” “Yeah man,” he said. “It’s been up a few nooks andcrannies in its time.” Then he slapped me on the backand left ...he room.I was still grinning when I got back to Petra. She askedwhat the joke was, so I chuckled and told her. She justgiggled and raised her eyebrows. About 15 minutes latershe asked, “How big did you say, Colin?”“About nine inches, give or take,” I replied. A fewminutes more silence, then she asked me to point him outto. But I wasn't sure that I'd have the guts to do it at this point. I definitely didn't want to hear the excuses, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear a reason either. Even if it was a good reason. It probably sounds stupid, but I was actually content being mad at Eddie.In some ways, I felt like as long as I had a reason to be pissed off at him, I didn't have to give Eddie, or being in Arizona, a chance. And I was still too busy being pissed off to want to give it a chance. I think I was also a. “Well one sandwich is not going to hurt you,” I said in a fatherly way. I played the radio and Rachel hummed another old country tune, “Have you ever thought about being a singer?” I asked.“I did once, I was in a band in high school, the girl singer,” she said, “but the road life was pretty rough. For some reason guys just think if you are on the road with them they can take turns with you in the bus.”I decided to not pursue that line of discussion as I suspected she had a pretty rough life for. Somehow she had become a leader of the group of girls and the boys who were drawn to them. She and Isabella were the only non-Muslim, non-Mahgrebis in their wide circle of friends, but that didn't seem to matter. She always seemed to be the one to whom they all turned, whether for advice on their amours or clothes or what to do next. When they went camping or gaming in the remoter areas, it was usually Pru's suggestion of where to go that caught their imaginations.'I can't think how many times.