First Meeting Part III

Anna tossed her brown curly locks and laughed.  “You are incorrigible.”

“And you, my dear,” he lifted his beer and tipped it in Mark’s direction, “made him the luckiest man on earth when you agreed to marry his sorry ass.” 

Anna giggled and blushed. 

Mark laughed.  “Thanks a whole lot, pal.”  He raised his glass and clinked it to the beer bottle.  “But we all know you’re right.” 

Bill grinned and sucked down a big swallow of ice-cold beer.  “Ahh, man-oh-man, does that ever taste swell.”  His chair creaked when he sat back.  “So?” He caught Anna’s blue eyes with his dark brown ones.  “Who’s this dame you brought with you?”

“She’s not a dame,” Anna laughed, “She’s my friend from work.  Lois Allen.”

“She works at the Can?  Have I seen her?”

“Probably, she supervises the paper cup line.”

“She that dame gives all the guys the cold shoulder?”  Bill’s lifted his eyebrows and took another swallow of beer. 

Anna laughed.  “Well, yeah, but maybe she wouldn’t if any of them were worth a look.”  She winked across the table.  “Like you.”  She raised her glass. 

Mark laughed and raised his too.  “So the dames say, anyway.”  

Bill smiled and did the same.  Their glassware clinked together.

“So who says what?”

Bill turned his head towards the source of the husky female voice.  His fingers went numb.  He almost dropped his beer.  And his teeth.  Eloisa!   

The bottle clunked down on the table.

Anna, who’d been smiling up at her friend, startled and swung her gaze to Bill.  His olive complexion had gone pale with an undertone of green.  “Bill?”  She reached out a hand to touch his, still gripping the bottle so hard his knuckles were white.  

*Note: This account of how Mom & Dad met is my version of what Mom told me. The conversations are made-up and I've given their friends names because I can't remember their real ones. Also, the part about the picture is fictionalized, but based on a real picture Dad had in his WWII memory box, which as far as I know is still in there.