Pool_2

That played for a while, with Shannon muttering, "..like I have time to cook." John was dodging pinches until desserts arrived. Mina resumed the earlier discussion. "John, seriously, you must know that Gaffy fellow. Your magazine publishes him regularly. He must.." "Mina, some things are safer to not know. If somebody asked you, right now, what you knew of McGuiness, what would you have to say? Zip. Nothing but ladies’s club gossip." Then, slipping on an unripened thought, " When the hell do you go to a ladies club? You work." Her look was a polite male crushing grimace conveying the obvious lapse which that represented. "They all work, John. They all also have workaholic husbands. It's that or fool around." "Shannon, you're not in the club.. uh, .." then he thought better as the waiter, standing behind his wife, was making bug eyed throat slit signals. John engaged Mina, again, "If I tell you that I know such a person as Gavin McGuiness, then you are compromised. No?" Yet there was something about the cozy dark seclusion of this place, like a womb, that allowed revelation. "No. I’m a helluva good liar. Ask Marcus. He actually thinks we won that Hawaii trip." "What??!" Marcus half stood up and nearly spilled the whole table. "What?? Whuh whuh what?" "See? He’s not sure if I’m lying now or that I tricked him into a vacation." "You have got to be shitting me!" Mac was just wide eyed and grasping at memory fragments, assorted details, that might confirm a hoax as Mina went on. "Well, his mental health is my job. The only way to get him to take a rest is to bamboozle him. Hey. If you gotta play a trick, might as well be a good one."