It's In The Stars. Buffy Andrews

than I was making and not saving at all.

      I knew when I decided to become a journalist I’d never make a lot of money. It wasn’t high on the list of good paying jobs. Hell, it wasn’t on the list at all. Dad tried to talk me into marketing and public relations, but I knew I wanted to be a reporter ever since seventh grade when a journalist, a friend of the teacher, visited our classroom. I believe in the fourth estate and the role it plays in ensuring our democracy continues. I’ve always been proud to be a part of that. But, the lack of money has me eating more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than I’d like.

      So when Frankie asked me to go out to lunch, I knew I shouldn’t go, but I did anyway. I pulled out the emergency twenty I stashed behind my driver’s license to pay for my food. I followed Frankie to a table near the back of the deli. I wiped off the table, chairs and salt and pepper shakers.

      Frankie bit into a pickle. “You’re the only person I know who carries wipes in her purse.”

      I rolled the wipe into a ball. “Good thing for you I do. Do you realize the amount of bacteria on these surfaces?”

      Frankie scrunched her nose. “Yuk! Stop! I’m trying to enjoy my food without having visions of E. Coli and Salmonella dancing in my head.”

      I sat down and dug out the tiny bottle of hand sanitizer I keep in my purse. “Want some?”

      Frankie rolled her eyes. “No. I don’t like using that stuff when I eat. It makes my food taste weird.”

      “It doesn’t taint your food; your tongue touches your hand.” I squeezed some on my hands and rubbed them together. “What did we do before hand sanitizer and bacterial soap?”

      Frankie sipped her soda. “We were probably a lot healthier. Not to change the subject, but did you think about trying that online dating site I told you about?”

      I dipped my fork into the salad dressing I asked for on the side and jabbed it into my salad. “Still thinking about it. How’s it going with you and Josh?”

      “It’s not. I went to his apartment last night.”

      My eyes widened because Frankie rarely goes to a guy’s apartment. She has to really, really, really like a guy for it to get to the going-to-his-apartment stage.

      “Nothing happened. We just talked. But his apartment was messy. The sink was filled with dirty dishes and his furniture looked dorm-roomy.”

      “Did he have any books?”

      “Negative. You know I’m not looking for a wall of classics, but an assortment would be nice.”

      “Ouch.”

      “Ouch is right. I’m not going out with him again. I told him last night I didn’t think we were right for each other.”

      “What’d he say?”

      “Nothing. He was mausoleum quiet. Luckily I drove so I could leave.”

      “So who’s next on the dating list?”

      “I think I’m going to give romance a break. Dating is a lot of work and I’d rather just hang out with you and the other singletons for a while. You guys are more fun and you don’t have an agenda.”

      I laughed. “True, we are more fun, but nothing would beat finding the right guy.”

      Frankie ate the rest of her pickle. “I’m beginning to think that’ll never happen.”

      “Oh, come on, Frankie. I’m the one who’s always looking at the glass half empty. Don’t you dare ditch your sunny optimism.”

      After lunch, I headed for an interview with a couple for a story I was doing on “modern” love letters. Part of my story was looking at the past when couples relied on written letters to keep love alive when they were apart. When I heard of Ronnie and Dorothy, I just had to meet them. They had hundreds of love letters going back decades, when he was a marine and she was his best girl.

      In their early eighties, the couple – now gray-haired and a little rounder than when they first met – sat on their sofa holding hands. Letters were spread out on the coffee table in front of them. The box from which they came sat on the floor.

      “We fell in love through our letters,” Dorothy said.

      “She sent me a picture of her in shorts,” Ronnie said. “I slept on the bottom bunk and I put the picture under the springs of the top bunk so I could see her when I wrote to her.”

      They shared their letters with me and as I listened to them explain how much the notes had meant to them, I realized how shallow today’s forms of communication are. Text messages and video chats just don’t compare to the written word.

      Ronnie patted Dorothy’s hand. “And we still exchange notes today.”