She smiled at me. “Let’s go. I feel like getting a little fresh air before I go back inside. How you feel about Italian?”

“I like it!”

“Great, let’s go! You can get me some shoes on the way.”

And that was that. A half hour later, we were ensconced in a little Italian bistro off the beaten path that Cindy Lou told me made great cannolis.

Over dinner, we talked her childhood in a small Iowa town, my job at a small stockbroker firm, favorite movies, politics, and other normal things like that.

Finally, we pushed aside our empty plates. “It’s funny how strange chewing my own food is now,” Cindy Lou remarked. “It tastes different than it does from the inside.”

“Er…yes, I guess it would,” I said.

She smiled. “Thank you for a pleasant evening. We should do it again in another month.”

“Um…is there anything I should…do while you’re in there? That would be, uh, helpful?”

“You should eat more fiber,” Cindy Lou said. “It’s good for your colon.”

I supposed she would know.