“I can’t reach ‘em,” Mary Jane said.
“Nuts to you.” Eloise looked up at the ceiling again. “Once,” she said, “I fell down. I used to wait for him at the bus stop, right outside the PX, and he showed up late once, just as the bus was pulling out. We started to run for it, and I fell and twisted my ankle. He said, `Poor Uncle Wiggily.’ He meant my ankle. Poor old Uncle Wiggily, he called it… . God, he was nice.”
“Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?” Mary Jane said.
“What?”
“Doesn’t Lew have a sense of humor?”
“Oh, God! Who knows? Yes. I guess so. He laughs at cartoons and stuff.” Eloise raised her head, lifted her drink from her chest, and drank from it.
“Well,” Mary Jane said. “That isn’t everything. I mean that isn’t everything.”
“What isn’t?”
“Oh … you know. Laughing and stuff.”
“Who says it isn’t?” Eloise said. “Listen, if you’re not gonna be a nun or something, you might as well laugh.”