want you being cranky at dinner.”

I laughed again. “Lately I’ve been listening to the Beatles channel on SiriusXM, especially the early stuff.”  

“They were great. Nobody could touch them, even today,” Pete said. The bartender came over to us, so I asked for a refill. I love draft beer. Pete noticed. “You can have as many beers as you want. Nobody’s home waiting to criticize you. “You smell like a brewery for goodness sakes.” He was imitating Angela again.

“Well, since Grace died, it’s always quiet in my house.”

“Oh hell, I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just saying, you know, Angela’s a real pain in the ass.” Pete put his hand on my shoulder, a gesture of both apology and condolence.

“Anyway,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about their songs, most of them about love, new love, love lost, how the girl they just met, makes them feel good.”

“I’m in love with her and I feel fine,” Pete sang. He could always carry a tune. “What’s your point?” He asked.

Love seems to be a young man’s game; the songs are always about the early part of a relationship. Ever hear a love song that talked about being with the same girl thirty or forty years?”

Pete drank some beer. He put his glass down and said, “No, but I could write one.” He took a breath. “You never take me to dinner, you only give me your dirty laundry.” This he sang to McCartney’s ‘You Never Give Me Your Money.’

We both laughed. “The thing is Pete, now that Grace is gone I appreciate her so much more than I did when she was here, you know?”

“Come on, you and Gracie always got along. Not like Angela and me.”

“We did get along, but there were times, whole years really, when I wanted to leave.”

“But you never did.”

“Neither did you, Pete. You like to complain, but you and Angela are still together.”

“It’s been almost forty years. Anyway, as she likes to remind me, I’d wind up living in a cramped studio with one dish, a set of silverware and a frying pan if we got a divorce.”

“That could be the next line of your song,” I said. He shook his head in mock irritation. “But I keep thinking, Pete, about how guys bitch about having to do things for their wives, or with them.”

“We getting closer to your point, I hope?” Pete asked.

“I’m trying. There was a time, when you first met Angela, when you would have been happy to go out to dinner with her sister, go to her mother’s house on Sunday, you know, eager to please. You just wanted to be with her, right?”

Pete took the last bite of his cheeseburger, and finished his beer. He waved at the bartender for the check. “That was different. We were chasing after something then, right?”

I looked at him, pretending I didn’t know what he meant, but after so many years of friendship, we could read each other too well for that. “Don’t give me that stupid look. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He was smiling.

“Yeah, but we both know that alone never made a good marriage.”

“True, but it sure helped.”

“I can’t argue with you there, but now that I’m alone, I find myself thinking that I dropped the ball somewhere along the line. It seems like you fall for someone and all the love songs remind you of her. Then, one day, you just stop. That’s a mistake, I think.”

Pete paid the bill, his punishment for shooting an 86 to my 84. We walked out to the parking lot. His phone rang. He showed it to me. It was Angela again. “All you need is love,” I said.

He rolled his eyes and took the call. “Hi, honey, I’m on my way home.”