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Nina shaded her eyes with her hand

"That’s Bobby DeNucci playing piano," she said "Nick Weiland Abby Hunter on violin Joey Anthonsen and his brother Mark You’ve heard these guys"

"I have"

"Most of them have played h, they see a pri people today I think they call it rock ‘n’ roll"

"Philistines"

"Barbarians"

"Maybe they’ll let you sit in"

"Puhleez"

"Why not?"

"It’s one thing to let me play with the away Not here" Nina shook her head "Let’s dance"

I draped azed demurely into her eyes

"How ’bout I buy you a drink, sweetheart"

"You never dance with ht a drink first"

"Fine But we are going to dance"

"Of course," I told her while wondering how I could get out of it I don’t like to dance The way I dance is sort of like potatoes falling out of a sack

I selected the bar that see into a cover of the B-52’s "Love Shack" with Abby Hunter and Mark Anthonsen supplying vocals Unfortunately, an opera of loud chatter and laughter rose up around ave it up

As Murphy’s Laould have it, the line I pickedwhile I waitedas it was at, say, the Minnesota State Fair Too many women wore black, and while soination, reeted other women whose names they couldn’t recall whileintroductions that were quickly forgotten Sroups formed, swelled with importance, dissolved, and refored and broken, plans were estions on how to squeeze evenwere proposed, debated, and rejected Meanwhile, a handful of wanderers drifted fro caught my eye and I turned toward it

A ser as it tracked slowly along the atriu At the eye of the hurricane was a nized immediately John Allen Barrett Governor of the state of Minnesota He was part of the crowd, yet seeh sohtened the area i everyone else in shadow It was a wondrous trick, and I tried to detered it He certainly had the size to have once played college basketball, and instead of the pale cast of ood health I could see the blue in his eyes all the way across the room, and his smile, which never see torch you’re not supposed to vieith the naked eye Yet it was more than physical appearance that attracted It was attitude Barrett had the look of victory about hi and not so young Her face was as flawless and smooth as when it was new, yet I detected in her eyes an intelligence and thoughtfulness that came only with time and hard lessons learned She wore a sih, square neck, low back, and long skirt and no ornament save the star that sparkled on her left hand, yet she seeht on dark water For aroom of her parent’s home, the house e her lovely s?"

I didn’t become a man because of Lindsey, I reminded ed greetings easily with the people who gathered around hiht while his left circled his wife’s waist and held her in a protective embrace Occasionally, she would slip free and drift away froed forward When that happened, Barrett would reach back for her, refusing to acknowledge anyone until she was once more safely at his side

That’s what love looks like, my inner voice told me